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Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.

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Let's get into it. The first key to surviving the

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night shift is routine. Some people say it's vigilance or paranoia,

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or even caffine, but I know better. It's ritual, the

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stringing together of small ordered habits against the tide of

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darkness and fatigue. For four years, I've manned the overnight

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security posted the Churis Corporate Center, a class sided echo

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chamber spanning sixteen stories above an empty swath of city.

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By eleven p m. The building is down to a whisper,

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a far off printer at the click of badge doors,

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occasional gurgle from the PEPs. Nothing stirs if you don't

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first disturb it. I began that Thursday, as I always do,

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swiping my own card at the east side entrance, pulling

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on the oversized uniform jacket that still smells finly of

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the last detergent, and flicking the banks of overhead lights.

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In my periberal vision, the elevator's chrome doors reflected only

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my own movements. I sign it in a control check

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for notes, and glance over the digital logs of string

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of a and nut bowed swipes, accounted for nothing to

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spark suspicion or interest. After IRE's world belongs to people

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like me, and I've come to relish the neat security

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of known exactly where everyone is and is not. The

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shifts so long and quiet, broken only by the drawn

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of air circulating and the sharp snap offending machine hum.

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Time falls on itself here at night, once the last

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train leaves down hun you can almost hear the city.

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Change gaves a kind of collective exhalation as business sleeps,

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and only the word, the wired and the word remain

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two hours in. Half way through my first set of rounds,

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I pass through the twelfth floor break area. Floor tiles

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color as commercial cockpit, the odor of microwave noodles clings

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thinly to the walls. It's nothing special, counts scuffed by

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hordes of lunch traffic, A lonely pot of coffee left

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charring itself on the burner. I collect the mugs or

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fill the paper towels, and check underneath the conference tables

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for anything left behind. Routine shapes the world and keeps

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it logical. That's when I see it lopsided, half jutting

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between a no limb and carpet seam bluck against gray.

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I kneel, thinking it's maybe someone's badge. Instead, it's a

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kick out, heavy for its size, glossy plast with a

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single Numerica label embossed on so very far thirteen brick room.

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For a few seconds a crouch, they are examining it

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in a pool of fluorescence bill. The building has twelve

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office floors, two equipment levels, squatting square up of fourteen,

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and the penthouse boardroom no thirteen. That's not superstition. Culpriate

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architects design around their own anxieties. There is no thirteen

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four in this building, at least not one that I've

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ever seen or heard about. My badge, used all these years,

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never glows for anything with the thirteen. I sit back

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on my heels and glance at the nearest elevator alcove.

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The floor panel jumps straight from twelve, two, fourteen. All

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joke and lucky numbers mean empty floors or exhaust fans,

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or simply a numbering skip for the superstitious. But my

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key guard, freshly minted, says thirteen in an official font.

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It can't be real. It looks entirely plausible as sibling

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to every other badge you'd find on a line out,

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save for the blackness and its dark number. My first

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thought a prank. Maybe Facilities may be one of the

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programmers who fusses with the offed system. But something doesn't

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add up. The plastic age of sharp clean, the sort

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of we're only given by heavy use, not novelty. It

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doesn't have the usual building logo, which is odd. Trying

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not to think too hard, I head back to Control.

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I thumb through the digital logs, arranging event by elevator

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activity as a distraction. Monitors flicker, their pale blow dusting

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the walls, elevator, ascending, elevator churning down for lake commers,

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time stance ticking by. I browse raw data, idle curiosity,

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turning towards something more pointed. Nothing appears out of line

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until I spot it two seven a m. The previous

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night elevator lock stop floor equals thirteen. I check again,

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blinking against the spread of numbers. That's impossible. The digital

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lock shows a clear sequence up down, a series of

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badge entries, and a stop at thirteen that shouldn't exist.

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I double check the camera panes, trying to find any

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sign of tampering, jerkingly, half hoping to spot someone grinning

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at me from behind a potty plant. Nothing, The cameras

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never blink, the locks don't forget, and now in my

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hand is the most unlikely key in the building. In vice,

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in its normal sea chilling in its implication, my skin

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tidans cuspums, shivering up my arms in the humming silence.

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There's no airror message, no ob his hack, just a

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door to or number that isn't there, memorialized by a

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key that never should have been made. Most knights here

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start with virtual motions and lock in a rolling gate,

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harrying my jacket, retrieving the batted attendant log, and sitting

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at my post behind the marble reception counter. My whole job,

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as I see it, is to ensure predictability. A caretaker

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of saneness. A chair's corporate center, built two decades ago

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on a patch of prime yet uninspired city grid is

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designed so nothing feels surprising. After dark, the lobby's granite

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floor stretches under amber a leady damn lights. The glass

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walled conference rooms glimmer to my left, each flickering with

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the memories of morning meetings swept away and replaced by stillness.

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Elevators set in their brushed alumin and alcohoves, a weighed

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only the rare employee daring enough to burn the midnight oil.

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I start every shift with the circuit, first the basement

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server rooms, then the parking levels, the stark echo under

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the rows of electric ASUV, humming slightly as they trickle charge,

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then up through the stairwells. Each drew will a syrup

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of shadow until my flashlights bean slices into dust motes.

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The upper floor is thick with the scent of iron

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eized air, and the faint chemical tang from weekly cleaning

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are quite as still. Each floor tells its own story.

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Neither is always scattered with paper cups and half eaten

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catering tries finance as snacks left abandoned by exhausted number crunchers.

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The marketing annex on five is a ride of sticky

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notes and campagne posters dying in the bloomiest blue white light.

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Engineering tucked away on four hums, with gaming laptops and

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powered bricks snaking across desks like grass as Cobra's. The

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break rooms on every floor offer minimal relief from the

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blank sameness, ancient microwaves aging for mica, the soft patter

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of vending coil spinning to spill snacks by request. On

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good night, I'll see familiar faces pressed to as greens,

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a bespectacled dy guy in a faded band tee jaw

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slack as he squints occurred nd yet the overnight accountant,

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whereas headphunds so large, I hear the ghost of her

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playlists before I reach her cubicle. There's a reliable pair

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of Janetor's Curt and zeal unmoving like peaceful ghosts with

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mop buckets, greeting me with tired nods. Sometimes we share

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a joke commissariately about the night's slow blee, or trade

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geranola bars from our pockets. Therein saw me breeds gentleness

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I've learned. But every now and then faces vanish. This

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week only Zeeline returns the knot. Kurt hasn't been around

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three nights running just as torrid. The daya besad men

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has vanished from her customary seventh floor window. No one

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raises an alarm burn out as some one explains he's

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back in skull o'er. Her kid's sick. She's got leave

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that's common in the city's corporate cycle. Ultern no closure.

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I make a note of it. Never as expecting more

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than life's regular attrition. My routines protect me. Badge checks

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at every internal door, q R code checks for urgent

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building note for ications, the static comfort to voice check

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with the overnight monitoring firm. There are supposed to be

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no blind spots. Every corridor banks off a camera lens,

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every door logs a swipe, every elevator stop time stamped,

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and archive for liability. Nothing, in short, should ever escape

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the quiet digital eye. The tough floor, by least favorite,

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always runs a little colder, courtesy from a track unit

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that likes to urdle wine and occasionally vent mysterious icy breath.

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I traced. The outline of the draft seems to emanate

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from the midpoint between the kitchen alcove and a dead

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janitor's closet. Though the logs saide the air floe is balanced. Sometimes,

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I admit I amuse myself jawed in uneven sketches of

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the floor lay its dueling, alternate routes, and hypothetical secret rooms.

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In the back pages of the lovebook, a private entertainment

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for the interminable iyros between patrols among us night staff.

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Old rumors were circulated in half serious tones. The missing

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thirteenth floor, someone jokes over checked where they send people

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who bought the Christmas party. Unlucky numbers make for excellent

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company folklore and corporate architects on notores for their aversions.

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Something about lawsuits in Hong Kong, the Superstition's gate from

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one building code to the next. Still this comfort in

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lodge exchange link fence. Nothing truly bad ever happens here,

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I tell myself, just long iyres, miss deadlines, the glow

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of the city refusing sleep, And on this night, as

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I run through the paces, nothing feels particularly out of

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place until I'm reminded by a found object that the

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building has rules. I don't remember writing twice per shift.

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I make rounds with the clipboard pencil poorts for imaginary infractions.

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I keep a second note be coom my own scrap pad,

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wherritrak minuschi, which force coffee machine is busted, which thermostat

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runs too hot? Last month's deployment of bug traps in

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the storage rooms. Sometimes, instead of notes or draw there's

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an oddly pleasing challenge to capture in the geometry and

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dead ends of the top fours double back corridor, or

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sketching where the heating touch fronds vanished behind drywall. The

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security system is the company's pride and joy, its claim

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of transparency. Digital freeedge roll in from every corner. Nothing

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is said to be secret, nothing unwatched. Badge logs across

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for reference in the ire, even the meal cart's off

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it tag gets tracked. The head of Facilities likes to

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claim there hasn't been an unexplained incident in five years.

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That's true as far as any one knows, unless he

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count the time the CEO owned San fail to badge

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out after a weekend bender, but that was handled discreetly.

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The maintenance logs claim no known draft problem on any floor,

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despite what I feel sometimes under the doors. Probably just

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pressure equalization glitches. As Eelan told me, Once buildings breathe

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at night, things settle, but on the edges of sleep,

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when vending machines grow in the building creeks with the spansion.

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I think about all blueprints, the memory drifts, construction workers

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whispering about missing rooms, doors that don't open, or stores

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about a hidden executive speakeasy built in some lon ago remodel,

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a running jero, mutating with each retelling. No one I'm

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sure actually believes in secret floors, except now there's a

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key in my possession. It suggests the joke has a

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punch line. I don't understand. The black card sits next

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to my coffee. As I review that night's locks again,

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I tap its embossed numbers. A scrawled the elevator system's records,

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reluctant but also faintly excited, each of curiosity. Perhaps I

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can help it. Want something anomalous crosses my desk. Some

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part of me has to scratch at it. The logs

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are raw EXML, mostly batches of time stamps, paired with

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elevator car numbers, floor stops, badge I D in a

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right column the programme. Four indexes run up from B

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two two sixteen, except here and there a rogue of

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thirteen blooms in the stream. At first, I dismiss it

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as a coincidence database import error. Maybe I isolate a

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week's worth of logs, sorting by four stop and D

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eight there again, over three different nights, at even intervals,

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Elevator A pauses for less than twelve seconds. At thirteen,

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always between two zero and two thirteen a m followed

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by the expected stop at fourteen or back down to

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the lobby. There is no floor twelve point five or

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concealed mezzanine. I paged through the buildings as built, blipprints

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on the security tablet, floor stacked, and standard corporate monotony.

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The only mechanical are labeled Mechanical Service fifteen, but the

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logs say the teen with persistent digital certainty. My fingers

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are cold, and the urge to look over my shoulder

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is palpable. Controls closed circuit TV seem less secure in

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the moment, though white angle views reduced by static. As

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I tockal floors, I summon elevator cams for the suspect

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time stamps. The video is mostly normal, a co worker yawning,

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humming through their prone elevators, a leady panel skipping dutifully

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from twelve upwards to fourteen, except on those stopping nights

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it is a corruption. Video escapes, then jumps forward with

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a tick of static, a lost half second, and the

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elevator hummy, as if nothing unusual occurred. I rubt sleep

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from my eyes. This is more than a prank more

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than misnumbered line and scheduling file. I try to rest

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the building in logics embrace, perhaps a test, perhaps an

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engineer scripting new floor designators a narrow disabling test mode,

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still buried in the logs. As a pattern, the elevated

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and noting four equals stuttin always corresponds with a badge

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swipe from a handful of night shift regulars, some of

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whom I haven't seen this past week. My notebooks have

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pazard roster takes off names, all familiar. Jake from my

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t Taara ocurt I checked the night shift, locked against

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the elevator records. Each furnished worker transits the lobby, gets

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on the elevator after one thirty a m. Then nothing,

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no lob for the elevator, returned into the lobby, no

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badge scan. At the exits. My pulse runs away, the

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last remnants of sleep. I decide to double check the

234
00:11:41,960 --> 00:11:45,279
video archives. The monitor's glow under my hand is the

235
00:11:45,320 --> 00:11:49,080
whole world. For a moment midweek, Jake, smiling, red bearded

236
00:11:49,120 --> 00:11:51,240
face appears as he badged and through the staff entrance.

237
00:11:51,279 --> 00:11:53,960
At one fort e three a m. Three cameras catches

238
00:11:53,960 --> 00:11:58,720
shuffle toward the elevator, coffee muginto he enters. Minutes pass

239
00:11:59,440 --> 00:12:01,960
but no core responding video of Jake leaving the elevator

240
00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:05,159
returns to the lobby, empty doors, yawning open. I watched

241
00:12:05,159 --> 00:12:07,440
the end of the footage several times, half expecting some

242
00:12:07,519 --> 00:12:10,600
manuglitch to be picked up by the camera's internal audit nothing,

243
00:12:10,600 --> 00:12:13,200
aside from a muted, momentary flutter of static. When the

244
00:12:13,240 --> 00:12:15,600
elevator is supposed to be at its phantom thirteen floor,

245
00:12:16,200 --> 00:12:18,759
the building, with its endless glass and sharp edged geometery,

246
00:12:18,799 --> 00:12:21,639
seems to shrink around me. Routine is losing its ability

247
00:12:21,679 --> 00:12:25,080
to explain. I tell myself it's nothing, surely a sisam error,

248
00:12:25,080 --> 00:12:27,320
a batch process drop in an event, or an overwritten lock.

