The Continuity Office

Ilyan kept the key turned in the lock and listened to the silence on the other side.

“Vesna?”

The voice did not answer. Somewhere inside the office, a chair rolled across the floor. Then a drawer opened and closed.

Behind him, Orren said, “If that is a private call, you should not be listening.”

“It addressed me.”

“That does not make it public.”

Ilyan opened the door.

The office was larger than it appeared from the corridor. Filing cabinets divided it into narrow aisles, and a second desk stood beneath the windowless far wall. There was no window, no exterior wall, and no person. The desk phone rested on its cradle. Its red indicator still glowed.

On the nearest desk, a monitor displayed a personnel record. The name at the top was VESNA SOREV. Beneath it, lines of text updated one after another.

ARRIVAL CONFIRMED.

AUTHORIZED CONTACT: ILYAN SOREV.

STATUS: PENDING.

Ilyan crossed the room. “Who was speaking?”

Lida entered behind him, bringing the red folder against her chest. Orren remained in the corridor, one hand on the sign-in book.

“Which voice?” Lida asked.

“My sister’s.”

“Then you recognized it.”

“That was not my question.”

“No.” Lida set the folder on the desk. “It wasn’t.”

The monitor flickered. The three lines vanished. A fourth appeared.

CONTACT MUST BE COMPLETED BEFORE DEPARTURE.

Ilyan reached for the telephone. Lida caught his wrist. Her grip was firm and professional, not hurried.

“Do not answer an unlogged call.”

“It already called me.”

“And now you want to call it back.”

“I want to know where she is.”

“Your sister is on this floor.”

The certainty in her answer was worse than an evasion. Ilyan looked past her, toward the rows of cabinets and the closed doors between them. “Then bring her here.”

“That is not how the department works.”

“What department?”

“Continuity and Evacuation.”

“You have a department devoted to evacuating a floor the building claims does not exist.”

Lida removed a key ring from her belt and unlocked the top drawer of the desk. “The building’s claim is not our responsibility.”

“Who does it belong to?”

She took out a bundle of forms. Each page carried the same heading as his notice: MERIDIAN TOWER — AFTER-HOURS PERSONNEL. At the bottom of the first sheet, beneath the signature line, was a box marked RECEIVED BY.

The box contained Ilyan’s name.

He had not signed it.

“I did not authorize this,” he said.

“Authorization and acknowledgment are separate fields.”

“I did not acknowledge it either.”

“Your arrival acknowledged it.”

Orren cleared his throat from the corridor. “That is not technically what the field says.”

Lida turned on him. “You verified the notice.”

“I verified the notice before he arrived.”

“Then the discrepancy is administrative.”

Orren looked at Ilyan. “That means the floor expected you, not that anyone personally sent the paper.”

Ilyan took the form from Lida. At the top, someone had entered the date. The handwriting was not Vesna’s. The ink was still dark, but the paper had been filed and stamped with a purple seal: CONTINUITY EVENT OPEN.

He looked at the telephone again. “Let me use it.”

Lida did not move.

“You said I had to complete contact before departure. Who am I supposed to contact?”

“Your assigned counterpart.”

“Vesna.”

“Not necessarily.”

The phrase was carefully chosen. Ilyan had heard that tone in reports after industrial accidents, when a supervisor wanted to avoid saying that a worker was missing until the paperwork forced the word into the room.

He lifted the receiver before Lida could stop him.

There was no dial tone. A low rustle came through the earpiece, followed by the sound of someone breathing close to the mouthpiece.

“Ilyan.”

He gripped the edge of the desk. “Where are you?”

“Don’t use the stairs again.”

“It’s Vesna.”

Lida’s expression did not change, but her hand moved toward the key ring.

“Where are you?” Ilyan repeated.

The line crackled. He heard a door shut at the other end and then Vesna speaking more quietly.

“You should not have come up.”

“I know. You told me that already.”

“I told you before.”

“When?”

“Before you received the notice.”

The answer struck him with enough force that he sat down. His deleted message had contained only one sentence: Stop looking. I mean it. Do not come here.

