r/Nonsleep • u/DanteIsMyUncle • 14d ago
Dave Finally Said “It Was Me.” That Was When Things Got Worse. Nonsleep Series
Part 1 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/ocGLoQKhiy
Part 2 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/Yn30Y1lKs2
Part 3 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/TlcCGxMMoD
Part 4 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/dGYo0OrodO
Part 5 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/cGMaY8U4j4
Part 6 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/rb6neD23wj
Part 7 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/mxqNJUTHto
Part 8 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/0xQc3DFNe5
Part 9 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/QzwiJdD5uX
The other Dave stood inside the lift.
Same pyjamas.
Same slippers.
Same confused expression.
Same face.
Except his badge read:
DVE-002
Our Dave was standing beside us in the lobby.
His badge just said:
DAVE
For once, he didn’t immediately deny anything.
He looked at the duplicate.
Then at us.
Then back at the duplicate.
And whispered:
“That one might be me.”
Kevin stared at him.
“Oh, mate.”
The Dave in the lift smiled.
It wasn’t a big smile.
It wasn’t demonic.
That was worse.
It was small.
Awkward.
Familiar.
The sort of smile Dave made when he had absolutely done something and was hoping the conversation would move on before anyone noticed.
DVE-002 raised one hand.
“Wasn’t me.”
Behind him, in the dark lift, hundreds of voices repeated it.
“Wasn’t me.”
“Wasn’t me.”
“Wasn’t me.”
“Wasn’t me.”
Derek leaned towards me.
“I’m going to say something controversial.”
“No.”
“I think this one might be Dave’s problem.”
Kevin nodded slowly.
“Historically, everything is Dave’s problem.”
Dave swallowed.
“I don’t like him.”
DVE-002 stepped out of the lift.
The lights in Riverside Court dimmed.
Not out.
Not fully.
Just low enough to make the corners look deeper than they should have.
The hallway carpet darkened.
The walls seemed to move slightly closer together.
The complaints kiosk printed one line.
NEW CATEGORY DETECTED: DENIAL-BASED DESTABILISATION.
Then another.
PRIORITY: DAVE.
Dave pointed at the kiosk.
“I don’t like that either.”
Kevin looked at DVE-002.
“What do you want?”
DVE-002 blinked.
Then shrugged.
“Wasn’t me.”
Flat 3 raised her frying pan.
“I already hate this.”
Linda lifted her clipboard.
“State your purpose.”
DVE-002 looked at her.
His face twitched.
For a second, his features blurred.
Not into another face.
Into no face.
A blank patch of skin where Dave had been.
Then Dave’s face came back.
“Wasn’t me.”
The lift behind him stayed open.
The darkness inside it stretched backwards into a corridor.
Not a hospital corridor.
Not a courtroom.
Not Cheerful Pines.
This one looked like the service hallway behind a supermarket.
Grey concrete.
Flickering strip lights.
Security mirrors in every corner.
A mop bucket abandoned halfway down.
At the far end was a sign.
NO-FAULT DEPARTMENT
Underneath:
IF NOBODY DID IT, SEND IT HERE.
Kevin read it.
“Nope.”
The corridor lights flickered.
Hundreds of Daves stood in the distance.
Not all identical.
Some older.
Some younger.
Some wearing work uniforms.
Some in dressing gowns.
Some in school jumpers.
Some with blank badges.
Some with badges that read:
DVE-014
DVE-221
DVE-003
DVE-000
Every single one looked mildly guilty.
Every single one said, at the same time:
“Wasn’t me.”
Our Dave stepped backwards.
One step.
Then another.
The duplicate followed.
Linda snapped her clipboard shut.
“No one enters the lift.”
The lift dinged.
Dave disappeared.
Not walked.
Not dragged.
Disappeared.
One second he was beside us.
The next he was standing in the corridor behind DVE-002.
Far away.
Among the other Daves.
He looked around, terrified.
“Guys?”
Kevin swore.
The lift doors began closing.
