The Floor Above Us Was Never Supposed to Exist

The Floor Above Us Was Never Supposed to Exist

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KURIOUS: Strange and Unusual Stories

Speaker 1: Hullo. I'm welcomed stories all the time. The lad you

are here, Let's get into it. I stay late, not

out of ambition or loneliness, but from a kind of inertier.

My desk sits catty corner to the emergency stairwell, the

perfect pocket for watching everyone else sleep out. Foorescent ceiling panelshum.

The copy machine in the alco shutters itself back to sleep.

Seven v repie am. The only light left in the

corridor is my desk lamp. Down the hall, A door

clicks quietly shut. I glance up and see nothing but

the looping shadow beneath the frosted glass. The building is

supposed to be near empty by this time. Cleaners aunt

and until nine. Yet I hear muted voices, gentle but

with the shapes of real words. The syllables tumble, then

resolve into one phrase. Will meet again upstairs eight to

ten minutes. Another voice, soft, almost practice, Bring it all

eight to night. Yes, my screen pinks with the last

scheduled back up notification, but I barely see it. The

doors all along the corridor generic h R facilities. A

couple of private consulting knocks. None say anything about another floor, footstepped,

grunch over the red bur blue carpet. I stiffen. A

woman emerges at the opposite end, branhare pulled too severely,

gray slack's jacket pinned with a badge. I can't place.

I've never seen her before, and I know almost everyone beside,

if not by name, by the walkout away to prop

open their office doors. Hulaanaud a corper a blue ribbon

bears a plastic car, no name, just a bold ex

Her gaze skates over me before she hears past, headed

directly for the elevators. Curiosity, silly low sticks makes me follow.

The elevator is there, hulking gray doors, pebbled and scratched.

I hover just beyond the threshold, pretending to study the

frame fire exit diagram. She jabs the call button, glances

back only once I look at the panel beside US one, two, three, four, five,

six seven, then a blank space black wary it would belong.

There's even a shallow, smere like glue or tape that'd

been scraped off the car dings. The doors pull a pot.

The woman steps in, and I catch a flash of

dull yellow interior light. Already another man stands inside his

Briefcay sipped both hands on a clean white folder, blocky

letters marked ATA. He fixed his eyes my way, the

kind of glance that says nothing. The woman nods, the

door's close. I reach for the elevator button. I nourge

so shop it nearly embarrasses me. Then stop myself, let

it go. Buildings like this old mitown stacks with names

changed every five years, grow their quirks. I push off

from the wall, a coal fostone pressing behind my back,

and head for the stowell. My badge opens it as

usual to stare up. Is lock tight in the morning.

The memory already feels faint and stupid, like a poorly

constructed dream. Still the blank slot stays with me, the

way my reflection in the elevator door was blurry, warped,

almost waiting for me to challenge it. I have always

been methodical, unremarkable. My job of into contracts mostly endless forms,

the kind of spreadsheet work that rewards focus in harmlessiness.

Keeps me busy, but leaves me time to drift coffee

at the window every morning at a fifteen, watching commuters

below lunch in the break room, brown back open beside

Yesterday's cross word, humming over the Cleaffer and Canny seven letters.

Sometimes I fill in routine, though I know it's not right.

Our building is nothing really gray corridors, odd peninsulas of

old carpet cubicles lined like aquariums along the windows. They

split the floors between companies, free for us, the others

for legal mortgage insurance. The elevators two main, one freight,

each clunking along on its own schedule, sometimes stole between floors.

There is another stairwell, always locked nearest the north corner.

Nobody seems curious, though only facilities has the code, Marta says.

Once I brows raised as if to tease some small

office secret. Marta always eats, standing leaning against the office fridge,

juice tapping a dance on the vinyl. Some day, she says,

they'll soundproof the down stairwell. I get my grains the

way people Pace has in wheedles for her lost ginger snap.

They should at least paint a doors that of mill colors.

What drives every one nuts? Only the eight floor people

get anything repainted, Marta answers. She says it breezely with

that slice murk that crowd has the fancy new coffee

pop machine too. Two cubes down. Ron cackles from behind

his divider. Everything goes missing onate. My Amazon box addressed

to me ended up up there again. You know how

it is. Nobody blinks. It's a refrain that's always half

a joke, half complaint. The eighth floor are Building's long,

harbored punch line. Sometimes I hear don't bother calling I

t there onate. At others, eight's conference schedule is brutal.

They always block out tuesdays. My brain catalogs these fragments,

stashing them beside calendar reminders in expense coats. I never

thought about it, never felt obliged to. The notion rolls

past just part of the background static. I'm methodical. I

like my walks to the vending machine, window views of

the weather, the small contained oddities that break up the days.

We all have this invisibility, the pleasant numbers of office ritual.

The next real interruption is summoned in a barely notice

At twelve and teen, door Dash appears with the salad

in a bag labeled in a red marker. Its floor marketing.

The kid of paper hat shirt Ty Big his voice

already fitting with the end of the lunch rush sets

it on my desk. Eight Wright. I look blank, gesture

around seven. There is no He holds up his phone.

I went up one flight past lobby, he says, confused,

came out stairs ended. Dude in a tighter kit says,

bring it down to desk wyndblow signed there with where

it stripes, said eighth. Swear to God. He shrugs, unconcerned,

scurrying off down the narrow gray carpet. Martaline's over our

shared shelf. Well enjoy it. Marketing always gets the good stuff.

I carried and wanted lunch to the lobby. Just outside

the restrooms is the building directory, a battered aluminum sheet

with black press on letters to day. Near the bottom,

it reads seven Ferris Goldman amk eh utility slash admin

G maintenance slash transfer. I squint, tracing my finger over

the eight. The font even seems odd, a little slant,

not quite like the rest. Coming back with my coffee.

Five minutes later, at the directory's changed, the sticker reading

AGU tility's slash admin is gone, replaced with the usual

one lawby truly men real Estate. Seven Ferry skolmann amk

in g mane slashed rands, no weight, not a scrape,

not a curve resitue. I call for Marda, who wanders in.

You see this directory, I ask? She shrugs, eyes narrowed

against the fluorescence. Must be a cleaning glutch directory. Printer

always messes up those stickers. Who even knows who's on

eight any more? I leave it alone that the downies

in my stomach tells me something has shifted, like stepping

on to move and walkwy going the wrong way. Break

Room Chack glosses straight on. Boun claims h R lost

his reimbursement, jokes bet its peril still has it hasen,

arms folded, mutters, everything gets dumped up there, packages, e mails,

blame like a black hole. No one disputes him. Later,

I bring it up with HR, pretending it's a casual interest.

Mesqu kind all smiles glued in. Permanent customer service. Oh,

the eighth floor admin functions mostly facilities, network support, storage.

She brightens, eager to finish whatever so va she's reading.

They are the only ones who never need anything. Seriously,

you'd think they aren't even here. I try to clarify, No,

one from eight. You know, I don't think I've met them.

She slides her pencil between knuckles, shrugs. You need a

different badge to access half their area. Fire coat, they

told me, or privacy or something. Her sentence trails off

into practiced laugh, like she's amused at hellis. Since it

all has, don't worry about it. Trust me. If you

needed to be up there, you'd know. Her pen immediately

skips back to her to do list. Conversation closed A

couple mornings later, early enough of the building to be

washedblue by sunrise, I decide to skip the elevator. My

old badge still opens the main stairwell between four six

and seven. The air is cold and smells a printer

ink and tile soap. I jogged a last half flight,

breathing in early satisfaction. Up ahead, another door, stenciled seven.

I press through. It's unmistakably the seventh floor. Same fake

Vicus plants Ron's Larry Bird, maug Marty's umbrella on her desk.

