The Baby in the Break Room

At 9:00 a.m., the siren sang its polite two notes—ding, ding—and the building returned its practiced silence.

Mara set her mug on the corner of her desk where the ring stain had been carefully outlined with a thin strip of tape. She’d done it on her first day, back when she thought it mattered.

She opened the company portal.

GOOD MORNING, TEAM.

REMINDER: THE AIR IS SAFE.

REMINDER: YOUR REFLECTION IS ACCURATE.

REMINDER: ALL SYSTEMS ARE STABLE.

Mara scrolled down to the “Wellness” box. Today’s suggested grounding exercise was a looping GIF of a cartoon person breathing into a paper bag with a smiley face on it.

Breathe in the safe air.

Breathe out the wrong thoughts.

Across from her, Jory adjusted his tie. The tie was new. The tie had a pattern of tiny blue squares like pixels. Jory liked accessories that looked like they belonged to a system.

“Morning,” he said.

“Morning,” Mara replied, because the siren had already told them the air was safe.

At 9:03, the glass wall at the end of the floor flexed like an eyelid.

It happened every day now. A soft ripple through the pane, as if something behind it pressed forward, then withdrew.

No one looked up.

Two months ago, the first time it happened, Mara had lifted her head and stared until her eyes watered. She’d expected someone to gasp, to curse, to back away. She’d expected a basic human reflex.

Instead, Nina from payroll had leaned into her cubicle and said, “You might want to update your timesheet before lunch. The system gets cranky.”

As if the glass had not moved like a living thing.

As if anything that mattered was only what the system became cranky about.

At 9:10, the elevator chimed. The door opened. A man in a suit stepped out carrying a stack of donuts. He paused, smiling too wide, scanning the floor like a host looking for applause.

“Happy Tuesday!” he called.

There was no Tuesday. The calendar on Mara’s screen read DAY 413.

Jory stood. “Thanks, Alan.”

The man wasn’t Alan. Alan had left six weeks ago, the morning he’d tried to name the thing in the glass and then—without a scene, without a missing-person email—his desk had become an empty square of carpet, as if he’d never had a chair.

Still, Jory accepted the donuts from the man who wasn’t Alan, and everyone said, “Thank you,” as if gratitude could overwrite reality.

Mara took one, too. Sugar held better than dread.

At 9:30, the Daily Briefing began.

On the screens above the central walkway, the company’s logo appeared: a circle with a line through it, the minimalist kind of icon that looked like it meant something if you didn’t think too long. Underneath it, a slogan:

WE ARE CONSISTENCY.

A woman with immaculate hair appeared. Her mouth moved in a smooth rhythm that didn’t match the sound. The captions did the talking for her.

TODAY’S SUCCESS METRIC:

NORMALCY MAINTENANCE: 97%

TARGET: 98%

Mara watched the number tick upward, one decimal at a time, like a heartbeat that didn’t belong to a body.

REMINDER:

DO NOT GATHER AROUND ANOMALIES.

DO NOT ASSIGN MEANING TO UNSCHEDULED EVENTS.

REPORT ALL IRREGULARITIES USING FORM 12-B.

A new slide appeared: a diagram of a face with a barcode drawn across the mouth.

COMMUNICATION BEST PRACTICES:

SPEAK IN APPROVED PHRASES.

USE POSITIVE TERMS.

AVOID DISRUPTIVE QUESTIONS.

Mara’s stomach tightened. Someone had suggested this. Someone had designed it and smiled and said, “This will help.”

The woman’s silent lips kept moving.

WE REMIND YOU:

THE GLASS WALL IS FUNCTIONING AS INTENDED.

THE SOUND IN THE VENTS IS NOT A VOICE.

THE EXTRA SHADOWS ARE A LIGHTING ISSUE.

THE BUILDING HAS ALWAYS HAD THIS MANY FLOORS.

Mara’s eyes flicked to the window behind her desk. The city skyline was the same as yesterday, except for one detail: in the far distance, a tower that wasn’t there last week leaned slightly left, as if it was listening.

Mara forced her gaze back to her screen.

At 10:00, a bell chimed and the floor returned to work. The Daily Briefing ended like a prayer: a shared agreement that kept the whole thing from collapsing.

Mara opened her ticket queue. Most of the requests were normal on purpose.

SUBJECT: Can you reset my password?

SUBJECT: My mouse is sticking.

SUBJECT: The ceiling is dripping again, but only when I say my own name out loud. Is that normal?

Mara typed the approved response.

Hello! Thank you for your submission. That is a known issue and is currently being optimized. In the meantime, please refrain from naming yourself in shared spaces. Have a consistent day!

She pressed send.

Her fingers hovered above the keyboard. She realized she was waiting for something to stop her. For guilt. For fear. For the old internal alarm that told her, This is wrong.

But the building did not reward truth. The building rewarded compliance.

From the vents above, the soft sound started again: like breath moving through teeth. Like someone whispering behind a wall with no door.

Mara’s chair creaked. She sat very still.

Across the aisle, Nina waved, bright and practiced. “Hey! You going to the birthday thing at lunch?”

Mara blinked. “Whose birthday?”

Nina smiled like the question was adorable. “The baby’s.”

Mara’s mouth dried. “What baby?”

Nina pointed toward the break room, where a pastel banner hung: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LITTLE ONE! In the center of the banner was a cartoon face: two dots for eyes, a curved mouth, nothing human.

Mara had walked past that banner every day this week without seeing it.

Or maybe it hadn’t been there until Nina pointed.

Nina leaned closer. “Don’t be weird about it, okay? It’s just… morale.”

At 11:12, the glass wall flexed again—harder this time, the ripple moving across it in a slow wave, like something inside was turning over in its sleep.

