Sergei Baranov doesn't need to torture you to break
you; he just lets time do the work.
My shift begins as the sun sets, casting blue shadows over the snow outside.
The monitoring station is a semicircle of screens and cheap plastic keyboards, with six feeds rotating through camera IDs.The coffee comes from reused grounds and a pot that tastes faintly of metal, no matter how much it's scrubbed. It's burnt, bitter, and barely warm, but it gives my hands something to hold onto as the cold seeps into my joints.
Tonight, my shift partner is Dmitri—a thick neck, heavy hands, the build of someone who used to lift weights but now only sits. He doesn't mock me or speak unless necessary. We share a silence that feels almost professional.
The hours drag on.
I watch forklifts glide across concrete floors in Kazan. I see guards pace outside fenced perimeters in Rostov, their breath steaming white in the camera glare. I focus so hard on nothing that my eyes begin to ache.
Deep into the night, something shifts.
A truck arrives at Warehouse Seven.
That alone isn't unusual; trucks come at all hours. The organization doesn't respect sleep, weather, or daylight.
But the markings on this truck catch my eye.
Not wrong—old.
It bears a logistics stencil that should have been scrubbed months ago, back when the network was "restructured" after Boris's arrest. New routing codes, new vendor shells, new paperwork meant to convince Sergei that the infection had been removed.
This truck still wears the old skin.
I sit up straighter.
Dmitri grunts a question without taking his eyes off his screen. I shake my head once. He doesn't press. He knows I watch for a reason.
On the feed, the truck backs into the loading dock. Four men climb out, dressed like standard warehouse workers—work jackets, gloves, movements efficient and practiced. They unload crates onto pallets, while another team rolls the pallets inside.
If I didn't know what to look for, I might see routine.
But I do know what to look for.
There's a rhythm to legitimate movement—paperwork lag, radio calls, camera angles that capture faces for ID verification. This feels too clean, too unconcerned with process, as if they already know no one will stop them.
I pull up Warehouse Seven's manifest.
The system is slow, and the satellite link stutters. The screen freezes, then loads in chunks, as if reluctant to reveal any information.
When it finally appears, I scan the shipment log.
The truck isn't listed.
An unregistered delivery sneaks through a monitored facility as if it belongs.
That shouldn't be possible.
Not anymore.
I dig deeper.
I check the manifest history, the audit trail, and older logs.
It takes longer than it should because my clearance here is deliberately minimal—enough to observe, but not enough to investigate. Every menu feels like a shove, every access request a struggle against a system designed to keep me bored and blind.
