Chapter 244: Chapter 244

We both laughed, and I left her office, closing the door behind me. On the way back to my desk, I grabbed my jacket out of habit, and my hand automatically slid into my pocket. All I felt were a few coins. Right. They had my phone downstairs. As always.

I sighed and started walking. The first possible mole on the list worked on this floor, thankfully.

The far end of the corridor opened into the Localization and Language Processing wing—one of those departments that always felt slightly different from the rest of TechForge. Instead of the see-through glass everywhere else, this place used frosted panels that glowed softly when the lights hit them. The air was warm, quieter. You could hear the faint hum of people speaking into headsets, repeating the same sentences over and over for audio models. A whole wall on the left held a huge digital world map, pulsing with tiny red dots marking active language streams.

Desks were lined in rows, each one packed with dual monitors, translation pads, transcription pedals, and noise-cancelling mics. It smelled faintly like strong coffee and the plastic of heated electronics. The lighting here was warmer, more yellow than white, which made the place feel almost cozy despite all the tech.

I checked the first name on my list and stopped at the small office near the back.

The nameplate read:

MICHAEL TARN – Senior Linguistic Analyst

He was one of the ten suspects.

I took a breath, straightened my jacket, and reached for the door handle.

Time to play detective.

After knocking once, I pushed the door open and stepped inside Michael’s office. It was small but packed—every inch of it looked busy. Three ultra-wide monitors wrapped around the front of his desk in a tight arc, each one filled with scrolling text, spectrographs, and audio timelines. Behind him, a laptop on a raised stand streamed a live feed of multilingual subtitles. Two tall shelves flanked the walls, full of language manuals, QA notes, mugs, and a stupidly large collection of novelty pens. A soft orange desk lamp cut through the room’s dimness, giving everything a warm, studio-like glow.

Michael sat behind the monitors, one eyebrow arched.

“Um, hey?” he said, blinking behind thick rectangular glasses. “Who are you and why are you here?”

“I’m Evan Marlowe,” I said. “Ms. Nolin’s new secretary.”

“Oh, right. The coffee guy.” He nodded once. “What can I do for you, Mr. Marlowe?”

“I’m here because—”

“Let me cut in,” he said, raising a hand. “You think I’m the culprit, don’t you?”

“Well—”

“Just give it to me straight.”

“Alright,” I said. “I’m working through a list of people who talked to Adam the day the mole was discovered. And I won’t sugarcoat it—you’re one of them.”

“Wow.” His eyes widened. “Me?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” he said calmly. “Then how do I prove I’m not your guy?”

“When I chased the suspect,” I said, “were you in the building? Can anyone confirm it?”

“I was here all day,” he replied. “My whole department can vouch for it.”

“Are you sure?”

Instead of answering verbally, he pressed something under his seat. A loud metallic clank rang out, and then he tapped a button on his armrest. His “chair” moved—rolling out from behind the desk on two reinforced wheels disguised inside the base.

Only then did I realize what I was actually looking at: an electric wheelchair built to look exactly like a normal office chair.

He rolled right up next to me. “Should we go ask them together?”

“Damn,” I muttered. “I didn’t know you were… man, you should’ve said something. I feel like a jackass now.”

Michael laughed. “No worries. I’m mostly confused why I’m on your list at all.”

“Because you talked to Adam that day,” I explained. “You asked about Jenkins. Jenkins was supposed to be in the security room watching the cameras, but he was sick that day. So I’m guessing the culprit asked around to learn if the room was empty.”

“And you told Adam to send you a list of everyone who talked to him that day,” he finished for me.

“Exactly.”

“Well, sorry, Mr. Marlowe,” he said as he reversed back behind his desk. “But I’m not the guy you’re looking for.”

I grabbed a pen off his desk, rested the folder on my leg, and crossed out his name. Then I stood and offered him my hand. He shook it firmly.

“Good luck, Mr. Marlowe,” he said. “Keeping this internal is risky but needed. I hope we resolve it without needing outside help.”

“Fingers crossed.” I waved as I stepped out the door. “And, uh… sorry for the false suspicion.”

“No problem,” Michael said.

I closed the door gently and sighed. Great. That was a whole lot of nothing. Michael couldn’t run if he tried—the wheelchair explained that clearly. Why Adam even put his name on the list was beyond me. Maybe Marcus was right and we should’ve fired him years ago.

