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Speaker 1: I'd been working night security on the lot long enough

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to know that the job only worked if nothing happened.

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That was the point of it. Repetition. You walk the

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same routes, checked the same doors, locked the same confirmations

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until the motions stopped requiring thought. The nights where you

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started thinking with the knights, you missed something. The sight

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itself was massive warehouses, office blocks, loading bays, service corridors,

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stitched together with access roads and fencing. During the day,

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it was loud and chaotic. At night, it emptied out

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so completely it felt abandoned. Most shifts were automated senses

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reporting back to a central system, cameras, cycling logs filling

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themselves in. I was pretty much paid to watch Netflix

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all year because nothing ever went wrong. Christmas Eve was

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the exception. Early closures meant that all the building's operations

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had to be shut down. Temporary overrides had to be

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applied and removed manually. Systems that normally talk to each

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other got staggered or isolated. For one night a year,

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the site stopped being able to rely on automation alone,

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So on this one day of the year the job changed.

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Instead of monitoring, I had to be present, physically verified locks,

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reset zones by hand, confirm lighting, power routing, access points,

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all of it untight specific timings. It wasn't dangerous, just

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precise work, where being five minutes late mattered more than

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being absent. There was a failsafe for nights like that,

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full sight reset unit locked away in the central security hub.

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I'd been shown it during training years ago, back when

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I still had a supervisor walking me through procedures designed

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for what the manual called full sight instability. I'd never

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seen it used, no one I knew had it existed,

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like a fire extinguisher behind class, something you registered and

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moved on from. This year, staffing was thin. People wanted

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the holiday off. Management floated the idea of splitting the

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lot between two guards. I told them I'd handle it.

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I knew the site better than anyone still in the roster.

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I'd done this shift many times before these and the

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bonus pay was enormous. The checklist they sent over was

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longer than usual, but still familiar. I skimmed it, logged

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in and started my first round. The shift followed the

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same cycle patrol, lock, reset, confirm and log Precision was key.

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Speed only mattered when it protected timing. I was always

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told the timing mattered because the systems talked to each other.

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I only worked security. The tech was above my pay grade,

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so I never fully understood what that meant. I carried

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a handheld unit clipped to my belt, scoffed from years

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of use. It was a scheduler task windows, confirmation prompts,

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and time stamps. It didn't tell me what to do

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so much as when I was supposed to do it.

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If I stayed inside those windows, the site behaved. Everything

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went quiet in the way they were supposed to. Language mattered, too.

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Confirmations weren't check boxes. They were short entries with exact phrasing.

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Deviate and the system would accept it, but not always

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interpret it the way you intended. The lot felt right

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when everything landed on time. The first problem came from

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a loading bay on the east side. A delivery cage

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had been left unsecured by a day crew rushing out early.

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Nothing dramatic, just the rolling barrier half a meter out

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of place, enough to block a censor sweep. Fixing it

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cost me minutes. I didn't have to spare. I liked

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the correction tied to my pace and watch the hand

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held roll forward to the next task. I felt irritated.

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Christmas Eve had no slack, but I'd managed tighter runs before.

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I lengthened my stride, recalculated the route in my head,

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and told myself the same thing I always did when

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the margins thinned, I'd make the time back. The first

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real squeeze came just after eight. My hand held chined

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again before I'd finished clearing the last confirmation. The screen

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stacking tasks closer together than I liked. They weren't emergencies.

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That's the worst part, just presents required checks landing within

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the same narrow window. I swore under my breath and

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picked up the pace. Jogging wasn't part of the job.

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Had it never been this bad. The whole point was consistency,

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the same steps, the same timing, But that one early

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setback compressed everything. I caught across a loading bay instead

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of taking the long corridor badge already out, eyes flicking

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between doors, and the countdown ticking on my device in

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my hand, I made it barely the last confirmation accepted

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with seconds despair. The handheld gave its soft acknowledgment tone,

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and the lot seemed to exhale with me. The low

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mechanical hum of the buildings evened out again, like a

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machine settling back into its preferred rhythm. Relief came sharp

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and fast. It made my hands feel light. I leaned

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against the concrete pillar for a moment, catching my breath.

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Annoyed with myself and needing to I locked the tasks,

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forced my writing to stay neat, and told myself this

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was still well within what I'd handled before Christmas. Eve

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always pushed that was the job, Just one tight shift

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and it'd be back to the easy life. That was

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when the radio clipped to my shoulder crackled, just the

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quick burst, dry electrical, cutting through the air like a

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tear in fabric, and then silence. The channel cleared on

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its own, the idle hiss returning as if nothing had happened.

