Lena didn’t return to her desk right away.

She stood at the edge of the Analysis pod, letting the ambient noise wash around her—keyboards tapping, muted conversations, the faint hum of the building’s ventilation system. Her legs felt steady, but the rest of her was still adjusting to the pressure left behind by the interview. She’d survived it, but survival had its own echo.

Silas waited beside her for a moment, scanning the floor, confirming no one else was watching too closely, then gave her the smallest nod before heading toward the Strategy corridor. He didn’t have to say where he was going. The upper floors would want a summary—his version. Their version. A version he had to shape with care.

Lena exhaled once, quiet and controlled, before taking her seat.

Tessa rotated her chair toward her immediately. “Well?”

“It’s done,” Lena said.

“That’s not an answer.”

“They asked about last night,” Lena said. “And about the model.”

Tessa’s expression tightened. “What about the model?”

Lena hesitated.

She couldn’t say the names.  

She couldn’t say the revision log.  

She couldn’t say Monroe or Dalton.

She chose the safest slice of truth.

“They wanted to know if I recognized patterns linked to the 2015 case.”

“That’s vague as hell,” Tessa muttered.

“It was meant to be.”

Tessa leaned closer. “Did Silas help?”

“Yes.”

A beat of silence. Tessa studied her. “You look… not shaken. Rattled, maybe. But not broken.”

“I’m not broken,” Lena said. “Just adjusting.”

“That’s different,” Tessa said. “And better.”

Lena opened her notebook—not to review the screenshot, but to give her hands something to rest on. She pretended to check her schedule. Her eyes tracked the space between tasks rather than the tasks themselves.

At 10:16, a system notification flickered at the top of her screen.

**ACCESS LIMITATION NOTICE:  

Temporary restrictions applied to user L.Carrow.  

Cross-floor visibility suspended. External directories disabled.**

Tessa saw it the moment Lena did.

“Oh, hell,” she whispered. “They’re narrowing your map.”

“It was expected,” Lena murmured.

“Expected isn’t acceptable.”

Lena didn’t answer. She clicked the notice open, scanning through the limited privileges.

32 → yes  

30–31 → limited  

38–40 → suspended  

Archives → pending review

It was a cage.  

Not a small one—yet.  

But the shape of one.

She answered a few emails in the meantime—routine questions, numbers that needed a second look, none of which mattered in the context of the pressure overhead. She typed with clarity, but her thoughts tracked the building more than they tracked her screen.

At 10:48, she noticed something shift.

Not around her—above her.

The lighting across the floor dimmed almost imperceptibly, adjusting for the overcast morning outside. But the moment the brightness lowered, she felt a thin, cold thread run along her spine.

Because she knew that feeling.

It was the same she’d felt the night before, just before R. Marrow’s call.  

The same she’d felt at the train station years ago, moments before learning her father wouldn’t come home.

Her body recognized patterns before her mind did.

A shadow fell across her desk.

She looked up.

Not Silas. Not Compliance.  

Someone else.

A young man she had never seen here—mid-twenties, badge clipped at an angle that didn’t match the way T&C staff wore theirs. His eyes were alert, but not rehearsed.

“Lena Carrow?” he asked quietly.

Her pulse tightened. “Yes.”

He handed her a folded slip of paper. No envelope. No marking.

“This was left at reception with your name.”

Lena didn’t move at first. “Are you sure?”

“I was told to deliver it directly,” he said.

“By who?”

He hesitated. “They didn’t say.”

Her hand hovered above the paper.

“Thank you,” she said.

He nodded once and walked away, heading toward the exit instead of any of the working pods.

Tessa leaned in. “That’s not normal.”

“No,” Lena said. “It isn’t.”

She unfolded the paper.

It wasn’t handwriting.  

It was printed text.

**You’re looking at the wrong version.  

Compare the audit in reverse.  

—R.M.**

Her breath caught.

Tessa whispered sharply, “What is that?”

Lena folded the paper shut. “A reminder.”

“From who?”

“Someone who doesn’t want to be on record.”

Tessa stared at her. “That’s not comforting.”

“It isn’t meant to be.”

Lena slipped the note into her notebook and forced herself not to look at Silas’s empty desk. He was still upstairs. He couldn’t see this. She wasn’t supposed to bring outside messages to him. Not yet.

Her fingers drummed once against the edge of the table.

Reverse the audit.

She opened a blank spreadsheet.