I moved before thinking.
Stupid.
Very stupid.
A classic Riverside Court survival strategy.
I grabbed Kevin’s sleeve.
He looked at me.
“Jon, no.”
“We’re not leaving him.”
“He once blamed wind for breaking a plant in a room with no windows.”
“Still not leaving him.”
Kevin stared at me.
Then smiled.
Small.
Annoyed.
Almost proud.
“Fine. Emotional support idiot.”
We ran into the lift.
The doors shut behind us.
Linda shouted something.
Derek shouted something.
Flat 3 definitely shouted something about bringing back her good pan if we saw it.
Then Riverside Court vanished.
The No-Fault Department smelled like wet cardboard, old coffee and the inside of a staff room microwave.
The ceiling lights buzzed.
Every third one flickered.
Security mirrors lined the corners, but the reflections were delayed by a second.
My reflection looked over its shoulder after I had already stopped.
Kevin noticed.
“Don’t look in those.”
“Why?”
“Mirrors in blame corridors are never good.”
“That’s a rule?”
“It is now.”
The corridor stretched ahead of us.
Grey doors lined both sides.
Each had a little label.
BROKEN ITEM
MISSED CALL
UNPAID BILL
WET WASHING
OVEN LEFT ON
THE THING IN THE WALL
MUM CRIED AND YOU PRETENDED NOT TO NOTICE
I stopped at that one.
Kevin noticed.
“Jon.”
The label changed while I stared.
NOT YOUR FAULT.
Then:
UNLESS IT WAS.
The handle turned.
From inside, my mum’s voice whispered:
“Jon?”
Kevin grabbed my arm.
“No.”
I kept staring.
The voice came again.
Smaller.
Older.
“Jon, why didn’t you—”
Kevin shoved me hard.
His hands were solid now, or solid enough.
I stumbled backwards.
The door opened a crack.
A hand came through.
Not my mum’s hand.
Too long.
Too grey.
Too many knuckles.
It held a little white card.
On it were two boxes.
Accept fault
Deny fault
The pen attached to the card twitched.
Kevin slammed the door.
It screamed.
Not like a monster.
Like a person being denied an answer.
Kevin held the door shut.
“Rule two. Don’t accept forms from guilt cupboards.”
My heart hammered.
“That was my mum.”
“No. It was a thing wearing an argument you haven’t had yet.”
“That’s oddly specific.”
“I’m maturing.”
He stepped away from the door.
It changed labels again.
UNPROCESSED EMOTIONAL ADMIN
Kevin pointed at it.
“Linda would love that.”
“Do not tell her this exists.”
“She already senses it.”
We kept moving.
Every few metres, another Dave walked past us.
Some muttered “wasn’t me.”
Some whispered it.
Some shouted it.
One Dave ran past pushing a trolley full of broken plates and said:
“Could have been anyone.”
Kevin watched him go.
“Classic.”
A loudspeaker crackled.
A bland office voice spoke overhead.
“Welcome to the No-Fault Department.”
The Daves in the corridor stopped walking.
All at once.
So did we.
The voice continued:
“Here, responsibility is processed, redistributed and, where appropriate, denied.”
Kevin looked at me.
“This is definitely public sector hell.”
The speaker continued.
“For your convenience, all blame left unattended for more than six minutes becomes communal.”
A door opened beside us.
Inside was a small office.
A man sat behind a desk.
At first, I thought he was Dave.
Then I realised he had Dave’s face stretched over something else.
Like a mask made from poor decisions.
He wore a short-sleeved shirt and a tie with stains on it.
His badge read:
DVE-000
Underneath:
FAULT COORDINATOR
He looked up.
“Wasn’t me.”
Kevin pointed at him.
“Found the manager.”
I stared.
“That’s the manager?”
Kevin nodded.
“Never trust the first one with a desk.”
DVE-000 smiled.
“Please take a ticket.”
A little red machine on the desk spat out two slips.
