Speaker 1: I didn't start recording these voice members until laughter the
second incident. But even now it's hard to remember what
pushed me to carry my phone and talk into the dark,
as if levia trail for myself through all these empty
corners to night. I started midweek through my regular round,
fifth floor, right before my hands slipped out of habit
and brought the flask light up onto my chin. The
light jittered across the old linoleum as my boots echoed,
Father done. In Unlike corridor, the upper floors of the
old Felman Building always have a hollow sound. At this
are at the vending machines, humming quietly at the hush
of the city, nowhere near enough to remind you people
might still be out there. I'd already counted the cleaning carts,
three down by the lower larby one towed into the
freight elevator with the ganitorial crew. None upstairs, nothing unusual
on the shift log. Nobody left in the building who
wasn't supposed to be here. But when I rounded the
corner between conference rooms seven hundred twelve and seven hundred fourteen,
er stretch had crossed half a dozen times in the
last Arab I found fresh coffee cup sitting did center
on a window sill. It wasn't just any cup. The
paper still felt hot. The aroma was unmistakable sweet, a
little burnt milk added. There was a bright pinkletzick smudge
in the rim, pressed, as if some one had just
set it down and planned to return around here. I'd
have expected a crumpled receipt, maybe a minden and stop,
but this cup looked deliberate. I stopped. Sure. There hadn't
been a woman's voice all night, not even on the intercom.
The staff list for to night I just checked it
before clocking in was all men, dead, quiet except for
the hump. I stooped to check the coffee for any
sign it had just been discarded, but it looked and
touched apart from that one livest at print. My hand
came up to pusha the windows, which rattled stubbornly lock
Since last September, I remembered after one of the layoffs,
a quick chill on the back of my neck wasn't
from the building's notorious draft. I decided to snap a
photo of the evidence. Impulse hard wired. After a dozen
nights running these rounds, then almost as if I was
being watched. I reached for my phone and before I
knew it, hit raker out loud. In the hush, I said,
seven floor two forty one one a m fan coffee
still warm, lookstick mark, no one should be here. Staff
all checked in downstairs, logging for records. It sounded perfunctory,
but not as calm as usual. I scanned the whole way,
feeling for any trace of heat, to scuffle in the desks,
a faint perfume. Nothing. I gathered the cup Robert Loves
Always in a back pocket and slipped it into an
unused evidence bag from an old stinted and security, something
I'd hung on to for no good reason. There was
a flicker in the ceiling light overhead, synchronized with the
vending machine grumbling nearby. I have candy bar glimmerd awkwardly
in the slot, as if abandoned mid descent. The silence
felt softocating, not the inviting emptiness from when I had
first started, but awaited stillness. I caught myself watching from
my own reflection in the window, peering for something left
behind by whoever had been here. The bolding's usual background noised,
the low drone of fans that his evaging radiators faded
until it was just me in the sound of my pulse.
Should I call it in? Would management even believe me?
Last time I reported a jam bafoom stole on this floor,
they logged at routine maintenance and told me to let
the day's staff sort it. The time before, missing keys
in the sub basement meant nothing until three weeks later,
when a spare finally turned up wristed on my own ring.
I'd learned how little oddities mattered to the day shift.
Still this felt different, maybe because I'd rarely seen lipstickire,
never this shade. Never. After midnight, after one last breath,
I left the stale perfume there, clinging to the window,
and moved off toward the stairwell, tucking the cup into
my jacket beneath the flashlight. As I reached for the knob,
I said, half under my breath for the recording. Can't
be the first weird thing I've found, But this one
doesn't settle. The stairwell door creaked, closing out the floor
in its secrets, just as the vending machines hum rose
one final pitch back. Then before that night, everything in
my world followed a pattern and mostly felt like I
was on the outside looking in. The Feldman had been
part of my life longer than I ever meant it
to be. I had worked security at bigger buildings, places
with busy lobbies, late night workers, and an endless supply
of virgin problems. But the Felman was different. When the
economy tanked, the tenants vanished one by one, a seal
supply firm, a design start up, some kind of consulting
office that never see seemed to have meetings. They shuttered
those suites, fired the cleaning staff, and left the placco around.
Then my days at the new hootad job vanish, and
the security contract he has somehow found me again with
half my old pay in twice the responsibility. I was
let go in the first round, along with most of
the regular maintenance. Months later a call came, would I
take part time irist so low, just overnight, just until
normal returned. I needed the money, so I said yes,
even though I recognized the worry in my stomach as
a Fusal's ghost. I told myself the quiet would be
good for writing or reading, but really it was for
staying out of my own head. My shift always started
the same clock in at the security death third floor,
and now after the lobby with dancers, pick up the flashlight,
radio and batted folder with RAND sheets, make the first
circuit stairwells, elevator, lobbies, corner offices. There wasn't much to
do after that. Read old magazine, sweep the feeds on
aging camera monitors, taught notes in the log book. Hope
the cleaning crew would leave me half of whatever take
out the manage between shifts, the place became a routine
of sounds and habits, the elevator's tired wine, the pop
of an automatic door closer, giving up, distant mutters from
tenants working lad in lock rooms. Security policy said I
was to check every door, every mechanical room, every elevator,
wrote for really everything, once per hour. Sometimes I cheated
if nobody had been through, if the air still smelled
of lemon pledge and not sweat or fruit. In downtime,
I'd sit behind the faded glass of the control room,
watching slow moving men pushing carts, arguing softly in Russian
or Tagalog or Spanish. As this groved away evidence of
the building's better days, sometimes through the overhead camera I'd
catch glimpses right before dawn, people leaving in a hurry,
a jacket slung over his shoulder, trushed back, cinched in slumlies.
The maintenance and cleaning crews ran invisible. They changed light bulbs,
round cable in the ceiling, past her at odd eyos
with mops brooms, and the same resigned hunching their shoulders.
Face is blurred in the bad video. Uniforms always a
little too big. Most indtop to security more than once,
often only to hand in badges at the end of
the night, sometimes not even that. I learned their names
by habit Alexe with the heavy keys, Lino who repaired
syncs with his own tools, Orge, the window cleaner who
sang to himself during the small liars. Some nights, some
one would just stop showing up. No one notice, no
good bye. Most of the time nobody cared enough to ask.
There were a few rumors hushed in private less about
misfortune and annoyance. That the empty rooms on the seventh
floor were haunted. That a ron badge swipe would lock
you into the sub basement, That if he knocked too
hard on the all safe in the main office, something
inside would not back. I never believed in ghosts of superstitions,
but I noticed how the staff avoided certain maintenance hatches.
Some doors had never opened since I started, covered in
gray paint, no fresh handprints in the latches. This door
was always fell colder, but I assumed it was lost
the insulation. If I'm being truthful, I made a habit
of keeping private wreckers, not just the reports, which when
I'm read, but voice memos on my phone. Maybe I
wanted to prove to myself that something happened each night.