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I frowned at it, thumb hovering near the volume knob,

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then let my hand fall away, old building, cold, night interference.

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I pushed off the pillar and started walking again, already

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mentally rearranging the rest of the shift to stay ahead

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of the clock. The pace eased, the lot settled into

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the kind of quiet I'd been expecting all night. The

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stretch where your body stays tight even though nothing is

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actively demanding attention. I moved through one of the smaller

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office blocks, running the same checks I'd done hundreds of

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times before. The doors were still locked, but one of

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them resisted when I tested it, like the latch hesitated

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before remembering its stroke. The overhead lights took an extra

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beat to come up, humming softly before stabilizing. Little things.

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I blamed the hour. Christmas Eve always did strange things

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to the buildings. Partial shut downs, half powered systems, spaces

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core between open and closed annoyances you only notice when

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you're in a rush. I logged the checks and started

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down the corridor toward the exit. When the hand held

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chimed a motion sensor, single trigger, same floor and wing

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the room I just come from. I stopped listening. The

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air felt thick, as if the building were holding onto

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sound rather than letting it travel. I waited for the

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follow up ping that would mean an actual problem. It

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never came. I stood longer than I meant to, scanning doorways,

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watching the light panels, listening to my own breathing echo

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back a little louder than it should have. Eventually I

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moved on, standing still never fixed anything, but as I walked,

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the lot no longer felt empty, occupied in a way

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I couldn't pin, like something had arrived early and was

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waiting for the rest of the night to catch up.

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By the time the next cluster of notifications hit, I

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could feel it in my shoulders before I saw it

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on the device. Two critical tasks, different buildings, overlapping windows.

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Not impossible, but tight enough that I had to choose

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an order and commit to it without second guessing. I

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checked the distances pictured the roots and went the one

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that would bottle neck faster. If I missed it, I

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broke into a jug again, boots slapping harder than I

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liked against concrete. The air felt colder, now sharp in

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my lungs. I keyed in the first reset with seconds despare,

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waited for the confirmation tone, then turned and ran. The

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second task was on the far side of the lot,

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past loading bays that echoed my footsteps back at me

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at odd intervals. My hand held vibrated as the tolerance

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window narrowed. I vaulted a low barrier I usually walked around,

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felt something twinge in my calf and ignored it. I

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made it barely the indicator flipped from pending to green.

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Just as the timer expired. I leaned against the wall

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for a moment, hands braced on my knees, swept cooling

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under my jacket. My pulls took its time settling. This

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was the part of the job. No one talked about,

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the quiet aftermath, when your body realized how close you'd

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cut it. I locked both tasks, fingers moving faster than

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my breathing. When the timestamps populated, I frowned. Both were

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off by a minute, early on one, late on the other.

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I checked my watch, then the hand held. I corrected

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the times, manually, added a brief note, and watched the

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system except the edit without comment, green across the board

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clean again. I told myself it would be fine. Both

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were complete, just off. It was my fault, Christmas Eve

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doing what it always did, compressing everything until even small

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errors felt loud. I moved on. A few minutes later,

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during a slower stretch, I pulled the log back up

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to reassure myself the original incorrect times were there again,

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sitting where my corrections should have been. Then the alert stopped,

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just ended mid cycle, like someone had cut me from

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the system. My hand held stayed lit in my palm screen,

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ready waiting for the next instruction that didn't come. I

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kept walking anyway, Standing still on a sight this size

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felt worse than moving. The lot had changed its feel.

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The buildings were where they'd always been, but the air

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pressed closer, sound behaved differently. My boots still struck concrete,

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but the noise didn't travel the way it should have.

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It fell short, absorbed, as if the space around me

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had decided it didn't need to carry anything any more.

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This had never happened before, on a normal shift or

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a Christmas Eve one. The only difference this time was

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mistiming a few tasks, a drastic change for something so small.

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I slowed without meaning to. The emptiness I relied on

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was gone. In its place was something fuller, the sense

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you get in a crowded room when everyone goes quiet

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at once, no movement, just the awareness that you weren't

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alone in the way you were supposed to be. I

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told myself it was stress, a long shift, compressing my perception.

