The Floor Between 13 and 14

0:00President Barack Obama. Virginia, we are counting on you. Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to raid the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years. But you can stop them by voting yes by April 21st. Help put our elections back on a level playing field and let voters decide not politicians. Vote yes by April 21st. Paid for by Virginians for fair elections. Finding great candidates to hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haystack. Sure, you can post your job to some job board, but then all you can do is hope the right person comes along, which is why you should try Zippercrooter for free at zippercrooter.com slash zip. Zippercrooter doesn't depend on candidates finding you. It finds them for you. It's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites them to apply to your job. You get qualified candidates fast. So while other companies might deliver a lot of hey,

1:03Zippercrooter finds you what you're looking for. The needle in the haystack. See why four out of five employers who post a job on Zippercrooter get a quality candidate within the first day. Zippercrooter, the smartest way to hire. And right now, you can try Zippercrooter for free. That's right. Free at zippercrooter.com slash zip. That zippercrooter.com slash zip. Zippercrooter.com slash zip. Hello, I'm Welcome Stories all the time. Glad you are here. Let's get into it. My name is Alan McCree and this is audio load number one. I'm not actually sure I ought to be doing this. It's just past two thirty in the morning and here I'm again with nobody around except for the damn Flecker in the elevator panel. Management said for documentation in case anything happens so maybe this counts, even if nobody ever meant these files to be reviewed. Or maybe I just want to reassure myself that I'm not drifting off, not seeing things, not letting the sleep to

2:03probation get to me. The building is a glass and steel monolith, slate great night, all hard reflections and fluorescent glare. You'd think a place this expensive wouldn't buzz, but the fixtures up on the surface floors sound like they're a live constant load drone, pulsing in time with the air system. Nothing is supposed to happen on this shift except for checking access logs, patrolling the vacant lobbies, jotting your initials on a clipboard and keeping your eyes open just enough to avoid being fired. I walk through the lobby. It always feels colder than it should though that could just be nerves. The white marble gleams with a shell-act finish and the only movement is my reflection skimming across the doors. I stop at front of the Bank of Elevators, badge out and the display flicks to greet me, security access granted. One floor lit a pale blocky 13. Some nets there are more floors when I'm on relief or swapping with another shift. Tonight for some reason, all near the 13th. My badge doesn't even respond to the other buttons just a little red-link. The doors open with the sort of deliberate reluctance I've come to hate, metal-sighting, rubber-buffer-sticking. Each time I ride up, it's like entering a pressure chamber,

3:04empty except for the little rectangle of hand sanitizer in a corner and whatever skin-pricling sense it's under my collar. As the doors close for a split second, I catch myself in the mirrored wall features pull down a look of late-night resignation. If anyone in the building ever smile, I can't imagine it. I stand in the elevator listening to the cable strain. The accent feels longer than their team floors should. When the chime sounds, it's muted like the system's embarrassed to announce itself. The door slide open onto a hole-way skirt so clean it still smells of disinfectant lemony and sharp, like someone wiped away anything human an hour ago and it hasn't recovered. 4.13 is nothing special, on paper. Off-brand top carpeting, class petitions, cubicles outfitted in industrial beige. Yet the instant I step out, some things were I'm always wrong. Desks are all slightly off the grid from the map I meant to follow, as if someone tried to reconstruct the floor from memory using the wrong blueprints. Maybe I should chalk it up to the cleaners, but the patterns are intentional, rows of office chairs pointing subtly the same direction except for the one stationed at the fire window that's always precisely diagonal, facing out.

4:05I check my clipboard official diagram, dark lines mark in each desk, each pivot point, each spot for emergency supply bins. But the arrangement in front of me disagrees file cabinets moved an inch sometimes too. Once a fishbowl of pens were located from the left to the right side of a credenza, the incidental feels too regular. On one desk, just past the first conference room, a paper cup stands at, catching the light. Steam curls from its mouth, faint but visible under the week for essence. My own coffee is back at the desk in a security office nobody's supposed to be here. The locks from half past midnight said no entry since 2219. Badge system, door calms, everything zero activity. I kneel, hand hovering over the cup. Heat seeps up human and strong. Dark ring forming on a clean sheet of paper underneath, and impossibly smudges of what looks like clips to come they're in. I thumb through the security app in the work phone, checking the overnight video streams. Time stance match, all showing a doll in empty office, say for the shadow of my route in the blip of my flashlight as I walk past the cans. Not a flicker

5:06of movement near the desk just static stillness. I end the log dropped tight. Nothing to report, I say, which is a lie, but I can't bring myself to submit anything concrete. I tell myself I'll double check the layout. I watch closer. But my handshakes as I sign off, and the lemon sent lingers long after I leave. Before all of this, before the 12 Irish stretches and still let ghost corridors, before I started noticing things not written in any manual, I didn't know there was such a thing as a truly quiet job. The temp agency made it sound almost enviable security for an overnight shift in a new glass building, union rate, no report of trespassers in three years. Easy money, if you can stand the boredom, the manager said, flipping through my application. I took it, obviously. It was a step up from my last end to private where else is out near the canal. The pay came right on time, and nobody expected heroic's just waitfulness. Walk the floors, keep your notes neat, leave the coffee pots clean, repeated so often it became background noise. Still, I should have known the reputation was off. The structure itself was considered something of a legend among city gods one of those spots you either brag about surviving

6:08or refuse to discuss. When I first started, folks called it the dead zone. Not because of danger, no, more because nobody working there seemed to recall the details afterward, which is all in the city where most buildings develop histories, stories, even pranks among the staff. Here, there's only silence, where uncomfortable deflection. From the beginning, routines were sacred. My shift started with a handover from the day God, Bill, somewhere past retirement age, bristly mustache, always frowning at me as if I'd misuse something of his already. Just stick to your assignment, he said the first week, trusting the clipboard into my chest with enough force to make the rings rattle. Don't poke around, stay off-low as there are not two to patrol, trust a log's Alan there there for a reason. He stayed vague about what that reason was, and even though I pressed with the sword of often friendliness that usually cracks open some hidden rivalry or complaint, Bill just shook his head, lips a flat line. Later, a caught him watching elevators after shift, as if he expected something to go wrong. The day crew cleaners and maintenance became a curiosity. I'd watch them wheelcut past the elevators, pausing for barely a second as they are to keep it,

7:10care for never to let the gizzlinger too long. Not a single one press for the 13, despite all the jerking about floors and luck. Someone even stuck a strip of masking tape over the 13 button during the day age joke, they said except nobody laughed. My own motives were simple, I needed the work. Rents rent, and nobody else in my situation can turn down a union card and health benefits. But even then, there was a prickling sensation that went with the territory of feeling that the floor I was meant to ignore was the one watching me, instead of the other way around. It's hard to explain. Other guards swapped assignments without explanation. The rakeelers in the break room talked up the ghost shift, but their tone went fat whenever specifics came up. Between nightly walkthroughs, I'd hunker over the bank of monitors that passed for a control room, sipping bunk coffee while the glow from the screens made everything look washed out. Incident reports, always empty, building logs, cleared every week, security policies, stuck to the same patrols recorded every iron, no deviation from the designated floor. Also standardised you'd think the building was cupping itself from an instruction booklet. Trying to break up the monotony, I'd wander

8:14by the maintenance station and catch brief snippets of conversation. When I dropped 413 casually into a question a dearest stock supplies up there, or just on 12, the cleaners pretended not to hear. It was as if the floor lay under a spell, its mentions sold in the alley and unwelcome outer. One afternoon I asked Bill if there was ever anything weird late at night. He gave me this blank look, not angry, just tire. You follow the routines, Alan, keep the logs tight, don't get curious on that floor, that's all. Then you switched topics, so abruptly it was like a dropped call. Two weeks in, false of the deserted 13th floor began to build up, nagging at the back of my mind whenever the shifts grew slow. It would have been easier if the avoidance felt natural, but it wasn't hit was willful. Deliberate. Like the whole staff had signed some unwritten agreement never to draw attention to that blinking, black-boded button behind the glass panel. I would have let it fade if not for the little things that started to add up. How the elevator sometimes paused the strange extra second on 12 is of considering something. How the janitor, Marisol, skipped that slot entirely when wiping the buttons as if afraid of getting cleaner on her gloves.

