Chapter 2 – The Complaint Department

  The next morning, the coffee tasted worse.

  Renn stared at the mug on his desk like it had wronged him personally. Given the circumstances, it probably had. The label on the jar said “Rich Dark Roast.” The smell said “burned disappointment.” The taste said “budget cuts.”

  He took a sip anyway.

  The sirens were quiet today. No red lights, no rushing boots, no new frost trails spreading under doors.

  On his desk, however, disaster had arrived in a different form.

  Paperwork.

  A slim stack of forms waited beside the Ledger, each with the same header in aggressive black type:

  INCIDENT REPORT – MANIFESTATION CONTAINMENT (FORM 7C)

  Beneath that, someone had stamped URGENT three times for emphasis, as if ink could increase importance. The Archive loved urgency. It did not necessarily love solving the underlying causes of anything, but it was passionate about stamping adjectives on things.

  Renn set the mug down and picked up the top form. The section titles blinked up at him in neat, judgmental lines.

  “Describe the nature of the manifestation.”

  “Explain why the manifestation occurred.”

  “Detail steps taken to ensure this will never happen again.”

  He snorted softly at the last one.

  The rookie sat opposite his desk, not officially assigned that seat but orbiting it anyway. He had been handed a supplementary mountain of paper and was currently trying to look like he understood any of it.

  “Sir?” the rookie asked, squinting at his form. “What do I put in the box that says ‘Manifestation Motivation’?”

  “The lie’s reason for existing,” Renn said without looking up.

  “Oh. Right.” The rookie chewed his lip. “So for yesterday… I wrote ‘politics.’”

  Renn considered that, then shrugged. “Accurate.”

  He clicked his pen and began filling in the fields with the weary efficiency of someone who had done this too many times.

  Manifestation Type: Promise (Unfulfillable)

  Origin: Public Address – Recorded.

  Observed Effects: Frost growth, structural erosion, attempted symbolic reconstruction of societal stability, general inconvenience.

  He paused at the next line.

  Casualties:

  The Garden of Unsaid Things flickered across his mind. Frost clinging to fragile blossoms. Their whispers cracking.

  “None,” he wrote, then added, “Garden plants agitated; currently stabilizing.”

  The rookie drummed his fingers on the desk. “Sir… do you ever think this is pointless?”

  “The paperwork?” Renn asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “It isn’t pointless,” Renn said. “It gives the Council the illusion of control. Without that, they’d panic and make worse decisions.”

  The rookie thought about that. “So we’re… protecting them from their own need to feel like they’re in charge.”

  “Now you’re getting it,” Renn said.

  He signed the bottom of the page with a practiced scrawl and moved on to the next sheet. After three forms, his patience began to evaporate, curling away like steam.

  He slid the finished stack aside and reached for his coffee. Lukewarm now. Somehow worse.

  He drank it anyway.

  A soft chime sounded from the wall panel above his door, followed by a voice drawn from the Archive’s polite-yet-ominous announcement system.

  “Archivist Renn Hollow—please report to the Complaint Department. Repeat: Complaint Department.”

  The rookie froze mid-scribble. “Complaints? About… us?”

  “About something,” Renn said, setting the mug down again. “It’s rarely good news.”

  “Did we do something wrong?”

  “Almost certainly,” Renn said. “But that’s not why they called.”

  He stood and picked up the Ledger. It felt heavier than it should have, as if it resented the idea of being anywhere near that office.

  The rookie rose too. “Should I come?”

  Renn considered it. “Have you ever been there before?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you scare easily?”

  The rookie thought. “Depends on what’s doing the scaring.”

  “Old women with pens,” Renn said. “And judgment.”

  The rookie paled. “I… think I should see it once. For training.”

  “You say that now,” Renn muttered. “Fine. Try not to argue with anyone inside. They’ve got forms specifically for that.”

  The Complaint Department lived in an architectural accident.

