Chương 8: The Most Boring Man in the Database

WID headquarters was one of those institutions that didn't bother making a good impression on the internet. Anyone searching for it on Google Maps would find that this agency had only two stars, which wasn't bad for a place that didn't publicly exist. In one of its reviews, someone wrote the following: "I couldn't find it, this has to be a hidden camera prank." The other four reviews had been removed by a hacker.

Inside that building, the headquarters' offices occupied from the forty-seventh floor to the fifty-second floor of a building in Chiyoda. Besides the fact that walking up that massive staircase was exhausting, this agency was officially registered under the name "Regional Integration Administrative Services, Kabushiki Kaisha." This name had cost four meetings, two committees, and the hiring of a Thai consultant.

All of these events shared the same goal: to ensure at all costs that the name was boring enough so that no one would ever ask too much about it, regardless of whether the endeavor cost many or few yen. Twelve years later, not even the nosiest tourists had asked for more information about it. The building's name had become so dull that even the Thai consultant had forgotten it within the very first month.

But there was good news; after all these years, someone inside the building had the courage to state at a general assembly meeting that the investment had paid off. It was then that everyone applauded the man for his brilliant speech. Unfortunately for him, without realizing it, he was pointing at some mini lemon trees used as a natural room divider. The building had a color that varied between black and gray. Its architecture was designed with the purpose of not attracting any outside attention.

On the exterior, this property had no identifying plaque, and inside, the elevator required four distinct forms of identification to be used. Anyone who lacked the patience inevitably had to take the stairs. The first was consistently the presentation of a professional ID card, followed by a fingerprint, accompanied by an iris scan, and a fourth that the internal manual designated as a "convenience biometric sample."

No employee liked describing it at family dinners, as it could ruin the credibility of someone working for the State. The first three were designed to prevent the entry of threats far more dangerous than mere human intruders; the fourth was just to be different from other institutions. Two cleaning companies had already tried to submit a quote to WID.

Even knowing they would always have to take the stairs, they didn't mind, but there was a bigger reason that made them give up halfway through the recruitment process: neither company was able to find the front door. On the third try, one company managed to find it. They work there to this day, very well paid. This condition was non-negotiable, as they had to walk up and down fifty-something floors every day, and, of course, under an ultra-confidential agreement the thickness of a phone book.

🍲 Director Tanaka had no problem working overtime. Divorced, with no children, she didn't have to justify herself to anyone. She had already been in her office for 14 consecutive hours. Her coffee, which accompanied her in every decision, had stopped taking effect around the sixth hour, and from the eighth hour on, it had become a mere symbolic gesture. This coffee served as a sort of offering to a god of productivity, who clearly had other matters at hand instead of enlightening the Director's professional life.

Now, the Director was functioning on something closer to her stubbornness and her sense of professional duty, in that order, most certainly.

"Director, here is the background check." Hayashi placed the tablet on the desk. That tablet looked as tired as he did, for the young analyst already wore the expression of someone who had discovered that, this week, the professional world didn't come with an instruction manual or a warranty leaflet. Tanaka leaned forward and looked at the tablet. It was blank. The investigation was completely unfilled, and Tanaka's reaction was instantaneous; her eyes widened to their limit.

"What do you mean the investigation is blank?" Tanaka tapped her fingers on the desk and pushed her cup aside.

"Director, it is blank in the literal sense." Hayashi pointed his finger at the screen in a completely helpless gesture, as if that movement would actually accomplish something.

"He doesn't exist, Director. We had already seen that there is no birth certificate or school records. There are no tax returns either. I also went to check, and there isn't even an employment history at MinouseMart, I only found a passport-style photo. Not even medical records at the hospital, as if he doesn't catch a cold."

"But you couldn't even find a parking ticket?"

"Nothing, Director. Not even a simple supermarket loyalty card." The analyst stared at the Director, and in that moment, one could notice that the sound of the room's air conditioning was excessively loud.

"I searched. I searched multiple times." The Director crossed her arms and told him, "Everyone exists somewhere out there. It's the same conversation again, Hayashi."

"But this one seems different. It's as if someone had created a clone simply to stand in a convenience store restocking ramen shelves, Director." Tanaka wanted to observe something concrete. She then approached the desk, grabbed the tablet with both hands, and opened Soren's profile in the file. It was then that she came across the man's photograph. Beneath it was his name: Soren Vonesdar. It mixed a Scandinavian first name with a surname of unknown origin. Tanaka looked at him for a good few seconds.

Since he didn't have any distinctive physical traits to characterize him—like a nose ring or purple-dyed hair—it was far too easy to forget that expression. The man possessed completely mundane physical features. Tanaka set the tablet down.

"And regarding the footage of the incident?" Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Well, Director, that's where the big problem lies." Hayashi approached the tablet and opened the video.

"The analysis team and I watched this video 47 times. And then I also asked four specialized perception experts to analyze it." Tanaka revealed brief enthusiasm upon hearing that.

"And? What happened?"

"Two asked to watch and re-watch the video, and the other two asked to never see it again. No one could explain what he did. They only mentioned that the calmness with which the man left the store looked like someone who was under the influence of morphine and went out just to take out the trash and return to his workplace, as if nothing were happening outside." Hayashi shook his head.

