Speaker 1: Calorogu Shark Media, Hello, and welcome to ghost Scary Stories.
This episode is titled Nightwatch, Part two, Pattern Recognition.
Speaker 2: It's amazing how much death you can hide in a spreadsheet,
Even more amazing how long you can hide it in
plain sight. I've spent two weeks cross referencing patient records
since Sarah Morrison nearly died showing perfect vitals. Two weeks
watching Dr Reeves's carefully neutral expressions during his rounds. Two
weeks noting how he always seems to be present when
monitoring equipment gets recalibrated. Two weeks learning that my sister
Emily's death wasn't an anomaly, it was methodology. My name
is Marcus Chen, night shift patient monitoring technician at Saint
Michael's Memorial. At least that's my official title. Lately, I've
become something else, a pattern hunter, because patterns are how
you prove something isn't random, isn't accidental, isn't natural. The
monitoring room feels different tonight, colder, The low hum of
thirty two screens showing thirty two different rooms has taken
on a predatory quality. Or maybe that's just what happens
when you start seeing the patterns behind the patterns. Jessica
finds me reviewing data before shift handoff. She looks worse
than yesterday, Purple hollows under her eyes, tension in her jaw.
Pay attention to five hundred and seventeen, she says, not
meeting my gaze. Postop liver resection. Dr Reeves is patient.
Something in her voice makes me look up from the
screens problems. She hesitates, her fingers, worry the edge of
her badge. Patient's family is concers earned. They say the
pain patterns don't match what they were told to expect.
Like with Morrison, the name hangs between us Morrison, who
nearly died showing perfect vitals, Morrison, who proved I wasn't
crazy about Emily's death, Morrison, whose case made doctor Reeves
start watching me more closely? Who calibrated the monitors? Marcus
warning edges her voice, The equipment's fine. It was just
serviced last week by the book by whose book I
want to ask? But I've learned to keep certain questions
to myself, just like I've learned to keep certain discoveries offline,
stored on encrypted drives that never touched the hospital network.
The first few hours, I split between routine checks and
watching five hundred and seventeen Richard Martinez sixty one livery
section yesterday. His vitals are perfect, the same kind of
perfect that killed Emily, the same kind of perfect Morrison
showed before crashing, a perfection engineered to hide deterioration. I
pull up Martinez's preop data, comparing patterns. His natural rhythms
had the normal biological variance you'd expect, small fluctuations in
heart rate, minor blood pressure changes, typical oxygen saturation shifts,
but postop digital flatness, algorithmic precision beautiful lies. Around midnight.
My phone buzzies Phil from security. We worked the same
shift when Emily died. He's the only one who didn't
think I was crazy when I started asking questions about
the monitoring equipment. Got a minute. His voice is tight.
Something weird in the camera feeds. Phil's been head of
night security for twenty years. He doesn't use words like
weird lightly. The security office is tomb quiet. Walls of
monitors showing empty corridors, dark parking lots, locked supply rooms
fill points to a screen showing the hospital's main server room.
Watch timestamp shows last Wednesday, two am. Figure in hospital
it credentials, enters, works at a terminal for exactly forty
seven minutes, leaves standard maintenance. Now watch last night, same time,
same figure, same forty seven minutes, same keystrokes. It's the
same footage. Phil says, like someone copied it over the
real feed. Been happening every night this week. I think
about perfect, vital signs, about repeated patterns, about things made
to look normal. There's more, Phil says, pulling up another feed.
Two nights ago, someone accessed the records room at three am.
Badge log to Dr Reeves. But look, the figure on
screen moves wrong for Reeves, too fluid, too practiced, like
someone wearing his credentials but not his body. Did you
report it? Phil's laugh is bitter to who it says,
The logs are clean. Admin says, I'm being paranoid. Even
my own team thinks I'm seeing things that aren't there.
I know that feeling the isolation of seeing what others
won't the weight of certainty against institutional denial. Back in
the monitoring room, I pull up five hundred and seventeen's
data again, still perfect, too perfect. I start comparing it
to Morrison's readings from two weeks ago to Emily's from
six months ago. The pattern recognition software I borrowed from
a programmer friend highlights the similarities, same digital signature, same
correction algorithms, same perfection. But there's something else, something in
the code itself. I isolate a segment, enhance the metadata
there buried in the routine monitoring protocols, a subtle handshake, sequence,
equipment talking to equipment, systems conspiring in silence, and in
the maintenance logs, one name appears with statistical improbability. Dr
Reeves signing off on calibrations that, according to hospital policy,
should only require tech approval. The call light for five
hundred and seventeen blinks on. Through the audio feed, I
hear Martinez's daughter. Something's wrong, his breathing. It's not like before.
The pain is different. Please someone check. The monitors show normal, respiration,
normal oxygen, normal everything. But under the daughter's voice, I
hear it that whisper of wrong movement software correcting software
making death look natural. I radio Jessica. Then keep listening,
really listening, past the normal hospital sounds, past the patient's breathing,
past the lies of perfect data. I isolate the audio
filter out background noise. There Under the normal monitor beeps
a pattern of subtle tones, almost like a digital conversation.