249
00:12:27,879 --> 00:12:30,480
But my attention stays snagged on that tiny, a reducible

250
00:12:30,480 --> 00:12:32,840
black card next to my culling cup, and on elevator

251
00:12:32,879 --> 00:12:36,039
spikes that interrupt the perfect hum of routine. Three nights later,

252
00:12:36,159 --> 00:12:39,759
the pattern repeats. Elevator A pauses again on thirteen, a

253
00:12:39,840 --> 00:12:43,440
fresh badge eyed epine on the locks. This time it's Torror's.

254
00:12:44,159 --> 00:12:46,440
I begin to suspect that my own tendency to record

255
00:12:46,480 --> 00:12:48,919
every detail may be the very thing driving me to paranoia.

256
00:12:49,639 --> 00:12:52,000
If you look deep enough, even the most secure building

257
00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:54,879
begins to offer up fractures. But the files before me

258
00:12:54,879 --> 00:12:58,000
feel solid and arguable, threaded with a growing sense of inevitability.

259
00:12:58,600 --> 00:13:00,559
On my next night off, I return to the logs

260
00:13:00,559 --> 00:13:04,679
once more, eyes narrowed. Over five weeks, every thirteen encounter

261
00:13:04,720 --> 00:13:06,320
in the system lines up with the bad trail of

262
00:13:06,320 --> 00:13:09,120
a missing employee. In a cascade of unexplained elevator returns,

263
00:13:10,039 --> 00:13:13,440
I check maintenance tickets from the same window. Oddly, none

264
00:13:13,480 --> 00:13:16,000
of the custodial or engineering staff have a scheduled routine

265
00:13:16,039 --> 00:13:18,320
checks for flours above twelve. After one a m at

266
00:13:18,399 --> 00:13:21,240
least none that show up has approved in the workoder system.

267
00:13:21,759 --> 00:13:25,039
My isolation grows the other overnight regulus than out the

268
00:13:25,039 --> 00:13:27,879
friendly circuit of late night Die HOWD, replaced by hollow spaces,

269
00:13:27,879 --> 00:13:30,720
missed esks, often coffee mouks coat straighten and easily of

270
00:13:30,759 --> 00:13:33,759
a rolling chairs. Most rooms retain the evidence of the

271
00:13:33,759 --> 00:13:37,919
recently present laptop chargers, plugged in calendar reminders, blinking on endimonitors,

272
00:13:38,639 --> 00:13:42,480
FONA control rings during the witching ire on caller id HR,

273
00:13:43,080 --> 00:13:45,600
a hard voice, ton mechanically pleasant asks if I happened

274
00:13:45,600 --> 00:13:48,360
to see Tara after midnight on her last shift, they

275
00:13:48,399 --> 00:13:51,480
mention something about an unreturned laptop, voice tightening around the

276
00:13:51,519 --> 00:13:54,279
word concern. The call ends with a vague warning to

277
00:13:54,399 --> 00:13:57,519
document novel observations in chift lock in real time. I

278
00:13:57,600 --> 00:14:01,120
hang up un settled. HR never balls that shift or less.

279
00:14:01,159 --> 00:14:04,440
They have to. The mounting pattern demands structure a road map.

280
00:14:04,519 --> 00:14:07,200
If only for my own peace of mind, I begin

281
00:14:07,279 --> 00:14:10,639
mapping every elevator stop, every bad scan, every unexplained gap,

282
00:14:10,639 --> 00:14:14,120
and come or coverage. A timeline emerges, marked by vanishing

283
00:14:14,200 --> 00:14:16,919
routines in the mechanical efficiency of systems designed to tell

284
00:14:16,960 --> 00:14:19,519
you nothing is wrong. My patient fractures. By the end

285
00:14:19,559 --> 00:14:21,799
of my six shift of tracking. The air feel is

286
00:14:21,799 --> 00:14:25,240
cut with unease, the monitors blink with more static than usual.

287
00:14:25,840 --> 00:14:28,919
Another security guard, someone leaned over from facilities, asks if

288
00:14:28,919 --> 00:14:31,480
I need help. I wave her off. Some part of

289
00:14:31,519 --> 00:14:33,840
me wants to solve this before it becomes official, lest

290
00:14:33,840 --> 00:14:36,919
I be drawn into explanations I can't provide. I study

291
00:14:36,960 --> 00:14:41,159
the elevator systems online console looking for loopholes. Certain commands

292
00:14:41,200 --> 00:14:44,000
allow you to override standard destination locks by using inspection

293
00:14:44,080 --> 00:14:47,120
mode used for fire drolls or moving heavy equipment. If

294
00:14:47,120 --> 00:14:49,480
the elevator is called at exactly two zero, I am

295
00:14:49,559 --> 00:14:52,440
then set to inspection. It should, by logic, ignore all

296
00:14:52,480 --> 00:14:55,440
non physical floor restrictions, but no system should ever let

297
00:14:55,519 --> 00:14:57,519
it pause on floor thirteen when it knows no such

298
00:14:57,519 --> 00:15:01,960
floor exists. The idea takes hold just after one fifty five.

299
00:15:02,000 --> 00:15:04,000
Are ready a service badge and weigh in the twelve

300
00:15:04,039 --> 00:15:07,559
floor corridor, hot hammering with anticipation. The hall is empty,

301
00:15:07,679 --> 00:15:09,759
lined with shadows. The only sound the faint rattle of

302
00:15:09,799 --> 00:15:12,600
the ductruc. I step into the elevator, tapping my over

303
00:15:12,639 --> 00:15:15,960
eye coat. Lights flicker, the familiar panel sequence, whirring through

304
00:15:15,960 --> 00:15:19,120
the pointless options ge B two, one, and so on.

305
00:15:19,759 --> 00:15:22,960
When nothing changes, I swipe again, calling inspection mote, then

306
00:15:23,039 --> 00:15:25,200
hit the twelve button, jabbing a finger nail against the

307
00:15:25,200 --> 00:15:28,519
sleek glass. The elevator hums, calling up, stopping at twelve

308
00:15:28,559 --> 00:15:32,200
without vanfoir, I let the doors close. Then, with a

309
00:15:32,279 --> 00:15:35,679
surge and a nod unsteady lurch, the floor indicator ticks twelve.

310
00:15:35,759 --> 00:15:38,679
Then a single ghostly thirteen flashes so quickly my eyes

311
00:15:38,720 --> 00:15:41,600
almost miss it. The panel never fully lights yet the

312
00:15:41,639 --> 00:15:43,840
elevator groans to a halt, as if impaled mid motion.

313
00:15:44,440 --> 00:15:49,320
An involuntary shiver tears through me. The eight tractual sharpens, silence,

314
00:15:49,360 --> 00:15:52,559
swallows the cab. No movement outside, just the dizzing sense

315
00:15:52,559 --> 00:15:56,320
of weightlessness. Then the door slide open, but nothing at

316
00:15:56,320 --> 00:15:59,919
amiss outside the same pattern of carpeting, the same hallway

317
00:16:00,039 --> 00:16:03,240
that always marks the fourteen floor red runner Bland Marketing signs,

318
00:16:03,279 --> 00:16:06,200
the flickering light that's always an irow from burnout. There

319
00:16:06,279 --> 00:16:09,639
is no door marked thirteen. No discernible shift in architecture.

320
00:16:10,159 --> 00:16:13,440
Had I imagined the whole sequence. I steady myself against

321
00:16:13,440 --> 00:16:16,639
the frame, forced myself to breathe, returning to control my

322
00:16:16,720 --> 00:16:20,159
nerves trash. I tried the mysterious kikot on a dozen

323
00:16:20,200 --> 00:16:24,639
break room badge reads nothing, no beep, no change. Sometimes

324
00:16:24,639 --> 00:16:26,919
the sensor glows a dim, unhelpful orange, but there is

325
00:16:26,960 --> 00:16:30,840
no validation, no open door. After a while, paranoise seeps in,

326
00:16:30,960 --> 00:16:34,679
like water soaking through old brick. The chemeras always facing down.

327
00:16:34,679 --> 00:16:37,759
The length of the hole seems slightly askew. One appears

328
00:16:37,799 --> 00:16:40,159
to track me as I pass, its lens, glistening with

329
00:16:40,200 --> 00:16:43,200
manufactured indifference. The shadow is at the edges of the

330
00:16:43,200 --> 00:16:45,320
control room, flicker when I move, as if the building

331
00:16:45,399 --> 00:16:49,120
itself is adjusting to my attention. I convince myself I'm tired, overwrought,

332
00:16:49,279 --> 00:16:52,360
over caffeinated, of ague for time off. But the sense

333
00:16:52,360 --> 00:16:55,879
of surveillance deepens. Every corner is an eye, every reflection

334
00:16:55,919 --> 00:16:58,360
of potential witness to something in the locks will never explain.

335
00:16:58,960 --> 00:17:01,360
Then a surprise to night. Nutes later, I find myself

336
00:17:01,399 --> 00:17:03,720
face to face with a senior manager well after midnight.

337
00:17:04,359 --> 00:17:06,920
She's younger than I'd expected, dressed in take attire rather

338
00:17:06,960 --> 00:17:09,680
than old guard suits, but her badge bristles with security

339
00:17:09,680 --> 00:17:13,519
clearance in network problems VPN glitches, she mutters. When I

340
00:17:13,559 --> 00:17:16,160
see her, tracing her way through the fourteen fours over annex.

341
00:17:16,920 --> 00:17:20,400
She is quick gathering her things, almost furtive. Did you

342
00:17:20,480 --> 00:17:24,000
need anything from security, ma'am, I ask a voice even

343
00:17:24,599 --> 00:17:27,839
she shakes her head, eyes flicking past me. No, just

344
00:17:27,880 --> 00:17:31,240
needed logs for report temporary glitch. I follow her at

345
00:17:31,240 --> 00:17:33,599
a distance, curiosity peaued to see her peering into the

346
00:17:33,640 --> 00:17:36,079
stawlell doors, running her own badge on the panel, then

347
00:17:36,119 --> 00:17:38,880
glancing at her phone and perhaps at something else, and

348
00:17:38,960 --> 00:17:41,519
seen just off the edge of the light. She passes

349
00:17:41,519 --> 00:17:43,599
through the low be trailing a slim folder she tries

350
00:17:43,640 --> 00:17:46,440
to stow under her arm in her hurry its lips.

351
00:17:46,480 --> 00:17:49,519
She curses, then, not seeing me step forward, leaves it

352
00:17:49,559 --> 00:17:52,599
abandoned as she collates her other papers. I wait until

353
00:17:52,640 --> 00:17:55,880
she's gone, then pick it up inside four plans more

354
00:17:55,880 --> 00:17:59,000
detailed than anything in the maintenance behind her pages marked confidential,

355
00:17:59,119 --> 00:18:01,960
heavily redacted technical notes, and my breath pausing the phrase

356
00:18:02,039 --> 00:18:06,160
service level selminus thirteen. No further explanation, but the annotation

357
00:18:06,279 --> 00:18:08,599
is stark placed between the twelfth and fourteen fours, A

358
00:18:08,680 --> 00:18:11,640
hashed and alcove mark doc sulliary lounge, a memoir with

359
00:18:11,759 --> 00:18:15,599
encounter with lines ones, legacy axis, restricted use, master access

360
00:18:15,640 --> 00:18:18,720
or service level ID only. I snap images on my

361
00:18:18,799 --> 00:18:21,880
phone before returning the folder to Lost and Found. I

362
00:18:21,920 --> 00:18:23,440
work the rest of the shift with the sound of

363
00:18:23,440 --> 00:18:26,720
blood pounding in my ears. The pieces are assembling themselves

364
00:18:26,759 --> 00:18:29,680
around me. A arcs vanished people, official secrecy, and adore that,

365
00:18:29,720 --> 00:18:33,720
to my knowledge, nobody should even believe exists. Second guessing

366
00:18:33,720 --> 00:18:36,519
myself as day lay after the dawn hand off in

367
00:18:36,559 --> 00:18:40,519
the quiet of the utility archive, I paged her old blueprints, yellowed, creased,

368
00:18:40,559 --> 00:18:44,279
annotated with the jagged handwriting of generations of engineers. There

369
00:18:44,319 --> 00:18:47,240
is an oblique note on adducting schematic half muted original

370
00:18:47,279 --> 00:18:50,400
break room thirteen c revised interior plan, though the teen

371
00:18:50,480 --> 00:18:52,319
is circle then cost out, as if to avoid the

372
00:18:52,400 --> 00:18:55,240
very idea of a flow between twelve and fourteen more

373
00:18:55,279 --> 00:18:57,839
badge locks. I review the detailed list of staffish in

374
00:18:57,920 --> 00:19:01,319
master keys, some of them missing aim show up. Jake, Tara,

375
00:19:01,559 --> 00:19:03,960
even Kirt with a card tier for a building wide access,

376
00:19:04,039 --> 00:19:07,359
are ready for their positions. All their last activity clusters

377
00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:09,920
around early a m. And always always a stop at

378
00:19:09,960 --> 00:19:12,759
the ghost floor. Heart heavy, I try to reason through

379
00:19:12,799 --> 00:19:16,839
the mounting evidence, such architecture, such planning, even such secrets.

380
00:19:16,880 --> 00:19:19,279
It all feels impossibly dramatic for a company that worries

381
00:19:19,319 --> 00:19:22,039
about tone of theft and email scams. But it is

382
00:19:22,079 --> 00:19:25,920
also real, far more substantial than rumor. Five weeks end

383
00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:28,680
with boldness, spawn of exhaustion, I slip out of uniform,

384
00:19:28,839 --> 00:19:32,039
pocketing the mysterious their team break room badge. I ride

385
00:19:32,039 --> 00:19:35,119
the elevator to twelve one last time before dawn. The stairwell,

386
00:19:35,119 --> 00:19:37,079
as ever, is chilled by a tongue of cold air

387
00:19:37,079 --> 00:19:39,960
and hidden from camera view. I listen somewhere below the

388
00:19:39,960 --> 00:19:42,519
buzzing of compressors, the kind of hush that suggests sent

389
00:19:42,559 --> 00:19:46,000
in its masking purpose. I run finger tips over blank wall.