No one raises an ibra. I press back through the

stairwell for straight at counting steps, making sure of my

direction again, A head up again, the plaquard at seven.

The only difference is the odd way the corridor seems

slightly stretched. Fluorescent light a shade cooler. I shake my

head back, tracking down and up again, determined not to

be tricked by posigonage. My heart starts to pound, not

in fear, but in arising childish impatience at being baffled

by building. JOm pops up behind his divide a grinnine.

He back from eight. Already, man, you move fast. Coffee

still hot up there as dama. I was just a

stair as there is noe. He blows a raspberry. If

you say so, tell Martha. She owes me five for

running errands. I go back to my desk, warmth rising

behind my ears, confusion and the distinct sense of missing

something essential. When I check my bad history later, I

see nothing but the ordinary stairwells access at seven, all routine,

no record of anything above. The following day, a dial

into a scheduled call was one of our external partners.

The receptionist placid as ever, patches the line in connecting

every one from seven and eight. Now her voice is tenny,

punctuated by slight static. An unfamiliar voice joins patch me

and from eight please. What follows is a crackle, barely

more than feedback, but underneath a set of syllables I

can't quite fit into any language. General Then silence. Sorry,

the receptionist says, some one on eight keeps drop in.

The call happens all the time. She doesn't sound the

least bit perturbed. I try to loop in the external

reb again, but is mysteriously unavailable. Meeting with the eight

floor team later, I search our directory for a list

of extension numbers. Nothing for eight, just blank boxes, gray rose.

All traces of the coal vanish from the online schedule

after an hour. That same afternoon, a bright orange notice

appears pinned to the hallway corkboard eight four or five

drill remind us Room eight hundred two, slash Room eight

hundred thirty three, ten a m Room eight hundred twenty nine,

stay clear until ten thirty. It's typed official, the same

format as our regular building alerts, with a green logo

and emergency map. Impulsibly, I pull out my phone to

snap a picture on the tiny screen. Nothing but bare corkpoor,

the orange notice invisible behind the glare of some light

or frosty glass. I rub my eyes. Try again, still

just a blank board. I turn and the paper's vanished,

not flotted down, not miss pindagon entirely. I back jack

puzzle on my face. Any one know about if I

drill upon eight Hassen reads his text impassive, not me.

That's always between auntmin'team's. They don't bother us unless smokes,

pouring in brown shrugs, chewing lovely, never looking up. Martywinks,

plucking a new badge off her tote and tossing it

on to her keyboard, face down. I catch a glimpse

at axis before a movement and a quick shuffle, and

it's hidden again. If I didn't know better, I guess

I'd hallucinated it. That evening brings the first real break

in my econimity. Head down over a month end report,

my computer blinks from blue to black, the whirr of

the silver closet foaming through the vents. I press ave

only half present stray above. I hear three heavy for steps,

slow deliberate crossing what should be the roof, then a fourth,

slightly lighter. They stopped just overhead. I've never been superstitious,

never one forghost stories, but something in the even tempo,

the way it seems to pause, as if listening makes

my scalp prickle. I click off my monitor. Watch the

glass panel of the window go blue black with reflected light.

For a moment. The only movement is a rare exit

sign above the service corridor, softly flickering. A door at

the end of the hallway slides open, and a figure

steps up. Business suit, dress, shoes tie too neat. He

glances in my direction, but his expression is unreadable, like

a person looking right through a came lens. He walks

with a steadiness I envy. Instead of heading to the elevator,

he turns into the old service calls it supposedly used

for storing cleaning supplies, but locked. Every time I have

ever tried at disappearing without a sound, I wait, not

reading until the building is selling again. I'll leave without

finishing my report. Keys clinched so tightly in my fist

my palm aches. The next morning, I get an early

determined to observe, I nurse coffee in a travel marg

and pretend to text watching its colleagues trickle in The

elevator shows a steady cold pattern. People enter in twos threes,

muttering up to eight, laughing at as if at sum

inside joke, I memorize faces Marta with her blue handbag,

Bron with his breckleass burrito. Each disappears into the elevator,

and the old machine lumbers up, PREDICTSPT. The floor indicator

lights never blink beyond seven. At seven twenty two, I

see mart To step in alone, her steps brisker than

most days. I hunch my shoulders in cold a cheery morning.

Using the flat of my palm, I wadge myself between

the closing doors. Success inside. The air is oddly fresh.

Marda glances at me surprise flickering, but says nothing buttons

one er seven, then a blank plate, no weight. Marta

lifts her badge, sweeps it over a tiny block censer

above a blank button, and steps back, clearing her throat.

The elevator begins to hum, not move. Lights stay on seven,

no sound, no shift. I count silently twelve seconds, fifteen.

The door is open. Martyr is gone. I look around

identical hallway, same worn carpet, same print of a schooner

under glass, nothing mist except for a heartbeat, perhaps two

before the light flicker in the corridor appears. Wrong palette

is different to gray shade wall pippo with that pattern silence,

no signs on doors, just blank metallic plates. My stomach

twists as if I stood up too quickly. Blink Instantly,

everything springs back into place. Elevator corridor print of the

schooner humming computer fans. I am alone. The elevator has

not moved. Whenever rushtramat is cubicle, she's there, typing Eubusin,

giving me a cryptic half smile. Good morning, busy on

E to day, aren't we? I let it go. Aware

in sweading is aching from the cheap building lights routine

presses down again a heavy, familiar blankkit, but now his

holes that any stray glance might fall through. I trowl

my memory for earlier references, combing through interactions. The wayeron

jokes about eight, the confident tones of those on the

conference call the easy often way Motter shrugs off what

her badge means. I think of how unremarkable everyone finds it,

how everyone else hacks with perfect comfort, never hesitating to

mention eight, as if to doubt it would be childish.

That afternoon in the clotted supply room, I rifle through

the rusted file cabinet for old poaches forms, some more

stamp dataf some have utilities. Eight four scratched out in

multiple pens years part the oldest forms type yellowing redates

floor relocation. The labels have been pasted over lines belowed

by too many hands, but the recidue remains. Some one

at every point has tried to erase or hide it.

In the restroom, two new interns, chatty, bright eyed, washed

their hands, complaining about paperwork mess kind oleans and through

the door and calls don't forget. The team on eight

wants the copy is, so let he know a few printly.

The intern's nod, not questioning, as if nothing could be

more natural. I scroll a quick question on a sticky

note and handed to one. What is the eighth floor?

She grins, that's just part of the building, always as been,

kind of like the copy closet. We all use it,

but no one's in charge. She tosses the sticky into

the trash. I've become obsessed days blending together as a

grapple for something solid. Each time I think I have

a pattern, the badge flashes the snippets of conversation. The

missing lunch delivers, it dissolves. The only thing that consistently

returns is the way everyone else refuses to find it strange.

By now, the building itself feels alive. With it, the

air is charged, Each corridor bends just a hair differently.

After sunset, sometimes I catch myself listening for the footsteps overhead,

knowing in my cut it will happen again. One morning,

before sunrise, I see a faint light bleeding from beneath

the freight elevated or usually locked except for shipments or

genitorial runs, A single peeled sticker axis eight. The normal footsteps,

the murmur voices, the ordinary traffic of people coming and

going have a brittle edge. I make my way across

the dim lobby, pretending to testify or alarm, but really

searching for another chance. The supply closet at the corner

is just cracking open, a sliver of short yellowishlight slicing out.

