Speaker 1: The image and the warm monitor stopped on a figure
I recognized by posture before the timestamp had a chance
to make it real. Suspicion tightened my hands into fists.
I did not move to deny what I was seeing.
That's Alex Jenni from the doorway, and her voice carried
the same flat disbelief the monitor showed on screen. I
tell that it's fat because I need the listener to
understand what came first a camera, a timestamp, and a
group of people watching a thing I had no memory
of doing. Within five seconds, I heard marluss A a time
out low two point thirteen um. She said, the clock
on the conference room microwave rey two point thirty seven.
The conflict was concrete and immediate. The problem was not
emotional fog. The problem was a recorded exit that contradicted
a work clock, and the people who said they had
seen me at my desk after two point thirteen. I
was at the monitor with them. My name is Alex Mercer.
I worked nights on a project that keeped me in
the office until the building empties. I wear the same
wrinkled buffon down most nights. I keep my badge on
a lanyard. I know where my watch sits when I sleep.
I can list two left when these are not allergies,
they are items of evidence. I had counted on that
baseline collapsed in the conference room while Mallory wound and
still zoom the eggs at frame. You left at two
point forty, Alex Jenna, I saw you checking the bill
locks at two point twenty. Jenna's words landed like a clock.
Her voice was short and exact. The room shifted into
argument immediately. I did not leave, I said, my jaw worked.
I pushed the bridge of my nose between two fingers,
the way I do when trying to force a memory
into place. Malla cleared her throat and tapped the monitor,
even already pulled the camoufeed. This is raw export. She
kept her sentence clipped. The guard's tone added weight to
the playback. Mala is the night security officer. She wears
a fuoresc infest over a plain jacket and walks with
a click step down corridor. She is memorized. Her presence
is authority. She did not flunch when the foot as
showed me walking through the lobby and at the door.
We argued in short sentences the group dialog was fast. Jenny,
you said you saw him at his desk even win
exactly two point twenty three, Jenna replied, our kingdom for
a committed two point twenty three Morley, you sure the
camera times sinsed, I asked its server. Since she said,
I felt my certainty slip into guard a defensiveness. The
fairest emotion shift moved from suspicion to a sharp procedural insistence.
If the camera was wrong, we would find the error.
If the camera was right, I would need to explain
a thing I could not feel. Even moved us out
of the conference room. He is thin, imprecise, and at
Forensic's tech who keeps folders labeled by case number. In
the server room, he pulled a raw export and started
a chain of commands. Even works with a keyboard like
a surgeon. He lined up frames and metadata in front
of us. He zoomed on hashes and packet locks. There's
a compressed iro with a thirty minute gap. He said
he did not use dramatical language. He used technical terms,
and his voice stayed steady and look here corrupt at
frames around the eight eclip. His calmness did not soften
the result. The second extternal event occurred a gap in
raw footage we expected to be continuous. We watched fileskop
across a monitor rack. Jennepece. If there's a gap, someone
scrubbed it, she said, or a camera fault. I heard
suspicion in her voice, now aimed at something active and human.
I felt the second emotion. Chiff widen. Procedural defensiveness became fear.
My hands began to tighten on the edge of a
silver rack. I kept repeating aloud the same simple point.
I did not leave, saying it made my throat dry.
Even amplified the corrupted frames. On one angle, the feed
showed a figure exiting on the reflected glass in the lobby.
A second, darker slow what moves refraction later behind the
first figure. Even slowered the frames until each pixel seemed
to be its own object. There's a reflection anomaly, he said,
or a second person. The room grew quieter in a
technical way. People leaning toward monitors mixed no sound, but
it changes the room's motion. We went to the lobby.
Mister Dogado of the building manager met us under the
flickering exit sign. He carries a clipboard on a cigarette
habit outside of officeires. He pointed to scuffed taul by
the door. Marl approached and picked up a security badge
faced down on the floor. The badge had my ID number.
It was warm from for traffic and slightly scratched along
the corner. Jenna bent to look and said, that's Alex's badge.
The badge's times to match the eggs of frame. The
physical evidence turned a disagreement into a scene with a weight.
I felt my body reacting basic un the doornways. My
palm is dampened. I put the heel of my hand
to my mouth and swallowed. I checked my watch twice
with the same motion. I stood with the badge knuckled
between my fingers, as if a physical object my anchor memory.
