THE STORY · EPISODE 14
The chair was still warm.
Entering the shared meeting room, Mana stopped in front of the terminal. Someone must have been sitting there only moments earlier. The name of the person who had left was still on the screen.
“I thought it was all right because I was coming back.”
The room’s user leaned in from the corridor, a drink in hand. They had left the seat for only a short time.
A black shadow moved along the bottom of the wall.
Amid the sound of footsteps, it approached the terminal. A document list opened without the name on the screen changing. Mana could see neither its eyes nor its hands. Only things the owner had not touched were moving.
Securidon put his shield between them. Miscure looked from the screen to the owner who had returned.
“Same name. Different person there.”
They did not browse through the terminal while waiting to reach the administrator. Mana asked the user to stop operating it and told Logrin when she had seen the movement.
Error stood on the corridor side.
“The screen is visible from here.”
Before blaming anyone who looked in, she asked the staff whether she could move the partition slightly. Keeping people away was not the only task. Some things did not need to be put on view.
Mana remembered closing her notebook the day before.
There was an unfamiliar device in the access history.
There had also been access late at night. Looking at that row, Sapo paused his pencil.
“If it came in at night, could this be the shadow?”
Without answering, the doctor showed him another sheet: the work record of the staff who performed nighttime maintenance.
Its time and the legitimate maintenance terminal matched. The unfamiliar device they were investigating was on a different row. Suspicious-looking entries at similar times could not all be bundled together.
Sapo began to erase his line.
Logrin gently held the paper down.
“If that was a mark made before checking, we can label it that way and keep it.”
“I mixed up what I saw and what I thought again.”
Mana sat beside him. She had always thought Sapo separated things sooner than she did. Until now, she had not noticed how small he seemed to become when he found a mistake of his own.
“Let’s also show that you separated them again.”
Sapo put down the eraser. He added VERIFIED AGAINST MAINTENANCE RECORD and gave the unfamiliar device’s row a new number.
He handed it to the doctor himself.
Episode 14, Illustration 1 | Comparing an empty seat's terminal with its records
A Defense question appeared in the encyclopedia.
OPTIONAL QUESTION · 14-D1Why review sessions?What is an appropriate purpose for reviewing sessions?Open illustration & choices
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“D. Check the state of use that continues after sign-in. Look at the entrances still open, separately from the password’s characters.”
The shield’s blue light stretched between the terminal and the wall.
Signing in once did not mean the same person would keep using it forever. That ordinary fact had been hidden behind the displayed name.
The administrator compared the active sessions with the owner’s account.
Location, device, start time. Even when ending something the owner did not recognize, they first decided whether necessary work should be kept or restarted. Ending everything at once without checking whose work would stop was not always the right choice.
The black shadow moved from the meeting room wall into the next room.
Mana wanted to chase it. Its back seemed almost close enough to catch. Bug put his arm across the passage.
“Check the exits first. There are people here, too.”
Beyond him, Yuki was guiding users to another meeting room. The path of the chase had nearly become the path people were using to move away.
Mana stopped and restated what they needed to protect.
“Securidon, keep it away from the people in the corridor. Miscure, help with the screen the staff are checking!”
The shadow slowed. Here, reducing the entrances it could use helped more than chasing the black threads.
“Review active sessions and devices.”
Sapo copied the doctor’s words into his notebook.
“Check the sessions and devices still in use.”
Then he spoke them aloud to Mana. The hand holding the sheet he had got wrong was no longer hidden.
The encyclopedia opened an Attack question.
OPTIONAL QUESTION · 14-A1The previous user is still signed inA previous user's state remains on a shared terminal. What should the owner and staff do?Open illustration & choices
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“B. The owner and staff check remaining sessions and devices. End unnecessary ones, and sign out when finishing on a shared terminal.”
Mana waited while the user followed the procedure in a safe place.
The screen changed from the owner’s workspace to a state with no one signed in. They also checked the distinction between locking a screen during an absence and signing out when finished with a shared terminal.
One hiding place that kept someone else’s name had disappeared.
The last shadow was between the chair legs.
Perhaps it meant to borrow the shape of whoever returned to sit there. Mana did not choose to sit down and find out.
“Securidon, surround it from the places we’ve checked. Keep the person’s seat empty!”
Light from the shield ran across the floor. The blackness tried to touch the wall, but no threads led to an open session now.
The Securies’ light fell on the quietened shadow.
A small dark navy companion appeared. Two round eyes showed beneath his hood. He held a gray prop shaped like a wall beside him.
He began to hide his face behind the wall, then peered out a little.
“May I stay here?”
Mana looked into his eyes.
“If you’re here as yourself, without borrowing anyone’s name.”
He tugged at his hood and nodded.
“Sneakam.”
COL-010 — Sneakam. It was the fourteenth companion’s record.
Sapo turned an empty chair toward him.
“Let’s check where to put it away after you use it, too.”
His voice was a little quiet, but clear. Sneakam set his wall aside and climbed onto the chair.
Episode 14, Illustration 2 | Returning a borrowed name and taking a seat of his own
Before leaving the room, Mana looked at the screen once more.
The name was gone. On the desk lay instructions for the next user. The sheet was not there merely to reassure someone: it let the person starting and the person finishing check the same procedure.
“Were you afraid to hand over the paper with your mistake on it?”
When she asked on the way home, Sapo did not nod at once.
“I thought, I’m supposed to be the one who checks.”
“Does being the checker mean you can’t make mistakes?”
“…I made one.”
“And you noticed it, and separated things again.”
At Mana’s addition, Sapo looked at his notebook’s cover.
“That can be part of the record, too.”
Mana was glad he had said it himself. Instead of searching for praise, she simply nodded.
A little ahead, Securidon walked with Sneakam. He did not try to peer beneath the hood. He only pointed out where the ground stepped up.
Then the large information board in the square flashed red.
Last chance.
The final opportunity.
A ten-second countdown began. Someone was shouting, “There’s still time!”
Before watching the numbers, Mana saw the feet around her begin to move.
END OF EPISODE 14