Oh maybe I thought some day, if HR or the
police came around out of evidence, I wasn't just a
bath under. In any case, no one listened but me
that routine had become almost comforting predictable, the safe shelter
for an overactive mind. I'd carried the same battered flashlight circle,
the same dim corridors, listened to the same piping hissen
clatter from unseen machinery. I believed, and tell the lipstick
cup that nothing in the building could be less predictable
than management's latest round of cutbacks. But as the night
after finding a cup reminded me, even dull routine's hide patents,
you don't want to see. Following night, I sat down
to log the lipstick cup incident, half expecting to reassure
myself it was nothing. Instead, my attentions snagged on a small,
often detail, the absence of Alexei. He was always among
the last to leave, occasionally leaving a thumbs behind, always
missing from rounds for only minutes at a time, easy
to write off as a deo syncratic. He should have
signed out by five a m. But the badge locks
showed nothing. I scrolled through the night's records. No exit swipe,
no service ticket for the seventh floor, just a usual
list of completed bathroom or fills and rack changes. This
wasn't the first time I realized that staffer had slipped
away from the periphery of my attention. I pulled up
labor records from a few weeks earlier, and name cis
ar H disappeared from the schedule. His last recorded activity
cleard a phantom maintenance request for Sweet seven hundred diteen,
afore that had supposedly been sil since last year. Again,
no signaup h hour shirked it off as a no show.
Quit in an email, automated and indifferent I thought of
all the aftershocks, who covered would shift the next night,
whose lockers sat empty for weeks after? When I pressed
into old incident locks, a pattern began to emerge. Every
few weeks, an overnight staff of vanisholmost always a cleaner
of the tea maintenant hand, always with a complete paperwork.
Official explanations grew increasingly feeble, must as skip badge at
they come and go. Each instant was quickly glossed over,
staff replaced without a word. A flicker interrupted the unending
blue glow of the monitors at my desk. The elevator,
which should have been idle dinged open with nobody in sight,
door slowly retracting. I stood at tention, collecting across my shoulders,
tearing down the corridor, I listened hard. Only my own
footsteps answered. I checked the display. Seventh floor again was
the last stop. I walked the corridor, pass poles of
dormant fulorescent light, running my hand along dusty, half white glass.
At the end, the fire door security bar shuddered when approached.
Chill air crept around my ankles, the hum of compressors
filling in for any sign of another humor. My mind
returned to the lifsty cup. How fresh it had been,
how real its owner must have been standing perhaps just
out of sight moments before me. Back at the desk,
I slid into the battered chair and flicked through more logs.
A name here or their missing from a shift server's
requests mysteriously closed half an iolate. Nobody else cared, but
with each missing person a little weight pressed harder against
the back of my thoughts. I pressed record again, if
anyone checks this cleaner missing Alexey it did around last night?
No sign out, badge and active last scene, possibly round
phantom requests for seventh floor patter matches others. No answer
came from the ceiling, just another series of distant dings
from the elevator, always returning empty. I decided then to
check the locks myself, from as far back as I
could access. I, stinging from the glare, it dove into
the library of drive images and silver back ups, left
mostly to rop behind and expired passwords and locked doors.
The beige computer towers nestled amongst unlabeled wires, still powered
on barely if he knew which circuit to use. Each
night of a disappearance showed the same at two or
three in the morning, the camras covering elevators and corridor
intersections would glutch frames, skipped, feeds dropped for six minutes
eight minutes, always ride as a staffers runs with them
in the vicinity of the seventh floor. When the feeds returned,
there'd be no sign of anyone. The logbook would note
in admin override and the surveillance account the mysterious as
you see route completing an audit cycle that nobody in
the staffroster could claim. I made notes writing in the
backs of old forms, afraid to type anything into the
company system. Each instance spelled it clearly someone with access
and the ability to vanish from the audited logs was intervening.
I felt, for the first time someone else in the
building with me, not just a co worker, but a
hidden operator running the place after ires, using the very
tools men for safety to do something I was certain
wasn't supposed to happen. Toward the end of my shift,
I finally went to talk to tan At the day manager.
She breezed in as usual, Lotte in hand, I was
always slightly reddened by lack of sleep. I cornered her
by the mailboxes hey, quick thing, I started. Have you
seen any badge ins for Alexey? He didn't sign out
and h she cut me off. Probably Skepta. They do
that all the time. I'll email HR, but honestly, half
as cleaners find better jobs and never tell us badge
gets turned off in a week. She looked at her watch.
There anything else? I hesitated. There have been four disappearances
like this in the last three months, always with these
weird locks found in tickets, admin locks, forged initials. Any
chance someone's messing with the system. Towner's gaze flickered, closing
like a steel trap. If you're finding weird locks, just
file night you request, don't stress people quick people leave.
She pivoted heels, echoing your way. I stood there for
a moment, anger, wrestling with something less noble relief at
not being forced to explain deeper. I took the elevator
down to the subassinet to check something. When nobody was around.
I set the panel into service mode and punched every
combination I could think of to my shark. A new
set of floor options appeared on the tiny a dated display.
It sown stew up two r S five and then
a blank patch of unlit keys. When I tried to
press the lower numbers, the panel buzzed and refused access,
blinking ADM and key required. My badge did nothing. Still
the panel responded as if it was waiting for someone.
I noted how the air always turned crisp on the
seventh floor, how I passed doors that seemed to close
on their own, whispering forward like a wind just behind
my shoulder. Mechanical humming grew louder ran certain walls, as
though something on the other side was running all night
without any record. In the maintenance lock back at the
staff room, I slipped open Alexei's locker, expecting it white
clean already, but everything was still inside overalls, the same
battered sneakers, a folded transit card, and the broken house
of his employee. Badge snapped deliberately and dropped in the
back corner. No one else's things had been disturbed. It
looked like he'd intended to come back for them, all
that someone had decided his return was not an option.
On my next for his memo, I spoke quietly, as
if someone might overhear. Even now something's wrong. People disappear,
systems blink and lockout at the same time. Every incident badged,
now apped, not deactivated. I heard myself breathing caught in
the mic outside the locker room. The vending machine wore down,
as if into pating power loss. I steadied myself before
walking back out into the lawn dim halls. It was
after this, near the edge of sleep the next morning,
that I convinced myself to go through the old taped
examining the night Alexei vanished. Security footage was never good,
always fuzzed with static. But that night something in the
center of the seventh floor hallway moved, a human shape,
blurred by bad compression and lackless stow lighting. Not Alexey,
not any one. I recognized the figure. Palls head bowed,
and in a motion too quick to be friendly, ushered
Alexe to a door we marked authorized personnel. Only that
door should have been sealed years ago. Its excess light
had been dead since I started. I ruined the tape
counting frames at the same moment Alexey was led away.
The logs recorded an abmin override, not from my consul,
not from any known control room, from inside the building,
but nowhere maps I stared at the file's hands damp
and twitching. Either someone else was in the building, another ship,
another well for staff were being led away somewhere no
badge nor loppoo could confirm. I remembered the lipstick cup
so recently left behind, with heat and shape and intention.
Who would be clever enough to bypass every safeguard? And why?