The third external event happened. A physical item from the
footage existed under the same exit sign. Marla, Alex, you
were back in the building minutes later, cam show you returning.
She did not look accusing. She looked controlled. Even pulled
the return angle up. The feet showed me re entering
the lobby with a different posture. My shoulders were straighter,
but there was a stiffness to my arms. The lanyard
was missing. My gait had a slight mechanical cadence. Jenna,
he's not wearing his badge. He's moving oddly. He even added.
The group's tone shifted into conjecture and then to wary distance.
People start to make small adjustments when they don't know
who they are standing next to. I noticed how others
changed toward me. Jane's answers got shorter. He even kept
a physical space between us when he moved around the
keyboard than the Goddo crossed his arms, a defensive posture
that signals a landlord's habit more than any intent. The
fourth external event arrived. Colleagues who had been allies at
two m now counted angles and mismatches. Instead of offering reassurance,
I insisted on another check. I asked for raw badge logs,
even ran a query. The badge scanned out at two
point thirteen, it scanned back, and at two point twenty
one at the rear vestibule, the file time stumps matched
the footage. Janner read the order allowed out at two
point thirteen and at two point twenty one, no motion
in between. Hearing that sentence spoken imprecise shifted my fear
into a narrower cold, a panic. My mouth went dry again.
I started to tap the badge against my palm. This
was a new emotion, panic mixed with a bureaucratic horror.
My love could be recorded in ways that did not
include my consent. Back in a monitor, Bank even boosted
a low resolution feed and highlighted the glass reflection. There
behind the figure that matched my coat was a darker
silhouette that seemed to latch on in the reflection. It
trails the first figure exactly even, but we don't see
it in the main angle, only in reflections. He tuggled overlays.
The second silhouette did not line up with any person
listed in the entry locks. The team muttered, Jenna, that's
not in the logs, Mala, it might be a staging,
a reflection artifact, or someone following him. Their vocabulary moved
between technical terms and immediate accusation. Suspicion converted into practical hypotheses.
I went quiet and stared at the monitor. The later
fear had given way to brazil determination. I wanted to
find transference, something I could act on. I told them
check the elevator, cameras, checked the stairs, Check the rear axcess.
I spoke with the hands on edge. Now this was
the next emotion shift. Panic gave way to Aneite to act.
My voice was flat and ordered the team obeyed. We
found more small concerts cre anomalies. A stairwell camera showed
a figure moving up a half flight with the same coat,
but the hands were not held in the way I
hauled them when I climbed stairs. A time stamp on
a bathroom door caught my reflection, but with a lionard
lipped inside a pocket. I had no memory of using.
The Doggodo found a cigarette but in the lobby stair
that did not match any of our group's brands. Each
discovery piled on to the necks. The external events arrived
with rhythm. Another camera, another must match another object. At
some point I was left alone at a surveillance terminal.
The rest of the team split checking file servers, badge readers,
and a maintenance log mirror. Dolgardo kept in a batter
binder alone. I loaded the slow frame that even had
placed aside. I watched myself on screen in a half life.
My shoulders moved, then locked, my hands fell into a
mechanical motion as if I had rehearsed the act, the
movement stopped being a collection of gestures and became a
factual transfer of agency. Here was my body acting without
my conscious input. I felt narsa. I felt my breath
catch in a way that required a shallow and tick
and a slut. I could not name the sensation other
than it being a precise physological response. I stood up
and paced three steps. I came back and pressed a
frame forward and backward. Each advance shared the same mechanical stride,
and then a blanked corruption for several frames. Then if
EA showed me back in a building with a different
slant to my head, that moment, my body moving and
then reappearing with a different posture became the chapter's peak.
The climax was not a scream. It was a clinical,
undeniable removal of control. I spoke aloud to the empty room.
I don't remember walking out. My voice echoed off the
server racks. I tasted metal. I rubbed my jawn till
the skin stune. Then a new sound broke the room,
the distant scrape of a janitor's cart down an adjoining corridor.