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Still I stopped behind me. Something else stopped too, a

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pressure change, subtle but exact, like a breath being held

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the same time as mine. I didn't turn around. I

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stood there, listening to my own pulse, suddenly conscious of

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how much space my body took up. Whatever was moving

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wasn't wondering. It had matched my pace, and now he

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was waiting. Lights dipped across the lot like someone had

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put a thumb over the lens of the night, but

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not evenly. One warehouse went dusky, while the office block

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stayed bright. The loading bay fluorescence thin to a weak,

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sickly glow. It didn't look like a power cut. It

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looked like the lot had started making decisions about where

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the light was worth spending. I checked my hand held

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out of habit, expecting a cascade of tasks to explain it.

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The screen stayed calm, no faults or prompts. That was

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when I heard the sound, a slow drag through the

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corridor outside the nearest offices, coming from an especially darkened hallway,

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heavy enough to raise the hairs in my arms, steady

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enough to feel deliberate. It wasn't the staccato clatter of

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a loose trolley wheel or the skitter of windblown debris.

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It had weight, It had rhythm, like something moving with authority.

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Despite the fact that I should be alone, I held

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still and listened, trying to place it. The drag continued,

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then it paused. The corridor's glass panel gave me a

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slice of reflection, and for a second it offered me

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a shape tall, folded forward, too much height, packed into

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a hunched frame. Something rose from its head in branching silhouettes,

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antler like, catching the weak light and brushing near the

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ceiling tiles. As it passed. The joints didn't swing like

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a man's. They hinged. They clicked into the next position,

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as if the body had rules different from mine. My

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mouth went dry so fast it hurt. I backed into

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the closest office, without taking my eyes off that pain,

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turned the thumb latch and slowly drew the dead bolt.

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The locks sounded tiny in the quiet, and I prayed

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that the sound didn't travel to that thing. The dragging

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resumed closer. Now the sound didn't hurry or search. It

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traveled straight, like it didn't have to search and would

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find me. Eventually, I braced my hand against the desk

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to steady myself. My radio sat on my vest, silent

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like it had been all night. Then it woke up.

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A clean, mechanical phrase played to the speaker, flat official

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old enough that I recognized it before I understood it

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fail safe access available. I hadn't heard that line before.

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When I was brief on the fail safe, it was

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assumed among staff that it was some sort of hardware

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reset in case shut downs went wrong and bugged the system.

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But seeing glimpses of that thing stalking the hallways, I

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prayed to God it would deal with that. The problem was,

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the fail safe wasn't in this office. It was in

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the central security hub, in its seal case, where it

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sat untouched for as long as I'd worn the uniform.

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The dragging stopped right outside the door, and then the

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door took on a new weight. The handle didn't twitch,

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nor was it being bashed in. The pressure arrived the

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way someone leans their shoulder into a wall to listen

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through it, casual yet intimate, certain you're staying put. I

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stood there with my hand hovering over my radio, my

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other hand still on the desk. The pressure and the

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door stayed steady like it had all the time in

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the world, and it was just the matter of time

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before it got in, So I stayed as still as possible.

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I figured it must have picked up the small vibrations

239
00:18:37,640 --> 00:18:40,920
when the radio sounded, but I didn't turn it off.

240
00:18:41,599 --> 00:18:45,000
I didn't risk an ounce of sound, knowing it was

241
00:18:45,359 --> 00:18:49,440
just outside the door. My face was tense from only

242
00:18:49,480 --> 00:18:53,559
breathing in short, shallow gulps, hard to do with my

243
00:18:53,640 --> 00:18:59,000
heart rates spiking. I waited until the pressure in the

244
00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:03,359
office door e the stress and the door relieved, as

245
00:19:03,359 --> 00:19:08,359
if it too was taking a breath of relief. When

246
00:19:08,359 --> 00:19:17,039
I heard it lumber away, I moved. I didn't think

247
00:19:17,119 --> 00:19:21,480
in words. I followed habit left, turned past the break room,

248
00:19:21,839 --> 00:19:24,839
down the service stairs, two at a time. Bad swipe

249
00:19:24,880 --> 00:19:28,559
I'd done a thousand times without locking. The central hub

250
00:19:28,680 --> 00:19:32,680
was three buildings over, and I took the shortest internal route,

251
00:19:32,920 --> 00:19:37,599
cutting through corridors meant for carts and maintenance crews. I

252
00:19:37,680 --> 00:19:41,400
kept my pace steady, running burned oxygen and made noise

253
00:19:42,039 --> 00:19:46,519
and noise carried, so I was brisk, but still careful.

254
00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:52,119
The handheld stayed quiet in my grip, its screen glowing uselessly.