I hear muted conversation, just sign here, please take it

to eight. There's a pause, the same clip cadence. I

hold my breath and push, feigning confusion. Nobody looks up

the far wall. Some kind of maintenance access has a

door left ajar, I slide through hot in my throat

and find a narrow tube, windowless stairwell, barely wider than

my shoulders. The light blinks un steadily from a bulb

screwed and half way overhead a crane upward. Concrete step

spials so tightly they seem continuous like a helix. Step

by step, I climb. With every revolution, the light color changes,

swinging from yellow to blue. My heart beat and funny

jolting rhythms. After what feels like too long, longer than

a normal flight, longer than physics, I see a batter plaque, chips,

silvo with a black numeral eight. I reach the landing

palm pressed to the chilcinder block wall, leaning into the dimness.

The corridor before me is not quite rightly out similar,

but the floor is too smooth. The walls have no marks,

no pictures, not even a fire eggzima. The buzz is lower,

almost a vibration underfoot. Names on the glass wall outside

each room are ear the blank or clusted with strange symbals, triangles, dots,

a scribble or two that may be looked like numbers.

The people drifting by three may be four silhouettes gray

on gray, never meeting my eyes, never acknowledging me. I

walk slowly, expecting someone to call me out. The smell

is different. Here are not cleaning products, but something faintly metallic,

like ozon before rain in the distance, a low, constant

humming reminiscent of machines or breath or both. I try

to read a posted instruction near the conference room. It

blurs before I can focus on it. My head feels thick,

each thought lagging behind sensation. Suddenly, the viral alarm jangles,

a soft artificial bell, not quite the familiar shriek. I

move toward the stair, confused, but man steps cleanly into

my path. He is average in every sense. Height, bill

suits so plainly, grays, almost green, id tax mirrored with

finger prints, the writing illegible. He fixes me with a gentle,

infinitely tired smile. Are you clear to be present? I

hear myself explain, I don't remember forming the word's lost, stamp, orders, wrong, lunch, mistick,

and badge. He listens, hands clasped behind his back. You'll

forget this, he says, with the resignation of someone delivering

an unfortunate but routine verdict. Soon as you leave. I

try to resist, try to fix the corridor in my mind,

the color of the wall, the feel of the air,

the echo, the pattern on his shoes. I tell myself,

I will not forget. The space lutches, shadows thicken impossibly fast,

The buzzing folds in on itself for an instant. Gravity

tilts the corridor warps, light stretching, colors running together in

a way that isn't movement or vision but memory. I

shut my eyes. When I open them, I am standing

on the seventh floor landing. My keys are in my hand.

The stairwell behind me is empty, the door locked tight.

My heart pounds with the aftertaste of vertigo, arising certainty

that what I touched was as real as anything else

in my life, which is to say, may be not

real at all. There is no passage left. Every conceivable

way up or down is closed to me again. Yet

when I pass the window, the sun rise gunts off

the glass just so, and for a moment I see

my own reflections, standing a step higher than it should be,

eyes searching for something above. Some one else may be me,

maybe not. Weigh patiently by the elevators as if for

a call that isn't coming, some one else may be me,

maybe not. Weighs patiently by the elevators, as if for

a call that isn't coming. The rest of the day

grinds forward. The office is backward by watery morning sun,

rows of cubicles purring with screen sivers and electric whirs.

I answer three emails about Vender insurance, drag our supplas

spreadsheet into coherence. Take a call from a two earnest

temper a courier company, but he chucked feels copied from

an earlier version of myself, a pale overlay, stuttering forward.

At lunch, I let the microw, we spin my brito

to rubber and start out the break room window. Light

streaks across the glasses. The city thickens with steam and voices,

every face turned down, distracted asenog is quietly withdrawn about

a missing package. Mardestands by the fridge with a clipboard,

scribbling something I can't read. I try to catch MARTA's eye,

but she suddenly busy, head bent, lips moving silently, She

holds up two fingers and disappears around the corner toward legal.

My phone buzz is company wide reminder. All requests for

eight four inventory must use the new internal form. There's

a dark link, a logo I've never seen. I try

to open it, access to an eye. I nudge my

chair into the hall, peer into the shared workroom. On

the bulletin board, a new notice is appear, printed in

blurry type aster skisterueris kate f Q three asset logistics

asterisk asterisk ASTORISKISTERRAS pick up loading doc two it floor asterisksterisk.

There's no signature, no contact, just an arrow pointing up.

When I look away and back, it flutters and is gone.

The thumb textile, rocking, as if it never held anything.

A trickle of cowork as drifts by, shirts and tucked

and eyes tired. Ro makes a biling for the water culler,

glancing at me with mild annoyance. If you see a

mon itor stand on eight, let me know halfway stuff

lands up there. Lately he's chewing ice, speaking around at

his mouth. The restless loop. I want to say, ev

Binomo's sort of but the memory slips in its kissing

lusive as a dream. At dawn, Martha returns, stands in

the doorway, looking through me. Busy week, she says, crisply,

but there's no context. Then she flips her badge, the

linyard twisting and for one ins in the edge of

the plastic flashes silver etched with a taxis. Again. I

reach out, what's that, but the badge now reads only consultant.

She talks it away, fiddling with her earring. Don't you

have a budget meeting soon? I shake my head, but

my outlook bings astrisk astra's location it full con one

p m asterisks terrisk thick to join. The button does nothing.

The room is just a string of blanks in my

scheduling window, and the reminder hovers insistent. It's like the

meaning of it now exists, only to slip between pieces,

a gap in every familiar system I thought I knew.

An hour later, I hit the restroom, desperate for a

break from screenclare halogen above the cracked mirror, the flock

of the automatic towel dispenser, someone chuckling softly in a stall.

I catch my own face, bluish and steady, jaw slack.

For a moment, my reflection splits two faces, stuck like

shadow and flame, blinking out of rhythm. My hand sacks

at my side, as if by someone else's command. I

try to steady myself, scooping water on to my cheeks.

The coolness grounds me, a reminder that this body is

real and hungry and tired. The oddness of the world

folds itself under my skin again, waiting to break through

at a worse moment. Back at my desk, my manager

deb leans over my cube. She's got that fake relax

energy arms folded, sneakers quaking on the thin filmat here

picking up some of the eight staff. She says, tone bright,

but edge is sharp. I straighten sorry. She sweeped one

hand airily the workflow. They send another requests, something about

report formatting. Guess you have permissions now, I shake my head,

careful not to betray half kilter. I feel I haven't

worked with anyone up there. No idea who sends those requests.

I smiled, dirty blondes into a frown, as if she's

sifting white words for something sticky. Don't worry, just another

process tweak. She glances at my monitor, lingers a beat

too long, then walks off, whistling tunelessly. Now my files

are populating the phantom requests in my documents folder adaf

an allocated sits atop my usual budgets. The time stamp

marked for yesterday. At three thirty nine a m. And

I owe when my laptop should have been sleeping. I

double click it. Asterisk access denied authorization at h M

n asterisk. My own name is in the meddata, but

I never created it. I built up our internal chat

d M a night asterisk strus me astrouskysterskin the idea

why I Voulder says eight astriskstrs support astrouskystruisk. If you're

migrated up for Q four, it's normal you have conference

clearance now astraschistrius me astriskystris. No, I don't even have

badge access astraschstris support astroisk astris. Then ignore it might

be sink. They send us Miley, but it feels off

a hollow after taste in the digital air. At three,

I try the stairs again, spurred by compulsive urge, just

to check to see the walls, the numbering. With each flight,

my jaw tightens, I touch every handrill whispering numbers under

my breath. Six seven, I climb one level, palms half sweaty.

The door opens and I'm back on seven, except not quite.

The ceiling is a shade darker, the carpet pattern is

more chivern than stripe. The far wall is missing a

fire extinguisher. It's like someone asks for a copy, but

the printer jown half way through. I test every door,

each gold to the touch, only echoes for response. My

pulse expends behind my ears, a pressure building in my throat.

