Dirty Secrets

Chapter 2

Marcus closed the janitor closet door with a soft click. The fluorescent bulb above him buzzed faintly as he peeled off his gloves and hung them with exact symmetry. His locker opened without a creak, row upon row of bottles and brushes arranged like a soldier's gear.

From the top shelf, he retrieved an apple and sat on the bench.

Tock. The folding blade clicked open.

He sliced the apple with eerie precision. One slice. Pause. Another. Pause. Eight total.

Across from him, the mirror watched. Its center cracked and sealed with tape. Marcus stared at it too long.

“You still don’t like looking at yourself?” a voice whispered from the corner. It was only his own, echoing in memory.

The mop leaned against the wall. Red-handled, still as a weapon in a holster.

He took a bite. Chewed once.

The silence was louder than the chewing.

The blade clicked shut.

Outside, the hallway lights flickered.

The tile gleamed like ice. My hands were cleaner then, but they still trembled.

“You okay?” one of the rookies asked, pulling on a bulletproof vest.

I didn’t answer. Just stared at my own face in the mirror. Smooth. Young. Hopeful.

“I said, you good?”

“...They’ll only see what I give them.”

PRESENT – JANITOR CLOSET

The tape peeled from the mirror with a slow hiss.

I stared at the fracture beneath it. Three distorted versions of myself looked back. Each one slightly off-center. One darker. One thinner. One smiling.

None of them felt like me.

“Still pretending, huh?” I muttered, voice dry as bleach fumes. “Still playing ghost?”

I paused. My hand gripped the tape.

“…Don’t flinch. They only see what you give them.”

Then I pressed the tape back down, harder this time.

The light above flickered.

The mirror didn’t argue.

A knock. Two quick taps.

I don’t flinch. Already know it’s Terry.

“Hey, Thorn.” He peeks in, holding a tablet. “Coffee spill. Hallway 27-C.”

I don’t move. “I’m off rotation for 27.”

He shrugs. “System’s confused again. Says it’s yours.”

I wipe the blade on a cloth, the apple already browning on the bench beside me. I close the folding knife with a quiet snap and tuck it into my pocket.

“Right,” I mutter. “System’s confused.”

Terry smirks, unaware. “Aren’t we all?”

I stand and reach for the mop. Not the gray one from this morning. The red-handled one, tucked behind the others like a memory.

Terry squints. “That new?”

I swing it onto the cart. “No,” I say without looking at him. “Just remembered I still had it.”

He chuckles. “Well, glad it’s getting some air.”

I don’t answer.

But I’m already thinking:

Floor 27 wasn’t an accident.

I push the cart down the east corridor. The wheels roll smoother than usual. Too smooth. Like the building’s cleaned itself.

Near the glass atrium, a group of junior execs laugh too loud over lukewarm coffee.

“…they wiped his profile,” one says.

“Who?” another asks, sipping.

“The guy from Payroll. Davis? You didn’t hear? Just… gone. Like he never worked here.”

No one notices me. That’s the point.

But I slow anyway.

Gone.

Like he never worked here.

My eyes flick toward them, then up. The dome camera overhead tilts. Clicks once. Follows.

The elevator doors slide open. No one inside. Just cold air and a faint buzz.

Floor 27.

Empty.

No spill. No sound. No assigned staff.

Just… silence.

Then I see it.

A single boot print. Small. Wet. Right by the water cooler.

Child-sized.

I grip the red handle tighter.

Halberd doesn’t allow children.

Which means someone lied.

I crouch by the boot print, mop in hand.

The water is faint, barely there. But I clean it anyway. Slow. Controlled.

I’ve scrubbed worse things from quieter places.

The tile underneath is flawless now. But I don’t move.

Something’s… off.

I open the nearby maintenance closet. The light inside flickers. Just a rack of towels, old chemical bins, and…

I pause.

Taped to the inside of the door is a drawing.

Crayon. Wobbly stick figures. Big red scribbles overhead like fire or blood.

Three people: one small, one faceless, one labeled (sloppily) ‘M.’

The figure holds something long. Red.

I rip it off. Fold it twice. Slide it into my pocket.

My hand curls tightly around the mop handle. Plastic creaks.

Then. “Thorn-071.”

The wall speaker crackles.

“Route diverted. Proceed to Vault Corridor.”

I freeze.

That voice is classified. Buried.

It hasn't spoken in seven years.

I shouldn’t be hearing it now.

I raise the radio to my mouth. “Security Ops, this is Maintenance Unit 618. Confirm reroute to Vault Corridor?”

Static.

No acknowledgment. No echo.

Just a soft hiss. Like something breathing through the wires.

I lower the radio, slowly. Eyes scanning.

Across the wall is a laminated floor map. Everything labeled. Everything routine.

Except...

There’s no Vault Corridor.

Not on this blueprint.

Not on any I’ve ever seen.

But I’ve walked it before.

FLASH: Dim light. Cinderblock walls. Screams echoing down a cement throat. A child’s cry. Raspy. Desperate. Arms outstretched as they drag her back toward the door. The vault slams shut. Metal groans like it’s alive.

PRESENT: I blink, back in the closet.

I step back from the speaker like it might burn me.

Then. Clatter.

My mop hits the ground, rolling slowly.

I whisper, more to memory than air:

“No. We shut that down.”

Another beat.

“We buried it.”

Back in the janitor closet, I lock the door behind me.

Twice.

I sit at the small desk tucked behind the supply shelf. Just an old terminal, black keyboard, blinking cursor. It’s supposed to log inventory.

But that’s not what I use it for.

I override the bootloader with muscle memory. Bypass mode. Root access. The screen glows green, cold and familiar.

EXECUTE: DELETE AUDIO TRACE

CONFIRM: Y/N

I hit “Y.”

