A Headcount from a Floor That Doesn't Exist

The management office at 00:06 had only half its lights on.

On top of the copier the night inspection sheet was still warm, and Yun Seojin looked at the blank space before she looked at the Daon Life Safety logo stamped at the edge of the paper.

The hazard pay signature line.

There was a line for a name but no amount.

Manager Baek Gijun was not on site, he spoke only by phone.

"Seojin, procedure is the same even on your first day. Sign first." Seojin picked up the pen, then tapped the amount box with her index finger. "The amount is missing." On the other end of the line a page turned. "Calculated after the site closes." "And the closing conditions." No answer came.

Kang Doyun held out an envelope from beside the door.

It was a thin card sealed with gray tape.

"Argue about that later."

Seojin took the envelope and looked at Doyun's name tag.

Kang Doyun, senior, Special Complaints Team 3.

The metal clip beside the name tag had worn bare at the corners from long use. He carried a dawn crew tool bag slung over one shoulder.

Team leader Seo Miran's voice came through the radio.

"Building 404, car 1. Confirm the number of people on site first. Log the report by hand." Seojin spoke toward the radio. "How far does the on-site count extend. Passengers, management staff, or remote support." Miran paused a moment, then said. "Whoever gets asked at the site." Doyun broke the tape with his fingernail.

There was only one line on the card.

When asked, answer with one person fewer.

The revision date below it was blank.

The elevator call chime rang.

Seojin tried to look at the back of the card, but Doyun opened the door first. "Get in now." "There is no revision date." "It works without one." He did not explain.

Seojin wrote the time first on the first page of her notebook.

Deployed just before 00:17.

While the pen nib caught on the paper, one of the management office lights went out and came back on.

No one looked that way.

Jang Myeongsu, the security chief, came running with his cap pulled low.

"Oh my, I heard it's your first day. Building 404 is quiet, always has been. No need to blow this up." Even as he said it, he had his old ring of keys gripped in his hand.

Three people were already waiting in front of car 1.

Han Sua, a delivery bag on her back, had her foot planted near the close button. "I just take the photo and go back down, so why hold people up. If the app time runs over, it's on me." Choe Mingyu, a middle schooler, wore a hoodie over his school shirt and held his phone in both hands. Jang Myeongsu asked, "Mingyu, did you call home," then turned toward Seojin.

Doyun pointed a finger inside.

"Seojin, passengers." Seojin asked in order. "Name, destination floor." Sua raised an eyebrow. "Delivery drivers have to give names too?" "If you get erased, the name is what we search by." Sua answered a beat late.

"Han Sua. Completion photo for unit 1102." Jang Myeongsu said, "Jang Myeongsu, patrol." Mingyu said, "Choe Mingyu, eighth floor." Doyun did not say his own name. When Seojin wrote Kang Doyun, field response officer, in her notebook, he clicked his tongue briefly.

The doors closed.

1, 2, 3 passed at the usual speed.

Sua opened her delivery completion screen to take the photo, and Mingyu checked the group chat. Jang Myeongsu said, "Above the twelfth there's only the machine room. And the roof door is locked."

Seojin wrote that under the rest in her notebook.

Machine room above the twelfth floor.

Doyun took his hand off the close button when 11 lit up.

12 lit up and the elevator did not stop.

The display climbed one more.

13.

The number was not red, it was the same green as always.

That was why they noticed even later.

Mingyu said it first.

"Our building doesn't have a thirteenth floor."

The doors opened.

Outside was a hallway.

Same gray tile, same mailbox smell, same emergency light.

The only difference was the door plates.

The first door on the left was unit 1304, and so was the last door on the right. The number stickers were straight and new, and the shoe cabinet in front of each door was empty.

Sua pulled her foot back inside.

"Where is this. I have to upload the photo for 1102." Jang Myeongsu could not pick a single key from his ring. Doyun pressed door close, but the doors stayed open like an automatic door waiting for a person.