255
00:19:53,480 --> 00:19:57,160
Still no tasks that scared me more than if it

256
00:19:57,200 --> 00:20:00,720
had been screaming. A task would give me hope that

257
00:20:00,759 --> 00:20:04,279
I had some agency in what was going on, But

258
00:20:04,400 --> 00:20:09,039
I was at the mercy of the unknown. I caught

259
00:20:09,079 --> 00:20:12,160
sight of it on the way at the far end

260
00:20:12,160 --> 00:20:16,200
of the loading corridor, where the emergency lights cast long shadows.

261
00:20:16,839 --> 00:20:21,400
Something tall cross between them, its outline breaking into angles

262
00:20:21,559 --> 00:20:26,359
where joints shouldn't bend. It moved with weight, each step,

263
00:20:26,440 --> 00:20:31,079
deliberate hoofs striking concrete with a sound I felt through

264
00:20:31,079 --> 00:20:35,759
my boots. I dodged between doorways, making sure not to

265
00:20:35,799 --> 00:20:40,160
stay too long and linear lines of sight. However, from

266
00:20:40,200 --> 00:20:44,559
all my docking and crouch walking, my phone slipped out

267
00:20:44,559 --> 00:20:49,440
of my pocket, landing with a sharp clatter. Before I

268
00:20:49,440 --> 00:20:52,720
had chanced to pick it up. The sound staggered toward me.

269
00:20:54,079 --> 00:20:56,960
I was forced to flee as quietly as possible to

270
00:20:57,000 --> 00:21:01,400
a hiding spot. From there, I heard what I didn't

271
00:21:01,440 --> 00:21:07,240
want to hear, a glassy crunch. My phone was its

272
00:21:07,319 --> 00:21:12,119
first victim, and I was terrified i'd be the next.

273
00:21:14,519 --> 00:21:17,960
Another glimpse of it came in a reflection chron trim

274
00:21:18,039 --> 00:21:21,400
on a fork left polished smooth by years of hands,

275
00:21:22,519 --> 00:21:26,960
A silhouette behind me, crowned with branching shapes that scraped

276
00:21:27,039 --> 00:21:31,640
pipes along the ceiling. When I turned, the space was empty,

277
00:21:32,559 --> 00:21:38,640
but the smell lingered cold air, old hay. Something burned.

278
00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:44,160
The sentral hob door came into view, and my chest

279
00:21:44,240 --> 00:21:47,559
tightened with relief so hard it almost slowed me down.

280
00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:52,720
I slipped inside, locked it, and crossed straight to the

281
00:21:52,759 --> 00:22:00,640
wall mounted case. The veil safe gray metal, unlabeled a

282
00:22:00,720 --> 00:22:05,279
red seal I'd only ever seen intact. Training videos were

283
00:22:05,319 --> 00:22:08,319
never specific on what it did, treated it like a

284
00:22:08,359 --> 00:22:13,720
theoretical something for storms, riots and blackouts that never came.

285
00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:19,119
My hands shook as I broke the seal and pulled

286
00:22:19,160 --> 00:22:27,680
the handle, but my heart sank. Nothing happened, The lights

287
00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:32,400
didn't change, The creature still wondered. My radio stayed quiet.

288
00:22:33,599 --> 00:22:39,480
There was no feedback that it had done anything. The

289
00:22:39,599 --> 00:22:44,160
impact came a second later. The outer office wall blowed

290
00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:48,160
inward with a deep, wet thud that rattled the fixtures

291
00:22:48,400 --> 00:22:52,839
and sent dust raining from the ceiling tiles. Glass flixed

292
00:22:52,839 --> 00:22:59,880
but held. Something dragged across it, slowly testing learning the boundary.

293
00:23:00,559 --> 00:23:03,559
I backed into the inner office and locked myself in

294
00:23:04,079 --> 00:23:09,160
just as the wall shuddered again, harder this time. I

295
00:23:09,200 --> 00:23:11,759
had just enough time to think that I'd made it

296
00:23:11,799 --> 00:23:17,960
worse when a sound ripped through the night above us.

