Turn 2 of 12

Pull your own folder and read every page before deciding anything

The sticky note peels off with a soft tack-tack-tack, the adhesive reluctant, like the folder doesn't want to let it go. You set it aside on the boiler's casing — pink against grey — and pull your folder free. It weighs almost nothing, which somehow feels worse than the heaviness of Chad's. The tab is soft under your thumb, the letters slightly blurred from handling. BROOKE TANAKA — TEMP, RECORDS — 'EAGER, OBSERVANT, MANAGEABLE.' You open it.

The first page is a typed personnel form, the standard kind — name, start date, emergency contact, the little box for 'role classification' that says TEMP in blocky grey capitals. Nothing you haven't seen before. But the second page is different: a single sheet, typed, dense, formatted like a personality assessment. 'Subject demonstrates high pattern-recognition capacity but low institutional loyalty. Responds well to perceived authority but prone to independent initiative once comfortable. Risk profile: moderate. Retention recommendation: monitor.' Your eyes keep snagging on 'monitor.' Your name is at the top of the page, but the language doesn't feel like it's about you. It feels like a specimen card.

The third page is handwritten, and the handwriting matches the sticky note — round, warm, those same deliberate loops. 'B — showed initiative finding the badge. Good instinct. Too curious, which is the point and also the problem. Let her start small. C is a good first file. She'll want to fix him, which is better than wanting to read herself. — N.' You read it twice. The second time the letters don't change but the room gets colder, or the boiler clicks off, or something. C is Chad. N is — you don't know yet, but the handwriting has a warmth to it that feels practiced, the kind of warmth that's a tool.

There's a fourth page, but it's blank. Clean white sheet, no typing, no handwriting, no form fields. Just empty paper waiting in your folder like a seat saved at a table. You hold the folder open and stare at that blank page and the boiler ticks back on somewhere behind you, and the sound is louder now, or you're quieter, or the difference doesn't matter.

You close the folder. Your hands are steady, which surprises you. The felt-tip pen is still on the cabinet ledge where you set it. Chad's tab is still visible in the open drawer — SR. ANALYST — 'ABRASIVE, TAKES CREDIT' — and now it reads less like an insult and more like an invitation. A first file. A good first file. Someone wanted you to start there. Someone who knows your name and your habits and what you'll want to fix first. The question isn't whether you'll relabel Chad. The question is whether you're the one choosing to.