  The Archive had been built, expanded, retrofitted, and expanded again over generations of administrators, each with their own ideas of what “efficient layout” meant. Somewhere along the way, a cluster of unused rooms between two containment vaults had been repurposed.

  It should have been storage. It had become something worse.

  The hallway leading to it was shorter than most, narrower too, as if the Archive itself was reluctant to make space for the concept. The air here felt thicker—still, like a held breath.

  A metal sign hung above the door, slightly crooked:

  COMPLAINT DEPARTMENT

  “We Hear You (Unfortunately)”

  Renn paused in front of it.

  “Last chance to turn back,” he told the rookie.

  “I’ll be fine,” the rookie said, with the confidence of someone who had not yet learned to recognize the edge of a cliff.

  Renn opened the door.

  The room inside was not large, but it felt crowded.

  Not with people—there were only three occupants—but with paper. Stacks of it, towers of it, layers of it. Forms, files, folders and loose sheets were arranged in precarious piles that seemed to defy structural physics out of spite.

  At the center of this paper forest sat a desk, and behind that desk sat Mrs. Kellen.

  Her nameplate read:

  MRS. E. KELLEN – Senior Complaint Handler

  The words below that had been added in smaller script, probably by some former junior clerk with more courage than self-preservation:

  “Since Before Time Was Properly Catalogued”

  Mrs. Kellen did not look ancient, exactly. Age was the wrong word. She looked… established. Like an institution given human form. Her grey hair was pulled back into a severe knot, not a strand out of place. Her glasses magnified her eyes to the size of small coins, making her gaze impossible to escape.

  She was writing when they entered, pen scratching against paper with calm, relentless rhythm. She did not look up.

  On the guest side of the room, two chairs waited. One was empty. The other was occupied.

  The man sitting in it wore a suit that screamed money the way some animals screamed warning colors. It was immaculate, tailored, charcoal with a subtle sheen. His hair was styled to look effortlessly perfect, which meant it had taken at least an hour. His smile—when he turned it toward Renn—was the kind that had convinced entire crowds to vote against their own interests.

  “Ah,” the man said, standing. “You must be the Archivist in charge.”

  Renn glanced at Mrs. Kellen.

  She continued writing.

  He looked back at the man. “That’s what my door says, yes.”

  “Councilman Jarrek,” the man said, extending a hand. “Third District. It’s a pleasure.”

  Renn did not take the hand. “I’ll reserve judgment.”

  The rookie, out of reflexive politeness, reached out instead. Jarrek clasped the rookie’s hand, smiled wider, and squeezed just a bit too firmly.

  Mrs. Kellen’s pen stopped.

  “Sit,” she said, without looking up. It was unclear whether she meant Renn, the rookie, Jarrek, or the concept of standing in general, but everyone obeyed.

  Renn lowered himself into the other chair. The rookie perched on the edge of his, uncertain.

  Mrs. Kellen finished whatever line she was writing, carefully placed her pen beside the page, and finally raised her gaze.

  Her eyes moved to Renn first.

  “Archivist,” she said.

  “Mrs. Kellen.”

  Her eyes moved to the rookie.

  “New.”

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  “Yes, ma’am,” the rookie said quickly. “Just transferred from—”

  “I didn’t ask,” she said, then turned her gaze to Jarrek.

  The man’s smile flickered, just slightly, like a candle remembering wind.

  “Councilman,” she said. “You have lodged a complaint.”

  “I have, yes,” Jarrek said, seizing the conversational floor with practiced ease. “And I expect it to be taken very seriously. The actions of your department have had material impact on my work.”

  Renn stifled a sigh. “The part where we stop your lies from destabilizing the city?”

  Jarrek’s eyes narrowed. “My statements are policy-building tools. They generate hope, direction, stability. You people have interfered with that.”

  “The manifestation you created interfered with itself,” Renn said. “We simply prevented it from freezing half the river.”

  Mrs. Kellen cleared her throat softly. The sound was quiet but immediate. Both men fell silent.