The janitor passed by the server room, window and held
a glance at the building. That external nose was small, earthly,
and it anchored me for a second. I turned to
Evan's terminal and thumbed the query on frame integrity. Each
line returned to Ridoud that corrupted and then repaired itself
like a scratched ced. There was no human explanation left
that fit simply into negligence or a faulty system. I
called Jenna. When she answered, she sounded tight. Jenna, did
you touch my desk between two point fifteen and two
point thirty? I asked, no, She said, I was on
the west pulpen. You answered my ping at two point
twenty three. Who else was around? I asked? She named
two in turns and a contractor who left at midnight.
Her voice paused on the contractor's name, then she moved
on that pouse felt like a missing line in a report.
I wrote the contractor's name done on a napkin and
folded the paper into my pocket. This discovery shifted the
team's theory again. A human tale became possible. The emotion
moved from fear to focus suspicion, targeted at an outside actor,
but then even sent to a lathe clip to my phone.
He called it a highlight. On the clip, my mouth
moved without my vose match in any sound. The motion
was a cadence I had never used. The footage showed
the line of my jaw lock, my hands cut inward,
and then a second figure stepping into the glass reflection
with a posture I could name precise, patient, and wrong.
The clip ended with a corrupted block of static that
didn't not obey the stand of Codek's signature. I put
my phone on the desk like it was an object
that might burn. I left the server room and walked
the kitchen area where the team had gathered. They were
exchanging short notes. Even show Alex the second Soloware or
Marla even projected the sequence and stopped it on a
frame where the reflection was sharp enough to read the
fabric weave on the trailings. Sol Wit sleeve. It matched
no supplier on our building ID list, Jenna, I don't
think anyone's been here without logging in Mare Dolgadot kept
his hand on his clipboard. He fell, locked the footage
and file an incident report. I'll close Stare access for now.
Those were concrete procedural responses. They were not comfort We
filed the incident report with the firm's internal security channel,
even exported the corrupted segment to a sealed folder. Marla
locked a physical evidence entry for the badge. Jenna emailed
the commit laws and time stamps to the team, and
ceceed me. Each action was an attempt to translate doubt
into procedure. The room's mood shifted into careful containment. My
emotions moved again focus suh widened into a bridle simmering dread.
I felt watched by machine and both the people who
not checked their own steps before speaking to me. In
the last hour before dawn, we tried a control test.
I stood at my desk while evens at a cam
on me. He mean to leave and return on cue.
He me to walk at a normal pace. He me
to keep my hands where I would normally keep them.
We ran the test three times. I initiated each exit
and return without any malfunction. Each trial ended with ME
sitting at my desk insane. I did that the test
under scored one fact. The footage of my leaving at
two point thirteen was not produced by my deliberate motion.
When monitored and controlled conditions adorn. Mister Dolgodo handed me
a sealed evidence bag with my badge inside. He marked
the bag with the incident number and initialed it. We
were keeping this in safe storage, he said. His voice
used landlord terms clear and procedural. Jenna placed a label
print out of the corrupted frames next to the bag,
even set up a watch rotation, and told me not
to be alone in the building. Marla refused to let
me walk to my car on the garage level by myself.
They do not say why, other than citing protocol. Their
care felt partial and professional rather than personal. I left
with my lineard folded in a pocket and a copy
of the incident report on my phone. Outside the air
was thin and cold and smelt of wet paving and exhaust.
I checked the badge walk once more on my phone
before I locked my car. The log listed the exit
at two point thirteen and the inn at two point
twenty one. I felt the last emotion shift, then frantic resolve.
I promised myself I would prove what had happened. I
would follow the badge readings, check door censers, and replay
row footage until a human explanation fit. Where I found
the contrivance that made my body move. Before I drove away,
Mollo pulled up beside my car and said, Alex, don't
go alone to night until we find something. She did
not beg She did not apologize. She gave me a
concrete instruction tied to safety. I said I won't. The
sentence was short, and I meant it. She stood there
and watched me locked the doors before heading back inside.
That watchful, practical app was the final image of the chapter.
We quarantined the footage and gave the badge to evidence.
The report noted corrupted frames, a thirty minute gap, a
second silhouette in the glass, and an exit timestamp that
contradicted outness locks. The documents were clear and spare. They
did not explain why my body moved on film. They
did not make memory return. I drove home and slept
for a handful of eyres, with the light from the
street bleating under the curtains. I worked with a single
immediate physical memory. My knuckles felt raw from gripping a
steering wheel or a hand drill, I could not say which.