9:17And how, in the store room, I once found a box labeled extra 13th last year not replaced, filled with faded placards and a single smashed nameplate. I returned it, reluctantly, pretending nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Still, it's hard to shake that sense of something just off. Like the time, walking my route, my reflection in the glass partition seemed to lag a fraction behind my own step impossible, surely, but it left a metallic taste on my tongue. The 13th floor didn't just attract my curiosity. It needled at it. The second week I decided to test whether anyone anyone was actually using the space. Maybe there was someone skipping the badge systems or a night manager checking on a project, but I needed something more concrete. If someone was moving through the floor, there had to be a trace. That night, after marking off my shift start at 11.53, I quietly slid one of the roll and chairs about three inches out from its cubicle. The left back wheel lined up with a subtle gouge and tile. Easy enough. I also left a penny, bright and tarnished, planned to face upon a thick stack of HR files cluttering a side table near the kitchen air. Something no cleaner would bother with, right? Next shift,

10:18I arrived at my usual time and walked the same route with tired but careful as. The chair I'd moved? Now set back not where it was supposed to be, per the official map, but back to the very alignment I noticed on my first night, that faintly skewed off centre look. Not quite facing the aisle. The penny? Un. I skyward the floor, even rooting around the trash under the pretence of checking for a contraband, but no luck. More intriguing, the coffee cup was there again, though this time only half full. An under a faint brown ring stained the blotter where last night's cup had sat just a shade off from the new placement. Almost stacked layer over layer timeline in stains. No entry in the log, no glimmer of movement on the security tapes. It was as if the floor and whatever was tending to a new to stay just out of sight. I opened up the digital logs on my work phone, reviewing visitor entries and cleaning passes for the week. Nothing. Each time stamp lined up with the badge in, badge out rhythm. The camera stubbornly refused to give up any secrets, static flicker overlaying the empty queue farm. Maintenance's answer when I sent a report about

11:19unexplained office resets was a carbon-copied email asked offer exceptionally thorough if you have new concerns, file a written request to maintain routine patrol schedule, no further action required. That bland official response only fueled my nerves. Nobody, a reasoned, is exceptionally thorough at three in the morning, with a shift rotation at half empty and zero maintenance tickets marked as pending. The resets went just quick cleaning they were deliberate, like a person re-aligning the room after a rehearsal, trying to get it just right for a performance no one would see. I started burping in secret as if for a contest was someone who knew how to work the rules. My next attempt at catching the fountain was subtle I left a sticky note folded inside the equipment closet door right below the bolt. Not a normal place someone dusts. I also said a thread of masking tape over the filing cabinet latch, a major seal that would break if anyone opened it. Instead of logging my patrol right away, I waited, turning off my fast light and tracing steps backward, straining to hear the faintest trace of movement. Nothing at first. No foot steps, no lights lookering. But as I made my way back an eye or later, I found the sticky note-moot-resheaped into tiny wedge, balanced on top of the mop bucket inside

12:23the closet. The tip strip, gone, replaced by a nulia, identical scrap, a fresh edge but the same colour, almost seamless. The files on the cubicle desk had been shuffled, just slightly their order reversed from how I'd stacked them. If it was a prank, the perpetrator was a genius, an insaniac, or both. I checked the lock stores that should have been shut tight were open a crack, hinges creaking so softly I had to hold my breath to hear it. Each time I stepped away, I felt the tickle of carpet fibres shifting behind me a fractional scuff, a breath of pressure. I began jotting down every discrepancy using the pretence of equipment checks to poke through keepered drawers and the staff's ply closet. One night, after passing through the server room, I saw I heard the low drive of a chair just behind me a tiny were as been complained that faded as soon as I stopped walking. Feeling bolder, I tried to probe the security terminal deeper. Four-thirteen's listing in the digital admin map was the only one to read and sign, in all caps nothing tied it to a department tenant or amenities. It was as if it existed outside the hierarchy and claimed real estate in a business district in the city.

13:23President Barack Obama Virginia, we are counting on you. Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to raid the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years, but you can stop them by voting yes by April 21st. Help put our elections back on a level playing field and let voters decide not politicians. Vote yes by April 21st. Paid for by Virginians for fair elections. Warning, the following Zipper Cruder radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with F words. When you're hiring, we at Zipper Cruder know you can feel frustrated. For Lauren even, like your efforts are futile and you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine. Fortunately Zipper Cruder figured out how to fix all that and right now you can try Zipper Cruder for free at zippercruder.com slash zip with Zipper Cruder you can forget your frustrations because we find the right people for your roles

14:26fast, which is our absolute favorite effort. In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zipper Cruder get a quality candidate within the first day. Fantastic. So whether you need to hire four, 40 or 400 people, get ready to meet first rate talent. Just go to zipper Cruder.com slash zip to try Zipper Cruder for free. Don't forget that zipper Cruder.com slash zip. Finally that zipper Cruder.com The odd records didn't stop there. Digging into the archives, those accessible. Anyway, I noticed old maintenance tickets that kept recurring like a bad toothache. Nightly bulb failure was set circuit 1a, a residual keycode ping-1, 14a. Please return cleaning staff, restricting scheduled access to 13. The documents signed by initials I didn't recognize disappeared after a two month period an early summer eight years ago. A pattern started to emerge, but never in a way you could capture neatly. Cross checking blueprints, I noticed that the laminated directory and the maintenance basement dating back at least a decade simply skipped from 12214. No 13th, but also no actual floor labeled 14 on any elevator. It seemed like

15:31the spacewalk between plans, lied it from record as if the architects themselves were embarrassed by. Elevator maintenance logs, meanwhile made repeated references to fall 14 adjustment, even though the public facing buttons never included such a floor. Check position census error log between 13 slash 14, one entry read. Another had routine reset to default override building management. Yet, try as I might, I never once saw a 14 eliminate on the control panel, nor found a key that would summon an elevator to the destination. I'd made up my mind late one night to dig deeper if only because the contradictions felt like a deer. I started searching city permit records after my shift cross-reference in old inspection summaries using the building's former names. Bird within an archive site scanned from grainy.matrixmicrofiche, I found reference after reference to a 14 floor conference suite, multi-level tenend occupancy permanence 2012, under abruptly notations reading, space reclassified, not for general use, no public access. Why reclassify a floor? It didn't make sense unless there was something to hide, or perhaps something to bury. That night, driven by restless curiosity and a dose of real dread now,

16:35I let myself into the sub-basement records room, bad swiping three times to rouse the old magoc. I think chemical reeklinger to the left over paint or disinfectant, but it was otherwise deserted. I scrolled through the digital logs, reaching years back, and there there were sensor traces, some nearly a decade old, showing motion and staff access at odd, repeating intervals. Always after midnight, the logs paired the late night checks with memos, forced the teen slash 14 user patient restricted records only, it did not archive incident review c-leadership only. It wasn't just forgetfulness then. Someone had been erasing, restructuring. Scrubbing not just fingerprints, but the very identity of that floor. Even after all this time. I made a quick audio log, whispered but insistent, 4-13 is mass querating for something else, maybe something happened on what used to be 14, and now it's hiding there, or worse, somebody's still maintaining the fiction, someone's here. Suddenly the lights in the record room flickered twice, then again, appalls. The elevator chime echoed from the hole. I held my breath, trying to convince myself it was a routine test, standard maintenance. But then I saw the elevated doors at a far end slowly

17:39slid open, empty car interior revealed like an open mouth. The panel above showed 13 glowing softly and as I stared in disbelief, my hand nowhere near the button, the clock all my phone changed, 1-14 I'm blinking, then freezing for an instant. It was the minute stump to every unexplained reset on the maintenance logs. The same time the badges pinged in the security notes flight errors, long after the staff had left. My reflection looked up at me from the glossy floor, eyes wide, pulse beating so hard I thought the sound would call something from the shadows. The elevator waited mute and backening. I hastated the urge to step forward stronger than any rational thought, and only by clutching hard at the tape recorder in my pocket my one protection, my thin thread of proof did manage to step back, heart racing. That was the moment I knew things wouldn't stay quite much longer. Something let the elevator come from me. Someone or something was still keeping the 13th floor alive. A day or two passed, but the nervous pulse I brought up from the sub-essment stayed with me. It seeped into my sleep, turning my dreams abstract and metallic endless blank corridors, which air legs scraped the tiles and patterns too precise to be random. When I returned from my next shift, Bill was gone out for a few days,

