Page 75 of Somno Slave

The way he looked at me through the glass like it was for me.

No.

Absolutely not.

I shove the notebook away from me hard enough for the pages to rattle. For a few seconds, I just sit there breathing carefully through my nose, waiting for my body to settle back into something recognisable.

I need something that’s going to ruin him for me forever.

Something that will stop me fantasising about him.

I need to know what he did, or I don’t think I’ll ever recover from these feelings twisting around in my gut.

I slip my badge from my pocket and place it next to my notepad. When I hold my tea close to my lips, the warmth fans across my face. It hides the tremble of my fingers. I sip quickly like the heat will stabilise me.

Finally, the screen churns out a loading page. My fingers hover over the search bar before I type his name.

Deogal Attor.

The internal system of the computer churns. The blue wheel spins once, twice—then an error box pops up in clinical font: RECORD NOT FOUND. TRY AGAIN LATER.

My fingers hover over the search bar. I try variations—Degoal, Degol, the registration numbers on the form in front of me, but nothing comes back. I switch into the forensic portal instead and try the same thing. It returns blank.

I frown.

Where is his file?

My hand moves to the legal portal. I type his ID number in slowly this time, the sound of the keys tapping a fraction too loud. The machine makes a sharp noise.

Error. User not found.

My chest seizes. I pull his paper file closer to me like it will steady me, eyes scanning all the information on the handout Peter gave to me on my first day. I drag my finger down the text until I find another number that looks similar to ID.

I type it into the court docket, and finally something dings. There is a short delay before green flashes across the screen. A PDF appears and I scan through it until my eyes start to blur, but nothing useful stands out. There’s a scanned police blotter entry that’s been uploaded badly—letters jumbled, timestamps sliced into nonsense. The word “assault” flashes up repeatedly like an accusation, but the rest is eaten by white space.

Desperation claws through me.

I drag my cursor down the screen until all the lines blurs. My head pounds angrily, but I can’t look away. I scroll for what feels like hours before something budges.

Special Case Unit.

A prickle runs up the back of my neck.

Slowly, I look up from the screen and scan the room properly this time. Corners first. Ceiling. The dark seams where wall meets light fitting. The vents. The small black domes I expect tofind tucked into edges, watching, recording—proof that I’m not as alone as I feel.

Nothing.

No blinking red lights. No lenses catching the glow of the screen. No quiet indication that any of this is being seen.

My hands move to the keyboard, and I type the name into the search bar.

A dark portal pops up on screen with space for a username and password.

I’m not supposed to have clearance to the site, but I remember things. Not properly—more like flickers. A name typed into a form once that I was asked to file once. A password scribbled onto the corner of a desk calendar and left open as I walked by. Random, meaningless fragments that shouldn’t add up but suddenly feel sharp and real.

Hands slick against the plastic, I type a username into the box and then move to the password box. I hesitate longer here, pulse hammering at the inside of my skull, but type what I think it might be.

I shouldn’t be doing this. I know I shouldn’t, and yet, I press enter.