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Speaker 1: Brain splatted down the alleyway in heavy curtains, Pulling beneath

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the bin lads unwashing cigarette bus into slow, reluctant rivulets.

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The stink of wet cardboard and all vegetable peel seep

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into my clothes as I dug through the refuse behind

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the old moss and court building, the place I'd lived

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and watched and finally been cast out. Only the glove

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from the half broken security lamb above the back door

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gave the world shape. My knuckles scraped something rough beneath

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a layer of crumpled circulars. Then my fingers found the

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rigid edge of a plastic folder. It shoned ally in

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the light, water already seeping under the cracked lip. There

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was something invested in my surgerknee, not curiosity. It's surprising

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what gets left behind when people want to scrub a

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story clean. The folder had got them old staining as corners,

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but clicked open easily enough. Inside pages stuck and peeled

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apart in layers, application forms, coppers of driver's licenses, resume fragments, lises,

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both signed and unsigned. All of them had the same

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odd detailed places where dates had been aggressively scratched out

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first with pen, then gone over so repeatedly you could

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see grows worn into the copy paper. Over each in

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a trembling blue ink was entered in a new date,

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different for every file, none quite consistent. The signatures were

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all there, but sometimes the names didn't match. The license

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photoed huck behind a roberta, A Thomas a looser each

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share and shaky over ittten numbers and letters. Thundercrack sharpened

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immediate as I tried to shuffle through the growing stack

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from the deeper shadows at the far end of the passage,

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I heard a scuffer, herror its scraping movement. My hand

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stopped midpage. In the uncertain glow, A figure slipped backward

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in haste. I caught just a flick of her rain

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soaked elbow, a hand vanishing. Then the ironside door banged shut,

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and the sound of their feet faded. I scanned the alley.

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Nobody else came. The folder's contents fluttered in my shaking hands.

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The pressure of someone else's watch from was pressed heavy

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and urgent, as if they had left a part of

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themselves hying in the humid air, waiting for me to

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mess up and drop the secret back into the mud.

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I picked out one from the stack, had drive his license,

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still fresh enough to have the reflective sheen along the edge.

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The photo depicted a woman with a wary smile I

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knew I had never seen before. The address was Mouston Court,

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fourth floor. As for the issued date, it was off

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by almost five years, stamped to neatly accept scrolled over

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it the same blue ink fource last thirteen slash twenty one.

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My pulse skidded familiar dread. Returning the official files would

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have the real date, but I'd never seen her in

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the holes. I tucked the folder beneath my jacket as

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the rain stune my face, and moved away from the bins,

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boot scratching in the muck in the deserted lot. The

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slumming door from earlier echoed again in my mind, each

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beat a warning. This was someone's job, or someone's mistake,

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and they wanted to make it disappear. I felt the

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olticle at the back of my frow, of the one

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that starts when you've been ignored too long, Overlooked by design.

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You can only be ignored so long before you wonder

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if they're hiding something. I hurried toward the glow of

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the distant intersection, hot pounding with a new rhythm behind

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me in the dimmer rectingle of the unlocked basement window

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assoft Fredbert curtain twitched. I didn't look back. All I

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could hear here was the folders, thin papers, scratching together

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as I squeezed it tighter, already knowing they'd be no

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sleep to night. Before all this, my routines have been mechanical.

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Save feven Boring, night watch work is a form of

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structured dailination. He stroll around in circles, tracing the same

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scratches in the linoleum, humming beneath flickering old fluorescence. It

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suited me for a while. I'd walk the whole starting

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at midnight, pausing outside each unit with a paint bubble

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near the fire doors, checking for burned up bulbs, with

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that sorrow tang of melty building up in the laundry chute.

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Most nights, the corridors were empty. I'd take my first

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cigarette break in a covered walkway outside the little security beoth,

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casting a halfmin of dull light in the wet tarmac.

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The city beyond the fence existed as nothing but distant engines,

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and occasionally laughter echoing up from the laundromat barrels when

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someone tried to keep their life on schedule a little longer.

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Sometimes during the rounds, I'd bump into a tenant, misses

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Quan from three Bead, always five minutes behind her own schedule,

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rushing with a sob in toddler under one arm and

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a laundry basket, and the other nodded at me but

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never said a word. She'd fumble with her keys in

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dark past, as if my mere presents risk delaying her escape.

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The old man from two dep Mister Willoughby, would shuffle

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in the shallow lcove by the elevator. His hands trembled terribly.

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He dropped his mail and glare at the floor, waiting

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for me to take the hint and move alarm. Sometimes

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I wondered if any one had dead have spoken to him.

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In a turn up of a whisper, kids from the

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sixth floor Rawleigh Injay skated in the parking lot till

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nearly one, m using the yellow cope as their jump,

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their wheels clocked in the wet concrete, trailed by shouts

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and daring each other to knock over the bins, I'd

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lean in the shadows and pretend not to see. Mister Kersh,

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the building manager, was a contrast to everyone else. He

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carried himself with brisk efficiency, the heavy ring of brass

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keys bouncing at his hip, and the clip charming tone

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of someone who'd memorize the rules but rewrittened them for

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his benefit. When I tried to ask him about extra

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overtime or how to record a suspicious noise, he smiled

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too thinly, offering a pat on the back that landed

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just a bit too hard. Keep those eyes open, mister thorn,

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he'd say, But remember whatever you hear after two, it's

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just the pipes. It was the pipes that dim in.

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Eventually there was a slow leap behind one AI, a grim, damp,

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creeping sort of leak that grew until one morning the

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carpet squelched beneath the sole of my butt, and mister

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Kush appeared with the clipboard negligence on routine checks. He entoned,

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showing me the log. My notes had a gap and

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nervous night, a botched time entry. We need someone thorough,

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and he concluded, in the gray light of six twenty

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m he shook my hand and put the office keys

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in his vest pocket. The dismissal, final and formal severance

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paid my rent for enough weeks to watch the entire

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building from my window at odd ires. At first her

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curdled into embarrassment. Then it became something sharper, way to

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pass time or reason to stay awake. I pieced together

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the giggle sheet had started before a mindless habit turned

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compulsion named apartment numbers, which lights came on at forum,

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which mailboxes grew bloated with supermarket flyers. Pattens made the

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days bearable, with Sesquin's slot always overflowed starting the first

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week of every month, then emptied overnight. The sixth floor

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boy's board went missing, and the mailbox with Roberty was

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suddenly blank, the label peeled. I felt a twist of

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recognitionscrolling through the local news woman fails to return to

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work after sudd to move. The photo matched one of

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the faces and folder I just found in the trash.

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It was the kind of coincidence nobody would notice if

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they weren't looking for lost things. But I kept the

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spreadsheet dated anyway, refreshing each night as the apartment across

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from mine, four Sea stayed dark day after day, the

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parking spot acclaimed, even as mail continued to arrive. Sometimes,

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when I stared long enough, I could convince myself none

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of my building's residents really left. They just got written out.

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After the discovery in the trash. I spread the crumpled,

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water stained forms across my desk, careful to keep them

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away from the margarine stains and stray ash. I tried

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organizing them by apartment number, overlaying each move in and

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move out against scraps of my spreadsheet, Guessing at when

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I had last seen each person in the halls, when

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the light had gone off in their window, when a

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voice had last echoed up the stower. A pattern emerged,

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precise and almost mocking, for each tenant I remembered disappearing,

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for whom there'd been no moving track, no cardboard boxes,

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no tearful good as the official record show to move

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out dates, sometimes weeks sometimes months after they had actually

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been seen. The corrections in bluing straight from their original script,

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but the error was always in the same direction, as

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if some one were struggling to mattiality to paperwork and

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were always doing it too late. There were sometimes two

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even three versions of paperwork for the same apartment, one

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tight initials in their right boxes, and another hastily annotated

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blue handwriting coursing out details. No pets became service animal

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month to month over annual. The forms were layered with uncertainty.

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Most affected units were clustered, stacked two per four ala

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inside shaft, the ones phasing only the back wall of

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the laundromat next door, where sunlight barely made at past nine,

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each shared a view unto a grimy interior direction of

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use so poured the window might as well be painted over.

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I thumbed through my mental list. I recalled Massesquan complaining

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months ago that the noises next door had stopped abruptly.

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No more thumps from three c Several mail boxes on

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the second floor were suddenly burn. Reliable neighbors who once

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left their shoes out or heard windchimes on their bows,

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had just evaporated, replaced by silence. That night, lying on

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my back in the dark, the apartments off kittered with

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the scent of wet newsprint. I tried to sleep and failed. Instead,

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the buildings seen livelier than it had in months. Drops

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echoed from the pipes, sure, but then there was a coffer,

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real cough, the kind you only hear after midnight. A

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floss sounded from somewhere that should have been vacant, strange

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muffled thuds, as if someone was dragging a chair from

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one wall to the other. I stretched from my bed

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and crept to the door. The hallway outside radiated stillness, shoes, absent,

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lights dark. I stepped silently. I pressed to the peep hole,

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holding my breath until my pulse thunted in my ears.

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Nothing moved, but the sensation lingered, anake underneath the skin

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that someone was still out there, waiting, unseen, just one doorway.

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It felt like the whole building was holding itself puff

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at this, still listening for the moment had slip up

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and give myself away. This was how the nights went

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at first, suspicion not evidence. I decided to keep watch,

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persuaded by the simple couldrade in my chest. Over the

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next several nights, I took up my old post in

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the ground floor, tiing my cigarettes to narrow. Bands of

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quiet and pace in the stair were so my first

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it's blowed With the elevators grown. It didn't take long

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before something snapped into view tuesdays, for instance, where grocery

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nights doorstep deliverers for a handful of units of box

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for two B, one for four SEA, but four C

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was supposed to be empty. The nam scrub from the

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mail box since the previous move out, Yet someone collected

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the back after midnight. If I left my window open

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just enough, i'd hear the lock turn and soft featurefl

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across the tiles, the grocery bag drawn in, and the

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door firmly shut. The next day, the only signs of

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occupancy a faint shadow undulating behind the curtain and a

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whiff of cooking that never quite made sense. I wanted

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to confront some one, any one, So I found mister

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Kurshley in the lobby, pacing between the walls of mail boxes,

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and mustered the nerve turnover seems higher than usual this month,

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I said, hoping for a trace of encouragement. He didn't

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pause in his counting. He's rattling in his palm. People

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come and go in this building. That's life in the city,

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mister Thorn. He don't live here any more. Perhaps you

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should get some fresh air. His tone was final. I

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walked out, sweating, the words still burning in my mouth

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that night, driven by growing obsession, a pride to old

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locks in the service stairwell, until a loose hinge granted

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me access to the lowlit subbasement. The inner of the

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building were cold and labyrinthine. Every surface layd thick with dust,

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except the floor. In front of a new chiny padlock

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on a closet door. I pressed my ear to the door.

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At first nothing, then the brush of fabric may be

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breath then so faint it might have been my imagination.

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A muted murmur words unable to slip past footsteps, thundered

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overhead a cursie's and now retreated heart, loaching the closet.

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Secret and sturbed by day, I began to quietly question

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the few tenants who still meet my eyes. Miss Esquint

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breathless but polite, only shrubbed quite a lately, But I

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like it that way. Willuff Be stared at his own

220
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hands and mumbled that he heard a voiceter's wal some nights,

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but the apartment next door ought to be empty. Maria,

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the cleaning lady, confided it hessitately as she wiped down

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the town stairs last night, two d sobbing friars I

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tell mister Kershe he say it's nothing. He say empty.

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Nobody there always empty, he say, Then he locks the door.

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In the small hours, I dug into new methods. My

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foreigns recording app open. I left it braced against the

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vent between floors, hoping for more than just the cough

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of machinery. Reviewing the audio, I caught something straight, muffled

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voices overlapping them. I're not cut through, clearer than the

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rest of repetition, plaintive, almost ritual, Roberta, Roberta. The next

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day I haunted the public library, a pal of old

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tenantsy listings, and achev textra seat sprawled across my table.

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It was a mess of disconnected data, names filed on

235
00:11:15,080 --> 00:11:17,960
Lisa's property, taxes paid most years, but with odd year

236
00:11:18,080 --> 00:11:21,240
long gaps, entire period of occupancy missing from the record.

237
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Residents I'd passed and stairwell seemed to have been a

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race by bureaucratic sleight of hand. The building's reality didn't

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00:11:27,600 --> 00:11:30,559
match the outside world. Or maybe the paperwork was right

240
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and I was the one untethered. I started to question

241
00:11:33,279 --> 00:11:35,519
even that sleepless nights turning, I was into syrup. The

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00:11:35,600 --> 00:11:37,960
shadow on the three seas blinds, twitching a pale face,

243
00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:40,840
stucking just out of the way. Maybe exhaustion was eating

244
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me alive. Every night my sleep thinned, shreded by the

245
00:11:44,240 --> 00:11:47,240
sense of being observed. Sometimes I worked to the sound

246
00:11:47,240 --> 00:11:49,440
of my own door handle ratlinks low and hestined, as

247
00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:51,000
if some one was testing the weight of the lock,

248
00:11:51,120 --> 00:11:53,720
checking whether I too could slip away without anyone noticing.

249
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Truth is if I wasn't the only one with secrets.

