I slept in fits. The pad sat on the table and blinked like a single, patient threat. Lee‑Hae breathed slow beside me. The IV machine clicked. The clinic lights hummed. I counted time by drip ticks and the pad's tiny updates.
At noon the Association tech messaged a short status.
_
[SYSTEM: SANDBOX UPDATE. RIVER SOUTH NODE KEY: 0X4E2B. ACCESS VECTOR: SANDBOXED. RECOMMENDATION: FIELD TEAM MAY REQUEST WITNESS PRESENCE FOR CORRELATION. CAUTION: POTENTIAL MANUAL TRIGGER.]
DETAILS: KEY IS ISOLATED; DIRECT ACCESS BLOCKED. FIELD UNIT AWAITING ORDERS.
——————————
They could not hand me the key. They could not let me walk alone to a node that had tried access while their team worked. Everything that mattered came with watchers and forms.
I went to the guild and pretended the pad's weight was common. The breaker threw a knife at a post and missed on purpose. The mage whistled a thin tune and then stopped. People asked small things and left. The Association watchers hunched at the edges of every room like quiet sentries.
At three a message arrived. The investigator wanted me at HQ. The card in my pocket felt heavier than it should.
_
[SYSTEM: REQUEST: MEET — INVESTIGATOR KIM H. TIME: 15:30. LOCATION: HQ CONFERENCE ROOM B. ATTENDANCE REQUIRED.]
DETAILS: FOLLOW UP ON SANDBOX EXTRACTION; DISCUSS FIELD PROTOCOL.
——————————
He met me in a small room with walls that gave the sense of privacy because the HVAC hummed. He had a list and a quiet face.
"We found an access key," he said. "We can trace the node, lock it, and, if needed, open a controlled gate. But that costs. It costs manpower, authorization, and time. You understand consequences."
"I do," I said. I did not say that consequences meant surgery and oxygen and a bill.
He tapped the tablet. "There is another factor. The access attempt during extraction looks manual. That implies someone triggered the node from a physical source or from an agent who has a manual override. That raises the chance of confrontation if someone else also knows the key."
"You think someone will try the door again?" I asked.
"Possibly," he said. "We need to secure any related locations. We need to trace who has recent physical access to River South. We can assign patrols, but that leaves your area thin for other calls."
I thought about calls. I thought about choices. "If I go with you to the River South site when you clear it, can I see the node in a controlled environment?" I asked.
He hesitated. "You will be a witness. You can correlate echoes. You cannot touch or trigger anything. You must follow protocol. Are you willing to be watched?"
"Yes." The word was small and true. I had promised the pad numbers with my chest. I would be watched until I could buy a full week of quiet.
He gave me a thin file and a list of do's and don'ts. "We will move at dusk. No solo detours. You follow the team and you only speak when we ask."
I kept the file and left. The city smelled of wet diesel and used coffee. I went back to the clinic and watched Lee‑Hae sleep.
At dusk the Association convoy rolled toward River South. Their cars kept no logos. Two observers rode with us. A tech sat in the back and checked parameters. I kept my hands where they could see them. The team moved like a measured animal, slow and sure.
Unit 17 was sealed again and a tarp covered the door. The techs set up a field perimeter. Cameras circled. The lead investigator moved among the men and gave orders.
"We will open once we have a stable sandbox channel," the lead said. "If anything manual triggers, we secure the area and withdraw."
They opened the unit slowly. The air smelled the same: old paper, dry dust, a faint metallic tang. The same crate sat inside. The tech fed a drive into a reader and the screen lit.
The packet we had pulled earlier showed the door index and the key. The tech typed commands and the sandbox displayed a map: River South, pier three, container cluster alpha. The key read as an address plus a handshake seed.
"Extraction will show whether the handshake is active or dormant," the lead said. "Dojin, we want you to stand at the reader and confirm whether the echo matches your trauma records. We need correlation."
I stepped forward. My hands trembled but they were visible. The tech played the echo packet at low volume. The lullaby came and then the cough. Lines that had lived under my skin flicked into the room. The image that had lodged in me uncoiled like a record settling.
"Yes," I said. "That's the kitchen. That's the lullaby." My voice sounded like a tool.
They logged my statement. The lead nodded and the tech continued to parse the packet. The reader highlighted a secondary tag: ACCESS POI — PIER 3, SOUTH DOOR. It also showed a timestamp cluster that suggested repeated interfacing with the node over the past year.
"Someone has been keeping this node alive," the lead said. "Not just stored echoes, but live pings. That raises a question: who is managing the node and why?"
They moved to extract more. The tech warned that pulling more fragments could cause additional Trauma Echo activity. The investigators read the risk sheet aloud. They listed possibilities: increased Corrupty load to any witness, potential for manual triggers, and the chance that an active agent would respond to extraction.
I watched the lines of text and felt the pad in my pocket like a steady buzz. The sound in my head tightened.
The reader spat out a partial directory. It named rooms, dates, and a string of owner tags that had been anonymized. One tag repeated: MARSHALL 27. Another tag read like a cipher: S.‑K. No administrator tag. No official ledger entry.
"Marshall 27 could be a storage contractor," the tech said. "S.‑K. could be a personal handle. We can route and trace. But we need a ground team to check Pier 3."