I checked my wrists, no bruises, no marks. I checked
my phone, no upgoing messages that physical uncertainty is sharp
and specific. It changed the problem into something I can
act on the gap between recorded motion and felt experience.
We closed the chapter by locking the evidence back into
the building safe and assigning a two person watch roster
for the night shift. Wes Delgado added a security notice
to be circulated attendants about checking line out where even
ark have the corrupted segment and sent to Checksum to
corporal security. Jenne attached a note listing who had been contacted.
Marler wrote a single line in her log, the subject
report on Nijure fore exit at two point thirteen. The
log was clinical, the confusion remained. I left with a
plan that was concrete. Check each camera chain, cross, verify
badge readers, and run interviews with a handful of people
who had been in the building that night. I also
had a private how to describe feeling that the cameras
and the people who monitored them now knew more about
what my body did than I did. That sensation propelled
me into action rather than into speculation. The last moment
in the chapter, Small and Direct, Molly handed me a
printed quarantine copy of the eggs at frame and said
keep this, don't show it to any one outside this dread.
I folded the print like a folded instruction. I put
it into my jacket and left. The security door clicked
behind me. The click was an ordinary, manufactured sound. It
was a concrete beat that closed the night, a latch,
a lot file, a badge in evidence, and a plan
of practical checks that would keep me from being alone
in the building again. The fire is sealed and the
badge is loggered as evidence. The footage is quarantined while
questions remain unanswered. Elie set the flush dry on the
metal table and pushed it toward me. This shows you leaving,
he said. The words landed like a weight between my
hands and the thumb print streakscreen. Suspicion tightened my jaw.
I reached for the drive with a hand that did
not feel like mine. You were on camera at two
point twenty one m swiping out, Ali added, and Marl
already had the scrub wheel turning on the wall of monitors.
I did not sit down. I kept my coat on,
fingers closed around the drive because taking it felt like
accepting whatever it cared. The security office smelled of cold
coffee and plastic tape. The fluorescent light hummed up a
velly shaved head. I had been certain I never left
the building. That certainly shifted into suspicion when Mala hit
paused the image on the wall monitor and for as
a figure I knew by posture. The monitor showed me
stepping toward the lobby. Jenna's force came from the door.
Were flat, that's Alex. My mouth wanted to form a denial.
My body cat still suspicion pushed me forward. I needed
to see, to compare what I remembered to what the
recorder insisted it had happened. I had spent the last
week checking doors, my watch, the badge logs. I explained
things by pointing at facts, my faulty memory, the hall calendar,
and neighbors dug that barked at three a m. None
of my lists matched this clip. In the seconds after
Molo press rewind dow arrived like cold air. A different
doubt than suspicion, not general, but specific. Had the footage
been altered? Play it from the top, I said. My
voice did not tremble. It tightened. Elie nodded and leaned
into the monitor. We keep all exits. We are cavet overnight.
Marla pulled it for you after jennifound the loop. Marla's
fingers were quick and sure. She wide and framed pointed
at the time stamp, and I watched the figure with
my own gatestep through the turnstile. The image was not smooth.
The time stump jettered for a moment. The figure seemed
to stutto when crossing the line where the lobby top
pattern changed. Marla rewind again and isolated a badge swipe frame.
The badge flashed on the reader's light. A close up
showed the lanyard swinging the badge cod angled at the reader,
the same worn edges I had long since noticed when
my head bumped the corner of my desk, I swallowed
the lanyard on my desk at home was real. The
lnyard on the floor of the lobby had dealt on
the edge. I didn't remember. We didn't edit this, Marla,
but her hands found the sparers under the desk, like
someone checking for a missing tool. Jenny came closer, leaned
to the left of the monitor and muttered, there is
a gap. Thirty seconds earlier on Kama three, she nimned
specifics in a mechanic's voice. Camera three. The tide stamp
blip overlapping frames between angles. That voice made my doubt
shopen into alarm. Marla, look at the other angles. I
think we clicked something in the feed. She pulled up
the lobby wide angle and then a corridor feed. The
corridor feed showed nothing at first, Then in a glass
of the lobby doors, some one else appeared a second
dark shape that matched my shoulders, but moved slightly later,
as if a recorded decko of me had stepped out
of the reflection. My breathing shortened. I rubed the bridge
of my nose, the way I always do in trying
to force a memory into shape. I could still feel
the keyboard grooves under my palms from minutes earlier, the
left of a warmth of my monk. There are small,
precise things I keep to test my memory. They didn't
account for that second soil wet Janet paused on reflection frame.
