Story code: ST-000954
Part 2: The Inactive Profile
Eleanor stopped breathing. Her thumb hovered over the glowing green call button. The man’s hand emerged from the faded green canvas. He did not pull a weapon. He pulled a thick, clear plastic sleeve attached to a retractable lanyard. He let it snap back against his chest.
It was a corporate vendor badge. The logo of her company sat in the top left corner, crisp and undeniable. Below it, bold black text read: *Ecological Survey – Authorized Personnel*.
Eleanor stared at the laminated rectangle. The rational part of her brain, the part that approved invoices and navigated board meetings, recognized the standard contractor template. But the adrenaline surging through her veins rejected it completely. The red flashing light of the lobby turnstile bled into her vision. If her own badge, the badge of a regional director, was currently bouncing off the servers, there was no way this man’s access was legitimate. He was a trespasser with a printer.
She scoffed, the sound sharp and metallic in the crisp morning air. She informed him that a generic piece of plastic did not grant him immunity from the compliance mandates. She demanded the name of his internal sponsor.
The man sighed, a soft, slow exhalation that ruffled the collar of his jacket. He turned his attention back to the viewfinder. He said the name David Chen, speaking to the camera rather than to her.
David Chen. The VP of Corporate Sustainability. A man Eleanor had openly argued with in the Q3 budget alignment meeting, calling his wetlands restoration project a glorified tax write-off. The mention of Chen’s name felt like a deliberate, targeted insult. The idea that Chen had authorized this man to trample the very reeds he was supposed to be protecting fueled her outrage.
Eleanor pressed the call button. The phone clicked, routing to the primary security dispatch. A sterile ringing echoed in her ear. She kept her eyes locked on the man. He was ignoring her again, adjusting the focus ring on his massive lens, entirely absorbed by a patch of distant birch trees.
A dispatcher picked up, his voice flat and bored. He asked for her location and the nature of the emergency.
Eleanor straightened her posture, projecting her voice so the man would hear every word. She stated her full name, her title as Director of Regional Logistics, and her location at the East Boardwalk. She reported an aggressive, non-compliant individual trespassing beyond the safety ropes, claiming unauthorized vendor status. She demanded an officer be dispatched immediately.
The dispatcher paused. Keyboard keys clacked in the background. He asked for her six-digit employee identification number.
Eleanor rattled it off, her tone dripping with impatience. She told the dispatcher to hurry, emphasizing that the individual was uncooperative and potentially dangerous.
“Hold please,” the dispatcher said. The line clicked into a tinny loop of synthetic corporate hold music.
Eleanor lowered the phone slightly, glaring at the man. He fired off a rapid sequence of shots, the shutter clicking like a mechanical insect. He remained entirely oblivious to her authority.
Footsteps echoed on the wooden planks behind her. Eleanor glanced over her shoulder. Three junior analysts from the risk assessment department were approaching, carrying paper coffee cups. They wore lightweight cardigans and anxious expressions. They slowed as they neared the scene.
They looked at the man, standing quietly in the mud with his camera. Then they looked at Eleanor. Her face was flushed, her coat was unbuttoned, and she was gripping her phone like a weapon, hovering aggressively over the rope barrier. The analysts exchanged a quick, loaded glance. It was the specific, horrified look subordinates gave when witnessing a senior executive unravel in public.
Eleanor felt a cold spike of humiliation pierce through her anger. She needed to control the narrative. She snapped at the analysts, telling them this area was currently a security hazard and they needed to keep moving toward the building.
The analysts nodded quickly, their eyes wide, and hurried past, stepping far to the opposite edge of the boardwalk to give her a wide berth. One of them whispered something to the other. Eleanor’s face burned. She controlled shipping lanes across three time zones. She was not the crazy woman screaming at a birdwatcher in a swamp.
The hold music cut out. The dispatcher’s voice returned, but the bored tone was gone, replaced by a cautious, guarded hesitation.
“Ma’am, could you repeat that ID number?”
Eleanor ground her teeth. She repeated the six digits, enunciating each one with furious precision. She demanded to know how far away the officers were.
“Ma’am,” the dispatcher said slowly. “That employee number is returning a code four-zero-four. It’s flagged as an inactive profile. I cannot dispatch security personnel to a non-employee without a physical threat.”
The words hit her like physical blows. *Inactive profile. Non-employee.* The lobby turnstile hadn’t been a glitch. The broken email server wasn’t an offshore IT error.
She gripped the phone tighter, her voice rising to a frantic pitch. She shouted that she was a director, that she had worked there for nine years, that the system was wrong. She ordered him to send a guard immediately.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. If you are not an active employee, you need to vacate the corporate campus. If you remain, I will have to send a unit to escort you off the premises.”
The line went dead.
Eleanor stood frozen. The wind whipped across the marsh, chilling the sweat on her neck. She slowly lowered the phone.
The man in the mud stepped backward. He carefully collapsed the legs of his carbon-fiber tripod. He hoisted the heavy camera over his shoulder and easily stepped over the low rope barrier, landing on the boardwalk just a few feet away from her. He did not look angry. He looked at her with a quiet, observant pity.
He told her that the morning light was gone anyway. He suggested, gently, that she should probably check her personal email.
Eleanor stared at him, her chest heaving. How did he know? Why was he looking at her like that? She looked down at her corporate phone, desperate to dial her boss, to dial HR, to dial anyone who could fix this.
The screen flickered. The standard corporate background-a soaring eagle over a glass skyscraper-vanished. A plain black screen took its place. A gray loading bar appeared in the center, underneath a single, sterile line of white text.
*Initiating Remote Device Wipe.*
Eleanor gasped, jabbing her thumb against the screen, desperately trying to swipe it away, to cancel the command, to save her contacts, her files, her proof of existence. The screen ignored her touch. The gray bar began to fill with an unyielding, steady green.