He had assumed she had written it from somewhere in the city. He had assumed fear, exhaustion, or coercion. He had not considered that she might have known the notice was coming.

“Did you send it?” he asked.

“Send what?”

“The overtime notice.”

A pause. This one sounded different from the gaps caused by the line. Vesna was thinking.

“No.”

“Who did?”

“Listen to me. You have to leave before the next—”

The line went dead.

Ilyan held the receiver to his ear. Nothing returned except a faint electrical hiss. Lida reached across him and pressed the disconnect button.

“You knew she would answer,” he said.

“I knew the office retained her extension.”

“You knew her voice was on it.”

“I heard it.”

“Is she alive?”

Lida’s gaze shifted to the monitor. The screen now showed a floor map. Most of the office was outlined in black. A red line ran from the continuity office toward a corridor that did not exist on the evacuation plan posted outside.

“Your sister was alive when she began her current assignment,” Lida said.

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the answer the records permit.”

Ilyan stood. “Where does that corridor lead?”

“To the west evacuation door.”

“The west exit is behind the reception area.”

“On the public map.”

He moved around the desk. The floor map showed two stairwells, a freight lift, and a thin passage running behind the offices. At its end was a rectangle labeled W-EXIT. Beside it, in red type, someone had written: OPEN ONLY DURING CONTINUITY EVENT.

“What is a continuity event?”

“A disruption that threatens the floor’s ability to maintain itself.”

“Such as an unauthorized person arriving?”

Lida did not answer.

Orren had entered the office. He carried the sign-in book and a pen. “You need to sign before proceeding.”

Ilyan stared at him. “Proceeding where?”

“Your assignment.”

“You’re asking me to sign into a place that has just admitted it may not be able to account for my sister.”

“I’m asking you to sign what already happened.” Orren opened the book to a fresh line. “If you don’t, the records will show an unacknowledged arrival. That creates a different procedure.”

“What procedure?”

Orren glanced at Lida. She gave him no help.

“The one for people who are not supposed to be here,” he said.

The office seemed to narrow around the three of them. Ilyan looked at the open book. The previous entries were written in different hands, some neat, some hurried. Several names had been crossed out so thoroughly that the paper had torn. Near the bottom of the page, Vesna’s signature appeared beside a time from six months earlier.

She had signed in. She had not signed out.

Ilyan took the pen.

His name belonged in the book now whether he wrote it or not. He understood that much. The choice was not between being recorded and remaining free of the record. It was between controlling one line of it and allowing someone else to complete the form.

He signed.

Orren checked the signature against the notice. “Legible.”

“Where is the west door?”

Lida picked up the map. “You should not go alone.”

“Then come with me.”

“That is not my assignment.”

“You are the floor warden.”

“I am responsible for evacuation, not investigation.”

“Your sister’s name is on the evacuation records.”

For the first time, Lida looked directly at him with something other than professional patience. It lasted only until Orren turned a page, but Ilyan saw it: recognition, followed by calculation.

Then she took a second key from the ring.

“The west passage is not marked from this side,” she said. “If the door opens, follow the red line and do not leave it.”

“What happens if I do?”

Lida handed him the map. “The floor may record you as evacuated.”

“That sounds preferable.”

“It is not the same as leaving.”

She led them out of the office. The corridor beyond reception looked unchanged. Workers continued at their desks. A man lifted his coffee and frowned at the empty cup. Somewhere, a printer began its slow mechanical whine.

At the far end, Lida stopped beside a blank section of wall between two filing cabinets. She inserted the key into a seam Ilyan could not see. A lock clicked. The cabinets separated by several inches, revealing a narrow metal door and a strip of red-painted floor beyond it.

On the door, beneath a scratched evacuation symbol, someone had written in black marker:

WEST EXIT — DO NOT USE FOR ARRIVALS.

Lida opened it.

From the darkness on the other side came the sound of a telephone ringing.

This time, Ilyan recognized the extension. It was the one in Vesna’s office.