ARC 1:

  Episode 3: Interpretation

  Chapter 10: The Absence

  (Scene 1: The Minor Incident)

  EXT. MID-TOWN STREET - EVENING

  The fog had rolled back in, turning the gas lamps into blurry halos of yellow light.

  Silas and Juna walked in silence. They were heading back to the tram station, but the route felt longer than usual. The argument in the Boiler Room hung between them like a physical weight.

  They turned the corner onto Bakers’ Row.

  Usually, this street smelled of yeast and warm sugar. Tonight, it smelled of ozone.

  A small crowd had gathered outside Garris’s Patisserie. They weren't panicking. They were just standing there, staring through the shop window with the dull curiosity of people watching a street fight.

  Silas stopped. "Juna. Don't."

  "I just want to see," Juna whispered. She pushed past a dock worker to get to the glass.

  Silas followed, his hand instinctively going to his coat pocket where the censored notebook lay.

  Inside the shop, the laws of physics had decided to take a break.

  It was subtle at first. You noticed the dust motes. They weren't falling; they were hanging suspended in the air.

  Then you noticed the chairs.

  Three wooden chairs were hovering six inches off the floor, bobbing gently like corks in water.

  And behind the counter, Mr. Garris the baker was clinging to his shelf. His apron strings were floating upward, defying gravity. His face was red, sweating, terrified. He wasn't screaming. He was just holding on.

  A low, oscillating hum vibrated the glass.

  Vvvvvm.

  "It's a leak," Juna whispered, her hand covering her mouth. "Just like the hospital. The Threshold is leaking in."

  She looked down the street, scanning the rooftops.

  "He'll come," she said confidently. "The Knight. He'll come and fix it."

  Silas looked too. He expected to hear the heavy clank-thud of iron boots. He expected the Ankou to drop from the sky with his piston-scythe and sever the connection.

  They waited.

  Five minutes.

  Ten minutes.

  Mr. Garris’s grip on the shelf was slipping. He whimpered.

  "Where is he?" Juna hissed. "He saved us. Why isn't he saving him?"

  "We opened a door," Silas said quietly. "This... this is just a crack."

  Finally, movement at the end of the street.

  "There!" Juna pointed.

  But it wasn't the Ankou.

  It was a patrol cart from the Department of Public Works.

  Two Academy guards in grey uniforms stepped out. They didn't have scythes. They had clipboards and rolls of yellow tape.

  They walked up to the window. They looked at the floating baker. They didn't look horrified. They looked bored.

  "Zone 4 instability," one guard muttered, checking a box on his form.

  "Gravity shear."

  "Again?" the other sighed.

  "That's the third one this week on this block."

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  They took out the yellow tape—the same tape Ankou had used on the mirror.

  They taped a loud X across the shop door.

  Then they taped off the sidewalk in front of it.

  One guard cupped his hands and shouted through the glass.

  "Sit tight, citizen! Assessment team will be here in 3 to 5 business days! Try not to let go!"

  Then they got back in their cart and drove away.

  Juna stood frozen.

  "They left him," she whispered. "They just... labeled him and left him."

  The crowd began to disperse. The show was over. Just a gravity leak. Nothing to see here. Mr. Garris was still floating, crying softly now, his tears drifting upward into the ceiling.

  "Ankou isn't a hero, Juna," Silas said, his voice hollow. "He's an exterminator. He comes for the infestation. He doesn't care about the ants."

  "Then who helps them?" Juna asked. She turned to Silas, her eyes wide and wet. "If the Academy ignores them, and the Knight doesn't come... who helps the people who are just floating?"

  Silas looked at the yellow tape fluttering in the wind.

  He looked at the dark shape of the Black Castle far out in the bay, silent and unlit.

  "No one," Silas said.

  He took Juna’s arm and led her away.

  Behind them, through the glass, the baker’s chair drifted higher, turning slowly in the emptiness, waiting for a rescue that wasn't on schedule

  (Scene 2: The Audit)

  EXT. BAKERS’ ROW - CONTINUOUS

  Silas didn’t keep walking.

  He stopped ten paces down the street, staring at his reflection in a puddle that was vibrating with the tremor of the bakery.

  "Silas, we have to go," Juna pleaded, tugging his sleeve. "Mr. Garris... I can’t watch him float like that."

  "Wait," Silas said. He pulled his arm free. "Look at the door, Juna."

  "It's just tape."

  "No. It’s not." Silas walked back toward the shop window. The crowd was gone. The street was empty except for the fog and the faint, rhythmic thrum-thrum-thrum of the baker bumping gently against the ceiling.

  Silas approached the yellow tape the Public Works officers had slapped across the doorframe. He leaned in, his nose inches from the adhesive.

  He adjusted his glasses, squinting in the gaslight.

  "Silas, what are you doing?"

  "The Ankou," Silas whispered, tracing the air near the tape. "When he killed the Drifter in the basement... do you remember what he did right before he left?"

  Juna hugged herself. "He wiped his blade. He told us to leave."

  ?"No. Before that." Silas’s eyes darted back and forth. "He used a yellow-and-black tape with a crossed eye symbol."

  ?Silas pointed a shaking finger at the yellow Public Works tape.

  Stamped onto the plastic, repeated every six inches, was the official crest of the Department of Public Works: A hammer crossing a shield.

  But underneath the crest, printed in faint black ink, was a secondary symbol.

  An eye crossed like an X.

  ?"It's the same syntax," Silas breathed.

  ?He spun around to face Juna, his face pale with realization.

  "Don't you see? The Public Works guards didn't run. They weren't surprised. They knew exactly which tape to use. They knew the classification code."

  ?"So? They're the government, Silas. It's their job."

  ?"Juna," Silas stepped closer, dropping his voice to a hiss. "The Ankou moves like a soldier. He seals breaches like an engineer. And the Academy cleans up his mess with the exact same containment protocols. He used the phrases 'Breach status: Null' and 'Residual contamination: High.' It was as if he were used to the Academy protocol system."

  ?He gestured wildly at the floating baker inside.

  "Mr. Garris isn't a victim of a random monster attack. He's a work order that hasn't been processed yet."

  ?Juna looked at the tape, then back at Silas. "You're saying... you're saying the Knight works for them?"

  ?"I'm saying he's not a vigilante," Silas said, the horror of the logic settling in. "A vigilante breaks the rules. The Ankou enforces them. He's not a hero saving the city, Juna. He's the Midnight Shift."

  ?Silas looked up at the net in the sky, then back at the taped-off door.

  "He didn't come for Mr. Garris because this isn't a 'Termination' event. This is a 'Maintenance' event. The Ankou doesn't do maintenance."

  ?"That means..." Juna’s voice trailed off as she looked at the crying baker.

  ?"That means the Academy and Ankou are reading from the same manual,"

  Silas finished. He clicked his pen but didn't write. "And we are the only ones who haven't read the book."

  ?Inside the shop, the hum got louder. A jar of flour floated off the counter and shattered against the ceiling.

  White dust rained down like snow.

  ?Silas turned his collar up.

  "Come on. We need to check the Library. If I'm right... the symbol on that tape is older than the Department of Public Works."

  "Then what?" Juna asked with teary eyes. "Will it help to save Mr. Garris?"

  Silas stood there, watching the moon's reflection trapped in the teardrops on her lashes.