Dirty Secrets

I step into Halberd like I do every morning, unseen. The elevator dings. High heels click. Ties sway. Nobody meets my eyes. That’s the rule here. Janitors blend in, bleed out, and disappear. I swipe my ID. The scanner chirps. I move. “Careful with the glass, Thorn,” the floor manager mutters, eyes on his tablet. “Streaks reflect poorly.” “Understood,” I say, voice flat as Windex. I polish the glass doors in slow, practiced strokes. Not too hard, not too soft. Precision is comfort. Control is peace. I don’t look at my reflection. Not anymore. Down the hall, the light burns too white, the tiles too clean. A smear of blood by the stairwell interrupts the illusion. I mop it in silence. No memo. No report. Just bleach and erasure. Then the printer buzzes. I freeze. It shouldn’t be on. One page slides out. Blank. “Marcus Thorn.” It says my name. I don’t breathe. I walk away. The janitor closet smells like lemon polish and metal fatigue. I shut the door and lean against it for a moment. My hand still hums from gripping the mop. Too tight. Too long. Inside, it’s small. Quiet. Mine. I sit on the low bench and slice an apple with my folding knife. Each piece is perfect, measured. I eat slowly. Chewing keeps the past out. Across from me, the mirror is cracked. It’s webbed like something screamed through it. I reach for the silver tape on the shelf. Tear. Apply. One line. Then another. Cover the crack, like always. But my reflection stares back. Crooked. Like it remembers something I don’t. The red mop handle leans against the wall behind me. Not stored. Posed. Ready. “System reboot complete,” says the intercom overhead. I pause mid-chew. The printer outside hums again. I don’t check. I just whisper, “Not today,” and shut the light. The floor plan said this wing was sealed. I shouldn’t be here. But my cart rolls forward anyway, wheels echoing like footsteps in an empty church. The lights above hum. Too bright. Too sterile. Halberd loves pretending it's alive. Then I see it. A smear. Dark red. Still wet. Blood, real and fresh, by the stairwell exit. I check my scanner. No incident logged. No cleanup request. Nothing. I crouch, gloved hands already pulling out the bleach. My body moves before I can think. Before I can feel. This is what I’m good at: making things vanish. “You’re early,” says a voice behind me. It’s Barry from Accounting. Holding a lunchbox. Too calm. I nod. “Missed the coffee spill on 23.” He shrugs. Walks on. I soak the rag. Wipe in slow circles. Erase. But before I finish, I glance at the door beside the stain. There’s a smear of a boot print… facing out. Someone left in a hurry. “Thorn. You’ve got something.” Terry leans out of the mailroom window, holding a box with both hands like it’s made of glass. His neon-green label gun swings from his belt. I frown. “I don’t get packages.” He shrugs. “No return address. Might be a bomb. You want me to shake it?” “No,” I mutter, taking it. Back in my closet, I place the box on the bench. The label’s blank. Not even internal routing. That’s... impossible. Halberd tracks everything. I slice the tape with my knife and lift the lid. Inside: a black security keycard. Broken in half. A small red light blinks in the foam casing. No note. No explanation. Just that pulse. I sit back, breath low and shallow. My fingers twitch. This isn’t random. This isn’t memory. It’s a message. And whoever sent it didn’t just know my name… They knew who I was before. I pass the same hallway again, same sterile hum, same echo of nothing. But the printer… It’s awake. The green light flickers. Then clicks. Whirs. Paper slides out. One page. No one’s around, but I glance over my shoulder anyway. My hand lifts before I think. The page is warm. "SUBJECT: THORN-071" The air stiffens. I flip the page. It’s a personnel file, mine. Except… not. No birthdate. No civilian record. Just redacted fields and timestamped missions. Places I swore were burned. Operations no one else survived. I shove the paper in my pocket. Turn to walk. The printer clicks again. Another page. My photo. Black and white. Eyes cold. Tactical gear. Dead center, stamped in red: ACTIVE “...Not possible,” I whisper. Footsteps behind me. I spin. No one. Just the security camera overhead. Tilting. Watching. I tear the pages. Hard. But I keep the photo. Some ghosts, you carry. Others… carry you. I shouldn’t be on Floor 42. It’s not part of my assigned route. Not even on my keycard. But when the elevator doors slide open without resistance, I step in. The hallway is dimmer here. Walls too clean. Too… empty. One of the doors is cracked open. Just enough. Inside: silence. Then, blood. A dried trail, almost scrubbed, ending near a toppled chair. I find a Halberd ID badge under it. Bent, dirty. No name. No title. Just barcode. Scratched out. I flip it. The back is blank. Footsteps in the hall. I pocket the badge and press against the wall. Silence. I slowly step out and close the door behind me. No alarms. No blinking lights. But the moment I enter the elevator, my ears ring like a countdown. This wasn’t an accident. Someone cleaned this room already. But not like me. Not to hide something. To bury it. Sometimes I climb the maintenance hatch to the roof. No cameras up there. Just wind and the ghost of sky. Tonight, the city is quiet. From above, Halberd looks peaceful. But peace here always feels… programmed. Then I see it. Half-buried under the vent grill. A drone. Outdated. Damaged. But its lens still intact. I kneel beside it. Pull open the panel. Blinking red. It’s still