Opening: The Signature Doubt
Tonight, the terminal’s glow felt colder. Caldra sat still, breath shallow, the low hum in the walls threading through her bones like live wire.
She read the audit log again. Fourth time in ten minutes.
Timestamp: 07:43 AM
Action: File Update – Silent Cut Protocol Authorized
Signed: C. Myre
Authorization Level: Custodial Override – Layer 5
Her signature. Her name. Her authorization code—one she had never seen before.
But she had not signed it.
Did I?
The thought seeped in like cold water through cracked stone. Her memory felt soft around the edges, porous. She pressed her fingertips to her temples, trying to reconstruct the morning. Tea. Cassel arriving early. The routing anomaly. But between 07:40 and 07:45…
A blank space. Five minutes erased.
A flicker of static pricked her skin. The terminal pulsed once, faint as a heartbeat skipping.
The whisper followed, soft and wrong, emerging not from speakers, but from the walls themselves:
“He watches when the clock resets.”
The words looped softly, threading themselves into the pulse of the room like a virus in the system. Her hand gripped the chalk tighter, the dust clinging to her fingers and sleeve, leaving white smudges on everything she touched.
No. I didn’t sign that. I know I didn’t.
The system stared back, silent and sure. In the bottom corner of the screen, new text blinked:
MEMORY RECONCILIATION: PENDING
Auren’s Arrival: The Surgical Presence
Auren’s presence arrived before his footsteps. The air shifted, heavier than before, as if the room had sealed itself. The hum in the walls realigned, a subtle harmonic that matched the rhythm of his measured pace.
When he appeared in the doorway, the fluorescent lights brightened by exactly two degrees. The impossible precision made Caldra’s skin crawl.
He did not speak at first. His gloves were immaculate white leather, his gold suit crisp as fresh paper, his pen gleaming like a scalpel catching operating room light. Everything about him suggested incision—clean, necessary, final.
He stopped at the edge of her station, hands clasped behind his back.
“Your compliance metrics are inconsistent, Caldra.”
His voice was measured, polite, absolute. The system flickered in sync with each syllable.
“I trust you will correct that.”
Cassel’s cursor hovered above a compliance flag on his secondary monitor, his fingers twitching like a pianist before a difficult passage. His badge had turned amber, a warning state Caldra had never seen before.
Her breath caught. Amber was not a warning, it was a quiet death sentence.
“Cassel.” Her voice was low and sharp. “Don’t.”
For a second, he hesitated. His eyes met hers—wide, pleading, terrified. Then his gaze flicked to Auren, who had not moved or spoken, yet radiated expectation like heat from a furnace.
A shallow nod from Cassel.
The air around Cassel’s workstation grew thin. Pressure built in his ears, like the sensation of descending in an elevator. His monitor flickered once, a single frame of static that resolved into perfect clarity.
Click.
The update locked in with a sound like a filing cabinet slamming shut.
COMPLIANCE CONFIRMED
CUSTODIAL OVERSIGHT: TRANSFERRED
SILENT CUT: LAYER 1 AUTHORIZED
“It’s protocol,” Cassel whispered, barely audible. His hands were shaking now.
Caldra did not move. The chalk pressed into her palm, a silent, crumbling threat. White dust drifted from her fingers like ash, the residue of something burned.
Auren did not look at her. His gaze swept past her like a cold scan, cataloging, measuring, filing her away for later processing.
“Thank you, Cassel. Alignment is appreciated.”
The lights flickered once, as if the Registry itself exhaled in relief.
Then Auren was gone. He did not walk away. He simply vanished, like a file removed from a drawer.
The whisper fractured in his wake:
“…watches…clock…resets…cutting…deep…”
Alone: The Pattern Emerges
Caldra sat in the darkened glow of the terminal, her breath shallow. The static hum remained, softer now, waiting and patient as a predator.
She opened the log again, fingers trembling on the keys.