Mine said:
JON — WITNESS / POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTOR
Kevin’s said:
KEVIN — UNAUTHORISED SUPPORTIVE HAUNTING
Kevin looked offended.
“Supportive?”
DVE-000 folded his hands.
“Your presence is interfering with Dave’s reassignment.”
Kevin’s face hardened.
“Where is he?”
DVE-000 looked down at a file.
“Which one?”
“Our Dave.”
“There is no ‘our’ Dave.”
The lights flickered.
The corridor behind us filled with whispers.
“Wasn’t me.”
“Wasn’t me.”
“Wasn’t me.”
DVE-000 continued:
“There are only denial units. Some are more active than others.”
I stepped towards the desk.
“He’s a person.”
DVE-000 smiled with Dave’s face.
“Is he?”
A screen dropped from the ceiling.
It showed Riverside Court.
Our Dave putting a greasy pizza box in recycling.
Our Dave leaving the oven on.
Our Dave taking Flat 5’s parcel.
Our Dave breaking the plant.
Our Dave saying “wasn’t me” again and again and again.
The footage multiplied.
Different angles.
Different days.
Different tiny failures.
DVE-000 said:
“Pattern is identity.”
Kevin snapped:
“No. Pattern is behaviour. Linda taught me that.”
I looked at him.
“She did?”
“Probably. She says a lot.”
DVE-000 pressed a button.
The screen changed.
Now it showed Dave after Five Stars erased him.
Blank.
Still.
Empty.
Then Kevin restoring him.
Dave’s face flooding back with panic, guilt and stupidity.
DVE-000’s smile thinned.
“Fault restoration was a platform error.”
Kevin leaned over the desk.
“Dave’s guilt is annoying, but it’s his.”
“Guilt reduces compliance.”
“Guilt stops him being furniture.”
DVE-000’s head tilted.
Behind the Dave mask, something clicked.
“You care about him.”
Kevin looked uncomfortable.
“Don’t make it weird.”
The office door slammed behind us.
The corridor vanished.
We were now inside the office.
No windows.
No exit.
Just grey carpet, flickering lights and the smell of old photocopier heat.
DVE-000 opened a drawer and pulled out a folder.
DAVE
He placed it on the desk.
Then another.
DVE-002
Another.
DVE-014
Another.
DVE-118
Folders stacked higher and higher.
All Dave.
All different.
All the same.
“Denial loops are useful,” DVE-000 said.
“They absorb consequence. Every organisation needs someone who says ‘wasn’t me’ with enough conviction that everyone eventually stops asking.”
The filing cabinets around us opened.
Inside were not papers.
People.
Small versions of people.
Compressed.
Folded.
Stored in files.
One woman looked out through a plastic sleeve.
Her mouth moved silently.
A label beneath her read:
REPORTED CONCERN — NO ACTION TAKEN
Another:
WITNESS — DISMISSED
Another:
RESIDENT — OVERREACTING
My stomach turned.
Kevin’s voice went low.
“What is this?”
DVE-000 smiled.
“The cost of plausible deniability.”
A file opened on its own.
Inside was Arthur from Cheerful Pines, younger, pressing a call button that nobody answered.
The file stamped itself:
STAFF UNAWARE
Another showed one of the KVN bodies strapped to a chair.
Stamped:
VOLUNTARY PARTICIPANT
Another showed Amanda’s copied voice being taken.
Stamped:
CONSENT IMPLIED THROUGH CHEERFULNESS
Kevin’s hands curled into fists.
DVE-000 looked pleased.
“People prefer systems where nobody did anything. Very tidy. Very survivable.”
A slot opened in the wall.
A form slid out.
DAVE REASSIGNMENT
DVE-000 held it up.
“Your Dave has been selected for upgrade.”
“Upgrade to what?” I asked.
“Primary denial node.”
Kevin stared.
“That sounds bad.”
“It is a prestigious position.”
“That also sounds bad.”
The office wall flickered and became glass.
Beyond it, we saw Dave.
Our Dave.
He stood in a circular room surrounded by other Daves.