  She opened a file in front of her. The paper inside was crisp, the complaint form filled out in elegant, assertive handwriting.

  “Councilman Jarrek,” she said, reading. “You allege that the Archive has ‘improperly confiscated a political asset’ from you. Specifically, a manifested promise originating from your speech two days ago. Is that correct?”

  Jarrek straightened his already-straight tie. “Yes. Exactly. My promise—the one about fixing everything—is essential to my campaign. Your people captured it. I want it returned.”

  The rookie blinked. “He… wants the lie back?”

  Renn didn’t answer. He was watching Mrs. Kellen.

  Her expression did not change. “Councilman,” she said, “are you aware that manifested promises are classified as Level Three Hazards?”

  Jarrek’s jaw tightened. “I am aware that your department loves classifications. I am more interested in results.”

  “You got results,” Renn said. “You got ice in your district.”

  “It was temporary,” Jarrek said. “And frankly, dramatic. People like dramatic. But you—”

  “You nearly turned a housing block into crystal,” Renn said. “Appealing aesthetics aside, we tend to discourage that.”

  Jarrek spread his hands. “Look, we all play our role. I say the things people need to hear. You, apparently, lock them up. Fine. But this time you interfered with a carefully scripted message that was polling very well. I would like it back.”

  The rookie leaned toward Renn and whispered, “Can he do that?”

  “No,” Renn said.

  Jarrek bristled. “Excuse me?”

  Mrs. Kellen slid a sheet of paper from the file and placed it on the desk. “Councilman, all manifested lies are property of the Archive by Royal Decree seventeen-point-two-eight. There is no provision for ‘borrowing’ them, nor for treating them as campaign material.”

  “I’m not asking for full rights,” Jarrek said. “Just a temporary release. I promise to handle it responsibly.”

  Renn arched a brow. “You want us to free a Level Three Hazard so you can wave it around on stage?”

  Jarrek hesitated, then smiled again. “When you put it like that, it sounds reckless. But handled correctly, it would inspire so much confidence. Imagine it—literal proof of my commitment.”

  “Literal proof that you are, in fact, lying,” Renn said.

  “Semantics,” Jarrek said.

  The rookie looked between them, increasingly alarmed. “Sir, isn’t—if we let that thing out again, wouldn’t it…”

  “Grow,” Renn said. “Yes. That’s what lies do when you feed them attention.”

  “And yet,” Jarrek pressed, “your report says the manifestation was stable in containment. It could be supervised. Chaperoned.”

  “It also says three guards got frostbite,” Renn said. “My definition of ‘stable’ is a bit stricter than yours.”

  Mrs. Kellen tapped the edge of the paper with one finger. “Councilman, this department exists to process grievances. Not to rewrite established law for your convenience.”

  Jarrek’s smile thinned. “So that’s it? You people take my manifestation, sabotage my campaign, and I’m supposed to just accept it?”

  “We prevented a resonance event in a public space,” Mrs. Kellen said. “The fact that the lie was yours is incidental.”

  Jarrek’s voice sharpened. “This is political interference.”

  “Accurately cataloguing reality is now political interference?” Renn asked. “We’re going to need more staff.”

  The hint of anger in Jarrek’s eyes sharpened into something colder. “People believed in that promise.”

  “They believed in what they wanted it to mean,” Renn said. “The manifestation, on the other hand, believed in freezing everything solid. Not a great platform.”

  Jarrek inhaled, then switched tactics. His posture softened. His tone dropped into something approaching sincerity.

  “Look,” he said, turning to the rookie instead of Renn. “You’re… new, yes? You understand how hard it is to change things from the inside. I’m trying to fix the city. I need tools to do that. Your department took one away.”

  The rookie opened his mouth, caught Renn’s warning glance, and shut it again.

  Mrs. Kellen’s pen, which she had been holding loosely, touched down on a blank slip of paper.

  “Councilman Jarrek,” she said. “Do you assert that you are capable of controlling the manifestation in question?”