Pattern forward → redacted names, lost revision logs, suppressed signals.  

Pattern backward → who removed them, when they disappeared, what changed immediately afterward.

Reverse the order.  

Reverse the absence.  

Reverse the erasure.

If the forward trail was intentionally broken, the backward trail might still have fissures.

She traced dates through restricted access flags.  

She traced changes in permission tiers.  

She traced updates to Compliance personnel.  

She traced directory closures after the 2015 internal hearing.

Then she hit something.

A timestamp.

Late 2015.  

Access override: Dalton.J  

Status: REVOKED  

Reason: Position dissolved / departmental restructure.  

Archive linkage: Monroe.C → deactivated same week.

Her chest tightened.  

Two removals.  

Same week.  

Same department cluster.

J and C hadn’t just worked together.  

They’d been erased together.

Her breath drifted out slowly.

Someone had tried to overwrite the story.  

But the structure of the deletion still existed.

She highlighted the line—carefully.  

Not marked.  

Not flagged.  

Just held in memory.

Her phone buzzed.

Not R. Marrow.

Silas.

**On my way down. Stay visible.**

She typed: Understood.

Three minutes passed.

Silas appeared in the corridor with the precision of someone who wanted to look calm and not hurried—which meant he was neither calm nor unhurried.

He reached her desk and spoke quietly.

“Walk with me.”

She stood.

Tessa mouthed: Don’t die.

Lena almost smiled.

They walked toward the far end of the floor where the glass curved outward into a wide observation area—a place where people rarely worked but often stood to breathe.

Silas verified no one was within range before he spoke.

“The partners met,” he said.

Her chest tightened. “And?”

“They’re divided.”

That wasn’t good.  

Unified hostility was easier than fractured silence.

“What now?”

“They want two versions,” Silas said. “One for Compliance. One for Strategy. And they want me to bridge them.”

“Because of me.”

“Because of the pattern,” he said. “You’re just the current point on it.”

She exhaled. “Did they ask about J?”

“They asked why the revision log resurfaced,” he said. “Not who he was.”

“Do they know who he was?”

Silas’s gaze didn’t move.

“They know enough.”

Lena swallowed. “And C. Monroe?”

“That name makes them uncomfortable,” Silas said. “Which means it matters.”

She lowered her voice. “I found something. The removals. They were the same week.”

He went still.

“You ran a reverse audit.”

“Yes.”

“Did anyone see you?”

“No.”

“Did you save anything?”

“No.”

He closed his eyes briefly, relief passing across his face in the quietest possible way.

“Good,” he said. “Never save it. Just remember.”

“I do.”

He opened his eyes.

“Then hear this,” Silas said.

She waited.

“Upstairs,” he said, “someone wants to reopen the 2015 case quietly. Not publicly. Not officially. They want a version that isolates your father’s actions from everything else.”

“That’s not the truth.”

“It’s the version they want.”

She felt her pulse tighten. “Why now?”

“Because of the anomaly resurfacing,” he said. “Because of your access. Because of the model. But mostly—because someone else is moving faster than they expected.”

“R. Marrow.”

“Yes.”

Lena leaned against the glass, her reflection faint beside his.

“What do I do next?” she asked.

Silas didn’t answer immediately.

He took a moment to watch the hallway, then said:

“You stay between versions.”

She frowned. “Meaning?”

“You don’t agree with theirs,” he said. “You don’t deny it. You don’t volunteer your own. You speak only to the gaps. Gaps can’t be weaponized as easily.”

“And you?”

“I’ll manage the upper floors.”

“Silas—”

“You asked how not to repeat your father’s story,” he said quietly. “This is how.”

Their reflections wavered in the glass.

Two silhouettes.  

One version.  

Two stories they were trying not to inherit.

Then Silas added, softer:

“Whatever they ask next… don’t let them make you choose a version.”

Her voice was barely audible. “Why?”

“Because the moment you choose,” Silas said, “they’ll decide where to place you.”

The meaning landed with weight.

Not an explanation.  

A warning.

And not hypothetical.

A map.

She stood straighter.

“I understand,” Lena said.

“Good.”

But he didn’t move.

Neither did she.

Behind them, the building hummed—machines, ventilation, electricity.

But beneath it, she could feel something else:

The shift of a narrative.  

The rearranging of a story.  

The pressure of two versions trying to occupy the same space.

And her—  

standing on the line between them.