She tapped the screen. The paused image held a blurred
double in the glass that sat on the floor camera.
Her words were thin with disbelief. I leaned into the
monitor and realized that the reflections had till mauched mine
exactly down to the scar near the left eyebrow. The
scar looked like a thin white crescent in the glass.
A sudden shift of fear came through me. Then it
started in the palms and called up my forearms, fear
that my body had been used like a prop. My
heart didn't pound so much as it locked. My hands
went numb. I was aware of my watch pressing cold
against my wrist, the small cut on the knuckle I
hadn't noticed, elder the cheap yubirds tangled at my throat.
Fear took action from suspicion in doubt. It made me
stand up and march out of the room. I moved
through the security gate into the lobby with Jennet at
my elbow. The fluorescent lights in the lobby threw hard
lines across scoff tail. I found my line, not on
the floor beneath the glass door, was exactly where the
footage had shown me crossing. The plastic badge. Face was
scratched and wet with a smear of something that smell metallic.
I picked it up with two fingers, careful, as if
the badge might be evidenced that could break, Jianna, someone
dragged it. There's a streak in the tile. She croached, pointed,
and the streak was a thin crescent of darker tale
where the grout had been rubbed. We compared the dirt
pattern to the badge, the abrasion match to scratch on
my head's corner. Evidence, she said, lo. Her voice cut
into the room and brought everyone back into motion. Back
in the security office, Ellie tapped the redacted memo into
her drawer and slid it across like it was a
hot plate. The memo called then returned employees, enlisted badge
anomalies and unexplained absences. It named dates and times, numbers,
but not reasons. Ellie, we closed these cases, Alyx, We
folded them. People came back. I was late. It was
no recollection. Peril covered the days. Most left quietly. After
a month, Ellie's words landed heavy. I read line after
a line of printed bureaucracy dates, clearance levels, sanitized phrases
like temporary disassociation and badge re entry anomalies. My throat tightened.
Eurocracy translated the unknown into a series of boxes and
sign offs, and that translation didn't comfort it. Corroded the
already thin trust I had in my own actions. I
shifted from fear to a summering anger at the company, Elly,
at Marla for hiding a pattern, and at myself for
not noticing sooner. Why wast I told, I asked, my
voice cut through the room. Why did jennifind the loop
and not some one higher? I said the names Ali, Marla, Jenna,
because in a room Wortruth was slippery and needed ancors.
Ellie answered, without looking up. We were told to keep
it internal liability a directive. He signed the stand at
confidentiality in your contract. The words sign landed like a
lock snapping. Marla isolated an audio track and slowed it
by forty percent. Under the damp and background, hum, I
could hear something that sounded like me. A phrase stretched
and warped. The warp syllables were close enough to my
voice to make my scalp prickle. The valves bore of
my curtance consonance turned into clicks. Malla, that's an ovalet.
It's layered on top of the room tone. Whoever did
this didn't just Spli's video. They overlaid a track with
your voice patten the technical naming of the evidence turned
my anger into a sharp practical focus. Someone had manipulated
the recording at multiple layers. We watched the live feed
from the window at Alex's work station. The camera looked
back at the row of desks and the reflective smoked
glass of the conference door. I was sitting next to
the monitors. The irony of it crushing on screen. The
reflection of my chair moved, the reflection stood while I sat.
I fell to tightness in my joints, like pinned, and
then a sensation of weight leaving my limbs. I could
not move my hands. Alex moved, Jenna ordered her voisterid
attention and command Alex sten up. I tried my legs,
obeyed only when Jenna pulled me. In that instant, the
reflection in the glass walked through the conference door, while
my real body stayed by the monitors. The corridor lights
on the feat sureed the reflection. Shoulder blades pass beneath
the ceiling grate. My stalp prickled, as if someone had
walked over it. I forced another emotion into shape, the
cold clinical decision that fear can produce. When panic would
not help, I barked orders in questions. Malla rhwined to
the window. When it left the desk, my voice was clipped.