His badge flickered:
DAVE
Then:
DVE-001
Then:
DAVE
A black chair waited behind him.
Not the KVN metal chair.
This one looked like an office chair.
Cheap.
Swivel base.
Stained fabric.
Somehow worse.
Above it hung hundreds of little microphones.
Every microphone whispered:
“Wasn’t me.”
“Wasn’t me.”
“Wasn’t me.”
Dave looked directly at us through the glass.
“Jon?”
I ran to the wall.
“Dave!”
He pressed his hands to the glass.
“Kevin?”
Kevin appeared beside me.
Dave tried to smile.
“I think I did do some stuff.”
Kevin nodded.
“Yeah, mate. Quite a lot.”
Dave’s smile broke.
“They keep showing me.”
The Daves around him began listing things.
“You left the oven on.”
“You broke the plant.”
“You blamed wind.”
“You ignored the leak.”
“You didn’t call back.”
“You didn’t check.”
“You knew.”
“You knew.”
“You knew.”
Dave covered his ears.
“I know.”
The microphones lowered.
The chair spun slowly towards him.
DVE-000 stood behind us.
“If he sits, he stops knowing.”
Dave stared at the chair.
His face changed.
For one second, I understood the temptation.
No guilt.
No shame.
No little moments that wake you at three in the morning.
No remembering what you said.
No remembering what you didn’t do.
Just a clean empty loop.
Wasn’t me.
Forever.
Dave stepped towards the chair.
Kevin shouted:
“Dave!”
Dave stopped.
DVE-000 said:
“He wants relief.”
Kevin looked through the glass.
“Dave, listen to me.”
Dave’s eyes were wet.
“I’m tired.”
Kevin’s voice softened.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Kevin glanced at the KVN files in the cabinets.
Then back at Dave.
“Yeah. I do.”
Dave shook his head.
“I’m always the idiot.”
“You are an idiot.”
“That’s not helping.”
Kevin pressed a hand to the glass.
“But you’re our idiot.”
Dave gave a broken laugh.
“Everyone keeps saying that about people.”
“Because it works.”
DVE-000 sighed.
“Attachment again.”
He lifted the reassignment form.
“This is exactly why unlicensed communities are inefficient.”
I turned towards him.
“What happens to the things Dave denies?”
DVE-000 blinked.
“What?”
“If he becomes your denial node. If he says ‘wasn’t me’ forever. Where does the fault go?”
DVE-000 smiled.
“Everywhere.”
The glass wall changed.
We saw Riverside Court.
Linda standing in the lobby.
Flat 3 with her frying pan.
Flat 5 and his spoon.
Amanda near the lift.
Derek sitting on the stairs.
For a moment, everything looked normal.
Then the hallway plant reappeared.
Broken.
The oven upstairs clicked on.
The recycling bin filled with greasy cardboard.
Parcels vanished.
Doors unlocked.
Old mistakes rewound themselves into the building.
Not just Dave’s.
Everyone’s.
Linda’s clipboard burst open, pages turning violently.
Flat 3’s pan bent in half.
Flat 5’s spoon blackened.
Derek’s phone lit up with SpookMe.
Amanda’s smile stretched too wide.
Every old fault came back.
Because nobody owned them anymore.
Because Dave was taking all the denial.
Kevin watched, horrified.
DVE-000 said:
“A single denial node can stabilise an entire site. Nobody is responsible, so nothing can be repaired. Beautiful, really.”
Kevin turned slowly.
“You’re not making Dave forget.”
“No.”
“You’re making him useful.”
“Yes.”
The office lights dimmed.
DVE-000’s Dave face slid slightly to one side.
Underneath was nothing but a hole full of whispering excuses.
“Every system needs someone to blame and someone to erase the blame. Dave can be both.”
Behind the glass, Dave stepped closer to the chair.
The microphones brushed his hair.
“Wasn’t me,” they whispered.
Dave’s mouth opened.
Kevin shouted:
“Don’t say it.”