250
00:11:56,919 --> 00:11:59,759
There was a strangled conversation half heard through the stairwell door,

251
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Marie and mister cush. Her voice shot barely over a

252
00:12:02,879 --> 00:12:06,159
hiss as she gestured with a battered grocery tote. I'm

253
00:12:06,200 --> 00:12:09,399
not doing this any more, Maria snapped, voice flaring, Ye

254
00:12:09,480 --> 00:12:11,480
make me clean for people who are supposed to exist.

255
00:12:11,559 --> 00:12:14,000
Ye say they're not here, but I hear them. Ye lie,

256
00:12:14,600 --> 00:12:17,679
kersh leaned in come as, always replying so quietly. I

257
00:12:17,679 --> 00:12:20,679
had to press myself into shadow to catch it. It's necessary,

258
00:12:20,759 --> 00:12:22,759
ye know how things are. We aren't the ones making

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00:12:22,759 --> 00:12:26,279
the rolls, Maria. She shoved the bag at him. Then

260
00:12:26,360 --> 00:12:29,600
you do it yourself. Spending on her heel, she stalked

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00:12:29,600 --> 00:12:32,039
off toward the main stair He set the bag in

262
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a low utility closet, whispering under his breath, Stay put,

263
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I'll be back later. I hid behind the half open

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fire door, watching. Afterward, I crept over and waited by

265
00:12:40,960 --> 00:12:43,679
the closet for long minutes. No noise, just the tick

266
00:12:43,720 --> 00:12:46,600
of a pipe and the hum of refrigerant lines. I knocked,

267
00:12:46,600 --> 00:12:50,919
testing for a response. Nothing came, but twenty minutes later,

268
00:12:51,039 --> 00:12:55,600
when I circled back, the closet was empty. Flag was gone. Restless,

269
00:12:55,679 --> 00:12:57,639
I kept to the hallway that night, determined to see

270
00:12:57,679 --> 00:13:00,639
who else might be moving through the darkness. Just after two,

271
00:13:00,799 --> 00:13:02,360
I heard the creak of the elevator at the door

272
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sliding open. I stayed pressed flat behind a chip potted plant,

273
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my breath thin. As mister Kersh emerged. He scanned the corridor,

274
00:13:09,399 --> 00:13:11,799
studded the darkness, and then produced a glinting ring of

275
00:13:11,879 --> 00:13:14,679
keys from his jacket. He unlocked the door to three A,

276
00:13:14,879 --> 00:13:17,919
one of the supposed vacant apartments. At stepped a slight

277
00:13:17,960 --> 00:13:19,879
young woman with ham madded to her cheeks, her frame

278
00:13:19,960 --> 00:13:23,360
rigid and resentful. Kersh murmured low, hand on her shoulder,

279
00:13:23,639 --> 00:13:27,399
coaxing her gently onward. Together they glided potway down the hole,

280
00:13:27,440 --> 00:13:30,759
and after kersh checked again, vanished into the restricted sub basement.

281
00:13:31,360 --> 00:13:34,000
The woman's face never rose, and she wrapped her arms

282
00:13:34,000 --> 00:13:37,320
around herself as she disappeared into the gloom. The realizations

283
00:13:37,399 --> 00:13:40,360
on me. The missing tenants did not leave. They were hidden,

284
00:13:40,440 --> 00:13:43,240
shuffled from one forgotten corner to another, officially erased and

285
00:13:43,279 --> 00:13:46,799
practically invisible, but living, breathing, suffering only feet beneath the

286
00:13:46,840 --> 00:13:50,320
rest of us, their identities overwritten on paper, their presence

287
00:13:50,320 --> 00:13:53,519
rendered into a bureaucratic shadow that could be quietly moved, trivialized,

288
00:13:53,679 --> 00:13:57,240
or denied. I stumbled back to my apartment, trembling, pulling

289
00:13:57,279 --> 00:14:00,120
up the audio recording again and again on it. In

290
00:14:00,120 --> 00:14:02,720
a brief silence between the sobs and repeated names, another

291
00:14:02,799 --> 00:14:05,360
sound now registered, one I hadn't noticed before. A different

292
00:14:05,440 --> 00:14:07,799
name tipped up from the dark, spoken with hope and dread,

293
00:14:07,879 --> 00:14:11,240
repeating softly, before breaking into a low, desperate cry. It

294
00:14:11,360 --> 00:14:14,080
was my name. A voice from somewhere beneath my feet

295
00:14:14,159 --> 00:14:16,480
was calling for me, leaving me suspended between the urge

296
00:14:16,480 --> 00:14:18,519
to flee and the awful magnetic pull to go back down,

297
00:14:18,559 --> 00:14:20,799
Afraid not for what I might discover, but for how

298
00:14:20,840 --> 00:14:23,559
many times I'd failed to notice it before. My hands

299
00:14:23,600 --> 00:14:25,559
wouldn't listen to me. When I tried to dial the number,

300
00:14:25,600 --> 00:14:29,480
ied memoris for the precinct thumb trembling. I managed three digits,

301
00:14:29,559 --> 00:14:31,960
then let the phone rest against my knee, screen glowing

302
00:14:31,960 --> 00:14:35,320
with my indecision. You'd think, under the circumstances, I would

303
00:14:35,360 --> 00:14:37,639
have forced the issue, forced myself to cross one last

304
00:14:37,679 --> 00:14:40,720
boundary into what I'd always told myself was someone else's business.

305
00:14:41,399 --> 00:14:44,519
But I didn't. Instead, I replayed the tape over and

306
00:14:44,559 --> 00:14:47,360
over until the sounds my name, her whimper became indistinguishable

307
00:14:47,360 --> 00:14:50,519
from the roar of the pipes overhead. Morning returned in fits.

308
00:14:51,240 --> 00:14:53,720
I wandered the block Amouslely's circling mast and court as

309
00:14:53,720 --> 00:14:57,000
deliverers came in left. Marie appeared near the service entrance,

310
00:14:57,039 --> 00:14:59,720
trailing her cotton bags, shoulders hunched under a fading blue

311
00:14:59,759 --> 00:15:02,360
jack it with one eye and the curb. She hurried

312
00:15:02,360 --> 00:15:04,200
through the side door. Before I could cross the street.

313
00:15:04,879 --> 00:15:06,559
I called up, just as she was shaking how mop

314
00:15:06,639 --> 00:15:10,039
dry at the bottom of the stairs. Maria, wait, My

315
00:15:10,159 --> 00:15:13,879
voice was rough, barely more than a whisper. She turned, startled,

316
00:15:14,080 --> 00:15:17,120
her eyes bloodshat what you want. I don't talk to you,

317
00:15:17,639 --> 00:15:21,440
mister Thorne, not any more, I hesitated. I know about

318
00:15:21,440 --> 00:15:24,360
the basement, I said quickly, Her hands tightened over the

319
00:15:24,360 --> 00:15:27,000
mob handle. I saw you leave the bags. Who are

320
00:15:27,039 --> 00:15:29,799
you helping? She glanced up the stairwell, searching the air

321
00:15:29,799 --> 00:15:34,519
for eavestroppers. No, she said, softly, not safe, never was safe.

322
00:15:34,519 --> 00:15:37,159
Please leave me be, But her gaze lingered a moment

323
00:15:37,200 --> 00:15:41,159
longer than necessary, pleading, warning both at once. I'm not

324
00:15:41,240 --> 00:15:44,600
with kersh. I try. You can trust me, Maria. People

325
00:15:44,679 --> 00:15:47,480
are being hidden down there. I heard someone calling for help.

326
00:15:47,960 --> 00:15:50,799
The desperation in my voice must have registered. Maria compressed

327
00:15:50,799 --> 00:15:53,440
her lips and shook her head, but didn't leave. Instead,

328
00:15:53,480 --> 00:15:55,799
her gaze flecked over her shoulder, then toward the shadows

329
00:15:55,840 --> 00:15:59,000
under the pipes. Without another word, she loaded her supplies

330
00:15:59,039 --> 00:16:01,159
on to the rolling cot and disappeared around the corner,

331
00:16:01,279 --> 00:16:03,240
her shoes squeaking in rhythm with my own mounting sense

332
00:16:03,279 --> 00:16:06,440
of futility. By newing at excess did to day's reserves

333
00:16:06,440 --> 00:16:09,679
of courage. I hovered by the main entrance, peering past

334
00:16:09,720 --> 00:16:13,519
mirrored glass into the lowlit lobby. Kershe's reflection. Broad shouldered,

335
00:16:13,679 --> 00:16:16,360
calm unhurried broke apart the patent floor tiles as he

336
00:16:16,399 --> 00:16:19,600
crossed to the inner office. He didn't notice me at first.

337
00:16:19,720 --> 00:16:21,879
When he did, he froze for the briefest instant, then

338
00:16:21,919 --> 00:16:24,159
composed his features into a slight smile of their customer

339
00:16:24,200 --> 00:16:28,279
service kind, settling another grievance. Mister Thorn, he calls voice pray.

340
00:16:28,919 --> 00:16:31,919
I forced a smile just picking up something I left

341
00:16:31,919 --> 00:16:34,960
in the mail room. My bluff was thin. You ever

342
00:16:35,039 --> 00:16:38,519
worry about people getting stuck here, I asked, suddenly direct

343
00:16:39,120 --> 00:16:42,519
getting lost between paperwork and reality. He frowned, polished the

344
00:16:42,559 --> 00:16:45,679
keyring on his vest, and after a pause, shrugged. There's

345
00:16:45,720 --> 00:16:48,159
always churn in buildings this size. Not everyone fits in.

346
00:16:48,279 --> 00:16:50,879
Sometimes people move up before the paperwork, or the paperwork

347
00:16:50,879 --> 00:16:54,480
moves before the people. His eyes didn't blink. That's not

348
00:16:54,559 --> 00:16:57,240
your concern any more. My mouth ran ahead of my

349
00:16:57,279 --> 00:16:59,559
good sense. How many people live here who shouldn't How

350
00:16:59,600 --> 00:17:01,720
many a part gost do you keep locked in the books?

351
00:17:02,279 --> 00:17:05,039
He drew himself up, losing the smile. If you have

352
00:17:05,119 --> 00:17:07,000
nothing else here at, mister Thorn, I'd like to ask

353
00:17:07,039 --> 00:17:10,039
you to leave. For a flash, I saw something dangerous

354
00:17:10,039 --> 00:17:12,240
glutter in his gaze, as if a mask had slipped.

355
00:17:12,839 --> 00:17:15,119
I turned away, more shaken than I'd let him see.

356
00:17:15,559 --> 00:17:17,640
The rest of the afternoon I spent piecing together my

357
00:17:17,720 --> 00:17:19,599
next move, taking stock of what I had and what

358
00:17:19,680 --> 00:17:22,279
I could risk. I watched from across the street as

359
00:17:22,279 --> 00:17:26,039
the cleaning crew arrived in shifts boxes supplies the remains

360
00:17:26,079 --> 00:17:28,519
of a food delivery. An entire small ecosystem fed off

361
00:17:28,519 --> 00:17:31,960
the building, oblivious to the currents running beneath its painted surfaces.

362
00:17:32,599 --> 00:17:35,480
That evening, before dusk settled, I returned to my apartment

363
00:17:35,480 --> 00:17:37,799
and check my recording. Nothing new but I'm being crohns

364
00:17:37,799 --> 00:17:39,559
a cough, and the far off rimper of some one

365
00:17:39,599 --> 00:17:42,319
repeating a littany in a voice roughened by tears. Each

366
00:17:42,319 --> 00:17:44,839
time my names circled back, it came more faintly, as

367
00:17:44,880 --> 00:17:46,759
if the speaker were moving away from the recorder or

368
00:17:46,839 --> 00:17:50,400
drifting further from herself. Unable to stand the apartment any longer,

369
00:17:50,440 --> 00:17:52,799
I took my keystell not reclaimed by management, and crept

370
00:17:52,799 --> 00:17:55,880
into the stowell leading toward the sub basement at the landing.

371
00:17:55,960 --> 00:17:59,119
I stopped dead there, tucked behind a fire hose crate,

372
00:17:59,279 --> 00:18:01,759
was a collection of odds and ends, an emptied soup cahn,

373
00:18:01,880 --> 00:18:04,000
a paperback with a covered torn away, and a plastic

374
00:18:04,000 --> 00:18:06,759
hair brush missing half its teeth. Someone was living in

375
00:18:06,799 --> 00:18:09,720
little pockets of the building, unable unwilling to retreat outside

376
00:18:09,759 --> 00:18:12,799
its walls. I made my way down two flights, shoe

377
00:18:12,839 --> 00:18:15,000
silent and the rubber trades, pausing when I reached the

378
00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:17,759
lowest landing. The whole here was barely lit. A few

379
00:18:17,759 --> 00:18:21,160
bulbs flickered overhead thou light, sickly and uneven. I pressed

380
00:18:21,160 --> 00:18:23,960
my ear to the storage closet again, breath hell, I

381
00:18:24,000 --> 00:18:27,279
listened inside the scrape of fabric, a sigh and then

382
00:18:27,359 --> 00:18:30,920
quiet chook sobbing, heart racing, I looked back over my shoulder,

383
00:18:30,960 --> 00:18:33,039
then pressed my pomp flat against the thin plye Oodor

384
00:18:33,680 --> 00:18:38,119
are you there? I whispered silence. But only when I

385
00:18:38,160 --> 00:18:40,440
started to leave did I hear the softest of responses,

386
00:18:40,559 --> 00:18:45,160
a single word fading into a gasp fleet. I leank ol, sir,

387
00:18:45,279 --> 00:18:49,279
but no further reply came. Defeated, I crept upstairs. For

388
00:18:49,359 --> 00:18:52,319
the next two nights, the pattern became obsession. By day,

389
00:18:52,319 --> 00:18:55,319
I haunted the library, pouring three years old Folice notices,

390
00:18:55,359 --> 00:18:59,240
then fading property records. Epps abounded two three years, during

391
00:18:59,240 --> 00:19:01,640
which Marston caught seemed all but vacant. Police calls listed

392
00:19:01,680 --> 00:19:03,839
at the address simply stopped for long stretches, as if

393
00:19:03,880 --> 00:19:06,119
the building had ceased to exist with an official memory.