The lead investigator set a plan. "We will deploy an Association check of Pier 3 at 02:00. We do a quiet sweep. You will not be present for that sweep. If the check finds an active trigger or evidence of manual override, we escalate. If not, we will set a controlled retrieval and allow supervised witness correlation."
They took my statement. They assigned a night sweep. I left in a convoy slightly smaller than the one that had come. The Association kept its eyes on the docks.
Back at the clinic I sat in the dark and cataloged what had happened. The pad logged new flags.
_
[SYSTEM: FIELD REPORT SUBMITTED. PIERS SWEEP SCHEDULED: 02:00. USER STATUS: REQUIRED FOR CORRELATION ONLY IF CONTROLLED RETRIEVAL AUTHORIZED.]
DETAILS: USER ADVISED TO MAINTAIN LOW PROFILE UNTIL SWEEP COMPLETION.
——————————
I lay awake and thought about the names. MARSHALL 27. S.‑K. I tasted names like sums. They meant people who had keys to rooms and access to doorways. They meant hands that could open and close a place where echoes lived.
At one in the morning the pad bled a new alert.
_
[SYSTEM: ALERT — NIGHT SWEEP ENGAGED. TARGET: PIER 3 SOUTH. TEAM: ASSOCIATION FIELD SQUAD ALPHA. STATUS: ACTIVE. RECOMMENDATION: USER REMAIN IN RESIDENCE UNTIL CLEARANCE.]
DETAILS: LIVE SWEEP UNDERWAY. MONITOR AUTH CHANNEL FOR UPDATES.
——————————
I watched the strip of neon outside the clinic window while the field team moved through cold piers. I waited for a single tone from the pad that would say clear or danger.
At 03:10 the pad chimed a thin string.
_
[SYSTEM: SWEEP UPDATE. TEAM FOUND EVIDENCE OF RECENT PHYSICAL ACCESS AT PIER 3 SOUTH. ITEMS RECOVERED: RUSTED PADLOCK, MANUAL TRIGGER DEVICE (DEACTIVATED), PARTIAL NODE INTERFACE CABLE. RECOMMENDATION: ELEVATE TO SECURE EXTRACTION.]
DETAILS: SUSPICION: EXTERNAL ACTOR MAINTAINING NODE. ESCALATION ADVISED.
——————————
Someone had been there. They had left a manual trigger device. They had left a cable. They had been physical and careless enough to leave scrap.
They asked me to come for the controlled extraction. The lead investigator spoke softer than before. "We need you there. The presence of a manual trigger means a live actor may respond. We need witness correlation and a person with trauma match to verify nodes. We will protect you, but watch protocol."
I thought of Lee‑Hae and of the ledger, of oxygen drip counts and the list of scheduled payments. I thought of the echoes and the way they asked for doors.
"Yes," I said. I would go. I would stand where they asked and say what they needed. I would be careful in a way that paid for a week of quiet.
They moved fast. The convoy left with new lights. The docks had a thin rain that made metal slick. The Association men moved with the mechanical certainty I had seen before.
At Pier 3 a container sat open with the smell of old electronics spilling out. The techs worked. The lead gave orders. I stood at the periphery and watched the reader pull lines.
When the tech engaged the node with a controlled handshake, the pad in my hand chewed a slow tally. A packet opened. A lullaby ran and then a cough. A door index flickered.
Then a sound came from the dark between containers — a foot on metal, close and deliberate. Someone else had moved. The manual trigger had not been random. It was a signal.
The lead raised his hand. Men turned. A figure stepped into the light.
He had hands that did not shake. He had a face that had scars like old stitches. He did not look surprised.
"You shouldn't be pulling live things," he said. His voice carried like a measurement. "You shouldn't be listening without paying."
The lead stepped forward. "Stand down. This is Association field work. Identify yourself."
He smiled without humor. "Names are for ledgers. I have a question. Who counts the rooms when they cry?"
The tech readied a containment script. The man moved like someone who had practice in small confrontations. He reached into a pocket and the lead shouted for a restraint team.
I watched the ledger in my head and the man in front of me. He looked at me and his eyes slid like a scanner.
"You're marked," he said. "You carry other people's rooms."
My throat closed. The team moved. Men encircled him. He did not resist.
The lead cuffed him and read rights in a tone that felt like paper. The man said one thing before they pulled him away.
"Rooms talk," he said. "Find the door and it will remember who owes."
They took him. They found on him a string of fragments and a small device that matched the manual trigger. The techs logged everything. The reader beeped and then settled.
My pad chimed with a single entry: CORRUPTY +5 for exposure to live manual node. My Death Inheritance Count did not change. The ledger kept tally.
They drove me home through empty streets. I thought of the man's voice and the concrete of his words. Rooms talk. Find the door.
At home Lee‑Hae reached for my hand in sleep and closed her fingers around mine. I let her. The pad lay dark on the table. The ledger would tally in the morning and the clinic would need credits. The echoes would wait a little longer, but they would not go away.
I had a key and a list of people who had touched it. I had a man who said rooms owed. I had watchers and a diminishing margin. I turned the pad face down and let the clinic light cut the dark.