I caught my own reflection in the screen as Bruce
with fatigue. I had a choice, I realized that hadn't
existed when this started. I could look the other way,
claim ignorance and collect my check. Or I could try
to find out where the buildings missing staff were. The
truth had gone. In the end, curiosity was stubborness one
out overfear. I told myself I'd get real proof or
walk away for good. I still had Alexi's half broken badge,
a lipstick cup, and the way of a job that
had never been just sticking boxes on a clipboard. The
next night, in the first hour of my shift, I
climbed into the elevator and stared hard at the service panel,
the blank on lip buttons. I pulled my phone out,
thumbed wrecker and whisper tonight, I'm going to look for
what's really underneath us? The doors closed behind me, leaving
only the flickering clow of the exit sign and the
restless hum of things kept moving far too quietly, for
far too long to night. I'm going to look for
what's really underneath us. The doors closed behind me, leaving
only the flickering glow of the exit sign and the
restless sum of things kept moving far too quietly for
far too long. Standing alone in the elevator, I pressed
the seven, expecting nothing more dramatic than the floor's chilly
draft and the hy keeping lights. Matan hovered over the
row of a marked metal beneath the main buttons. The
service panel faded, taped torn off years before, left a stubborn,
sticky residue. I slowed a finger nail along the gap,
Searching half way up. I let my breathing slow. My
reflection in the stainless steel doors looked ashen exhausted, the
kind of person who'd lost track of their own eyos
and their own motives. I tried not to listen for
anything between the usual groans and size of the cap.
No foot falls, no voices from unseen floors. I felt
for the badge piece in my pocket saw at jagged
edge once moved from anxious rubbing. The elevator jerked a
little as it approached the seventh floor, a lig I
had noticed on nets. When the building seemed dentiest, I
slipped the badge fragment along the crease of the panel,
not sure what result, I hoped for the cost the
lights flickered, I caught the faintest sent old coffee, maybe
the ghost of perfumed sweet and like nothing I could
put a name to. When the doors finally opened, I
wasn't sure if I expected someone waiting, maybe whoever had
left the cup. But the corridor stayed empty, just a
stretch of scufflinoleum and Smote's wheeling and stuttering fluorescent half light.
I stepped out, heart awkward in my chest, flask light
in one hand, the other hand still in my pocket.
I walked to the glass, conference sweet and pressed my
palm to the lock door. It vibrated with the familiar chill.
No sounds, only the hum of machinery at the pulse
of my boots tipsicko in off ugly gray walls. I
tried the knob, not a millimeter of give. As I
turned back, I noticed a front trail of what looked
like a white mark leading from the door across the floor,
a crouch holding the bean close. Following the arc, it
varnished against the flat nickel plated doors of the lawn
on a new supply closet. The closet was supposed to
be for network cable Storg. I'd never seen it open,
not once in years. A duster a label clung crooked
in the jam netmanas seven. I tried my generic staff key,
expecting not, but with a subtle click, the door swung open.
Inside stale air and the dry, burnt plastic sent of
old electronics, empty spools, a coil of bundled eath in
it and pushed against the wall a battered rolling cart
with an old arrow marked logo. Someone had swept the
middle section of the floor, leaving a neat rectangle of
new dust. I scanned the shelves, finding nothing obviously out
of place. Then, behind a faded stack of fiber reels,
my knuckle bumped something cold. I reached back and dragged
out a second coffee cup, lidless and nearly identical to
the one I taken the night before. The interior glistened
with a thin film of still wet coffee. Another lipsick
mark wavered on the rim, different the deeper red, but unmistakable.
As I stay it, the overhead bull popped. A surge
of darkness filled the closet. My heart pounded, breath pulled
tight in my throat. The flashlight casts fronted shadows in
the shelves, sending plastic coils ringing quietly. A clatter of
my elbow bumping metal made me jump with hard hands.
I bagged the cup, then pulled the door shut behind me,
listening for footsteps. The corridor, indistinguishable from ten minutes earlier,
had shifted. The sense of space seemed subtly rearranged, as
if some one had passed through while my back was turned.
Two cups, two nights, I muttered to my pahne voy
steadier than I felt, both fresh. Some one keeps coming
up here, but there's no record. I pressed myself back
against the cool wall, thinking the lips to color changed
night at me in a slow, persistent way. I ran
through the staff list again. No woman's scheduled, not even
for atman, no exceptions. Not After the lost round of cutbacks,
I started walking, breathing, quietly scanning familiar room numbers for anything,
askew a sweet seven hundred twenty eight. The door wabbled
as I touched the handle. It was locked, but not cleanly.
It felt jammed, half sealed, like someone had forced it
days before. I put an ear to the crack. At
first nothing, then a faint electric wine barely there, as
if a server or battery powered device was running deep inside.
That was new. Nobody had used the seven flour comfent
centisins dancizing, not even the TIC tenants who used to
rend over flow space for meetings. I reached up, feeling
for the old security seal. It was gone. Some one
had peeled the tape, left barely a shadow in the dust.
Before I could think better of it, I tried my badge,
still dead at this door, same as always. I reached
in my pocket, rehearsing the movement for the old broken badge,
half considering if the system might treat it differently. Instead,
something settle caught my eye. At the base of the
threshold where the door met the floor. A slip of
paper stuck out. I knelt and tugged it free, cleaning
schedular reel printed slip tot his date at the top,
the name Alexeius and the assigned by column, the time blank.
The lower half of the page stained with what looked
like oil or coffee. My mind turned steadily mapping lines
between the two lips to cups, the bad half, the
missing staffers, the unexplained service requests. I wavered, thinking of
the old rumors had a claners muttered about blind spots
and doors that didn't open for every one. Nowhere else
in the building kept evidence of presents. So then, rather
than stole on the upper floors with my thoughts circling,
I turned back toward the elevator. The carshtired, waiting, doors
open as if expecting me. Panel reflected my shape, elongated
by uneven florescent glow. The rest for super vulcune through
as five looked new within the rest, their plastic covers
and warm. With nervous fingers, I tapped the service mode
badge against the sensor. The display blinked, access denied. I
tried to broken badge, an electronic scrape, then another refusal.
Yet the lowest button S five flashed faintly, as though
it responded to a different key. I reached the control
panel edge, hunting for the scene where the face plate
lifted down near the base, A dusty patch of screws
had been scored with fresh metal. Someone recently had pried
it open. I pressed at the bottom right corner, remembering
how Alexey had once popped loose a panel with the
heel of his hand to reset a jam. The metal shifted,
clicking outward. A hidden keep had as old as the
building itself, winked in the dark pad scuffed to invisibility.
I stared, my hand rose without thinking to punch woman
as Nieman A six minutes three of the first numbers
I saw scrapched in the cleaning closet, barely visible under
a torn sticker. There was a pause, a beap, like
an old piece of powering up. The cug groaned, and
with a shudder, began to descend past the non basement.
Panic momentarily stopped me, a dizzing moment of fear that
I disabled safety breaks and we crashed down into wet foundation.
But the cab slowed and stopped as gently as ever
at the doors, potting on to darkness and the concrete
tang of heavy air. The overhead bulb sickly yellow flickered
but stayed on. I stepped out into a corridor and
like anything above ground stripped of paint. Pipes crawling along
the ceiling, Metal doors shut tight. The air was cold
but heavy, thick with dust and hints of chemical cleaner. Footsteps.
My own fell dead against battered concrete. I pulled out
my phone and started another message, short tents, this is
something different. I managed the sub basement, no light except
above elevator. Four doors all marked, smell of bleach or solvent.