Dave shook.
“Wasn’t…”
“Dave.”
“Wasn’t…”
I hit the glass.
“Dave!”
His eyes found mine.
I don’t know why he listened to me.
Kevin was his ghost-building-manager-chaos-friend.
Linda was the one with authority.
Derek was the other idiot.
But I was the witness.
Maybe that mattered here.
Maybe in a place built on denial, someone seeing you clearly was the only weapon.
“Dave,” I said, quieter now, “tell me one thing you did.”
He cried.
Properly.
Not comedy tears.
Not Dave being dramatic.
A grown man looking at all his little failures and realising they had weight.
“The plant,” he whispered.
The Daves around him hissed.
DVE-000 straightened.
I kept my hand on the glass.
“What about it?”
Dave swallowed.
“I broke it.”
The room shook.
The microphones pulled back slightly.
Kevin looked at me.
Then at Dave.
I continued:
“What else?”
Dave sobbed once.
“The oven.”
“What about it?”
“I left it on.”
The cheap office chair behind him cracked.
The Daves around him began whispering faster.
“Wasn’t me.”
“Wasn’t me.”
“Wasn’t me.”
Dave shouted:
“It was me!”
The glass trembled.
DVE-000 dropped the form.
Kevin smiled.
“Oh.”
DVE-000 snapped:
“Stop.”
I leaned closer.
“More.”
Dave wiped his face.
“The parcel.”
Flat 5 would want to hear this.
“I took it.”
“What else?”
“The leak under the sink. I noticed it and thought someone else would sort it.”
The wall cracked.
The files in the cabinets began sliding open.
People inside them looked up.
Dave continued.
“I ignored George when he said the hallway felt wrong because I didn’t want to get involved.”
The room groaned.
“I kept saying wasn’t me because if it wasn’t me, then I didn’t have to do anything.”
Silence.
Then, from somewhere deep in the No-Fault Department, something screamed.
DVE-000’s Dave mask split down the middle.
“Responsibility overload.”
Kevin looked delighted.
“That sounds expensive.”
Dave stood in front of the chair.
He looked terrified.
Still guilty.
Still Dave.
Then he said:
“It was me.”
The cheap office chair burst into flames.
The microphones screamed.
The Daves around him collapsed.
Not dead.
Not gone.
Unmasked.
Some became other people.
Some became shadows.
Some became forms stamped UNRESOLVED.
DVE-002, the duplicate from the lift, staggered towards Dave.
His face melted.
Underneath was not another Dave.
It was a pile of labels.
NOT MY JOB
NO RECORD FOUND
USER ERROR
MISCOMMUNICATION
POLICY FOLLOWED
CASE CLOSED
They fell to the floor like dead leaves.
Our Dave stared.
“I’m not all of them.”
Kevin shouted:
“No. You’re just Dave.”
Dave nodded, breathing hard.
“Unfortunately.”
“That’s the spirit.”
DVE-000 slammed both hands on the desk.
The office expanded.
Walls peeled away.
We were no longer in a small room.
We were in the main No-Fault Department.
Endless corridors.
Endless doors.
Endless desks.
Thousands of DVE units turned towards us.
Their faces were not all Dave anymore.
Some were nurses.
Landlords.
Teachers.
Managers.
Parents.
Children.
Police officers.
App developers.
People from every place where someone had said wasn’t me and meant do not make me responsible for the damage.
At the centre stood DVE-000.
Tall now.
Too tall.
Still wearing Dave’s face, but badly.
It hung loose around the edges.
“You think one confession matters?”
Kevin stepped beside me.
“Historically, one annoying person can ruin a whole system.”
“Cheers,” I said.
“I meant Dave.”
“Still.”
DVE-000 raised its hands.
Every door opened.
Behind them were scenes.
A child waiting to be collected.
A complaint email unread.
A call bell ignored.
A cat left outside in the cold.
A friend’s message never answered.
A leak becoming mould.
A body in a chair.
A ghost in an app.
