Chapter 18: Marcus in the Archive

The folders were in a waterproof case under the floor panel behind the secondary handset, which was where Marcus had put them in year two when it became clear that sentiment was a liability he couldn't afford to carry visibly. He'd meant to move them somewhere more permanent. He'd never moved them.

He pulled the case out at 2:17 a.m. and sat down at his desk and did not open it for a while.

The facility was quiet in the particular way of a place that would not be quiet in four hours — the specific anticipatory silence of people sleeping through what rest they could reach before the day's work made rest impossible again. He could hear, faint and intermittent, the sound of Tomás turning over in the bunk room three corridors down. He could hear the building settling against the cold. The radio on his desk said nothing, had said nothing since the last scheduled contact, and he was used to that now the way he was used to breathing — automatically and without noting it until something made him notice.