III. The Death Clerk's Reach
What happens when the system itself becomes your enemy?
In this chilling installment of the Systems of Shadows series, discover how corruption extends its tendrils far beyond hospital walls. Ms. Chen’s daughter meets a kindred spirit in the hospital records room—another woman whose reality is being systematically erased through missing documents, corrupted files, and officials who conveniently “forget” conversations.
Ms. Chen’s daughter first noticed the rightful owner in the hospital records room – someone else whose files kept vanishing into the system’s maze. They shared that particular alertness that comes from watching your own reality rewritten on paper, one document at a time.
The rightful owner’s story had begun with something small – a property record that wouldn’t stay filed—three submissions, three disappearances as if the system was conspiring against proof of her home ownership. But what seemed like a clerical error revealed itself as the edge of something larger.
Her ex-husband’s lawyer had found an elegant way to exploit the workplace’s free legal services. Instead of a straightforward divorce, he crafted two years of carefully prolonged proceedings – each delay padding his billing while strengthening his position in Margaret’s network. He shared country club memberships with the judges who kept ruling in his favor and played golf with realtors who showed her home without her knowledge. Each delay added billable hours, each ruling shifted more assets, and each “misplaced” document pushed her further from her rights.
Margaret’s influence threaded through it all. When the rightful owner checked property records online, she navigated a maze of corrupted files and redirected searches. Officials who should have helped had simple arrangements with Margaret: help yourself to unclaimed treasures from the dead, and remember to look away when asked. A court clerk’s new watch bought missing paperwork. A housing official’s antique ring purchased convenient amnesia about property rights.
These official obstacles eventually forced her into the rental market, where Margaret’s influence followed. Her online searches for rentals yielded strangely limited results, each listing steering her toward the same few properties, no matter which platform she used or how she filtered her search. Even rental sites she’d never visited somehow knew to show her only these particular units as if invisible hands were curating her choices.
The property manager who showed her the current rental wore practiced warmth like an ill-fitting mask, her smile suggesting she knew precisely why certain tenants were steered to these particular units. The Wi-Fi networks showed mysterious devices. Maintenance requests vanished like Margaret’s paperwork. Even the security cameras seemed to look away at precisely the right moments.
Now, she found herself comparing notes with Ms. Chen’s daughter, their stories fitting together like pieces of a larger map. One seeks her mother’s jade, and the other her stolen home – both uncovering how Margaret’s network could turn every system against those who ask too many questions. Their phones showed the same digital anomalies, their computers the same unexplained access, and their lives the same pattern of official records that could never quite be pinned down.
What had started with a single vanished document was revealing an entire shadow bureaucracy. Here was Margaret’s true gift – not just processing death certificates but making official records tell whatever story best served those who knew the price of her favors. The living could be made to disappear as easily as the dead, their rights buried under paperwork that proved whatever truth had been paid for.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, insects, or cats, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