The screen pauses. Then blinks. A new message scrolls across.

ACCESS DENIED

PROFILE STATUS: REACTIVATION: PENDING

CONTINUE PROTOCOL? [Y/N]

My hands freeze over the keys.

The same hands that could assemble a rifle in thirty seconds. That once silenced a room with a single gesture.

Now?

They shake.

Tiny tremors at first. Then stronger. My thumb hovers above the “N.”

I don’t press it.

I reach for the power button. Press down.

The system dies with a final, quiet hum.

And still. My hands won’t stop shaking.

The tape peels in jerky strips, the hiss sharper than usual. My hands move too fast, too unevenly. The lines overlap now. No symmetry. No care.

The crack in the mirror widens behind the tape, like it’s growing.

“Hold it together,” I mutter.

I press down the last strip. It wrinkles. I don’t fix it.

Behind me, the bench creaks. The apple still sits there. Untouched since this morning. Now it’s soft and browned around the edges, sagging in on itself.

I stare at it.

The fruit I cut precisely. The control I held onto. The lie I told myself.

“You’re not the man who made this mess,” I whisper to the reflection.

The room stays silent.

Then. Clack.

The red mop handle slips from where it rested against the wall. Hits the floor. Rolls until it stops at my feet.

No one touched it.

But something decided to let it go.

FLASHBACK: YEARS AGO

Red lights strobe down a narrow concrete hallway. Alarms wail. Boots pound.

“Thorn-071! Abort extraction!” a voice barks through static.

I don’t stop.

I’m running. Child in arms, bare feet bloodied, her sobs muffled into my shoulder. Smoke curls around the corner behind us, thick with screams and gunfire.

A man grabs my sleeve.

“You’ll never be clean again!” he spits, yanking hard.

I elbow him without hesitation. He crumples.

PRESENT: CLOSET

I sit again. The apple’s gone to mush. The mop lies at my feet like a dropped sword.

I pull the drawing from my pocket. The one with the stick figures. The red scribbles.

My thumb presses into it.

The edges crumple.

Then I stop.

Smoothing the paper back out, slow. Gentle. Like it’s sacred.

I look down at the little figure marked "M."

“I wasn’t trying to be clean,” I say to the quiet.

“…I just wanted to forget.”

The maintenance corridor hums with artificial silence. It’s supposed to be neutral. Just pipes, vents, and steel.

But it breathes now. Like it remembers something I don’t.

I walk slower. My boots barely make a sound on the polished vinyl. The air feels thicker here.

Then I see it.

Taped crooked on the breaker box: another child’s drawing.

Stick figures again. But this one’s different.

A lone red figure, arms raised. Surrounded by jagged orange lines. Fire.

It’s burning.

And still smiling.

I tear it down with more force than necessary.

The hallway lights flicker once. Then again. Longer this time. A low static buzz vibrates through the walls, like the building’s trying to speak in a language it forgot.

Then the voice returns.

Cold. Robotic.

“Initiate sequence… Thorn.”

My blood chills.

I turn to the wall panel. Flip it open.

Inside: a lens.

Camera. Watching.

Its red light blinks. Once.

Then again.

Then it stays on.

I swipe my badge across the panel beside the vault door.

It shouldn't work.

But the scanner blinks green. No hesitation.

ACCESS GRANTED.

The lock disengages with a slow, mechanical groan. Cold air seeps out—too cold for a janitor’s corridor.

I step inside.

It’s not a room. It's an archive.

Rows of black shelves. Metal boxes stacked like coffins. The fluorescent light flickers overhead. Tired, like it's seen too much.

Each box is labeled in precise white print that reads:

HALBERD INTERNAL, CLASSIFIED.

OPERATOR: 071

Me.

I walk the aisle, dragging my fingers across the spines. My breath is shallow. Controlled.

I stop at a box near the end. Open it.

Inside: a thick folder. Faded, but intact.

I flip it open.

First page: a surveillance photo.

It’s me, seven years younger. Clean-shaven. Tactical vest. Kneeling beside a small girl.

Her face is blurry. Half turned. But there’s something in the way she clutches my arm.

I know her.

Even if I don’t remember her name.

The closet light buzzes softly overhead as I close the door behind me. I don’t bother locking it this time.

I stand in front of the mirror.

The tape’s edges are curling now. Sweat and time have weakened the adhesive. The crack beneath is still there. Silent, spreading like rot under a smile.

I reach up.

Peel one strip off. Then another. And another.

The last strip comes off with a reluctant hiss. Like the glass doesn’t want to be seen.

CRACK.

A web spreads across the surface. The whole thing gives in with a soft gasp. The mirror splits and rains down in fractured silence.

I don’t flinch.

I kneel and collect the shards. One by one. Line them on the bench. Each shard reflects a different part of me. None of them match.

I stare at the jagged pieces. Voice dry, barely audible:

“There’s no cleaning this up, is there?”

I slide the red mop handle into my bag.

The last time I carried it like this…

I was walking away from a burning compound.

A body cooling behind me.

Back then, it was just another tool.

Now?

It feels like a memory sharpened into a weapon.

The intercom above crackles.

“Redline Protocol active. Janitor reassignment confirmed.”

My name isn’t spoken.

It doesn’t need to be.

I stand. One last glance at the mirror shards on the bench. They don’t reflect anything now. Just light fractured into lies.

I step outside and lock the door from the outside. The hallway stretches before me, quiet and sterile, like a tunnel waiting for collapse.

The sublevel elevator waits.

I press the call button.

It dings. Doors open.

Inside: a single panel. No numbers. No directory.

Just a button. White.

Ω

The end of the line.

I press it.

The doors close.

And the world begins to hum.