recording. I hook it into my janitor scanner. Static. Then frames. My route. My hallway. Me… cleaning the bloodstain. Timestamp: two hours ago. I scroll back. The stain appeared minutes before I arrived. No one else logged in. No emergency. No call. Just… me. On tape. Wiping away the evidence like I always do. But this time, someone watched. From above. From before. I look out over the skyline, the wind colder now. “Someone’s trying to wake me up,” I mutter. Then I wonder: What if I already am? Something’s wrong. I feel it before I even open the closet door. The light’s still on. I never leave the light on. I step inside. The air’s been disturbed. Like someone else breathed it first. My locker is slightly ajar. I open it. Gloves scattered. Utility knife missing. My secondary ID… gone. And at the bottom, something new: a folded black mop apron I don’t recognize. I reach for my cart. Not mine. It’s newer. Sleek. Jet black. Military-issued wheels. Silent gliders. No inventory tag. I spin around. No one. Not outside. Not down the hall. But I feel it. I check the Halberd system. My name isn’t on today’s log. Or the last three days. I don’t exist on record. I press my badge to the scanner. ACCESS DENIED The hum of the hallway quiets behind me. No one’s trying to kill me. They’re reactivating me. And I don’t know why. The mop water ripples as I stare at my reflection in the bucket: distorted, faceless. But suddenly… it’s not water I smell. It’s gun oil. Burnt sand. Blood on sun-baked steel. A scream cuts through the memory, small, breathless. A girl, no older than seven, hides under a plastic table. Her hands cover her mouth. Eyes wide. Terrified. My boots crunch glass as I move toward her. My rifle rises. Trained. “Stand down, Thorn-071,” a voice buzzes in my ear. I don’t. I lower the weapon. She looks at me like I’m both monster and miracle. "Thank you..." she whispers, barely audible. The vision shatters. Back in the janitor closet, I drop the rag and sink onto the bench. My hands are shaking. First time in years. Outside, the hallway intercom pings. “REASSIGNMENT IN PROGRESS.” I wipe sweat from my neck. It’s cold. I whisper, “No one remembers her name… but I do.” I take the broken keycard from my locker. It’s cracked down the center, barely intact. Shouldn’t work. But something in me, it knows. Floor 38 isn’t on the building directory. Not for janitors. Not for anyone. The elevator doesn’t resist this time. No beep. No error. Just… silence. The doors open into a hallway that shouldn’t exist. Frosted glass. Low lights. Motion sensors flicker weakly like the building forgot how to respond. I swipe the card at the end door. Green. It opens. Inside: a small control room. Just one chair. One monitor. The screen blinks to life. “HELLO, MARCUS.” My breath catches. Then the footage rolls. Grainy. Monochrome. I’m in tact gear. Moving with purpose. Entering this room. But the timestamp… Seven years ago. I don’t remember this. But the camera doesn’t lie. The monitor flickers again. “DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT YOU DID?” I take a step back. I don’t. But something inside me does. When I return to the main floor, everything’s… off. The lights lag a little longer before flicking on. The doors don’t open for me unless I wave twice. My badge doesn’t beep anymore, it just flashes red, then green, like it’s unsure I belong. In the supply bay, my mop cart is gone. In its place: a new one. Sleek. All black. No wear. No tag. No memory. I check the system logs. My name’s vanished from today’s rotation. Yesterday too. Even last week. I scroll back further. I don’t exist. Elevator won’t stop on my designated floors anymore. Routes have changed. I try to enter the staff lounge, access denied. Not restricted. Not revoked. Reassigned. It hits me like a whisper in the back of my head: I’m not being deleted. I’m being put back in place. The system isn’t glitching. It’s waking me up. I drop the mug. Porcelain explodes across the breakroom floor like shrapnel in a blast I can’t remember ducking under. The room is empty. No one notices. No one ever does. I kneel, out of habit. Sweeping the shards into my palm. A sharp edge catches skin. A red line opens across my hand. I watch it bleed. For a long time. Red on white tile. Real. Tangible. Mine. I reach for the bleach. Soak it into a rag. Scrub the blood the way I always do. But this time… it doesn’t vanish. It spreads. I sit back. Bleeding. Breathing. My hands shake again. Maybe I’m not here to clean things. The thought startles me. I look across the room. The red mop handle rests against the wall, like it’s been waiting. Maybe I’m here to break them. Outside the hallway, the security lights blink. And don’t stop. I bandage my hand with masking tape and bleach-soaked cloth. Then I reach for the mop handle. The red one. It’s heavier than I remember, like it knows something’s changed. I sling it across my back, snug between my shoulders like the rifle I used to carry. Old instincts hum beneath the skin. The hall outside is dim. Emergency lights flicker like they’re not sure which state the world is in, safe or slipping. I swipe the cracked keycard again. No hesitation. Floor 38. Doors open. No music. No voice. Just cold silence. I step into the same hallway from the footage. Same angle. Same lighting. Same fate? The monitor turns on before I reach it. A voice I don’t recognize, but feels carved from my bones, crackles through the overhead speaker. “You’re not forgotten.” A pause. “You’re activated.” I don't flinch. I just say, “I know.”