Chapter 12 GAPS

The message stayed on the monitor long after neither of them spoke. IF I DISAPPEAR, DO NOT TRUST THE VERSION THAT RETURNS. Cairos kept staring at the sentence while static crackled softly from the old speakers nearby. The room suddenly felt smaller than before. Outside the windows, rain tapped steadily against the glass while distant sirens drifted through the city far below. "No," Cairos said quietly again.

Jonah leaned against the desk without responding immediately. He looked exhausted now, like somebody who had spent too long chasing things better left alone. "You really sent them," Jonah said after a while. "Every file came from different dead relay points across the city. Somebody wanted them impossible to trace."

"I don't remember any of it," Cairos replied. "I can see that," Jonah said.

Cairos rubbed both hands slowly across his face before looking back toward the monitor again. The words still sat there unchanged, DO NOT TRUST THE VERSION THAT RETURNS. The sentence irritated him now more than frightened him.

"What does that even mean?" Cairos muttered.bJonah gave a tired shrug. "You tell me," he replied. "That's not helpful," Cairos said. "I'm not trying to be," Jonah answered.

Cairos stood slowly from the chair and began pacing through the cramped room. Every wall seemed covered with more faces the longer he looked at them. Missing people, dead people, surveillance stills taken from strange angles beneath timestamps and handwritten notes. Some of the photographs genuinely looked like different versions of the same person.

"That's impossible," Cairos muttered again, though he no longer sounded completely certain. Jonah watched him carefully. "Maybe," he said.

Cairos stopped near one of the tables cluttered with printed infrastructure schematics and damaged tablets. His eyes drifted absently across the documents while his mind continued circling the message on the screen.

"What exactly were you investigating before me?" Cairos asked. Jonah hesitated before answering. "Disappearances mostly," he said. "Then behavioral corruption cases."

"Behavioral corruption?" Cairos asked. Jonah rubbed at his jaw tiredly. "People changing," he replied. "That's vague," Cairos said. "It's supposed to be," Jonah answered.

Cairos frowned slightly and Jonah continued quietly. "People started acting wrong after Section Twelve. Personality shifts, missing memories, violence, recognition problems."

"Recognition?" Cairos asked. "Family members claiming somebody wasn't themselves anymore," Jonah said.

Cairos looked toward him carefully now which Jonah noticed."I know how that sounds," Jonah said. "Do you?" Cairos asked.

Jonah ignored the comment. "You ever lose time?" he asked suddenly. Cairos frowned. "What?" he asked. "Blackouts, missing hours, arriving places without remembering the trip," Jonah explained. "No," Cairos said.

The answer came too quickly. Jonah noticed that too. Cairos looked away immediately afterward. "Not that I remember," Cairos admitted reluctantly.

Jonah nodded slightly like he expected it. "You ever recognize somebody you've never met before?" Jonah asked.

Cairos stayed quiet, the maintenance shafts, Miss Alina opening the door like she already knew him, the tunnel in the photograph, the hidden routes through Blackwater.

Jonah watched him carefully now. "That's not normal," Cairos muttered.

"No," Jonah agreed quietly. "It isn't." Cairos exhaled sharply before turning away again. His eyes drifted toward a large infrastructure map pinned across the wall near the monitors. Most of Blackwater's lower maintenance systems spread across it beneath faded markings and handwritten notes.

Without thinking, Cairos stepped closer. "That route's wrong," he said absentmindedly. Jonah blinked. "What?" he asked. Cairos pointed toward a lower tunnel branch near the east transit sector. "This maintenance line," he said. "It doesn't connect there anymore."

Jonah stared at him. Cairos continued automatically while tracing part of the map with his finger. "The lower section collapsed after flooding damage. They sealed the route and rerouted access through the western drainage tunnels instead."

The room became very quiet, Cairos stopped speaking. Slowly, he looked back toward Jonah but he had gone completely still.