The hallway ceiling speaker made the sound of switching on.

It was a child's voice.

Not high, not low, a voice reading an announcement.

"How many persons are currently on board?" Doyun started to answer at once. "Four." Seojin caught his wrist.

Just then five phones rang almost at the same moment.

A poll had opened in the residents' group chat.

Building 404, car 1, passenger confirmation.

Eligible participants 4.

Seojin, Doyun, Jang Myeongsu, and Choe Mingyu had a button on their screens.

On Han Sua's screen the chat room itself did not exist.

Sua shook her own screen.

"I got on right here." Mingyu looked at Sua, then back at his screen.

"But why isn't her name there."

Doyun spoke low.

"Do what the card says." "The card only says to answer with one person fewer. It does not say who to leave out." "That's what one fewer means." "The one left out has already been decided." Seojin opened her notebook.

Doyun pressed door close again.

The hallway speaker repeated the same sentence.

"How many persons are currently on board?" The tone did not rush them.

That was what made people slower to move.

Jang Myeongsu said, "Let's say four for now and check once we're down. See, with this kind of thing the report is what matters."

Sua cut straight in.

"Check what, when I'm not in the report."

Seojin laid a finger on the words on the card.

The surface, like thermal paper, slid a little under her finger.

The blank where the revision date should be caught her eye.

There was no knowing who had changed this line, or when.

But she could know who was standing inside the elevator.

She read out the lines in her notebook one by one.

"Yun Seojin." Doyun said, "Don't." "Kang Doyun." Sua gripped her bag strap. "Han Sua." Jang Myeongsu took off his cap.

"Jang Myeongsu." Mingyu pressed his phone to his chest.

"Choe Mingyu. Five people."

The 1304 numbers on the hallway door plates went dark all at once.

Doyun wedged his shoulder between the doors and held the close button down.

This time the doors closed.

Through the closing gap, someone deeper in the hallway read the names after her.

Yun Seojin.

Kang Doyun.

Han Sua.

Jang Myeongsu.

Choe Mingyu.

Not one pronunciation was wrong.

After the last name, every light inside the elevator went out.

Only the emergency light stayed, low near the floor.

The display did not go from 13 down to 12.

-1 lit up.

Seojin had not set one foot outside the doors.

Instead she looked at the groove in the threshold.

Dust had settled in different directions on the inside and the outside.

In the inner groove there was a black line like a track from the elevator wheels, and in the outer groove there were no footprints. If it were a hallway that waited for people, there should have been at least shoe dust in front of the doors.

Doyun followed where she was looking.

"Don't step out." "I don't intend to. But that floor has never been used." "You're looking at that now?" "I'm looking at which side is the record." Sua raised her phone and photographed the hallway. The camera app said it had finished saving, but all that appeared in the gallery was a black screen.

She started to swear, then saw Mingyu and shut her mouth.

The residents' group chat opened comments under the poll.

No one wrote that there were several unit 1304s. Instead messages went up asking who was holding the elevator so long, why a delivery driver had come in at dawn, whether the security chief had checked. The number, eligible participants 4, stayed pinned above the comments.

Seojin tried to capture the screen.

The capture sound played, but there was no file name in the saved list.

It was being erased before she could even send it to Eunchae.

Doyun said.

"Don't trust the screen." Seojin held up her notebook. "That's why I write by hand." Mingyu asked in a small voice. "Is it okay if you write by hand?" Seojin did not answer right away.

"I don't know if it's okay. But it hasn't been erased yet."

The hallway voice asked a third time.

This time "we will proceed once confirmed" was attached to the end of the sentence.

It was as polite as a public agency notice.

Jang Myeongsu wavered at that.

"It says it'll let us down once it checks." Doyun spoke without looking at him. "The side that lets you down cuts the count first." Jang Myeongsu closed his mouth.

Sua checked the poll her name was missing from again.

