Daniel Reyes chose the job because no one else wanted it.
That was the truth of it.
The posting was pinned crookedly to a corkboard in a municipal building that smelled like paper and bleach. Records Intake — Temporary. No badge. No uniform. No authority. Just long hours, fluorescent lighting, and boxes of reports that no one had time to read twice.
He applied under the name he was already using.
No résumé worth mentioning. No references anyone would call.
They hired him anyway.
On his first day, he was shown to a narrow room stacked floor to ceiling with folders. The woman in charge didn't look up from her clipboard when she spoke.
"Don't lose anything," she said. "Don't change anything. And don't try to solve anything. That's not your job."
Daniel nodded.
That part mattered.
He spent the first week doing exactly what he was told.
Logging evidence. Cataloging statements. Sorting reports that arrived with urgency and left without it. He learned quickly how crime looked after the adrenaline faded—flattened into paper, sanitized into language that avoided responsibility.
He saw how cases slowed.
How details were softened. How urgency became backlog. How truth waited patiently while paperwork moved on.
At night, he went home tired in a way strength didn't help. Mental fatigue. Human fatigue.
He liked it.
It kept him grounded.
Then he started noticing things.
A witness statement that contradicted itself in three places. A piece of evidence logged out of sequence. A suspect cleared too quickly because the paperwork said so.
He didn't act on it.
Not at first.
He made notes. Quiet ones. Personal ones. He stacked patterns in his head the way he'd once stacked years—carefully, invisibly.
One afternoon, a detective came down looking for a file that had been missing for months.
Daniel handed it to him without comment.
The detective frowned. "How'd you find this?"
Daniel shrugged. "It was misfiled."
The detective studied him for a moment longer than necessary.
"Yeah," he said finally. "That happens."
But it didn't.
Not like this.
Daniel went back to his desk and kept working.
He understood now why he'd chosen this place.
Not because it gave him power.
But because it showed him exactly where power failed.
And for the first time, the idea of stepping closer—to the line where decisions were made—didn't feel like temptation.
It felt like responsibility.