390
00:19:46,559 --> 00:19:49,039
The paint is rougher. Here a texture of rectangles, just

391
00:19:49,079 --> 00:19:51,960
faintly discernible by the light of my phone. A badge

392
00:19:52,000 --> 00:19:54,359
reader is slightly different than elsewhere, its surface coated in

393
00:19:54,400 --> 00:19:56,240
a patterner of years, and seen blink stormant in the

394
00:19:56,240 --> 00:19:59,720
shadow between stairs. Swallowing my fear, I raise the stolen

395
00:19:59,759 --> 00:20:01,920
Kik God and press it to the reader. There is

396
00:20:01,960 --> 00:20:04,400
a delay, then a bloom of mute green light, not

397
00:20:04,519 --> 00:20:07,400
the cheerful chirp of most readers, but silent, steady glow.

398
00:20:07,960 --> 00:20:10,319
With effort, the curved door yields to my push, hinges

399
00:20:10,319 --> 00:20:13,880
groaning with fatigue, just billows. The air beyond, colder than

400
00:20:13,920 --> 00:20:16,160
the stairwell, untinged with the town of ancient adhesive, in

401
00:20:16,279 --> 00:20:19,920
something older, something metallic. I glance over my shoulder, heart

402
00:20:20,039 --> 00:20:23,160
racing the question hovers, have I violated an old joke?

403
00:20:23,359 --> 00:20:25,960
Or peel back olaye never meant to be disturbed. The

404
00:20:26,039 --> 00:20:28,319
opening is only a foot and half enough to slip through.

405
00:20:28,880 --> 00:20:31,480
At the threshold, the air seems to vibrate with anticipation,

406
00:20:31,680 --> 00:20:33,599
as if the building itself is waiting to see if

407
00:20:33,599 --> 00:20:36,920
I'll cross over. I hesitate, one hand grip in the door,

408
00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:39,079
the other clutching my phone thum ready on the flashlight.

409
00:20:39,079 --> 00:20:41,720
I can, for the first time in years of working here,

410
00:20:41,799 --> 00:20:43,839
I am genuinely, deeply afraid of what lies past the

411
00:20:43,880 --> 00:20:46,240
margin of floor plans, past the reach of my badge

412
00:20:46,279 --> 00:20:48,799
and my rationality, And for the first time in a

413
00:20:48,839 --> 00:20:51,440
long launch stretch of endless nights, I cannot trust of

414
00:20:51,480 --> 00:20:54,880
the rituals the routines will keep me safe. I crossed

415
00:20:54,880 --> 00:20:57,519
the threshold as quietly as the protest and hinges would allow,

416
00:20:57,839 --> 00:20:59,839
poles in my ears, careful to ez the doors shut

417
00:20:59,799 --> 00:21:03,119
behind me, letting it rest but not latch. The darkness

418
00:21:03,160 --> 00:21:05,680
inside was not total, but it was deep, distowed only

419
00:21:05,680 --> 00:21:07,519
by the thin blade of white from my phone's flask light,

420
00:21:07,640 --> 00:21:10,440
trembling a little in my hand. The beam sweat crossed

421
00:21:10,480 --> 00:21:13,200
ragged carpet, a low and colorless pile whose pattern was

422
00:21:13,240 --> 00:21:16,039
neither current nor retro, just as guarded as if someone

423
00:21:16,079 --> 00:21:18,079
had borrowed it from a relic of the nineteen eighties.

424
00:21:18,759 --> 00:21:21,119
A faint track, a path worn by years of pacing,

425
00:21:21,160 --> 00:21:24,079
shoes stitched the dust in front of me. I paused,

426
00:21:24,200 --> 00:21:26,279
letting the light in my breathing settle, waiting for the

427
00:21:26,319 --> 00:21:29,160
sense of boundary to fade. My skin prickled with the cold,

428
00:21:29,160 --> 00:21:31,960
a different cold than the twelve floor drafted, sharp and chemical.

429
00:21:32,559 --> 00:21:35,680
It wasn't good air stagnant, almost sire. The sense of

430
00:21:35,720 --> 00:21:37,920
size was difficult to gauge. My light seemed to get

431
00:21:37,960 --> 00:21:40,119
eaten by dart as faster than it shit. The flastlight

432
00:21:40,200 --> 00:21:42,119
small power, vanishing a few feet from the toe of

433
00:21:42,119 --> 00:21:45,200
my boot. I tried to orient myself any logic, and

434
00:21:45,319 --> 00:21:48,279
in north East all I had was the sound of nothing.

435
00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:51,680
I took four steps, cautious, feeling for the moment my

436
00:21:51,759 --> 00:21:55,319
leaf at might knock against dat chairs of forgotten furniture. Instead,

437
00:21:55,440 --> 00:21:57,640
the light hit a corner cheap break room tables. Their

438
00:21:57,720 --> 00:21:59,759
legs splayed a monusque, as if someone had dragged it

439
00:21:59,799 --> 00:22:03,079
in it. Anger chairs ringed the walls silent, their seat

440
00:22:03,160 --> 00:22:05,359
cracked in the patterns of lawn absence and sudden use.

441
00:22:06,119 --> 00:22:08,799
Against the far wall, a vending machine stooped in disgrace

442
00:22:08,880 --> 00:22:11,200
as glass age dimmed, A looping logo for a diffunct

443
00:22:11,240 --> 00:22:16,440
color company, faintly visible underground under the machine calm. Another sound, small, irregular,

444
00:22:16,519 --> 00:22:19,839
perhaps the sigh of the HVAC, perhaps something else. I

445
00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:22,880
listened more closely, my attention flicked to the left. Or

446
00:22:22,920 --> 00:22:25,200
fluorescent lighting at least a dozen years out of date,

447
00:22:25,279 --> 00:22:28,680
hanin off kelterictingles from a drop ceiling. Some tubes blinked

448
00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:31,720
life there like greenish and a little sick, barely illuminating.

449
00:22:31,720 --> 00:22:34,279
A series of wall mounted security monitors clustered in a

450
00:22:34,319 --> 00:22:37,319
jury riefed to rate, clearly scavenged from different ears. The

451
00:22:37,359 --> 00:22:40,759
depth of the room beyond the monitors was impossible to judge.

452
00:22:40,839 --> 00:22:43,079
My steps kept drafting dust up over my shoes, but

453
00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:45,559
prints clear and absurdly bright compared to the gray and

454
00:22:45,599 --> 00:22:48,880
broken cross that lay everywhere else. The room's design was

455
00:22:48,880 --> 00:22:51,319
familiar in only the most generic quay, A refrigerated the

456
00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:53,359
kind with the handle split at the top, A water

457
00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:55,839
crooler that looked faintly yellowed and dry, or countercrowded with

458
00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:59,160
smashed mugs, But the accreted layer of years, or at

459
00:22:59,240 --> 00:23:01,200
least the illusion of them, warped. The edges of every

460
00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:04,400
object made everything look faded twice over. I tried the

461
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:07,240
fridge door jitterate half way, expecting some child as pranka,

462
00:23:07,240 --> 00:23:09,920
blast of cold pack hair or a plastic spider. It

463
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:12,680
yielded with a reluctant crack, smelling only of old cool

464
00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:14,640
and a mold empty shelves except for in an open

465
00:23:14,720 --> 00:23:16,839
kin of soup. Its label cled like a burn flag.

466
00:23:17,519 --> 00:23:21,039
The water cooler dispenser moved at my touch, rocking slightly hollow.

467
00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:24,880
I scanned the walls, hunting for further clues. The fluorescent

468
00:23:24,920 --> 00:23:27,079
tubes over the monitors gave just enough light for me

469
00:23:27,160 --> 00:23:28,799
to read some of the sheets stuck with yellow and

470
00:23:28,799 --> 00:23:31,119
tape beneath them, handred and in a spidery pen. Clean

471
00:23:31,200 --> 00:23:34,400
up after use nineteen ninety two out of order maintenance scheduled.

472
00:23:34,440 --> 00:23:36,839
I leave the break room as he found it. Most

473
00:23:36,880 --> 00:23:39,359
odd was a tight sheet corners briddle reading level of

474
00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:42,759
thirteen staff use only, do not prot door. Its font

475
00:23:42,759 --> 00:23:44,799
was the sort used by light min as eighties typewriters.

476
00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:47,519
A shiver round threw me not of coal, but of

477
00:23:47,519 --> 00:23:50,200
the sense of time immerred. All my years in building

478
00:23:50,359 --> 00:23:53,200
new doors, new textpecs card reader over holes for the

479
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:56,000
last decade and here behind eligible credentials lay a room

480
00:23:56,079 --> 00:23:58,759
that belonged to no era at all. The vending machines

481
00:23:58,799 --> 00:24:01,119
keep it at half. The numbers worn probably by board

482
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:03,839
employees decades gone, displayed a message it's back at I'll see,

483
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:08,279
blinking the phrase welcome staff. In monospace, the wall of

484
00:24:08,319 --> 00:24:11,319
monitors buzzed at a low frequency. Some screens lost to static,

485
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:14,720
others hazy but live, showing grainy off angle views. A

486
00:24:14,759 --> 00:24:17,720
stairbell landing with no identifying marks. A cube field of

487
00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:20,319
gray paneling and flickering computer screens. A break room I

488
00:24:20,359 --> 00:24:22,920
didn't recognize, but with a brassy wall clock stuck at two.

489
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:25,799
Seven hands are moving, dust pulled at the bottom rim

490
00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:28,799
an acrid odor. Pinch my nose, at my feet. A

491
00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:31,359
tangled pile of lineyards and security badges. Lay as are

492
00:24:31,400 --> 00:24:33,960
dropped in a hurry. Most were faded at the edges,

493
00:24:34,039 --> 00:24:37,240
the id photos blurred by age. Their name's not immediately familiar.

494
00:24:37,799 --> 00:24:40,880
A crouch picking up a badge by instinct. No logo,

495
00:24:41,119 --> 00:24:44,240
just a number of thirteen twenty two T fissure systems.

496
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:49,599
Another thirteen forty seven K more accounts below the heaps

497
00:24:49,599 --> 00:24:52,400
out a stack of dog eared papers covered with frantic scroll.

498
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:55,799
I picked one up, hands now shaking out. Try no windows,

499
00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:58,799
no way out, elevators, skips, stairs, loop locked in. If

500
00:24:58,799 --> 00:25:01,240
anyone finds this not tried to leave. When the lights

501
00:25:01,240 --> 00:25:04,440
flickered to him. Behind me, a sophametallic clung, a shift

502
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:07,039
of something at the edge of darkness, perhaps a chair sliding,

503
00:25:07,279 --> 00:25:10,480
maybe just metal settling. I spawn the phone beams, spas

504
00:25:10,599 --> 00:25:14,359
me across the dirty floor, hot suddenly a metrope. Nothing moved,

505
00:25:15,039 --> 00:25:17,039
the door was still a jar, behind me by a sliver.

506
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:20,680
I swallowed. My skin prickled with the urge to rawn,

507
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:23,400
but something stronger kept me rooted to maybe a stubborness,

508
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:25,319
like the kind that had driven generations to poke at

509
00:25:25,319 --> 00:25:28,200
to mark switches and odd glitches. Or maybe I just

510
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:32,079
needed an answer. I tracked the monitors, stepping forward. Each

511
00:25:32,079 --> 00:25:35,319
flickered through alternating angles, a patrick of abandoned looking spaces,

512
00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:37,519
and another stay will wear for a second, I could

513
00:25:37,559 --> 00:25:39,880
have sworn. I glimpsed a backpack slumped against a riser,

514
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:42,400
and then another shot, looking directly at a conference table,

515
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:45,519
But the table was covered in paperwork, all but impossible

516
00:25:45,559 --> 00:25:47,880
to focus, like an after image. Half glimpsed, then lost

517
00:25:47,920 --> 00:25:50,880
as the feet shimmered with interference. A monitor at the

518
00:25:50,960 --> 00:25:52,799
end marked a bree k thirteen C A moon and

519
00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:55,599
clumsy digital text eliminated part of the very room. I

520
00:25:55,599 --> 00:25:58,480
stood in the vending corner and the empty chairs. I

521
00:25:58,480 --> 00:26:01,799
saw my ouncel wet, tiny and other focus shifting between flickers.

522
00:26:02,279 --> 00:26:06,039
I half laughed, uncertain, am I on every monitor? Is

523
00:26:06,079 --> 00:26:08,920
this just another prank? An elaborate old Halloween? Sat up

524
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:12,680
my eyes, waded the coal. The milky reel enough, and

525
00:26:12,759 --> 00:26:15,000
the air didn't feel like it had circulated for months.

526
00:26:15,759 --> 00:26:18,720
Tiny details caught me. A chewed pencil bit and cleaned through,

527
00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:21,480
rolled up to the edge of a vent. A ziplocked

528
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:25,119
bag of stale cereal water bottles, half emptied, scattered among

529
00:26:25,119 --> 00:26:28,400
the badges. A notepad on a table one corner, badly

530
00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:31,759
scorched where someone had torn off page after page. The

531
00:26:31,799 --> 00:26:35,079
cover read simply shift note kurt. I flipped a page,

532
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:38,839
feeling the indentations left by harsh agitated writing. Must not sleep,

533
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:41,240
light blink sequals, door shuffle, lost track of time at

534
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:43,000
the rest, trailed off in what looked like a scratched

535
00:26:43,039 --> 00:26:45,799
attempt to keep writing after the pen drite up beneath

536
00:26:45,799 --> 00:26:48,319
the note, but waited a single primitive voice recorder tape

537
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:52,240
based its surface, tacky battery cover missing. I hesitated, then

538
00:26:52,279 --> 00:26:55,799
press play at first only static, then a voice, a

539
00:26:55,799 --> 00:26:58,240
man's horse, and urgent. In forty eight hours by my watch,

540
00:26:58,319 --> 00:27:00,720
always won't a line. Can hear someone else moving A think,

541
00:27:00,799 --> 00:27:03,279
but doors keep changing. Don't trust the elevator. If you

542
00:27:03,279 --> 00:27:05,039
hear the cleaning crew, do not go with them. They

543
00:27:05,039 --> 00:27:08,960
don't sound right. A muffle thumb, then further static. In

544
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:12,119
my periphery, light flickered on a monitor, movement in a corridor,

545
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:15,200
someone's shadow crossing. My mind raced at I triggered a

546
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:18,400
motion detected by entering. I stood motionless, training my ear

547
00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:20,799
for footsteps, for even a trace of breath, not my own.

