The Operator’s Shadow
The switchboard room was empty when Clara arrived.
She was early. Too early. But something had kept her from sleeping again—some unspoken urgency like an alarm ringing behind her ribs.
The floor tiles squeaked beneath her shoes as she crossed the room toward her station.
Then she stopped.
Her headset was unplugged.
Not just loose. Completely removed from the jack and curled neatly beside the console. Coiled tight, like someone had been careful.
Clara stared at it.
She hadn't unplugged it.
She never unplugged it.
She reached out slowly and touched the receiver. Cold.
Her throat tightened.
She slid into her chair and opened the center drawer. Her notebook was where she'd left it—almost. The edge of it was pushed just slightly out of place. She pulled it out and opened it.
Pages one through twenty-three: untouched.
Page twenty-four: gone.
She froze.
The sheet had been cleanly removed—no tear, no curl at the edge. Just one less page in the middle of her notes.
She flipped forward, backward. Nothing.
Page 24 had contained one of her most detailed diagrams: a web connecting Hal, Stinger, Echo, and Room 314B.
Now it was gone.
She sat still for a long moment.
Then reached for her pencil and wrote a new line in the margin of page 25:
> "Headset unplugged."
"Page 24 missing."
"No break-in. No damage. Just… subtraction."
She drew a small square around the word:
> Subtraction
Then she looked up—toward the reflection in the dark glass of the supervisor's booth.
Nothing but her own face.
Watching her.
The hall outside the switchboard room was quiet.
Clara stepped out slowly, eyes scanning the fluorescent-lit corridor. The morning shift hadn't arrived yet, and even the floor's usual humming felt muted—muffled, like the building itself was waiting.
She turned toward the filing alcove, notebook in hand, when something caught in the edge of her vision.
A movement.
Just past the stairwell. A figure—feminine, dark-haired, wearing a pale coat like hers.
Same stride. Same shoes.
She stopped. Took one slow step forward. Then another.
The figure turned the corner at the end of the hallway.
Clara walked faster.
Her pulse kicked up behind her ears. A quiet urgency—not fear, exactly, but something adjacent. A sense of wrongness stretching thin across the walls.
She reached the corner and looked down the hallway.
Empty.
She scanned left. Right.
Nothing.
Only then did she notice the mirror mounted beside the fire hose cabinet—slightly fogged, warped from age. It reflected the entire corridor she had just come from.
She turned to look into it.
And froze.
There, in the mirror—the woman was still walking.
Same coat. Same hair. Same build.
But Clara had stopped.
The figure in the mirror hadn't.
It took two more steps before slowing. Then stood still.
Clara stared at her reflection.
The figure turned its head slightly, just off-center, as if listening.
Then it stepped out of frame—to the left.
Clara turned sharply.
No one there.
The mirror showed an empty hall.
But she had seen it.
It had moved without her.
Clara's hands were still cold when she reached the filing alcove.
She didn't know what she expected to find. Maybe proof she'd imagined the mirror. Maybe nothing at all. But something about the way the reflection had moved—deliberate, behind the glass—told her whatever was happening wasn't confined to sound anymore.
She opened the binder marked March 10 – Operator Logs and flipped to the overnight entries.
The pages looked ordinary. Pencil-scratched timestamps. Routine reroute notes. Nothing unusual at first glance.
Then, halfway down page 3, she saw it.
A call logged on Line 6 at 2:41 AM. The notes were brief:
> "Caller requested echo status. No trace. Terminated."
Then, below it, the initials:
> C.V.
Her initials.
In tight, deliberate print.
But they weren't hers.
Clara's handwriting was looping, open, the 'V' always wider at the base. This 'V' was sharp. Angled. Clipped like a typewriter key.
She checked the time again. 2:41 AM.
She hadn't taken a call at 2:41 AM.
She'd been in the breakroom.
She flipped back to her personal notebook and scanned the page from that hour. Her own note read:
> "No calls between 2:20–3:00. System silent. Watching mirror."
So who had logged the entry?
And why use her name?
She felt her scalp tighten. Her fingers itched to tear the page from the binder, but she didn't.
Instead, she copied the entry word for word into her notebook.
Then wrote below it:
> "Forged? Echo protocol? Shadow operator?"
And, finally, beneath that, one small word:
> Why.
She looked back down the hall.
She had the sudden, vivid feeling that someone else had stood right where she was, copying the same thing, writing the same note.
She just didn't know when.
Clara didn't return to the switchboard.
Instead, she walked the service hallway behind the supervisor's office—an area lined with dusty cabinets and inactive bulletin boards. No one used this wing anymore. It was where old policies went to die.
She moved slowly, eyes scanning for glass.
A glint caught her near the stairwell landing.
A mirror.
It hadn't been there before. A narrow, full-length panel mounted beside a disused fire exit—warped at the top, dust-lined at the corners.
She stepped in front of it.
Her reflection looked back.
Same curls pinned behind her ears. Same blouse. Same tired eyes.
But something was… off.
Clara raised her right hand.
The reflection followed—just a beat behind.
Not instantly.
Not quite.
She lowered her hand. The image copied her, again a fraction late.
She tilted her head left.
So did it.
Then she moved—quickly—to the side, half-stepping out of frame.
The reflection didn't follow.
It stayed centered.
Still.
Then it smiled.
Not wide. Just a twitch of the mouth.
A curl of knowing. Amused. Familiar.
Clara stepped backward.
The reflection did not.
It stayed in place.
Still smiling.
Still watching.
And then it turned—slowly—walking offscreen, toward a hallway that shouldn't exist.
Clara turned to follow—
But there was only wall.
No hallway.
No sound.
No one.
Only her.
Clara stood frozen, facing the mirror.
She wasn't breathing.
The air around her felt thick, like the building itself was holding its breath.
The reflection—her, but not her—had turned left. Had walked out of view, calm and fluid, like someone slipping through a door that wasn't supposed to be there.
Clara spun around, hand outstretched, expecting to touch something. A hallway. A doorway. Even a draft of air.
But the wall was solid.
No seam. No crack. No hidden hinge.
Just plaster, aged and blank.
She turned back to the mirror.
Her reflection had returned.
Standing exactly where it should be.
Matching her breath. Her posture. Her wide, stunned eyes.
Her own face again.
But she knew better now.
Something had been there.
Something that could choose when to mirror her—and when not to.
She leaned forward, inches from the glass, searching her own expression for any asymmetry. Any delay. Any flicker of betrayal.
But there was nothing.
Only herself.
Except…
As she stepped away, she noticed something small.
In the bottom right corner of the mirror—etched faintly in the dust.
Two letters:
> C.V.
Her initials.
She hadn't written them.
And they were on the inside of the glass.