  “Of course,” he said immediately. “I have everything under control.”

  The pen paused as the words left his mouth.

  It was a small pause. A fraction of a fraction. But Renn felt it.

  Jarrek leaned back, satisfied. “There. You see? Confidence. That’s what people need from their leaders.”

  Mrs. Kellen wrote something on the slip in quick, precise strokes. She did not look at him as she did it.

  “This office has heard your complaint,” she said. “A formal response will be issued momentarily.”

  Jarrek frowned. “Momentarily? I need action now.”

  “The response is already being processed,” she said.

  She slid the slip across the desk toward him.

  “Here,” she said. “Your acknowledgment.”

  He picked it up with a faintly smug smirk that vanished as he read the printed words.

  His lips moved.

  Complaint Received.

  Status: Denied.

  Reason: You are an idiot.

  Jarrek spluttered. “You—you can’t write that.”

  Mrs. Kellen adjusted her glasses. “I did not. The acknowledgment system conducts an emotional-veracity assessment and fills in the field automatically.”

  The rookie made a strangled sound that might have been a laugh if he hadn’t strangled it in time. Renn coughed into his hand.

  Jarrek went red around the edges. “This is unacceptable. I will be bringing this up with the Council.”

  “You do that,” Mrs. Kellen said. “We love receiving more paperwork.”

  He slapped the slip back onto the desk. “This isn’t over.”

  “It is here,” she said.

  Jarrek drew himself up, straightened his suit with two sharp tugs, and strode to the door. He paused with his hand on the handle, looking back at Renn.

  “You think you’re protecting people from lies,” he said. “You’re not. You’re just making it harder for the rest of us to do our jobs.”

  Renn met his gaze. “If your job depends on unrestrained lies, Councilman, perhaps the problem is not the Archive.”

  Jarrek’s smile returned, thin and humorless. “Enjoy your vaults, Archivist.”

  He left.

  The door clicked shut behind him. The room exhaled.

  The rookie sagged in his chair. “He was… kind of terrifying.”

  “That was him being polite,” Renn said. “You should see what they’re like when cameras are near.”

  Mrs. Kellen lifted the complaint slip, glanced at it once more, then dropped it into a tray stamped RESOLVED.

  Her attention shifted to Renn.

  “Archivist Hollow,” she said. “Your department’s workload has increased by twenty-two percent this quarter.”

  “I had noticed,” Renn said.

  “I have also noticed a corresponding increase in complaints,” she went on. “Mostly from people displeased that their manifested lies were retrieved before they could exploit them.”

  The rookie frowned. “They… complain that we stopped their lie from hurting people?”

  “Some are annoyed that we made them look dishonest,” Mrs. Kellen said. “Others are annoyed that we didn’t do it sooner. People have a remarkable talent for being angry at opposite outcomes for the same action.”

  Renn rubbed at his temple. “Is there a form for complaining about complaints?”

  “Several,” she said. “They all come to me. I shred them.”

  The rookie shifted in his chair, then pointed at the slip tray. “Ma’am? That thing with the reason field… is that real? About the emotional analysis?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “How does it… know?”

  “It reads intent,” she said. “Like your Ledger. Only pettier.”

  She opened a drawer and pulled out a new sheet of paper, different from the others—thicker, with faint silver lines running through it. She slid it across the desk to Renn.

  “This arrived just before you did,” she said. “I was waiting to see whether the Councilman’s presence would cause additional… complications.”

  Renn took the paper.

  It was blank at first glance. Then, as he held it, ink seeped up from within, forming neat, official script.

  NEW MANIFESTATION DETECTED

  Category: Assertion

  Origin: Verbal statement made with high confidence.

  Content: “I have everything under control.”

  Status: Active.

  Location: Downtown.

  Stability: Uncertain.

  The words sat on the page like a headache waiting to happen.

  The rookie peered over his shoulder. “Sir… that looks—”

  “Familiar,” Renn finished.