548
00:27:21,319 --> 00:27:24,200
The silence pressed back, broken only by the occasional rattle

549
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:26,440
of the ceiling. The ancient settling grown as the building

550
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:30,240
expanded or contracted against the cold. I tested the vending machine,

551
00:27:30,279 --> 00:27:34,160
punching a random button out of frustration or desperation. Nothing happened.

552
00:27:34,839 --> 00:27:37,160
The dog clunk echoed, as if I trigger motion deep

553
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:39,559
in the walls. Had any one been in here? Since?

554
00:27:39,599 --> 00:27:42,480
These note paths, these badges. These water bottles had been

555
00:27:42,519 --> 00:27:45,480
left on the wall above the badges. Almost lost in

556
00:27:45,519 --> 00:27:47,920
the general clotter was a hand drawn map lines as

557
00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:51,720
much guesswork and panic as cartography, always liaping, doors marked

558
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:54,599
with excess at the mate's bottom, jagged words, this is

559
00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:57,920
not all viighty. Someone, perhaps Kurt, perhaps one of the others,

560
00:27:57,920 --> 00:28:00,720
had tried to make sense of the space. Arrows darted

561
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:04,480
around corners, some tracing back on themselves, notes about wrong turns,

562
00:28:04,799 --> 00:28:08,200
a door to nowhere, and stairwell sets. My breath clouded

563
00:28:08,200 --> 00:28:10,119
in front of me. I hadn't noticed at first, but

564
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:12,759
the temperature here was dropping. Was it the a track

565
00:28:13,039 --> 00:28:16,640
or insulation never repaired. I started the ceiling, expecting to

566
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:18,640
glimpse duct work, but it was sealed tight. Pave a

567
00:28:18,720 --> 00:28:20,720
stain tiles pressed to get the safe for a single panel,

568
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:22,559
as key as if some one had once forced their

569
00:28:22,599 --> 00:28:25,319
way into the coal space. I moved toward an inner

570
00:28:25,359 --> 00:28:27,279
door at the side of the room, steel handle worn

571
00:28:27,319 --> 00:28:30,519
to a dull shine. Letters above laking paint nearly erasedt

572
00:28:30,519 --> 00:28:33,839
reet a lounge. My hand hesitated at the knob be

573
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:38,960
yond a soft tapping, again irregular, insistent, not mechanical, flesh

574
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:41,799
or maybe not. I pressed my ear to the door,

575
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:45,559
Faint movements, some one breathing or draft. I let my

576
00:28:45,559 --> 00:28:48,079
own breath out, slowly, careful not to fog the panel,

577
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:51,279
heart beating in my throat. I twisted the handle the

578
00:28:51,359 --> 00:28:53,519
door ground as it opened, swinging just far enough to

579
00:28:53,559 --> 00:28:56,440
let me peer in. It was another room, slightly smaller,

580
00:28:56,559 --> 00:28:58,680
dominated by a bathed couch and a shelf lined with

581
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:02,119
old binders. The color faded to uniform gray. Paper spilled

582
00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:04,559
off the seat, and the single lamp glowed from one corner,

583
00:29:04,599 --> 00:29:06,440
powered by a wy threaded through a hole in the wall,

584
00:29:06,519 --> 00:29:09,839
its sores impossible to see. Something darted across my field

585
00:29:09,839 --> 00:29:13,279
of vision. I recoiled, catching only a blur human, I thought,

586
00:29:13,359 --> 00:29:16,200
or close to it, Pale and quick, it ducked behind

587
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:19,839
the couch. My chest hammered for a moment, I let

588
00:29:19,839 --> 00:29:22,480
the urge to flee, rage in my veins. Then a sound,

589
00:29:22,559 --> 00:29:24,759
a low scrape whisper, just over the edge of hearing

590
00:29:24,799 --> 00:29:28,000
a help. I moved into the room, keeping my hands visible,

591
00:29:28,119 --> 00:29:32,039
voice trembling, be firm. Who's there? No answer? At first,

592
00:29:32,759 --> 00:29:36,400
Rustling behind the couch, I waited, refusing to advance. The

593
00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:38,559
sickly lamp burn, matching the cold sweat breaking on my

594
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:42,240
galp Slowly, I had rose, hair tangled, features gaunt, but

595
00:29:42,319 --> 00:29:45,920
unmistakably impossibly at Jake's. His eyes squinted against the light,

596
00:29:46,039 --> 00:29:48,880
skin pale enough to seem unreal. I tried to keep

597
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:52,720
the shock off my face. Jake for mighty, He frowned,

598
00:29:52,759 --> 00:29:55,200
as if dredging the name from deep under water. You

599
00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:58,519
shouldn't be here, he stammered, voiced raspy, and murred. What

600
00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:02,200
is this place? I asked, soften now. He nodded at

601
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:04,519
the ceiling at The monitor is visible on the far wall.

602
00:30:05,119 --> 00:30:06,680
It doesn't let you go if you badge in wrong,

603
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:08,880
if the door lets you, don't take the elevator, don't

604
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:13,039
follow the lights. Are you the only one here? I asked.

605
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:15,759
Jake just shook his head, finger pressed her lips as

606
00:30:15,839 --> 00:30:19,599
darting sideways, as if expecting interruption. He shrank against the cushions,

607
00:30:19,680 --> 00:30:23,200
knees drawn up. Sometimes I hear others. Sometimes they sound

608
00:30:23,279 --> 00:30:26,480
like people, Sometimes they don't. I realized my hand was

609
00:30:26,559 --> 00:30:29,279
still gripping the latine breakroom badge so tightly the plastic

610
00:30:29,279 --> 00:30:32,400
cut into my palm. Behind me, A dull rhyming thump agan,

611
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:35,319
perhaps the mechanical hobbied of the building, perhaps someone or

612
00:30:35,359 --> 00:30:37,799
something else trying to find a way in In the

613
00:30:37,839 --> 00:30:40,000
dusty lamp light. Jake's face was half in real, but

614
00:30:40,039 --> 00:30:42,640
the pleading in his voice was not. You have to go,

615
00:30:42,759 --> 00:30:45,759
he whispered. If it knows you're looking, it finds ways

616
00:30:45,799 --> 00:30:48,640
to keep you here. That's what happened through he trailed off.

617
00:30:49,279 --> 00:30:52,119
I backed away toward the open door, mind spinning, trying

618
00:30:52,119 --> 00:30:55,200
to recapture logic, my safe scaffolding of routine, but it

619
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:58,519
all fell away. In the not quite silence, the thumping stopped.

620
00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:01,160
I looked at Jake, trapped and cowed by failure, and

621
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:03,400
made myself a silent promise. I would get out, and

622
00:31:03,519 --> 00:31:05,720
if I could, I would get him out to I

623
00:31:05,759 --> 00:31:08,039
turned and slipped back through the break room, passed the

624
00:31:08,039 --> 00:31:10,880
heap of badges, passed the burnt notepad and the humming monitors,

625
00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:14,119
back to the door I'd left, slightly ajar reres, shallow,

626
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:16,759
feeling watched by the screens, by whatever surveillance this place

627
00:31:16,799 --> 00:31:19,240
still possessed. I slipped out, letting the door sail almost

628
00:31:19,279 --> 00:31:22,319
noiselessly behind me. Whatever this was, I had stepped on

629
00:31:22,359 --> 00:31:24,400
to a path from which there might be no easy return,

630
00:31:25,079 --> 00:31:27,279
And as I leaned my back against the cool stairwell wall,

631
00:31:27,359 --> 00:31:29,519
the thirteen break room badge pressed to my chest, I

632
00:31:29,559 --> 00:31:31,279
knew that, for the first time in all my years,

633
00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:33,799
I was in the building's domain, not my own. The

634
00:31:33,839 --> 00:31:35,880
stairwell seemed to inhale with me. As I pressed my

635
00:31:35,920 --> 00:31:39,000
back against its wall and listened for pursuit. There was

636
00:31:39,039 --> 00:31:41,559
no sound to not Jake's ragged breathing, not the scrape

637
00:31:41,559 --> 00:31:44,720
of that old couch, no footsteps on tire. My pulse

638
00:31:44,759 --> 00:31:47,240
thudded just beneath my collar. The weight of what I

639
00:31:47,359 --> 00:31:49,680
just witnessed to Jake faded in ferle This locked away

640
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:52,839
full burily had time to register every instinct, screened to

641
00:31:52,839 --> 00:31:54,839
get as far up or down the stairs as possible,

642
00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:58,000
returned to ground level and call for help, But discipline

643
00:31:58,039 --> 00:32:01,039
that all night guard's habit rained and panic. I forced

644
00:32:01,039 --> 00:32:03,119
slow breaths and peered up at the smear metal door,

645
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:06,440
letting the details imprint themselves. Worn badge reader paint chipped

646
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:08,400
along the frame, a scuff mark made by a right

647
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:11,440
heel always turning against the jam. None of this had

648
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:14,640
appeared on any maintenance lock. It wasn't supposed to be

649
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:17,640
here at all. I stepped down a level, shoes whispering,

650
00:32:17,640 --> 00:32:19,720
and the rubber trades my funds light toned as low

651
00:32:19,759 --> 00:32:22,559
as possible as some camera human or otherwise see. The

652
00:32:22,559 --> 00:32:25,240
stairwall was narrow, not the wide and well kept passageways

653
00:32:25,279 --> 00:32:28,799
of public floors, but tight utility access lines of condor

654
00:32:28,799 --> 00:32:32,079
crowding to corners overhead. My badge, a harmless shield for years,

655
00:32:32,119 --> 00:32:34,200
suddenly felt hot in my pocket, as if carrying it,

656
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:37,960
resmarking me for follow up investigation. On impulse, I pressed

657
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:40,279
myself into shadow and pulled out the confiscated folder I

658
00:32:40,319 --> 00:32:42,319
had returned doll at all lost and fanned, but never

659
00:32:42,400 --> 00:32:44,799
actually surrendered to Coppet dulcea of what the manager had

660
00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:48,559
left behind. I thumbed through grainy floor plans highlighted in yellow,

661
00:32:48,599 --> 00:32:52,359
the redacted security memos, and the ne legacy Pusnell Retentionness

662
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:56,319
ALMNIS thirteen must remain isolated. All exceptions reviewed monthly. My

663
00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:59,440
leg bounced with nervous energy monthly reviews for a flaw

664
00:32:59,519 --> 00:33:02,519
never agnoited, a breakroom never discussed, and a cluster of

665
00:33:02,519 --> 00:33:05,519
people who disappeared from my blue lit world. I needed

666
00:33:05,559 --> 00:33:09,240
proof more than screen grabs and anxious droodles in my notebook.

667
00:33:09,839 --> 00:33:12,200
Before I left the stairwell, I composed myself in snap

668
00:33:12,319 --> 00:33:14,799
cover photos on my phone. The badge reader of the door,

669
00:33:14,839 --> 00:33:16,599
the ruined the team break room label in the geek

670
00:33:16,599 --> 00:33:19,559
out the cryptic memos from the folder. I send Lora's

671
00:33:19,599 --> 00:33:22,279
versions to my own cloud drive careful. I didn't know

672
00:33:22,279 --> 00:33:25,319
who monitored network activity, but Cheris Corp. Employed people more

673
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:29,039
paranoid than me. Steadying myself, I risked opening the stairwell

674
00:33:29,039 --> 00:33:32,200
door to the fourteenth floor, the same hallway, unfrilled, sterile

675
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:35,079
and humming fake whiff of ammonia. At the junction, I

676
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:36,960
paused at the camera mounted HIH above the door. It

677
00:33:37,079 --> 00:33:41,000
red like gloads Daddy. I passed beneath, projecting calm, reviewing

678
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:44,079
my alibi. Some unrwund the feed, just a security guard

679
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:47,440
checking maintenance, responding to an alarm. Nothing to see. I

680
00:33:47,519 --> 00:33:50,359
drifted to an empty conference room, ducking inside and double

681
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:52,039
checking that its glossed doors were a pick with their

682
00:33:52,079 --> 00:33:55,920
blinds row. My thoughts tumbled. Jake had spoken of the

683
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:58,200
floor as a trap, and now I wondered how many

684
00:33:58,240 --> 00:34:01,240
others had stumbled here, thinking themselves clever or just unlucky.

685
00:34:01,839 --> 00:34:04,039
The pile of badges the burn note, but evidence of

686
00:34:04,039 --> 00:34:06,559
people deposited here because they drawn too much scrutiny or

687
00:34:06,599 --> 00:34:09,800
known too much, or perhaps merely because some administrative threshold

688
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:12,519
had flagged them at the wrong time, and no auxiliary

689
00:34:12,519 --> 00:34:16,239
break room, no uncirculated memos for the night. Answers tumbled

690
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:19,039
in my mind, But so did the questions who curated

691
00:34:19,079 --> 00:34:21,880
the badge access, who watched the feed in that side

692
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:24,599
room with the monitors stitched together, blank, grainy views of

693
00:34:24,599 --> 00:34:27,760
somewhere and some one else's despair. Most of all, what

694
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:30,599
was buried behind those redactive lines and cryptic directives? And

695
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:33,840
was it personal? Now that I trespassed ac of control?