"How do you know that?" Jonah asked carefully. Cairos frowned immediately. "I don't know," he replied.

Jonah stepped closer toward the map now. "That tunnel was sealed six years ago," he said quietly. "The records were classified after the collapse." Something cold moved slowly through Cairos's stomach. "I worked maintenance," he said quickly. "That sector wasn't public infrastructure anymore," Jonah replied.

Cairos stared back at the map again, the information had felt natural, instant, like remembering something ordinary. His headache returned suddenly, sharp pressure building briefly behind his eyes. For half a second he saw dim emergency lights reflecting across flooded concrete somewhere underground before it vanished.

Cairos stepped backward immediately. "No," he muttered under his breath. Jonah said nothing now, making Cairos feel worse. "You think I'm lying," Cairos snapped suddenly. "I think you're scared," Jonah answered.

The response disarmed him slightly and he looked away. Outside, another drone passed somewhere above the building, its searchlight briefly sliding across the rain covered windows before disappearing again. Jonah returned slowly toward the desk. "I wasn't originally looking for you specifically," he admitted quietly.

Cairos frowned. "What?" he asked. "You just kept appearing inside everything," Jonah said.

Jonah opened another corrupted file across the monitor. "Missing workers, corrupted surveillance, erased employee records, dead infrastructure zones. Your name kept surfacing beside all of it."

Cairos stared at the screen silently. "I thought you were either responsible," Jonah continued, "or somebody trying to expose it."

"And now?" Cairos asked. Jonah hesitated. "I honestly don't know anymore," he said. The honesty unsettled Cairos he didn't think it would.

The burner phone suddenly felt heavier inside his pocket, slowly, he pulled it out again. Jonah noticed immediately. "Where did you get ?" he asked.

Cairos looked at him, "From Blackwater," he kept quiet for a while before saying, "it has recordings."

"Recordings?" Jonah asked. "Yeah," Cairos replied. "You trust it?" Jonah asked. Cairos looked down at the cracked screen for a moment. "No," he admitted and pressed play.

Static filled the room softly, with uneven breathing following. Then his own voice spoke quietly through the speaker. "If you're hearing this..." Cairos listened carefully now while the recording continued. Earlier he had only focused on the words. Now he noticed the sounds underneath them. Metal doors, alarms somewhere far away, a distorted announcement barely audible beneath the static.

His voice continued speaking while chaos moved faintly in the background. "You probably don't remember enough yet..." A loud metallic impact echoed somewhere behind the recording, someone started shouting in the distannce. Jonah frowned immediately. "Wait," he said.

Cairos raised the volume slightly. Static crackled violently for a second before another voice barely surfaced beneath the interference. "...remembering too fast..." Then screaming.

The sound lasted less than a second before the recording distorted heavily again. Both men went completely still. The recording continued afterward like nothing happened. "...don't let him speak for too long."

Jonah stared at the phone now with visible unease. "That wasn't edited," he said quietly. Cairos didn't answer, the background noises no longer sounded mysterious. They sounded catastrophic, like the recording had been made during something falling apart.

The audio ended moments later beneath another burst of static, neither of them spoke immediately afterward. Then Jonah finally looked toward him again. "Cairos..." he started, his voice sounded more careful now. "Before Blackwater Heights..." Cairos looked up slowly. "What's the last thing you clearly remember?" Jonah asked.

The question seemed simple, but when Cairos opened his mouth to answer, nothing came out immediately, his apartment, work, normal days, routine but suddenly the memories felt strangely compressed together, blurred, like pages missing from the middle of a book. He remembered his aunt and a girl's face, his work and friends but he can't really remember them. Like he could remember and not remember at the same time, not even the things that happened earlier that morning. It was like he had an idea of where he was but he can not remember it properly.

Cairos frowned, is chest tightened slowly. Because for the first time since Apartment 404, he realized he had no idea where the gap actually began. Was his memory altered?