The first thing Jordan did when he got home was break three personal rules.
One: he Googled instead of using archived databases.
Two: he searched conspiracy forums.
Three: he believed what he found just enough to keep reading.
That was how it always started.
He sat on his bed, laptop balanced on his knees, lights off except for the glow of the screen. His room felt smaller tonight, like the walls were leaning in to read along.
He typed carefully.
**Marrow service road building**
Nothing.
He refined it.
**Marrow classified facility**
Still nothing.
Jordan exhaled through his nose. "Of course."
He changed tactics.
**Federal land use anomalies midwest**
**Municipal memory loss case study**
**Urban erasure experimental site**
That last one made his screen flicker.
Not glitch—*load*.
A single result appeared.
No headline. No preview. Just a scanned PDF, half-corrupted, stamped faintly across the top:
**DEPARTMENT OF CONTINUITY — INTERNAL USE ONLY**
Jordan's pulse jumped.
"That's not a real department," he muttered.
But his finger was already clicking.
---
The document was old. Older than digital formatting. Someone had scanned paper that had already been copied too many times.
Most of the text was redacted.
But not all of it.
> *Site M-██ established to test long-term cognitive load distribution across civilian populations.*
Jordan frowned. "Cognitive load?"
He scrolled.
> *Primary objective: determine whether unused, abandoned, or rejected social structures can be preserved without conscious awareness.*
Preserved.
His mouth went dry.
> *Secondary objective: prevent loss-related psychological collapse in transitional towns.*
Jordan sat back.
Marrow had been a manufacturing town once. Then a shipping hub. Then… nothing. Businesses closed. People left. Buildings demolished or abandoned.
Forgotten.
He scrolled faster now.
> *Initial trials successful. Subjects reported reduced grief, increased adaptability, and fewer resistance behaviors.*
Then:
> *Unexpected side effects include spatial distortion, recursive memory loops, and site attachment.*
Jordan swallowed.
Attachment.
His phone buzzed.
**Sam:** u alive or being replaced by an evil clone
Jordan typed with shaking fingers.
**Jordan:** Found something.
**Sam:** cool hate that
**Alex:** What kind of something?
Jordan hesitated.
Then sent the file.
---
They regrouped at Alex's house, crammed into his basement like it was a bunker instead of a half-finished rec room.
Sam paced. "Okay. So. Hypothetically. If the government built a building to store *forgotten stuff*—"
"—they wouldn't call it that," Lena cut in.
"—and then lost control of it," Sam continued, "would they… come back?"
Riley leaned against the wall. "Or never leave."
Jordan rubbed his eyes. "The document ends abruptly. No closure. No shutdown procedure."
Maya whispered, "What if the building is the shutdown?"
Alex stared at the PDF on the screen. "This says *continuity*."
Jordan nodded. "Preserving identity through loss. Not stopping loss. Redirecting it."
Sam frowned. "So instead of dealing with grief, the town… outsourced it?"
Silence.
"That's messed up," Lena said quietly.
Alex felt something click into place. "The building doesn't trap people."
Riley looked at him. "It replaces things."
"Or stores them," Maya said. "Until someone remembers."
Sam's humor faltered. "Okay but why *us*?"
Jordan looked up. "Age group correlation."
Everyone stared at him.
He winced. "Sorry. Teens are neurologically more flexible. Identity still forming. More compatible with adaptive memory systems."
Sam blinked. "You just called us emotionally bendy."
"Yes."
Alex exhaled. "So the building was meant to be… temporary."
Jordan nodded. "A buffer. A holding place."
"And then," Riley said, "it outlived its creators."
The basement lights flickered.
Not off. Not on.
Just… attentive.
Maya felt the pull surge, sharper than before.
"It doesn't want to be abandoned again," she said.
Sam pointed at the screen. "That document says *unexpected side effects*."
Jordan scrolled.
There was one last readable line at the bottom.
> *Warning: prolonged exposure may result in site autonomy.*
Alex swallowed. "Autonomy means choice."
"And choice means," Sam said slowly, "it can decide things."
The hum crept through the walls.
Low. Steady.
Familiar.
Lena whispered, "It's listening again, isn't it?"
Maya nodded. "And I think it's relieved."
Alex stood abruptly. "We need to know who else worked on this."
Jordan nodded. "There are names. Redacted, but—"
A knock sounded upstairs.
Everyone froze.
Alex's heart slammed into his ribs. "No one else is home."
The knock came again.
Three times.
Measured.
Not aggressive.
Sam whispered, "Tell me that's pizza."
Alex moved slowly up the stairs, every step loud in the quiet house.
He cracked the door open.
A man stood on the porch.
Late thirties. Neat jacket. No badge visible.
Friendly smile.
"Alex Mercer?" the man asked.
Alex's blood went cold.
"Yes?"
"I'm Agent Harris," the man said pleasantly. "I work with the Department of Urban Development."
Behind him, down the street, a black SUV idled quietly.
"We're doing a routine survey," Harris continued. "And you wouldn't happen to know anything about a building on the old service road, would you?"
Alex forced a smile.
"No," he said.
Down in the basement, the hum rose just a little louder.
Like the building was holding its breath.
---