Some one hums behind the copy room door, a lilting,

wandering tea, and I recognize but connot name. From deep

in the corridor, a voice trails of all eight documentation

sordid by. Oh, just leave it there. It's a nondescript

man from before. I'm not sure. I only glimpse the

slope of a shoulder, the shape of a haircut. He

vanishes as I approach, frustration sharpened and fear grips me.

I'm not superstitious. I've never been one for conspiracies or

what ifs. But the Universia has doubled back on itself,

stitched im perfectly across a seam, and what leaks through

us getting louder. Atside at dusk, rain dots the glass

city lights wavering like an aquarium. Sclare quiet. After five,

I sit in the ABM and lobby, fake leather chair, creaking,

pretending to read a memo on printed tona, while my

eyes track every motion in the hall, the elevators ding

at all times. Now a group in blue shirts step out,

each with identical flat boxes, phases and familiar talking so

softly I can't catch a word. One pulls a badge,

letting it swing in absent circles, the letters the ig

HT stenciled down the borders. They walked straight past me,

never glancing up, and vanished through door marked only facilities.

The door side shut, sound dampened as if thick with felt.

I catch myself rocking slightly for paying at the carpet,

a nervous habit I can't quite stifle. Someone laughs in

the foye hassen, his voice warble telling a too loud

joke makes you wonder, right, maybe we're all up there,

just don't know it. No one laughs. The moment flattens,

and the room folds itself back into the old everyday shape.

At home, nothing brings relief. Dinner tastes like dust. My

phone screen hovers with open reminders, all referencing eight eight

floor key four on boarding ree ad f displacement launch

w slash eighteen confirm, I delete and they return. I

mark my calendar with the red ex each time I

hear it spoken aloud at work two days three four.

Each day the marks crowd the squares building toward a

mass two dance to ignore. My sleep breaks into fragments.

I jold wake at three eleven four forty three, always

from the same dream. A rotating stair with no bottom

or top, voices above and below, someone calling my name

in the same pleasant tone as a chob, but never

quite pronouncing it right. I stare at the red dots,

smoke alarm, watch it blink, insists of my apartment's conters

have not shifted, that only office buildings can be haunted.

The following Friday, as if nothing had occurred, Mart breezes

in with a cupholder stacked with forek coffers. Her hair

is shorter, or maybe just combed differently. She sets one

on my desk up all night. Boss. He look well anyway,

hear special delivery from eight. She winks, but it's neither

conspiratorial nor kind. I touch the cup. It's warm, the

lid stamped with a logo unknown to me, a ring

of triangles costed into a crude facsimile of the building itself.

Thanks hy eight, I try softly, She coughs, looking past

me to her inmocks. It's where everyone goes on Fridays.

I almost laugh, of course it is. A few minutes later,

De walks by drop in an envelope onto my keyboard,

just signing forward to eight. Peril needs it. I stare

at the envelope, it addressed in a looping cursive frighteningly

similar to my own. Asterisksturs too. Ain't f ad an

asteriskstrurisk Asterisksture's caten my name under liaison astrosks urisk. But

I am not vendor Liaison. I don't forward to eight.

I never have. My signature shakes as I scroll it,

the paper rippling beneath my palm. Deb doesn't notice, or

pretends not to for lack of options. I start keeping

notespen in pager the old fashioned way. I drop down

every anomaly, the dream, the lunch label, every reference to

a team I can't find. I diagram the building on

the back of an agenda sheet, charting every stairwell, copy, room,

lost corridor, each time. It sits at the top in

a shaky bubble, impossible to connect in any logical way.

No one interrupts me, no one asks. It's as if

I'm running a parallel project, invisible, sanctioned by mutual ignorance.

Later that day, passing the janitor's closet, I hear movement.

The door is open a crack. The light inside is greenish, wobbling,

as if filtered through water. I peekin, nothing but mops

and a single rolling carp, Yet the air tastes like

ozone and printer ink, chop stinging at the edges of

my tongue. A clipward hangs on a hook. Eight floor

copy look, no sheet attach. I can't say what pushes me,

but I reach in flipping the cat's latch. A series

of keys jangle, loosely strawn together, all painted black. The

largest is labeled cryptically inform Maybe it's an eight. I

leave it alone. Later, still leaving for the evening, I

watch a cleaning crew i've never seen before ride the

service elevator up. Their shirts carry a logo eight stark squares,

blocky and awkward. Two of them chat in a language

I almost recognize their aloft, appealing off and echoing up

the elevator shaft. I linger, pretending to tame my shoe.

One glances down at me, expression unreadable, almost kind, and

then the elevator door shut, leaving behind a draft of

cool air, sharp with something chemical. The street outside is blowed,

the city's rush abstract. My own face in the lobby's

mirrored column seems wider square at the jar. I rub

my eyes and tell myself I'm sleep deprived, nothing more.

The weekend offers no peace. I dream the same endless

corridor each time, as floor a little stick air, its sealing,

a little o'er. I reach for a doorn up that

retracts as are nearer, someone always on the other side. Monday,

I arrive before sunrise, resolve sharp into something brittle. I

climb to seven, stake out the supply closet by the

freight elevator, and wait. At six forty one. Two men

in slacks and dressed shirts, faces and familiar eyes flat

passed by with a stack of folders marked eight ever ten.

They press through the closet door. I catch it before

it closes and slip inside. The room is small, hen

tight with shlving wax jackets, straight leaning gear. The far

wall is skewed close with what looks like a temporary partition,

a sliding slab of painted nettle, proacketed but slightly ajar.

Yellowish light leaks through. There's a sound, familiar yet off,

murmuring like a meeting in a language I don't know.

I stand still, counting heartbeats, straining to hear. The voices

are loud, impossible to tease, a part never rising above

a conversational murmur. Maybe a dozen people, maybe one, in

twelve different tones. I hinch forward. The floor beneath my

feet is vinyl, but the pattern blurs, as if under water.

I put my palm to the metal, sla up. It's cold,

but not lifeless, warmer than a wall should be. The

voices resolve just once into something sharp. The presentations, which

eight will require new credentialing. Some one lasts a low

sound that seems inches from my ear. Suddenly the slab

sip shut with sharp precision, locking with the magnetic sunk.

The room's ordinary shapes resolve, shelves, jackets, steel, mop bucket, silence,

no light, no voices, no sign anyone was just here.

I flattened myself to the wall, resolve flickering. They urge

to run fists through the doors strong, but I settle

for scribbling and note in my battered notebook asteriskstrisk six

forty four A m closet saw eight files, unfamiliar men, heard, voices,

partition closed, no trace, astroisk asterisk beneath it. I draw

a crude map each time I revisit it. The lines

crowd together, fours over lapping, seven sits under eight, but

eight doubles back, folding like a hinge. It's only later,

at the end of the day, with the office empty

and the sky purple black beyond the western windows, that

the piece is deartned to slot together. Someone in facilities,

Oscar maybe or the new TEMP, pushes a cart down

the corridor, whistling softly. The cart is stacked with fold

as marked a death, the papers inside listing, asset numbers,

delivery coats, critical line items. As he stops to check

his sheet, I step up close, Hey, Oscar, are those

for eight? I keep my tone casual. He pauses, blinking

as if walk in mid dream. Yea just old inventory.

He working up there this week? I play a lawn

not sure, No, badge, yet he waves a hand. Dismissive

card will show when it's needed. He wheels away, turning

left at a corridor that by every map I no

dead ends it legal. He vanishes, trailing tiney music. I

return to my desk, pulse racing in my task tray.

A new email has appeared. Astroskystrus subject astroskstrus et floor

finalize allocations astroskystrsk from asteriskstrusk no reply edmant et f

no body, no signature, only a blank attachment that opens

to a single line. You are being redirected, a cold

numbn that settles into my bones for a moment. I

want to run a not home, not to the street below,

but so away, as if the entire building could be

peeled off from the city, if only I move fast enough.