18:43according to a slitched message from daytime admin. In his place quarter the temp guy who Sanjik was climbing and brief. No eye contact. Maybe just another soul being shuffled through the system. As I wrapped up the handover, a cot sight of Marisol, the overnight cleaner, as she lingered by the staff room. She was collecting rubbish into a large plastic bag, humming tunelessly. Fall night? I tried unsure if I wanted a distraction or some sign the world was still sane. Marisol looked up, then glanced away quickly. Always is in here. She kept a gaze fixed on a stained patch of tile. Her hands tightened, widening the plastic. Elevator work again? I think so. Did you ever have to clean 13? I pressed a where I sounded twitchy, maybe even desperate. She shook her head instantly, shop and practice to no hint of curiosity. No, my codes don't work on that level, just 12, sometimes lobby. They said it's for security only, for a reason. Before I could push for details, she scuttled away, nearly tripping over her cart. I was left staring through the swing doors at the dark and break room, the chill from the lobby drift mixing with stale air of the hallway. When I finally

19:46clocked in, my nerves were practically vibrating. In the short track from my station to the elevator, I checked that my phone was recording always now, coldly habitant pond my badge tightly enough that the plastic cut a faint groove into my fingers. The elevator accepted my badge after a moment of lack. I watched it slow crawl to 13, the way the doors fought to open, and as they relented, I was greeted by the oddly sweet chemical center felt stronger, almost syrupy, in the closed air. I sat about the evening's patrol with all false nonchalance I could muster, determined not to let fear get the upper hand. But the air was about as calm as the lobby before fired Jill heightened to still. My ears felt overtrained, catching the faintest vibration, the somber ground of ductwork far away beeps, a memory of laughter that never happened. Determined not to get maneuvered again, I ran my set of little tests, slid a binder and enchant from a shell-sedge, slipped a blue ballpoint into the back of someone's desk drawer, careful to know the faint click, left a receipt, folded into triangles, atop a stack of an open mail. Before finishing the round, I gently nudged a heavy rolling whiteboard in the conference room so that it bracketed both the chair and the table like a configuration more inconvenient than

20:46anyone would leave intentionally. A sense of ritual took over, as though my only defense against the weirdness was to claim some measure of control, any small association over the objects that insisted on moving behind my back. The rest of the iron dragged, all false starts and false alarms. Every time I thought I called a movement from a corner of my eye, I'd pivot too quickly, hot pounding, only to see a printer's blinking stand by light, or the mirror double of my own reflection cutting across a row of dormant screens. Back in the control room, I called up the feed from every camera pointed at 413. Each monitor showed the beak, gross bright cubicle grid. Not a chair shifted, not a shadow lingered. The cup from before it was gone tonight replaced by a Nietzsche for printed forms that hadn't been their last shift, each with date fields left just barely and complete teasing the notion of what never quite finished. For a while, I sat in that bluish monitor glow, hands clasp tight as if my knuckles could squeeze out what the screens refused to reveal. A part of me wondered why I kept coming back, why I wasn't content to lock my rounds and leave the oddities alone. Maybe everyone before me had reached the same breaking point, a tipping age where a denial gave way to a stubborn urge to prove yourself right.

21:49About halfway through my shift, a faint scraping echoed from the corridor. My seat creaked under me as I stood, hoping foolishly that it was nothing but a settling noise. But as I stepped into the hallway, every footstep broadcast and too loud staccato, the noise stopped. I waited forcing myself to listen to really listen. The silence, once so comforting, now seemed like a smother. When I rounded the bend into the far-coference room, the whiteboard sat in perfect parallel with the wall, a chair neatly slotted beneath. On the table-top, my folded receipt had disappeared. An odd vertigo swept through me, a lean-down checking under the table for the lost scrap of paper brief, ridiculous hope it might have simply slipped to the floor. Instead, I found dustless carpet, a faint line in the fibers as if something or someone had dragged their fingertips through it. Frustration crept in, jostling with fascination. I muttered, all right, you clever, but you're not invisible. I stood in scound the empty, too bright room, my words swallowed by acoustic tile. If you are a night-manager, you win, I give up. But even now, after saying it, some animal part of me refused to believe the game was finished. The building didn't let anyone win, not in the

22:52ordinary sense. Eventually, with little else to pursue that round, I sat back down at the control bank and prodded my way into the building's digital backbone and back to a menu left open by board IT text law and before my time. With enough patience, I found what I was looking for, an interface for the card access system, one lock after another swipes, failures, forced entries, scheduled lockouts. Once again, fourth of the team was the only sector to list as an assigned. Trying to drill into the history merely spat back a warning. Even root access failed to produce logs on that sectors doors between the eyes of midnight and 5 a.m. Ferdo digging in old emails on the system and covered a string of tickets flat for a hardware set 4-14 sensors shuffled them on requests about water coolers and flickering overheads. Sensor confusion between floors, one admin entry read time stumped mid-winter years ago. Request all did of badge validation for legacy sector, no further staff reassignment until resolved priority low. Of course, that met management didn't worry or they knew pretending not to would keep the real problem at arm's length. A surge of resolve replaced my earlier anise. Clicking through to the digital

23:54archive, I compiled a folder of every relevant file cryptic maintenance logs, badge record screenshots, a photo of the directory missing its 13 and 14 listings. My own private evidence dash, growing chunk by chunk. I copied it off site, emailing it to an encrypted address I'd made just in case. Like any whistle blow fantasy, it felt brave and small doses and desperately paranoid in the cold midnight ire's. The last half of my shift always felt what a clock's too slow and the office light flickering off sequence. I find myself retracing my rounds, usually pre-enforcing how the space seemed designed to erase memory. Once I found a note to myself, my own shake is gripped towards behind the monitor in the security office, don't forget what changed. I couldn't remember writing it. At the end of that shift, a teak pressed against my eyes like wet towels. I checked the security phone no missed calls. Just as I went to shut everything down, a notification pinging to file restored, it said. I thumbed the screen. The timestamp showed 114 again, that minute, besides its surgery. The restored file was an audio clip, three seconds long.

24:54I played it. Silence for two beats, then a frictional, drawn out exhale, followed by a whisper, you're almost there, Alan. I dropped the phone, pulse-biking. There was nobody in the building that used my name on tape, not unless someone knew, not unless something was listening for me every night. In a break room at dawn, I nursed too hot coffee, staring at the blank wall while red smears from the sunrise, bled through the lobby windows. For a moment, the building felt utterly normal stacked with glass and aluminum, stale biscuits in a jar, the remains of a half finished crossword in the corner. But as I sought to leave, I spotted my penny, the one I'd left in the cubicles earlier. It sat on the edge of the staff sink, tails up, perfectly centered, and just for a second swore the air by the elevators was colder, as if the building itself was holding its breath. After a sleep that barely took, I texted a college friend who worked IT for another contract security firm. You ever see buildings jiggos' floors, map skips, hidden logs. He called me back instantly if I was crackling with anxious energy. Man, there's a bunch of buildings like that old capital, state financial, places with merges or bios, most just leaves a floor in the books,

25:55but sometimes, I hear stores about places where the logs keep duplicating or referencing dead tenants you get flagged for poking around too much, though. I hesitated not sure how much to say. What would happen if someone kept residing everything like, moving stuff, erasing badge inches so nobody could ever confirm someone's been there, to don't mess with those vials, Alan, they'll lock you out to worst, they'll loop you in. Keep sending you the same logs over and over, until you start seeing them everywhere. He stopped, breathing into the mic, then asked, okay, fine, I lied. Just curious, thanks for the warning. After that, I became extra careful. I changed my code passwords every night, watched for phantom badge pings in the system, memorized where I left things and kept mental talas of every anomaly. Days blow one into the next, bagels in invoices and aching feet marking time. But each if, the 13th floor waited a sometimes patient, sometimes with the faint scent of new coffee drifting down the stairwell and seen an uninvited president Barack Obama. Virginia, we are counting on you. Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to raid the next election and wield unchecked power for two more

