After reading the communiqué, Douglas folded it and put it back in the envelope without showing it to Morgan. He sat in the duty room for about ten minutes, then locked the envelope in a folder on the third shelf of the filing cabinet. A label reading "Closed" was stuck to the outside of the folder.
As he shut the cabinet door, he heard the lock cylinder give a dull click. He stood before it for a while, sighed, then returned to his desk. He gathered the scattered documents into a stack, placed them in a file bag, and pressed the sealing wax flat over its opening.
When Morgan came in from the corridor, he was arranging for the team members to sort the two empty Truth Potion bottles that had been used, their labels marked with notes on the time and dosage. Douglas watched the empty bottles being placed in the recycling box and said only one thing: "You need to add a termination note to your log. Write, 'Mission objective interrupted midway, cause unknown.' Don't mention anything else."
Morgan stood in the doorway with his back to the wall lamp in the corridor, which had not fully lit up. Half the light on his face was blocked by his own shadow. He fell silent for two or three seconds, then replied, "Understood."
He did not enter the duty room. After saying that, he turned and walked back down the other end of the corridor. The echoes of his footsteps on the stone floor faded from distinct to vague, then vanished, like a sound wave swallowed by the walls without leaving any lingering reverberation.
When Morgan closed his office door, his fingertips pressed the handle for half a second longer. After the sound of the latch settling into place