297
00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:21,960
It wasn't an alarm or anything I could identify from

298
00:23:22,079 --> 00:23:26,839
years of working this job. The sound from above grew fast,

299
00:23:27,359 --> 00:23:30,440
close enough that my teeth rattled Before I could make

300
00:23:30,480 --> 00:23:34,880
sense of it. It sounded vast, tearing through the air

301
00:23:34,920 --> 00:23:39,559
at impossible speed, followed by a concussive impact that shook

302
00:23:39,599 --> 00:23:43,839
the building to its bones. The building shuddered, as if

303
00:23:43,880 --> 00:23:47,319
something immense had struck the roof and transferred its weight

304
00:23:47,519 --> 00:23:52,319
straight through the structure. The pressure against the walls stopped.

305
00:23:53,599 --> 00:23:57,559
Whatever was haunting me made a sound I hadn't heard yet.

306
00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:06,519
The pressure against the wall vurnished. Whatever had been leaning there,

307
00:24:06,680 --> 00:24:10,519
pulled back with sudden urgency, and a sound tore out

308
00:24:10,519 --> 00:24:17,440
of it, high and sharp, stripped of patience, panic, unmistakable,

309
00:24:17,640 --> 00:24:25,759
and raw. Then came footsteps, each one landed with deliberate force,

310
00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:29,960
heavy enough to throw through the walls, too slow to

311
00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:35,279
be chasing, too confident to be cautious. The hallway should

312
00:24:35,319 --> 00:24:38,759
not have been able to hold that much weight, but

313
00:24:38,839 --> 00:24:49,880
it did, groaning under the approach, and then stranger still laughter, low,

314
00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:54,720
full and unafraid. If this was some sort of military intervention,

315
00:24:55,400 --> 00:24:58,519
I imagined, i'd hear the chirps of radios, the clicks

316
00:24:58,559 --> 00:25:01,599
of rapid boots on the ground in perfect unison to

317
00:25:01,599 --> 00:25:06,519
meet the creature with structure. The laughter didn't make sense.

318
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:11,279
It rolled through the corridor like a presence rather than

319
00:25:11,319 --> 00:25:15,200
a sound, and the thing I'd been running from answered

320
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:20,880
it with another shriek. Closer. Now desperate, I heard it

321
00:25:21,039 --> 00:25:29,359
searched forward. There was one impact, a single catastrophic collision

322
00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:33,079
that slammed through the building and left the lights swinging

323
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:37,640
on their mounts. I braced for another, holding my breath,

324
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:43,880
waiting for whatever survived to finish the job. Nothing followed.

325
00:25:45,319 --> 00:25:49,599
The footsteps moved away, unhurried, fading with the weight of

326
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:54,839
something that knew it had already won. Was that all

327
00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:58,200
it took? A creature that curled to move through tall

328
00:25:58,279 --> 00:26:01,880
hallways enough strength the bore a wall just by leaning

329
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:08,400
beaten in one motion. I waited longer than I needed to,

330
00:26:09,039 --> 00:26:11,960
long enough for my hands to stopped shaking, for the

331
00:26:12,079 --> 00:26:16,880
silence to settle into something that felt final. When I

332
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:22,720
finally opened the door, the corridor had changed. A blackened

333
00:26:22,759 --> 00:26:26,559
smear streaked across the wall and floor, as if something

334
00:26:26,599 --> 00:26:29,480
had been burned down to residue in a single motion.

335
00:26:30,799 --> 00:26:35,640
At its center sat a small, dark lump brittle and uneven,

336
00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:42,599
like a piece of coal. Beside it rested a box,

337
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:48,599
bright paper, clean edges, a ribbon tied carefully at the top.

338
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:54,960
A tag hung from it. Hand written on it was

339
00:26:55,079 --> 00:27:01,400
my name, in neat cursive. I stood there, staring, my

340
00:27:01,519 --> 00:27:05,519
pulse loud in my ears, unable to reconcile the violence

341
00:27:05,759 --> 00:27:10,599
with the care placed beside it, and against every instinct

342
00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:19,240
I had left, I moved toward the nearest window. I

343
00:27:19,319 --> 00:27:25,160
braced for the worst, and finally looked outside. As I did,

344
00:27:25,599 --> 00:27:27,799
I heard the rumbling from on top of the building,

345
00:27:28,279 --> 00:27:32,920
as whatever landed prepared to leave. As I looked up,

346
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:37,720
it was already pulling away into the clouds, just leaving.