I waved the flashlight in a slow arc. At the
first door, I pressed my ear close and how faint
far away. The clatter of metal like tools dropped to
a work bench. At the second, only the low, persistent
rattle of ventilation. A faded sign above the third, red
service utility letters mostly raised. At the last door, nothing
until I noticed a scuffed patch of wool next to
the latch, a place repeatedly brushed by clothing or hands.
I tried the handle, locked but loose, as if the
mechanism in side broke decades before. I gave it a
firmer shake, regretting the noise immediately. For a breathless moment,
I waited for a shout, footsteps, some sign of some
one just out of sight. Nothing, And yet I could
not escape the certainty inhuman cold, like an old superstition,
that some one had just walked the very same path
moments before me. Against reason, I pressed on down the
rightmost corridor. A spill of old light faltered under a door.
There at last I heard voices. Pausing, I ducked into
a dark niche for breakers and old cables, congregated like
a spider's den. I listened two men muttering words, muffled
and indistinct, then resolving briefly. It doesn't come back until three.
They know that door not supposed to you. A shifting
of weight at door scraping, then silence. I dared two
steps forward, holding my breath. Their voices had seemed wrong,
thick with foreign inflection, Russian or Ukrainian, maybe hard to tell.
I waited, counting each in hale until the corridor quite
it entirely. By the time I found the courage to move,
the hall had cold noticeably. I ducked past the lit thirshold,
careful not to break the sharer edge, where light pulled
onto the concrete. The room beyond ran deeper than the
blueprint suggested. A workroom in fact, with battered benches, the
detritus of cleaning supplies and old tools. Two battered lockers,
their paint long flaked away, stood ajar. One was empty
but for a torn shirt than a stack of battered
tank cards. The other held a mug with the logo
of an old logistics company, and beside it a woman's
windbreaker red with white piping. The pocket carried a lipstick tube,
the shade matching the first cup. A six sense of
trespas swept over me. No female workers had been on
staff in months. The monk was still warm. Behind me
in the hole, the whine of power was overtaken by
a dull, rubbic thud salivator machinery, or perhaps the footsteps
of someone climbing slow and patient. I pressed on nerves,
fraying with each step. The flashlight beam traced over peeling
asbestos warning tape between exposed cinder block seams. Rats or
something smaller had chewed old insulation at the baseboards. I
caught another sent not coffee or perfume, nel, but something
sharp like medical cleaner, tinged with ethanol. As I rounded
the corner, at the end of the hall. My heart stopped.
Fresh scuff marks unmistakable now arked away from the water
batted steel door. Next to it, a battered staff badge
had diagonally had been forced into the gap, keeping it
just slightly ajar. I put my eye to the slot,
unsure if I wanted to see what was on the
other side. Faint blue light cut through haze. Some one
had set up a row of led angled low a
cock movem in two figures, backs turned facing what looked
like a makeshift desklitterd with loose folders, printed forms in
cyrillic and free cell of fin wroted sandwiches. There slutched
in a second chair was alexis familiar silhouette, head down,
arms tidelessly in front with a fraying nylon cord. My
pulse hammered. I reached slowly, carefully around the door and
eased it open with one trembling hand. My luck held.
The men at the table did not look up. Instead,
the third slutch figure gave a soft groan, head lolling.
I recognized his boots before I was even certain Alexeys
with the thick sick ties on the laces. He joked
about to keep his feet dry. One of the captors
rose and spoke anger sharp in the new quiet, faster upstairs.
Soon no more delays, the other grun did, returning his
focus to a batter tablet. Lines of gibberish scrip flickering
across the display on the desk, stack of badges, some broken,
some hole gleamed in nili eds bill I counted at
least five are a rainbow of old felm and colors.
A bat had clip board at the edge, carried a
form induction check as so, but the rest was in
a line wuage. I couldn't read. My mind worked feverishly,
running through everything I knew. If these men had taken
Alexey and others, where had they come from? They didn't
match any cleaning crew or night engineer had ever seen, locked,
their badges too intact, too generic. Had they entered from
outside through forgotten tunnels or maintenance splices, routes that bypassed
every camera except the old, unreliable lobby ones. Or had
they been here inside all this time? A soft electric
pop cut the moment the power blink to the old
cycle of breakdowns I had come to expect without thinking,
I ducked back, pressed flat against the wall, and waited.
As the lights flickered again. The two men rose, voices converging,
shoes clicking briskly on the concrete goat check elevator. One
ordered English, broken but forceful. I stilled every muscle, squeezing
myself into the crack between an old utility locker and
the frame. A shape passed by a heavy set man
with close cropped gray hair, not some one I'd ever
seen before. He brushed past, passing with an arm's reach,
muttering curses under his breath as he reached the emergency stairs.
Once the corridor emptied, I crept back to the gap
and risked another look. The second man had left as well.
The first one, the one who'd spoken to Alexey, was
busy rifling through the paperwork, humming quietly oblivis. Beside him,
the lips to cup mine sat, now empty, as if
train during a long shift. The electric come build again
as back up power reasserted itself. I realized far too
late that I'd left my phone screen still Dame Member
recording visible in my jackets outside pocket. The man at
the desk cocked his head, eyes narrowing a froze. He approached,
face illuminated at ghastly blue by the ilide. I caught
a glimpse fine lions, sharp cheap bones, a blank security land,
not hanging loose. He drew close, bent, and then just
as quickly turned back. There had been just the briefest
moment in the space between his noticing and his turning,
when he stared into the gloom. I felt certain in
that split second that he knew someone was there, but
he made no sign. Instead, he gathered the cops the badges,
and was a practice move, swept them into heavy canvas sack.
He turned back to Alexey, shook him by the shoulder,
and said softly, time to go. They left together through
the heavy reudoor. I heard the clock of metal on concrete,
and then only silence. I pressed myself against cold cement,
hand shaking. The room felt empty, now not safe, but
skyrid of whatever had just transpired. On the desk overlooked.
The lipstick tube glinted beneath the chair, next to a
batter of folder labeled personnel and ternal use only. I
snatched both, stuffing them into my jacket, and retreated the
way I had come. The corridor silent now echoed every
step I took. At the elevator bank, I rest hitting
the up button. The car arrived slowly, haunted by the
scent of sweat and cleaning solution. I ducked inside, dialing
three for the main security off. As the doors closed,
I risked another voice memo, careful to let my whisper
vanish into the Drone of the motors found Alexey alive.
Others too, maybe two men, maybe more. Using floor sealed
in old plants, staff badges piled induction forms in a
language I couldn't read, leaving have evidence lipstick folder will
decide what to do. When I reached the surface, the
elevator rose. Each four felt longer than the last, as
if it hesitated, thinking, considering before granting passage. At the third,
the doors parted. I stepped out, wishing for the first
time since all the started that someone might be waiting.
But the control rooms stood empty, monitors still rolling off
dead angles, log books opened to blank smudge pages. I
sat light headed, waiting for my polster calm. On the desk,
I laid out what I had taken the lips to
tuope the battered folder. Opening the folder, I found more
induction checklists. Names I recognized Cizar, then not two others
who vanished scrolled at the bottom of the top page,
and shaky blue ink was a single word in English door,
followed by a series of numbers in symbols I couldn't pass.