26:58years. But you can stop them by voting yes by April 21st. Help put our elections back on a level playing field and let voters decide not politicians. Vote yes by April 21st. Paid for by Virginians for fair elections. Warning, the following Zippercruder radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with F words. When you're hiring, we at Zippercruder know you can feel frustrated, for Lauren even. Like your efforts are futile and you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people, only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine. Fortunately, Zippercruder figured out how to fix all that. And right now, you can try Zippercruder for free at zippercruder.com slash zip. With Zippercruder, you can forget your frustrations because we find the right people for your roles fast, which is our absolute favorite effort. In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zippercruder get a quality candidate within the first day. Fantastic. So whether you need to hire four,

28:0440 or 400 people, get ready to meet first rate talent. Just go to zippercruder.com slash zip to try Zippercruder for free. Don't forget that's zippercruder.com slash zip. Finally, that zippercruder.com slash zip. One night, I set up a secret camera that kind used for wildlife disguised as an air freshener just inside the conference room, trained on the most active zone from displaced objects. I angled it to catch both door and white ball, synced the time with my phone, set the camera to send the silent ping of triggered. Midshift, as I was cycling through camera feeds, my phone vibrated emotionally. The life feed from the wildlife cam came through gobble, street was static. I could barely make out the furniture. Then, for a full second, the screen cleared, I caught the briefest flick of movement, a desk chair rotating by itself in a jerky, puppet like motion, stopping halfway to face the window. The penny lay spinning on the corner of the table and probably balanced. No one else was visible, no shadows to blame, yet the room's configuration reset before my eyes whiteboard back at the wall, chair tucked in the table top wiped clean. I played the recording back twice, three times. Each time I swore the room seemed

29:07fractionally different, as though the video itself was rewriting the space. By the fourth playback, the penny had vanished, and in its place was a fold as slip of a charlet ahead with my own name typed awkwardly at the top. When I paused to double check the time stamp, the file crashed, and the camera's SD card corrupted instantly. After that, my nerves were em ragged as a weather strip. Every shift, I expected to walk in and find the world entirely realigned with nobody else the wiser. The next morning, I called building management directly, using an anonymous tip line. There are recurring issues on 13. I began, disguising my voice with a cough, physical objects out of place, unexplained to sets, mirrors that don't map to real movement. The voice in the other end was smooth, practised. Thank you for your concern. Our facilities are maintained to industry standards. If you wish to submit a formal claim, please provide your name and employee ID. I hesitated then hung up. There would be no help from above. That day, in a moment of rashes, I printed every file I could stomach maintenance tickets, old-old-it-locks, security badge patterns, my own instant note stuffing the stack into my messenger bag under a library but dust jacket. My plan was to leave coppers with my friend off company

30:11property. When I reached the plaza that evening, hustling for a win that seemed to slice off the building's mirrored edge, I found my friend waiting in the sandwich shop, white-eyed, drumming his fingers on the table. You look like hell, he said. And your phone keeps calling my number at night. I wake up at 114 and there's just that dead air like someone breathing on the line, he messing with me. I shoot my head trying and failing to maintain a smile. Something's wrong in that building, I think they hid a floor or hiding something that happened there. He looked at the stack of papers, leafing through dates and blurry grainy printouts. The longer he read, the paler he got. Don't put my name on this stuff. Look, if what you found is real, you need to drop it, people lose their jobs or worse, forget why they were there in the first place. I left the stack with him grateful and sick at heart. Returning to my shift, swirling thoughts about job prospects and detonating, risking a black mark on my record pinched at me, I nearly clocked out before my shift even started, but again, I found my feet turning back toward the elevator. I pressed the badge resigned. This night only the 13 flickered once then stilled, waiting for me. Riding up, the air was almost suffocatingly close, and as the elevator

31:14rose, I noticed another oddity of the floor in the kid who skipped 12 and jerked directly to 13 with a double blink, too fast, like a skipped heartbeat. The minute I set foot onto the 13th floor, my breath drew in shallower. Something had changed. A stay on his clung to the carpet heavy and thick, as if no one had breathed fresh air through here all week. The familiar grid of furniture appeared slightly blurred, as if seen through a water. When I passed the kitchenette, the coffee pot was not just full, but scalding the glass pot steam dropped lots of condensation jittering on the burner. Another cup pressed into its branded cardboard sleeve stood on the table, pale it stained with an old print lipstick, just visible in the yellow light. I forced myself to circle the floor, marking checkpoints with a heavy, bitten end of my pen. In a second row of cubicles I found a binder one of those ancient, battered office types, stamped with the faded blue logo of the developer. Inside, printets of old employee rosters from over a decade ago, all stamped do not remove. Most names were familiar from the properties history, but others had been crossed through in heavy black marker ink bled through the paper and angry lines. Each crossed out entry was appended with a handwritten note, not cleared, a resigned, not transferred,

32:17a C incident 14 B. Faint music drifted through the vents. An old whole tune, sung ashpipe and buzzing. I caught my head, following it through the blind spots between glass and breakout rooms. The sound always backed away, never growing clearer, a mirage of melody. My skin percoled with a sense that the music was only ever cover for something heavier looking behind it, a coded message I couldn't decode. On a whim, I decided to run the desk phone for a direct dial out of the building. The only number programmed into the shortcut directory was a string labeled F-14 main com R-N. I pressed it. The handset rolled once, then filled my air with the same soupy silence that haunted my fur in at night and not quite that seemed to ache for a voice to break it. Nobody picked up, but after 20 seconds, a recorded prompt began, collaching and snapped. You have reached the crisis response line. If you are not staff, return to your assigned area. If you are staff at the message cut, harsh stat crushing into filled the gap. It repeated twice, then ended as abruptly as it had begun. That cryptic warning reinforced what the files kept circuitously hinting, not just an accident, but cover up a program to make people forget to keep people from noticing, or perhaps both. As my shift

33:21ticked toward 2 a.m., I gave up on Soffoldy, resolving to walk the floor in reverse order, stopping every glass wall and studying my own reflection looking not for myself, but for any movement out of time with my steps. The reflections all trailed half a beat behind like a slight echo in the image, every angle a tiny registration error as if the glass itself was keeping its own memory. Round in a corner toward the side hallway, a suddenly came face to face with Mike the day maintenance supervisor, the guy whose word was low in the hardware room. He stood in then moving dark, hand stuffed into his overall pockets. It didn't expect to see you hear this late, I said, after swallowing a jump. Mike stared at the ground, then up at the ceiling, was quiet. You shouldn't be up here every night, the tell us it's for our own good, they're who, management, or someone else. Alongside, it doesn't matter, every so often, somebody gets ambitious, pokes around the old logs, asks about floor 14, building always resets, like it never happened, we do what the tickets say, and then everyone skips a day. I peer past him more nervous than angry now. Did you know about the fake H.R. binders, the weird logs?

34:23Mike's lips twitched, possibly a smile. Nothing in his building matches the logs, don't try to reconcile it, that's my vice. He turned to leave, but before he did, he had as a parting shot. You keep finding stuff, you'll start misplacing memories too. When he was gone, the silence felt doubly thick. I traced my run to the stairwell, somehow needing the reassurance that the building retained, at least one escape route, not subject to an electrical glitch. At the landing, I paused, fought for, wondering how many rounds I'd actually made that night, what time my watch would really show if I walked out into the dorm. Sometimes, I imagined, all the clocks in the place ticked to a different schedule, one written into the wiring by whoever designed it for secrecy of all else. I made one last pass by the conference room scanning the desks, the phones, the silent monitors. I didn't go in the next night, not at once. Instead, I sat at home, replaying the footage from the secret camera, the sound of my own blood rushing louder than any real noise in the clip. But the long go I watched, the enter, the images grew frame-staggering, chairs spinning, receive folding, and unfolding as if the camera couldn't decide what it remembered.