But I stay there, breathing shallow, counting down until the

air in my lungs turns familiar again. When the last

of the light fades, I shamble toward the elevator banks,

every surface gleaming with a hard lacquer of cheek cleaning solution.

In the mirrored steel, I see my reflection and standing

a step above me, my double the head tilted, the

mouth parted, as if about to speak. I press the

button for the lobby. I do not watch to see

if my reflection leaves with me. Outside. The city buzzes,

and the wind stings my cheeks in my pocket. My

badge feels heavier than before. I walk home slow. My

feet catch and cracks. A bus passes, headlights, sweeping lawn beams,

across glass and brick. The world should contract, should narrow

into ordinary warriors about bells, groceries, the growing stack of

a red library, books collapsing on my coffee table. Yet

at every pose, every crosswalk, every window gun dark, some

part of me aches upward, waits for the impossible weight

of an eight floor to resolve itself, to explain itself,

to vanish at last. But it does not vanish, not then,

not the next morning, not even in sleep. I dream

of the corridor again. This time I'm carrying a stack

of foldos. I know on mine. A voice, gentle and said,

calls me from beyond the spiral of stairs. You'll forget

this soon as you leave. I climb and climb, never arriving,

never allowed to stop. When I wake, I have written

that my hands do not remember doing yet a single word,

and the yellow legal pad prop beside my bed astros

casts it astriskasterreus. I tear off the page, flush it,

and scrub my hands raw. But the indentations of the

word remain pressed into the cardboard backing, proof of something

halfway between reel and dreamed, something stubborn and old, refusing

to be raised. The change, if you could call at that,

starts my breath, a stutter in my chest, in the

world reboots. There's a brown mug in my left hand,

my hand, but the angle is wrong, as if the

bones beneath the skin have been remixed and set one

shelf too high. The mug trembles against the cheap desk,

and I steady it mechanically. The clocks all blink it

three a time. I never trust any more. Fingers drumming shoes, squeaking,

building filling up. Nothing's changed, and everything shifted. Across the aisle,

MARTA's lips move in rapid fire. Whispers to her junior

I've never seen before. She flicks her eyes at me

and away, not quite meeting my gaze. Seven voices merge

around me, calendar talk, benda, calls, remind it to clear

the dock for delivery. The phrase slides over the surface

of things, growing bolder, finding its confidence everywhere my phone

light's calendar invited four briefing nine zero a M. The

location is a tangle of letters a f post slash shape.

I unlock my phone, pressed delete two seconds and the

invite returns at twin worm and the machinery He've accepted

reads the greed utline. I know without knowing that I

never did. Call of anxiety, knots my back. Everything repeats,

but out of order. Emails requesting Q two eight if allocation,

notes from executives referencing you're a new floor. I answer

out of habit, fingers steer from muscle memory. All I

get in response of flat affirmations. Thanks, will send eight

to even from people I thought would laugh at this.

A message blinks on teams, welcome back to dec at

last Friday's on boarding deck. There are no decks, no links.

The bread comb trail leads in loops. By mid morning,

I wander through the break room. The ferch hums under

an inch of frost, packed with containous stenciled eate effenblocky

computer printer letters. The vending machine blinks through its inventory.

Half the snack's label over served for eight. I punch

a selection instead of the usual prouteine bar down, tumbles

a thick, unfamiliar wrapper V M N A S E tadman.

Only no one's around to see me. Toss it back,

heart thumping in the silence. The software of the machine

sounds like a warning. I hate that. I keep expecting

to see shadows at the periphery board as I can't

name people stop filtering in the jostle and Russell creeper

than before as he makes his way past my desk,

face pale, eyes, a little verandic. He drops a stack

of papers, loudly, These for eight, right, it's not a question.

I pick them up. In the words spiral across the top,

a deaf inter office slash primary. My name's there again,

small in the margin, written in an unfamiliar cursive. I

want to ask whether this place is made of me?

I don't. When Dad passes, she doesn't pause. A dress shop,

we've got a thornb site. She's wearing a jacket with

a strange insigniate triangles arranged in a pattern that makes

my brain itch. She's never worn anything but cable knit.

Before her eyes catch on my shoulders like she's registering

a possible infraction, some failure to comply. Lunch routine unravels.

I fill a cop at the water cooler, and the

reflection in the chroom flashes the stranger's face. My jaw

but too long, hair sleeped a different way. Blink and

it's gone. Marta Breeze is through with her phone, press

to one ear, her mouth repeating yes, eighth cleared, Yes,

I'll confirm. Her badge dangles unreadable, but I know deep

down it would say eighth accessed if I dared reach out.

When I checked the building directory for a moment, eight

executive sweet slash bush A Projects glows in the road

beneath seven. My pulse jumps. I try to take a

photo again, only a smere on the screen, gray and morty,

as if the l ed themselves want me to doubt.

Midway through the day, I find my outlocalunder bristling with

eight deff appointments, half of them ghost enterests, populating between

legitimate meetings. I set an away message not available for

eight floor business. Fifteen minutes later has been not a

replace with eight floor temporary assignment in progress. Who what

did that? There are no locks? A trickle of business

follows me out of the break room, passing for reception.

I overhear marred again for sharpened. Just loop them in

on eight, would you Hassen? Replies flat, already did ef

set for eight f by noon. The words prick my skin,

cold as freezer burn. I tried to protest later, huddled

against my cubicle divider, but everything slippery escapes my gripe

memory logic, a sense of sequence. Passwords change as soon

as I type them. My email briefly opens a folder

labeled eight Ifter incision docks, then blitz out of existence.

I write myself notes. By the next hour, the note

earned some one else's handwriting. The cumulative effects of the

world gradually sinking me down like slow sand. The wars

hit four horn, every scrap of infrastructure, every member, every

side conversation, even the office LIFs field fraction brighter or harsher,

pushing shadows in new directions. Beneath all of it, an

ache in my head grows. I try to remember my

own title when I started, what my first manager looked like.

The answers slip away as soon as I touch them. Later,

head for the stairwell out of irritation compulsion. I'm not

sure the door is propped open with the broom. The

ear warmer than usual, almost sickly. On the steps, some

one's dropped a basche labeled aid if facts as slush rat.

I've bend to pick it up. As soon as my

fingers close around it, my hand is empty, no badge.

I'm left with only the smell of copper toner and

the growing sense of the world is reordering itself, whether

I like it or not. That's when I realize it's

not just my routine or memory under siege. The very

structure of the building is warping. Every reference, every casual

mentions a nudge, pushing me where I do not want

to go. Run three. Marta shoots me a sidelong glance,

lips pursed as she packs up. I got it to day,

she says, But there's no pride or complaint, just resignation.

You coming or not? The question bites almost a challenge,

But when I stand she laughs. Bron badge, then as

if sorry, reaches from my elbow, fingers cold gripped too firm,

before pulling away the afternoon loops on itself, tasks, repeat emails, duplicate.

I sign off four different forms, all a deaf marked,

all requesting confirmation for current assignment. I look for my

own signature. It's there, neat and practice, dated for tomorrow's day.

Near five, a package for me arrives, the tape fresh

the label. Eighth floor office supplies slush for delivery to

my name, inside colored folders branded ADAF pen stands with

odd squared off script. I want to throw it out.

I carry it to the trash pause, realize the box

is gone from my hands and sitting at the base

of my cubicle shelf. Before I remember. Walking back, the

room is normal and not. The phone buzzes on my desk,

an enlisted internal number, ringing with an oddly flat cadence.