I copied everything, took photo after photo with my phone,
and then locked it away. The lipstick tube, when clicked open,
held stub the color of bruise chair as the very
mark I'd seen on last night's cup. All the while,
a question pulsed at the base of my skull. How
long had people been taken? Who brought them here? And
why did management, the surface staff pretend nothing was happening.
The longer I sat, the more I felt the building
breeding around me, a soft, almost imperceptible shift in the
quality of air, the faintest whisper in Dutch wrook above
I could feel, somewhere out of sight, the eyes of
unseen watchers blinking on monitors even older than the cracked
tubes greens in my office. I realized finally that the
seventh floor was never the trap. It was the threshold,
the hinge, the place where everything else lost badges, lipstick cups, missing,
Nan slipped quietly out of sight my shift and died
hours later. But I didn't leave. Instead, I printed my
log entries, filed my own incident report the way the
books directed, and tucked my phone into the lining of
my jacket. If some one was in the other end
reviewing the Knight's footage, they'd see nothing more than a
tired man finishing his rounds, pausing a little too long
at doors that nobody else opened yet. As I set
my badge down for the night, I heard the elevator
chime behind me, A heavy step crossing the tile, one
I'd never cataloped in all my endless record keeping. The
step paused, waited, and then moved away into deeper shadow.
I let the buildings hum fill the silence, pressing save
on my final memo, this is an over not for me,
not for them. I didn't sleep at all that morning,
didn't even try to lay my head down. I spent
those slow eyurs with the blinds drawn, jacket bunch behind
my back lighting the events replay in my mind while
my phone's battery bled down to red. Tho own arrived
without ceremony. The city outside the Felman's windows soft and slow,
but inside the building it felt as though something was
coiled tighter than ever. I kept my head low in
the third floor control room and left my badge on
the table. After copying everything I'd stolen from below, the
folder with the cyrillic induction forms, the single battered lipstick too,
the audio files. Those I gripped so hard that when
I finally walked out, my knuckles hurt. I'd meant to
keep my exit unremarkable, but something must have changed. I
passed a janitor in the stairwell, one i'd never seen,
stocky board, shouldered, face half hidden under an oversized ball cap,
pushing a wooden mock cot far too old for the
usual supplies. He watched me as I pass Gaye steady
and linking his mop. Water sloshed as a brush passed.
The tang of this infectant cutting through the stale corridor.
Air outside the city felt foreign, some light falling differently
on the brick and glass. I tried to turn my
mind to anything else, but the memory of Alexey's blank
face hovered. I tried his number once from a battered
paye paon at the bus stop. The line rang up
for over a minute no answer. By the time I
reached home, the tension in my muscles only deepened. The
evidence I'd gathered the Leipsick tube folder dozens of times
sad voicemos felt too small for what I'd found. I
wanted to tear off my uniform to be some one
else entirely, but my name tag still glinted up from
the kitchen table as I laid the folder. Dam My
hand shook just slightly. As I dialed Tanny's office line,
ready to deliver the news. The coal rang four times,
then a cliff force mail. You've reached Hannimmeler Facilities management.
Leave a message. I cleared my throat, trying to keep
my voice low. Controlled detail. This is about last night shift.
Evidence taken, audio documents, items need to discuss missing staff's abasement, access,
badge anomalies. I found Alexey alive but not in control.
Others two it's all on my phone. Call me. I
set the phone down and let the silence ham in
my pocket, the badge half pressed hard into my thigh
edges um forgiving my jacket, still carrying the pharmacy smelled
from the abasement hung heavy on my chair. I considered,
not for the first time, that I might have crossed
a line that couldn't be uncrossed. Still, I waited another call,
maybe another explanation, but nothing came. Instead. I hours later
I found myself hunched at the edge of my couch
drafting an email I doubted any one would ever read.
I attached scans of the internal use only forms I
clipped in which of Alexei slouched in the blue glow
of this abasement ALIDI the date and time flashing clear
up top. I described the admin override on the log server,
the fountom badge numbers the sequence of missing staff that
had never been properly flagged. I hit send, watched the
spinning up, putting chum for a full minute before closing
the laptop. I tried town as line a second time,
still voicemail. I left a shorter message voice tight call
me some once in danger. Somewhere in the doll flood
of my heart, I knew the consequences would come. I
tried to eat microwaved a sandwich, stared at the badge
fragment as if it might answer the thousand questions I
hadn't quite voiced. By lunch time, nothing had changed, I dully,
except behind my eyes. By late afternoon, I checked the
login for my security company's portal, in valid credentials. The
page blit three times in a row. I searched for
my reports in the back up folder, empty strip cleaned,
the directories flattened as if never built. Might email bounced
off the company server. The help desk number when dialed
rang busy. I sat with all the empty space where
my job had been. It was only when I checked
my phone's gallery, trying to email the lost batch of
photos that I realized the images of the sub basement
folder and lapstock tube were gone. The leaded not by accident,
but as if scrub by a clean up till I'd
never installed. Three audio memos, my encounter in the closet,
the whisper at the elevator, the hurried recording as I
left with Alexis fold of all missing. My head swam,
I could tiss bile in my mouth. On habit, I
reached for a spareth thump drive, coughing what files remained
on to it, what little hadden disappeared already, with shaking fingers,
I sealed the drive into a stamped envelope, addressed it
to an old friend in the public offendo's office. My
note was short, almost childish in its plainness for records,
please check if anything happens. I dropped it in a
street mail box, heart racing as if I toss evident
straight into a fire. By dusk, I was sure some
one was watching me, cause I barely recognized idled outside
too long. Once rounding the corner to the market, I
caught a woman in a khaki jacket looking straight at me.
She wore sunglasses, but I could feel screwtiny drew them.
I heard home locking the door behind me forrid to
even draw the curtains. That night, sleep was out of
the question. I paced from window to door and back,
jacking the locks again and again. The badge fragment sat
on my kitchen table beside the lipstick too both too
solid and too light. I worried the edges of both
with nervous fingers, hands never quite settling my phone bars.
Near midnight, a block number. I snapped it up. No
voice at first, only the rossov breathing, then a harsh
click silence returned. I didn't try the number again. A
front page new sight reported an incident at a chemical
plan across the river. Possible workers exposed fire in a
storage room. Investigation pending, no mention of names, no hint
of the foul men, but the timing left me uneasy.
The next morning, I knew with absolute certainty that I
was at the very least set of a job. When
I arrived at the Filman to collect my last things,
a glass entry doors wouldn't open. My badge registered deactivated
Tan's office. When I called from outside, didn't pick up.
I rattled the bars on the alley entrance for good measure,
but no one appeared through the glass. The lobby looked
an altar, same battered plastic chairs, same closed security window,
same scent of all four wax. But I could see
beyond the lobby the elevator doors already opened in a
bundle trush cart wedge just inside, as if someone had
swept the place suddenly, leaving the ordinary chaos and disturbed.
I pressed my forehead to the glass, felt the distant
shoal through the sun's glare, and waited. No one buzzed
me in the empty lobby reflected my silhouette blurred by
morning light. I went home with a bad shod and
the tube a heavy dulic building in my chest. That night,
the phone rang again. This time a muffled message rolled through,
don't come back to the building, words clit and traceable.
I saved the file, though I already knew it meant nothing.
