Logan showed up the next morning fifteen minutes early, mostly because he wasn't sure if anyone would notice or care. The building's lobby was nearly empty, save for one of the security guards from yesterday—same posture, same tablet, same indifferent expression.
McNulty, he remembered. The kind of guy who looked like he'd been born halfway through a push-up.
Logan nodded as he passed. "Morning."
No reply.
He held his badge to the reader. Blue light. Gate unlocked.
Okay, he thought. Still in the system. That's something.
The elevator accepted him without incident. He was headed to B1 again—mailroom day two. Nothing had changed. Same flickering panel in the ceiling. Same ghost-town hallway. Same taped-up sign on the door daring him to knock, or not.
He didn't bother knocking this time.
Inside, the mailroom was quieter than he'd expected. Maybe too quiet. No carts rolling, no boxes shifting, no one muttering complaints. The lights buzzed overhead in that always-half-broken way. The air was just a little too cold.
Wendy was already at her desk, typing with a rhythm that felt faster than necessary. Her granola bar from yesterday was still there. Still untouched.
He walked up. Cleared his throat.
She kept typing.
Logan waited.
And waited.
Then she stopped, mid-sentence, and glanced up.
"Sit," she said.
"Okay."
"There." She pointed to a dented metal chair wedged next to a file cabinet.
Logan dragged it over and sat, balancing his bag between his feet.
Wendy opened a drawer, pulled out a folder, and dropped it on the desk with a thud that felt deliberate.
It was slim, unbranded. White. Slightly too pristine for this office.
"Read this," she said.
"What is it?"
"Your NDA."
"I already signed one at security."
"That was the lobby version. This one's internal."
Logan hesitated. "Is there a difference?"
Wendy leaned back in her chair. "Yeah. This one'll actually get you fired."
He opened the folder.
The document inside was seventeen pages long. Printed double-sided. Standard size font, but no headings. No company logo. No bullet points. Just text.
Wall-to-wall legalese.
He skimmed the first paragraph and already felt a headache forming.
"This real?" he asked.
"Nope. It's a prank. We like to make the newbies hallucinate litigation."
He smirked. "Fair."
Wendy gestured. "Start reading. You don't want to sign without understanding what you're agreeing to. Especially not this one."
That made him pause. She hadn't given off the impression yesterday that she cared whether he drowned or not. Now she was telling him to read carefully.
He looked down at the first few clauses.
Clause 3.2a: Employee agrees not to discuss or disclose any observations, anomalies, deviations from standard protocol, or informal directives related to departmental culture or enforcement behavior, even in the absence of verbal confirmation.
Clause 4.0: The definition of "proprietary behavior" may include gestures, glances, or persistent moods deemed off-brand by a department head.
Clause 6.9: In the event of psychological destabilization, the company reserves the right to isolate, reassign, or rebrand the employee at their discretion.
Clause 7.4b: Contingency protocols are in place for spontaneous defenestration, both voluntary and externally motivated. The company is not liable for shattered glass, bodily harm, or urban disruption unless explicitly acknowledged in writing.
He blinked. Reread that one.
"Did I just read the word 'defenestration?'"
Wendy didn't answer.
"Spontaneous defenestration."
Still nothing.
Logan looked up. "Like, someone gets thrown out a window?"
Wendy shrugged. "Welcome to Althrex."
"That's... legally covered?"
"Apparently."
He stared at her. She looked back.
"You've seen it happen?" he asked.
"I've seen windows break."
"Jesus."
Wendy reached for her granola bar, unwrapped the rest of it, took one bite, and dropped it back down like it had personally offended her.
Logan kept reading.
Clause 9.1: In cases of interpersonal disputes that lead to violence, confession is discouraged unless a written accusation has been formally logged via Form G-17-R, in triplicate, and submitted before close of business on the day of the incident.
Clause 12.0: The mailroom exists in a transitional jurisdictional space. Labor law enforcement is not guaranteed.
Clause 14.2: Surveillance may be visual, auditory, ambient, emotional, or speculative. Employee acknowledges that observation extends to informal behaviors, including daydreaming, listlessness, and symbolic mutiny.
"Symbolic mutiny?" Logan muttered.
Wendy didn't look up.
He kept going.
By page thirteen, he realized the whole thing was written in such a way that no one would ever actually understand it. It was a legal maze. Every clause referenced two others. Some paragraphs looped back on themselves. One page referred to a 'behavioral anomaly report' that had no definition but seemed to require self-submission.
When he got to the final page, there was a blank line for a signature.
Below it: a sentence in bold, slightly larger font.
SIGNING THIS DOCUMENT IS CONSIDERED IRREVOCABLE CONSENT.
No initials. No witness signature. Just a line.
He looked up at Wendy.
"Is this enforceable?"
She finished typing a sentence and hit enter. "It doesn't have to be. It just has to scare you enough to behave."
"That's comforting."
"Yeah, well. Nobody reads it anyway."
"I did."
"And look at you. Already ahead of the curve."
He picked up the pen beside the folder, clicked it once, and stared at the signature line.
"Do I get a copy of this?"
Wendy gave him a look like he'd just asked if the vending machines took hugs.
"No."
He signed.
The ink felt heavier than it should've. The page sucked it up like it had been thirsty for a while.
Wendy reached over, took the folder, and slid it back into the drawer without looking inside.
"Alright," she said. "Now you're official."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
"No welcome email? No branded mug?"
"There's a pile of mugs in the back. You want one, grab one. Just don't take the one with the raccoon sticker. That one bites."
He stood up. "You're serious, aren't you?"
"I don't joke about mugs."
Logan smiled in spite of himself.
He turned to go back to the box wall, then paused.
"You ever see anyone get... I don't know. Thrown out of a window for real?"
Wendy didn't look up. "Nobody sees it. That's the point."
The rest of the day was boxes.
Heavy ones. Light ones. Labeled and unlabeled.
He found a box marked HUMAN RESOURCES – CONFIDENTIAL, which he left untouched. Another labeled INCIDENT RESPONSE – DO NOT OPEN. He stacked that one at the back, behind a tower of toner cartridges.
Lunch was half a bag of off-brand trail mix from the vending machine.
Around 2:00 p.m., a man in janitorial blues came in, whistling. He grabbed a box, gave Logan a nod, and walked out without saying a word.
At 3:15, the power blinked out for a single second. Long enough to make the lights stutter and his heart jump.
At 4:42, he found a stapler that was still warm.
He hadn't seen anyone use it.
When the lights dimmed at 5:03 p.m., Logan rolled his neck, wiped his hands on his slacks, and stepped outside the mailroom door.
He didn't leave yet. Just stood in the hallway.
The elevator was there, still blank. Still silent.
He stared at it for a while.
Then walked back in.
Wendy was shutting down her terminal. The cracked screen went black with a mechanical sigh.
"Anything else before I go?" he asked.
She slung her bag over her shoulder. "Don't come in tomorrow."
That caught him off guard. "I'm fired?"
"You're reassigned."
"To where?"
She shrugged. "They'll tell you. Check your badge in the morning. It'll light up if they like you."
"That's subtle."
"Everything here is."
She paused on her way to the door. Looked back.
"Oh—and Lucas?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't stand too close to the windows."
Then she was gone.