The long table in the duty room had been scrubbed pale, and a ledger lay open in its center.
Half the open page was filled with writing, its bottom edge worn fuzzy by fingers.
Half a wooden paperweight rested on the upper right corner, its patina dark.
The room held only one table and two benches, both unvarnished.
The bench by the door was empty, strips of cloth tied around its legs to keep it from slipping.
An old ring of tea stains marked the edge of the table. Someone had wiped it, but not clean.
Someone at the door announced that the security cordon was changing to the third shift.
They left as soon as they finished, their footsteps receding down the corridor.
At the far end of the corridor, someone answered a password. The words were indistinct.
A person sat across the table, sleeves rolled to the forearms, the ledger open in front of them.
The recorder sat to one side, with three sheets of paper laid out before them.
The sheets had been ruled into boxes, one route to a box, all neatly aligned.
The person opposite lowered their head and read the first line in the ledger.
They read slowly, enunciating each word with care.
"That side path last night-how did you know people could be carried out through it?"
The recorder's brush hovered, pausing for an instant.
The suspended brush waited over the paper for the first route to be confirmed.
He had personally pointed out that route once last night, to just one person. Now it was being read out from across the table. Half the words had changed, but the route was still the same, and the person reading it had a brush beside them.
Kiyoshi sat on this side of the ledger.