35:24I caught myself mouthing words at the screen, asking what happened here, as if an answer might break out and spill forward. But absence nags harder than presence. After I rest this day and a nap that left my mind muddy, I found myself back in the uniform, lacing black shoes by reflex, badge and cite my jacket. Warning, the following Zippercruder radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with F words. When you're hiring, we at Zippercruder know you can feel frustrated. For Lauren even, like your efforts are futile, and you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people, only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine. Fortunately, Zippercruder figured out how to fix all that. And right now, you can try Zippercruder for free at zippercruder.com slash zip. With Zippercruder, you can forget your frustrations, because we find the right people for your roles fast, which is our absolute favorite F word. In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zippercruder get a quality candidate within the first day. Fantastic. So whether you need to hire four,

36:2640 or 400 people, get ready to meet first rate talent. Just go to zippercruder.com slash zip to try Zippercruder for free. Don't forget that zippercruder.com slash zip. Finally that zippercruder.com slash zip. Warning, the following Zippercruder radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with F words. When you're hiring, we at Zippercruder know you can feel frustrated, for Lauren even. Like your efforts are futile, and you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people, only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine. Fortunately, Zippercruder figured out how to fix all that. And right now, you can try Zippercruder for free at zippercruder.com slash zip. With Zippercruder, you can forget your frustrations, because we find the right people for your roles fast, which is our absolute favorite effort. In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zippercruder, get a quality candidate within the first day. Fantastic. So whether you need to hire four,

37:2640 or 400 people, get ready to meet first rate talent. Just go to zippercruder.com slash zip to try Zippercruder for free. Don't forget that zippercruder.com slash zip. Finally that zippercruder.com Nothing about the evening should have belonged to routine. Not with what not at me, the confusion of evidence piling up in the digital dark. But some animal part of me wanted to walk the floor again to press closer, be nearer to truth, whatever lay at its heart. Habit or compulsion. I'm honestly not sure. On that commute, the city's outlines wavered. Car headlights blurred in the rain, reflecting off the slick streets in the vast, arched lobby windows. Every time I caught my reflection, I looked like a man rehearsing a confession, mouth set, eyes ringed by fatigue, I couldn't blame Mumper sleep alone. I gripped my satchel tighter, the thin packet of files inside making myself conscious, an invitation to drop everything and run. Even in the elevator up from the parking garage, a brace for the intercoms muted greeting, half-weighted for the stupid ding that man to human voice, something regular. Instead, the speaker only hissed, an indiscriminate static only I seemed to notice.

38:28When I reached the security desk in the lobby, I scanned for Bill out of force of habit. The night man's absence left an echo. In his place was an older janitor, white paddle truck capital too low over the face, stacking bins by the mayor drop. He looked at me once, then away, with a sort of veiled apology. What are you working on tonight? I tried gently voice quiet enough for only us. The janitor shook his head chin barely tilting up from his hull. Nothing, nothing worth saying. Then, risking a fast glance my way, he added, don't stay too late tonight, people don't come back right after they start talking. That haunted inflection stuck with me on the short, anxious walk to the staff elevators. It crawled along my shoulders as I bagged in, waited for the soft dull talk of the elevator really. Only the one floor illuminated again 13, a salon, waiting invitation. I brought a fresh roll of film for the secret camera with me, plus my phone, and more of my recording device sopally now, more for my own faith than any real helper manager might one day review it. Before the doors opened, a snapped a photo of the panel in the time 12.53am. As always, the elevators travel felt liquid and, and so to like a drone out,

39:32instant dream that never quite landed. The 13th floor let me out with almost no ceremony, just the dull swipe of electrostatic keys and a second or two of dead air. The sun had changed, more chemical undercurrent, less lemon. It was closer to ammonia and sharper, as if something stronger had been sprayed earlier in the night. I walked the route I'd memorized to pass the alcoves and cubicle grid, conference room glass, kitchenette light flickering with steady monotony. I let my hand drift across the carpeted ultram, checking for fingerprints. This was gone, but there was a smeared hand print on the supply room door smudge that looked oily, darker than the finish. This time I came prepared for direct evidence. I carried my phone in my palm camap open, snapping quick shots as I worked through the desk aisles to low and deliberate. Nearly every desk looks staged. Some with yelling post is fluttering in the tendrils of the HVAC, others with pen to ranged in patterns I could almost, but not quite make sense of. On one screen left in sleep mode, a laven to glow captured something that was wrong. The laptop teched in and out of logo mode, once twice, then without warning, a snap to a pulsing logo. I recognized the company font, but not the name,

40:34for 14 holdings, LLC welcome. I tried the keyboard to wake it nothing. It was unplugged, no battery. The ghost boot, such a thing existed. I knelt close and lift beneath the plastic. In one far corner, nearly hidden beneath smeared white oak, someone had etched a quick response code into the plastic. My hand shook as I started my phone scanner app, needing proof that it wasn't a hallucination brought on by in the shifts and broken sleep. The phone camera read the code. The link resolved at first a dead page, then a redirected window. Suddenly, an ancient HR portal flickered open, the browser warning of a security certificate from half a generation ago. The page was labeled only Crisis Response Materials 414 and then, to my surprise, a streaming grainy video of them they'll hovered titled Test Footage June 22. On the digital log, the date looked like it belonged a decade behind us. I tapped and held my breath. The video buffered a grain silky over the frame and then a room flashed up, familiar to the point of NASA. Same carpet, same walls, except the lighting was blue cast on the faces in the frame flitted by too quickly. A blur of people around a conference table, their movements frantic,

41:37lips move in but sound muted. At the bottom of the fee, white block text read 14 floor secure conference instant live response. And beneath, a line of legal ease, no circulation slash return, all badges. Legs trembling, I scanned the rest of the floor, half expecting every image to resolve into an old memory. It felt like evidence or threat. I snapped photos of the QR code and locked the page, careful not to linger too long. I begun to suspect the building had its own sensors, some network spider lurking in the wiring itself. I can accorde or, leaning into the nook beside the supply closet, I waited. The iron hand capped closer to one. It was at moments like that waiting, nerves fray, skin chill, that unplanned things happened. A low word, the buildings breathe in shifting. Near the elevator, a sliver of movement just beyond the wall of glass. A slender figure hunched at the panel, pressing buttons like it needed somewhere to go. The elevator didn't come for them. Or maybe I realized there was no real figure at all, just a reflection or the impression of one to building locking in its old routines. I pressed on toward the far end, passed the kitchen at again, and they're a flicker of motion. A coffee cup, rims steaming, sat

42:41atop a neatly fan collection of executive folders. But this time something had changed. On the whiteboard, legible diagrams filled half the space spirals, department footcharts, badge numbers that seemed plausible in the globe but never matched the current date. Through the glass, I saw someone else know, not someone else, a cleaner, so I thought I first. He looked up at my approach, eyes wide, face fixed as if caught in the act of delving where he shouldn't. For an instant, our gaze is locked, then averted, each of us seeing the others possible for it. Hey, you really work here. I said, pushing the nervousness downward. Not my job, this floor. I came for the firm mop. He glanced at the closet. They don't let us up here, not after what happened before. They won't let it go. We just try to leave it be. I set my voice gentle, weary but seeking connection. What's here to leave? He shook his head, panic rising. It's not for me to say they move things back if you touch them. We just mop what we can and go. Sometimes we hear the copying machine after Ios, but when you go look, his words cut off, eyes darted toward the closest exit. A distant ding register from the elevator.

43:44Both of us looked. No one stepped up. The cleaner about his head, he didn't hear this, he muttered and hurried away with the speed that made my heart jolt. The air in the corridor promptly thickened, clotted by the sigh of scent, and the quiet heavy enough to register as intent. I walked for another half-hour, running patterns, shifting chairs a few inches at a time, opening drawers a penny in one, a pen in another, a tiny sliver of tape over the edge of the conference table. Every pattern would be checked next round, ever disturbance a tiny dare. Nothing moved. But the feeling grew the weight of being watched. I caught my own reflection now and then in glass, shaped behind its seeming to linger, a shadow echo of office life never quite disolved. Without warning my phone buzzed. The call to ID was blank. I answered careful, saying security, Alan speaking. I mangled under water tone answered, stop asking for your own sake, not everything is yours to know. The call ended without pause for reply. A sharp clicky automated kind, not a humans, but closer to a machine switching off. I stood there, staring at the phone, thinking maybe my hands were shaking because I wanted to believe in rational explanations.

