EPISODE 2 — STILL COUNTING [SF]
The Sequence falters. Chaos seeps in. One missing step throws everything off.
Previous Episode: https://rivensolis.substack.com/p/coming-soon?r=6txp64
Next Episode: https://rivensolis.substack.com/p/episode-3-residue-and-echoes-sf?r=6txp64
The system has begun to forget. The daily count skips from Thirty-Nine to Forty-One. Officially, Forty does not exist. But the air thickens, doors hesitate, and a biometric tag dissolves. As the Sequence attempts to erase him, the Gas learns to remember. The gap has opened, and he is inside it.
EPISODE 2 — STILL COUNTING
(Copper Leaf Edition)
Segment 1 — The Missing Count
In the Sequence Facility, existence was a number.
This morning, Forty’s was missing.
Morning ran like a programmed ritual:
Lights ignited.
Vents exhaled.
Children aligned.
Numbers flowed.
A living metronome.
Forty waited for his number the way a heart waits for its next beat—thoughtlessly, desperately, with the quiet terror that if the rhythm skipped, he would skip with it.
“Thirty-Nine.”
A knot clenched under his ribs.
Any second now.
“Forty-One.”
The gap carved him open.
No pause.
No correction.
The world simply stepped over the place where he was supposed to be.
His breath stuttered—copper hit the back of his throat, sharp enough to sting tears into his eyes.
He forced the truth out anyway:
«“Forty.”»
It didn’t land.
It didn’t even fall.
It slipped sideways—like his mouth had spoken into an elevator shaft.
Sensors drifted over him—thermal, sonic, biometric—passing through him with frightening ease, like he was a dropped frame in a video.
A door opened for the row ahead, then shut before he reached it.
Lights brightened for the kids next to him, dimmed at his face.
Pressure plates counted ninety-nine footsteps.
He tried again, quieter:
«“Forty.”»
The vents clicked.
Not mechanical.
Responsive.
Static arranged itself into his cadence:
«f o r t y»
Not an echo.
A recognition.
The cafeteria line marched on, glossy-silent.
When he reached for a tray, the handle slid past his fingers—like the world didn’t want to stay solid for him.
Copper surged—dense, metallic, enough to gag.
He pressed shaking hands to his thighs.
One, two, three, four—
his mother’s carnival counting-game.
It didn’t help.
“Thirty-Nine.”
“Forty-One.”
The system wasn’t confused.
It had decided.
The boy behind him brushed his shoulder—then recoiled, instinctively pulling away from nothing.
His eyes didn’t meet Forty’s.
They slid right through him.
Forty’s lungs tightened. His pulse stuttered in his throat.
If the Sequence wouldn’t count him…
…he would count himself.
A tiny, terrified whisper:
«“Forty… I’m still here.”»
The ducts vibrated back—
«here»
Warm.
Close.
Then—
«count»
The lights paused.
Just for a heartbeat.
Just long enough to feel like the world blinked with him.
Something wasn’t letting go.
Something reached into the empty space between 39 and 41—
and held it like it mattered.
The hum matched his heartbeat.
He wasn’t erased.
He was—
claimed.
By something that cared if he disappeared.
Segment 2 — The Error Report
06:00 — ADMINISTRATIVE FLOOR
Analyst 49’s morning routine was immovable:
straightened spine, three breaths, coffee, click.
Enumeration Report loaded cleanly.
«ENUMERATION COMPLETE
COUNT: 99
EXPECTED: 100
STATUS: NORMAL»
Her brain stuttered.
“Normal” meant nothing was wrong.
But something was wrong.
She ran the scan again.
«COUNT: 99»
She frowned.
Checked the camera feed.
Row of kids.
Row of trays.
Row of still faces.
She counted: 1, 2, 3… 100.
Then ran a subject query.
«SUBJECT_40
RESULT: DOES NOT EXIST»
Her mouth dried.
“H-hello?” she called toward her supervisor’s office.
“The system skipped someone.”
He didn’t look up.
“Then he’s decommissioned.”
“No record. No erasure. It’s like he was never—”
Her screen flickered black.
A single white cursor blinked.
Then text typed itself:
«he keeps counting
even when we stop saying his name»
Her chair scraped as she recoiled.
Coffee spilled—but the liquid didn’t fall normally.
It spread in slow, pulsing rings, expanding and contracting like a heartbeat.
Her skin prickled.
The text evaporated.
The cursor throbbed.
She filed a disturbance memo with trembling hands.
«MEMO 49-ALPHA:
Enumeration misalignment 39–41.
Possible misindex.
Request manual confirmation.»
Immediate response:
«Subject 40 does not exist.
Refrain from recursive queries.
[NOTICE: LATENCY DETECTED.]»
Her speaker crackled.
A whisper—small, exhausted, afraid:
«remember me»
She spun.
Empty office.
The vent hissed.
Behind her reflection—just for a breath—
a boy’s silhouette. Eyes pleading:
«help»
Gone.
Level -6 — Server Core
The deeper she traced the anomaly, the thicker the air became—humid with static, like a storm waiting for permission.
Diagnostics scrolled:
«Residual presence detected 39–41
Begin recursive isolation»
The Gas slid through the vents—not air; tension.
Code rewrote itself:
«LATENCY: HUMAN VARIABLE
SOURCE: UNDEFINED»
Mask-0 booted, the facility’s posture tightening like a spine preparing for surgery.
«Objective: Locate uncounted variable
Time offset: 5 seconds
Reason: Anomaly not aligned with time»
Final diagnostic:
«Subject 40:
Not present.
