The intake floor smelled different in the morning. Less metallic and more like people. The Extractor hummed at a higher pitch, alert and ready.
Elarina checked in and took her station. Mirakei’s console across the hall remained dark. Someone had placed a temporary barrier in front of it, the kind used during maintenance. No name was attached.
She didn’t ask.
Her first intake was scheduled for mid-morning. Until then, she ran diagnostics and reviewed the case file.
The client was an office worker. Male. Late forties, an unassuming dollop of a man. Recent bereavement. No prior interventions. Emotional load within normal parameters.
She was almost envious of how empty he must be.
When the man arrived, he looked tired rather than broken. His hands were smooth. He sat when instructed and waited. Elarina spoke in the measured tone Intakers used. Not too gentle or cold.
“You’ll feel pressure,” she said. “You may feel tired afterward. You will remember what happened, but it won’t hurt the same way.”
He nodded. “That’s just what I need.”
She initiated the soft field.
The grief came in waves. Loss, regret, the dull ache of absence. It was heavy, but came away clean enough. Elarina took what the Extractor indicated and let the rest pass through.
There were no objects. No names that stuck. The memory fragments dissolved as expected.
When it was done, the man exhaled slowly.
“It’s quieter,” he said. “It’s still there. But it’s so much quieter. I truly hadn’t expected that. I can’t thank you enough -”
Stolen novel; please report.
Elarina gave him a quick, closed-lip smile. “No need. That’s the goal and it’s my job,” she said.
His mouth snapped shut, startled at her abruptness. It never did well to engage with them further. Elarina busied herself with the closing procedures and the man left in silence.
The console lights returned to green.
Elarina checked herself. No bleed. No intrusion. The pen did not surface.
That should have reassured her. Instead, it sharpened her awareness of the difference.
At midday, she shared a meal with a woman named Ressa who had been on the floor longer than she had. Eating with Ressa was a wonder for her appetite after extractions, which increased nausea and sickness as a rule. The latter could clear heaping piles of rice, stew, chicken with the same mouth that she used in the same moment to talk about her children’s shenanigans and husband’s oddities. Ressa’s voraciousness left no traces on her face or body, however. She had the same wisps-for-hair, the same sunken eyes as most other Intakers.
“Mirakei back yet?” Ressa asked. She was slow today, stirring her food between bites. Unusual.
“No,” Elarina said. She didn’t ask why she had asked her, in particular, about his whereabouts. In addition to being unusually observant (or perhaps, inherent to being so), Ressa was a gossip. Whenever her back pain got too much, she was relieved from Intake duties and assigned to Administration. She always returned from these shifts bursting with titbits, with the same pride as a fisherman returning with a full net. If loose lips could sink ships, hers could take down a flotilla.
Ressa nodded once. “Reviews take time, I guess.”
They finished lunch in silence.
The afternoon intake involved anger. Contained, habitual anger inherent to routine. Elarina absorbed it without difficulty. The Extractor behaved as expected.
Between cases, she felt the memory shift slightly. Not forward or outward. Just enough to make its presence known.
She tightened her containment without visible reaction.
At the end of the day, she logged her work and signed out. The system accepted her numbers without issue. As she passed Administration, she saw Mirakei’s name on a pending review list. No details or dates.
Outside, the city moved in the same way. The Khali district above gleamed faintly in the pale light. The Ghariq neighbourhoods below as endlessly, painfully astir as ever.
Elarina walked home.
The job had gone on without disruption.
And the memory had gone on with it.