44:48At that point, I made up my mind, more bitterness than bravery. I would stay through the witching eye or stay with my recording device running, document what I could as it happened if anything happened. Not as a challenge anymore, but as a kind of surrender. Warning, the following Zipper Cruder radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with F words. When you're hiring, we at Zipper Cruder know you can feel frustrated. For Lauren even, like your efforts are futile, and you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people, only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine. Fortunately, Zipper Cruder figured out how to fix all that, and right now you can try Zipper Cruder for free. Zipper Cruder dot com slash zip. With Zipper Cruder, you can forget your frustrations, because we find the right people for your roles fast, which is our absolute favorite F word. In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zipper Cruder get a quality candidate within the first day. Fantastic! So, whether you need to hire four, 40, or 400 people,

45:50get ready to meet first rate talent. Just go to zippercruder dot com slash zip to try zipper Cruder for free. Don't forget that zipper Cruder dot com slash zip. Finally, that zipper Cruder dot com slash zip. Warning, the following zipper Cruder radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with F words. When you're hiring, we at Zipper Cruder know you can feel frustrated. For Lauren even, like your efforts are futile, and you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people, only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine. Fortunately, Zipper Cruder figured out how to fix all that. And right now, you can try Zipper Cruder for free at zippercruder dot com slash zip. With Zipper Cruder, you can forget your frustrations, because we find the right people for your roles fast, which is our absolute favorite F word. In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zipper Cruder get a quality candidate within the first day. Fantastic. So whether you need to hire four, 40, or 400 people, get ready to

46:50meet first rate talent. Just go to zipper Cruder dot com slash zip to try zipper Cruder for free. Don't forget that zipper Cruder dot com slash zip. Finally, that zipper Cruder dot com slash zip. At 12.30, I turned off the main lights and set myself up behind a lobby glass, body hidden from the doors, but facing the largest part of the open plan cubicle grid. I ran an external microphone to pick up ambient noise, check battery status, press record. The eye are between midnight and one stretched every second, every scrape is loud as a clap. I must have your on or blink too long for as the digital clock on my phone tick to 1 7 a.m. I heard a clear metallic snickerdest chair turning behind my field of view. My breath caught. Here we go. I whispered out of ideas. The next few minutes played out as a slow motion haze furniture creaking, a hum of air rising and dipping lights clicking off one by one and then surging back. I could have swore on the entire arrangement of the cubicle shifted in the corner of my eye like a chessboard after a mismove. I looked away then back. A trash can rolled an inch, hitting the file cabinet. Somewhere it just won twice and stopped square onto the window,

47:53not at its earlier angle. Then the strangest thing a burst of overlapping voices, almost as though a crowd had entered the brick room all at once. I pressed my ear to the microphone, cautious, but the pitch was wrong too quick, too frantic, tireless. I slept deeper just at the line of the main corridor, hot thumping and stirred straight into the conference room. Inside, at the long table, a coffee cup steamed fresh, as if poured only seconds ago, the handle turned inward, the cup at a place no one sat in front of an open binder. I perched legs curdled with fear. The air in the room felt charged, as though an old argument shivered just out of hearing. Papers lit at the table, faded logos and signatures that meant nothing now. As I looked, one sheet stirred, turned by draft that should not have existed. I let my hand fall on it, incident report did not circulate for 14 conference. Read the header. I forced myself to open the binder. In the front pocket, something I debatch, crusted and brown at the edge, the old logo, and photo half rubbed out by time. The name Marie Talber, facilities executive match, near the roster no present staff list. The date of issue was 10 years past, therefore a number

48:56on it's blocks downed 14. As my pulse thundered, I heard a distinct step, a slow, rolling drag of a heel on carpet. For a moment, I was sure I saw the movement reflected in the glass, an arrow figure, stylish shoes, striding in a calm, managerial gate. Behind that, another smallish add or perhaps several moving at points. I flipped through the incident report. Each page was heavily redacted, but I could piece together flash-slanguage about lockdowns, staff isolation protocols, notation of a critical event resulting in self-consolidation and memory management, instructions for forced elevator route and a chilling last line, note file leadership in person, no electronic trace. As I absorbed this, the security feed monitor left open on the side terminal and the corner blinked and started. First split second, it enfers from its normal, leaping, empty view. The tape showed a previously insane event, dozens of staff clustered by the exit, expression stock. One woman clutching her chest, two others wrestling with a giant elevator. There was a crash, someone's arm thrown up as if to shield their face. Then the camera fussed and in a tangled blow, something not right. Maybe it was only poor exposure, or maybe it was a massive form impossible,

50:00looming shits behind the group. The thief flicked ahead, people scattering, once lumping to the floor in a final immobile sprawl. I looked down the same conference room, the same configuration. I was standing in his echo. As the lights flickered, urgent, the air shifted pressure fell, cold wrapped my scalp. I felt, for the first time, that whatever haunted the floor wasn't over. It was still happening, stuck in the loop the building never acknowledged. Behind me distinct, undeniable, the elevator banged open. Not on floor 13, but on a panel displaying 14. The numbers were on blocky, not backlit the usual blue. I lurched toward the hallway, stumbling, the dossier, and badge clutched in a sweating fist. Turning for the stairwell, I heard voices again laos of panic and authority, flat professional tones barking orders and plaintive cries blending into a chorus. Lauder now synchronizing with the thumps of my own feet. At the stairwell, the door chand, above me the click of high heels. I turned to just a glint, a motion in the conference glass, a reflection almost my own except it lagged a bead behind, eyes wider, face drawn in a silent scream.

51:01I pressed the door again harder until it gave. The stairway was wrong stairs bending as if the geometry had been tampered with. My sense of op and downscrambled. But I climbed, pushing past the vibration in the walls. The air became sharper, more chemical. My knees threatened to buckle. I reached the landing mark to 1112 and forced the door hoping desperately for the ordinary, though lobby beyond, as I staggered into the hallway, the pressure in my ooze-lackened silence blessed, sticky, and absolute. I made a three steps before the world snapped. I was back at the lobby glass door's marble floor, behind me the elevator dinged, and for a wild second the panel flashed again 14 briefly before returning to black, my chest heaved. I dropped the badge in the tiles, listening as it skidded, then skidded to a halt just by a janitor's station all eyes resolutely turned away, then a blank. The next thing I remember is being slumped on a vinyl bench in a lobby, a permit cleaned over, his pen-light flickering, you're awake now, you were out cold, exhaustion, maybe. He wrote something on a clipboard, I still and distant. My phone and the recorder were gone. The messenger back sat at my feet, but the files inside was scrambled, a stack of non-descript printout, no sign of the incriminating binders or QR

52:04snapshots. The building's day admin hovered near the desk, leaps tight, issuing quick instructions to two men in cheap suits. I heard staff privacy, violation, and schedule over lap-end, most telling, move nets for bill, keep him out of reception. Bill appeared soon after, grey-faced, eyes far away, handed a badge, and a handwritten schedule. He avoided my gaze, and his hand shook as he signed off the roster. That morning, management avoided me. Questions about the overnight logs were returned with formal, three sentence replies typed in legalese. Unscheduled entry, equipment malfunction, a staff health. The elevator key was rescinded. I would work the lobby for the next two weeks or explore other opportunities. I found, inside my home mailbox later that week, and a marked manual envelope. No return address. Inside, a single full-scarf sheet, authorized maintenance and clean-up floor 14, 2008-2012, stamped chief officer only. The line for settlement amounts was redacted, but it listed names more crossed out than I could read flanked by a small-type note, all confidentiality strictly enforced,

53:04any incident will terminate access. At the bottom, an unreadable signature. A warning. A dare. An admission no manager or union rep would ever acknowledge allowed. I was shaken, rathled down to the marrow, but clear on one point, whatever happened, whatever kept floor 14 erased, and 430 to ghost it was not done. The staff weren't just scared they were institutionalized in silence. Complicity had become routine, as I noticed as the office's daily cleaning cycles. Sometimes, in a week's that followed, I tried to explain without explaining to us bill or the janitor usually met with a shake of a head or the hint of tears. Once, in the parking garage, building and clothes and whisper, they closed the books, Allen, every 10 years, you're lucky if you remember anything at all. I didn't go back to floor 13, not a staff. I found shift work in another district to lit nights quieter buildings. No more fancy glass or corporate security, just the crawl of time, the room of old paper and cheap disinfectant. But I never really left the quiet floor. My phone would ring, once, at exactly 114am, with no one on the end and when I played

