I keep looking at the screen, but I am not actually reading. The file stays open. The system lines are in place. Date stamps, analysis fields, all of them exactly as they should be. But every few seconds my eyes slide somewhere else. Toward where Melissa's screen is. The black window is gone now. As if it never appeared.
Melissa keeps working. Her fingers move quickly on the keyboard. Sometimes she leans closer to the screen to read something, sometimes she leans back in her chair. It is obvious that what happened a moment ago was not ordinary for her either. Because she is doing things she normally does not do, and from time to time she lifts her head and looks around.
I also type a few notes into the file in front of me. I delete most of what I write a few seconds later. My hands cannot stay empty. When people do not look like they are working, they attract attention.
There are a few minutes left until break time. The people in the room slowly start shifting in their chairs. One person yawns. Another stretches an arm. Normally I would notice none of this, but today every small movement catches my eye.
At the hour, everyone stands up at the same time. The legs of the metal chairs make a short sound on the floor. Melissa stands up too, but she does not look at me. I do not look at her either. Leaving like this is safer.
When we step into the corridor, the crowd splits in two. One part goes toward the dining area, one part toward the coffee machines. I walk toward the coffee machine. There are a few people in front of it. I get in line.
Melissa sits a little farther ahead, at one of the tables by the window. Her head is lowered, she takes a sip from the cup in her hand. A few seconds later she raises her eyes and looks at me. Our glance is short. Then both of us turn our heads somewhere else.
The man in front of me takes his coffee from the machine and moves away. I take a cup too. While pressing the button on the machine, Melissa stands up. She walks away from the window side and toward the corridor. I take the cup and wait a few seconds. Then I start walking too.
At the end of the corridor there is a small room with cleaning supplies inside. Melissa enters there. A little later I enter too. When I come next to her, she does not turn her head toward me. She is looking at the Helix label on the detergents.
"You saw it," she says. Her tone is normal, but she chooses her words carefully.
"Yes," I say. No one speaks for a few seconds. Two people pass through the corridor. Their footsteps move away.
Melissa speaks again.
"What was written on the screen?" she asks.
"17483," I say. "And under it, A.K."
Melissa nods very slightly. As if this is the answer she expected.
"The file in the archive was empty," she says. "There was nothing in it."
When I hear this sentence, I frown.
"It may have been deleted," I say.
Melissa turns her head and looks at me.
"Deleted files disappear completely," she says. "That one was still there."
"Do you know why that writing appeared on the screen?" I ask.
Melissa lifts one shoulder slightly.
"Not yet," she says. Then she fixes her eyes on me. "What was your name?" she asks.
"You know it," I say.
"Say it," she says.
"Aaron Knox," I say.
There is a brief change on Melissa's face. Her eyes look a little more carefully for a moment.
"A.K. Maybe it is a coincidence," she says. "Maybe it isn't."
People begin passing through the corridor again.
Melissa drinks the last sip in her cup.
"Let's not talk about this here," she says, and leaves the room and walks toward the crowd.
I do not know what just happened, what we just talked about. Why did something like that appear on her computer? What does this number have to do with me? Should I not trust Melissa? I am about to lose my mind inside all these questions. I cannot imagine Melissa doing something that could be bad for me. That is why I cannot think logically. She sounded very convincing when she said she did not know. Thinking about dozens of questions, I leave the room too.
When I return to my desk, the computer is still on. The same file is still on the screen. I sit in the chair and continue working, but in my mind the things Melissa said keep turning over and over. The file in the archive is empty. But it still remains in the system. That alone is strange. Files are either deleted or hidden. But they are not left empty.
While this thought keeps turning in a corner of my mind, Melissa comes to my desk after a while. There is a tablet in her hand.
She holds the tablet out to me and shows me a line of data.
"Can you check this?" she says.
I take the tablet. While looking at the screen, I feel that she presses a small piece of paper into my palm. The movement is so fast that someone looking from outside would not notice it. I give the tablet back. Melissa returns to her desk as if nothing happened. I put the paper in my pocket and do not take it out.
After the last shift ends, everyone starts returning to their rooms. While walking in the corridor, I take out the paper and open it. Two words are written on it:
Tonight.
Under it, one more word:
Don't sleep.
Without knowing what to think, I go to my room. Until dinner time I lie down a little and think. When the time comes, I get up and go to the cafeteria.
The hall is full, people are spread across the tables. Some are talking, some are eating silently. I sit at a table. The man across from me tells about a mistake he made during the day. The woman next to him laughs. I only listen.
When the meal is over, I leave the tray and go up to the floor where the rooms are. The corridor is quiet. Most people have already gone into their rooms. I open my door and go inside. I close the door and leave the paper on the table. I change my clothes and sit in the chair. I look at my watch. 23:18.
Time moves slowly. From time to time footsteps come from the corridor. Then it becomes silent again. Everything looks normal. When it becomes 23:52, my eyes begin to grow heavy, but I do not sleep.