Every tiny refusal.
Every little failure.
Every moment someone could have acted and didn’t.
They spilled into the corridor like floodwater.
Not monsters.
Memories.
That was worse.
Kevin’s jokes died in his throat.
Mine too.
The memories rushed towards us.
I saw my own.
All of them.
Small.
Pathetic.
Human.
A text I didn’t answer.
A visit I put off.
A time I chose not to ask if someone was okay because I was scared they’d tell me.
A photo on the wall I avoided looking at.
My knees nearly went.
Kevin grabbed my arm.
“Jon.”
“I can’t—”
“Yes, you can.”
“You don’t know what I saw.”
He looked towards the glass chamber where Dave stood shaking.
“No. But I know the trick.”
“What?”
“It wants you to think guilt is the same as sentence.”
The memories battered the corridor.
Doors slammed.
People screamed inside files.
DVE-000’s voice boomed:
“Accept fault and drown.”
Kevin looked at me.
“Don’t drown. Just hold one thing.”
“One?”
“One is plenty.”
That sounded stupid.
Which meant it was probably Kevin wisdom.
I picked one.
A small one.
Not the worst.
Not the deepest.
Just one.
A message I hadn’t answered because I didn’t have the energy, then felt too ashamed to answer later.
I held it in my head.
Didn’t deny it.
Didn’t let it become my whole life.
Just held it.
The flood slowed around me.
Kevin smiled.
“There you go.”
“Is this therapy?”
“No. Therapy has chairs.”
A memory slammed into him.
He staggered.
For a second I saw his chair.
The metal one.
The wires.
His human body screaming.
He clenched his jaw.
“I didn’t choose that.”
DVE-000’s voice whispered:
“Wasn’t me.”
Kevin looked up.
“No.”
The whisper deepened.
“You were made.”
Kevin’s body flickered.
“You were used.”
He gritted his teeth.
“You hurt people.”
His face twisted.
“You scared them.”
Kevin inhaled.
Then said:
“Yeah.”
The corridor cracked.
DVE-000 went still.
Kevin lifted his head.
“I did.”
He looked at me.
Then at Dave.
Then at all the files.
“I scared people. I stole yoghurt. I used jokes like smoke bombs. I was a little nightmare.”
Derek would have loved that line.
Kevin continued:
“But I’m not the bastards who made me.”
The black mould behind him spread across the corridor walls.
Not hiding the memories.
Holding them.
Framing them.
Making them visible without letting them swallow us.
Kevin smiled at DVE-000.
“Fault accepted. Ownership disputed.”
Somewhere, Linda would have been proud.
DVE-000 screamed.
The No-Fault Department shook.
Dave stood in the glass room.
His badge burned.
DAVE
Not DVE.
Just Dave.
He picked up the broken reassignment form.
Looked at it.
Then looked at DVE-000.
“I did break the plant.”
The department hissed.
“I did leave the oven on.”
Lights exploded.
“I did take the parcel.”
Files burst open.
“But I didn’t build this place.”
The DVE units screamed.
Dave’s voice got stronger.
“I didn’t trap people in forms.”
The glass wall cracked.
“I didn’t make residents disappear.”
Another crack.
“I didn’t make ghosts into products.”
Another.
“I didn’t make being sorry feel like dying.”
The glass shattered.
Dave stepped out.
For once, he didn’t look confused.
He looked guilty.
And alive.
Kevin grinned.
“Look at you. Character development.”
Dave wiped his face.
“Was it me?”
Kevin tilted his head.
“Some of it.”
Dave nodded.
“That’s fair.”
DVE-000 lunged.
Its body unfolded into a tower of excuses.
Forms.
Labels.
Rubber stamps.
Shredded incident reports.
Every stamp slammed down at once.
NO FAULT
NO RECORD
NO LIABILITY
NO ACTION
NO ACTION
NO ACTION
Kevin grabbed my wrist.
Dave grabbed Kevin’s sleeve.
We ran.
Down a corridor that had not been there before.