A couple of people laughed at something in an email thread.

Mara’s heart was a small frantic animal in her chest.

She stood up, too fast. Her chair rolled backward and bumped the cubicle divider with a sharp thunk that sounded loud in the practiced quiet.

Heads lifted, briefly. A few eyes met hers—not with concern, but with warning.

Jory’s expression said, Don’t make us choose.

Mara walked toward the break room because that was where the banner was, and because banners were easier to face than glass walls that breathed.

The break room was full of safe colors and safe food. Paper plates. Plastic forks. A cake with too much frosting.

At the center of the counter sat a small bassinet.

A real one. Wicker. White. Lined with blue cloth.

Mara froze. “What is that?”

Someone—she thought his name was Dev—looked up from slicing the cake. “Oh! Mara, hey. You made it.”

Mara stared at the bassinet.

The cloth inside moved.

A gentle rise and fall, like a sleeping chest.

Mara’s body wanted to back away, to run, to refuse. Her legs did not move. She had been trained out of urgency.

Nina touched her elbow lightly. “You’re okay,” Nina whispered. “Just be normal.”

Mara swallowed. “What is in there?”

Dev laughed softly. “A baby, Mara. Come on.”

Mara looked around. Everyone’s faces were smooth, bright, rehearsed. Even their discomfort had been turned into charm. People held paper cups of punch like props.

The cloth lifted again.

For a split second, Mara thought she saw something underneath—something not shaped like a baby, something that reflected light the wrong way. A glint, like an eye that didn’t know it should be hidden.

Mara stepped closer despite herself.

The air in the break room was colder near the bassinet. Her skin tightened. The vents above whispered louder here, as if this was where the building exhaled.

Dev slid a knife under a piece of cake and placed it on a plate. “Here you go. Vanilla. The baby likes vanilla.”

“The baby likes—” Mara’s voice cracked.

Nina pressed the plate into Mara’s hands like a ritual object. “Eat,” she said, smiling too hard. “It helps.”

Mara stared down at the cake. The frosting was smooth. Perfect. White. The kind of white that looked like it had never been touched by hands.

A memory flashed through her: Alan standing by his desk, voice shaking, saying, “Has anyone noticed the building is changing?” and the way the room had gone quiet—not with fear, but with irritation.

Like he’d talked about a bodily function at the dinner table.

Mara looked up. “Where did it come from?”

Dev shrugged as if she’d asked where the stapler was. “It’s always been here.”

That phrase. Again.

It’s always been here.

Always. The easiest lie to agree to.

Mara held the plate. She could feel her heart beating in her fingertips.

“Do we… do we have a name?” she asked, because the system liked names. Names made things manageable. Names made things not monstrous.

Nina’s smile widened. “Oh! Yes. It’s in the email.”

Mara’s phone buzzed in her pocket as if on cue. She pulled it out.

SUBJECT: Birthday Celebration Reminder

BODY: Please join us in celebrating THE BABY today at 12:00. Please refrain from implying the baby is unusual. Please do not lift the cloth. Please do not ask whose baby it is. Please do not ask where it came from. Please maintain a pleasant tone.

Underneath, a final line:

IF THE BABY CRIES, HUM THE COMPANY SONG.

Mara stared at the words until they blurred.

“Why are we doing this?” she whispered.

Nina’s expression flickered—just a glitch, a half-second where the mask slipped and a frightened person looked out.

Then Nina recovered. “Because it’s what we do,” she said brightly. “Because we’re a family. Because we maintain culture.”

Dev clapped his hands. “Okay! Photo time. Let’s gather around!”

People formed a semicircle around the bassinet. They leaned in. Smiled. Someone held up their phone.

Mara stood at the edge of the group, cake untouched. Her mind reached for a question sharp enough to cut through it, something that could puncture the bubble of agreement.

But when she opened her mouth, what came out was one of the approved phrases.

“Wow,” she said, voice flat. “How exciting.”

Nina squeezed her elbow. “There you go.”

Dev counted down. “Three, two, one—”

At “one,” the cloth in the bassinet lifted on its own.

A sound came from inside—not a baby’s cry, not exactly. More like a small, wet laugh.

The room reacted the way people react when someone drops a fork at a nice restaurant: a quick tightening, then a collective decision not to let it become real.

Nina began humming immediately. A melody the company played in the lobby on loop. Bright. Simple. A tune that sounded like shopping.

Others joined in, smiling, humming in harmony like trained birds.

Mara did not hum. She could not.

The cloth settled again.

The whisper in the vents softened, satisfied.

Dev took the photo. “Perfect!” he said. “We’re crushing it today.”

Everyone laughed, relieved, as if they’d survived something without admitting there had been anything to survive.

Mara watched their mouths. She watched their eyes. She watched the way their bodies leaned away from the bassinet while their smiles leaned in.

The gap between what was happening and what was being said widened.

And still—somehow—it held.

Back at her desk, Mara tried to work. She tried to type. She tried to answer tickets about dripping ceilings and extra shadows and elevators that opened onto floors that didn’t exist.

At 2:17, her screen flashed.

NORMALCY MAINTENANCE: 98%

TARGET ACHIEVED.

The number congratulated them.

In the reflection of her monitor, Mara saw something behind her—not a person. A shape standing too still, its outline made of the wrong kind of dark.

She didn’t turn around.

Instead, like everyone else, she behaved as if everything was normal.

She lifted her mug. Took a sip of safe air.

And on the other side of the glass wall, something pressed forward gently, like a hand learning the texture of a boundary.

Mara stared at her inbox, waiting for an email that would tell her what to call it.

None came.

The siren sang its polite two notes again—ding, ding—and the building returned its practiced silence, the kind of silence you could live inside for years if you never, ever named what you heard moving in the walls.