347
00:27:38,839 --> 00:27:42,640
It moved with no need for urgency, confident it had

348
00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:47,440
finished this task, without needing to double check. What I

349
00:27:47,519 --> 00:27:53,839
saw went beyond anything I was expecting. It wasn't a chinook,

350
00:27:54,079 --> 00:27:59,720
a fighter jet, or anything remotely military. It was abroad,

351
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:05,440
colorful shape sliding across the night, trailing faint sparkles that

352
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:10,400
drifted and faded before they reached the ground. Whatever pulled

353
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:14,839
it flew in formation, silhouettes, rising and falling together with

354
00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:20,559
a childlike familiarity that made my chest tighten helming. The

355
00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:24,839
vessel was a portly figure dressed in all red. The

356
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:28,680
same laugh he chortled in the hallway, echoing in the sky.

357
00:28:31,839 --> 00:28:35,359
I stood there longer than I should have, trying to

358
00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:40,519
understand what I was looking at, before it disappeared entirely.

359
00:28:43,079 --> 00:28:47,400
The sights settled around me, lights evened out, the low

360
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:52,000
mechanical hum returned to its normal register. Censers stopped tripping.

361
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:57,559
The lap felt empty again, properly empty, the way it

362
00:28:57,599 --> 00:29:01,720
always did when things were working. I went back and

363
00:29:01,799 --> 00:29:04,240
saw the box still sitting where it had been left,

364
00:29:04,839 --> 00:29:08,640
ribbon unwrinkled, my name written neatly on the tag in

365
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:13,440
ink that hadn't bled or smudged. I poked it. At first,

366
00:29:14,559 --> 00:29:18,640
With everything that had happened, I was dubious of strange surprises,

367
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:22,799
but when I saw that it was docile, I gently

368
00:29:23,079 --> 00:29:30,680
opened it up. What I saw inside surprised me. It

369
00:29:30,839 --> 00:29:33,880
was a brand new phone, same make as the one

370
00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:37,599
I'd just lost, but a newer model. I flipped it

371
00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:41,880
over a few times, and everything checked out, just an

372
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:47,240
ordinary new device. Nothing eldered about it, no devil's deal catch.

373
00:29:48,559 --> 00:29:51,000
I put it in my pack, and ready to leave,

374
00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:55,799
I logged out early, noted nothing unusual in the report,

375
00:29:56,519 --> 00:29:59,039
and went home with my hands still shaking on the

376
00:29:59,079 --> 00:30:05,920
steering wheel. Over the next few days, I heard small

377
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:10,799
things through the usual channels, late shipman's minor timing errors,

378
00:30:10,839 --> 00:30:15,759
conflicting access logs that couldn't be reconciled, nothing anyone wanted

379
00:30:15,759 --> 00:30:19,559
to dig into during the holidays, nothing that justified a

380
00:30:19,599 --> 00:30:24,680
call back. I told no one what happened. I didn't

381
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:28,799
try to explain it to myself out loud either. Every

382
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:31,880
version I came up with collapsed under its own weight,

383
00:30:32,799 --> 00:30:36,440
the chart being secret container procedures, some kind of elaborate

384
00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:38,920
fel safe test I hadn't been cleared to know about,

385
00:30:39,759 --> 00:30:42,559
and what I could only perceive as the universal vision

386
00:30:42,599 --> 00:30:47,400
of Santa Claus rescuing me from some eldre's crampus. To

387
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:51,839
call it unbelievable would be an understatement, a fraction of

388
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:55,240
the story, enough to get me sent away from mental help.

389
00:30:56,920 --> 00:31:00,599
When I came in for my next shift, everything normal.

390
00:31:01,519 --> 00:31:04,599
The checklist was unchanged, the site map was the same,

391
00:31:05,079 --> 00:31:08,880
the central hub was quiet. I was ready to settle

392
00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:12,720
down for another year of an easy job, but out

393
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:17,359
of curiosity, I checked the fail safe, which last I

394
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:23,279
saw was used up. Seal broken, it sat in its case.

395
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:29,960
A new seal intact stayed uslike green. It had been reset,

396
00:31:30,519 --> 00:31:35,039
ready to be used in another emergency. There was no

397
00:31:35,119 --> 00:31:39,160
note or message from management, no acknowledgment that Christmas Eve

398
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:45,240
had been anything other than another shift. However, the fact

399
00:31:45,279 --> 00:31:48,519
that it had been reset meant that someone knew how

400
00:31:48,519 --> 00:31:52,839
the system worked, someone knew when it failed and knew

401
00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:57,599
how to correct it. I still don't know what the

402
00:31:57,680 --> 00:32:00,599
job was really for. I own. Let me know that

403
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:04,720
I did it, that something went wrong, and that something

404
00:32:04,759 --> 00:32:07,839
else showed up to fix it,