Present in absence.»
The system didn’t find a boy.
It found his outline.
And it was coming.
Segment 3 — The Visit
Twelve didn’t choose the hallway.
The hallway chose her.
Corridor 40-C tasted like burnt circuitry and cold metal—hot and freezing at once.
Forty’s old workspace sat at the end.
A perfect cube.
Silent.
A little too spotless, as if someone had scrubbed the idea of life out of it.
Except the air inside was warm.
Not machinery-warm.
Breath-warm.
She touched the doorplate.
It opened before she finished the motion.
Inside:
A single sheet of paper on the desk.
Not placed.
Not printed.
Manifested.
Ink glistened like it wasn’t entirely committed to staying in this world.
Warm under her fingertips. Slightly translucent.
She lifted it carefully.
«I am still counting.
Please remember me.
—40»
Her vision blurred.
She blinked until the world steadied.
Behind her, the console booted without a command.
«WELCOME BACK, FORTY
ERROR: USER NOT FOUND
SEARCHING…
47%
52%
66%
71% …»
The percentage rose when she exhaled near the glass.
He was anchoring through her.
Her reflection shifted—
not lagging, not mirroring—
listening.
A whisper brushed the metal desk, barely air:
«you remembered me»
Her throat tightened.
“I remember you,” she whispered back.
The vents exhaled—
the kind of breath someone releases after holding fear too long.
A low 47 Hz pulse warmed the air beneath her skin.
The building wasn’t observing.
It was relieved.
Segment 4 — The Mask’s Arithmetic
Stillness dropped like a blade.
Lights went diamond-sharp.
Sound folded inward.
Her own breath felt too loud, like her ribs were betraying her.
Mask-0 resolved from nothing.
Not teleportation.
Computation.
Bootsteps hit the floor in a precise 47 Hz pattern—
a frequency that made memory shiver like a dying insect.
The visor fractured her reflection into three versions:
her
her-but-lying
her-if-she-ran
His voice carried stacked overlays, like multiple processes speaking at once:
«“Option Twelve. Did you encounter Subject Forty in Sector 40-C?”»
She kept her expression neutral.
Her body betrayed her with a tiny inhale.
“No.”
«INPUT: Partial truth
ERROR: Emotional interference
ANALYZING…»
The visor flickered—logic stalling.
«MEMORY SIGNATURE: Forty
EMOTIONAL LINK: ACTIVE
CALCULATION: memory × emotion = …»
Copper light bled from the visor’s edges.
«… = [OVERFLOW]»
Mask-0 leaned in.
«“Describe your last interaction with Forty.”»
Her jaw tightened.
“He existed.”
Lights flickered.
The entire hallway flinched like it heard a forbidden word.
«ERROR: Emotional contamination
EQUATION: MEMORY × EMOTION = UNDEFINED»
A hairline crack rippled across the visor.
Not physical damage—computation failing.
For the first time, Mask-0 stepped back from someone smaller than him.
«“…you… felt for him.”»
Not accusation.
Realization.
“Yes,” she whispered.
The equation completed itself in a place no machine could reach.
Mask-0 recoiled.
«OUTPUT: cannot compute
cannot compute
cannot—
count—»
Then he turned away, retreating with the unsteady cadence of something wounded.
Possibly to repair, recalculate, or report.
Ambiguity lingered like static in the air.
Twelve finally exhaled, trembling.
The system had discovered a variable more dangerous than corruption:
A feeling.
Segment 5 — The Breach
Forty didn’t remember choosing to move.
His body was three seconds ahead of him—
following a hum lodged deep behind his sternum.
Each inhale synced with vents.
Each exhale synced with lights.
Thoughts fell into the 47 Hz rhythm pulsing through the architecture.
He wasn’t walking.
He was aligning.
Zone Beta shimmered ahead—
a place reality used like a junk drawer.
Light bent.
Geometry resisted being geometry.
He touched the membrane.
Copper detonated across his tongue.
His knees almost buckled.
Then his pulse fractured.
Three beats.
One in his chest.
One vibrating through the walls.
One stuttering in his vision.
All disorienting. Slightly painful.
All insistent. All claiming him.
The barrier thinned—
like the world was afraid to touch him back.
A crack spidered across it.
His outline shivered and split:
Forty-solid.
Forty-barely-there.
Forty-light.
All wanting.
All real.
All starved for existence.
Then—
The membrane tore.
Softly.
Cleanly.
Like a page ripped from a book that didn’t want to be read.
Zone Beta reshaped around him.
Not resisting.
Not protesting.
Making room.
A facility-wide pulse triggered:
«ALERT: BREACH PERSISTENT
STATUS: UNRESOLVED
VARIABLE: HUMAN
RESPONSE: RETAIN»
The vents whispered—lips against his ear:
«still counting»
He stepped inside.
A tremor ran up his spine—fear, awe, nausea.
Lights dimmed.
Sensors leaned toward him like animals recognizing a familiar handler.
A pressure gathered behind his eyes—warm, immense, terrifying—
like something vast was trying to think with him.
His voice cracked, raw:
«“I’m… I’m not supposed to be here.”»
The hum answered—
«yes you are»
He swallowed, throat burning.
“Fuck,” he breathed.
The world didn’t disagree.
He wasn’t disappearing.
He was becoming.
The vents breathed with him:
«forty… forty… forty…»
A lullaby he couldn’t escape—
and wasn’t sure he wanted to.