696
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:36,280
Hands trembling from cold, I a lie to myself. I

697
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:38,360
checked the bad's locks leading up to my trip below.

698
00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:41,559
My badge now reported a new level of service level thirteen.

699
00:34:41,559 --> 00:34:43,639
It hucked into the logs at two seventeen a m.

700
00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:46,400
Right alongside that same suite of logs for Tart, Jake

701
00:34:46,599 --> 00:34:49,280
and others who never left the system had noticed me

702
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:52,599
as an anomaly. My former invisibility had vanished the instant

703
00:34:52,599 --> 00:34:55,719
my curiosity tipped into action. A dread certainty pulled in

704
00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:58,320
my stomach. It would not go unoticed for long. I

705
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:00,519
found the land line, picked it up and dialed the

706
00:35:00,559 --> 00:35:02,360
only number I knew for each other, one used for

707
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:06,079
overnight emergencies. No answer, only voicemail. The beet bridle in

708
00:35:06,079 --> 00:35:09,039
my ear. I hesitated, then hung up without speaking, not

709
00:35:09,159 --> 00:35:11,360
wanting my own voice on a record I couldn't control.

710
00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:15,400
The minutes crawled by, I alternated between pacing control and

711
00:35:15,440 --> 00:35:18,599
scrutinizing the screens. There were odd flock as, feels of

712
00:35:18,599 --> 00:35:20,559
movement just at the periphery, but never where I could

713
00:35:20,599 --> 00:35:23,519
pin them down. In one camera view, a janitor's cart

714
00:35:23,559 --> 00:35:25,960
stood just outside the elevator, but no one reached to

715
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:28,719
push it away. Another angle showed the elevator's door stuttering

716
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:31,280
on thirteen, in a frame lost to static. When the

717
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:34,480
shift ended, I left nothing to chance. I stayed late,

718
00:35:34,559 --> 00:35:36,880
clearing desktop logs and hiding my scribbled note put an

719
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:39,480
event behind a security desk behind a false panel no

720
00:35:39,519 --> 00:35:42,440
one but facilities would discover. I left the building through

721
00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:44,679
the main entrance, keikot press flat to my pumps so

722
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:47,519
the scanner wouldn't read it. By accident. As I emerged

723
00:35:47,519 --> 00:35:50,079
into the chill dawn, instinct kept me from looking back.

724
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:53,239
I'd always dismissed the cities quiet as comforting, but now,

725
00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:55,480
for the first time, the silence seemed to threaten rather

726
00:35:55,519 --> 00:35:57,280
than rear, sheer, like a mouth waiting to swallow me

727
00:35:57,280 --> 00:35:59,880
if I turned the wrong way. Ires later or sleeper

728
00:36:00,039 --> 00:36:03,119
fused to come. My mind upon old badge numbers, static

729
00:36:03,199 --> 00:36:07,239
choked voices, the hollow eyes of Jakin, that impossible lounge restless.

730
00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:09,679
I returned to the evidence on my phone. All the

731
00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:12,199
images had uploaded as planned, except the ones showing the

732
00:36:12,199 --> 00:36:15,159
stairwell badge reader. Those files were corrupted, flashing black and

733
00:36:15,199 --> 00:36:18,280
white bars instead of showing the proper stickered rectangle. The

734
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:22,599
memo images, however, were intact. The legacy axis restricted all

735
00:36:22,599 --> 00:36:26,360
locks reviewed monthly compliance required. It was only late afternoon

736
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:29,559
when my phone vibrated with an email alert. No sender,

737
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:34,599
just a subject mandatory administrative leave effective immediately terrorst facility security.

738
00:36:35,079 --> 00:36:39,440
The body was a polite dismissal, no signature. My building badge,

739
00:36:39,440 --> 00:36:42,960
according to the message, was already deactivated. I shut off

740
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:46,199
the phone, pulled the battery, not trusting airplane mode. I

741
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:48,719
closed the blinds, sat against the wall and waited for

742
00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:51,119
something to happen and knock, a phone call, an email

743
00:36:51,159 --> 00:36:54,960
from a real person. Nothing came. I imagined what Jake's

744
00:36:55,039 --> 00:36:57,880
days had been like before the break, small routines, coffee favorites,

745
00:36:58,159 --> 00:37:01,440
night rounds and Coker banter, the sudden switch, the elevator

746
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:04,239
stopping entranced, or a badge pin waking the system's attention.

747
00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:07,199
How long had he waited to be found? How many

748
00:37:07,199 --> 00:37:09,599
others were living on that edge? Week after Amus tw

749
00:37:09,639 --> 00:37:13,119
mild week there would be no record, no next of kinnotices,

750
00:37:13,639 --> 00:37:16,320
just vanished names in the silent, cycling anguish under flickering

751
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:19,480
fluorescent lights. I returned to Churston the only way. I

752
00:37:19,559 --> 00:37:23,559
cut through records on nine forums LinkedIn searches. No sign

753
00:37:23,599 --> 00:37:27,000
of tar occur. Jake's social free were abandoned months ago,

754
00:37:27,239 --> 00:37:31,599
Birthday messages from relatives unreturned. Even the company directory quietly

755
00:37:31,599 --> 00:37:35,599
eliminated their names, resumes, prior job titles. Their absence was

756
00:37:35,639 --> 00:37:38,199
all that marked them out, drip drip of memory, edited

757
00:37:38,199 --> 00:37:41,920
by silence. The next night was harder. I stared at

758
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:44,719
the Fatine break room kikard, rubbing the embossed numbers until

759
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:48,039
they left in imprint in my skin, dredd thickened. I

760
00:37:48,119 --> 00:37:50,400
found myself standing at my front window, convinced that a

761
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:52,599
car idling two floors below was watching me, its head

762
00:37:52,639 --> 00:37:56,039
lumps fixed. I ducked from view, a rookie mistake, then

763
00:37:56,079 --> 00:37:59,719
caught myself and tried to steady my breathing. Rationality demanded more,

764
00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:03,039
Ever andce paranoise, said ron, but I still hadn't found closure.

765
00:38:03,199 --> 00:38:06,519
Only Escalatian sleep finally found me around dawn, but it

766
00:38:06,559 --> 00:38:09,719
was a shallow, fractured rests crowded with dreams. I was

767
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:12,519
always walking the Churi's corridors, only to have the wall shift,

768
00:38:12,519 --> 00:38:14,960
the stairwells turn into loops, no door. Returning to the

769
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:18,840
lobby in the dream, faces called out dike tra voices echoing,

770
00:38:19,079 --> 00:38:21,079
don't bitge in at night, don't follow the red light.

771
00:38:21,679 --> 00:38:24,760
I awoke with a plan. Fear was closing in. Yes,

772
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:28,159
but so was certainty. The company wouldn't risk exposure. They

773
00:38:28,199 --> 00:38:31,920
would want plausible deniability in silence. If the thirteen break

774
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:34,639
room was an old and traceable piece of legacy infrastructure,

775
00:38:34,639 --> 00:38:36,760
a system for casting out the inconvenient, they hare to

776
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:40,159
maintain it quietly, but absolutely, I would not stay quiet.

777
00:38:40,679 --> 00:38:42,760
I printed copies of my photos to hard copy and

778
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:44,679
mailed them to myself, a cousin, and a friend who

779
00:38:44,679 --> 00:38:47,320
owed me a favor. I wrote a note, cryptic but

780
00:38:47,400 --> 00:38:49,559
clear that if I vanished, it was not an accident.

781
00:38:50,119 --> 00:38:53,400
And then I began making phone calls. All went unanswered

782
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:56,519
or routed to generic mail boxes. At noon, and knock

783
00:38:56,559 --> 00:38:58,239
at my door startled me awake from a nap I

784
00:38:58,280 --> 00:39:01,440
hadn't realized i'd taken. I opened it to find two people,

785
00:39:01,599 --> 00:39:04,559
one in a company branded facility's windbreaker, the other older,

786
00:39:04,599 --> 00:39:07,480
with a badge identifying him only as corporate security visitor.

787
00:39:08,159 --> 00:39:11,360
Neither introduced themselves by name. They were courteous, if a

788
00:39:11,360 --> 00:39:14,559
little too rehearsed. We're following up about some anomalies on

789
00:39:14,599 --> 00:39:17,519
your last shift. The wind breaker explained a few system

790
00:39:17,639 --> 00:39:19,719
errors were obligated to review in person, but I don't

791
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:23,000
have access to those files. Allied arms folded across my chest,

792
00:39:23,599 --> 00:39:27,480
he smiled, non committal. Building's policy standard review after take

793
00:39:27,519 --> 00:39:30,440
clitches in critical infrastructure. Your badge was decommissioned for now,

794
00:39:30,519 --> 00:39:33,039
just so sopee. The older one never looked at me,

795
00:39:33,079 --> 00:39:35,440
but scanned the apartment his eyes resting briefly on the

796
00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:38,559
package of printed images, then moving elsewhere. We'd like to

797
00:39:38,559 --> 00:39:41,559
collect your security notebooks in any company, devices, said the

798
00:39:41,599 --> 00:39:44,400
first one. I feigned confusion, pointing out I'd left my

799
00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:47,119
look book at work, which wasn't true. I nodded to

800
00:39:47,199 --> 00:39:48,840
the desk by the door, inviting them to see for

801
00:39:48,880 --> 00:39:52,119
themselves with forced patients, the rifle through a folder of

802
00:39:52,119 --> 00:39:54,679
olver seats, ignoring the pile of junk mail, then handed

803
00:39:54,679 --> 00:39:58,440
me a sheet my official voluntary separation agreement, complete with

804
00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:02,039
a polite nondisclosure lying near the bottom sign here the

805
00:40:02,039 --> 00:40:05,199
Windbreaker's aid for hr You're no longer responsible for any

806
00:40:05,199 --> 00:40:08,719
hourly incidences of this morning A cold certainty to cold.

807
00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:12,960
I'd been marked. I was not staff any more. When

808
00:40:12,960 --> 00:40:15,280
they left, a breeze hit chilled by some malfunctioning vent,

809
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:18,320
the doors latch clicked as if by itself. I noticed,

810
00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:20,000
as I gathered up the contract to lock in the

811
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:22,199
safe that one of the visitors had pocketed a kikoat

812
00:40:22,199 --> 00:40:24,800
I had left on the side table, a swap perhaps,

813
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:27,559
or just caution. I spent the afternoon in the next

814
00:40:27,599 --> 00:40:31,039
reading the documents i'd smuggled at sitting In the half dark,

815
00:40:31,079 --> 00:40:34,840
the story became clearer. Their Service Level thirteen designation dated

816
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:37,360
from the early nineties, part of a so called behavioral

817
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:40,599
risk response, an internal project with bland corporate euphemism hiding

818
00:40:40,599 --> 00:40:44,960
its intention. There were pages titled personnel realignment protocol, breakroom thirteen,

819
00:40:45,039 --> 00:40:48,239
checklists for access denial, even a blurry a caption polaroid

820
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:50,480
of a man in a blazer staring toward a fixed

821
00:40:50,519 --> 00:40:53,599
bright light. The annotations grew more cryptic the deeper I

822
00:40:53,679 --> 00:40:58,639
read broom alignment procedure maintained electromagnetic isolation monitor for unsanctioned returns.

823
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:03,480
Unsanctioned returns. How many ever made it out? I spent

824
00:41:03,559 --> 00:41:06,480
IROs trying to reconstruct time lines, names cross referenced in

825
00:41:06,519 --> 00:41:10,760
old newsletters, EMIL archives, staff directories from years past. It

826
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:12,519
was enough to make out a mournful pattern of slow

827
00:41:12,519 --> 00:41:15,559
culling of outliers, each followed by vacant, faceless slot left behind.

828
00:41:16,159 --> 00:41:18,880
Two days after my forced leave, I noticed the restlesses

829
00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:21,400
that had always accompanied unsolved mysteries was replaced by an

830
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:24,719
almost expectant dread. In the hush before evening, the feeling

831
00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:27,159
returned of being watched, as if woven into the silence.

832
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:30,039
I saw in the bathroom mirror, a faint starter in

833
00:41:30,079 --> 00:41:32,639
my reflection, a lag between my own movement and the image.

834
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:35,280
Brief but chilling. It looked for half a heartbeat, like

835
00:41:35,280 --> 00:41:37,880
the glitch in the elevator camera, skipping frames and returning

836
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:40,639
me a stranger. My rational side rebelled, and yet the

837
00:41:40,639 --> 00:41:43,320
fandom make behind my eyes lingered through the weak. I

838
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:46,199
dreamed again of the Breckkerm's blue shadows, tape recorders crying

839
00:41:46,199 --> 00:41:49,360
out warnings, bags of hue, pencils, curtsburned notepad heavy in

840
00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:52,519
my chest. Sometimes I heard muffled by the hum of

841
00:41:52,519 --> 00:41:55,119
my decade old refrigerator, the same mechanistic drone i'd come

842
00:41:55,159 --> 00:41:57,639
to associate with sleepless two zero and essen the building

843
00:41:57,679 --> 00:42:01,199
of rorescent undercurrent with the human edge. Sleep did not help.

844
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:04,760
I woke before dawn, nurse and spully if there was

845
00:42:04,800 --> 00:42:07,360
a window to uncover more before I became fully invisible.

846
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:09,840
It was shrinking. I left my building and crossed the

847
00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:11,960
city to a neighborhood coffee shop I chosen for its

848
00:42:12,039 --> 00:42:15,400
lack of security cameras. The manager of part time philosophy

849
00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:17,599
student had met in passing didn't ask why I was there.