"So if I'm the omission, four people get to be comfortable." No one answered.

Seojin spoke before that silence could harden into an answer.

"A comfortable number and the actual people are not the same." Doyun warned her low. "Don't say the thesis out loud." Seojin closed her mouth and counted the names again.

Names slipped less than words did.

Below the camera inside the elevator there was an emergency notice sticker.

Do not use the elevator in case of fire.

When requesting rescue, state your current location and the number of persons.

The words number of persons landed in the same place as the line on the new card.

Seojin looked at the sticker's year of manufacture.

2017.

The card had no year.

Even after saying there was only the machine room above the twelfth floor, Jang Myeongsu kept stealing glances at the ceiling. The building he knew was slipping out of his hands a little at a time.

Mingyu's phone battery was at 17 percent.

Sua reached for her power bank and looked at her own bag instead.

The smell of food was going cold inside the bag.

The small everyday losses spoke up first.

Because of those losses, everyone wanted this finished fast.

Doyun shut the mouth that had been about to say four people and slid a business card into the gap between the doors.

The card went in halfway and stopped.

It would go no further, and nothing on the hallway side was pulling it. "No physical gap," he said.

Seojin wrote that down too.

The voice waited.

While it waited, the number grew more persuasive than the people.

Four seemed like it would close the doors, five seemed like this strange hallway would chew on the names longer.

Seojin did not write that feeling down.

Instead she drew the boarding positions.

Left wall Seojin, control panel Doyun, in front of the doors Sua, center Jang Myeongsu, back Mingyu.

It took five points for the space inside the elevator to add up.

Miran's radio came through again.

"Yun Seojin, report your current status in ten words or fewer." Seojin chose which to say first out of the hallway, the poll, and the card.

Ten words would not fit all the names of the people.

She broke the rule.

"Thirteenth floor that doesn't exist, five people actual, four in the system, Han Sua omitted." On the other end Miran did not answer right away.

Doyun looked at Seojin.

"You're counting the team leader's orders too?" "There's a name missing from the order." Hearing that, Sua looked at Seojin for the first time not as a new hire but as a record keeper on her side.

It was less trust than the look you give a temporary holding box.

A case intake number generated automatically in the management office document system. Since Eunchae had not appeared yet, the number came through only over the radio.

The last digits of the intake number were 004.

Seojin wrote that it was the same number as the people inside the elevator.

It could be a coincidence.

She wrote it anyway.

Jang Myeongsu said, "Intake numbers are assigned in order, that's all," then remembered that this was the only case logged this dawn and closed his mouth. Mingyu asked whether his name went into the intake number. Seojin said, "Not yet, it doesn't."

Not knowing what shape the word yet would take for a child, she read the name again right away. "Choe Mingyu, eighth floor." Mingyu answered with a small "Yes."

Sua's delivery completion photo kept failing.

The camera screen caught the 1304 door plate, but when she pressed the shutter the location data reverted to unit 1102.

The door plate in the photo blurred and only the receipt number stayed sharp.

Sua said, "I did the work but there's no place for it."

At that, Jang Myeongsu gripped his ring of keys harder.

To a man who knew the building, being told there was no place sounded like a curse. Seojin wrote down Sua's failed photo, and beside the destination floor she added completion evidence mismatch.

The omission did not erase only names.

It was also pushing the traces of work done into the wrong boxes.

Mingyu bit his lip to hold back tears.

Sua pulled the power bank from her delivery bag and plugged it into her phone. Jang Myeongsu started to say, "If it's a machine fault I'll do it manually," and dropped his keys.

Doyun felt along the floor and opened the emergency phone box.

The handset was on its hook.

But it rang.

It was not outside in the hallway.

It was not the management office either.

The phone was ringing inside the elevator ceiling, beyond the inspection hatch.

Doyun pressed the speaker button without lifting the handset.

Behind the static, that same announcement voice spoke.

"One person remains."