AJ quickened his pace, his eyes flicking between his phone and the road.

You’d think I’d be allowed to go into work a bit later since I finished so late last night! - he fumed to himself. The day had fast approached after his unplanned rendezvous with Eliza and the subsequent daydreaming caused him to set off later than he should have. His thumbs frantically tapped away, replying to last night's messages, reassuring his usual buddies that he was OK and not dead in a gutter.

 

Digital correspondence all cleared up, his eyes hovered over Eliza’s handle.

elizuhh, - he stared at the grey bubble next to the characters, signalling she was offline. Tucking his phone away in the folds of his coat, he broke into a run.

 

Sprinting through the doors of the OUSR building he launched his phone and keys into the tray that sat beside the security checkpoint.

 

“Why are you running, you’re not late,” came a voice from the stairs behind the scanner. AJ looked up at the figure of his boss, Michael, walking down to him.

 

“I… yeah I’m not late…” he said, breathlessly, “just keen to start… I guess…”

 

Michael harumphed, not buying it for a second. “Suuuree”.

 

AJ's shoulders hunched as he passed through the scanner, which remained silent. He retrieved his belongings from the guard whose face remained motionless, save for a disapproving twitch of his eyebrows.

 

“Come, you’re the only one on CCTV today, Joel called in sick,” Michael gestured to AJ to follow. A spark of excitement kindled inside of AJ’s core.

Might be able to check out what Eliza asked for then.

They walked up two flights of stairs and swiped their access cards through three sets of doors, before arriving at the grand CCTV room. “The Room of a Thousand screens and a Million Stories,” Michael had affectionately called it. AJ hasn't counted them all but a thousand was definitely a stretch.

 

“OK, OK,” said Michael. He did this when he was about to say something important or something he thought funny, but probably wasn't.

 

“What we need from you here is to spot anomalies in people's actions, stuff you think isn't quite right,” Michael stared at AJ looking for a response.

 

“OK… but I'm not going to be able to see anything if I'm looking at everything,”

 

“Smart kid. That's where these come in,” he pointed towards the computer terminals stationed at the front of the wall of screens. “This will ping up alerts for you to go through, they'll have a time stamp and what the AI thinks has happened… it ain't perfect but it's a start.”

 

A thought crossed AJ’s mind.

 

“The alert list doesn't look very full, can I run through the CCTV feeds and hunt for stuff?” He asked causally, his ulterior motive hidden from view.

 

“Kinda what you were hired for buddy!” He roared with laughter, before swiping himself out of the room, leaving AJ alone.

 

So… how the hell do I figure out why certain cameras aren't doing their job… - he wondered.

 

He took a seat in front of the large control panel and studied some of the alerts on screen.

 

The first few flags were routine: a parking infraction on Quarry Hill, a bobbing pair of heads behind the tinted glass of a taxi, a fox streaking through a bin alley with a limp rat in its mouth. Nothing that would get anyone excited.

 

He toggled the day’s timeline, watched the digital river of feed light up with low-res ghosts: dog walkers in hi-vis, railway maintenance crews, an estate agent hovering at the bell of a half-excavated terrace. AJ drummed fingers against the console, watching the feeds flicker and skate from one zone to the next. The city out there looked nothing like the city he knew.

Three or four hours passed before he realised he needed a drink. The room’s kitchenette offered salvation: a can of something sugar-free. He cracked it open, leaned against the fridge, and took a long sip.

His eyes drifted across the feeds until one caught his attention; a road near St. James’s Hospital.

Harehills

He drained the can, dropped it in the bin, and double-clicked the zone. Eliza had said she walked at night. Near Jimmy’s, last night. It was bait; obvious, deliberate.

Rolling the footage back to midnight, he watched at double speed. Nothing. Until the timestamp flickered.

That looked like a time jump.

He rewound slowly. A skip.

Sixty-six seconds at 3:03:00. Let’s see the maintenance logs…

His fingers flew across the keyboard, slicing through security protocols. No maintenance. Just one cryptic entry at 03:03: CCS. ROUTE: 3.0.3.

