Scene 1: Transit Denied

The elevator waited with the patience of a predator.

Caldra stepped inside, her master chalk warm against her palm, the emergency pen a reassuring weight in her coat pocket. The doors closed with their usual mechanical precision.

She pressed “SL-3.”

Nothing.

The button glowed amber, then flickered to red. The elevator voice—usually crisp, professionally neutral—stuttered:

“Destination… error… clearance… error…”

The temperature dropped six degrees in four seconds. Her breath fogged. The overhead light flickered in morse-like patterns that felt almost deliberate.

“Custodian… Myre…”

The voice fragmented, losing pitch and timber until it sounded like static learning to speak.

“You… shouldn’t… be… here…”

The elevator lurched. Not downward. Sideways—a motion elevators were not designed to make. The cable housing groaned above her head, a metallic shriek that echoed through the shaft like a scream trapped in metal.

Caldra pressed herself against the back wall. Her breath came shorter now, each exhalation a small cloud of vapor in the suddenly frigid air.

The elevator was hunting.

She pulled out her chalk. The broken piece felt fever-hot now, almost burning her fingertips. Without hesitation, she pressed it to the elevator wall and drew—not letters, not numbers, but a symbol that emerged from instinct rather than training:

A circle. Broken at the top. Three lines intersecting at angles that hurt to look at directly.

The chalk hissed against the metal, leaving a mark that glowed faintly blue-white.

The elevator shuddered. The voice cut out mid-syllable.

The doors opened with a pneumatic gasp, like something dying.

Sublevel 3 stretched before her with emergency lights flashing in erratic, heartbeat rhythms.

She stepped out. The doors slammed shut behind her with enough force to rattle the frame.

The chalk mark on the wall was already fading.

Scene 2: The Archive Breathes

Sublevel 3 was forbidden.

The building schematics ended at Sublevel 2. Maintenance logs listed this level as “Sealed - Structural Concerns.” But here it was. A vast corridor lined with filing bays that stretched beyond the reach of the emergency lighting.

The air tasted of ozone and old paper. Something electric and wrong. A faint smell of burned circuitry threaded through the atmosphere, underscored by a low hum that seemed to emanate from the walls themselves—the sound of a system straining against its own limitations.

Caldra’s footsteps echoed, each one answered by a faint echo that came a half-second too late, as if the sound had to travel through layers of reality to return.

Elric’s presence was everywhere:

Chalk marks glowed faintly along the file drawer edges. Precise coordinates, nothing random. Bay numbers, drawer references, access codes written in a handwriting she was beginning to recognize as intimately as her own.

Notes tucked into partially opened files. Some half-burned, edges charred black. Others torn, as if ripped away in haste. The visible fragments read like warnings:

”—Layer 6 not intended for—””—override token requires blood price—””—Caldra, trust nothing that breathes—”

A Type 9 Override Token lay on the central sorting table, cold to the touch and pulsing with a faint red light that synchronized with her heartbeat. She had never seen a Type 9 before. Most custodians topped out at Level 3 clearance.

Beside it: a sealed envelope, cream-colored paper with her name written in Elric’s careful script:

“For Custodian C. Myre – Do Not Open Until Layer 3 Initiates”

Her hands trembled as she broke the wax seal. Inside: a single sheet of paper and a fragment of burned file, the edges still warm.

The fragment was labeled: “Layer 6 – Not for Custodial Eyes”

The paper contained one line in Elric’s handwriting:

“The system never forgets. But it can be convinced to remember differently.”

Below it, in fresher ink:

“You’re already in Layer 3. Auren knows. Run.”

Scene 3: The Voice of Authority

The intercom crackled to life with the sound of electricity finding its voice.

“Custodian Myre.”

Auren’s voice cut through the air like a scalpel through skin—calm, measured, and absolutely implacable.

“Your presence is unauthorized. Please comply.”

The words carried weight beyond their meaning. As he spoke, the file cabinets around her began to slam shut in sequence—click-thunk, click-thunk—a mechanical drumbeat of closing access.

The emergency lights synchronized with his speech patterns, flashing brighter with each syllable.

“Level 3 access requires dual authorization. You possess only singular clearance.”

Caldra gripped the Type 9 token. It grew colder in her palm, the red pulse accelerating.

“Custodian Myre. Respond.”

She said nothing. Speaking would confirm her location, give the system a voice signature to lock onto. She moved deeper into the archive instead, using her scanner to read file markers in the half-light.

“Deviation is unsustainable.”

The temperature dropped again. Frost began forming on the file drawer handles.

“Termination sequence…”

A pause. Static. The sound of something vast and electronic thinking.

“…pending.”

The lights cut out entirely.

In the darkness, only the Type 9 token glowed—pulsing red like a dying star.

[End of FILE 009A]

The system knows. The system sees. And Caldra is alone in the dark.

Next: FILE 009B – Silent Cut: Escalation Protocol, Part II

—Shiro Kuma