54:05back the voicemails, they'd be empty except for a disjointed breath, a sound just out of time, sometimes a mumble of Allen or a plea I couldn't quite unravel. One night, checking my laptop, I found my incident folder nearly rearranged, digital files labelled error 14, scrambled, ditch, shifting with every click. When I tried to restore them, a set of overlapping voices hiss from the tinny speaker's urgent lair, desperate, finished what was started, help us. I stopped checking after that. But some nights, slumping through after Ayur's corridors with a loop of keys on my hip, I'd swear I heard the faint roll of office chairs down an empty hallway, or found a still hot cup of coffee at the edge of a vacant desk where nobody should have been. Once, when I turned to leave, my phone buzzed with a new text. Unsigned. No number. Just a simple line, thank you for remembering us. The time stamp 114 a.m. on the nose. There are stores in every empty building. I believe that now. Some are layers of memory, some are accidents brass plated over by time. But the quiet floor lives in its repetition and event looping unresolved, furniture beautifully re-aligned, coffee poured for someone never coming. I tell myself this is how secrets survive in the margins,

55:09in the ignored details, and all the silences rehearsed by the guilty and the innocent like. I've learned not to linger to make my rounds clean to ignore fresh stains with a subtle inevitable tilt of every tear. But sometimes alone on a night desk, badge heavy in my palm I catch the faintest, sweetest whiff of lemon and chemicals, and I understand some things don't stay buried. Especially not on the quiet floor. I stay quiet about the envelope, about the files, about what I'd seen, not from professionalism by now I lost the mask but out of caution that felt almost superstitious. The more I replayed the events tracing back the rhythm of changes in the 13th floor, the more I understood the architecture of fear at work. It's a slow, cumulative dried, rational at first, then suddenly stagger buddy on cany. You don't catch yourself believing until one night you're scanning your own eyes in the lobby mirror, searching for gaps you can't explain. But it didn't stop there. New shifts in a different district should have handed me closure or at least diluted the feeling different building, different stuff. It never worked that way. There were nights at clock in, paperwork squared away, walking rounds through corridors built before my birth. But a straight scrape at going in the wrong register would trip my nose like a

56:14one shift three weeks since my last day in the tower, the new site manager at my job, a woman named Locksley asked, you come highly recommended, but there's a portion note on your file from the last place, staff health, unscheduled entry, flagged locks, anything I should know, Alan to long nights, poor eating, bad luck, I said, keeping the trimmer from my voice. Office politics. She sniffed, a tide smirk passing behind her eyes. There's always more to it everywhere. The first time I saw an office chair sitting on the wrong side of the break area at our south, I wrote it off a left over from the day shift, probably. Then three times in the same week, I'd find my mug stacked perfectly atop blank H.R. forms I hadn't printed at the coffee inside warm with the lemon's weakness my own grounds never had. There would be a feeling, sometimes, of needing to look over my shoulder, or of a whiff of ammonia hanging in coke closets after eyes. Each sign was small, deniable, but together they formed a coat. I vague sometimes from short naps during split shifts with cold sweat on my neck, and always the same time stump on my phone's lock screen, 1.14am, as though I'd set an internal alarm I couldn't turn off. One windy Sunday, when the city's avenues emptied of all with cabs,

57:16I found myself drawn back first in mine, then in physical fact. My new assignment sent me into city centre to retrieve a misplaced parcel, the route curved me near the tower. I paused at the curb across the street. The building's glass caught dusk's light, a smear sodium gulf rearing into dark. For a full five minutes, I stood on the opposite sidewalk, watching staff trickle out and into the dumb let lobby voices low, body language tight. No one laying good near the elevator. A hunch clean, a brush to push cart rapidly across the floor, turning before she reached the inter-remobble strip that led to the elevator alcove. She wheeled back, I skittering across the surfaces as if counting ghosts. I should have kept walking. For maybe a heartbeat, reason almost won't let the place keep its secrets. But curiosity, or stubbornness, or something more, won't. Across, entered through the revolving door of the building's temperature plunging over my forearms. Inside, the familiar hum of lights. The lobby, altered over the weeks away, felt both new and processed this stage. Behind a desk set of thin, hollow-eyed young man, his badge shuffled half behind his coat, read a ten-star. No bill, no one I knew. The temple looked up, his people shrank up

58:22my approach. Just here for a pick-up, I told him, gesturing with building ID for my new site. He processed the slowly, eyes darting down. The packages last row of lockers don't linger in the lobby after Ayers, please. His tone carried the muscle memory of someone recently briefed the words not quite his own. As I moved toward the side-hole, I heard a loaf raise meant for no one float after me, watch for the elevator, don't answer if it opens on its own. It shouldn't have meant anything. But there it was a residue of warning that trailed me to the lockers, and then out again. I couldn't see the elevator itself from the alcove, but the back bright panels in the chrome doors flashed at undercurrent of blue, the colour I dreaded, the sic-half step between the teen and nothing. On a compulsion, I altered my course, nut back to the revolving door, but to the corridor leading to the security office what used to be my kingdom for the Zlon Ayers. No one stopped me. A heavy, expectant sensibility pressed down, that feeling of being watched nut by eyes, but by the architecture itself. Near the staff elevator, it stopped and pressed my palm to the glossy wall, listening. The hum from the cables travelled in waves. Somewhere beyond the silver doors, I knew, lay that impossible gap, ground-built armoured

59:25after blueprints and unresolved events. My eyes closed, and then faintly, the lights overhead flickered in a sequence I recognised at the same pattern that mocked off the two worst weeks of the previous winter. One flash, a pause-free in succession. The maintenance code never explained. I could have left. I had no cause to stay, no official laryn, but the urge for resolution for whatever counted as closure was in my legs. Warning, the following zippercruder radio spot, you are about to hear, is going to be filled with F words. When you're hiring, we at Zippercruder know you can feel frustrated. For lore and even, like your efforts are futile, and you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people, only to get flooded with candidates who are just... fine. Fortunately, Zippercruder figured out how to fix all that. And right now, you can try Zippercruder for free at zippercruder.com slash zip. With Zippercruder, you can forget your frustrations, because we find the right people for your roles fast, which is our absolute favorite F word. In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zippercruder get a quality candidate within

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1:01:31the first day. Zippercruder, the smartest way to hire. And right now, you can try Zippercruder for free. That's right. Free at zippercruder.com slash zip. That zippercruder.com slash zip. Zippercruder.com slash zip. I tapped the elevator button, knowing nothing good waited. The door tried to resist them parted with their old reluctance. The panel inside offered no numbers, just a scrolling message welcome stuff. Swap to continue. But my badge had no bockered here. I pressed it anyway. The light stutter then turned green. When the door was closed, I stood at the back, arms folded. The lift didn't move. There was no jerk, no acceleration just a halt as if the system was waiting for my decision. After a long pause, the car began to rise, floor count silent, no indicator light at all. For a second, gravity itself felt held in suspense. Then a soft chime the door was opening onto a floor of thick, chemical dark carpet. It wasn't labeled, but habit told me, 413. Only the layout was subtly off. The cubicles were still, the glass walls

1:02:33brimming with shadow. The cleaners cut one I'd never seen set abandoned by a coffin's room, mop limp over the edge. A sharp tinge of bleach pinched the back of my throat. I moved forward without even the benefit of my old clipboard to ground me. The air, colder than memory. I scanned for anomalies, the chair at the window, the whiteboard, the ever-present coffee cup. All were there, only each inch further from the familiar. The ripple of re-arrangement lived in every surface. A desk phone on the far cubicle chair twins twice, a tone so ordinary it almost masked its strangeness. A cross-tour, and picked up. Silence, then two voices of laying in static. If you're not staff, return to your area if you're staff, return a return, do not circulate. The line cuts. My hands shook, but I hung up. It hadn't been meant for me, not really. From the conference room, the glow of an old monitor pulsed. Not modern blue, but CPH video process beyond clarity. Drone to it, I entered, and the surface vibration of the screen crackled on the edge of reception. On its face, a pause video, time-samp, with a day not to date, not tomorrow, but a looping airstering, 13 slash 14 slash air, or slash 114. The forms on the table

