Chapter 15: The Doctrine of the Blank Page
The sub-basement didn't go back to being dark after the Saboteur dissolved. Instead, the air remained thick with a pale, milky fog that felt uncomfortably like unwritten history.
Ne Job knelt by the pile of shredded calendars where the creature had vanished. Among the rusted gears and discarded time, something remained: a small, rectangular object that appeared to be a book, though its cover was so white it seemed to hurt the eyes to look at it directly.
"Is that a manual?" The Muse asked, peering over his shoulder. Her torch-light flickered nervously. "It looks... empty. Like it's waiting to eat my thoughts."
Ne Job picked it up. It had no weight. It felt like holding a handful of nothing. As he opened the first page, he didn't find text. He found a void. But as he stared, letters began to etch themselves into the paper—not with ink, but by bleaching the page even whiter.
"Too many voices. Too many threads. The weave is a tangle. The solution is the Blank Page."
The Archivist's Nightmare
"It's a manifesto," Ne Job whispered, his Head Archivist instincts screaming. "This wasn't just a disgruntled maintenance worker. This is a philosophy."
The Architect, Ao Bing, leaned in, his structural scanners humming. "Commissioner, look at the frequency of that book. It's not just 'quiet.' It's an active erasure. If this thing were to touch the Mainspring, it wouldn't just stop the clock—it would delete the memory of the clock ever existing."
Assistant Yue's holographic form suddenly blurred. "I... I'm losing my connection to the central database," she stammered, her voice digitized and cracking. "There is a signal coming from beyond the Origami Bridge. It's a 'Null Signal.' It's telling the Bureau that it is... redundant."
"Redundant?" Princess Ling's eyes flashed with starlight. "I am a Princess of the High Trajectories! I am 7.5% translucent! I am many things, but I am not redundant!"
Suddenly, the floor of the sub-basement began to vibrate again, but this wasn't the "funky heartbeat" of the recalibrated Counterweight. It was a rhythmic, soul-crushing silence.
The Arrival of the Erasers
From the shadows of the rusted gears, more figures began to emerge. They didn't look like the Saboteur; they were more refined, dressed in suits of pure, blinding white that seemed to absorb all the color in the room. They carried silver briefcases and pens that moved across the air, leaving trails of nothingness behind them.
"We are the Editors," one said, his voice as flat as a dial tone. "We have observed the Bureau's recent... developments. The introduction of 7.5% chaos. The diplomatic mission to the Feline Dimension. The origami birds."
The Editor adjusted a pair of clear spectacles. "The universe has become too crowded. There are too many sub-plots. Too many secondary characters. The story has lost its focus. We are here to trim the narrative."
The Muse bristled. "Trim the narrative? I'm the Muse of Creative Sparks! I am the narrative!"
"You are a distraction," the Editor replied, raising a pen. "You are an erratic variable that complicates the final equation. We shall start by deleting the Department of Creative Sparks."
The Bureaucratic Defense
Before the Editor could click his pen, Ne Job stepped forward, slamming his silver stapler onto the blank book.
"I am the High Commissioner of Integrated Irregularities," Ne Job bellowed, the velvet of his oversized hat trembling. "And I have not authorized any 'edits' to this department! Where is your 100% official 7.5% Work Order? Where is your 'Notice of Intent to Delete'?"
The Editor blinked. "We do not require forms. We represent the Great Eraser. We are the ultimate efficiency."
"Efficiency without a form is just a tantrum!" Ne Job countered. He turned to the Architect. "Ao Bing! Lock the structural integrity of this room! Don't let them delete the floor!"
"I'm trying!" the Architect shouted, his hands glowing as he wrestled with the local reality. "But they're deleting the code as I write it!"
"Then don't use code!" Ne Job commanded. "Use the chaos!"
The 7.5% Counter-Attack
Ne Job turned to the Muse. "Muse! The confetti! The neon-blue 100% chaos confetti you dumped on my desk! Do you have more?"
"I always have more!" she cried, reaching into a pocket that seemed to have no bottom. She pulled out a handful of shimmering, glowing sparkles and hurled them at the lead Editor.
When the confetti hit the white suit, it didn't bounce off. It stuck. The "Pure White" began to marble with neon blue and lavender. The Editor looked down in horror as his perfectly blank suit began to grow... texture.
"It's... it's messy!" the Editor gasped, his voice gaining a hint of panic. "It's inconsistent! It's... 7.5% sparkly!"
"Assistant Yue! Princess Ling!" Ne Job shouted. "Flood the room with every irregular trajectory we've ever archived! The talking cat who speaks Aramaic! The pigeons who are translucent! Give them so much data they can't possibly edit it all!"
The room erupted. Assistant Yue projected thousands of holographic files into the air—a blizzard of weirdness. Princess Ling used her starlight to illuminate every corner, leaving no room for the shadows where the Editors thrived.
The Editors began to scramble, their pens clicking furiously as they tried to delete the sheer volume of "extra" information. But for every cat they deleted, three more appeared. For every bird they erased, a dragon of pending reports took its place.
The Retreat of the Blank
The lead Editor looked at Ne Job, his spectacles cracked. "You cannot keep this up forever, Commissioner. The Great Eraser will not tolerate a universe this... cluttered. You are making the story impossible to follow!"
"Good!" Ne Job snapped. "If the story is easy to follow, it's a boring story! Now, take your blank books and get out of my sub-basement before I file you under 'General Waste'!"
With a final, frustrated click of their pens, the Editors vanished into a cloud of white smoke, leaving behind only the faint scent of bleach and a single, very confused paper crane.
The Warning in the Ledger
The room fell quiet, though the Counterweight continued its irregular, lively thump. Ne Job picked up his ledger, his hands shaking slightly.
LOG: CHAPTER 15 SUMMARY.
STATUS: Attempted narrative deletion averted.
THREAT: The Great Eraser is watching.
NOTE: They think we are 'too many characters.' They think the universe is a book that needs a better editor.
P.S.: We are going to need a bigger team. If they want to delete us, we'll just have to make ourselves too big to fit on the page.
Ne Job looked at his friends—the Architect, the Muse, the Princess, and the Assistant. They were tired, dusty, and covered in 7.5% neon confetti.
"They're coming back, aren't they?" The Muse asked softly.
"Yes," Ne Job said, looking up toward the Bureau above. "But they've forgotten one thing. I'm an Archivist. I don't just keep the stories. I make sure they never end."
He adjusted his hat. "Architect, how many departments do we have left that haven't been visited by chaos yet?"
"About four hundred, Commissioner."
"Perfect," Ne Job smiled. "Let's go wake them up."