I hesitate before picking up. Then here only quiet breathing

and a click. The display reads ada summoned. Every instinct

tells me to plug it, to run, but there's no

exit here. I sit, counting the pings of the radiators,

waiting for the next none vitable intrusion. Evening peals away

whatever is left of comfort. The building empties, shadows, stretching,

and familiar trajectories. Computer screens fade out with the same

soft violence as chalk eraised from blackboard. I wrap my

Jacketite's stand in the main corridor across from me. The

elevator doors open without sound, spilling out a cold blue

white light. Two figures inside, faces turned away, folders marked

at a foyentation, pressed tight to their chests. I do

not step forward. I decide to leave, but my badge

fails on the ground. Four exit. The security guard glances

up mild board, then says, oh, you're cleared up for

it now, and swipes his own card. The door opens, colder,

rolls in unfamiliar. My jacket is missing in its place.

An access line A dangles from my neck. I'm marked,

but heavy. The walk homes wrong, angles, sharper, sidewalks quieter,

as if the city itself is loocking. In the periphery,

my phone vibrates every block, reminders for eight f team

stand up, push nor phications for eight protocol review. I

delete each one. They return and triplicate sometimes with files.

I do not open file types I have never seen.

At night in my apartment, I stand at the bathroom

mirror to brush my teeth, and for the first time,

I cannot immediately be sure the reflection is mine. There

is an older square jaw, I boust too thick at

the edge, the toothish trembles, toothpist frosts on my lip,

and I stare for a long, silent minute, daring myself

to move before the other Midah's. When I finally turn

off the bathroom light, the after image floats in the dark,

a badge flashing, the ghost of an eight sneaking between

the lines of every shadow. In the morning, my alarm

sands with a chime. I do not recall setting. The

screen reads eight four briefing seven thirty a m I

jumble from a closet, pulling on pants that do not fit.

As I remember, the shirt already laid out is not mine.

Crisp and sharp, collared, subtle, local at the breast, a

pattern of eight small dots. I dress anyway, stomach clenched

with hunger or dread. The subway is empty, that it

should be. Everyone in, every single commuter wears a badge.

Many flash a familiar logos. I watch their faces, afraid

to look too closely. In the building lobby, the whole

seem impossibly long, the elevator ping's ready, the indicator light

a cold and sympathetic blue. Inside. Three employees none I know,

each clutching a thick brown full of damp date f kuephor.

The blank button is no longer blank. It glows with

a subtle shifting outline, as if something is struggling to

define itself. There I wait, bat pressed to the wall,

in hopes of letting them go first. But the lead one,

a woman in navy turns as the door's close, catches

my eye and nods you coming. Her voice is inviting, dispassionate.

I shape my head, she shrugs in the doors close.

Not to day, I murmur, all too aware of how

little the word means any more. Throughout the morning, every

task ruts to eight. Prince hughes labeled adaf fore Coll's

transferring mid sentence to someone from eighth files alto sinking

with made up credentials. Colleagues pass my desk, each moving

with focus, ice trained elsewhere. Nobody looks for me, But

each mention of AD is a magnet pulling me deeper.

Three times. By nine, the elevator dings empty except for

an envelope resting on the carpet for ad f collection.

Urgent by the last I refuse to touch it. It

shuffling away with a rising sense of panic I cannot name.

I returned to the stairwell. The air in the landing

is wrong, static waited. The door up is bructed with

a slick new sign authorized a deaf stuff only. I

have no badge, but the sensor blinks green at my presence.

I don't test it. My hands tremble as I slipped

back to the corridor. Even as I retreat, I noticed

the paintings in the hallway walls. One I'm sure was

a generic sitscape is now a strange void likes chematic,

A spiral path leading up each time, marked by the

number eight stylized into infinity. A message flickers at the

bottom welcome hubloon ornate. It vanishes when I focus my pulse,

hammer's in my ears. Routines break meetings no longer make sense.

Each guest refers to her next week on eight. Bring

the upstairs to eight. You'll be at home up there eventully.

I can't tell if anyone hears what they are saying.

At the end of the day, I try to catch

mart before she leaves. She's packing her bag, a different boxy,

a badge clipped to the strap. I reach for her.

Mar Ye, know what's happening right? She looks up, gaze sharp,

a thin line of worry creasing her brow. But Thence

moves into a polite smile. Relax. They are good to

you up there, once you get used to it. She

straightens her jacket, ice shining with private amusement or pain.

You're just adjusting, like everyone. Then she slips away. I

can't tell if for stride is hrrid or just purposeful.

I spin in melodramatic circles, desperate for someone else, anyone,

to confirm reality. Hassen's cubicle is antiqu except for a

pile of thick binders, each mark date f archive, his

coffee mug's mashed handle, same as always, sits comfortably next

to an empty badge linard, the imprint of eight F

faded into the vinyl. I try to send a mass email.

Does the eighth floor exist a draft? Bawl? Desperate to

every one hr? Or it facilities even the CEO alias

the minute I press end out the crashes rebut drafts deleted.

I try again, The text auto corrects herself. Final reminder,

you have been transitioned to eight. I choke back a growl,

marsh of keys and the whole screen blue screens. I

stand justify fury boiling beneath the skin slick was swear.

I am being rewritten. The world is clenching around me, renaming, renumbering,

filing off the edges of what I thought was mine.

I hurriedly lift the phone dial every emergency code I

can recall, all ring out, one after the next, tones

that echo into electronic silence. Frantic, I dart from room

to room. Brawn is missing, his works be stripped bare,

not even a monitor left behind. His family photo are

replaced by a company flyer and new opportunities await eight

fourty four. The brickream fridge is now lock tight, a

keepert glowing green. The white boat calendar is blank except

for one leaby skull eight slash meat here and next

to mores eight. I flee to the restroom, double over

the sink, cold water pulling beneath my palms. In the mirror.

Two of me flicker one with a tie and sharp

lappels badge clear as glass adif clearance. The other is plain,

exhausted in the clothes. I recognize my hands gripped the edge.

I stare willing it aught to sort itself out behind

me as all opens. But when a spin, no one emerges,

only a feint chemical tinch breeze slides out. Panicked, gasping,

I returned to my desk, grabbing for pen and paper.

The notebook is not mine. Its cover embossed eight. Inside

the first page is already field. Welcome to eight. F

keep your badge visible. Your assignments begin to morrow. I

slam it shut, bury it at the bottom of the den.

No good. By the time I sit, it's on my

desk again. First page open. My handwriting fills the margins,

swirling small instructions written in a voice not quite my own.

Some one knocks at the cubicle divider the mess knd all. No,

not her. Someone's shape like her leans in, overly friendly,

just checking your comfortable with your eates transition. We're not concerned,

but we wanted to be sure your keys are returned

to admin. Yes, Astama, I haven't what there is no

eighth You realize how absurd it. She clicks her tongue

all honey, Oh, don't fret, dear, every one comes round

to eight. It's only natural best not to make a fuss.

They don't like drum up there. She walks away, humming

that same uncanny tune. I never plays for a while.

White noise conquers all. I lose time. Half an eye

may be more gone. In a snap, I blink in

the sky outside is dusk. Finally, I stumbled to the

elevator hallway knees hollow. A janitor I've never seen before

is pushing a cat, the wheels smooth as ice over tail.

He wears a shirt crested with eight dots. I ask,

what's on eight? Unable to control myself, the need raw

and scripping. He shakes his head, smile, brittle, you'll see.

Don't be afraid. It's just another floor. Really. His hand

broad and solid, lands on my shoulder for a split second.

This sensation is like static between my ribs. As he

vanishes into the stairwell, his laughter quiet, low echoes, and

I understand the pressure is only going to increase until

I make the climb. The next morning, storm clouds drag

their bellies across the city. Wind rattles the windows and

the air tase metallic shot with possibility I get in

before sunrise. Wander the corridors, ice peeled for doors, left

cracked for codes on posed notes, for institutional scenes. The

building might have missed. A cluster of colleagues hovered by

the supply closet four maybe six, some faces familiar, others

now all clutch file boxes, every one stamped ataf. The

lead is off, featured, ageless, business like nods at me,

you are late. Come on, it is not a request.