1:03:38hadn't changed much executive folders, pushed its enclusters on this lightly off, a single, and opened envelope with the name Ritoba printed in blockcaftles across a front. The badge from before lay beside it, a smear of dried brown at its edge. My pulse ratcheted as I realised the fear wasn't from the evidence now, or even the known risk, but from the anticipation of what the site itself remembered. A chair scraped. Not behind me, but somewhere in the echo chamber beyond, an almost encounter point came the doll rolling click of an elevator door opening, only too far away to be this floor. I froze and able to decide for direction. In the glass, my reflection flickered a slow lag, then caught up, showing a facelina older than last week. Why did the corner of the jaw stress effect, maybe? I looked at my watch, real analogue, and saw the second hand jam beneath the minute just for a blink, but the hair on my neck rose. The smell bleached, coffee, burnt sugar toner from an ancient printer spooled around me, almost edible. I lifted the envelope. The weight inside was wrong, not paper, but metal. Shimming it open, I found a key coat of old-style plastic, fitted

1:04:39logo on one side to floor 14 access, crisis response. Flipping it, the back bore, instead of a magstripe a square of crimson tape, initials over in marker DT. Surge of adrenaline knew he sent a cattering to the floor. With shaky fingers, I snapped a foretold with my phone something to prove later, my lifeline against the anxiety of vanishing evidence. Footsteps, no definite, unheard, high heeled. Too formal to be the building staff, too certain to be panic. They approached from the far end of the corridor, almost at the threshold. I ducked away from the glass, pressed against the inside wall. A shadow passed, then as a memory, not resolving into features just the sense of someone pacing, searching for a script yet and written. A whisper, perfectly pitch, drifted through the open-conference doors, real line, reset, not for public record as sudden jolt. The lights dropped to emergency mirror, the whiteboard's die grants poles once every floor showed error abruptly pointing back to the badge in my palm. The wine of the elevator pitched up, cycling in the shaft above, as if the system was squaring itself to find me. Paper slayed from the table, caught in a draught as ghostly as any poltergeist. Pages fan and clustered, as if drawn by a magnet,

1:05:43all settling at my feet with a slap. I scanned the topmost, consolidation procedure staff memory integration floor 14. The printing, official in sterile, was interrupted by notes and shops, Swift script, no one leaves no one forgets, return all badges by 114. With barely controlled panic, I backed from the room keeping my eyes half on the badge, half on the corridor's gloom. The chair by the glass rotated, frictionless, and in its reflection I caught the briefest flicker aside of a woman's profile chin shop, as unfocused. The sensations cascaded, smell sharpening to ammonia, sound compressing until voices registered only as thunder as pressure in my ears. As I hit the corridor, moving faster, every light and sequence blinked out ahead, creating a tunnel of deep neodark. Don't run, I'm out, remembering some line from an old training manual, not that any protocol could prepare for this. But the further down the corridor, I went, the lesser geometry made sense. Office walls now shifted, wasn't that window last on the right? The steriles, when I pressed into the next landing, now laid up and up, never resolving but instead looping the sense of elevation flawed, as if I'd caught on the room of a merby

1:06:44strip up and down traded in each turn. I stopped heart in overdrive. At last, half by second nature, I fumbled the badge from the envelope and pressed it against the steriles exit pad. Instead of denial, the reader chained and unlocked. The door slayed open, revealing not a floor, but a small, dimmer office, a boardroom, formal, with skyscraper skyline pasted against papered windows. The leather chair is all as cute. The long table was polished, but gouged, the veneer walked under too many cups of fists. Sand came as pressure, the doll hush of a dozen people breathing shallowly. On the far wall, opposite the entrance, the digital clock ticked, lost in time. It read 1.14 a.m., blinking, then freezing. In those chairs, no full figures, only their impressions. Coat strapped as if just shrugged off, teaks ran with lipstick, an open binder each with its logo excised or stained. The sense of presence crushed the air from my chest. My phone went wild in my pocket. On its greener push alert, return badge exit, not authorize. The background image glitched, cycling through security footage from night, I hadn't worked, scenes both familiar and impossible. Sometimes, I saw myself, sometimes the

1:07:49blurred shapes of staff from old photos. A memory pried itself out from wherever I'd buried it, built that first week before I'd known what task, muttering to himself in the break room, not supposed to know, not supposed to remember. A surge of static rose in the fluorescent overheads, cresting and dropping with each tick of the digital clock. The whispering started again a suzeration at first, then words, help us finish what we'll start to. Each four is coming laid, as the fear is overlaid, sharper and sharper until the ASNAP to the pressure I felt in my teeth. I staggered back, clutching the badge, the envelope, anything solid. Behind me, chairs began to move, sliding inward, organizing in a precise ring at the table. A tremor passed through the building, it felt like resolution, on after math, or a practice rehearsal finally reaching the end. At that moment, the emergency lights surged up to blinding. The door behind me banked open an airfoil from the corridor, dragged everything loose off the table, even the badge. Instinct seized me, aborted for the new opening, crashing into something soft fabric, a coat, or a hand-reaching. I never saw. And then I was backspiralled half-in, half out of the staff

1:08:52elevator, for reading shallow, blind for a moment. Attempt security, man stood two steps away, eyes wild, phone in hand. Sir, sir, are you alright? Did you call for help? His voice was shrill, unused to urgency. I nodded, unable to force words passed a panic lock to my throat. I pushed upright, gripped tightening around the now empty envelope in my pocket. Must have fallen asleep, I rasped. Long day. He peered at me wearily, then checked his own watch. It's exactly 114, you sure you're okay. I brushed past trying not to run. Tell Admin I returned what I found. He flinched at the phrase, nodded too rapidly. By the time I reached the ground fort, the lobby was empty, only the janitor remained, mop clutched in hand, gaze heavy with understanding he'd never voice. As I exit into the night, I felt the relief brief, bittersweet of cold wind on my face, and the solid, forgettable sound of the city. No shadows followed me, the buildings were seated into street-lump glow, blameless and mute. But for days after, my fun-showed signs call logs filled with blank, entered, all-time to that impossible minute-passed

1:09:52one. Sometimes a corner of my email would be replaced with blurred snapshots from my own camera roll, shots had never taken desks, empty, but always precisely arranged, a cab in the foreground, lit from above. Once, returning home, I found my note my own handwriting circled and underline, tacked to the inside of my apartment door, did not forget what changed. The tape was the same crimson shade as the badge from the envelope. Life insisted. New routines filled diodes, inventory logs, building rounds, the dirty math of hourly paste stuck against groceries and overdue bills. But underneath, the rhythm never shattered. Each time I entered a new lobby, the pattern played against chairs, cuffed a subtle alignment inviting me to notice staring me to ignore. On one of my last nights before transferring districts again, I caught Bill sitting behind his new desk, watchers fatigue radiating through the glass. He motioned for me to join him as if in truce. Not everyone forgets, he said, barely above a whisper. Some of us filed it away until the building decides it's time to reshuffle. I met his gaze, and saw, in his sunken eyes, the told the quiet forward, taken a debt of memory and silence passed from God to guard. Did you ever find out

1:10:56what happened? Really? I asked. He shook his head. No one ever does. They think they do for a minute, but the rooms change, and the records eat themselves, and someone drops a cup of coffee just so, and you know it's time to leave. We sat in silence for a minute, letting the dull rattle of the evening filled the space. They'll keep it going, you know, Bill said, finally. It's safer for everyone if no one ever finishes the story. If no one asks what a badge vlog skips, or why it cleaners skip a certain row of safer, but not better. He stood shoulder-roaring as coat. You see a chair out of place, I'll adjust pretty back, that's a vice. After Bill left, I jotted my own log, in a scribble. No one puts everything back forever. Memory is always off by an inch. Now, as I settle into yet another night, another shift in a building that smells only mundanely of dust and sweat, I sometimes listen for distant chairs moving. Weakle the feel of heavy, chemical air will glance up at the clock just past one, waiting for something or someone not listed in the looks. Most nights, there's only silence, ordinary and deep. But just often enough, the chair at the end of the corridor faces slightly out,

1:11:56a single cup of sire coffee waits at the edge of my patrol, and the faintest whiff of lemon lingoes after the rest of the world has gone to sleep. If I try to explain, people laugh, frown, ask if I'm tired, suggest vitamins or a vacation. And that is the end. Thank you for listening, and I will see you in the next one. Fortunately, Zippercrooter figured out how to fix all that. And right now, you can try Zippercrooter for free at zippercrooter.com slash zip. With Zippercrooter, you can forget your frustrations,

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