850
00:42:17,599 --> 00:42:19,960
At six siery m hunched over a laptop with a

851
00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:23,840
stack of batted notes. I plugged in, created an encrypted drive,

852
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:27,039
and began writing everything I knew, dates, spaces, badge logs,

853
00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:29,360
what Jake had taught me in the half light. I

854
00:42:29,400 --> 00:42:31,559
added the names from the pile of badges, the memos,

855
00:42:31,639 --> 00:42:34,079
hinting at legacy of retention, even the camera corks and

856
00:42:34,079 --> 00:42:36,679
static in the logs as far back as I could remember.

857
00:42:37,320 --> 00:42:39,440
When I left the gray Sedan Idol near the curb,

858
00:42:39,519 --> 00:42:42,239
tail pips sending up a stream of white exhaust, I

859
00:42:42,320 --> 00:42:45,840
kept walking, not making eye contact. Two streets over, my

860
00:42:45,880 --> 00:42:48,599
phone buzzed in my pocket. A new email had slipped

861
00:42:48,599 --> 00:42:52,320
through my junk fild. The subject re employee exit brief Survey.

862
00:42:52,880 --> 00:42:55,000
It looked official, but the body was blank, safe for

863
00:42:55,079 --> 00:42:57,239
one line A question. I us still in possession of

864
00:42:57,239 --> 00:43:01,000
property marked break room thirteen, no signature, no company logo.

865
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:03,079
I thought of the key kout at home, the one

866
00:43:03,079 --> 00:43:05,000
that pulsed with versigual and ease every time I brushed

867
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:07,559
near it to my desk drawer. I deleted the message,

868
00:43:07,599 --> 00:43:10,280
but that did nothing to erase the worry the city

869
00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:13,280
for all its bustle felt. Then, crossing the avenue, I

870
00:43:13,280 --> 00:43:15,719
saw a woman in a cherish leonard step behind a newspaper,

871
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:18,559
kisk calm. When I turned the corner, someone who had

872
00:43:18,599 --> 00:43:21,760
once gone missing, or just another exhausted drone. There was

873
00:43:21,800 --> 00:43:24,280
an unreality to the morning, bright with new sun but

874
00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:27,559
still cold with threat. Back up my apartment, I sorted

875
00:43:27,559 --> 00:43:29,920
through old past stops and letters for more attachments, but

876
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:34,000
nothing further arrived, no contacts, no further attempts at collection.

877
00:43:34,599 --> 00:43:36,599
It was as if by removing me from the shift's

878
00:43:36,599 --> 00:43:39,159
schedule and taking my badge, the corporation expected the well

879
00:43:39,239 --> 00:43:42,760
to correct itself, to erase my presence entirely. The dreams, however,

880
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:45,800
did not subside. Each night I cycled through the same

881
00:43:45,840 --> 00:43:50,079
distress and imagery, shuddering stairwells, flickering lights, breay crimsone impossibly

882
00:43:50,119 --> 00:43:53,039
long and arrow, Jake's face appearing and vanishing in the corners.

883
00:43:53,679 --> 00:43:55,760
Once I dreamt of the vending machine, its display now

884
00:43:55,800 --> 00:43:58,679
replaced by my own employee number, Pulsey and green. For

885
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:01,159
weeks I lived suspended, neither in nor out of the

886
00:44:01,159 --> 00:44:04,159
world i'd known, adrift from Serift's routines, yet still glued

887
00:44:04,159 --> 00:44:07,559
to the old system logs had downloaded. Some days I'd

888
00:44:07,599 --> 00:44:11,960
receive voicemail's unknown collar, one ring, then silence, sometimes attacks

889
00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:15,519
half a word long safe door. On an overcast afternoon,

890
00:44:15,599 --> 00:44:18,159
three weeks after my last shift, I dared to Emil Zielein,

891
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:20,480
one of the few night janitors who might know anything.

892
00:44:21,039 --> 00:44:23,039
I kept it casual, asking after her and the stray

893
00:44:23,079 --> 00:44:25,840
cast she always fared in the garage. No reply, not

894
00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:29,199
even a bounce back. A week later, a staff profile

895
00:44:29,280 --> 00:44:32,559
vanished from Cheris's public Lincoln. The world at side moved on,

896
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:34,639
but I was haunted by the echo, by the knowledge

897
00:44:34,679 --> 00:44:37,639
that others must advise to see these patterns. Fears to map.

898
00:44:38,280 --> 00:44:40,519
I combed through secure forms, scanning for a post about

899
00:44:40,559 --> 00:44:43,880
disappearing floors late night, badg glitches, stuck elevators, but the

900
00:44:43,920 --> 00:44:46,519
stores were always too vague, too quickly deleted, the posters

901
00:44:46,599 --> 00:44:49,119
drift in a way before anyone could follow up. I

902
00:44:49,199 --> 00:44:52,239
tried calling families. Jake's brother listed in a public record search.

903
00:44:53,039 --> 00:44:56,559
His voice mail was full. Taro's mother answered soft voice,

904
00:44:56,599 --> 00:44:59,199
but firm, she's on sabbatical. We prefer not to talk.

905
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:03,559
It really dissolved as the weeks beled by I cataloged

906
00:45:03,599 --> 00:45:06,199
every loose end. Once the story connected in my head

907
00:45:06,239 --> 00:45:08,639
and network of vanished night staff, not only at Cherist,

908
00:45:08,719 --> 00:45:11,480
but peering scattered news clippings from competitors across the city.

909
00:45:12,159 --> 00:45:14,639
Night watchmen found missing out to elevate a malfunction that

910
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:18,079
he analyst fails to return home. Companies with large downtown

911
00:45:18,119 --> 00:45:21,559
buildings similar security, similar errors in the reporting of flows.

912
00:45:22,280 --> 00:45:24,280
It was never the day people, not the highly visible,

913
00:45:24,320 --> 00:45:28,320
always the invisible glue guards. It t janitors. For a while,

914
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:30,920
I considered writing it all out, sending it to a journalist,

915
00:45:31,159 --> 00:45:33,840
or publishing it online, but even the drafts had a

916
00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:36,840
wave of clutching word files over it and image's returning

917
00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:40,400
error messages. I trusted only my analog notes. The Scotch

918
00:45:40,519 --> 00:45:44,840
fragments had hidden Kurt's desperate handwriting the old blueprints. Still,

919
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:47,639
as time passed, I found myself wondering if my memories

920
00:45:47,639 --> 00:45:50,599
were bleeding into dreams, or if the dreams were swallowing reality.

921
00:45:51,280 --> 00:45:54,119
It changed one evening, when half awake in my silent apartment,

922
00:45:54,239 --> 00:45:56,360
I noticed the faintest roy glow on my bedroom wall.

923
00:45:56,960 --> 00:46:00,320
I'd never installed an alarm there, creeping closer, I found

924
00:46:00,360 --> 00:46:02,280
it coming from a spot beneath the dresser, an early

925
00:46:02,320 --> 00:46:05,039
d dull but pulsing marking of rectangle and plastic embedded

926
00:46:05,079 --> 00:46:07,440
into the wood. It was the shape of puffect match

927
00:46:07,480 --> 00:46:10,400
for Badge reader, the kind I'd seen installed on as

928
00:46:10,480 --> 00:46:13,400
L minus thirteen. I stared, hot, pounding for mebe an

929
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:17,480
ere the glow pulse faintly once per second. My phone

930
00:46:17,519 --> 00:46:19,519
refused to photograph it. The image only showed am a

931
00:46:19,519 --> 00:46:22,760
broken darkness where it glimmered. Even in full darkness. That

932
00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:25,440
single red eye watched me as if in a trance.

933
00:46:25,559 --> 00:46:28,519
I reached for the bottom floor. There was no power's horse,

934
00:46:28,639 --> 00:46:31,320
no wiring. I pressed my their team break room caught

935
00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:33,880
to the glowing space, sick with fear, knowing what I'd done.

936
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:37,079
The light flick had green for a moment, then as

937
00:46:37,159 --> 00:46:39,840
quickly as it had come, it winked out. My room

938
00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:42,840
was plunged into silence except for anl not silence, not

939
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:46,480
quite the faint, u mistakable homopluorescent bulbs vibrating at the

940
00:46:46,519 --> 00:46:49,119
age of hearing rose under my floor. I felt the

941
00:46:49,199 --> 00:46:51,159
rhythm in my bones, a drone that could only belong

942
00:46:51,199 --> 00:46:54,039
to one place. I jolted awake, not long after if

943
00:46:54,079 --> 00:46:56,719
awake meant anything at all. My mind stutted over the

944
00:46:56,760 --> 00:46:59,480
boundary between sleep and memory, replaying a tingling static in

945
00:46:59,519 --> 00:47:01,679
my mirror, the vague after image, that light behind my movement.

946
00:47:01,679 --> 00:47:04,039
At two zero a M. I fumbled for the bad

947
00:47:04,159 --> 00:47:08,559
still on my desk, still chilled, my phone vibrated, no collar,

948
00:47:08,599 --> 00:47:11,039
I d just a single line text, welcome back. Two

949
00:47:11,159 --> 00:47:14,840
zero a M. I peered at the clock one fifty eight.

950
00:47:15,519 --> 00:47:17,599
The badge readers after image hovered by the side of

951
00:47:17,639 --> 00:47:20,639
my bedol wavering red glow. I couldn't touch, couldn't photograph.

952
00:47:21,280 --> 00:47:23,320
My breath was ragged at every part of me, longing

953
00:47:23,360 --> 00:47:25,320
for nothing more than to run, to leave the building

954
00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:28,320
and its ghost floors and hidden traps behind forever. Yet

955
00:47:28,360 --> 00:47:30,480
I understood now that escape was not just a matter

956
00:47:30,519 --> 00:47:32,719
of walking out a door. It was a matter of

957
00:47:32,800 --> 00:47:35,400
unwinding a story too tightly wound around the city's bones,

958
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:38,119
a story as old a security itself, as corporate pernoia,

959
00:47:38,159 --> 00:47:41,440
as night itself. At two zero a m. Precisely, the

960
00:47:41,519 --> 00:47:45,920
light faded, fluorescent humbers within the walls then retreated. I

961
00:47:46,079 --> 00:47:49,119
was alone, once again, alone except for the knowledge the

962
00:47:49,199 --> 00:47:51,679
badge lay called in my grip, its fall number, reflecting

963
00:47:51,719 --> 00:47:54,400
the shadow language of secrets, the architecture of erasure, the

964
00:47:54,480 --> 00:47:57,440
persistence of memory in a building that never slept. In

965
00:47:57,519 --> 00:48:00,280
the days that followed a return to hollow routine, the

966
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:03,440
company silence did not let up. My image never quite

967
00:48:03,480 --> 00:48:04,960
matched me. In the mirror. I watched for the red

968
00:48:05,039 --> 00:48:07,239
glow each night, always relieved when it did not reappear,

969
00:48:07,320 --> 00:48:09,719
always unsettled by what it meant about prisons and absence.

970
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:14,119
Months went by. Sometimes in crowds, I saw people in

971
00:48:14,159 --> 00:48:17,039
faded chairsh lanyards, looking over their shoulders, their eyes drawn

972
00:48:17,079 --> 00:48:20,519
to the invisible spaces between elevators. I never approached them.

973
00:48:20,519 --> 00:48:23,840
An newariness grown in the city's hut. One evening, an

974
00:48:24,000 --> 00:48:26,480
envelope arrived, blank except for hand drawn out line of

975
00:48:26,519 --> 00:48:29,280
the brickroomb badge and a single phrase, still here, watch

976
00:48:29,320 --> 00:48:33,400
your floors. No return address. The postmark blurred. A deep

977
00:48:33,440 --> 00:48:36,519
truth settled into me. Then, whatever how Jake and did others,

978
00:48:36,639 --> 00:48:39,159
whatever lived in the scenes between floors, found its own

979
00:48:39,159 --> 00:48:42,599
ways to survive, to watch, to remember. The building's memory

980
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:46,559
was a living thing, insatiable, humming, indifferent. In the quietest hours,

981
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:49,119
when city lights flickered across drawn blinds in the wild

982
00:48:49,119 --> 00:48:51,000
trunk to the size of my own breath. I found

983
00:48:51,039 --> 00:48:53,000
myself listening for the hum, slipping the badge from its

984
00:48:53,079 --> 00:48:56,440
hiding place, I wondered, as all seekers do, whether the

985
00:48:56,480 --> 00:48:58,800
trap sprung for one could ever fully close. After being

986
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:02,559
found sleep did not come easily. When it did, I

987
00:49:02,679 --> 00:49:05,480
found myself walking gray, always once again, always nearing a

988
00:49:05,559 --> 00:49:07,800
door with no number, always holding a card and Boss

989
00:49:07,840 --> 00:49:10,320
thirteen in my sweating fist, forever poise at the turning point,

990
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:12,360
waiting for the indicator to flicker, of the old machine

991
00:49:12,360 --> 00:49:15,079
to whine, and the world once again to park for

992
00:49:15,119 --> 00:49:18,239
the vanished. And if in the day's realness I thought

993
00:49:18,280 --> 00:49:20,880
myself safe, the smallest details belied me. A drifting scrap

994
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:23,519
of corporate carpet, a statict trichll. At two seven a m.

995
00:49:23,679 --> 00:49:25,840
The faint, hollow sound of a distant and seen vending

996
00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:28,159
machine cycling changed that no one ever comes to collect.