394
00:19:06,720 --> 00:19:09,599
At night, I lingered near the units facing the interior shaft.

395
00:19:10,319 --> 00:19:12,680
Once I waited out of sight as Maria placed two

396
00:19:12,720 --> 00:19:14,720
more grocery backs just behind the door of the old

397
00:19:14,759 --> 00:19:19,480
linen closet. She hesitated, whispered something you name, and heard off,

398
00:19:19,559 --> 00:19:22,599
her eyes glossy and ringed in exhaustion. This time I

399
00:19:22,640 --> 00:19:25,160
waited in the empty stairwell footsteps hidden behind a row

400
00:19:25,160 --> 00:19:27,960
of battered lockers. The door to the closet noted open

401
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:31,319
by itself. After five quiet minutes, fingers appeared, narl bit

402
00:19:31,400 --> 00:19:34,079
and trembling. I hand snaked up, groped for the bag,

403
00:19:34,119 --> 00:19:37,880
and drew it in. The door shut soundlessly. I couldn't breathe.

404
00:19:38,440 --> 00:19:42,200
Here was a proof, living scared, hung reghosts not gone,

405
00:19:42,480 --> 00:19:45,039
not moved out, simply swept into dark kniches and sealed

406
00:19:45,039 --> 00:19:48,039
behind whispers and locks. That night, as I tried again

407
00:19:48,079 --> 00:19:51,680
to sleep, my mind race, I remembered the names and faces,

408
00:19:51,759 --> 00:19:53,839
but found myself unable to picture half the people I

409
00:19:53,880 --> 00:19:55,880
had seen only months ago, the kid with the skateboard,

410
00:19:55,920 --> 00:19:57,960
the tall woman with the docker's tan on her arms,

411
00:19:58,640 --> 00:20:01,240
ghost and training, perhaps waiting their turn in the cycle.

412
00:20:01,839 --> 00:20:03,799
It rained again, as if the sky were trying to

413
00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:06,400
wash memory free of all that had gone before. I

414
00:20:06,440 --> 00:20:08,720
slept poorly, and when I woke the next afternoon, I

415
00:20:08,759 --> 00:20:11,839
discovered a scrap of paper slipped under my door, in looping,

416
00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:14,839
unfamiliar print, do not speak, you're being listened to. A

417
00:20:14,880 --> 00:20:17,640
prickle of old fear made my neck crawl. I crossed

418
00:20:17,640 --> 00:20:20,000
the note, but saved it deep in my pocket. By

419
00:20:20,079 --> 00:20:22,400
the next evening, I knew I'd have to see from myself.

420
00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:24,920
I waited until I heard the shriek of the garbage

421
00:20:24,920 --> 00:20:27,920
truck reversing outside a convenient distraction, and slipped down into

422
00:20:27,920 --> 00:20:30,480
the half laked crawl space under the laundry room. This

423
00:20:30,640 --> 00:20:32,240
choked the air at the scent of must, and something

424
00:20:32,240 --> 00:20:36,480
coppery metallic lingered near the pipes. Crawling on hands and knees,

425
00:20:36,599 --> 00:20:38,279
I made my way to the father's bulket, the one

426
00:20:38,319 --> 00:20:41,599
adjacent to the abasement. Here at the wall was patched

427
00:20:41,599 --> 00:20:43,960
with mismatching tiles and roughs amment, as if some one

428
00:20:43,960 --> 00:20:47,039
had broken through and hastily sealed it. Afterward, I scraped

429
00:20:47,039 --> 00:20:50,079
at the grout. The material crumbled, exposing a seem wide

430
00:20:50,160 --> 00:20:53,519
enough for a finger. Then, too cautiously, I leaned close,

431
00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:56,119
peered through the gap. Darkness pressed back at me, a

432
00:20:56,119 --> 00:20:58,599
different kind of dark, occupied not by emptiness but by

433
00:20:58,599 --> 00:21:01,799
the hush of muffled movement. Then, as my eyes adjusted,

434
00:21:01,880 --> 00:21:03,920
I made out a dim, shifting outline, someone lying on

435
00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:06,200
a thin mattress, culled beneath the heap of torn blankets.

436
00:21:06,839 --> 00:21:10,279
A lamp flickered to one side, illuminating scattering of broken crayons,

437
00:21:10,359 --> 00:21:12,480
a dented mug, and an old shoe whose laces had

438
00:21:12,519 --> 00:21:15,400
been knotted together like a child's. I watched as the

439
00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:17,599
figure sat up, stared at the wall, then covered her

440
00:21:17,599 --> 00:21:20,480
face with shaking hands. He urged to speak her name,

441
00:21:20,519 --> 00:21:23,400
nearly strangled me, but I held my breath behind me.

442
00:21:23,440 --> 00:21:25,240
A sound, the scrape, the soft swish of a mop.

443
00:21:25,680 --> 00:21:27,240
I jerked away from the wall in time to see

444
00:21:27,240 --> 00:21:30,440
Maria shuffling into the coal space as wide she dropped

445
00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:33,480
her cleaning rags. Fear and frustration warring across her expression.

446
00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:36,519
He shouldn't be here, she breathed. I have to help,

447
00:21:36,519 --> 00:21:39,599
I insisted, they're trapped. Why do you keep them hidden?

448
00:21:40,160 --> 00:21:42,960
She closed her eyes, the pain obvious. It's not me.

449
00:21:43,079 --> 00:21:45,200
I help, yes, But mister Cush tells us what to do.

450
00:21:45,279 --> 00:21:47,519
If we don't listen, he finds ways to make us disappear,

451
00:21:47,640 --> 00:21:49,680
he said, it's safer inside, out of sight. No one

452
00:21:49,680 --> 00:21:53,079
wants to know these people exist, not police, not social workers,

453
00:21:53,279 --> 00:21:55,319
not even the tenants. He makes them stay until the

454
00:21:55,400 --> 00:21:58,000
names are forgotten. But there's nothing safe about it, I protested.

455
00:21:58,559 --> 00:22:01,400
She shook her head sharply, you bring trouble if you talk.

456
00:22:01,559 --> 00:22:04,279
This place eats trouble. She looked like she might cry.

457
00:22:04,920 --> 00:22:07,759
I have to go. In three swift movements, she grabbed

458
00:22:07,759 --> 00:22:10,319
her things and vanished down the narrow passage she come from,

459
00:22:10,400 --> 00:22:13,039
leaving the crawl space, echoing with her panic. Back in

460
00:22:13,119 --> 00:22:15,039
my apartment, I tried and failed to make sense of

461
00:22:15,079 --> 00:22:18,240
my options. The building felt alive, flixing it to age

462
00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:21,240
old joints, breathing through the vents and warp window frames.

463
00:22:21,640 --> 00:22:24,200
Every rustle or thump registered in my body as a challenge.

464
00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:27,519
Go on, prove you matter. Twice. I saw Kersh in

465
00:22:27,519 --> 00:22:30,319
the lobby that week, accepting a parcel from a uniform courier,

466
00:22:30,359 --> 00:22:32,440
signing for it with the knee looping script had seen

467
00:22:32,480 --> 00:22:35,440
in blue ink. After the courier left, Kersh ran his

468
00:22:35,519 --> 00:22:37,720
hands over the package riverly before locking it away in

469
00:22:37,759 --> 00:22:40,680
the office. I lingered near by, half concealed by a

470
00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:44,359
battered fichus. A few minutes later, he unlocked the concealed

471
00:22:44,359 --> 00:22:47,359
door had seen before entering the restricted sub basement. Reemerging

472
00:22:47,359 --> 00:22:50,440
ten minutes late, alone and visibly tense, wiping sweat from

473
00:22:50,440 --> 00:22:53,960
his brow. Compelled, I followed a distance, nearly losing him

474
00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:56,200
in a haze of spring rain. He entered the main

475
00:22:56,279 --> 00:22:58,160
elevator and pressed a coat of one I guess from

476
00:22:58,160 --> 00:23:01,039
prior observation. A slipped up the back stairs to the

477
00:23:01,039 --> 00:23:03,279
fourth floor, crouching behind a columnus cush She used his

478
00:23:03,400 --> 00:23:06,279
key and four sea he slipped within, leaving the door.

479
00:23:06,400 --> 00:23:10,440
Jar I moved closer, silent, catching fragments of conversation the

480
00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:13,359
same calm, repeated phrases in his measured voice. No, you

481
00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:15,759
can't leave yet, it isn't your time. YE know the rules.

482
00:23:15,839 --> 00:23:18,400
It's better this way, I promise soon you'll have your

483
00:23:18,440 --> 00:23:21,799
life back. A faint muffled reply followed, a woman's voice

484
00:23:21,799 --> 00:23:25,640
strained with resignation. I recognized the cadence, the sorrowful inflection.

485
00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:27,759
It was the young woman I'd seen the night before.

486
00:23:28,480 --> 00:23:30,839
She protested, but only as much as it seems she

487
00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:34,279
was allowed. Kersh emerged, locking the door behind him, humming

488
00:23:34,279 --> 00:23:36,000
low in tuneless as he clipped his keys back to

489
00:23:36,079 --> 00:23:38,440
his belt. Only when he was gone did I dare

490
00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:41,400
trace my fingers along the seam of the framed slick, immaculate,

491
00:23:41,799 --> 00:23:45,279
no signs of falced entry. Later that night, in my apartment,

492
00:23:45,359 --> 00:23:47,680
I'd discovered an eerie pattern in the faded blue files

493
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:49,640
i'd taken from the trash. Some names had not been

494
00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:52,799
crossed out at all, instead tiny notations and a different

495
00:23:52,799 --> 00:23:56,279
InCred this time read hold o'er repending. These people weren't

496
00:23:56,279 --> 00:24:01,039
being erased, they were being retained. I barely slip. My

497
00:24:01,119 --> 00:24:03,160
mind reeled with scenario was how it Kirsh managed to

498
00:24:03,240 --> 00:24:06,640
hide them for so long? Whys the liability, the endlessly

499
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:09,559
what force in an ordinary run down apartment could have

500
00:24:09,599 --> 00:24:12,599
turned a missing person's story into a buried epidemic. The

501
00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:16,599
following night, my tension snapped. I rose before midnight, dressed

502
00:24:16,599 --> 00:24:19,519
and prepared for war, phone charge, flashlight in my back pocket,

503
00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:21,319
the lock picks I had kept from my old night

504
00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:24,279
watch days in hand. My plan was loose and desperate.

505
00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:27,039
Catch curse in the act, gained proof on tape rescue

506
00:24:27,039 --> 00:24:29,920
at least one person, if I could. Maria had left

507
00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:33,119
her cart near the stairwell door as quietly as possible.

508
00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:35,000
I turned her pasky in the low lock and descended

509
00:24:35,039 --> 00:24:37,759
the sever stairs to the sub basement. The grind that

510
00:24:37,799 --> 00:24:40,200
grew and checked in the daylight upstairs seemed even denser.

511
00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:42,559
Here the air was thick with the cloying sense of

512
00:24:42,559 --> 00:24:45,759
old bleach and human sweat. My flashlight, pressed tight to

513
00:24:45,799 --> 00:24:47,519
my palm, revealed a low maze of pipes and a

514
00:24:47,519 --> 00:24:51,279
corridor lined with bassett doors. I heard voices, three maybe four,

515
00:24:51,279 --> 00:24:54,319
whispering not English, the words tumbling, quick and urgent, as

516
00:24:54,319 --> 00:24:57,759
some un pleaded. A shap rerotor cut the exchange, followed

517
00:24:57,759 --> 00:25:01,119
by abrupt silence. I pressed a against the chill concrete,

518
00:25:01,160 --> 00:25:03,000
inching along until I reached the door. With the out

519
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:05,559
of vineou scoffed and stained. It was a jar by

520
00:25:05,559 --> 00:25:08,839
a hair through the crack the scene. Unfolded Curse stood

521
00:25:08,839 --> 00:25:12,319
facing two figures, both the sheveled one weaving quietly. He

522
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:14,359
leaned close and said softly, you know this is the

523
00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:16,720
only way. If the system finds you, things will be worse.