Molla clicked the frame held on the reflections stepping away.
Then the audio trapped beneath the video clicked, and a
phrase that matched the tonnight used earlier in the room.
Shore Flat played back, but delayed. I remembered the sensation
a second before the live feed showed it. My limbs
going now, the world narrowing to three inches in front
of my eyes. Jenni growled my arm and said, we
saw it. We saw it move without you. Her voice
gave the fact shape for the first time. The office
felt smaller because the monitors had become a second authoritata
space that could take pieces of me and played them
back with variations. We ran down the corridor the feet
had just shown it was empty. The fluorescent tubes hummed
and stuttered a little. The scuff on the floor weather
reflection had indicated a passing tile crushed. A faint mirror
of the same metallic tang looked like evidence of contact,
but there was no body, no collapse form, no sign
of another person. The hole was smelled of cleaning solvent,
and the metallic smell from the Lineard Alice sealed the
exits and called the meeting with our He we have
to archive and redact this liability, will bury it, and
will issue it taus memoy if necessary. His hands were steady.
The corporate instinct to bury the problem flipped my anger
into oblique calculation, containment over truth. I felt betrayed in
a practical way. This was not a philosophy. It was
a choice that would erase the public record of what
had happened. I argued, you can't just hide it. People
will come back and lose more time. Someone got out
there and Elly cut me off. Alex containment protects everyone.
This is a legal liability. We keep the company afloat.
We don't have a crisis team to chase anomalies. He
used the word anomaly like a bandage. I said, jess
All the reflection move Marlock and Polaudio overlays there is
physical evidence in the lobby. Eli rubbed his temple, and
yet the hall is empty. We have no irons, leaving
aside to yourself entertainment. Here with the wary voice of
a man who had chosen the quiet path and wanted
others to join him, my choice is narrowed again. I
could yield and let them redact the file, signing off
on a quiet rasure that would let future returns be ignored.
Or I could force a different outcome by making the
file public. The joice turned into a new emotion, resolved,
not theatrical or symbolic, but practical. I gathered the copy
Mola had burned to the drive and put it in
my cup pocket. I felt the plastic call against my
roots and made a plan that matched my hands. I
would record a confessional logger, tied concrete evidence to the footage,
and distributed it to a small, verified network of former
employees and investigative contacts. I went back to my cubicle
and sat with the monitor's glow on my face. I
opened my recording app. My breathing was measured. I put
my voice into short number of statements so it would
be readable and verifiable. I started the log with facts,
timed stamps, badge swipes, camera numbers, the location of the
line out, and the memo's foul name. I added a
detail from last week. Mala hit pause. The image stopped
on a posture I recognized because the early pause had
been the hinged that made this reel, I said into
the mic, I am Alex Mercer. This is the log
of the missing thirty minutes and the subsequent live eggs.
At two point twenty one am, the lobby feat showed
me exiting the badge sway A two hundred twenty third
one hundred seven matches my badge number. A reflection in
the lobby glass shows a secondary soul at not present
on four CAMA three. There is a thirty second gap
on camera three. Moller's audio isolation reveals a layered vocal artifact.
Each line was shortened Serge Cault meant to survive transcription
and scrutiny. I felt another emotion shift from resolve back
toward an exhausted clarity. It was not comfort, It was
acceptance of the practical work that came of the facts.
I could not make my body remember. I could only
assemble proof on the chain of custody. That clarity moved
me to action. I attached the archive drive, burned a
verified copy to us keyo server, and queued encrypto transmission
to a closed list of survivor contacts and illegal council
who had vetted with the blow disclosures. The act of
sending was specific. I click's end, watched progress bars, confirmed hashes,
and lobbed it on paper and in three separate emails.
The whole way instant earlier had been a mini cliffanncer
while we waited for the life fee to respond. Here
at my desk, the cliffhanger tightened when the live feed
flickered and the reflection in the window reflection turned my
head and looked directly at the monitors for a full
breath that reflected eyes met mine. I felt a cold
pressure in my STERNA Jenna was at my shoulder. It
looked at you. She said. That sentence stopped me because
looking is not an accident implies intent. The tryst came
when Moler retrieved a crop clip from a day three
months earlier and placed it next to the current file.
