The night everything broke started with a typo.
I was alone on the twelfth floor, fluorescent lights humming like they were the only ones left with energy. The rest of the office had emptied out hours ago. Their chairs sat crooked, post‑it notes curling at the edges. My screen still glowed with rows of numbers, a spreadsheet that should have balanced but didn’t because I’d transposed a three and an eight.
“Idiot,” I whispered, then flinched at my own voice. It sounded too loud in the open‑plan quiet.
I deleted and re‑entered the data. The column snapped into alignment. Relief loosened something in my chest.
See? Fixed. No need to bother anyone. No need to be noticed.
I shut down my computer, packed my bag, straightened the pens on my desk into a neat parallel line. The clock above the kitchenette read 10:42 p.m. I was so late that the cleaning crew had already come and gone; the building felt hollow, like a stage after the audience has gone home.
The elevator at the end of the corridor glowed with a patient, impersonal light. I swiped my badge and stepped in, pressing G.
The elevator didn’t move.
I frowned and jabbed the button again. Nothing. The floor indicator still showed 12. There was a paper taped haphazardly near the buttons: SERVICE MODE – USE STAIRWELL. Someone had scribbled it in blue marker, their handwriting large and cheery. I must’ve been too tired to notice when I got in.
Of course.
I stepped back out and hugged my cardigan closer around me. The air‑conditioning rattled overhead, too cold for late spring, raising goosebumps along my bare forearms.
The stairwell door was at the opposite end of the floor, near the executive conference rooms. They were glass‑walled, sleek, and perpetually empty at this hour. The CFO’s Preferred Kingdom. People like me didn’t go near them unless summoned.
My flats made soft, apologetic sounds against the carpet as I walked past the darkened offices. Outside the windows, the city was smeared with rain and distant headlights, all the sounds of other people’s lives muted by double‑paned glass.
The stairwell door was heavy, with a security latch. I pushed. It resisted.
Locked.
My stomach tightened. Maybe I’d misremembered. There was a second stairwell near Conference Room A. I could go that way and not…bother anyone. Asking security to buzz me out at this hour meant someone logging my name. Asking to be seen.
I veered left, down the corridor lined with framed mission statements and photos of charity galas I’d never been invited to. Conference Room A’s frosted glass wall glowed faintly; a sliver of light leaked from underneath the door.
I slowed.
They never used this room at night. Not for anything official. The company had enough sense about optics for that.
Maybe maintenance forgot to turn the lights off.
I told myself that as I wrapped my fingers around the door handle. Just the lights. I’ll turn them off. Helpful. Invisible.
The handle turned easily.
I pushed the door open.
The first thing that hit me was the smoke. Not the stale kind that clung to a smoker’s clothes, but the clean, expensive bite of a cigar. It sat under the fluorescent lights like a physical thing, curling in lazy, confident ribbons.