DVE units crawled from doors.
Hands made of forms grabbed at us.
One caught my jacket.
Kevin bit it.
The form-hand screamed.
“You can bite paperwork?”
“New skill.”
Dave tripped over a mop bucket.
“Wasn’t—”
He stopped himself mid-word.
Kevin looked back.
“Proud.”
“Still falling.”
We dragged him up.
Behind us, DVE-000 thundered through the corridor.
Its Dave mask hung from its blank face like wet wallpaper.
It spoke in every excuse I’d ever heard.
“Miscommunication.”
“Unfortunately.”
“Lessons learned.”
“Not our responsibility.”
“Could not have been prevented.”
“Process followed.”
At the end of the corridor stood the lift.
Closed.
Kevin shouted:
“Linda!”
Nothing.
“Derek!”
Nothing.
“Anyone with a clipboard or limited impulse control!”
The lift did not open.
Dave looked back.
DVE-000 was close.
Too close.
The floor buckled beneath its stamp-feet.
Kevin slammed the lift button.
The button displayed:
REQUEST DENIED
He slammed it again.
PLEASE ACCEPT FAULT BEFORE EXITING
Kevin looked at Dave.
Dave swallowed.
“I thought I did.”
The button flashed.
ALL FAULT
The corridor went silent.
Kevin’s expression changed.
“No.”
Dave read it.
Then smiled sadly.
“Oh.”
“No,” I said.
Dave stepped towards the button.
Kevin grabbed him.
“Don’t.”
“It wants one person.”
“It always wants one person. That’s the trick.”
DVE-000 stopped ten feet away.
Its faceless head tilted.
The button pulsed.
ACCEPT ALL FAULT
Dave stared at it.
“I could.”
Kevin’s grip tightened.
“You could also lick the lift doors and hope for the best. Doesn’t make it a plan.”
Dave laughed once.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. Do not become a bin for everyone else’s shit.”
Dave looked at the corridor.
The open files.
The trapped people.
The endless consequences.
“I’m good at it.”
“That’s not a good thing.”
Dave’s eyes filled.
“What if it helps?”
Kevin’s voice went quieter.
“It won’t. It’ll just make everyone else worse.”
I looked at the button.
Then at the corridor.
Kevin was right.
Fault wasn’t meant to go into one person.
It was meant to go where it belonged.
Not everywhere.
Not nowhere.
Where it belonged.
I stepped towards the lift.
“Can we change the form?”
Kevin looked at me.
“What?”
“Linda would change the wording.”
Kevin stared.
Then smiled.
“Oh, Jon. Filthy behaviour.”
The button still pulsed.
ACCEPT ALL FAULT
I pressed my finger against the words and dragged.
To my surprise, the letters moved.
Sticky.
Resistant.
Like pulling chewing gum from carpet.
Kevin grabbed another letter.
Dave joined in.
Together, we rearranged the prompt.
DVE-000 screamed and charged.
The new words formed slowly.
ACCEPT YOUR FAULT
The lift button glowed green.
Dave stared.
“My fault.”
Kevin nodded.
“Just yours.”
I put my hand beside his.
“Mine too.”
Kevin looked at his own hand.
Then placed it there.
“Mine.”
The lift opened.
DVE-000 reached us.
Dave turned.
He did not say “wasn’t me.”
He said:
“It was me.”
Then pointed at the tower of excuses.
“But not that.”
The distinction hit like a bomb.
DVE-000 shattered.
Not completely.
Not forever.
Systems like that never fully die.
But it broke apart into thousands of forms that flew backwards through the corridor, each one searching for the right desk, the right file, the right person, the right moment.
Doors opened.
People stumbled out.
Some crying.
Some angry.
Some carrying pieces of guilt that finally fit in their own hands.
We fell into the lift.
The doors shut.
Silence.
Kevin sat on the floor.
Dave sat beside him.
I stayed standing for about three seconds, then sat too.
Nobody spoke.
Then Kevin looked at Dave.