Silent Cut: Active
Layer 1: Employee Reassignment (C. Thorn)
Layer 2: Record Adjustment (Pending)
Layer 3: [REDACTED]
Layer 4: [REDACTED]
Layer 5: Total Erasure Protocol
Five layers. Like an onion of deletion, each one deeper and more thorough. Layer 1 would reassign Cassel, make him disappear from her department, her floor, her orbit. Layer 2 would adjust the records so his absence felt natural, inevitable.
Layers 3 and 4 were inaccessible, but she could guess. Layer 5…
Total Erasure Protocol.
Not just firing someone. Making them never have existed at all.
The pressure behind her eyes sharpened, like something cold tightening and twisting deeper. A faint metallic tang coated her tongue, sharp as copper pennies.
Her pulse slowed, then skipped.
In the edge of the dust on her desk, barely visible unless you knew where to look, a faint chalk “X” had appeared. She had not drawn it. Her chalk was still in her pocket.
Another mark, near the file shelf. Fainter. An “8”.
Her hand trembled once, then steadied.
The whisper, nearly lost to static, shivered back into the air:
“Observe… pattern… cut… bloom… nine comes next…”
The words bled into the silence like ink spreading through water.
The Countdown: Messages in Dust
Caldra stood slowly. Her chair creaked in the silence. She walked to the file shelf, her shoes making no sound on the polished floor.
The “8” was clearer up close, drawn in the same chalk dust as the “X,” but older. How long had it been there? Hours? Days? Her memory felt unreliable now, full of gaps and soft spots.
She knelt, examining the mark. The dust showed fingerprint ridges—human touch, not machine precision. Someone had been here. In her space. In her sanctuary.
Elric.
The name whispered itself in her mind. The Master Binder. The man who had supposedly died in a records collapse ten years ago. The man whose handwriting kept appearing in her files, whose notes kept surfacing in impossible places.
But if he was leaving her messages…
She checked her terminal again. The system log blinked, updating in real time:
FILE REQUEST: CUSTODIAL OVERRIDE HISTORY
Timestamp: 07:43 AM – BEFORE SESSION START
Requester: [NULL ENTRY]
Status: APPROVED BY SYSTEM AUTHORITY
A chill ran down her spine like ice water in her veins.
The request was timestamped five minutes before she had even arrived at work. Someone had filed a request for her own authorization history before she was there to authorize it.
And the system had approved it automatically.
The air felt thinner, charged with static electricity that made her hair stand on end.
In the far corner, previously hidden by shadow, the dust on the floor caught the terminal’s light. A faint, almost imperceptible “9” was drawn in the same careful chalk script.
Caldra’s breath caught, held, then released slowly.
She did not wipe it away.
Cassel’s Dilemma: The Amber Light
From across the corridor, she could hear Cassel’s keyboard—frantic, desperate typing punctuated by long pauses. She walked to his workstation, her footsteps echoing in the empty hallway.
He looked up when she approached, his face pale as paper.
“Caldra, I—”
He stopped, glanced around as if the walls might be listening.
“I didn’t want to click it. But my terminal… it wasn’t giving me a choice.”
She looked at his screen. The compliance interface was still open, but now it showed additional options she had never seen before:
“Document Destruction?” Caldra’s voice was barely a whisper.
Cassel nodded miserably.
“They’re moving me. Down to the furnace level. To burn files.”
“Old files. Discontinued personnel records. Files that are supposed to stay buried.”
The implication struck her like a physical blow. They were not just reassigning him; they were sending him to destroy the evidence of his own existence. And possibly hers.
“Cassel.” She placed her hand on his shoulder. “When did you first arrive at Registry House? Your real first day?”
He blinked, confused.
“I… Tuesday. No, Wednesday. It was…”
He frowned, pressing his fingers to his temples.
“I can’t remember exactly. The onboarding packet said—”
“What onboarding packet?”
“The one that was in my apartment. With the badge and the…”
He stopped. His face went white.
“Caldra. I don’t remember applying for this job.”