997
00:49:28,800 --> 00:49:30,800
But the vending machine wasn't the only thing I heard

998
00:49:30,840 --> 00:49:33,760
that night, the last time I truly slept, there was

999
00:49:33,800 --> 00:49:36,840
another sound gradually emerging from the churn of my uneasy dream,

1000
00:49:36,880 --> 00:49:39,599
aslow wet scraping, as if some heavy object was being

1001
00:49:39,679 --> 00:49:43,159
dragged across anolium, just out of my side. My feet moved,

1002
00:49:43,239 --> 00:49:46,239
and dream logic carrying me down corridors that twisted perversely

1003
00:49:46,320 --> 00:49:48,760
with each step, glass walls warping, the carpet changing from

1004
00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:51,039
burgundy to slate to the speckled dust choked pat and

1005
00:49:51,079 --> 00:49:54,440
I had seen non service level thirteen office chairs bungently

1006
00:49:54,519 --> 00:49:57,559
on their own. Monitors displayed empty loggins and badge times,

1007
00:49:57,880 --> 00:50:00,480
and overhead the fluorescent lights trembled with a staf drunk

1008
00:50:00,480 --> 00:50:02,880
so deep I felt it behind my teeth. And then

1009
00:50:02,920 --> 00:50:05,599
I saw Jake again, diminish but waiting, sitting cross like

1010
00:50:05,719 --> 00:50:07,599
it in the thread berck couch in that impossible lounge.

1011
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:10,719
His skin was pale. I suck it, sunken into darkness,

1012
00:50:10,920 --> 00:50:13,000
but his mouth moved in a pattern I recognized only

1013
00:50:13,039 --> 00:50:15,320
after a moment. He was typing invisible lines in the air.

1014
00:50:16,039 --> 00:50:18,159
A tape recorder spun on the floor beside him, its

1015
00:50:18,320 --> 00:50:20,920
seat and furling, and the broken, looping voice pressed through

1016
00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:23,320
my head, not through my ears. Watch the doors. Don't

1017
00:50:23,320 --> 00:50:26,639
trust the bat. Nothing leaves everything files away. Eventually I

1018
00:50:26,760 --> 00:50:29,360
reached out to him, wanting to warrant, to confess to apologize,

1019
00:50:29,400 --> 00:50:32,159
but he did not acknowledge me. Instead, he held out

1020
00:50:32,159 --> 00:50:34,599
a badge like mine. The number was wrung, not his

1021
00:50:35,320 --> 00:50:37,679
nor mine, but a string of numerals that meant nothing

1022
00:50:37,760 --> 00:50:41,239
until I realized it was my home address. My hand recoiled,

1023
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:44,079
and the lights flared to false summrise, colorless and sharp.

1024
00:50:44,760 --> 00:50:47,559
Thus scraping noise returned closer now, and I wheeled around

1025
00:50:47,599 --> 00:50:49,719
in the dream hallway, every part of my body screaming

1026
00:50:49,760 --> 00:50:52,360
for exit, even as I knew there was none. A door,

1027
00:50:52,440 --> 00:50:55,599
flat open marked break room thirteen, and I hurtled toward it.

1028
00:50:56,199 --> 00:50:58,559
As I passed the threshold, all sun cut away abruptly,

1029
00:50:58,639 --> 00:51:00,760
and I woke to darkness. Slick was sweat, my fiscal

1030
00:51:00,840 --> 00:51:03,480
tight round bed sheets, finger nails, taking into my palms.

1031
00:51:04,159 --> 00:51:07,719
I gathered myself, breathing hard, the world around me steady,

1032
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:09,920
but even in the silence, that hump persisted, a low

1033
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:12,960
but real I sat up, shaky, and glimpsed in a

1034
00:51:13,039 --> 00:51:14,960
muted light from the street, the edge of the plastic

1035
00:51:15,039 --> 00:51:17,519
badge winking, where caught a glint from a distant street lamp.

1036
00:51:18,360 --> 00:51:21,000
I tried to go about my routine's coffee, running water,

1037
00:51:21,239 --> 00:51:23,639
news and deep breasts but the sense of pursuit trailed

1038
00:51:23,679 --> 00:51:28,159
me all morning. At noon, my phone vibrated unremarkable number,

1039
00:51:28,280 --> 00:51:31,599
though not one I recognized. Against my better judgment, I

1040
00:51:31,679 --> 00:51:34,280
picked up. There was a click than the flat line

1041
00:51:34,320 --> 00:51:39,960
of someone waiting. Hullo, no response, this is I stopped,

1042
00:51:40,039 --> 00:51:42,679
not willing to give my name. After a pause, a

1043
00:51:42,760 --> 00:51:45,159
male voice clipped and called came through. You're not to

1044
00:51:45,199 --> 00:51:48,639
discuss your previous employment, events, of your shift or cheerish property.

1045
00:51:48,679 --> 00:51:52,400
You will be monitored for compliance with the terms you signed. Silence, Then,

1046
00:51:52,719 --> 00:51:55,199
almost as an afterthought, a whisper, brittle at the edge

1047
00:51:55,199 --> 00:51:57,440
of patience. Do you not hampt to re enter the premises?

1048
00:51:58,119 --> 00:52:01,559
Before I could answer, call dropped. I stared at the phone,

1049
00:52:01,719 --> 00:52:04,239
willing it to ring again, but it did not. I

1050
00:52:04,320 --> 00:52:07,239
felt a prickling alumsscalp the tacit acknowledgment that I was

1051
00:52:07,280 --> 00:52:10,679
being watched by real and perhaps more abstract eyes. That evening,

1052
00:52:11,000 --> 00:52:13,199
while I was nursing a cup of tea, another message

1053
00:52:13,239 --> 00:52:17,119
arrived by currier and branded hand delivered. I examined the envelope.

1054
00:52:17,800 --> 00:52:20,760
Inside was a small, old fashioned audio cassette, the label

1055
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:23,239
blank except for the word listen. I no longer had

1056
00:52:23,239 --> 00:52:26,320
a player, the ancient device from service level thirteen. The

1057
00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:28,920
one night handled in the lounge replayed in my mind.

1058
00:52:29,679 --> 00:52:32,239
After some hesitation, I messaged a friend who ran an

1059
00:52:32,239 --> 00:52:35,039
indie music shop a few blocks away. God a working

1060
00:52:35,119 --> 00:52:39,360
tape deck. I asked, need to hear something unlock. We

1061
00:52:39,480 --> 00:52:42,400
met after closing eyres. The shop's walls were lined with

1062
00:52:42,440 --> 00:52:44,639
all manner of electronics clutter, but amid the junk, he

1063
00:52:44,719 --> 00:52:48,039
produced a portable tape deck, battery, compartment tape chap. He

1064
00:52:48,159 --> 00:52:50,360
didn't ask questions when I slaid the cassette in place.

1065
00:52:50,400 --> 00:52:52,800
He'd seen dark a stuff traded among collectors, and he

1066
00:52:52,880 --> 00:52:56,320
understood the unspoken rules of city nights. I pressed play

1067
00:52:56,519 --> 00:52:59,800
mouth dry at first, just his sole tape and spooled

1068
00:52:59,800 --> 00:53:03,000
on by time. Then a tremble of office noise, the

1069
00:53:03,079 --> 00:53:06,119
murmur of distant printers, a pot of coffee bubbling, A voice,

1070
00:53:06,199 --> 00:53:09,360
female and weary, filtered through static. If anybody finds this,

1071
00:53:09,719 --> 00:53:13,199
it means you had access, or maybe you made access. Pause.

1072
00:53:13,840 --> 00:53:16,639
Elevator only works a set times. If you badge after two,

1073
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:19,599
you'll never leave. Don't trust the exits, don't trust anybody

1074
00:53:19,639 --> 00:53:21,880
in management. We thought it was a safety protocol, but

1075
00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:25,039
it's not something changed in the system when they upgraded security.

1076
00:53:25,079 --> 00:53:27,280
After the fire, they left us. We watched for weeks

1077
00:53:27,280 --> 00:53:30,039
as the badge logs shuffle, the floors receded, the screens fuzzed,

1078
00:53:30,079 --> 00:53:33,320
until faces just stopped. The purring hiss again, someone's breath

1079
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:35,480
close to the mic, then that same code of phrase,

1080
00:53:35,920 --> 00:53:39,519
nothing leaves everything files away. Eventually the tape clicked off.

1081
00:53:40,159 --> 00:53:42,719
My friend regarded me with polite bewilderment as I removed

1082
00:53:42,719 --> 00:53:46,559
the cassette and pocketed it. You okay, he asked, saw

1083
00:53:46,639 --> 00:53:49,760
something strange at work? I said, don't worry about it,

1084
00:53:50,440 --> 00:53:52,960
but he frowned. The lookal lingering after me as I left,

1085
00:53:53,039 --> 00:53:55,239
as though he half expected me to vanish before reaching

1086
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:59,239
the curb. Back home, sleep was impossible. That phrase returned

1087
00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:02,679
to me again and again, Everything files away. Eventually. I

1088
00:54:02,760 --> 00:54:05,800
tried to occupy myself with anything else, movies, reading, even

1089
00:54:05,920 --> 00:54:08,559
organizing my kitchen drawers, but the sound of filing, metallic

1090
00:54:08,639 --> 00:54:12,400
and repetitive, pressed into my thoughts. I considered seeking out

1091
00:54:12,440 --> 00:54:15,400
old colleagues, finding Curt was eleanor even Jake's family, but

1092
00:54:15,519 --> 00:54:18,920
something in the warning stopped me cold, not just fearful myself,

1093
00:54:19,039 --> 00:54:21,719
but a sudden intuitive sense anyone pulled into this would

1094
00:54:21,719 --> 00:54:24,360
be in danger too. One night, as I was staring

1095
00:54:24,400 --> 00:54:26,440
at the city lights, tracing the grid of offices, my

1096
00:54:26,519 --> 00:54:29,039
computer monitor blinked to pop up, appeared out of nowhere,

1097
00:54:29,119 --> 00:54:32,519
then vanished. I double checked my brows' history, ran scans

1098
00:54:32,519 --> 00:54:35,320
from malware, nothing, But then deep in my download folder

1099
00:54:35,400 --> 00:54:38,079
I found a new file. It was crudely titled as

1100
00:54:38,159 --> 00:54:41,320
al thirteene Look Summer t x D furious and trapid.

1101
00:54:41,400 --> 00:54:44,480
I opened it. Inside were lines on lines of badge logs,

1102
00:54:44,559 --> 00:54:46,599
a list of names with entries beside a floor marked

1103
00:54:46,639 --> 00:54:50,039
service level thirteen. The spreadsheet ran back decades, and the

1104
00:54:50,119 --> 00:54:52,679
last few entries bore from million names Jacobar A TI

1105
00:54:52,840 --> 00:54:56,039
tore database K two facilities, then my own, stamped with

1106
00:54:56,119 --> 00:54:59,440
the precise time I triggered the elevator override. My badge

1107
00:54:59,480 --> 00:55:01,519
had not own recorded my visit, but had been added

1108
00:55:01,519 --> 00:55:03,679
to this chain of vanished people, as if the system

1109
00:55:03,760 --> 00:55:06,840
had cleaned me. However, briefly, at the bottom of the list,

1110
00:55:07,079 --> 00:55:09,519
one line was highlighted with a pulse, and carrot returned

1111
00:55:09,599 --> 00:55:13,599
query status unresolved foul pending pulse racing. I dragged the

1112
00:55:13,639 --> 00:55:16,159
file on to thumb drive and plugged my machine. I

1113
00:55:16,360 --> 00:55:19,039
realized how little power I had to fight this. Where

1114
00:55:19,079 --> 00:55:21,480
my pride and security and order had given me confidence,

1115
00:55:21,639 --> 00:55:24,239
now there was only powerlessness, A dull, persistent fear that

1116
00:55:24,320 --> 00:55:26,800
what had been opened could never entirely be closed. I

1117
00:55:26,920 --> 00:55:29,440
knock at my door, startled me. It was nearly three

1118
00:55:29,599 --> 00:55:33,639
zero eh ma'em adrenaline surge. I moved quietly, peering through

1119
00:55:33,679 --> 00:55:36,280
the peep hole on the other side. Nothing but the

1120
00:55:36,320 --> 00:55:39,320
dim fame of the hallway. Nobody visible, just the echo

1121
00:55:39,400 --> 00:55:42,039
of a door shutting softly elsewhere down the hall. But

1122
00:55:42,159 --> 00:55:44,199
I saw a foot level, a new envelope, thicker than

1123
00:55:44,239 --> 00:55:47,119
the last. I waited a full two minutes, maybe more,

1124
00:55:47,159 --> 00:55:50,960
before stooping to collect it. My hand shook. Inside was

1125
00:55:51,000 --> 00:55:53,519
a single sheet Your status is still in review. Await

1126
00:55:53,559 --> 00:55:58,199
further instructions. No signature, no logo, nothing but those type flatters,

1127
00:55:58,239 --> 00:55:59,880
the kind use by the old chiff memos in it.

1128
00:56:00,079 --> 00:56:02,760
Some minutes thirteen. The paper rattled as I folded it.

1129
00:56:03,400 --> 00:56:05,559
I'd intuition told me, But I had the sense that

1130
00:56:05,639 --> 00:56:08,639
hiding was feudile, mixing fatigue in dread. I called a

1131
00:56:08,719 --> 00:56:12,199
distant acquaintance who occasionally worked as a facility's temperatureist competitor

1132
00:56:12,239 --> 00:56:15,400
across town. We spoke quietly. You ever had problems with

1133
00:56:15,480 --> 00:56:19,639
your badge at night? I asked, silence, a shuffling breath.

1134
00:56:20,280 --> 00:56:23,159
You mean like losing time or floors not matching up.

1135
00:56:23,800 --> 00:56:26,679
I nearly dropped the phone exactly that. Did you ever?

1136
00:56:26,760 --> 00:56:29,119
Did you ever hear about a floor between twelve and fourteen?