524
00:25:16,799 --> 00:25:19,279
Ye stay here. No one cares he leave. You're forgotten

525
00:25:19,319 --> 00:25:21,720
and the only one who keeps your memory safe. The

526
00:25:21,799 --> 00:25:24,319
younger of the two, her hair tangled, skin gaunt but unbruised,

527
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:27,559
shook her head. Just let me out, please, mister Kersh,

528
00:25:27,599 --> 00:25:31,799
you promised, his voice hardened, Be patient Lyusha. When it's

529
00:25:31,799 --> 00:25:34,039
clear you'll have another name, your old one will be gun,

530
00:25:34,079 --> 00:25:36,160
and so will your travel. Isn't that what you wanted?

531
00:25:36,759 --> 00:25:39,640
I snapped a photo, careful to silence the shutter. My

532
00:25:39,680 --> 00:25:42,079
hat thumped so loudly I feared I would betray myself.

533
00:25:42,599 --> 00:25:45,359
As he exited, Kush paused and seemed to look straight

534
00:25:45,359 --> 00:25:48,559
through the darkness toward my hiding spot. I froze, but

535
00:25:48,599 --> 00:25:50,920
he simply shut the door with deliberate care, pocketed his

536
00:25:51,039 --> 00:25:54,480
key and slipped quietly up the stairs. Relief washed over me,

537
00:25:54,640 --> 00:25:57,240
replaced instantly by surge of adrenaline. I had seen enough.

538
00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:00,519
I waited count to fifty, then forced myself to move.

539
00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:04,400
I gently pushed open the door. The room was cold, cramped,

540
00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:07,599
a portable heater purring in one corner. Sheets tacked over

541
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:12,279
the tiny window. Piles of notebooks and magazines started the floor. Lusher,

542
00:26:12,319 --> 00:26:15,200
her eyes hollow, powerless, blinked up at me, thinching instinctively.

543
00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:18,240
I'm here to help you, I whispered, I'm going to

544
00:26:18,279 --> 00:26:20,720
get you out. She drew her knees to her chest,

545
00:26:20,799 --> 00:26:24,000
stirring at me in disbelief. The older woman, huddling on

546
00:26:24,039 --> 00:26:27,400
the mattress, reached for her protectively. Who are you, she choked.

547
00:26:28,039 --> 00:26:30,599
A friend, a former night watched. I know what Kersh

548
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:33,759
is doing. Hope and skeptics is a mingled in Lucia's face.

549
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:36,799
We can't go, not yet. He checks every iron. If

550
00:26:36,839 --> 00:26:38,559
he finds you, he'll lock you up to We can

551
00:26:38,599 --> 00:26:41,480
try the back. I told her there's a crawl space.

552
00:26:41,519 --> 00:26:45,480
I can open it, but quickly now before outside footsteps

553
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:50,119
the sound of keys a surtiviiced, haror. I cursed under

554
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:52,559
my breath, impressed a woman back, closing the door gently

555
00:26:52,599 --> 00:26:55,799
behind me. As the footstif grew closer, I retreated into

556
00:26:55,799 --> 00:26:58,599
a gap between two water heaters. Squashed flat against a wall.

557
00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:02,440
Kersh paused, turned the door knob and peered in. Everything

558
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:06,119
all right, he asked, his tone light falsely concerned, Yes,

559
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:11,759
Lucia said quickly, voice subdued. Refine his attention lingered. No

560
00:27:11,799 --> 00:27:14,000
one else come by, not the cleaning staff, and no

561
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:18,039
it came, the whispered answer. Satisfied, Kurse nodded and moved on,

562
00:27:18,359 --> 00:27:21,759
continuing his patrol. I waited, praying my phone hadn't given

563
00:27:21,799 --> 00:27:24,599
me away. When the sound of his steps finally faded,

564
00:27:24,640 --> 00:27:27,319
I slipped out and hurried up the nearest stairwell, lungs burning,

565
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:30,440
legs shaking. Back in safety of my room, I fumbled

566
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:32,960
as I transferred the recording the images po of physical

567
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:36,160
and digital into a hidden folder on my laptop. When batted,

568
00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:38,720
the rain spatted glass, and for several interminable minutes, I

569
00:27:38,759 --> 00:27:40,720
half expected a knock at the door, a call from

570
00:27:40,759 --> 00:27:43,880
Kerse summoning me for confrontation I wasn't prepared for. But

571
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:47,119
nothing came. The only sound was distant to child's voice,

572
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:49,720
humming softly, rising and falling, as if putting herself to

573
00:27:49,759 --> 00:27:52,599
sleep in a place where daylight couldn't reach. I fear

574
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:56,640
became feverish focus, the picture tip, the testimeness. They were

575
00:27:56,680 --> 00:27:58,759
all pieces, but the urge to expose it had to

576
00:27:58,799 --> 00:28:01,079
be weighed with reality. Who would believe any of this?

577
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:05,720
The police, the press, the other tenants already kept their

578
00:28:05,759 --> 00:28:08,759
heads down, grateful for whatever quiet the new management imposed.

579
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:12,720
Stale I couldn't stop. Over the next days, I started

580
00:28:12,759 --> 00:28:15,799
noticing details everywhere. A sudden pile up of delivered packages

581
00:28:15,839 --> 00:28:17,920
that never got picked up, a fire exit propped open

582
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:20,160
and then slam shut with more force than wind could manage,

583
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:22,880
a faint persistence, and of something antiseptic. As I passed

584
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:26,599
near apartment Free, I spotted Maria twice more, always weighed

585
00:28:26,599 --> 00:28:29,400
down by bags and glancing nervouslyep at every moving shadow.

586
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:32,160
The third time she slipped a folditude into my hand

587
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:35,160
without a word. When I opened it later I discovered

588
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:38,200
an complete map, routsdrawn and trembling barrow between safe rooms

589
00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:39,920
and the main Stainwolf the guide to a place within

590
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:43,440
a place. It was an invitation and a warning. Late

591
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:45,559
on a Thursday night, unable to wait, I traced her

592
00:28:45,559 --> 00:28:48,480
map down to the furnace room. The locks resisted, but

593
00:28:48,480 --> 00:28:50,599
the picks worked, as they always had a pinsjuggle, the

594
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:54,119
tumblers clicked, and the thickyin door creaked in ord Inside,

595
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:57,000
I found not emptiness, but a living worn ham made

596
00:28:57,000 --> 00:28:59,839
petitions divided the wide room into cells, blankets drawn between

597
00:28:59,839 --> 00:29:04,680
the it exposed beams, battered chairs, food wrappers scattered everywhere against

598
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:06,960
the wall, a child's drawing. Three stick people beneath the

599
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:10,039
smiling sun. As my eyes adjusted, I caught the scent

600
00:29:10,079 --> 00:29:12,720
of a ma washed body's bleach and canned meat. A

601
00:29:12,799 --> 00:29:16,359
present stirred. A shape half hidden behind stack crates rose up,

602
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:20,200
fear in every movement. Don't be afraid, I whispered, I'm

603
00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:22,920
here for you. Can you walk? He blinked at me,

604
00:29:23,039 --> 00:29:26,119
then nodded, cautiously rubbing his hands together to coil the shakes.

605
00:29:26,839 --> 00:29:30,559
How many are done here? I asked. He hesitated, gaze,

606
00:29:30,559 --> 00:29:34,599
scattering sideways, and finally answered four five with Maria suntiins.

607
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:36,559
Some get moved to storage for day, some have been

608
00:29:36,559 --> 00:29:40,960
here for months, I blinked, Reeling stealing myself, I urged

609
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:44,319
him come with me now, before cush the woman. I

610
00:29:44,319 --> 00:29:46,920
had seen Lucia emerge from another partition and trembling on

611
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:50,720
the frame. What's happening? She whispered. I'm getting you out.

612
00:29:50,759 --> 00:29:53,079
We'll go up through storage, come out near the back lot.

613
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:55,680
You'll be visible, I said, thinking aloud, but at this

614
00:29:55,759 --> 00:29:59,279
hour no one's watching. I led them as quietly as possible,

615
00:29:59,319 --> 00:30:02,160
following Marie's hand drawn passed through gaps in the heating ducts.

616
00:30:02,799 --> 00:30:05,279
My own breath came short. The air too, thick tuesire

617
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:08,720
all around the building seemed to press closer, resisting, as

618
00:30:08,759 --> 00:30:10,400
if it knew I was ruining the order it had

619
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:13,079
enforced for so long. We barely reached the foot of

620
00:30:13,119 --> 00:30:16,079
the stairs when the lights flickered above, illuminating Kosh's silhuett

621
00:30:16,079 --> 00:30:19,039
at the top. He wasn't armed, but his posture was warlike.

622
00:30:19,759 --> 00:30:22,079
You don't understand what you're doing, he called, calm, but

623
00:30:22,119 --> 00:30:25,039
bleeding with menace. If you open that door, you make

624
00:30:25,079 --> 00:30:27,079
it worse for all of them. They aren't safe out there,

625
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:31,279
Lucia whimpered, shrinking behind me. The man hesitated, looking between

626
00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:34,480
us and Kersh fear choking his voice, Kush took a

627
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:39,200
step down. You believe in rescuing people good, but rescue

628
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:42,160
means nothing if it erases them from everything. Do you

629
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:45,400
know what happens when the system finds them. You want statistics,

630
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:48,960
mister Thorne, I've read every discharge, every police report, most

631
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:52,440
so data lost within months of freedom. Kosh's footfuls paused

632
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:55,480
halfway down the stairs. We stood frozen. The iron door

633
00:30:55,519 --> 00:30:57,319
to the sub basement gave him behind us. My heart

634
00:30:57,319 --> 00:31:00,279
pounding so loud I felt it in my wrists. Lucia

635
00:31:00,279 --> 00:31:02,720
helds onto my arm, her trembling barely contained, while the

636
00:31:02,759 --> 00:31:04,960
man beside her, thin anxious, wiped his palm across his

637
00:31:05,039 --> 00:31:07,079
cheek and seemed to shrink with each new step kersh took.

638
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:09,640
He didn't bark for ittz or shout for help. He

639
00:31:09,759 --> 00:31:11,440
just looked at us with a weary patience that made

640
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:15,200
the silence suffocating. Olusha, mister Alleby, please, you know how

641
00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:18,319
things go when outsiders get involved. He'll let the silence

642
00:31:18,319 --> 00:31:20,920
hang his shadow and complete with a week stairwell boll flickered.

643
00:31:21,559 --> 00:31:23,640
Mister Thorn, I can't let any more lives get thrown

644
00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:25,440
away for the sake of a headline. Come with me.

645
00:31:25,559 --> 00:31:27,200
You know you don't want to ruin what's left of

646
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:29,839
this place. For a few moments, I genuinely believed he

647
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:33,000
meant it. His eyes found mine, not the coal, dismissive

648
00:31:33,039 --> 00:31:36,960
glance from months ago, but something searching, almost desperate. I

649
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:40,079
almost pitied him. Then Lucia let out a shivering gasp.

650
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:42,839
He said, if we made noise, we'd be arrested or

651
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:45,880
lose our papers. I didn't do anything wrong, It's true

652
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:50,079
at Allerby whispered a voice tense. He threatened us kersh

653
00:31:50,079 --> 00:31:52,960
closed his eyes, exhaling, none of you are in danger

654
00:31:53,039 --> 00:31:55,039
from me. But this world, it has no patience. No

655
00:31:55,119 --> 00:31:57,079
forgive us. Down here there is at least a namee

656
00:31:57,079 --> 00:31:59,799
ador somewhat to sleep. His eyes flicked to the notebook

657
00:31:59,799 --> 00:32:02,279
I touched where I'd hurriedly stuffed the documents in the phone.

658
00:32:02,799 --> 00:32:04,720
If you show them that, you destroy years of work

659
00:32:04,759 --> 00:32:07,759
keeping people safe. I forced a breath through grit teeth.

660
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:11,160
He keep them trapped, shuffling paperwork, erasing them on a whim.

661
00:32:11,279 --> 00:32:13,559
That's not safety, that's a grave. No one can see

662
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:16,799
the memory of the folder rain, soapd and battered poles

663
00:32:16,839 --> 00:32:19,279
in my pocket. They have a right to exist, not

664
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:22,039
just in your files, out in the world. He shook

665
00:32:22,039 --> 00:32:25,200
his head. It's simple on paper, but out there were

666
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:27,200
just another number on a list for another body in

667
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:30,240
the system. He stared at Lucia, then at me. You

668
00:32:30,319 --> 00:32:32,680
honestly believe anyone outside will care for them more than

669
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:35,880
this building ever did. His calm was unmaveling, now ThReD

670
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:37,960
by thread, though his voice remained touched for fear of

671
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:41,119
attracting attention. There's a balance. Too many eyes and the

672
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:43,599
wrong people start asking questions if they don't want street

673
00:32:43,599 --> 00:32:46,319
people cluttering up the place, or trouble with the city offices,

674
00:32:46,599 --> 00:32:49,359
or his gaze hardened attendants who make themselves crosses to bear.

675
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:53,160
I looked past him, Maria's maps still pressed in my hand.

676
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:55,920
I calculated our distance to the main stairwell, fifteen paces

677
00:32:56,079 --> 00:32:59,319
lest maybe if we sprinted, could we get past him?

