Somehow, that doesn't surprise her.

She pauses at the threshold, just for a moment. Then she strides inside. Stops again, just shy of the logo on the floor.

I'm here.

Why did you bring me here?

Figures.

She glances around, then keeps walking.

"Hello?" she says, without much hope of a response. "Anyone here?"

The response she wasn't hoping for doesn't materialize. She heads for the unmanned metal detectors on the right. There's a piece of paper, which she glances at.

The paper is clearly new, but looks like it was printed from an older printer, the kind with the tearaway strips down the sides. It reads as follows:

FEDERAL BUREAU OF CONTROL

REMINDER!

Certain objects are not allowed inside the Bureau. Recent incidents have necessitated an issued reminder on prohibited materials.

- Unauthorized Weapons
- Pagers
- Laptops
- "Smart" Watches
- "Smart" Phones
- "Smart" Gaming Devices
- Anything "smart"
- Number 2 Pencils
- Any objects considered iconic representations of an archetypal concept (e.g. rubber ducks, ketchup bottles)

All material under Bureau investigation is to be brought in through the private entrances. If you see any lobby personnel in breach of these policies, please notify your supervisor immediately.

...ooookay. In case she'd had any remaining illusions about this place being normal, note to self: no.

The empty frame of the metal detector bleeps angrily at her as she passes beneath its arch. She wonders if these ones detect number 2 pencils. Not that she brought any.

Just past the detectors there's a door, with a handy green light by the top left corner that helps her pick it out in the gloom. She tries it. Unlocked. What's on the other side?

It's a security office, with glass windows filled in with wire so that the security guards (who don't currently seem to be present) can observe the people passing through the checkpoint. 

It's relatively small, but still cozy, with enough room for a small desk and a chair and some shelving, but the decor and technology of the items inside is likely not what Jesse would be expecting; it looks like everything here is out of the 60's. Most specifically, and likely the first thing to catch her eye, there are three very old CRT monitors resting in the corner of the security office, between the two panes of wire-filled glass, stacked atop one another, displaying letters in a glowing red font against a black background. 

INTERNAL LOCKDOWN
IN EFFECT
---
BUILDING LOCKDOWN
IN EFFECT

MULTIPLE CONTAINMENT
BREACHES DETECTED
---
MULTIPLE BUILDING
SHIFTS DETECTED

HEAD OF RESEARCH
OVERRIDE
---
HRA PROTOCOL
ACTIVATED

Well, none of that sounds good, but she could already tell something was very not right from the lack of any human beings at the front desk or the security checkpoint. Okay. Moving on. Stairs.

The lighting on the single flight of concrete steps is harsh, but oddly welcoming. At the top there's a red-carpeted floor, a wraparound balcony overlooking the front hall where she came in, and another of those greenlit doors. She checks this one too.

The lighting in this room isn't working properly, and is dimly lit by the flickering static of another ancient CRT in the corner closest to the door, sitting on a desk with a strange 60s-ish looking typewriter of some kind. At the far corner there's some kind of device with tubes branching off of it and up into the walls and ceiling, and some sort of canister storage adjacent to it. On the desk and on nearby filing cabinets, there are various papers and documents. 

There's no one here, either. 

The logo on the papers is the same as the one on the prohibited materials notice, the same as the one on the floor of the entry way.

This seal. I saw it a long time ago. I keep seeing it in my dreams...

She flips through a few files, but the documents are too heavily redacted to be useful. Maybe she'd understand them if she had any idea what she was looking at. She doesn't. What's the significance of Mold Removal on an expenditure summary? How about Janitorial Costs? Probably they blacked out all the interesting stuff. Must make accounting an adventure.

So much for that room. What else is there around here? Concrete. Wood paneling. An incredibly generic bathroom. Offices with glass walls so clear she feels like she understands why birds break their necks on windows; if it weren't for the blinds she'd have tried to walk right through one.

"Hello?" she says again, not optimistically, as she proceeds deeper into the building down a hall that seems to darken with each step. There's a corner up ahead; she turns it.

There's a man there, in a navy blue janitorial outfit next to a universally-recognizable yellow wet floor sign, bent over and mopping the floor. His back is to Jesse, and he's softly humming to himself to some tune only he can hear, likely because of the headphones in his ears. He doesn't do anything to indicate he's seen or heard Jesse approach. 