The countdown on his screen changed: 70 HOURS
The Silent Cut Mechanism: Understanding the Blade
Back at her terminal, Caldra began cross-referencing everything she could access about Silent Cut Protocol. The results were fragmented, heavily redacted, but a pattern emerged:
Silent Cut Protocol: Administrative Efficiency Enhancement
[CLASSIFICATION: NEED-TO-KNOW BASIS ONLY]
- Purpose: Removal of problematic personnel and associated documentation without disruption to operational continuity
- Method: Five-layer progressive erasure ensuring complete elimination of traces
- Authorization: Level 7+ Custodial Authority or System Override
- Success Rate: 100% (No recorded failures)
- Implementation History: [REDACTED] successful operations since activation
At the bottom of the file, a note in familiar handwriting:
“The cut is silent because the victim never realizes they’re bleeding until they’re already gone. – E.M.”
Elric Moorwen. Still alive. Still operating within the system. And apparently, he had helped design the very protocol being used against her and Cassel.
But if he was warning her with the chalk marks, if he was leaving her clues…
Maybe he was trying to help her understand how to fight back.
The Deeper Pattern: What Comes After Nine
Caldra walked the perimeter of her workspace, looking for more chalk marks. She found them:
- “X” on her desk (new)
- “8” by the file shelf (older)
- “9” in the corner (newest)
But there was something else. In the gap between the “8” and “9,” barely visible unless you looked at the right angle, another mark. Not a number. A letter.
“R”
R for Registry? R for Reset? R for…
Reversal.
The pattern was not a countdown. It was coordinates. A location within the Registry’s filing system.
Section X, Subsection 8, File 9R.
Her skin prickled, a phantom chill rising up her spine, as if the Registry itself had felt her discovery.
She accessed the archive database, her fingers flying over the keys:
ARCHIVE LOCATION: X-8-9R
Classification: CUSTODIAL LEGACY FILES
Content: Master Binder Historical Records
Access Level: RESTRICTED – AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED
Physical Location: Cold Room Sublevel 3
Sublevel 3. She had never been that deep. Most custodians were not authorized below Sublevel 2.
But if Elric’s records were there…
If the original Silent Cut protocols were there…
If there was a way to reverse what was happening to Cassel…
She checked the time: 11:47 PM. The night shift would be minimal. Security would be running automated protocols.
It was the perfect time for an unauthorized custodial visit.
Preparation: Tools for Surgery
Caldra gathered her tools with surgical precision:
- Her master chalk (the piece that had been warming in her pocket, now almost hot to the touch)
- Cold Room access tokens (three of them, acquired through various clerical oversights)
- A small handheld scanner (technically borrowed from the Audit Department)
- Her emergency pen (the one that wrote in permanent ink, impossible to erase)
And one more thing—Cassel’s original badge. The one from before his records went strange. She had kept it when the system issued him a replacement. Insurance, she had thought then. Proof of continuity.
Now it might be his lifeline.
If they caught her, there would be no trial. Just a file closure and a line of chalk that was not hers.
She wrote a quick note in her permanent ink:
“If I don’t return by morning, check Cold Room X-8-9R. The answers are buried three levels down. Don’t let them burn the files. Don’t let them cut you silent. – C.M.”
She left it in her desk drawer, under the chalk dust. If someone erased her electronically, at least there would be physical proof she had existed.
The terminal blinked once as she prepared to leave:
CUSTODIAL MOVEMENT DETECTED
After-hours authorization: PENDING
Security Alert: [SUPPRESSED]
Someone was watching. Someone was covering for her.
Elric.
The whisper came one last time as she walked toward the elevator:
“Cut deep enough, and you might find what was buried. But some surgeries… they require steady hands.”
The elevator doors opened with a soft chime.
Sublevel 3 awaited.
End of FILE 008 – Final Draft
System Log Entry:
Custodian C. Myre: Location Tracking Disabled
Silent Cut Protocol: Layer 1 Complete
Countdown to Layer 2: 68 Hours
Anomaly Detection: Multiple Unauthorized Chalk Signatures
Master Binder Legacy Files: Access Attempted
Status: [OBSERVATION CONTINUING]
Final Note (handwritten in chalk dust):
“Ten comes after nine, but what they don’t tell you… is what lies before one.” – E.M.
Comments (0)
See all