678
00:32:59,599 --> 00:33:02,160
Did he have a key to every lock? Still, Lucia

679
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:04,440
clung harder to my sleeve, her voice a whisker above

680
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:07,400
a whisper. Please, I don't want to die here. I

681
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:10,799
only wanted time. I banged somewhere upstairs, broke the impass,

682
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:14,480
some one shouting a tenant, perhaps were just a maintenance cot,

683
00:33:14,519 --> 00:33:18,160
battered against a wall, cush tents, keys tumbling at his waist.

684
00:33:18,799 --> 00:33:21,000
He risked glancing back, and that was all it took.

685
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:25,000
I jerked my arm from Lucier and pushed her head mah,

686
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:28,880
I hissed. Allerby was quick to follow, stumbling a little,

687
00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:31,599
hands groping the rough concrete as we dashed past Kush.

688
00:33:32,039 --> 00:33:35,359
He snatched up my sleeve of cordwomy fabric. Lucier head

689
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:37,880
now bolted up the steps, her bare feet, nearly silent.

690
00:33:38,519 --> 00:33:41,599
Kersh's voice, soft and hoarse, floated after us. You don't

691
00:33:41,599 --> 00:33:44,680
know what's waiting out there, but he didn't chase. Instead,

692
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:47,119
he turned and thundered down the corridor, slimming shut the

693
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:49,559
doors as he went, locking each with a practiced twist.

694
00:33:50,119 --> 00:33:52,000
I heard the snap of dead bulls as panic field

695
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:54,799
adrenaline carried us up the steps, through the staff hallway

696
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:57,240
and across the lobby, where the battered fight stood. A

697
00:33:57,279 --> 00:34:00,240
silent witness the burst into the outer air line, me

698
00:34:00,279 --> 00:34:03,240
blinking tears from my eyes. For the briefest moment, with

699
00:34:03,319 --> 00:34:05,359
the night breeze on my skin and two terrified tenants

700
00:34:05,359 --> 00:34:07,880
clutching my arms, I thought it might be over, but

701
00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:09,920
the city beyond was empty at this ire. A stray

702
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:13,119
car idle two blocks away. Indifferent. I pressed the phone

703
00:34:13,119 --> 00:34:15,519
to my ear thumb in the emergency shore at no signal,

704
00:34:16,079 --> 00:34:19,320
of course, not Kersh must have cut the local antenna again,

705
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:22,599
as he always did during maintenance. Ellerby started for the

706
00:34:22,599 --> 00:34:26,159
parking lot, staggering, but luciannelt by the hedge, struggling for breath,

707
00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:29,320
freezing with the enormity of it all. Come on, I

708
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:32,239
urged softly. We can't stay here, not now. We hurried

709
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:35,480
behind the delivery ramp, ducking into the loading alcove. Head

710
00:34:35,559 --> 00:34:37,360
Lights flashed near the end of the block of patrol

711
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:41,840
car Maybury or another driver just passing through. I waved desperate.

712
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:44,880
The car kept moving till lights receding into the distance.

713
00:34:45,599 --> 00:34:49,000
My heart started. Lucia clutched the sleeve of my jacket, shivering.

714
00:34:49,519 --> 00:34:52,519
Please call my brother or any one, she pleaded, Tell

715
00:34:52,599 --> 00:34:55,760
him I'm alive. He stopped picking up my calls. We will,

716
00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:58,400
I promised, more to occupy our panic than out of confidence.

717
00:34:59,079 --> 00:35:01,239
Another bang from d inside the building, the pounding of

718
00:35:01,239 --> 00:35:03,280
the five door told me Kaush was back to securing

719
00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:06,079
his weld one lock at time. Ali Be looked down,

720
00:35:06,199 --> 00:35:09,000
half collapsed, hans still stained from wherever he'd been made away.

721
00:35:09,559 --> 00:35:11,960
What happens now? We go to someone who is in

722
00:35:12,039 --> 00:35:15,199
part of this place, I said, voice firmer than I felt.

723
00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:18,159
We make them listen. But as the last echo of

724
00:35:18,159 --> 00:35:21,000
Curs's footsteps faded, the dread returned. I had proof, Yes,

725
00:35:21,559 --> 00:35:24,920
witnesses for now, But everyone who tried to fix things

726
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:28,320
here disappeared from the narrative, sometimes literally, sometimes because the

727
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:31,480
cystant neglected to notice their absence. We slipped into the

728
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:34,519
shadows of the alley, crossing into the next block. I

729
00:35:34,599 --> 00:35:38,400
dialed emergency again, voice raw, no static. Finally a long

730
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:42,639
dead rain, then a despatcheous, bored voice. Yes, what's your emergency?

731
00:35:43,159 --> 00:35:47,400
I steadied my words, made myself slow down. Marston Court apartments,

732
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:50,199
head and residence locked in the subasement there alive danger.

733
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:53,079
Please you have to send some one. Building managers keeping

734
00:35:53,079 --> 00:35:55,079
people against their will. They were threatened if they tried

735
00:35:55,119 --> 00:35:59,679
to leave a pause, sir, your name? A cow called passed,

736
00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:02,239
slowing as its headlights fixed on as huddled by dumpster.

737
00:36:03,079 --> 00:36:06,320
Please I can prove it. I have evidence, recordings, photo documentation.

738
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:08,400
There are people who can tell you, please, just to

739
00:36:08,519 --> 00:36:12,000
just send an officer. The operator's voice suddenly curious, we

740
00:36:12,039 --> 00:36:13,880
don't have that address on file. Are you sure you

741
00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:16,840
mean Marston Court? No recent occupacy reported at that location.

742
00:36:17,519 --> 00:36:20,559
My blood ran cold. It's there, It's been there for

743
00:36:20,599 --> 00:36:24,079
fifty years. Check proper detached records from last quarter. Sir,

744
00:36:24,239 --> 00:36:25,880
I need you to calm down. Some one is on

745
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:29,440
the way. Static. Then the lion went dead. I let

746
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:31,280
my phone drop to my lap the damp of the night,

747
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:35,079
pressing in stealing whatever false comfort outreach gave. Lucia watched

748
00:36:35,079 --> 00:36:37,719
the road, silent tears cutting through the grime on her cheeks.

749
00:36:38,360 --> 00:36:40,719
We sat in the dark, watching the world ignore us

750
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:43,039
for another hour, until the distant blow of police strobes

751
00:36:43,119 --> 00:36:46,079
let up the damp facades of the block. Maria hustled

752
00:36:46,079 --> 00:36:49,360
around the corner toward us. I shot wide. I called them,

753
00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:53,320
She whispered. I said, there's trouble, so much trouble. They listened. Finally,

754
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:56,280
you must show them nonow before it's too lay through

755
00:36:56,280 --> 00:36:58,920
the storm of confusion as officers spilled out, shouting first

756
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:00,599
to put their hands up, then to dropped them. Then,

757
00:37:00,639 --> 00:37:02,719
realizing we were nothing like a threat, came the relief,

758
00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:05,639
frayed and threadbare, of a kind of rescue. I shouted

759
00:37:05,679 --> 00:37:08,440
at them, voice horse downstairs sub basement, hears them locked in.

760
00:37:08,519 --> 00:37:11,079
They need help. The last thing I saw before being

761
00:37:11,079 --> 00:37:13,519
hastily loaded into the patrol car. Was cursed. Framed in

762
00:37:13,519 --> 00:37:16,199
the lobby doorway, regarding the arrival of the uniform chaos

763
00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:19,280
with cold winded dignity. He didn't run or plead to

764
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:21,960
just watch, as if nothing could possibly surprise him any more.

765
00:37:22,639 --> 00:37:27,159
Police warmed the building, Maria briefed them, and broken rushed English.

766
00:37:27,599 --> 00:37:30,400
Elaby and Lucia huddle together, unwilling to fully trust the

767
00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:33,320
new guardians of their fate. I surrendered the phone. A

768
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:36,079
foot is the precious tangible proof I'd risked everything to obtain.

769
00:37:36,679 --> 00:37:39,719
The rest of the night passed in Blow's questions, intike forms,

770
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:42,320
explanations shuffled across metal desks. In the pale side room

771
00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:45,360
of the precinct. Maria sat in the hall, face drawn,

772
00:37:45,519 --> 00:37:48,760
hands shaking as she signed her witness statement. Somewhere down

773
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:51,239
the corridor, Lucia called her brother, tended of hope, flickering

774
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:54,360
at the edge of her words. By morning, rumors chased

775
00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:58,320
the sunrise, raided basement apartments ahead, and tenants abandoned paperwork.

776
00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:01,440
Officials spoke to the press, careful not to name exactly

777
00:38:01,480 --> 00:38:03,599
how many people had been found living in rooms that

778
00:38:03,599 --> 00:38:07,000
didn't exist on any blueprint. I returned to Marstoncourt under

779
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:09,000
the battter gray of post rain sky trail by a

780
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:12,880
pair of detectives and local reporters. Police take crisscross the entry.

781
00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:16,440
Forensic teams worked in the basement, bagging up forms, these copies,

782
00:38:16,519 --> 00:38:19,639
cash sledgers, even bags of groceries, evidence of life sustained

783
00:38:19,639 --> 00:38:22,480
in secret. They escort at the former residence, passed the

784
00:38:22,519 --> 00:38:26,119
lobby is, broken tiles, and out into daylight, most blank. Wildly,

785
00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:28,320
stunned by the raw air and the prickle of eyes

786
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:31,440
that didn't glance away, Kirsh stood to one side, wrists

787
00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:34,239
and dull metal cuffs, but regal with the survivor's defiance.

788
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:36,719
He met my gaze as they led him past, and

789
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:39,639
for an instant a trace of respect, muted, rueful, passed

790
00:38:39,679 --> 00:38:42,400
between us, as if we had both played our necessary roles.

791
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:45,519
To the bitter end. News crew circled for days. New

792
00:38:45,559 --> 00:38:49,000
management swept in promising reforms, blanketing the building in fresh

793
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:51,159
pain that could not disguise the warped seems or erase

794
00:38:51,199 --> 00:38:54,559
the echo of hidden steps. The paperwork had recovered, circulated

795
00:38:54,599 --> 00:38:56,480
through the department and order to fit for the forgotten

796
00:38:56,519 --> 00:38:58,559
file shelf, the kind of case it gets referenced on

797
00:38:58,599 --> 00:39:01,920
slow news nights, but leaves no mark. CRUSH's trial was

798
00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:05,840
brief and inconclusive. Lawyers argued about intent. Some called him

799
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:09,119
a monster, others a madman with missplaced compassion. Are the

800
00:39:09,159 --> 00:39:12,840
head and tenants, Only four were named, others their names

801
00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:15,239
changed too many times by blue ink in trembling hands,

802
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:19,199
faded into the system, misfile, confused by mismatched reckets. Lucia

803
00:39:19,199 --> 00:39:21,320
eventually found a relative, but she never set foot in

804
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:25,079
Masson Court again. Alleby fled the city, yearning for anonymity

805
00:39:25,119 --> 00:39:28,480
among strangers. Marie disappeared, without a word to any one.

806
00:39:28,519 --> 00:39:31,320
Her caught abandoned in the Serb's corridor. Keys stole dangling

807
00:39:31,320 --> 00:39:35,159
from a ring worn smooth. The months blowed, the building changed,

808
00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:39,639
yet nothing really changed. New cameras were installed, door locks

809
00:39:39,679 --> 00:39:42,599
replaced the en Flocks of new tenants brought a different

810
00:39:42,639 --> 00:39:46,239
sort for ease, one born from rumor. Yet every now

811
00:39:46,239 --> 00:39:48,679
and then the hush of footsteps descending into rarely visited

812
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:51,119
cellos were a waft of bleach in the Stowell suggested

813
00:39:51,159 --> 00:39:54,159
the place retained old habits, relics of the cycle that

814
00:39:54,199 --> 00:39:57,199
had governed it for so long, I found myself drifting

815
00:39:57,199 --> 00:40:00,800
through my days directionless. The spreadsheeted my obsess of catalog

816
00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:03,639
of shadows, sat and touched on a board laptop. When

817
00:40:03,639 --> 00:40:06,320
pressed for interviews, I was briefly lauded as a whistleblower,

818
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:10,079
then swiftly written off as unreliable. My conspiratorial ramblings indulgently

819
00:40:10,119 --> 00:40:13,400
referenced by blogs and local news a tragedy of oversight.

820
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:16,960
The headlines called it the failure. But no crime of malice,

821
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:20,280
no crime, just slaves written with the wrong pen. At

822
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:23,599
the run moment, sometimes in the sleepless margin between four

823
00:40:23,679 --> 00:40:26,039
and dawn, I imagine going back walking the corridors as

824
00:40:26,079 --> 00:40:28,159
I had before during the night, to produce a cough

825
00:40:28,199 --> 00:40:30,679
of flushed toilet or a sob from behind a new door.

826
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:33,719
But the new management kept the place too clean, too bright,

827
00:40:34,320 --> 00:40:36,119
No one looked twice at me, and the faces in

828
00:40:36,159 --> 00:40:39,360
the elevator changed too quickly to register. After a while,

829
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:42,880
even those odd shivers, reminders of something lost or something unfinished,

830
00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:46,199
became easy to forget. I focus on building daytime work

831
00:40:46,199 --> 00:40:49,360
at a storage facility. Numbers instead of names, locks instead

832
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:51,960
of keys that opened traps, I made a kind of piece.

