📘 CHAPTER 6 — THE PERSON WHO IS NO LONGER IDENTIFIED
583 Words
Lam met the man on Monday morning.
Not in the Error Storage.
Not on the screen.
But on the ground floor of the building where he lived.
The man had been standing in front of the security gate for over five minutes.
The card in his hand was new, unscratched, the QR code clear.
But the gate wouldn't open.
There was no error message.
No red light.
Just… no response.
"Try again," Lam said, his voice low, not wanting to draw attention.
The man turned around.
He looked to be in his early forties, neatly dressed, not appearing homeless or a troublemaker.
"I tried," he said. "It didn't show anything."
Lam walked over and looked at the small screen on the gate.
No "Access Denied" message.
No "Invalid ID" message.
Blank.
It was exactly like a record that had never been flagged for an error…
or was no longer considered valid by the system.
Lam swallowed hard.
He pulled out his card and scanned it.
The gate opened immediately.
No sound.
No warning about the previous scan.
The man looked at him, his eyes a mixture of relief and confusion.
"—Maybe… my card is broken?" he asked.
Lam didn't answer immediately.
In his mind, the words flashed clearly:
This record is no longer recognized as an individual by the system.
They rode the elevator together.
No conversation.
On the third floor, the man stepped out.
Before the doors closed, he turned back.
"—Have you noticed… lately, things have been freezing a lot?" he asked. "—As if… the system doesn't know what to do with itself."
The doors closed.
Lam stood still in the elevator, his heart beating slowly but heavily.
At the Error Warehouse, Lam didn't do any queries that morning.
He observed.
Observed his colleagues.
Observed the files passing through his hands.
And he began to notice details he'd never noticed before.
A file returned without explanation.
An automated note left the conclusion blank.
A citizen with a clear error history… but the current status was Pending indefinitely.
Not wrong.
Not correct.
Just suspended.
Like the man this morning.
At lunchtime, Lam sat alone.
He opened his notebook.
No ID.
No description.
He just wrote one sentence:
Exception left the data.
Below that sentence, he redrawn the three old dots.
This time, the third dot was faintly circled—not round, not clearly defined.
That afternoon, an internal notification appeared on the main screen.
Not aimed at anyone in particular.
The system is optimizing individual identification.
Some temporary disruptions may occur.
Please do not interfere manually.
Lin read each word slowly.
“Disruption.”
“Optimization.”
“Do not interfere.”
Familiar language.
Harmless language.
But for the first time, he clearly saw the distance between words and people.
That evening, when he got home, Lin stood in front of the security gate for a few more seconds before swiping his card.
He didn't know what he was waiting for.
When the gate opened, he exhaled—a very small breath.
Inside the apartment, Lin turned on the lights and placed his notebook on the table.
He didn't open it.
He just looked.
A question echoed in his mind, a question he knew, from this moment on, would be impossible to answer:
If the system stopped recognizing a person…
who would be the first to realize they were gone?
The Error Warehouse didn't answer.
But Lin understood that, from today, the exception had a face.
- Writer
