Page 57 of Fractured Devotion
Not in Diagnostics, not during the hallway check-ins, and not even in the staff lounge. It’s like she’s vanished into the infrastructure, only traceable through log entries and whispered speculation.
And the more I don’t see her, the more I feel the weight of it—not just worry, but something colder and heavier, like watching a line go taut before the pull. The silence around her absence becomes the loudest thing in my day. And tomorrow, I’ll need to be earlier, closer. Ready.
The next morning, I arrive early, too early for anyone to be in the hallways. The lights flicker awake as I move, their hum loud in the stillness. In the breakroom, I find her.
Celeste stands by the vending machine, her fingers resting lightly on the glass as though she’s forgotten why she came.
She looks thinner, and her coat hangs looser than usual. There’s a deep, restless fatigue carved beneath her eyes.
I hesitate in the doorway, then step closer. “Celeste.”
She turns, no surprise on her face. Just recognition.
“You’re early,” she says.
“So are you.”
We walk the corridor in silence. The clinic feels like it’s caught in a pause. When we reach the lounge, she sits on the edge of the bench, her elbows on her knees. Ink stains the cuff of her sleeve, and a crumpled napkin flutters beside her foot.
I sit too, at a careful distance.
She doesn’t speak at first. She just stares at a broken hair tie on the table between us.
“I’ve missed seeing you around,” I say.
When she replies, her voice is flat. “Some people are watching and monitoring my moves. Bit by bit. And I’m letting them.”
There’s no fear in her tone. Only exhaustion.
I inch my hand across the table, stopping just short of hers. “Then maybe it’s time someone watched back.”
She finally lifts her gaze to mine.
And I see it. The weight she’s carrying. The fire that hasn’t gone out.
I don’t need to ask what she’s hiding.
I just need to stay close enough to catch what falls.
After our exchange in the lounge, I don’t push, and Celeste doesn’t offer more. But something’s shifted. There’s a wariness to her silence, but not the kind that shuts people out completely. It’s more like a door she’s left cracked, just enough.
We part ways near Diagnostics. She nods once, her eyes distant, then turns and disappears around the bend. I don’t follow. I never do. But I stay just long enough to watch the last thread of her coat vanish.
Later in the day, I check the logs again.
There’s nothing alarming, just more subtle signs. Her ID pinged in archives for twenty-three minutes. Then again near Lab 6, with no terminal login. I cross-check motion sensors and timestamps. No one else was near her either time.
By mid-afternoon, I’m back in my office, a neural map still blinking on the secondary screen. But I’m not really reviewing it. My focus slides, again and again, back to her pattern and how clean it’s gotten. Too clean.
The trouble with brilliant minds is that they know how to cover their tracks better than most. And Celeste is nothing if not brilliant.
A soft knock on my door startles me. It’s Mara.
She steps in without waiting for an invitation, her expression tight. “Just came from the eastern access node,” she says. “There’s something weird in the system logs. A looped camera feed. It’s short, only three seconds. But it plays over and over like someone patched it in to hide a moment.”
I frown. “Which corridor?”
“One level below the diagnostics wing. Near Storage B12. She was on that floor this morning.”