Two days bled to three news folded in the cuts
at the Felman Security contructor corporate restructuring, a right sizing
that eliminated half the city jobs, including mine. No official explanation,
no payout of according to the HR sites almost apologetic FAQ.
My friend from the Public Defender's office called me. Envelope arrived.
She said quickly, what is this? These forms? Who's missing?
The line crackled, and she went on, you want me
to go public with this, because if I do, you'll
have to testify names, states, all of it. Her voice
faded as she read off the time locks. I'd barely
managed to capture two forty one M Lipsey Cap three
fifty num elevator to some an unauthorized Axis four M
A non mail escorting employee has twenty one seventy seven
alexeis the sub basement, no return scan five numbers at
least two surnames that match missinclaner listings, and this, she hesitated,
what's in the induction checklist. I can't figure out what
any of it means. I took a long breath. The
words came as if from some one else. There's something
under the building, a whole second crew. Not on company books.
They are taking people. We don't know where, not even why.
The surface staff all look the other way. If you dick,
it will get ugly for you two. She paused, Then
her tone sharpened. You found evidence of a kidnapping. You
realize that, I tried to explain, and finished paperwork. The
system overrides the hidden rooms, she pressed. Do I take
this to the police the city. You need to decide now.
For a moment, I saw the blue, aliedy lit rooms again,
the piled badges, the phases blowed by uncertainty in sleep. Finally,
I said, give me one more day to get you
everything I have, that includes the badge, the lips to
two prescriptions. Then go public if you have to, She
reluctantly agreed. I felt the edge of trust between us,
free and certain, but not yet cut. When I hung up,
I was certain somebody at the Feldman was erasing every
digital record and closing every physical door. The next move
was mine. Sleep eluded me again that night. The air
in my apartment felt heavy, as if a new wiring
cull through the walls unseen. That was when the knock came,
three firm wraps deep and resident on my front door.
I stopped breathing. I stood frozen, fallen in one hand,
badge half pressed in the other. On the other side, silence.
I waited a minute, another dared to peek through the people.
No one except for an envelope slipped under the door,
edges bent by the rug. I crouched, hand trembling and
picked it up. Inside I found the lipstick mocked coffee cup,
scrub clean, with a printed slip of paper tucked inside.
The message was short, in large bloff type, don't come back,
this is your final shift, no signature. I slumped against
the wall anklas. Every instinct told me not to return,
not to dig deeper. But the badge half pressed into
my palm shop enough to draw a bead of blood,
reminded me at some doors, once they opened, have to
be walked through. An hour or later, against all imbals,
I was up dress, already walking the city blocks. Back
to the felt a low misclung to the streets, crossed
the intersection a sedan idol teulon at the corner, headlights
buried in fog. I hunched my collar, walking faster, badge,
half grip, whit knuckled. The felmin's outline grew clearer, hulking
red brick and glass, A living prisons in the city dusk.
I circled once, checking all the doors. Each one walked
tighter than the night before. But the alley where the
loading dot met an ancient metal staircase had a single
window open, just enough to let in a fatal shell.
I tried it and screwed the latch with my Swiss army,
forced the sash and slid inside. I landed lightly in
the darkened storm. The scent of mildew and old copy
paper thick. The building polls more than ever. Every fan,
pipe and wire humming in anticipation, urging me forward, or
perhaps warning me away. My entrance must have triggered a
motion sensor. Down the hall, someone coughed a single hollow note.
I stepped out, slipped past an empty janitor's closet, and
into the hall. Bright seact the eyes followed every move.
I followed muscle memory back to the elevator alcove. I
pun through down button once twice. The door slid open.
I stepped inside, pulse quickening, and faced the blank service
panel again. I drew the badge half from my pocket,
pressed it to the tiny magnet reader. The panel flickered,
stood still. I punched in a womanous nine and a
six minutes three, waited while it chirped, and then the
car lers downward, passed be down toward the mysterious s levels.
The descent took longer. This time. A cold mechanical voice
rang from the overhead speaker service mode restricted access. My
mind flashed to eluxate the blue lit room, the captors
of generic badges, the induction forms, and script I could
barely decipher. Finally, the car settled and the doors potted.
The sub basement corridor weighed emptier and more resonant than before,
the same bare pights, cold cement and metallic tanginia greeted me.
But now the lights of the far ennglowed more fiercely.
A new voice echoed somewhere in the made sharp and
unfamiliar lock up. Now I crept forward listening for footsteps,
ear straining in the hush. At the tea junction, the
same battered workm door gaped, spilling pale light in the
fault concrete, and so I did, just visible as the
shadows did. The broad shoulder janitor I had seen the
day after my discovery, flanked by two other men. I
didn't recognize this, spoke quietly, matter of fact voices in Russian,
and clipped English, passing papers between them. The air thickened
with expectation. One gesture to the desk, where a set
of badges, folders and a sealed evidence baggay waiting. I
remembered the message in my kitchen, don't come back. This
is your final shift. Yet here I stood. One of
the men glanced up, caught my eye for the briefest moment,
and smiled thinly. He spoke, voice surprisingly soft, you shouldn't
be here, No anger at just a kind of tired conviction.
I nodded, I want tansas. He sighed, gathered the folders
into battered satchel, and motioned the others toward the farther corridor.
Too many answers get people in trouble. Here, people forget
the right things they keep their jobs, you keep digging.
Where's laxey? My voice felt smaller than I intended. The
man shrugged, eyes, never leaving mine gone. He left with us,
same as the others. I scanned the room. No sign struggle,
just a mug half drained beside the induction forms, the
imprint of a lipsto cup on its room. I stepped inside,
the weight of the badge, half drug in my hand. Down.
They're safe, I pressed, He tilted his head. As safe
as any one here evers same offers open forget what
you saw, and we don't cross paths again. He gestured
at the elevator behind me. You still have the choice.
The pressure of the room built thiquid implication. I could
hear faint voices down the corridor, ruthers maybe moving between rooms,
gathering supplies, collecting what had to be pursed or cleaned
before surface managers discovered what had been happening. I lingered
at the threshold, gaze flicking from folder to badge. The
man at the desk exhaled heavily and crossed to stand
beside me. Look, you're not the first to notice, he
said quietly. Some buildings have two lives. If you want
to know, really no, check the file in the left locker.
He pressed a key into my hand at a sharp
ancient metal polish by years of use. You have five minutes,
then you disappear where you walk away. No one's coming
to save you. The others drifted out. I heard footsteps
trailing off a signal warning or courtesy. I couldn't tell.
I fumbled the key into the leftmost locker's rusted lock,
tried once twice, then heard the bolt sly inside a
battered Accordian file, thick with time cards, printed memos in
Russian and English, and a second badge, this one labeled
surface escort at up the file a note paper only,
no digital pass along file if lost, destroy otherwise. My
hand skimmed over the top page a list of names,
shift dates, cross reference with incident numbers. Three four names
are recognized as cleaners, gon missing two marked up process
the last entry and did bore. Alexei's name below in
small scripts transferred per owners directive two initials faifety in
unfamiliar handwriting. The rest of the file overflowed with memos, stuff, contracts,
and what looked like housing assignments in blocky cyrillic embedded
between pages maintenance bleeprints for four sewn through s five,
all previously reducted on surface plans. The implications caught up
to me. These people weren't being killed or simply vurnishing.