833
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:56,199
By rationing my memory furdy Dale's fewer questions, I convinced

834
00:40:56,199 --> 00:40:59,199
myself it was done. That's why when the envelope arrived

835
00:40:59,199 --> 00:41:01,320
at the plane on LaRock kind slid between bills and

836
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:03,679
weekly flies, my hands trembled with more than just surprise.

837
00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:06,760
The return address was a hollow nothing as the IP

838
00:41:06,920 --> 00:41:10,159
code that matched no records printed in navy blue. Inside

839
00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:13,079
A single plastic car tumbled into my lap. A drever's license,

840
00:41:13,159 --> 00:41:15,800
fresh glossed, bearing my own wary phase. But the name

841
00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:18,159
was one I'd never owned. A tangle of latters, plausible

842
00:41:18,159 --> 00:41:21,320
but rom The birthday was almost correct, except the yeverered

843
00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:23,679
off i fore and the issued eight read yesterday's day.

844
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:27,800
My pulse stuttered on the back in unmistakable trembling blue

845
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:30,639
and cacurtious handywork. A quick looping scull its eared her

846
00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:33,840
welcome home. I stared at it, turning it over, feeling

847
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:36,280
the rough ridges where someone had frantically scratched out and

848
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:40,079
rewritten the information. The edges still smelled of plastic and bleach.

849
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:43,199
A noise drifted under my apartment door. A child's muffled

850
00:41:43,199 --> 00:41:46,199
whimper quickly stifled, followed by the faint echo of someone humming,

851
00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:49,320
breathless and raw. I got up and checked the corridor.

852
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:53,360
The lights flickered overhead, casting odd, rippling shadows along the

853
00:41:53,400 --> 00:41:57,199
new paint. Doors stood resolutely closed, marked by generic gold

854
00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:00,719
numbers that meant nothing to anyone not already memorize. Down

855
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:02,599
at the far end, a door had never given much

856
00:42:02,599 --> 00:42:05,760
fold to stood open a sliver. I heard soft crying, distant,

857
00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:08,800
barely there yet drawing me like an old familiar dream.

858
00:42:09,119 --> 00:42:10,760
I closed my own door and sat on the edge

859
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:13,199
of my bed, letting the cheaply would creak beneath my weight.

860
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:16,440
The idy cod lay before me, patient as a trap.

861
00:42:17,039 --> 00:42:19,280
I understood then what ker should tried to teach me,

862
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:21,000
or what he become when belief in the world's in

863
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:24,559
difference failed him. Here the cycle was in horror but persistence.

864
00:42:24,679 --> 00:42:27,280
It didn't matter if people left or stayed or vanished.

865
00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:30,119
As long as some one remembered them or pretended to,

866
00:42:30,159 --> 00:42:32,320
the building would accommodate the new name and the new place.

867
00:42:33,119 --> 00:42:35,840
Only when memories ran out did a person truly disappear.

868
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:38,480
I waited until the first light trickled and through the

869
00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:41,480
blinds clutching the license in my fist, I listened for

870
00:42:41,519 --> 00:42:44,519
another sign, another footstep behind placed walls, or whisper in

871
00:42:44,559 --> 00:42:46,920
the vents, the low, ceaseless rob of a place that

872
00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:50,400
only pretended to forget, and outside the corridor remained empty.

873
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:53,079
That the echoes and napri d'nhash began to answer back,

874
00:42:53,159 --> 00:42:56,599
one by one from every closed door. I waited, listening

875
00:42:56,639 --> 00:42:58,960
the hush out in the corridor, interrupted by some distant crush,

876
00:42:58,960 --> 00:43:01,159
maybe a neighbor dropping a paste or slamming a closet.

877
00:43:01,679 --> 00:43:03,760
But the sound was too light, too brief, to explain

878
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:06,960
the chill setling between my shoulders. The card still pressed

879
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:09,880
into my palm, I thummed a courtious trembling signature, feeling

880
00:43:09,880 --> 00:43:13,840
the slight indentation his pen had left. The handwriting was unmistakable.

881
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:16,599
My name, no a name grafted on to my face.

882
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:19,079
It made me feel less like I had survived, and

883
00:43:19,119 --> 00:43:21,159
more like I had been filed away properly. At last,

884
00:43:21,719 --> 00:43:25,440
a heavier steps unded outside. I moved softly, pressing my

885
00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:28,239
ear to the flimsy composite panel of the door. However,

886
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:31,079
it was shuffled, perhaps pausing to check a number. I

887
00:43:31,119 --> 00:43:33,880
peered through the peephole. Nothing The lench showed, only the

888
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:37,199
warped gray green strip of florescent spill. My pulse dadded

889
00:43:37,199 --> 00:43:39,960
a practice resignation. My whole life here had been a

890
00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:41,760
training course in the art of waiting for the next

891
00:43:41,760 --> 00:43:44,119
thing to go wrong. But it was the next thing.

892
00:43:44,679 --> 00:43:48,880
It was the same old thing, cycling back around, names erased, thin, rewritten, less,

893
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:52,840
sealed behind bureaucracy, pained and habit sooner slept, if only

894
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:56,079
to escape. The following morning's light seeped in between warped

895
00:43:56,079 --> 00:43:58,480
slats and caught the corner of the ID card glinting

896
00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:00,760
off the laminatee. I picked it up and turned it

897
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:03,079
over in my hand, again, weighing whether to snap it

898
00:44:03,159 --> 00:44:06,079
or destroy it. Instead, I slipped it in my wallet.

899
00:44:06,599 --> 00:44:09,199
That part of the old routine came easily. I went

900
00:44:09,239 --> 00:44:11,960
about my obligation's IROs of the warehouse and packing boxes,

901
00:44:12,079 --> 00:44:15,159
reshelving the barely labeled detritus of other people's lives, keeping

902
00:44:15,159 --> 00:44:17,920
my head down. I trained myself. I now to speak

903
00:44:17,920 --> 00:44:20,039
only when spoken to you, to drift from task to

904
00:44:20,039 --> 00:44:22,800
task with nothing left of the building manager's worried tidiness.

905
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:25,800
Yet at lunch, biting into a stale sand which in

906
00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:27,480
the break room. I pulled the card out and laid

907
00:44:27,480 --> 00:44:30,920
it foot by my elbow. No one noticed me stirring by.

908
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:33,679
The train ride home the city felt wrong, the motion

909
00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:36,960
of the carriage, the thin briefly illuminated faces turned downward,

910
00:44:37,079 --> 00:44:40,000
none of a produced comfort or novelty. When a step

911
00:44:40,039 --> 00:44:41,920
from the platform to the cot a rain began again,

912
00:44:41,960 --> 00:44:44,320
always rain, as if the world was gently washing its

913
00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:47,440
hands of responsibility. One more time. There was a new

914
00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:50,719
notice posted in the front glass at Marson Court. I paused,

915
00:44:50,840 --> 00:44:54,880
dripping water from my hair and re attention management remodeling

916
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:59,519
unoccupied units. Residents please report suspicious activities to building support

917
00:44:59,559 --> 00:45:02,360
line below. The phone number was written in a different

918
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:07,079
blocky hand new manager, I guessed. I considered calling. I wanted,

919
00:45:07,239 --> 00:45:09,840
almost desperately, to believe that some one was now actually

920
00:45:09,880 --> 00:45:13,360
in charge. The habits persist, and across the foy silently,

921
00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:16,679
badge tucked away, smile fixed. The empty lobby plants had

922
00:45:16,679 --> 00:45:19,639
been replaced, The ficus was gone, and in its place

923
00:45:19,679 --> 00:45:22,360
two plastic ferns washed each other across the tile like centers.

924
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:25,599
But behind the shallow newness, the undercurrent of neglect persisted.

925
00:45:26,199 --> 00:45:28,280
A brown water stain had crept out from below the

926
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:30,840
old radiator. The air held the scand of stone in

927
00:45:30,920 --> 00:45:34,360
something faintly medical. Inside the elevator, the panel's beef for

928
00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:36,559
basement had been drilled out and filled with the popsy.

929
00:45:37,199 --> 00:45:39,199
I ran mathem over the scar and pressed forth from

930
00:45:39,199 --> 00:45:41,639
my unit, at least the one I inhabited, now not

931
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:44,360
so different from the last. As the door was shut,

932
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:46,480
a woman voice called in my conversation down the whole

933
00:45:46,519 --> 00:45:49,119
clift herd nothing more than don't forget they are still

934
00:45:49,119 --> 00:45:51,039
hear it, and then a soft bluff that faded into silence.

935
00:45:51,039 --> 00:45:54,960
As the elevator hunduput. I washed the numbers climb, third,

936
00:45:55,039 --> 00:45:58,719
then fourth, fourth was clean. All the scoffs and kicks

937
00:45:58,719 --> 00:46:00,800
by the baseboats had been painted over, but not yet

938
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:04,239
dulled by life. The main lights worked again. I stepped

939
00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:06,960
out automatic and checked my door. The lock had a

940
00:46:06,960 --> 00:46:09,960
fresh face plate of security upgrade, I supposed, but it stuck,

941
00:46:10,199 --> 00:46:13,400
groaning as I twisted the key inside. I made tea,

942
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:15,920
Setting the cup down by the window, I stared out

943
00:46:15,960 --> 00:46:18,920
toward the alley with us at all began later, when

944
00:46:18,920 --> 00:46:21,159
the day's traffic had trickled away, and the light dull gray.

945
00:46:21,199 --> 00:46:23,159
I drew the curtains and waited for some sign that

946
00:46:23,239 --> 00:46:26,480
anything truly had changed. It was close to apron when

947
00:46:26,480 --> 00:46:29,480
a knock came. Show up and quick through the peep hole.

948
00:46:29,599 --> 00:46:33,880
Nobody only the unbroken strip of fluorescent mesh. I hesitated,

949
00:46:33,880 --> 00:46:36,320
then opened the door. On my feet rested a box

950
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:39,559
sold Amazon shipping, A dressed in thick marka large and

951
00:46:39,599 --> 00:46:44,000
clumsy Forner, current resident a eighty four CE. The box

952
00:46:44,000 --> 00:46:47,360
itself bore no sender, no postage, yet the tape was fresh.

953
00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:50,360
A brief, nasty surge of dread took me. I glanced

954
00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:52,559
up and down the hole, saw nothing but closed doors,

955
00:46:52,599 --> 00:46:55,760
and lifted the box inside. It weighed less than I guessed.

956
00:46:56,360 --> 00:46:59,639
I slid the tape inside layers of office print outs.

957
00:47:00,039 --> 00:47:02,800
I'm still damn wrapped a cheap digital recorder, one of

958
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:04,800
the clunky kind I'd used in the security booth for

959
00:47:04,840 --> 00:47:08,000
noise complaints all late night incident looks. On top lay

960
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:10,480
a single slip of blue stationary pin so tremulously the

961
00:47:10,559 --> 00:47:14,480
ink blood in places. Listen and remember that handwriting again.

962
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:18,159
The recorder clicked to life with up protest. At first

963
00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:21,760
I heard silence, a hiss foone line sadock, then voices.

964
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:24,920
One was mine, clipped and awkward at taking a tenant report.

965
00:47:25,119 --> 00:47:29,480
Who's there? The recorder played, and then the answer, A woman, Lucia,

966
00:47:29,559 --> 00:47:32,119
still here. You told me, don't leave, they'll forget my name.

967
00:47:32,719 --> 00:47:35,559
I snapped a player off. The memory of nights spent

968
00:47:35,599 --> 00:47:37,960
pace in the holes, chasing down those faint, hopeless voices

969
00:47:38,039 --> 00:47:40,559
rose up until it nearly overwhelmed me. It had been

970
00:47:40,559 --> 00:47:43,599
easier to accept the explanation cursh always gave that some

971
00:47:43,679 --> 00:47:46,079
people drifted in then now again. And it was my concern.

972
00:47:46,760 --> 00:47:49,440
The cards in the trash, the discrepancies on the spreadsheets,

973
00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:52,920
emergencies of forgetting, not of malice, but the voices on

974
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:55,880
the tape, carrot accusations. I could not shift that I

975
00:47:55,920 --> 00:47:58,679
had watched the cycle grow and done nothing. Ill I

976
00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:01,880
stuffed the recorder, print out and ID card into a backpacks,

977
00:48:01,920 --> 00:48:04,920
laying it over my shoulder, my hands barely Shook had

978
00:48:04,960 --> 00:48:08,760
already decided the new management needed of reckoning. I would

979
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:11,320
walk something into their evening office, demand action, show them

980
00:48:11,360 --> 00:48:14,039
the shirts of two regimes, both building and breaking memory

981
00:48:14,039 --> 00:48:17,800
in equal measure. Perhaps I'd be believed, Even if not,

982
00:48:18,039 --> 00:48:21,440
I outed Telicia to Alby, to Maria. The manager's office

983
00:48:21,480 --> 00:48:24,960
was brightly lit, newly painted with pamphlets about ten in services.