Machines talking to machines. I've heard this before in Emily,
the night she died in Morrison's room, before the code
in every room where death wore perfect numbers. My phone
buzzes again. A text from Carol, a night tech at
City General I reached out to last week. Found something
in our records, same pattern. Can we meet before I
can respond? Another text from Phil someone in server room
now live feed, but cameras show empty. Jessica enters five
hundred and seventeen. I watched through the video feed as
she approaches Martinez, Watch her expression change, watch her hit
the code button again. Hours later, after Martinez is stabilized
in ICU, I'm in the data archive room, running deeper analysis.
The pattern recognition software keeps finding matches, too many matches,
deaths at different hospitals, different cities, all showing the same
digital signatures, all perfectly monitored until they weren't all connected
to doctors who, like Reeves, showed une you usual interest
in monitoring systems. Still here, Marcus, I don't startle at
Dr Reeves's voice. I've been expecting this, fascinating patterns you're researching,
he says, moving closer. His tone is still professionally pleasant.
But there's something else underneath now, something that matches the code.
I've been finding, something precise, engineered, just trying to understand
the system better. I reply, casually, switching screens like you
suggested after Morrison's case. Ah, yes, Morrison. He leans against
my desk, perfectly casual, interesting case, perfect readings until they weren't.
Like your sister, The mention of Emily isn't casual. It's calculated.
Like everything else. Systems can be so complex, he continues,
so many variables to monitor. The pause is deliberate. Sometimes
patterns emerge that are better left unrecognized, like the pattern
of maintenance visits that don't show on camera. Keep my
voice neutral, or badge access from people who aren't who
they claim to be. His smile doesn't change, but his
eyes go cold, professional masks slipping just enough to see
what's behind it. You've become quite the observer, Marcus. We've noticed.
We go home, he says, straightening, get some rest, come
back tomorrow with fresh eyes. His hand settles on my shoulder,
warm heavy warning. Some patterns, once seen, can't be unseen.
Remember that He leaves me with the monitors, with their
perfect readings and hidden patterns, with the weight of understanding
exactly what I'm seeing. My phone buzzes with texts Phil,
camera footage from server room is gone, all of it.
They know we watched. Carol don't come to meeting. They
were waiting. Get out. On my screens, Martinez's vitals are
returning to normal, real normal, with natural variations. But I
barely notice because I'm staring at an email that shouldn't exist.
It's from three years ago, sent between hospital board members,
archived in a forgotten server backup subject line Project perfect
Patient Phase one results. My hands shake as I read
initial trials, successful mortality patterns with inacceptable parameters. Software integration
proceeding as planned. Recommend expansion to test sites, Test sites
like the ones I've been tracking, like Saint Michael's, like
where Emily died. Another message from Carol comes through. Found
same email here. They're scrubbing servers now, save everything. I'm
already downloading, encrypting, copying to secure drives. Three years of data,
three years of perfect deaths. Three years of the monitor's
flicker just for a second. When they come back, all
thirty two rooms show perfect readings, every single one. I
radio Jessica. Immediately need visual confirmation on all rooms now, Marcus,
what just check? Please? The next ten minutes are chaos,
staff running room checks, patients in varying states of distress,
despite their perfect numbers, three coding simultaneously, their monitors still
showing stable vitals. Through it all, I hear that whisper
of software beneath the alarms, but it's different now, faster, aggressive,
like the system knows it's been seen. My phone rings
unknown number. Hello, Marcus. The voice is familiar, but wrong,
digitally processed. We've been watching you watch us. Quite impressive, really,
but now you have a choice to make. In the
monitoring room, screens flicker again. When they clear, every patient's
name has been replaced with Emily Chen. Stop looking, the
voice says, go back to simply watching, or the next
perfect pattern will be yours. The line goes dead on
my computer. Files start deleting themselves, encryption failing, evidence vanishing.
But they don't know about the offline drives, about the
copies sent to journalists about the pattern recognition software still running,
still proving intent. A new email arrives from Doctor Reeves
my office. Now I should feel afraid. Instead, I feel
something worse purpose, because now I understand Emily wasn't just
a test case. She was a message to me. They
knew i'd see the patterns, knew i'd start looking. The
monitoring room feels different as I stand to leave. The
hum of machines sounds like laughter. The perfect readings mock
my understanding. But I understand too much.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I save one final file before logging out. Name it
Project perfect Patient Human in Response Trial I inside is
a single line pattern recognized proceeding as planned. Let them
think they've won, Let them think I'll stop looking, because
the most terrifying pattern isn't in their data. It's in
what happens to systems that think they're perfect. They break. Tonight,
I'll meet with Dr Reeves, play my part, watch their patterns.
But tomorrow, tomorrow the real debugging begins. Because here's the
thing about perfect patterns. They only work when no one
knows they're there, and I'm not the only one watching anymore.
Speaker 1: Ghost is a Calorogus Shark media production written and hosted
by Alexander Ian McIntyre, produced by Mark Francis. Executive producers
Mark Francis and John McDermott. Portions of this podcast may
have been created with the assistance of.
Speaker 3: A This show, along with hundreds of others from Calaroga
Shark Media, is available commercial free on any player hassel Free.
Just look for the link in the episode or show
notes
Speaker 1: Calaroga Shark Media