Case #4472-C — Desk Log

22:14Encrypted call from HQ. Voice ID confirmed. HQ states the Institution has "formally requested" shutdown of 4472-C and surrender of all associated materials. Request was delivered in person. Two representatives currently on premises at HQ and declining to leave.

22:16HQ confirms the counsel group is on site. Decision taken not to release them into the lobby. Interior doors secured. Paper files moved to the back room.

22:19HQ: "We are not opening the door." Line held.

22:31HQ patches through an emergency tasking. Team Two (field) instructed to proceed immediately to Institution long-term storage depot, location to follow by separate channel. Objective stated as follows, verbatim from HQ:

(a) locate the laptop belonging to the depot's night janitor. Name withheld. Machine reportedly kept under the break room sink. No password. Do not attempt to locate any other machine.

(b) open the depot's local maintenance reports policy document. Navigate to the section governing out-of-hours reports. Change one (1) line. Exact wording to be provided by counsel group en route.

22:33Team Two asks why the janitor. HQ: the janitor's laptop is the only device in the depot that touches the policy file without going through a credentialed workstation. The janitor edits the file to log the mop schedule. He has been doing this for eleven years. Nobody has stopped him.

22:34Team Two asks why not a credentialed workstation. HQ: the credentialed workstations are protected. The janitor's laptop is not protected because nobody at the Institution has ever acknowledged that the janitor's laptop exists.

22:36Counsel group confirms via HQ that the targeted line is "sufficiently official to propagate but not sufficiently official to be defended." Counsel declines to explain what this means in operational terms. Counsel states that the team will understand when they see the line.

22:38Team Two rolling. ETA 47 minutes.

22:52HQ reports the representatives in the lobby have been joined by two more. Total four. They are not speaking. They are waiting.

23:07Team Two reports arrival at the depot perimeter. Single vehicle in the lot. Interior lights visible in the break room. Janitor presumed on site.

23:11Team Two reports entry via a side door that was, per their description, "already the kind of unlocked that isn't really locked." Janitor not in the break room. Laptop located under the sink as described. Operational.

23:14Counsel group transmits the line. HQ relays. I am not writing the line in this log. Team Two acknowledges receipt.

23:17Team Two reports the policy file opened without incident. The section exists. The line exists. Team member editing asks HQ to confirm spelling once. HQ confirms.

23:18Team Two reports save successful. File closed. Laptop left as found. Team exiting.

23:19Janitor observed in the parking lot on the way out, smoking. He did not look up.

23:24HQ reports the representatives in the lobby have left. All four. No communication. They walked out together and did not close the door behind them.

23:26HQ holding position. Counsel group has asked for tea. Request granted.

00:12Incoming call. Not encrypted. Origin: a switchboard line registered to the Institution. Caller did not identify by name. Voice unsteady. Transcribed to the best of my ability below:

CALLER: "Is this — am I through to — yes. Listen. Something is happening here. I don't know how to describe it. Some of us are — some people seem to be alright. They're acting normal. They're talking about it. They're able to talk about it. And the rest — I don't know how to tell the difference. I was in a meeting an hour ago with six people and I genuinely cannot tell you which three I can trust."

DESK: "Are you safe."

CALLER: "I don't know what that word means in this building right now. I'm calling from a phone in a stairwell. I had to look up your number three times because the first two times I forgot it between the page and the keypad. That's — that's new. That hasn't happened to me before."

CALLER: "We cannot intervene. I want to be clear about that. Whatever you did tonight — I'm not asking. I'm saying we cannot come and help you and we cannot come and stop you because we cannot agree internally on which of those two things we are supposed to be doing. Do you understand what I'm telling you."

DESK: "I understand."

CALLER: "What we can do — what I think we can do, the ones of us who can still see the problem — is purge every reference to your firm from our systems. Every record. Every footnote. Every expense line that ever had your name on it. We are going to try to make it so that from our side, you were never hired, never briefed, never mentioned. It will not be complete. There are paper files we cannot reach. But we are going to reduce the attack surface as far as we can from in here, and we are going to do it in the next ninety minutes, because after that I do not know who in this building is still me."

DESK: "Noted. Thank you."

CALLER: "Don't thank me. I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing this because the alternative is that the thing learns your address from our filing system and I have to live with having been the filing system." [pause] "Good luck."

[Call ends. Caller did not hang up cleanly. Line remained open, unattended, for approximately forty seconds before disconnecting.]

00:19HQ notified. HQ acknowledges. HQ instructs desk to continue logging.

00:23Team Two reports return to a safe location. No pursuit observed. Team asks whether it worked. I tell them I don't know. They say neither do they.

00:27Counsel group, via HQ, requests a second pot of tea and asks whether the janitor is going to be alright. HQ responds that the janitor was never part of this, which is the entire point, and that he is almost certainly going to be fine. Counsel group accepts this.

GODHUNTERS LLC — OPERATIONS DESK LOG