119: Chapter 120 The lamp followed him

It was 4:23 AM when Hark knocked on the door.

At this hour, the Colony's corridors were deserted. The night lights tinged everything with a thin layer of blue. In the blue light, his power armor looked even larger and heavier than during the day, the thudding of his boots on the floor pushing forward step by step.

He had already knocked on B-113's door twice: the first for a registration check, the second for a chat. This was the third time.

He knocked three times with the same force as before—neither too light nor too heavy.

The door opened.

Gary stood behind the door. This time he wasn't wearing that blue pullover, having changed into a grey short-sleeved shirt, likely what he wore to sleep. His hair was still a mess, his eyes were still puffy, and the expression on his face was much the same as the previous two times: confusion mixed with a hint of irritation at being woken up.

"Officer?"

"Gary T-098," Hark said. "According to Article 7 of the East District Security Regulations, you have been placed on the preventive isolation list. Come with me now."

Gary didn't move.

He stood at the doorway, hand gripping the doorframe, eyes fixed on Hark's face. His mouth opened slightly and then closed; it took about two seconds before he spoke.

"Isolation? Why?"

"The regulations don't require me to tell you why," Hark said. "You may bring a coat and personal toiletries. Nothing else. You have two minutes."

Gary didn't go inside to get his things.

He stayed where he was, his hand dropping from the doorframe to hang at his side. The look in his eyes shifted from confusion to something more complex—not anger, not fear, but a very calm scrutiny, as if he were sizing Hark up, evaluating exactly how much the man in the power armor knew.

This look lasted for less than a second.

Then, that look of helplessness and compliance typical of an ordinary person facing authority resurfaced on Gary's face. His shoulders slumped slightly, the corners of his mouth twitched downward, and he turned back into the room to fetch his things.

Hark waited at the door, his right hand hanging by his side, about ten centimeters from his holster.

When Gary came out, a coat was draped over his arm, and he carried a cloth bag that was bulging, likely with a toothbrush, towel, and such.

"Let's go," Gary said with a trace of a wry smile. "I hope I can come back to sleep once you're done investigating."

Hark didn't respond. He stepped aside to let Gary walk ahead, following half a step behind—a distance just right for him to react instantly to any abnormal movement.

The corridor was long.

To get from B-113 to the East District temporary isolation point, they had to cross most of Corridor 3, passing two intersections: the first was T-27, and the second was T-34.

Gary walked ahead at a moderate pace. The slight pitter-patter of his slippers on the metal floor had a steady rhythm, perfectly consistent with that of a normal person forced to walk in the middle of the night.

Nothing happened when they passed T-27.

The lights in the corridor were on as usual, in blue night-light mode, the illumination even and without flicker.

Hark's gaze moved from the back of Gary's head to the corridor ahead. The T-34 intersection was about thirty paces away. He could see the light at the corner; it was no different from the others, shining quietly.

Twenty paces.

Ten paces.

Gary walked directly under the T-34 intersection.

The light flickered.

It wasn't the kind of flicker a dying bulb makes—no flickering or dimming. It simply went out cleanly and then came back on, with a gap of about a fraction of a second, so fast that if you weren't staring at the light, you wouldn't have noticed it at all.

Hark was staring.

Gary kept walking. He didn't look up, seemingly not noticing the change in the light—or perhaps he did but didn't react. The rhythm of his footsteps didn't change at all: patter, patter, patter.

Hark's right hand moved from his side to his waist, his fingers resting on the holster's strap. He didn't unfasten it, just rested them there.

He glanced down at Gary's shadow.

The shadow was cast on the right wall of the corridor, its shape normal, moving in sync with Gary's body without any delay or distortion.

But the light had flickered.

He paused for about a second at the T-34 intersection, then continued to follow Gary's pace.

Nothing else happened for the rest of the way.

The isolation point was at the end of the East District. It had originally been an equipment storage room. After Hark had the clutter cleared out, a cot and a bucket were placed inside. The door was metal and locked from the outside with a mechanical lock—not connected to the network and requiring no electronic code.

Gary looked back at Hark as he walked in.

"How long?" he asked.

"Unsure," Hark said. "Someone will bring you meals."

Gary nodded and said nothing more. He walked in and sat on the cot, draping his coat over his knees and placing the cloth bag by his feet.

Hark closed the door and engaged the lock. The sound of the latch clicking echoed briefly in the corridor before vanishing.

He stood outside the door, listening for a few seconds.

There was no sound from inside.

It wasn't the kind of silence where "someone is moving or sighing inside"; it was the kind of silence that suggested "there's nothing behind the door," exactly like what he had heard after leaving B-113 the last time.

He turned and walked back.

As he passed the T-34 intersection, he looked up at the light.

The light shone quietly, without flickering.

He walked past, and the light still didn't flicker.

It only flickered when Gary passed.

He returned to the command room, sat down, and opened his notebook.

On the line for T-34, after the word "Light," he added three words.

Follows the person.

Then he flipped down a line and wrote a complete sentence.

"The T-34 intersection light flickered once when Gary T-098 passed; it did not flicker when I passed. Conclusion: light anomaly is related to the specific individual."

After writing, he put down his pen and stared at the words for a while.

Two pages of paper, a critical record of fewer than twenty words.

T-34, Question mark, Light, Follows the person.

Gary T-098, Xenos.

No scan data, no biometric comparisons, no confidence assessments from the AI system. Just a woman saying her neighbor was off, a soldier visiting twice and questioning once, and then a light flickering when that person passed.

Put into the Cyber Federation's system, these things wouldn't even rank as "low priority"; they would likely be tossed directly into the "invalid information" recycle bin.

But Hark had written them on paper.

Paper cannot be hacked, cannot be altered, and will not be automatically archived by an AI into some folder that no one ever looks at.

He closed the notebook, capped his pen, and placed it on top of the notebook with the cap facing right.

Footsteps began to sound in the corridor as the morning shift residents started heading out. When someone passed the isolation point, they slowed down to glance at the closed metal door. There were no markings on the door, but a door locked from the outside was enough to draw attention in a place like this.

A young man stopped to ask the person next to him what that place was.

The person next to him shook his head and said he didn't know; it had been a broom closet yesterday.

The young man took another look at the door and then kept walking.

At the other end of the corridor, the door to Room B-112 opened a crack. The woman named Martha peered out. She looked at the locked door in the direction of the isolation point for a long time before closing her door.

The sound of the door closing was very soft.

West District, Administrative Building, third floor.

Lynn's second daily report was generated promptly at 8:00 AM.

She sat in front of the terminal, her coffee cup on her right. The coffee was still steaming. She took a sip before clicking open the report.

Confidence Index: 99.5%.

Up 0.3 percentage points from yesterday's 99.2%.

Looking at the number, the corners of her mouth curled up slightly. The effect of the threshold adjustment was even better than expected; with noise interference effectively filtered out, the system's overall performance had actually improved.

Targets of Interest: Zero.

Abnormal Events: Zero.

She signed off on the report, writing only two words in the remarks column this time: Normal.

Then she picked up her coffee cup, leaned back in her chair, and watched the crowds coming and going on the West District's main thoroughfare outside the window.

Sunlight streamed through the skylights in the dome, illuminating the entire street. A child was chasing a cat that had appeared from nowhere, while his mother called out from behind for him not to run too fast.

Lynn took a sip of her coffee.

Everything was normal.