984
00:48:25,599 --> 00:48:28,039
Behind the glass, a young woman with cropped hair sat

985
00:48:28,079 --> 00:48:30,079
at a desk, phone pressed to her cheek, shuffing a

986
00:48:30,119 --> 00:48:32,760
folder of keys. Her eyes flicked up when I knocked

987
00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:35,920
on the window. Can I help you, she called, voice precise,

988
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:39,000
polite but expectant. I took a breath, holding my backtack

989
00:48:39,039 --> 00:48:43,039
strap in both hands. I have information something. The policemiths records,

990
00:48:43,159 --> 00:48:45,599
residents who went on the books, hidden units, dance stirs.

991
00:48:45,639 --> 00:48:48,519
It's important. She raised an eyebrow, then gesture for me

992
00:48:48,599 --> 00:48:50,960
to wait as she finished to call a replay the

993
00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:52,800
speech in my head. A littany born of too many

994
00:48:52,800 --> 00:48:56,960
sleepless nights. Sorry about that, you were saying. Back when

995
00:48:57,000 --> 00:48:59,239
Kersh was in charge, he kept people hidden in the basement.

996
00:48:59,320 --> 00:49:01,800
There's proof. No eames don't match up. Several missing others

997
00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:04,559
listed as moved out, but they never left. There are recordings.

998
00:49:04,599 --> 00:49:07,079
I think it's still happening, The words shot out in

999
00:49:07,119 --> 00:49:10,000
a gasp. She regarded me for a long second before

1000
00:49:10,039 --> 00:49:13,119
weaving her fingers together on the desk. Our team audited

1001
00:49:13,119 --> 00:49:16,239
the last three years of records, full turnover, security upgrades.

1002
00:49:16,280 --> 00:49:19,639
Police found no remaining irregularities. If you have additional materials,

1003
00:49:19,719 --> 00:49:23,199
you may email corporate compliance. That's the procedure. She slid

1004
00:49:23,199 --> 00:49:26,320
a business card under the glass. How professional smile didn't

1005
00:49:26,320 --> 00:49:30,199
reach her eyes. Anger kindled somewhere beneath my skin. They'll

1006
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:33,599
disappear it, just like always. I assure you anything important

1007
00:49:33,639 --> 00:49:35,920
will be reviewed, she said, But she was already scanning

1008
00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:39,159
the computer screen behind my shoulder. I pressed the recorder,

1009
00:49:39,360 --> 00:49:42,079
sack of forums and knew id card against the glass.

1010
00:49:42,719 --> 00:49:44,400
He should listen to this to day. Someone put this

1011
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:46,880
under my door, my face for all name ishity. Yesterday.

1012
00:49:46,920 --> 00:49:49,960
They send it to me. It means something. She didn't flinch.

1013
00:49:50,840 --> 00:49:54,159
Leave it if needed, We'll get in touch. She buzzed

1014
00:49:54,159 --> 00:49:56,639
the secure drawer open, then took the items with gloat

1015
00:49:56,719 --> 00:49:59,280
hands and dropped the recorder into a plastic evidence bag.

1016
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:03,159
The folder she slid into a locked box. We'll handle it.

1017
00:50:03,880 --> 00:50:07,599
I watched as the lock snap shut. That it, I said,

1018
00:50:08,480 --> 00:50:11,159
just put it away. She stood up, signaling our time

1019
00:50:11,239 --> 00:50:13,639
was over. Is there anything else I can do for

1020
00:50:13,679 --> 00:50:17,280
you tonight? Mister? She hesitated, glancing down at her monitor.

1021
00:50:17,840 --> 00:50:20,000
I realized then that she was reading from the room line.

1022
00:50:20,039 --> 00:50:23,440
My unit's label was already reset. She fumbled blatly with

1023
00:50:23,480 --> 00:50:26,039
the attempt at my name. I left the office without

1024
00:50:26,039 --> 00:50:28,360
another word, my sense of urgency curbling into the bitter

1025
00:50:28,360 --> 00:50:31,920
after taste of waste. The hallway felt brighter, newer, but

1026
00:50:31,960 --> 00:50:34,159
they I remained thick, heavy with the kind of dadness

1027
00:50:34,159 --> 00:50:37,639
that resists improvement. Carpets replaced, but the under padding still

1028
00:50:37,639 --> 00:50:40,760
held mildy. For all the changes the new management had made,

1029
00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:43,920
security cleaning a digital wreckass system, no one seemed able

1030
00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:46,360
to truly replace a resident once the building itself had

1031
00:50:46,400 --> 00:50:49,239
let them slip away. Outside the mail room, a frantic

1032
00:50:49,360 --> 00:50:52,400
energy hovered new tenants I'd meet with guarded interests. No

1033
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:54,760
one asked questions, but their faces wore the tension of

1034
00:50:54,760 --> 00:50:57,920
people worried about things occurring. Two doors down, I caught

1035
00:50:57,920 --> 00:51:00,400
bits of whispered conversations as I passed. Mos of them

1036
00:51:00,400 --> 00:51:03,400
clipped mid sentence when they saw me. One man, hands

1037
00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:05,880
deep in jacket pockets, nodded at me, but didn't return

1038
00:51:05,920 --> 00:51:09,079
my smile. An older woman paused by her door, glancing

1039
00:51:09,159 --> 00:51:11,920
up and down the corridor, keys clinking. I watched her

1040
00:51:11,960 --> 00:51:14,239
watch me, and as I moved past, she snapped, you

1041
00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:17,599
stay here, lawn it just a while, I replied, honest

1042
00:51:17,599 --> 00:51:21,280
as I could manage. She nodded, satisfied, and ducked inside

1043
00:51:21,280 --> 00:51:24,679
without another whird. At my own door, something in me faltered,

1044
00:51:25,320 --> 00:51:27,880
that low, insistent worry I carried for months, crept back,

1045
00:51:28,000 --> 00:51:31,119
sliding cold between spine and ribs. I turned the handle

1046
00:51:31,119 --> 00:51:33,199
and entered, pausing as I heard the distinct sound of

1047
00:51:33,239 --> 00:51:36,360
running water from the pipes. The sink, of course, was off.

1048
00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:39,679
The shore head didn't leak. The noise was coming from

1049
00:51:39,679 --> 00:51:42,679
the shared wall, exactly where the service chaise cooded between units.

1050
00:51:43,360 --> 00:51:46,199
A rhythmic patter stopped, then started again. I pressed my

1051
00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:49,119
hand to the drywall, listening deeper. Some one next door

1052
00:51:49,159 --> 00:51:51,159
was moving slow and careful, as if not to draw

1053
00:51:51,159 --> 00:51:54,280
attention to themselves. That shouldn't have been possible on the

1054
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:56,559
floor plan. No one was living in the adjoining unit

1055
00:51:56,599 --> 00:51:59,400
this week. It had been empty since the last resident,

1056
00:51:59,480 --> 00:52:01,400
a quiet man who never made a fuss, had moved

1057
00:52:01,440 --> 00:52:04,079
out three days ago. I had seen the movers myself,

1058
00:52:04,199 --> 00:52:06,519
stacking worn out boxes and the last batter chair on

1059
00:52:06,559 --> 00:52:09,719
to the elevator. There laughter echoing up the shaft, Yet

1060
00:52:09,760 --> 00:52:11,920
the unmistakable lull of a voice carrying through the thin

1061
00:52:12,000 --> 00:52:15,320
partition drew me closer. At first I thought it must

1062
00:52:15,320 --> 00:52:18,559
be the plumbing. Then the voice resolved a woman reciting

1063
00:52:18,559 --> 00:52:20,599
a phone number over and over, as if hoping to

1064
00:52:20,599 --> 00:52:23,199
etch it back into memory. The number changed as it

1065
00:52:23,239 --> 00:52:26,159
looped one digits, which then too, and the cadence grew distressed.

1066
00:52:26,719 --> 00:52:30,079
I pulled back, suddenly afraid, I grabbed my coat and

1067
00:52:30,119 --> 00:52:32,559
slipped into the hole, careful to close the door soundlessly.

1068
00:52:33,199 --> 00:52:35,920
There the corridor's hush returned, broken only by the muted

1069
00:52:35,960 --> 00:52:38,280
steps of some one descending on the fourth floor stairs,

1070
00:52:38,360 --> 00:52:41,000
perhaps a delivery or a late shift coming home. I

1071
00:52:41,039 --> 00:52:43,039
paused by the unit next door with that empty one.

1072
00:52:43,480 --> 00:52:45,400
A faint light flickered beneath the crack at the base

1073
00:52:45,440 --> 00:52:48,239
of the frame, testing the knob, I found it locked.

1074
00:52:48,920 --> 00:52:50,880
I dropped to my knees, pretending to tie his shoe,

1075
00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:53,800
and pressed my ear to the seam. The recitation continued,

1076
00:52:53,880 --> 00:52:56,239
lower and faster now until it faded into a shivering

1077
00:52:56,239 --> 00:52:59,800
and familiar sob. I rose and looked around for the

1078
00:52:59,840 --> 00:53:02,519
first time since the raid, since Lucia and eleby had

1079
00:53:02,519 --> 00:53:04,400
been led blinking into the fresh air. I felt the

1080
00:53:04,400 --> 00:53:07,760
old nase sitting certainty. The building had simply adapted. A

1081
00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:10,360
cycle close, a new one opened, but the appetite for

1082
00:53:10,400 --> 00:53:13,840
secret lives was unchanged. It was never a but crush alone.

1083
00:53:14,239 --> 00:53:17,000
The structure, the management, the system only ever wanted someone

1084
00:53:17,039 --> 00:53:18,880
in anyone, to keep the quiet rooms filled and the

1085
00:53:18,920 --> 00:53:21,039
paperwork up to date, no matter whose names made the

1086
00:53:21,079 --> 00:53:23,920
ink back in my apartment. I tried to shake it off,

1087
00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:26,800
but through the thin wall, the muttering persisted, barely audible

1088
00:53:26,840 --> 00:53:30,280
above the white noise events. Eventually, the voice shifted to

1089
00:53:30,360 --> 00:53:32,400
song the Lawlla by Simple and sad Son, in a

1090
00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:35,760
trembling alto that ate with loneliness. I recorded a snippet

1091
00:53:35,800 --> 00:53:37,880
on my phone, impulse and tread, both guiding me. I

1092
00:53:37,920 --> 00:53:40,280
played it back, wondering if I'd imagined it, but the

1093
00:53:40,280 --> 00:53:43,639
notes were there, wavering and incomplete. Sleep elluded me again

1094
00:53:43,679 --> 00:53:46,320
that night. The day there followed bled into one of

1095
00:53:46,400 --> 00:53:49,639
unfinished tasks. I managed little at work. The tape of

1096
00:53:49,639 --> 00:53:51,400
the voice next door played in my pocket until the

1097
00:53:51,400 --> 00:53:54,400
battery died. I bought a new notepad on the way home,

1098
00:53:54,400 --> 00:53:56,840
and by evening had drafted nearly a dozen variations of

1099
00:53:56,840 --> 00:53:59,199
complaint letters, each more measured and less likely to make

1100
00:53:59,239 --> 00:54:02,000
a difference. I called to support line for the building.

1101
00:54:02,519 --> 00:54:05,599
A robot took my message. No one returned the call.

1102
00:54:06,360 --> 00:54:08,519
At dinner, I heard movement overhead, a thumb, then a

1103
00:54:08,559 --> 00:54:11,599
scrape of heavy furniture. I went out onto my balcony,

1104
00:54:11,639 --> 00:54:13,679
looking up and saw some one moving behind the curtain

1105
00:54:13,679 --> 00:54:16,760
in five be The silhouette was unfamiliar, stooped, but as

1106
00:54:16,760 --> 00:54:18,760
the figure passed the window, a scrap of blue cloth

1107
00:54:18,760 --> 00:54:20,760
swung in their hands. Something about the color the way

1108
00:54:20,840 --> 00:54:22,840
glowed against the street light made me think of Maria.

1109
00:54:23,519 --> 00:54:25,199
I returned and saw just in time to hear a

1110
00:54:25,280 --> 00:54:27,360
knock on the wall, not at the door, on the

1111
00:54:27,360 --> 00:54:29,800
share partition, the same spot where the woman's voice had

1112
00:54:29,800 --> 00:54:34,119
been sinning. Three slow taps, deliberate. I hesitated hand inches

1113
00:54:34,119 --> 00:54:37,760
from the drywall. Then, almost without thinking, I rapped back,

1114
00:54:38,519 --> 00:54:41,760
saw atlence, then three sharp knocks from the other side.

1115
00:54:42,199 --> 00:54:45,119
Cuspump scolded up my fore arms. I pressed my palm

1116
00:54:45,199 --> 00:54:49,000
flat and leaned closer. Her vorse muffolds. Are you still there?

1117
00:54:49,519 --> 00:54:52,840
I nearly dropped my phone. Yes, I whispered, so quietly

1118
00:54:52,840 --> 00:54:56,119
it was barely sounded all. The next morning brought no answers,

1119
00:54:56,199 --> 00:54:59,880
only escalation through the wall. I heard nothing by knew

1120
00:55:00,159 --> 00:55:03,079
construction clatter from downstairs suggested the super was tearing up

1121
00:55:03,079 --> 00:55:06,199
flooring for the latest round of renovations. I caught him

1122
00:55:06,199 --> 00:55:09,199
in the lobby, his cover all spatted with paint. Any

1123
00:55:09,199 --> 00:55:12,639
one moved into four be lately, I asked, pretending nonchalance.

