Elias didn't sleep. He wasn't sure he could sleep.
After his "recruitment," the cold steel chair had been replaced by a gurney, and the interrogation room by a sterile medical bay. He was stripped of his clothes, his watch, his wire-rimmed glasses (replaced by identical, heavier ones), and given a rough set of grey scrubs.
He was poked, prodded, and injected with at least five different vaccines. A cold-faced doctor took blood, saliva, and tissue samples. Elias was given a full psychological evaluation by a man who never smiled and asked questions like, "Have you ever experienced temporal dislocation?" and "Do you believe in pre-ordained fate?"
Finally, he was assigned a room.
It was not a bedroom. It was a "Personnel Habitation Module." A small, concrete box, approximately 3 by 4 meters. It contained a narrow bed bolted to the floor, a steel desk bolted to the wall, a toilet, and a sink. There were no windows. The only "decoration" was a metal plaque on the door:
RESEARCHER E. THORNEID: 4-0771DEPT: ARCHIVES & RESEARCH
He was a number now. An entry in a new catalog.
Elias sat on the thin mattress, the synthetic fabric rough against his skin. The silence of the room was absolute, a heavy, pressurized void. He was underground. How far, he didn't know. He had lost the sun.
A sharp, electronic tone blared from a speaker in the ceiling, making him jump. A synthesized voice spoke. "0600. Personnel work shift begins in one hour."
He hadn't slept at all.
He splashed cold, recycled water on his face. It smelled faintly of chlorine. A new uniform had been placed in his room's sterile locker—a set of dark grey, high-collared trousers and a matching tunic. It felt like military wear, but the fabric was soft. Embedded in the collar was a small, silver pin, the size of a rice grain. A tracker, he assumed.
A new ID card was on the desk. "Dr. Elias Thorne, Level 2 Researcher."
The door to his module hissed open. He hadn't unlocked it. He realized, with a cold dread, that there was no lock on his side.
He stepped out into a long, concrete corridor identical to the one he'd seen in his memory flash, lit by the same shadowless, blue-white ceiling panels. Other doors were hissing open. Men and women, all with the same tired eyes and grey uniforms, emerged and began walking in a single direction, like a silent, somber river.
No one spoke. No one made eye contact. This was not a place for pleasantries.
Elias followed the flow. They passed massive, 20-ton steel blast doors every hundred meters, each manned by two heavily armed guards in black tactical gear—Agent Rina's colleagues. The guards were a stark contrast to the grey-clad researchers. They were the wolves, and the researchers were the sheep.
The river of researchers flowed into a large, concrete cavern: the commissary. The smell of synthetic coffee and sterilized food filled the air. Elias grabbed a tray of what was labeled "Nutrient Paste (Savory)" and sat at a long, steel table.
The silence was deafening. People ate with mechanical efficiency. This, he realized, was the "New World."
"You're the new recruit. The archivist."
Elias looked up. A man was standing across from him. He was older, perhaps in his late forties, with thinning hair, a warm, wrinkled smile, and the same grey uniform. He was the first person Elias had seen who didn't look like a ghost.
"I... yes. Dr. Elias Thorne."
"Dr. Aris," the man said, sitting down without asking. He had his own tray, piled high with the nutrient paste. "Don't let the grey goop fool you. It's got 100% of your daily vitamins." He took a large, enthusiastic bite. "Welcome to the end of the world."
"The... end of the world?" Elias whispered, looking around.
"Figuratively speaking," Aris chuckled. "It's the end of your world, isn't it? The one with sunshine, and art, and food that tastes like food." He pointed at Elias with his spoon. "You're in the Archives & Research department. That's my department. Keva's assigned you to me for orientation."
"Keva... Director Keva?"
"The one and only," Aris said, his voice dropping. "A piece of advice, Elias. You can call me Elias, right? Good. A piece of advice: Director Keva is not your friend. She is not your mentor. She is a true believer in the Institution's mission. She sees us all as... components. Useful, replaceable components."
"What is... this place?" Elias asked, gesturing at the vast, cold room.
"Site-04. One of the largest Repositories. We don't just 'confine' Assets here, Elias. We 'catalog' them. That's us. The brains." Aris leaned in. "The tactical teams, the 'ARTs' as they call them, they bring in the monsters. We're the ones who have to figure out why they're monsters, and how to keep them from eating the walls."
The electronic tone blared again. "0650. Ten minutes to shift commencement."
The river of people began to move again.