Next name: Tyler Feynard. Worked just one floor below.

Time to pay him a visit.

I headed to the elevator, descended a floor, and stepped out into the Software Debugging and Maintenance wing. This place was the polar opposite of Michael’s department. Bright white lights. Cold air. Cubicle rows stretching forever. The smell of energy drinks was practically part of the atmosphere. People hunched over code windows that flickered with error logs and red text like tiny digital fires.

No glass walls here—just endless fabric cubicles, each one cluttered with sticky notes, headphones, stress balls, and stacks of printed bug reports. The clicking of keyboards filled the air in a constant staccato rhythm.

About halfway down the row, I found him.

Tyler’s cubicle was messy as hell. Half-finished snacks, two empty cans of RedBull, a jacket thrown over his chair, and three monitors stacked vertically like some insane digital totem pole.

He was hunched forward, headphones on, tapping away like he was trying to kill his keyboard.

Time to see if he was mole material.

I cleared my throat, but Tyler didn’t budge. His headphones were blasting something so loud I could hear the bass from a meter away. Honestly, if the fire alarm went off right now, he’d probably just keep typing until he melted.

I tapped his shoulder.

Without turning around, he grabbed a paper off his desk and handed it back to me blindly. I looked down—some debugging report full of code and acronyms I didn’t understand—then set it back on his desk and tapped him again.

This time he finally swiveled around, pulled his headphones down, and blinked at me.

“Uuh… are you new?” he asked.

“I’m Ms. Nolin’s secretary,” I said. “Evan Marlowe. I’m here to ask you some questions, Tyler. That’s all.”

He leaned back, resting his arms on the chair’s sides. “Alright? What for?”

“Harmless questions,” I said. “Nothing to be afraid of… unless you have something to be afraid of. Right?”

“Uh-huh.” He crossed his arms. “Go ahead.”

“When the mole was discovered in the security room,” I said, “where were you?”

“In the toilet,” he said flatly. “I remember hearing people shouting while I was pissing.”

“Can anyone confirm that?”

He stared at me. “Confirm what—that I was taking a piss? Do you tell people every time you go take a piss, Evan?”

“It’s just a simple question, Tyler.”

“Yeah. And the answer’s no.” He exhaled. “No witnesses to my majestic bathroom break.”

“Is there a camera that might’ve recorded you walking toward the restroom?”

“Yeah, that one.” He pointed up at a dome camera mounted on the ceiling at the center of the floor.

“Camera 102,” I read on the casing. “Alright. Thanks, Tyler. If anything comes up, I’ll talk to you again.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”

He spun his chair around and slipped his headphones back on like I never existed.

I stepped into the nearest empty cubicle, grabbed the office phone, and dialed Adam, #1 on the internal line. A few beeps, then his voice.

“Hello?”

“Adam, it’s Evan,” I said. “I need the footage from Camera 102. The hour the mole was caught.”

“Okay, hold on…” I heard him typing. “Yeah, 102—that’s the Debugging floor camera. Where do I send it? You don’t have your phone.”

“Send it to this cubicle’s computer,” I said. “I’ll watch it here.”

“Alright. What’s the device name?”

I clicked through the settings until I found the ridiculous sixteen-digit username, read it to him, and seconds later a file transfer request popped up. I accepted it.

“That’s all, Mr. Marlowe?” Adam asked.

“That’s all. Thanks.”

When the video finished downloading, I scrubbed through the footage. People walking around. Coffee breaks. Someone dropping a stack of papers. Someone slipping on a cable. Pretty standard chaos.

Then, just before the timestamp where the mole entered the security room upstairs, I spotted Tyler. He was heading toward the restroom hallway… but the camera didn’t cover the last stretch. It cut off just before the corridor turned.

Which meant two possibilities:

Either he really did go take a piss. Or he ducked into the emergency stairwell and booked it all the way up to the top floor, then to the rooftop… and entered through that vent that led to the security room.

“Fuck,” I muttered.

I closed the video, erased it, and stood up.

From across the room, Tyler sat in his cubicle squeezing a stress ball lazily, half-lidded eyes glued to his monitor like nothing in the world existed except that line of code.

“You’re not scratched off yet, Tyler,” I said quietly.

Time for the next suspect.

Marketing Department, two floors down.

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