They were being transferred, reassigned, repressed into some kind of
parallel were force operating under the Felmen off books, some
kind of private world, a labor force run beneath the city,
using buildings like hosts. My eyes moved over the lists,
dozens of incident dates with slits for paar amenities, and
in a handful of cases notes like up surface return
memory a fielded. The whole file read like a cold bureaucracy,
a blunt ledger for two worlds grinding against each other,
one above in failing fluorescent light, one below, insulated in secret.
I pulled page off the page, searching for a clue
that might mean rescue R hope. But the pages only
confirmed what I'd seen. They took people with little ancor
to the surface, filtered them down, and made them choose
surrender memory, surrenderself, or joined the undercurrent. Those who refused,
who remembered too much, disappeared again. Further deeper, there were
few appeals. My heart thudded, transferred memory a fielded what
did it mean? Conditioning threats, something subtle injected by routine.
My gaze landed on the knowna line at the top
of several forms. Instead of a name, the was marked
with a coved series of seven numbers, not letters, impossible
to trace. A faint sound outside the room yanked my
attention a cough, heavy and deliberate. My five minutes were
running out. I stuffed the file into my jacket, badge
and all, and moved for the exit. The janitor intercepted me, Arma, stretched,
you have what you came for. I hesitated, nodded. He
stepped aside. If you say anything, you disappear, A tiet
warning softness. Best to forget. I moved past him, not
daring to look back. The corridor stretch light, tight around
each metal fixture. I had locks sliding into place behind me,
final uncompromising. My path back twisted through the shadowed utility maze,
passed rooms now silent, the led hum replaced with the bared,
patient sounds of unseen machines. The elevator waited, doors open.
My only clear rout backed surface, daylight as I pressed
the coll button, my mind frogged with details names in
the list, dates with missing end times, the fact that
three worn jackets still hung by the break room matched
names had long since scrubbed off my round's lock, The
sense that the felman wasn't unique, that the city ran
on in visible hands and silent workers cut sharper than ever.
In the elevator, I jobbed the three button as hard
as I dared. The cart inched upward, shuddering, once pausing
between level sown and bee, as if weighing my presents.
I willed it forward, badge in one hand and file
thick against my ribs, trying to count out each breath
until the door was parted. When at last, the elevator
dumped me out on the surface. The lobb is empty,
but from a day sun slanting across the tiled floor.
I staggered up. I kept to the shadows, notebook pressed
hard between my arms. I didn't look back as I
left the building. I walked straight to the river, dumped
the badge half in the liftstick tube under a stone,
and ducked into a payform booth. I called my friend
at the Public Defender's office again force horse, check your
mail again. If anything happens, publicize everything, if not, burn it.
I left the city, noise roaring blank around me. The
badge half in the lipstick tube sat at the bottom
of the river bank, heavy as gild. That night, I
packed a duffel, wiped my phone, and prepared to leave town.
I dumped all but the thick folder in a friend's
mail box, with a note, if I'm not back in
three days, give this to the newspaper. Don't look inside
unless necessary. At home, lights off, I sat with the
weight of keys i'd never use again. I watched from
my window as a car idled outside. No one stepped out,
but I could feel their eyes. Sleep was elusio, but
when it came, so did dreams. Lit by blue led
peopled by faces, I almost recognized voices whispering from beneath
the city streets. When I woke morning light spilled cool
over my kitchen floor, and for the first time in years,
I didn't have a shift to clock infaw. I missed
the routine, hated the uncertainty, but knew I had only
one decision left. My final act was to take the
bat at accordion file paper heavy stamped with a secret world,
and carry it up three flights to the old attic
up of my building. I buried it there, wrapped in
canvas and hidden under loose boards, not destroyed, not delivered,
but out of reach. If they wanted. Some day, they'll
know where to look. The air up there was cold
and thin. Faintly from the alley of vending machines. Humpenetrated
the silence. I paused by the window, pressing a thumb
to the glass, looking down at the city's indifferent sprawl.
It occurred to me how easily some live strained below
the surface, never once breaking through. I knew then that
I would never set foot in the felman again. The
last thing I did before leaving was pressed a badge
half into a crack between floor boards, listening as it
slipped out of sight into darkness. I turned for the stairwell,
jacket collar up, not looking back. In that moment it
struck me some places never really close, not on paper,
not on maps, not a memory. I let my hand
rest on the old attic door knob and waited for
the quoit to settle behind me, and then I left.
As I descended the attic stairs, the dust settling tangibly
quite behind me. My whole body hummed with a nervous
electricity that had nothing to do with exhaustion. Once out
of the stairwell, a late afternoon stilled around my apartment hole,
just the rubbery tap of my shoes and the faintest
echo rolling up from below. I turned my key in
the lock, let myself in, and pressed my back against
the coal steel inside my door. Every muscle tense, throat potched,
My phone vibrated in my pocket, half buried in lint.
The screen read, but no number. For a brief second,
I debated, answering. Instead, I left it ran out until
the screen dimmed. The aftermath of that night those hollow
I was packing, hiding, discarding evidence, Every detail reblaid as
heat crept up my neck. Each passing car outside brought
a tiny animal jowled of fear, as though men from
the corridor might step out of the fod at any moment.
After thirty minutes of pacing, tracing a path from kitchen
window to front door and back, I forced myself to
set at the table with my hands flat, eyes on
the chip for mica. On principle, I jotted down my
memories of the clipboard, the induction memos, the details of
the hidden wall below the blue alide, the faces in
the close damp light, the badge labeled surfacescor over and over.
I pressed myself to recall the names, the times, tiny
details before they could fade the way the digital files
already had. Outside. Evening slid in to night. No further calls,
no one at my door. The cities are slayered thick
over the walls. I fell, for the first time since
the elevated oors had closed behind me, a thread of possibility.
Maybe it had, though come too close to the surface.
Maybe my friend's warning would be enough. Maybe the people
operating under the Feldtman would abandon that place now that
one anonymous night guard had witnessed what shouldn't have been seen.
But the tension woreon tighter as the night deepened. A
hammering came at the wall, just my neighbor dropping books
were stumbling through dinner, put a scent adrenaline through my chest.
I checked the peep hole twice, drew my curtained shut,
and clicked off every light. The barage half left a
little streak of blood on my thumbware I'd pressed too
hard and let the sting ground me time blow. My
phone buzzed again, this time a string of numbers, no message.
I scrolled through old photos, hoping to find the surviving image,
but all that met me were blank Squire's corruptive files
or moments I had taken in other buildings other nights,
even the audio files of my own VOSE members from
weeks priborsai rostatic, a corruption I couldn't trace. I glanced
at my email sinfolder. Nothing new had been since yesterday.
But when I tried to open my cloud storage, it
was locked. Account temporarily disabled. Nothing left to do, nowhere
left to look. Sometime near midnight, a floorboard creaked in
the hallway outside. I froze my nursery to string every
shift in the air. On peer impulse, I killed my
cell signal, jammed the phone under a stack of towels,
and gripped my pocket of ridiculous defense. But a comfort
first SIPs passed my door, slow and measured. There was
a pause at my threshold, to the weight of a body,
the hush of some one listening. Then the footsteps moved
on down the hall, fading into the night. Beneath the
thundering of my pulse, another feeling threaded its way in resignation.
