Page 20 of Fractured Devotion
Instead, I’ve been pacing the walls of my own isolation and wasting time in a space that offers nothing but old echoes and the kind of silence that breeds paranoia.
At five-fifty, I lock up, my coat wrapped tight around me, and walk the long path in silence. The fog is still thick, curling around the trees like breaths, like something sentient. I pass no one.
By six, I enter through the south entrance of Miramont, my pass key buzzing faintly against the reader. The hallways are still mostly asleep, lit only by the blue glow of maintenance monitors.
I head to the cognitive lab. The scanner takes a beat longer than usual to read me in. My desk is untouched, my mug still rings the same stain onto the coaster.
But when I boot my terminal, I get a brief error: “Access restricted.”
I try again. Same.
It doesn’t make sense. My clearance is level three. I wrote half the protocols myself.
I don’t panic, not outwardly. But my stomach turns slowly as if on command.
On my way back to the elevators, I pass Dr. Reyes in the east corridor. He’s sipping something probably three hours too old.
“Couldn’t sleep either?” he asks, his voice low.
“Didn’t try,” I say. We fall into step without agreeing to.
“They restricted you already?” he glances sideways.
“You saw?”
“It’s always someone. This week, it’s you. Last month, it was Hughes. They cycle the leash.”
“What are they watching for?”
He shrugs. “Whatever makes you flinch.”
“And if I don’t?”
Reyes gives me a look that almost smiles, almost doesn’t. “Then they start worrying why not.”
I say nothing. But something inside me aligns with the silence.
Back at the elevator, I press the button for the eighth floor. Miramont spans the lower five levels. A labyrinth of labs, recovery suites, and administrative compartments.
While the sixth and seventh floors are officially designated for archive storage and server maintenance, they’re rarely trafficked. They’re quiet, transitional spaces that most staff barely acknowledge.
The backup apartment sits alone at the very top, three floors above the clinic, isolated by design. I’ll check the backup apartment. I’ll check everything.
The elevator hums low, an almost imperceptible whir that fills the silence like tension strung across bone. I press my knuckles to the metal railing behind me, grounding myself as each floor ticks past.
Six. Seven. Eight.
When I get to the eighth floor, the doors slide open with a soft hiss. The hallway is dimmer up here, the kind of sterile half-light meant to discourage loitering.
A faint scent of bleach lingers in the air, sharper than it should be, as if someone recently cleaned but didn’t care to mask the smell.
My steps echo as I walk the short corridor to the backup apartment. No one else is supposed to be up here. Not this early, not ever, really.
This place is a relic of convenience, built for overnight crises and grant deadlines, not habitation.
I unlock the door and step inside.
It’s colder than I expected.