It showed a temporary contractor, Mattio Flores, who had filed
an incident report and left the company two weeks after
an unexplained absence. His file showed badge anomalies with the
same time stamps, re enters with no memory, reports, linodes
found in stairwells, badge reads to the outside of doors
without recorded exits, Mattio's face on camera had the similar
shoulder slope in the same way of swinging the linoud
the twister wired. What I thought the event was not
a single misuse of my image. It was a repeat
pattern across multiple employees, some who had resigned quietly and
others who had returned with blank eyers. I felt the
trayal return. This time, maamed not just at the company,
but at the idea that my body could be buried.
Jenna tapped the mateo file and said, look left shoulder tattoo,
same as the reflection. She had circled the grainy mark
with her finger and then drew a line to the memo.
The patent snat and to focus not as an isolated
corporate embarrassment, but as a repeated phenomenon that some one
had already tried to paper over. Ellie folded his hands
and said, we have perill entrant Alex. We have signed confidentiality.
We have sealed procedures for liabilities. He looked at me,
then at Marlow, then at Jenner. We also have legal
counsel saying an active leak will create lawsuits and damage
to people's families. We hide this and monitor for recurrence.
His argument was blunt redaction is survival for the company
and the people who relied on it. I thought about Mario,
whose face appeared quieter in the old footage. I thought
about the contractor's sudden exit and the memo that listed
a recurring re entry anomaly. I thought about my badge
in my pocket and the drive in my coat. Final
decision was not rhetorical. It required immediate action by real borders.
Ellie wanted the drive in the saled evidence locker. I
wanted a copy distributed and a public record made. Standoff
needed a third option agreement to investigate Opennois containing legal exposure.
Ellie refused. Marla hesitated, Jennis deaded me. We argued, Oly,
you can't bury this. People will lose more wires. They
might leave permanently. We have to connect these dots. Alex,
you will ruin your career and get us sued. Ailey
shot back, Marla, do you recommend leeks Marla ethicalino. No, Practically,
we have to document chain of custody. If Alex wants
to legally pursue this, then he must file. We can
provide raw footage under council. Jenne leaned in and said,
Alex could get copies to the survivor network. I'd help,
I will vouch. We need witness it outside the company
to keep us honest. The rapid back and forth shopened
into an alliance. We settled on a plan that put
pressure on Ellie while preserving the chain of evidence. Marla
made three exact coppies of the footage and the audio logs.
She timestamp packets, generated hash coats, and wrote them into
the memo. Ellie watched her work like command watching a
grenade with the pinstol in place. He finally, if you
make this public, I will be forced to report you
unauthorized dissemination Alex. His voice had illegal articulation. The threat
was precise. I felt the weight of it and the
unsatisfactory moral trade off safety through silence or potential justice
through exposure. I recorded an addendum to my confessional loger
and described the negotiation. I said, I am not authorized
by the company to distribute these files. I am doing
so because people returned with missing io's and the company's
press this pattern. I will accept any consequences that follow
might disclosure. The sentence read like a sealed decision. It
was not a speech of heroism, but a list of
risk and action. Jenna came with two printed coppers and
a list of outside contacts. She trusted, a legal counsel
who had handled wrongful termination, a former investigative reporter who
had protected sources, and a small survivor forum where people
with similar losses compared notes. We packaged the evidence, the
flash drive, Marli's arkeev coppis, my recorded log, the memo,
and a note with the chain of custody signatures. Our
actions were practical, almost caci durreal, the way a small
group of people might prepare case rather than a drama.
At don Alley watched us leave the security bank and
go to our respective stations. He did not change the
lock on the evidence room. He signed the redaction requests
and filed it for the company record. I walked back
to my cubicle with the remaining coppers tucked into a
lapped up bag. I felt an odd fatigue, no cathosis,
just the muscle tiredness of someone who had done precise
work under stress. Sitting at my desk, I recorded a
final lock. I spoke plainly the lobby evidence, the reflection behavior,
Marlow's aldioverlay identification, the redacted memo indicating previous incidents, Madio's
file matching Shoulder Slope, and Lenny drag Ill his choice
to redact the chain of custody details and the names
of people who would receive verified coppers. I closed the
log by reading aloud and then saving the file to
three separate encrypted locations. I left when copy unencrypted on
an external drive and shows a direct physical method. One
copy in a mail box I had access to outside town,
another hand delivered to the council jenetrusted, and the last
placed inside an envelope with my initials and the date
into as sealed evidence law her at a public wrecords office.