"Come on," Aris said, standing up. "Let me show you the most dangerous place in the whole facility."
Elias frowned. "The containment wing?"
Aris laughed. "God, no. The Archives."
The Archives & Research wing was separated from the main habitation area by another set of blast doors and a biological decontamination chamber. Aris and Elias walked through a fine mist of antiseptic, their eyes stinging.
"Protocol," Aris said. "We don't want to bring any... biological hitchhikers in or out."
The doors on the other side opened, and Elias gasped.
It wasn't a concrete bunker. It was a library. A library from a madman's dream.
It was a circular, multi-storied chamber, at least a hundred meters high. The walls were lined, floor to ceiling, with endless shelves. But they didn't just hold books. They held objects. A child's doll in a glass case. A rusty-looking music box. A single, scorched playing card. A typewriter. Thousands upon thousands of mundane things, each isolated, cataloged, and spot-lit.
"This is the 'Low-Threat' wing," Aris said. "My territory. We analyze the things that probably won't kill you just by looking at them."
"Probably?"
"Welcome to the most important rule of the Institution, Elias," Aris said, his voice suddenly serious. He stopped in front of a terminal. "Information is a weapon. The most dangerous weapon we have."
He typed a command. The terminal screen lit up.
"Some Assets," Aris explained, "are physically dangerous. A 'Red-File' entity that wants to eat you. Simple. We leave that to the tactical teams."
He tapped another key. "We, the researchers, handle the 'Amber-File' and 'Black-File'. The weird stuff. The stuff that breaks your mind, not just your body."
He pointed to a plaque on the wall. "This is an 'Infohazard'."
Elias looked at the plaque. It was a simple, short poem in a language he didn't recognize, but the symbols felt... warm.
The seagull flies over the...
"Don't!" Aris snapped, yanking Elias's head away.
"What? I was just..." Elias's heart pounded.
Aris looked frantic. "What did you read? How many words?"
"Just the first line. 'The seagull...'"
Aris let out a shaky breath. "Okay. Okay. You're fine. But for the next 24 hours, if you feel an overwhelming urge to go to the beach, you report to me immediately. Got it?"
Elias's blood ran cold. "You're... you're serious."
"Deadly serious," Aris said. "That's Infohazard-301. Read the whole poem, and you will become so convinced you are a seagull that your organs will shut down from attempting to digest raw fish. An 'infohazard' is information that kills you. A 'memetic agent' is an idea that infects you, like a virus."
He grabbed Elias's shoulder. "Your job as an archivist was to share information. Your job here is to contain it. You must never read an unvetted file. You must never look at an unshielded Asset. You treat every piece of data in this building as if it's a loaded gun pointed at your head. Understand?"
Elias nodded, his mouth dry.
"Good," Aris said, his smile returning, though it now looked strained. "Now you know why the Archives are the most dangerous place. This is where all the loaded guns are stored."
Aris led him past rows of researchers, each sitting at a sterile terminal, analyzing data. They finally arrived at a small, private office.
"This will be your station," Aris said. "It was... well, it's yours now."
The desk was empty, save for one thick, leather-bound file.
"What's this?" Elias asked.
"Your first assignment," Aris said, his hand on the door. "Director Keva's orders. She's... she's throwing you in the deep end, Elias. I'm sorry."
Aris left, and the door hissed shut, leaving Elias alone.
He looked at the file. There was no title. Just a stenciled number.
ASSET-119
He opened the file. The first page was a containment protocol.
"Item: Asset-119 ('The Blank Page Index')" "Threat Amber-File (Conceptual Hazard)" "Containment: To be handled by robotic arms only. Physical contact is forbidden."
The file was thick. He turned the page, looking for the research notes.
He found them. Dozens of pages of research notes from the last person assigned to this file. The handwriting was neat at first, analytical. But as he flipped deeper, the writing became frantic, the words looping and strange.
The last page contained a single, chilling sentence, scribbled over and over.
I have forgotten how to read.
And beneath it, a name signed with a shaky hand.
Dr. Aris.
EVisitors. Elias looked at the man who had just oriented him. The man who was smiling and eating nutrient paste. The man who had, according to this file, been driven mad by the very Asset Elias was now assigned to.
This wasn't an assignment. It was a test. Or a trap.
Elias closed the file. He looked at the sterile, windowless walls of his new office. He was in a tomb, and the ghosts were still here. He was alone, with a loaded gun on his desk.
His work, as Keva had said, had truly begun.