At 00:09, a metallic sound comes from the corridor. I lift my head. A few seconds later it comes again. This time more clearly. A heavy footstep sound. An autonome. The sound moves away. At that exact moment, a fake moon appears on the panel where the fake sun is. I flinch, but stay silent.
I keep sitting in the chair. The corridor is quiet. When it becomes 00:31, I hear the footsteps of autonomes again.
One of them speaks.
"Active transfer."
For a moment the line of light under the door goes dark. A shadow passes through the corridor. Then everything becomes quiet again.
I sit in the chair a while longer. It becomes 00:47. No more sound comes from the corridor. I get up from the chair and go to the bed. I dim the light a little. I lie down on the bed. I look at the ceiling. After a few minutes my thoughts slowly begin to scatter. Then my eyes close.
I sit up, shaking my head. I force myself out of the bed. I was about to lose to sleep. I sit in the chair, but my sleepiness does not go away. I need to do something. I take the paper in my hand.
"Tonight. Don't sleep."
Melissa must have known this would happen. That must be why she warned me. She wanted me to see something. But it does not make sense that what I saw would be this short. If something really is happening, it should not consist only of the sentence "Active transfer" that I heard.
I get up from the chair and walk toward the door. I press my ear against the door. There is no sound at all. Still, I look at the door for a few seconds. Then I open it slightly and watch outside. When I see that it is empty, I step out.
The corridor is not dark, but the lights are at a low level. Switched to night mode. Along the long corridor, light leaks from under a few doors, but most rooms are dark. People must be sleeping. In the air there is that familiar Helix smell where metal and cleaning chemicals mix. I quietly close the door and step into the corridor. I take the first few steps slowly because I do not know whether an autonome is patrolling. I look all the way to the end of the corridor. No one.
I start walking. I try to keep my footsteps as light as possible, but it is impossible to walk completely silently on this floor. Still, my footsteps do not echo on the walls. When I reach the middle of the corridor, I hear something. A metal sound coming from very far away. The sound may be coming from below. From the service corridors under this floor.
I stop and listen. The sound comes again. This time more clearly. The step of an autonome. It is easy to separate the walk of autonomes from other sounds. There is no human rhythm in their steps. They step with the same weight, at the same intervals. This sound is like that too.
I start walking toward the stairs at the end of the corridor. When I get close to the stair door, I stop again. I listen. Now I am sure. An autonome is moving below.
I open the door. The stairwell is darker. The lights here are completely dim. Only the emergency strips show the edges of the walls. The light coming from one floor below hits the corners of the stairs. I start going down slowly. At every step I stop and listen. The autonome sound is still there. But now it sounds like not just one autonome. Sometimes two steps come one after another.
Halfway down the stairs I understand that the sound is coming from the floor below. Part of the service corridor can be seen through the gap in the stair door. As I get closer to the door, I hold my breath. When I reach the last step, I look inside from the edge of the door.
There are two autonomes in the middle of the corridor. They are carrying a metal stretcher between them. So this is what they mean by transfer. They are carrying a person.
I remain standing behind the door. It is difficult for the autonomes to notice me, but not impossible. They have sensors. I decide to keep watching anyway. The stretcher goes toward the large door at the end of the corridor. There is a red light above the door. One of the autonomes opens the panel next to the door. It inserts a metal arm inside. The panel gives a short beep. The door slowly opens.
Behind the door is a dark room. The autonomes carry the stretcher inside. Before the door closes, the face of the person on the stretcher comes into the light for a moment. I do not recognize the face, but it is someone young. The door closes, the corridor becomes quiet again.
I stand motionless behind the stair door for a few seconds. Then I step back. I go up a few steps. I lean my back against the wall and stay there. I keep looking at the door. What I just saw looks like it happened in a few seconds, but it may be part of something much bigger inside the system. It is obvious how regularly the autonomes do this job. This is not the first time.
Just as I am about to turn toward the stairs, another sound comes from below. The door opens again. I immediately look inside. The autonomes have come out, but they are not carrying the stretcher. They walk along the corridor at the same speed and go to the other side. A few seconds later they disappear from view.
I remain alone on the stairs. I wait a little longer. When no other sound comes, I begin climbing back up. When I reach my own floor, the corridor is still empty. I open my door and go inside. I look at my watch. 1:03.
I look at the paper Melissa gave me one more time. She knew something would happen. But I did not think it would be this obvious. I dim the light a little more. I go to the bed and sit down. No sound comes from the corridor anymore. I calm down.
I lie down on the bed and look at the ceiling. The face on the stretcher comes to my mind again. Someone I do not know, but the expression I saw on that face stays in my mind. He looked unconscious, but there was no fear on his face. There was only emptiness.
I close my eyes. Thinking that this transfer may be happening every night, I fall asleep.