Wow, a human being! Probably!

"Hey," she says more hopefully, crossing the floor to stand a few feet behind him. "Hey, excuse me!"

The man straightens up from his mopping and turns to look at Jesse. He speaks in a clear but unusual accent, one that Jesse likely can't place. 

"There you are!" he says. "You are here about the job. Janitor's assistant. You need to go to the int-er-view." He turns to point down the darkened hallway in the direction that Jesse was already heading. "Go that way to the elevator." 

If she's here about a job, that's news to her. But hey, there's worse gigs than janitor's assistant. Nice straightforward job, cleaning things up and setting things right. She can get behind that.

"Thanks," she says, looking past him toward the glimpse of a brighter-lit space at the end of the hall. "Elevator that way. Got it."

He turns back towards her. "Very good," he says. "I'm Ahti, the janitor, by the way. You'll work for me. You can say I sent you. If they don't hire you, niin johan on helvetti. There be work for the axe, take them behind the sauna, jumalauta." Some of these works are in a foreign language that Jesse likely does not recognize and almost certainly does not understand. Finished speaking, he turns back to his work. 

Yep. It's fine. There's a substantial chance he just threatened to axe-murder the hiring manager of a federal organization but you know what, it's fine.

I've done enough nightshift loner jobs to know it makes us come off weird. Ahti the janitor is a friendly face in my book.

"Better than somebody with no face at all." 

She's a few steps past him before she replays that interaction in her head and wait what—

She glances back, hesitating.

"Think about it," he says, still mopping the floor, "no face." 

Should she... no. No, she thinks she'll just... leave that one alone.

She heads for the elevator. Wait, is this... the same place she just came in through...? But now there's wet floor signs all over the place. You know what, just roll with it. Into the elevator, press the button. The doors slide shut and she leans back against the wall and thinks.

The Federal Bureau of Control...

Memories she's kept, cherished, guarded against those who would take them from her. Memories of what else the Bureau has taken.

Memories of what she'd like to take back.

The elevator dings and she straightens again, waiting for the doors to open, trying to be ready for whatever she'll find on the other side.

The elevator door opens on a small waiting room that narrows into a long-ish hallway, with red carpet leading down it from the elevator. On the right, there's a tree in a concrete planter, and a sign that tells her that further down the hall is the director's office. On the left is a vending machine, and a security office built into the concrete. There's also various tables and benches in this small waiting room, presumably for people to sit and wait at. 

Further down the hallway, if she can squint and see it, is a large set of double doors set under a large metal embossed crest of the Federal Bureau of Control. 

Seventeen years since they took Dylan.

She takes a deep breath and steps out of the elevator. Smiles briefly at the tree on her way past. Tries a door, fails at the door. Apparently it wants CLEARANCE LEVEL 01, which she doesn't have. It brrrps disapprovingly. She moves on, pokes her head into a darkened office, glances around at the faint silhouettes of desks and chairs and filing cabinets. Nothing catches her eye. It's so hard to tell what's useful and what's a waste of time.

The Director's Office does seem like a good place to start, though.

She eyes it from the shadowed threshold of the abandoned office. No clearance required here. Just those big o' double doors, flanked by another pair of trees, some benches, a planter, and a receptionist's desk. The receptionist's desk is also abandoned. Is there even going to be a Director? Is she going to open those doors and find Ahti with a carpet cleaner, humming along to his music? Or just an office, bigger and shinier than these but no less empty?

Only one way to find out.

She steps out into the light.

As she approaches the director's office, there's a bang. Muffled by the big double doors off the office, but it obviously comes from inside, and sounds like what Jesse would expect a gunshot to sound like. 

She jumps slightly, startled and alarmed, and hesitates for only a moment before crossing the rest of the distance in a half-jog and pushing open the door.

What immediately catches her eye as she opens the door is the dead man lying on the floor. It's also a large office with a large desk, bookshelves on either side, filled with books and other knickknacks, but her attention is drawn to the man lying on his back with his legs hidden behind the desk but his torso and head and the pool of blood growing around it clearly visible. Nearby the body