  He could still hear Jarrek’s voice, smooth and certain. I have everything under control.

  “Was that—” The rookie swallowed. “Did we just—did it manifest right here?”

  “No,” Renn said. “The words did. The creature went where such lies always go.”

  “Where’s that?” the rookie asked.

  “Where control is already an illusion,” Renn murmured.

  He folded the paper once, carefully, and slid it into the Ledger. The book’s clasp loosened for a heartbeat, long enough to swallow the slip. The pages shivered.

  “Any description yet?” he asked Mrs. Kellen.

  “Not beyond what you see,” she said. “The early reports are… contradictory. Doors opening and closing on their own. Schedules rearranging themselves. A tram that refused to stop at any station because it was ‘on time.’”

  The rookie blinked. “A tram said that?”

  “Not in words,” she said. “But in behavior.”

  Renn stood. The chair creaked in relief. “Send any more updates directly to my office.”

  “They already are,” she said. “I suggest you leave before more complaints arrive. You tend to attract them.”

  “That’s unfair,” Renn said. “People complain whether I’m present or not.”

  “Yes,” she said. “But it’s more satisfying for them when you are.”

  The rookie rose as well, almost knocking his chair over in the process. “Um—thank you, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Kellen nodded once, dismissing them both with the same movement. “Try not to add to my workload, Archivist.”

  “No promises,” Renn said.

  “Exactly the problem,” she replied.

  They stepped back into the hallway.

  The air out here felt almost light after the Complaint Department’s compressed atmosphere, even though nothing had changed. Same stone, same metal, same humming veins of power and bureaucratic necessity.

  The rookie let out a long breath. “She scares me more than the lie did.”

  “She should,” Renn said. “The lie can only hurt you if it gets loose. Mrs. Kellen can hurt you and file it in triplicate.”

  They started walking.

  “Sir?” the rookie asked after a moment.

  “Hm.”

  “Is it always like that? People… wanting their lies back?”

  “Not always,” Renn said. “Some don’t realize their lies have manifested at all. Others are embarrassed. A few are grateful we contained them before anything worse happened.”

  “And the rest?”

  “The rest miss the power,” Renn said. “Lies are shortcuts. Manifested ones are sharper shortcuts. People like sharp things, as long as they’re pointed at someone else.”

  The rookie absorbed that in silence.

  They passed a narrow window set high in the wall. From here, the city was a smear of stone and light, softened by distance. Renn could almost imagine it quiet. Almost.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do we do about this new one?”

  Renn tapped the side of the Ledger. The book was warm, a faint thrum pulsing under its cover like a slow heartbeat.

  “‘I have everything under control,’” he said. “That’s a confident one. Confidence makes big creatures.”

  “Bigger than yesterday?” the rookie asked.

  “Different,” Renn said. “Promises try to reshape the world. Control wants to rearrange what’s already there. It’ll interfere with systems. Schedules. Doors. Lines.”

  The rookie frowned. “Lines?”

  “Queues,” Renn said. “Order. Anything labeled ‘Under Control.’ The lie will try to enforce its own version of that.”

  “That sounds… bad.”

  Renn started walking again.

  “Come on,” he said. “We’re going downtown.”

  The rookie hurried to keep up. “Should we call ahead? Warn the Reality Wardens?”

  “They’ll be busy complaining we didn’t warn them sooner,” Renn said. “We may as well give them a reason.”

  At his side, the Ledger shifted, a single line of fresh ink etching itself along the margin of an unseen page.

  MANIFESTATION DENSITY: RISING.

  Renn didn’t need to open it to know.

  He could feel it.

  Lies were getting bolder.

  And the city, as always, believed everything was under control—right up until it wasn’t.

  Renn survived the Complaint Department — which officially makes him braver than anyone else in the building.

  Next chapter: the city itself starts lying, which is… honestly rude of it.

  Thanks for reading! More chaos incoming.