1124
00:55:13,320 --> 00:55:16,719
He frowned, rifling through his mental files. Not yet, Lee

1125
00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:19,679
starts next week. Someone supposed to sign today, Cancil last

1126
00:55:19,679 --> 00:55:22,480
Minute has been empty since Monday. He wiped a hand

1127
00:55:22,480 --> 00:55:26,559
on his jeans, peering at me. Why came home? Thought

1128
00:55:26,599 --> 00:55:29,760
I heard voices, maybe the pipes. He grunted and convinced,

1129
00:55:29,800 --> 00:55:32,079
and went back to wrestling cardboard through the fire door.

1130
00:55:32,760 --> 00:55:36,400
I stopped the mail room afterward, scanning the boxes. Sure enough,

1131
00:55:36,480 --> 00:55:38,880
four Bees slot was empty. No name, blate, no flyers,

1132
00:55:39,039 --> 00:55:41,519
nothing to indicate a life lived, just the blank promise

1133
00:55:41,519 --> 00:55:45,440
of future occupancy. I made note that something new caught

1134
00:55:45,440 --> 00:55:47,719
my eye. The slot for two D, long since purged,

1135
00:55:47,800 --> 00:55:51,000
now displayed a hastily handritten tagger Joe Anson. I didn't

1136
00:55:51,039 --> 00:55:53,840
know the name. It was fresh, the paper still culling

1137
00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:56,960
at the edges, crossed the lobby. An older man shuffled in,

1138
00:55:57,119 --> 00:56:00,199
hands loaded with two battered bags. He stopped when he

1139
00:56:00,239 --> 00:56:02,559
saw me watching, adjusted his grip, and nod at once

1140
00:56:02,599 --> 00:56:05,920
before disappearing into the lift. His face looked familiar at

1141
00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:09,119
too familiar shape from old security logs maybe, or an

1142
00:56:09,159 --> 00:56:12,320
echo of one of kershe's raised. Tenants names change, but

1143
00:56:12,320 --> 00:56:16,320
the building's hunger doesn't. Three days went by. I tried

1144
00:56:16,320 --> 00:56:19,280
to focus on anything else, work, errands, even sitting with

1145
00:56:19,280 --> 00:56:21,880
the chatty neighbor as he recited stores of his grand kits.

1146
00:56:22,480 --> 00:56:25,239
But in the quiet late evenings early mornings, the sensation

1147
00:56:25,320 --> 00:56:28,119
of being watched returned, and a pattern asserted itself again.

1148
00:56:28,760 --> 00:56:32,079
Mail moved at strange eyurs. Footsteps crossed the hole outside

1149
00:56:32,119 --> 00:56:34,119
my door at two or three I never heard, always

1150
00:56:34,119 --> 00:56:37,719
measured as though rehearsed. One wet Friday, coming home late,

1151
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:40,400
I saw silhouette leaning against the far wall, hoard up

1152
00:56:40,440 --> 00:56:43,760
feature shaded. As I approached, she stepped directly into the

1153
00:56:43,760 --> 00:56:46,840
glow of the hallway light. It was Maria. Her eyes

1154
00:56:46,880 --> 00:56:49,199
flicked over my shoulder, testing the boundaries, then back to

1155
00:56:49,239 --> 00:56:52,599
meet mine. He can't stop it, she said, softly. They

1156
00:56:52,719 --> 00:56:55,360
just do it again and again, only new names. He tried,

1157
00:56:55,360 --> 00:56:58,239
But it's built into this place. Her cheeks looked pinch,

1158
00:56:58,360 --> 00:57:01,280
her hands chapped and row. She held a battered shopping

1159
00:57:01,320 --> 00:57:05,559
bag bulging with groceries. Are you hiding again? I whispered?

1160
00:57:06,199 --> 00:57:08,840
How did you get back in? Her smile was small

1161
00:57:08,880 --> 00:57:11,679
and sad. No one asked. They just let me walk in.

1162
00:57:11,800 --> 00:57:14,320
Everyone is new, I become cleaner or visitor. It's always

1163
00:57:14,360 --> 00:57:17,199
possible to join if nobody really sees you. Who's in

1164
00:57:17,239 --> 00:57:20,840
the old room? Naw, my question was pointed abrupt She

1165
00:57:20,920 --> 00:57:24,360
shook her head. Another one not safe, not really scared

1166
00:57:24,400 --> 00:57:26,719
to just alone. She'll stay until her least ends, and

1167
00:57:26,760 --> 00:57:29,320
then the next one comes. He saw how it works now. Yes,

1168
00:57:29,920 --> 00:57:32,480
he could go to the police again, give names, real accounts.

1169
00:57:32,519 --> 00:57:36,400
They can't ignore it. Twice Maria's gaze darted away. They

1170
00:57:36,400 --> 00:57:38,840
write different stories each time. Ye think they care, Ye

1171
00:57:38,840 --> 00:57:42,920
think the city cares. A bitterness, deep and exhausted kersh

1172
00:57:43,039 --> 00:57:45,039
He tried to protect some others he trapped. But all

1173
00:57:45,039 --> 00:57:48,119
the new management wants is quiet, no complaints, no news.

1174
00:57:48,519 --> 00:57:51,639
She looked, ready to cry. We keep watching, but nobody

1175
00:57:51,679 --> 00:57:54,159
changes anything. Maybe that's the real job. I watch you,

1176
00:57:54,280 --> 00:57:57,159
watch the building, likes having some one to remember. She

1177
00:57:57,239 --> 00:58:00,360
pressed the back into my arms, sudden and decisive. Take

1178
00:58:00,360 --> 00:58:02,320
it to the woman next door. Don't say it's from me.

1179
00:58:03,000 --> 00:58:06,599
I took it, nodding silently. Marie turned, walking away without

1180
00:58:06,599 --> 00:58:09,320
a backward glance, fading so quickly into the new brightness

1181
00:58:09,320 --> 00:58:11,000
of the hole that it felt like she was never there.

1182
00:58:11,559 --> 00:58:14,960
Inside my apartment, I opened the bag, food, yes, but

1183
00:58:15,000 --> 00:58:16,960
also a thin noteok with a battered cover, the kind

1184
00:58:17,039 --> 00:58:20,400
used as a ledger o' lock. I thumbed through names, states,

1185
00:58:20,440 --> 00:58:24,079
brief recordings of habits. The handwriting shifted uncertain, as if

1186
00:58:24,119 --> 00:58:26,800
multiple people had been updating it over time. At the

1187
00:58:26,840 --> 00:58:29,800
back a page called messily if you don't remember the girl.

1188
00:58:30,400 --> 00:58:32,519
I looked again at the wall where I'd heard the psalm.

1189
00:58:33,039 --> 00:58:36,559
The dreader turned, twined tightly with guilt. I knocked three times,

1190
00:58:37,119 --> 00:58:39,880
the faintest shuffle from the other side. I placed the

1191
00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:43,719
bag against the wall, then stepped back. No reply, but

1192
00:58:43,800 --> 00:58:46,400
a few minutes later, when I checked, it had vanished.

1193
00:58:47,239 --> 00:58:50,199
Only the notebook remained, now lying open to the inside cover,

1194
00:58:50,239 --> 00:58:53,559
where a message was written in bluink thank you. That

1195
00:58:53,760 --> 00:58:56,400
night I dreamed of corridors without doors, of name shuffled

1196
00:58:56,440 --> 00:58:58,719
in decks where the faces never quite matched the cords.

1197
00:58:59,159 --> 00:59:02,320
I woke, sweating the new daylight, cruelly indifferent. I made

1198
00:59:02,320 --> 00:59:05,320
a decision the next day at the library. I used

1199
00:59:05,320 --> 00:59:07,440
the public terminals to hunt for every scrap of Marston

1200
00:59:07,480 --> 00:59:11,519
Court's history it could find. Deed, change hands, Complaint records

1201
00:59:11,559 --> 00:59:15,079
ended abruptly, no matter how far back I went. Property

1202
00:59:15,119 --> 00:59:17,639
tax files revealed in time, months missing from the digital ledger,

1203
00:59:17,679 --> 00:59:21,239
gap years, unit numbers that didn't belong even in the archives,

1204
00:59:21,280 --> 00:59:24,079
the building of vative clarity. On my way up, the

1205
00:59:24,159 --> 00:59:28,239
librarian caught me. You researched city structures, don't you, She asked,

1206
00:59:28,400 --> 00:59:33,119
gentle curiosity masking awareness. I remember you from before, just

1207
00:59:33,159 --> 00:59:38,519
this building, I replied. She considered all places keep seacrets. Sometimes.

1208
00:59:38,559 --> 00:59:40,880
I grew up three blocks from Marston, which children weren't

1209
00:59:40,920 --> 00:59:43,239
to play in, nearly too many stores about people getting lost,

1210
00:59:43,320 --> 00:59:46,239
missing kids, stray dogs. A woman who never collected her

1211
00:59:46,239 --> 00:59:49,119
post parents said the apartments always its base, even when

1212
00:59:49,159 --> 00:59:51,840
the rest of the street overflowed. I waged whether to

1213
00:59:51,880 --> 00:59:55,599
push Did you know anyone who went missing? She nodded,

1214
00:59:56,280 --> 00:59:58,800
years ago my mother's friend. But the police just showed

1215
00:59:58,800 --> 01:00:01,119
to couldn't trace her. I'll lie Dlow told stories about

1216
01:00:01,159 --> 01:00:03,360
changing locks and forgetting which units were for like the

1217
01:00:03,360 --> 01:00:05,440
building needed as many people to be absent as to

1218
01:00:05,440 --> 01:00:09,000
be prison. Her eyes were sad. You know what it's like,

1219
01:00:09,119 --> 01:00:12,440
don't you. I could only nod. Armed with scraps of

1220
01:00:12,480 --> 01:00:15,719
old legend, I returned home the next evening. I set

1221
01:00:15,800 --> 01:00:18,239
up a small voice recorder in the vent. Microphone pointed

1222
01:00:18,239 --> 01:00:20,800
at the wall between myself and four B I wrote

1223
01:00:20,800 --> 01:00:24,000
a letter, simple, as anonymous as possible. If you're trapped,

1224
01:00:24,039 --> 01:00:27,840
if you want out, knock three times. I'll help. I

1225
01:00:27,880 --> 01:00:30,400
slid it under the baseboard, where only some one inside

1226
01:00:30,400 --> 01:00:34,159
would find. All night I have her waiting. The knox

1227
01:00:34,199 --> 01:00:36,639
never came. At dawn, I heard the shudder of a

1228
01:00:36,679 --> 01:00:40,360
lock disengaging next door, barely audible over the city's early chaos.

1229
01:00:40,960 --> 01:00:44,400
Pew shuffled, a plastic bag creaked. I cracked my door open,

1230
01:00:44,519 --> 01:00:47,880
purring into the corridor. There are young woman, little more

1231
01:00:47,920 --> 01:00:50,559
than a gull emerged Puddy pull tight heavy back back,

1232
01:00:50,599 --> 01:00:53,519
cunch against her shoulders. She glanced at my door, but

1233
01:00:53,559 --> 01:00:57,199
didn't meet my eyes. Her steps shuffled and her, but

1234
01:00:57,280 --> 01:01:01,039
not truly afraid. The rhythm said release, not escape. She

1235
01:01:01,119 --> 01:01:04,119
pressed the elevator call. When it arrived, she stepped in

1236
01:01:04,320 --> 01:01:07,440
and was gone. I have returned to my room. The

1237
01:01:07,480 --> 01:01:10,880
wall was quiet now whatever circle had just completed, and

1238
01:01:10,960 --> 01:01:14,000
NOLLA would soon begin. Outside, the sun hit the alley

1239
01:01:14,119 --> 01:01:17,400
just wrong, revealing a new dumpster. For a long moment,

1240
01:01:17,440 --> 01:01:19,960
I stood at the window, staring out, waiting for lightning

1241
01:01:19,960 --> 01:01:22,360
to strike or the wall to shift again, but the

1242
01:01:22,360 --> 01:01:26,400
patents remained. A week later, another envelope identical to the

1243
01:01:26,440 --> 01:01:30,159
lass my new face, new name, newday, Slightly needed handwriting,

1244
01:01:30,280 --> 01:01:33,559
but the message unchanged. I stared at the corridor, clean,

1245
01:01:33,760 --> 01:01:37,760
bright and yielding. The doors waited, patient as always. Someone

1246
01:01:37,800 --> 01:01:39,639
cried at the far end, and the cycle that all

1247
01:01:39,679 --> 01:01:43,559
persistence continued, indifferent to whether the watch is cared. It's memory,

1248
01:01:43,679 --> 01:01:46,039
not fear, that keeps the occupants in place. The building

1249
01:01:46,079 --> 01:01:48,360
does not let people disappear, not until every trace in

1250
01:01:48,440 --> 01:01:51,199
every name is gone. I closed my door, pressed the

1251
01:01:51,199 --> 01:01:52,920
card into the back of my wallet, and sat on

1252
01:01:53,000 --> 01:01:56,880
my striped bed, listening once more. Someone someway began to say.

1253
01:01:57,519 --> 01:01:59,880
I listened, and I remembered, and in that the bill

1254
01:02:00,039 --> 01:02:02,920
thing was satisfied for now,