Before I left the building, I went back to the lobby.
The exit sign above the doors flickered in a rhythmic
soft pulse that matched the faint bass I had heard
in the background audio. I knelt and placed my badge
beneath the exit sign on the scuffed tile where I
had first found it. I left a face up so
the warned edge shrewd. I did not leave a note.
I straighten, felt the cheap earbards at my throat and
walked toward the glass doors. Jenna met me at the
turning stair. What now, she asked, Her voice held the
same practical edge that had kept us moving. I answered
with a deliberate, small action. I tottened my coat collar
and put my hands in my pockets. We watch, we document,
we keep a network. My words were not a promise
of victory. They were a plan I could carry in
my hands. Outside the dawn threw a hard white down
the street. I took two steps and felt the air
moved differently across my face. I did not dramatize the moment.
I was simply leaving. The monitors behind a glass would
keep recording. They would whole frames of me that I
had not felt. But I had made an action that
made the event harder to erase. Coppers in three secure hands,
timestamps logged, a legal council notified, and witnesses with names
on paper. At a small distance, Jenna called Alex, your
watch a scratch, Get it fixed. She my name like
an anchor again. I looked down at the watch with
its crack face and the tiny cut on my knuckle
that had bled brown into the scarp of my left eyebrow.
I laughed once a small dry sand and said I will.
The laugh broke some tension, but did not resolve the
larger questions. The company reducted the cliff from internal systems
two hours later and issued a terse internal memo by
a malfunctioning camera ray. The next day, they closed the
incident internally, filed the redaction, and updated the lock. Ali
kept his job, Maure kept hers, Tenor kept hers. Madio
remained a name in archives. I watched the corporate ASO
unfold like a calculated repair job. A week later, I
received an encrypted confirmation from the council the files had
been received, hashed, and placed under review. The Survivor Network
posted a private through a detailing other similar incidents. People
sent me short messages. I lost time On May second.
My badge read, but the door didn't open. I found
a shoe under the stair will and no one news
as it was. The receipts of those messages were small
human stitches to the procedural work I had done. My
last entry in a confessional well closed on a specific
action rather than a sentiment. I recorded myself dropping the
sealed envelope with the remaining copy into the public recos box,
watching the metal flap close feeling the vibration in my palm.
Is it thunked? I described the sound metallic, final, and precise.
Then I assigned the log with my name and the date,
and saved it to the sealed drive that Jenny carried away.
The files ensured the anomaly would not disappear into a
single drawer and be forgotten. That separation documentation over erosher
was the only kind of resolution I could force without
an explanation for a wider reflection. Had stepped away and
walked into a corridor. I never ended. The company had
favored containment. We had chosen a different practical path, evidence, witnesses,
legal counsel, and a small community that would not let
us be erased by a paper trail. When I left
the bill holding for good, I did not look back
at the security cameras. I felt their presence like a
second pair of eyes that recorded my exit and frames
that may or may not match my memory. I carried
the fatigue of someone who had done a week's worth
of precise physical labor in a single night, copping files,
sealing envelopes, arranging hand offs. I carried also anew for
I bear certainty that I would not let my body
be used without a wrecker. The final concrete event of
the chapter is this. I stopped at the curb, pulled
my coat tight, and handed my remaining copy of the
flash drive to Jen. I take it to council now,
I said. Jennett tucked it into her palment's ad I
will well keep the chain clean. She my name again, Alex,
as if sealing in agreement. Then she turned and walked
back toward the building, while I took a step across
the street, into the pale morning and into whatever came next.
The monitors kept their endless watch. The files I had
placed were now outside the company desk and people who
could test them. I walked on, with the bat left
under the exisign and the recorded logs saved in three places,
a small concrete gesture that the event would not be erased.
On their saying so,