1137
00:56:29,760 --> 00:56:32,719
There was a short laugh, but it was humorless. Plenty

1138
00:56:32,760 --> 00:56:35,320
of places skip thirteen, but sometimes you see the elevator

1139
00:56:35,320 --> 00:56:37,159
blink at the wrong time. My friend quite after, he

1140
00:56:37,199 --> 00:56:38,800
said he spent an hour in a stairwell and the

1141
00:56:38,840 --> 00:56:40,960
floors kept looping. They let him go, told him he

1142
00:56:41,039 --> 00:56:43,639
violated pritt call. He nerved places like these gut roots,

1143
00:56:43,679 --> 00:56:46,000
the old stuff buried in the building, patched over but

1144
00:56:46,159 --> 00:56:49,079
not gone. We said no more, both hearing the risk

1145
00:56:49,119 --> 00:56:51,840
in our voices. That was the first time I truly

1146
00:56:51,920 --> 00:56:54,159
believed this wasn't just your a's secret. Something endemic to

1147
00:56:54,199 --> 00:56:57,440
a greater whip of corporate architectures, a system designed to

1148
00:56:57,480 --> 00:56:59,559
prone those who didn't comply or who saw too much

1149
00:56:59,679 --> 00:57:02,480
repair ropst over decades left as a by bas subroutine,

1150
00:57:02,519 --> 00:57:05,159
but never deleted. There would be others like me. The

1151
00:57:05,239 --> 00:57:08,719
stories erased, edited or distorted into rumors in lost documentation.

1152
00:57:09,400 --> 00:57:11,719
In the following weeks, emails trickled and from what I

1153
00:57:11,760 --> 00:57:14,679
could only assume were similar outcast instructions, half spelled in

1154
00:57:14,719 --> 00:57:18,400
corporate shorthand, warnings to avoid public complaints, snifts of log data,

1155
00:57:18,519 --> 00:57:21,920
images of Badge readers embedded in unlikely places, basement storage units,

1156
00:57:22,039 --> 00:57:25,880
bandoned skyways. Sometimes there were notes scribbled on receipts scanned

1157
00:57:25,920 --> 00:57:29,800
and email from anonymous accounts. Most never included names, just

1158
00:57:29,920 --> 00:57:32,119
badge numbers of the years when they'd last seen, some

1159
00:57:32,320 --> 00:57:35,440
like glimmer through a normal window. Each contact was brief,

1160
00:57:35,519 --> 00:57:37,800
as if writing even a single email risk being found.

1161
00:57:38,440 --> 00:57:40,800
Many alluded to monitoring how the cameras kept moving, how

1162
00:57:40,840 --> 00:57:43,679
the badge sweats still registered at thought intervals months after

1163
00:57:43,719 --> 00:57:46,480
they had left their positions. The more stories they gathered,

1164
00:57:46,559 --> 00:57:49,199
the clearer the picture became a collective of vanished lives,

1165
00:57:49,360 --> 00:57:52,280
nudged from their routines into an invisible holding pen. Condemned

1166
00:57:52,320 --> 00:57:55,320
to drift in corporate purgatory, must just plead it, don't

1167
00:57:55,360 --> 00:57:58,719
let anyone else badge in and always don't trust the elevators,

1168
00:57:59,440 --> 00:58:02,400
never follow the light. I spent my next days preparing

1169
00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:05,280
for something, though I could not say what. I backed

1170
00:58:05,320 --> 00:58:07,800
up my remaining files to discs, I hid in different locations.

1171
00:58:08,440 --> 00:58:10,679
I rehearsed what little I might say to reporter if

1172
00:58:10,760 --> 00:58:13,840
ever risked telling the story in person. But in every attempt,

1173
00:58:13,920 --> 00:58:16,800
my courage followed. Each time I tried to reach out,

1174
00:58:17,000 --> 00:58:20,239
something intervened the email bounce, the call redirected their count clothes.

1175
00:58:20,800 --> 00:58:24,440
The badge itself never left its drawer. Still at odd eyes,

1176
00:58:24,559 --> 00:58:27,159
I'd remove it and study its surface, reading the embossed

1177
00:58:27,199 --> 00:58:29,920
thirteen and the bland and specific break room, tracing the

1178
00:58:30,039 --> 00:58:31,880
edges as if I might find some secret catch or

1179
00:58:31,960 --> 00:58:36,679
hidden message. The number felt heavy each night. Then one Wednesday,

1180
00:58:36,719 --> 00:58:39,599
long past midnight, a power flicker swept the building. The

1181
00:58:39,679 --> 00:58:42,119
digital clock on my stoved up erset, the fridge ground

1182
00:58:42,119 --> 00:58:43,920
to halt for a fraction of a second, and in

1183
00:58:44,000 --> 00:58:46,440
the darkness I heard the drone of fluorescent lights, impossibly

1184
00:58:46,519 --> 00:58:50,000
unmistakably emanating from below my feet, my heart in my throat,

1185
00:58:50,119 --> 00:58:52,880
I walked barefoot, cross called anoleum, back to my bedroom,

1186
00:58:52,880 --> 00:58:55,639
where the badge sat as I approached the dresser, I

1187
00:58:55,679 --> 00:58:57,639
saw the faintous ghost of a green glow there and

1188
00:58:57,760 --> 00:58:59,679
then gone, as though a card reader had winked at

1189
00:58:59,679 --> 00:59:02,559
me from beneath the wood. I couldn't ignore it any longer.

1190
00:59:03,239 --> 00:59:05,960
I dressed, quickly, pocketing the badge, a flashlight, the thumb

1191
00:59:06,039 --> 00:59:08,000
drive of the logs, and a battered old walkie I

1192
00:59:08,000 --> 00:59:10,840
had kept from my years in security. I told myself

1193
00:59:10,920 --> 00:59:13,559
that going back was foolish, that returning to chairs was

1194
00:59:13,599 --> 00:59:16,280
both impossible and would be met with resistance or worse.

1195
00:59:17,079 --> 00:59:18,920
But the need for completion, a burned down sense of

1196
00:59:19,000 --> 00:59:22,000
unfinished business, was stronger than dread. I made my way

1197
00:59:22,000 --> 00:59:25,000
across the city, skirting the well lit main streets. The

1198
00:59:25,119 --> 00:59:27,559
corporate tower loaned up of the grid, indifferent, as always,

1199
00:59:27,840 --> 00:59:31,320
multi story blank gaze, both implacable and inviting. The entrance

1200
00:59:31,400 --> 00:59:33,559
lights washed the sidewalk, and I waited in the alley,

1201
00:59:33,679 --> 00:59:36,760
watching for movement. There were no security guards, nobody at

1202
00:59:36,760 --> 00:59:39,199
the front desk now after midnight, just the echo of

1203
00:59:39,239 --> 00:59:42,039
empty lobby footsteps and the electronic pulse of barged doors.

1204
00:59:42,760 --> 00:59:45,440
Every internal entrance was control, but I still remembered the

1205
00:59:45,519 --> 00:59:48,440
side door. The catering crew sometimes propt for overnight deliverers.

1206
00:59:49,440 --> 00:59:52,719
I checked instinctively. The latch was misaligned, softened by hundreds

1207
00:59:52,719 --> 00:59:55,440
of slams over years. It clicked open with only a

1208
00:59:55,519 --> 00:59:57,599
gentle shove and an echoing sigh from the weather strip

1209
00:59:58,199 --> 01:00:01,800
in sight. The familiar scent washed over me, laminated directories,

1210
01:00:01,880 --> 01:00:04,440
the chemical tang of floor polish, the residual warmth from

1211
01:00:04,480 --> 01:00:07,239
machines cooling in the night time. For ease, I drifted

1212
01:00:07,280 --> 01:00:09,599
into the building's belly, keeping to the darker stretches, the

1213
01:00:09,679 --> 01:00:12,079
farthest corners from where a current badge logs might pain.

1214
01:00:12,719 --> 01:00:15,280
My destination was clear to twelve four, the sterroll hidden

1215
01:00:15,280 --> 01:00:18,559
between the conference center and janitor's closet. I slipped inside,

1216
01:00:18,639 --> 01:00:21,039
the boots of old habit, carrying me over familiar train.

1217
01:00:21,719 --> 01:00:23,360
It was there in the glim above the end of

1218
01:00:23,400 --> 01:00:26,519
the landing that I found the badge reader. At this hour,

1219
01:00:26,599 --> 01:00:29,840
the dull Reddi lady pullsed again, inviting predatory. I pressed

1220
01:00:29,840 --> 01:00:32,519
the thirteen brake room card to its face. The green

1221
01:00:32,559 --> 01:00:36,320
glimmer responded immediately, more eager than before. The door released,

1222
01:00:36,440 --> 01:00:38,519
heavy and slow on its hinges, emitting a size of

1223
01:00:38,559 --> 01:00:42,639
exhaling years of containment. I entered. The stale air greeted

1224
01:00:42,719 --> 01:00:46,519
me thick with memory and dread. Space was unchanged. The

1225
01:00:46,599 --> 01:00:49,079
break rooms outline grew from the darkness, tables askew the

1226
01:00:49,159 --> 01:00:52,320
vending machine's dull face. Monitors dreading the static, gaze over

1227
01:00:52,360 --> 01:00:55,519
abandoned mugs and dust. The humming was larder here, not

1228
01:00:55,679 --> 01:00:59,360
only audible but palpable underneath the skin. My phone vibrated.

1229
01:01:00,079 --> 01:01:03,320
I glanced down. No service, no time stamp, just a

1230
01:01:03,400 --> 01:01:05,480
blank screen and the batter a draining by the second.

1231
01:01:06,239 --> 01:01:08,599
The door behind me is shirt ceiling, with the hush

1232
01:01:09,519 --> 01:01:12,559
from somewhere deeper in the room, a shuffing noise in

1233
01:01:12,639 --> 01:01:15,119
the lamp light. Another hunch figure, a new present stood

1234
01:01:15,159 --> 01:01:17,639
by the monitors, dragging a chair with painstick and quiet.

1235
01:01:18,400 --> 01:01:21,079
Some one else morooned by the same error or design,

1236
01:01:21,199 --> 01:01:24,920
their posture angular and guarded. I called that softly, Jake.

1237
01:01:25,559 --> 01:01:28,280
The head turned. It wasn't jake. A woman, this time,

1238
01:01:28,360 --> 01:01:30,480
pale and jittering. Her badge clipped to a QRD around

1239
01:01:30,519 --> 01:01:33,280
her wrist. She blinked as if flight stabbed her, then

1240
01:01:33,320 --> 01:01:36,360
stepped forward. You have a cart, she said, flatly voice.

1241
01:01:36,400 --> 01:01:39,760
Then I nodded, showing it not fully trusting my voice.

1242
01:01:40,480 --> 01:01:42,840
She eyed it, then me. It won't let you leave,

1243
01:01:42,920 --> 01:01:46,679
she whispered, not if you use it twice. I swallowed hard,

1244
01:01:46,760 --> 01:01:49,199
fighting the urge to glance back at the door. What

1245
01:01:49,360 --> 01:01:53,039
happens if you try, she shook her head. Sometimes you

1246
01:01:53,159 --> 01:01:55,639
end up somewhere else. Sometimes you just end up here again,

1247
01:01:55,840 --> 01:01:58,000
even if you think you left. Most stopped trying. I

1248
01:01:58,079 --> 01:02:03,360
saw Jake, I managed, She winced, He's quiet now, got

1249
01:02:03,400 --> 01:02:05,920
too tired. The system logs you eventually, if you keep moving,

1250
01:02:06,000 --> 01:02:07,880
it forgets he for a while. If you rests, if

1251
01:02:07,960 --> 01:02:10,480
you give up, it files you away. She shivered to

1252
01:02:10,480 --> 01:02:14,480
discuss memory both why do you come back? The question

1253
01:02:14,599 --> 01:02:17,440
scraped at a row wound inside me. I need to know,

1254
01:02:17,639 --> 01:02:21,320
a needy I broke off. I wasn't sure what I needed.

1255
01:02:22,039 --> 01:02:24,119
Maybe just to believe someone could know the truth and

1256
01:02:24,199 --> 01:02:27,000
not be erased by it. She sighed, eyes darting to

1257
01:02:27,079 --> 01:02:30,599
the monitors. They still watch from outside, you know, management.

1258
01:02:30,880 --> 01:02:33,679
Sometimes you see them on the cameras, just staring. I

1259
01:02:33,800 --> 01:02:37,320
move closer, keeping my hands visible. What do you want?

1260
01:02:38,079 --> 01:02:42,039
A bitter, lopsided smile crossed her features. Nobody's ever asked me, da.

1261
01:02:42,760 --> 01:02:45,480
She dropped her gaze. I want to find the right door,

1262
01:02:45,559 --> 01:02:48,760
the one that goes somewhere real. We stood together in silence,

1263
01:02:48,760 --> 01:02:51,360
the hum around us thickening. She gestured at one of

1264
01:02:51,400 --> 01:02:54,119
the monitors tapped it. On screen, through a haze of

1265
01:02:54,159 --> 01:02:56,840
static was an image of the lobby. My own form

1266
01:02:56,880 --> 01:02:58,920
flickered there, indistinct and slow, as if f you ha

1267
01:02:58,920 --> 01:03:02,440
did a time lack. Sometimes, she said softly, you leave,

1268
01:03:02,519 --> 01:03:05,559
but you don't. The monitor showed me on loop circling

1269
01:03:05,639 --> 01:03:09,800
security desk the last night I'd worked. I watched myself stand, checklogs,

1270
01:03:09,840 --> 01:03:12,920
pick up a clipboard, yawned deeply. The badger my belt

1271
01:03:12,960 --> 01:03:17,599
blinked in the reflected fluorescent light. And that is the end.

1272
01:03:18,199 --> 01:03:19,880
Thank you for listening, and I will see you in

1273
01:03:19,960 --> 01:03:20,440
the next one.