"There was no skill activation, nor any mana signature. There is no registered technique in our database, Director. It was exactly the same conclusion we reached the previous night." And in truth, that conclusion continued to disturb the Director's office. The System wouldn't stop; it kept trying to classify the night shift stowaway, but it constantly failed in its classifications.

"It's up to 312 attempts now, Director." After that, the tablet emitted a high-pitched sound.

"313, correction, Director." Tanaka rotated the screen toward herself, and the notifications were stacking up in a column that no longer fit on the monitor. Attempt at evaluation number: 311[Error] Attempt at evaluation number: 312 [Error] Attempt at evaluation number: 313 [Error] Note: [The System will proceed with the evaluations.] Secondary note: [Evaluations will proceed because protocol requires it.] Tertiary note: [Protocol was not prepared for this type of event.] The System continued to fail miserably.

Tanaka had never witnessed anything like this humiliation, while Hayashi had never even imagined such a thing, nor had he ever had a nightmare about something similar.

"Look, Hayashi, did you contact the Adventurers' Registry?"

"Yes, they don't have an Awakening Certificate for this man either. He has no connection to the guilds. When I contacted the guild leader, he started laughing when I sent him the man's photo. He has no relationship with government programs either. Even the receptionist at the government services, in doubt, asked me if I had spelled the guy's name right."

"And had you spelled it right, Hayashi?"

"Yes, Director, I wrote it in nine different ways. I even wrote it in katakana to make their job easier." That was when Tanaka revealed a certain vulnerability. The night was dragging on longer than it should have, and now it was time for Hayashi to reveal the second part of his investigative work. With his chronic nerves, he hesitated to say what was on the tip of his tongue:"Director, during this investigation, I took the initiative to consult a certain place." The Director widened her eyes.

Frowning at the young analyst, she immediately realized that nothing good was coming.

"I consulted the Dead Archive, the deepest archives in Japan." Tanaka set the tablet down, and then her body went still, staring at Hayashi.

"And so? What do you have to say about it?"

"There are references that might be interesting to analyze." He opened the document; it looked as old as the WID building itself.

"They are very old, Director. A phenomenon called the Container Program, with the letter C underlined. From what I understood, they are entities that surpass any normal classification." Hayashi followed the text with his finger, struggling like someone reading a new language for the second time in their life.

"And the System cannot measure them because..." Hayashi said, while trying to search for something in the text.

"Because those entities do not belong to the System itself," Tanaka finished. The office became completely paralyzed after the sentence was spoken; the air conditioning automatically dropped by 6 degrees. Tanaka sighed, picked up the tablet, and walked to the window. That night, Chiyoda seemed more alive, radiating light everywhere.

Every building made a point of being noticed; neon lights shone from top to bottom at maximum intensity across the buildings, tech brand logos appeared in oversized dimensions, and billboards looped toothpaste commercials followed by chewing gum ads. Further back on the block, there were some massive office buildings with their lights still on. That was intentional, as the bosses wanted the competition to know they were working overtime, but in reality, the employees were watching series on U-NEXT.

To counteract Chiyoda, the WID building made a point of giving nothing back to the street. By engineering design, no light was authorized to pass through that glass. Tanaka lowered her head and looked back at that bus pass-style photograph. The man in a red apron and white t-shirt, which were also part of the MinouseMart uniform.

His expression conveyed what he was thinking; his gaze at the camera revealed what was left to order for that week, yet his utter lack of lip tension could simply mean he just wanted to leave.

"But what does this mean?" Tanaka asked as she placed the tablet on the desk.

"I don't know. The Precedent Registry is fragmented. Most of it was sealed centuries ago, Director. It seems they were inherited from another government organization." Tanaka returned to the desk and took another sip of her coffee, but the coffee had completely gone cold. Even so, she didn't grimace at the taste; it already had a faint flavor of defeat mixed with white plastic.

"Inherited from whom?"

"It doesn't say, Director... but there is this note at the bottom of the file." Hayashi rotated the tablet toward her and enlarged the text with two fingers.

"Someone created a program about these things, with that name: Container Program." Tanaka read the sentence in silence.

"If found, do not be aggressive. Cooperation is preferred; attacking is discouraged." Tanaka kept staring at those words.

"The System is repeating something that someone taught it, but this is something old. It was written by someone centuries ago." She brought her hand to her chin and thought: Container Program. She had heard that before, in whispers, a long time ago, during meetings held in windowless rooms with absolutely no ventilation.

"Hayashi, I want everything there is on the Container Program."

"But, Director..." Hayashi stammered, "those files require a clearance level that..."

"Then we will grant that clearance." Hayashi simply nodded his head. And then he left the office with the same rush as someone running late to catch a train. Tanaka looked back at Soren Vonesdar's photograph, at that aggressively common face, at the MinouseMart uniform that probably cost less than the coffee she drank every day.

"Who are you, kid?" The photograph didn't answer her. She then opened the meeting request she had sent him the previous night, and, as per usual, zero replies. She looked specifically at the end: "Your cooperation will be appreciated," and reflected. Perhaps it had been too subtle. She clicked on new message and started drafting a new approach, much more direct this time.

WID, Shift Log Chiyoda Floor: 51 4: 02 AM Subject: [1] Classification attempts: [313] Classifications obtained: [0] Experts consulted: [4] Experts available for a second consultation: [2] Number of coffees consumed: [Undetermined] Case status: [In progress] Protocol status: [In progress] Director status: [In progress]