The world narrows through a tunnel, fixing the door. They

hold open. My hands act without input. I fall into line.

The boxes are heavier than they look, but my palms

find purchase paper shifting within some one behind me. Mutter

is a welcome tone, bland as if initiated. Repetition is

now inevitable. The closet walls wobble for escent like curving,

no hard corners left. We shuffle through, turning not left

or right, but up, each step, riding, twisting stairs, folding

back on each other in a nauseus morbis. Inside the

familiar logic of dimension's fails replaced by something coolly procedural.

My pulse follows to a drum, then doubles. Stale, humming

air pulses. A fluorescent fixture overhead blinks in a rhythm

that matches the space between my heart beats. The air

is close, neither cold nor warm, just infinitely of room temperature.

I sense without saying more than one corridor opening off

each leads up, though we remain on the same floor.

The walls here shove or with something like silence, collapse

into a hush whenever a sound approaches. Pale faces drifting

and out of focus, gray on gray, their badges all barren.

The eight, sometimes as a numeral, sometimes as that mocking infinity.

We settle at a lodge non a script door labeled

ADAF personnel. The handle fits my palm. The moment I

touch it, sensation dulls, as if a switch has been

thrown somewhere behind my eyes. Inside a room filled with

squat tables, paper were climbed in neat stacks, folds, color

coded each damp with ADF or charncer. There're so welcome

kit on the table by the wooll inside personal items,

pen or receive folder, desk, trinket, even immagularly like one

I used to own dead center a name tag reading

my name beneath it adf present. The words are carved,

not printed, gouged in with care. The others drift away

as I sun rooted. I run my hands over the kit.

Each object dredges a haulf memories or almost recognitions. A

photo I cannot name a key fob I think I

lost months ago. The room vibrates, softly, whispered for to

snake behind petition screens, each natch a blur of repetition,

quartily review onboarding eighth protocol. I struggle to move flawn

into ball, but my feet hold on. Suddenly the light flickers,

the walls bend, the blow figures turned toward me, mouth stretched,

wide eyes never quite focusing. Welcome to eight, they say, together,

gentle chorus like my knees buckle vision doubling in chrysaline fragments.

A low, sonorous alarm blaars from everywhere and nowhere, the

pitch impossibly gentle, like a lullaby. I lunch for the

eggs at corridor, shifting doors, melting into one another, up

and down, folding into the same repeating stair. I stagger forward,

slamming a hip into what feels like a glass wall,

bouncing off and careening through a door yanked open by force,

tumbling out, not onto landing, but straight into the seven

four supply closets. Dimensions suddenly familiar, solid static. I gasped

frey air, sweat cooling against my skin. My hands tremble

as I clutch the folder from the Katahedef present. I

can't let it go. It cleaves to me, impossible to discard.

The office hum softly, no one meeting my eyes for

a second. The air is entirely awfully still. The wall

does em were set instead, I feel the dovetail like

a zipper closing. The experience is not undone, only tucked away,

written into the next line of tasks. In every glass surface,

window monitor glare, the glint on a stabilized ce, glimpses

of myself in the wrong clothes, a label I never

asked for, A smile that is either tired or newly eager.

Colleagues drift in and out of alignment, some too tall,

some just plain wrong names and faces, swap places each day.

Slightly scued memos and mayamooks begin for all eight four staff.

In my own badge is inscribed a bold, unambiguous ad

f each gan if it brings an approving beep. At noon,

HR pings me for orientation, Please join us on eight

at yr sinest convenience. I reply, My finger is moving

apart from me on my way in the brick room.

The coffee pot is replaced by a new machine, slick black,

curved in a design of familiar cycling through eight discreet

bruce cycles. The itemized list on my calendar marks only

eight floor transition weeks slash welcome session. When I try

to change my title back to revender admin, it reverts

too a tof liaison dead passes with a wink dropic

keeek out embased with an unfamiliar logo, A spy or

staircase crawling upward. A number eight squeeze into each bend.

The city outside the windows now Hayes is as if

a layer of glass is thickened. Any attempt to focus

on the sky line brings only a nimbus of gray clouds.

Meetings are scheduled with a team eight or cluster A

def I cannot tell if I am forgetting or being remade.

Glancing again at my reflection, I study a phase mine yes,

but reconstructed, the lines harder, the skin slightly roughened, hair

parted wrong. I force myself to type an email. Can

someone clarify what the eight floor is? Before I can

send it? The screen flickers and my inbox resets subject replaced,

Welcome again. Please review your a definduction packet. I open

the packet. There is a greeting, cheerful and clipped outlining

my new duties in citing a long string of policy numbers.

Each page ends with the same instruction you must not

discuss non eight business during assignment. Hiows my name? A

version of it is printed again, alongside a date many

years forward my start date. When did I begin this now?

Hayes my job history of block of time marked only

by the word eight at two thirty seven per rate

of colleagues streams past my cubicle and crisp new uniform

shirts pale blue slacks gray, Every badge shuring eight F

up and down the line erred A box thuds onto

my desk labeled for eight F staff use only before

I look in. I know some object I have lost

before will be in it. Hassen appears briefly in the corridor.

His eyes are haunted, his mouthforming words I cannot hear.

When I stand to wave him over, he turns away,

badge flipping over to show only an empty white rectangle.

Modock passing chicks her head. When our eyes meet ear

settling and fine, she says, the inflection not quite a comfort.

It's better if you don't ask questions. The building likes

things orderly. She vanishes into the elevator, which now glows

with the blue weight light from my first visit. That night,

my sleep breaks into pieces, each stream more concrete than

the last. Spiraling stairs, file folds marked a deaf people

and suits, nodding approval. A voice always follows, you're here now,

this is home. The next morning routine is fully re arranged.

The device on my desk unlocks only with the day

deaf card. My inbox greets me eighth floor, All staff

coffee deliver is labeled eight F Blend lunch stacked reserve.

I think that never quite dries by noon. Even my

own memory resists when exactly did my records transfer? Who

did I replace? I quiz myself, and the answers are

never stable. My calendar backfuls meetings that never happened. At

eight f integration, a cross fall coordination eight only my

inbox removes all prior correspondence. Only this loop, this artificial present, remains.

Co workers have new memoorisms, names I'm served and belong

to different faces, now attached to different voices. I mention

a missing file to Ron. He shakes his head, pats

my shoulder, and murmurs. Check him with eight, they'll know.

I crash my palm against the computer screen, shifting windows madly.

No cracks, no pixel shift, only my own wild eyed

face surfacing in every line, reflected by glass that subtly

bows with each movement. My last conference call of the

day begins. Let patch in the eight four team. My

audio cut, static hiss, some one humming the same down

to nev come to dread. The meeting ends, and yet

it does not feel done. The sky is bruised. Evening

coming on thick, and the pack of new colleagues gather

at the elevator, laughing amongst themselves. Their fold is all

marked DATAF one pauses meet my eyes with the look

of board welcome. I joined them, folder in hand, and

together we board the elevator. The door's close. There's no

sensation of movement. Only in endless hushes. Light tickles memory

and anticipation. My folder is heavy, My badge is lined

up among theirs. The elevator opens onto a whole way,

un settled in gray, lined with offices that have my

name on their doors and others that don't. Some faces

look up, others remain fixed on arcs drawn in permanent

mucker on glass. Counting down the minutes and days, I

step out my steps, even hot, steady, despite the podessness

of resistance. I know where we go. Oh, I pretend

I do. The horse trat is ahead, new and familiar,

gentle asleep. I clutch the folder tighter and walk forward,

doors closing softly in my wake. The coffee gives a

little beneath my shoes, just a fraction softer than I

remember from seven. I smell that metallic tang, same as

last time, but denser underneath the swaddle of the overhead lights.

