Loadbearing. The Calm Protocol, #1

The building hummed, it had always hummed, you just stopped noticing it. James has spent five years at a precast concrete firm, checking other people's mistakes, staying late, smoothing things over. It's a job. It hums along. Then Rachel doesn't come in. A mass email confirms she's gone - but no one will say where, and by lunchtime her work is quietly landing on his desk, as though he'd always known how to do it.
She left a trail. A receipt. A name half-carved into a stone that shouldn't exist. The further James follows it, the harder something pushes back - not with threats, but with comfort. A warm, patient pressure that makes resistance feel like the unreasonable choice. The system doesn't want to destroy him. It wants to optimise him. And the worst part isn't being watched. It's how good it feels to stop fighting.