What the hell is CCS?

A system query returned nothing. Even the OUSR intranet shrugged; classified infrastructure.

“Every camera has a parent system,” he muttered. “Except this. It’s like someone built a ghost.”

An hour later, frustration set in.

Maybe the company who installed it knows more? - He adjusted his watch, watching the second hand sweep.

An alert pinged. A message from Michael.

“You haven’t swiped out yet. Eat something.”

“You got it,” AJ replied, locking his terminal.

He left the room and squinted against a flood of daylight.

“Too bright in this place,” he muttered, weaving through unfamiliar faces.

I’m not far from that camera… might as well check it out.

He snagged a hi-vis jacket from a darkened office.

No one questions a bloke in a vest - he grinned, waving at security as he passed through the gate.

The walk to the hospital was uneventful.

“I hope I find something to impress her - he thought, Eliza’s memory clinging like smoke.

–

Outside Jimmy’s, the street was nearly empty; patients smoking in thin gowns, contractors arguing by a loading bay. He looked up.

A little higher than I thought…

He zoomed in with his phone, but the picture refused to focus. Cursing, he stepped closer, then froze at the crunch beneath his shoe. Loose tarmac.

Curiosity flared. He crouched and brushed the debris aside, revealing a metal plate etched with faded letters: CCS.

Bingo.

He pried it up carefully. Inside sat a small black box, fins slick with condensation, a green diode pulsing faintly. The sticker, half burned, ended with CCS03.

He tapped the casing with a knuckle. Warm. The hum wasn’t mechanical; it pulsed, synced to the city’s grid. No battery.

He reached for his phone; no signal.

Signal jammer perhaps? Must run on a timer. That’d explain the sixty-six seconds.

A network cable snaked from the other side.

Internet access? Jam and redirect? Or is someone else watching?

He pieced it together aloud:

“The feed drops at 3:03 a.m. for sixty-six seconds. Local signals jammed. Network cable gives it internet access.” He frowned. “But why?”

After snapping a few photos, he lowered the plate and brushed asphalt over it. Then he set off for the office, heart racing.

“Looks like Eliza was right. Shit. This is conspiracy-theory territory.”

Inside, he returned the hi-vis to its rack and slipped back to the CCTV room unnoticed.

He swiped in, dropped into his chair, and pulled up feeds linked to the Harehills camera. Only one showed the 3:03 gap. The others ran clean.

He drummed his fingers, thinking.

A search algorithm… check every feed for time drops.

Before the thought finished, his fingers were already moving.

This could take hours. Or days - He smiled. Definitely worth it, no downside.

An hour of coding later, he leaned back and stretched.

That should do it. Let’s see what turns up

He hit Enter, watched the code begin, then locked his workstation and slipped out.

By the time he reached the street, the rain had started. 9:09.

“After nine again…” he sighed.

His gaze flicked to the spot where Eliza had saved him the night before. Nothing.

I should go back to that camera at three a.m. See it for myself.

 

He broke into a run.

 

A figure dressed in a long trench coat watched AJ as he ran past, sending a waft of old cologne into the damp night air. The coat looked older than the person inside it. The hem was ragged. The lapels were damp, dark wool mashed to an odd luster by rain and time. They leaned on a lamppost, eyes locked onto AJ's position as he receded into the distance.

 

From one pocket emerged a cigarette, from another a lighter, both clasped between skeletal fingers. The flame sparked forth, defiant against the downpour, catching the tobacco with unnatural precision.

 

“Windward, always light windward. Even the rain has to queue in this city.” A voice said quietly.

 

When the hand lifted to deliver the cigarette to waiting lips, the coat's high collar fell away just enough to expose the hollow-cheeked visage of a man.

 

“Curiosity, the first shovelful of every grave,” the man murmured into the wind, his words carrying a brittle wit. “Run faster lad, the night's onto you.”

 

He pulled smoke deep, twice more, before flicking the cigarette to the ground. The ember died beneath his heel as he pivoted and strode away, leaving the conversation as dead as the crushed filter behind him.