I'd already given up the badge, the lipstick, the file.
My own memory was all I could still trust, and
even that felt robbery at the edges. Sleek came only
in splendids, short, shallow stretches. I woke once at four
a m harp racing, convinced i'd heard someone at the
fire escape. When I looked, nothing moved us side but
trass swelling at the curb. By the time dawn broke
in pale gold and gray, my skin aate was spent
fear my mind, number stone. My skinnate was spent fear
my mind, number stone. That morning, I forced myself into
the ritual of making coffee, even though the scraping of
the filter, echoed with accusation, reminded me of cups I
hadn't place, of lips decade, never worn. My hand trembled
as I poured the water. The act was grounding, but
nothing about it felt real anymore. Not the bitter scent,
not the chips, ramic candle, not the windows, rectangle of daylight.
Sitting at my table, watching the steam curl I tried
to catalog what remained, no jaw, no return address, A
small call of paranoia wind so tightly my jaw achd
A crossed the street, a garbish trucklotted by, and I
had the strangest conviction ATS crew would at some point
simply vanish another surface detail, slipping into the city's gut.
My brain kept repling every detail of that last descent.
The badge, the locker key, the faces at the edge
of the ALIDI pool, those staff contracts with blocky cyrillic,
the hidden folder, the cryptical line transferred per owners directive.
I ran over what I'd promised my friend, another package
notes that might not even make sense. Pages I hadn't
dere of copy names, the swim in front of my
eyes whenever I tried to focus. I put my phone
on the table and just stared at the blanc Holme screen.
Mid morning, a text chine from an unsaved number mail
received meeting canceled use caution. The message vurnished within seconds,
leaving no trace in the notifications or messaging app. I
thumbed through my notes, every word now seeming strangely amore
from the world above. I tried Twan's number a third time. Now,
finally it ran twic sentumpt a robotic disconnect. I stood
to pace, swiping it, sweat on my forehead as there
was a shop quick knock at my door. This time,
I braced myself, but saw nothing through the people, only
the distorted colors of the corridor and the shadow of
some one or something just off to one side. When
I opened the door hard in troat, there was only
a manilla envelope on the ground. The envelope bulged at
the corners, closed only with a slice of crime scene
tape writings scrolled across the front in Block Capital's surface delivery.
I picked it up, stepping back inside before any one
in the hull could catch my face. On the kitchen table,
I slip the seal. A single line led the contents
remember your ears. Then what looked like my own security
look print out centers I hadn't made notes with incident
closed and initials that didn't belong to any one I'd
ever worked with. The rest was a froeter, a grainy
still from security footage meet entering the elevator holding the
bad shot, a date stamp at reed two weeks ago.
There was nothing else no threat, no demand, only evidence
of my own movements, recorded and returned, as if to
remind me that eyes every I still track my step,
even on days with no schedule, no routine. That night,
for the first time, I packed everything, documents, battered shoes,
the battoed field jacket that still smelled faintly of bleach,
and locked them in a battered duffel bonn was any
thought of reporting further, or confronting managers, or catching a
clean break. All that remained was the stubborn conviction to survive,
and perhaps if luck permitted slip entirely out of reach,
still the city outside would not quite let go downstairs.
As I left by the side door, I spotted a
familiar blue windbrick in the crowd, walking past white piping,
just like the one from the locker. Beneath the felman,
a woman stride upon a tail, shoulders hunched against the wind.
I've blinked, and she was gone, turned down an alley
with purpose. I didn't follow some insincts titan other surrender.
At the station, while buying a ticket out of town,
my phone buzzed again block collar. I let it ring twice,
then answered with a muttered hollow silence. Then the line hissed,
and a clip voice said, forget the details, keep moving.
Some walls don't close behind you. The connection snapped before
I could speak. I put the phone down on the
seat to set me and tried not to look at anyone.
Not the conductor in as faded felm in Badge Lanard,
not the cleaning crew retiring to the back. Not the
man reading a black Bandican book with cyrillic script dancing
across the interior. A train rumbled out into the gray,
and I left the city behind for the first time
in years. The sights that slid past meant nothing. The
minutes hauler. I thought of the record keeping of the
blank faces in the sub basement, the tired men who
had watched me go and said almost nothing. I stayed away,
just as my friend advised. For weeks. Every day I
waited for a call or a knock, for some new
directive that never came. I let the folder and its
batted secret smolder in the attic, and made no attempt
to contact the ones who had vanished. Some days old
routine surface counting the hallways in my mind, ticking off
the iris of a shift. I would never serve again.
Two months later, a letter arrived with no return address.
Inside a plain slip of paper, read you died your ears.
There was no sign off, only the exact print out
of my final round steps logged elevator stops, one last incident,
closed score diagonally over the company logo folded inside a
cast card, the precise bonus for a months over time,
and nothing more. I spent the days avoiding old haunts,
cutting from familiar neighborhoods, letting my sense of the city
fray and recombine into something newer, rougher, un angered to
any one. Address, the faces in the crowd, the blue jackets,
even the dull, echoing drone of vending machines all started
to seem interchangeable, light players in a stage set that
never quite dropped the curtain. Occasionally I would wake up
the smallest sound of bin rattling in the alley, the
snap of rube gloves down a corridor, the faint click
of a closing door. I'd lie there, counting each breath,
trying to recall the name from the folders before they
slipped away. In dreams, the corridors returned, long, flickering half
familiar with shadows, waiting at the ends, patient faceless. One morning,
passing a construction site, I spotted another badge, fragment in
the mud by fence. It rusted, already, name and number
mostly worn away. I picked it up, feeling the pulse
of memory as surely as a shock, then tossed it
into the nearest trush, drum letting the klang echo for blocks.
When the throne call ceased, When the text dried up,
I let myself believe for a moment that I'd been
let go a small meracene and economy forever creaking a
lonnet scenes, I walked by the Feldman exactly once, kept
to the far side of the street, hands deep in pockets.
The lobby, half lit, held no one I knew. Months stretched, then,
news filled with stores of restructuring, sudden closures, incidents never
connected to names or faces. Sometimes the urge to reach
out to warn would burn through me as sharply as
the blue aledy. But I did nothing. Everything was silent, routine,
easily mistaken for safety. The final day, nearly a year
after that last shift to the only message was a
box left outside my apartment door. Inside I knew unused
coffee cup company standard blank except for a faint crescent,
and the rim a smudge too pale to be lipsick,
too deliberately placed to be random. Under that a second
note year I was here, truly over. I tossed the
cup with the rest, but the mark wouldn't leave my mind.
After that. Nothing no knocks, no threats, no more peril
emails I would catch in mirrors or the passing dock
of bush shelters, a flicker of my own face, older,
now mapped by sleeplessness, the look of some one who
knows how easily doors closed for good. In the years
that fallowed, new tenants moved into old buildings. The lights
in the Feldman's windows went dark, then bright again, and
somewhere below everything, a vending machine still hummed, indifferent and enduring.
That is where the story should then accept that, sometimes,
in the quiet moments before sleep, I feel the weight
of a badge pressed to my palm, the scrape of
old key metal, and the memory of voices from a
place that officially never existed at all.