The wall's curve not sharply, but in a way that

unsettles my sense of straight lines. I spots a scatter

of frame certificates, blank, weirdly reflective, just the muted color

of cloudy mirrors. A man in a sweater walks past knobs,

once brisk, professional, as if he's known me from all

the endless mondays previous, what's my name here? It have

hers on the edge of my tongue, caught behind the

taste of stale coffee and rostered obligation. My badge dangles,

it winks eate if for every other step, catching some

invisible light, I've begun to catch myself in its reflection.

A worker going through the right motions, never asking where

the doors lead. Work stations crowed. Both walls not cubicles.

These are more open, almost lounge like, full of awkward

corners and potted plants with thick, waxy leaves. I grip

my folder harder. The papers inside are removable, un yielding.

A checklist in a fond I've never used. Columns of

numbers and project codes. The first entry a aff induction

status complete. People move along this foe and small packs

or sometimes singly, always with purpose, sharp as knives. I

try to move the same way, matching pace, letting their

cues guide me past A smoke glass door. A glimpse

rows of monitors faces turned away from the glow, every

screen showing some shifting grubook of numbers and clip text.

The keys click in unsynchronized rhythms. I approach to help desk,

if that's what it is. The attendant, eyes flicking with

rapid micro movements, greets me by name, my real one

or the name they know me by here. Welcome back,

she says, and hands me a slim envelope within a

checklist more detailed this time, final credential application. It specifies

confirmation of presents eights initiated. Please look project irs. The

rest is jargon, perfectly dense, impossible to decode. I sign

with the hand that feels alien. The pemphits my grip

well too well, she gestures me. Through Your station's changed,

she says, gently, almost apologetically. Take the left corridor. I do,

turning as she instructed it, the wholly subtly narrowing. Each

step triggers resis ceiling lights which blink alive to guide

me forward a past doors, each un mocked majar in one,

I almost call out. The woman inside is Maud a silhouette,

but her hair is wrong, close, sharp air, a line

of worry dividing her brow. She glances up, gaze meeting

mine for a moment laden with shared exhaustion. No recognition passes.

I think about stepping in, but the pressure behind my

knees keeps me moving. A memory scraped by MARTA's voice.

You're settling and fine. It's better if you don't ask questions.

I choke the thought down at the third, a marked door.

Something stops me. Familiar rhythm in the muted conversation. Just beyond,

people stand grouped by a white board, Its marker strokes faint.

The only legible word continuity. I blink and it becomes assignment.

They laugh a little off key as a man pins

a card to a slot, slot after slot, each reading activated.

I move past. This ritual is not from me yet.

At last, the corridor ends at a window. The city,

such as it is, is a fog gray in luminous,

like back lit milk. My own reflection stares uncertain, then warps,

blurring at the edges over my shoulder. The glint of

my badge is a tiny certain son. I press my

thumb to the glass. The warmth is mutual. I feel

for a second as if I am on both sides.

Beneath the window, A landing mark by branded Matt eight

circles in a loop. I stand there, not quite sure

what's expected, until someone taps my shoulder. Hassen urs double

square jot soon impeccably pressed tye shop. Come on, he says,

you'll want to check in. They'll show you how things

get sorted up. Here he leads me through a cross

hallway to a conference room table lawn bear safe for

segmented tablets. Each label data f A round of nods

greets me. Some faces I half recall, others completely new.

The man at the head and on the script, dark suit,

no badge, gestures me in and as I sit a

new ford to slide my way continuity review, Welcome eighth team.

They ask me questions or perhaps read them from a script.

In the exposure to prior cycles, who is your predecessor?

It is the concept of an upper limit discomfort you.

I try to answer, voice wobbling, but every syllable smooths

itself out regulations and process, overtaking any sense of alarm.

One by one, I sign. Each form is proof of

trans Each word I write makes the prior world to

thinner in the rear view. At the end, the leader says,

not unkindly, integration is always harder on the first day,

as if this has been true for all time. You'll

forget any uneasy details by to morrow. Best to folks

forward a polite round of laughter. Someone passes me a mug,

heavy warm, marked ad f member. The taste is unfamiliar,

rich anchoring. I hold it, unsure what to do, but

not resisting. The meeting breaks, a temple resumes, staff drift out,

returning to the mysterious, surely crucial assignments passen. If it

is him, lingers, I don't try and leave early, he whispers,

And it's the first hint of warning I've had since

stepping into this Boundaryla's place. Just do the work, let

the floor settle you. I promise nothing, but I do

not try to escape. My feet thread back to the

path while Willet's leading my badge, swinging each new door,

I pass. The urged tally up differences deems the world

is a locked circuit. The pressure to name the impossible,

to break the structure dissolves beneath the steady hum of

procedure and presence. After to what may be IROs or

not nearly enough, I end up back at my assigned

work station, a desk just like countless other's bland and ergonomic.

The computer wicks at my touch. I enter my details, name,

cod time, and the interface ballooms Welcome to the eight floor.

Please confirm integration. I click yes, not because I want to,

but because there is no option to refuse. Tasks assemble,

routes appear my first assignment in spools automatically cross floor

inventory ADF priority, Each instruction clearer procedural, officially section. I

work Occasionally, I glance up reflections in the dark and monitors.

So if you show other figures behind me, drifting in

and out, never settling long enough for eye contact, the

windows behind my station overlook nothing but smog. Polleagues pass,

greeting me without enthusiasm, but with the ease of long association.

I accept it. Nodding, stacking forms, consolidating, routing. A pattern emerges,

The work loops back on itself, reminiscent of something I

can quite summon from before. Each request assigned by a

name I recognize faintly, but I can't remember the true source.

I discover a supply drawer with a manual, thick, soft

edged embass state of handbook. The pages inside are full

of diagram spirals mirbius strips, infinite stowels. The text is sparse,

suggestions half explained. I turn to a page dog give

by a previous reader. All presents on eight is accounted for.

All departures transition smoothly. My coffee cools, then warms again,

though I do not refill. It tamts itself into flat

precise increments through some built in routine. The urge to

resist no longer rises as pain, but as a slight

tick in the back of my throat. Instead, it is

replaced by TAF completion, alignment continuity. At odd intervals, emails

pop up, reminding nudging co ordination needed, adith each click

and nodge deeper. My badge is now two shades lighter,

the ID number longer than should be possible. The day ends,

if you can call it that, not with a whistle,

but a gentle, soft time from the p a pleasant,

inoffensive signaling nothing at all. My new colleagues stand put

on identical jackets, gather at the unnumbered elevators. I join

without question, folder under arm, scrolling list of tasks complete.

As the elevator closes, I do not look back. The

door sigh, and the world holds its breath. For a

last instant of almost recognition, a shimmer of faces that

nearly almost belong the building ums, and overhead, a voice,

warm and anonymous, says, thank you everyone eighth welcomes you,

see you tomorrow. The feeling is less relief than of flattening,

the slow consumptive erasure, where in settling is now routine.

I clutch my badge as the light above the doors flickers, blinks,

Then stead is eight. When I finally step into the

hall again, it might be seven, it might be eight.

I can't quite tell. Staff swarm past, folders, tight to

their chests. I've fixed us where all belonging, all knowing

just enough. In the shine of every drawer, the gloss

of every badge, I see myself sharpened sword at present

were made a walking forward, ever upward into the endless

necessary work of the eighth floor. And that is the end.

Thank you for listening, and I will see you in

the next one.