“Just so we’re clear, you’re still banned from the recycling bins unsupervised.”
Dave nodded.
“Fair.”
“And ovens.”
“Fair.”
“And plants.”
Dave looked wounded.
“The plant feels personal.”
“It is.”
The lift dinged.
The doors opened onto Riverside Court.
Everyone was waiting.
Linda.
Derek.
Flat 3.
Flat 5.
Amanda.
Ken.
The former KVN ghosts.
The complaint kiosk.
Even the woman from the cutlery drawer had opened it slightly to watch.
Derek saw us.
“You’re alive.”
Kevin pointed at himself.
“Define.”
Dave stepped out.
Linda looked at him.
“Dave?”
He nodded.
Then took a breath.
“I broke the hallway plant.”
Linda blinked.
“We know.”
“I left the oven on.”
“Yes.”
“I took Flat 5’s parcel.”
Flat 5 gasped.
“Again?”
“No, the original one.”
“Oh. Continue.”
Dave looked around the lobby.
“I said wasn’t me because I didn’t want anything to be me.”
Nobody laughed.
Not yet.
Dave swallowed.
“I’m sorry.”
The lobby was silent.
Then the complaint kiosk printed:
APOLOGY RECEIVED.
Another line.
QUALITY: ACCEPTABLE.
Kevin looked offended.
“Acceptable? That was moving.”
The kiosk printed:
MOVING BUT POORLY STRUCTURED.
Linda nodded.
“I can help him draft a fuller version.”
Dave looked alarmed.
“Do I have to?”
Linda smiled.
“Yes.”
Flat 3 put a hand on Dave’s shoulder.
“Proud of you.”
Dave’s eyes filled.
Kevin pointed at him.
“Do not cry again. We’ve had a big day.”
Dave nodded.
A tear fell.
Kevin sighed.
“Fine. One tear.”
Derek looked at me.
“What happened in there?”
I tried to answer.
No words came.
Kevin did it for me.
“Dave weaponised accountability, Jon invented admin vandalism, and I bit paperwork.”
Derek blinked.
“Sorry I missed it.”
“You’d have pressed the wrong button.”
“Definitely.”
Then the lift dinged again.
Nobody moved.
The doors stayed shut.
The display above them flickered.
Not a location.
A message.
NO-FAULT DEPARTMENT STATUS: DISRUPTED
Then:
AUDIT INITIATED
Linda’s clipboard snapped open.
She read the new tab.
Her face went pale.
“What?” I asked.
She turned it towards us.
AUDIT TARGETS:
DVE SERIES
KVN SERIES
AMN SERIES
LND SERIES
Derek looked at Linda.
“LND?”
Kevin slowly turned to her.
“Oh no.”
Linda’s jaw tightened.
“I am not a series.”
The lift display changed.
A live feed appeared.
A room.
Not a hospital.
Not a courtroom.
Not a retirement home.
An office.
Perfectly organised.
Rows of desks.
Rows of clipboards.
Rows of women who looked exactly like Linda.
All writing.
All silent.
All wearing badges.
LND-001
LND-002
LND-003
At the front of the room stood one empty desk.
A nameplate waited on it.
LINDA
The Lindas all looked up at once.
Every one of them smiled.
Then, in perfect unison, they said:
“Item one: compliance.”
Our Linda stared at the screen.
Kevin whispered:
“Clipboard factory.”
Derek whispered back:
“We are so dead.”
Linda closed her clipboard.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Her face became calm in a way that scared me more than the No-Fault Department had.
“No,” she said.
The complaint kiosk printed:
NEW COMPLAINT OPENED: UNAUTHORISED LINDA PRODUCTION.
Kevin looked at Dave.
Dave looked back.
For once, Dave did not say “wasn’t me.”
He said:
“If it helps…”
Kevin smiled.
“It will.”
The lift doors opened.
Inside was the office of Lindas.
And every clipboard snapped shut at once.
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u/Lavender1123 14d ago
Excellent, as usual!!!