The Archive of the Unlisted

The book was already open when I found it, which felt rude.

It lay on my desk between my government-issued study tablet and a cup of synth-coffee that tasted like regret. Its spine was cracked. Its pages were yellowed. Its existence was illegal in at least twelve clearly posted ways. I stared at it for a full ten seconds, waiting for the apartment’s monitoring system to scream. It didn’t. That was problem number one.

Problem number two was the title, printed neatly on the first page in dark, confident ink:

THE ARCHIVE OF THE UNLISTED

A record of those who chose to disappear.

Below that, in handwriting I recognised with a slow, sinking certainty, was my name.

Not the name I used now. The other one.

Mari Ives.

I closed the book immediately.

Then I opened it again, because panic has never once improved my decision-making.

The handwriting was unmistakably mine. Same sharp slant. Same habit of crossing my sevens. Same irritated dot I added at the end of sentences when I was trying not to swear. I hadn’t written anything by hand since primary school, back when handwriting was framed as a “motor skills exercise” instead of what it really was: a way to identify us later.

Yet here it was. Proof. In ink.

I flipped the page.

Meeting One — Attendance Confirmed

Location: sublevel transit corridor, Lumen Square

Notes: She was nervous. I don’t blame her.

“She?” I whispered. “Excuse you?”

The apartment remained silent. The wall display pulsed through the city’s evening colour cycle: calm blue, approved violet, citizen-friendly dusk. Somewhere inside the walls, sensors tracked my breathing, my posture, my pupil dilation. Everything about me was logged.

Everything except this.

I flipped faster.

Meeting Three — She asked the right questions

Meeting Six — She’s braver than she thinks

Meeting Nine — She suggested paper

I dropped the book.

It hit the floor with a dull, final sound no screen had ever made.

Paper, my brain supplied, unhelpfully.

In Lumen, there was no paper. Not really. Not outside museums, tightly controlled exhibits, or cheerful lessons about how primitive people used to be before the Great Data Purge saved humanity from itself. All knowledge was digital now. Editable. Correctable. Safe.

This book was none of those things.

My wristband buzzed.

CITIZEN MOOD CHECK: INCOMPLETE.

“Later,” I muttered, slapping the band against my desk until it dimmed. It wasn’t supposed to respond to tone. Glitches, apparently, were becoming a theme.

I crouched and picked the book up again, slower this time, as it might bite. The cover was worn leather, warm from my room, from me. On the inside cover, a small symbol had been drawn in ink: an eye with a line through it.

Unlisted.

I swallowed.

I had grown up knowing what it meant to be listed. To be logged, tracked, and summarised into neat, efficient profiles. My father, Thomas Ives, worked in Civic Algorithm Oversight. He liked to say the city ran on clarity.

My mother had been reassigned when I was ten.

That was the official phrase. Reassigned. Clean. Painless.

She vanished so thoroughly that even her absence felt regulated.

I turned the page.

Names filled the book. Hundreds of them. Dates. Brief notes.

Refused calibration.

Kept an analogue photograph.

Asked the wrong question.

People were erased for the smallest disobediences, recorded here with care the city never bothered to show.

My chest tightened.

Then the tone shifted.

If you’re reading this and still hate the colour yellow, congratulations. You’re still you.

I laughed before I could stop myself.

“Oh no,” I whispered. “That’s not fair.”

Yellow had always made me anxious. Too bright. Too loud. My father called it irrational.

I flipped to the final section.

If you’re here, it means I made the choice.

My hands shook.

Memory deletion requires consent. That’s the law. I argued for it. I insisted. If I didn’t remember, I couldn’t be compelled to report what I knew. I could stay inside the system.

The room felt suddenly too small.

I chose to forget so I could keep you safe.

I didn’t remember writing this.

I remembered being safe.

My wristband buzzed again, sharper this time.

ANOMALY DETECTED.

“No,” I whispered. “No, no, no.”

I shoved the book into my jacket and slapped a strip of blackout tape over the room’s camera. The warning tone escalated.

MONITORING INTERRUPTION — LEVEL TWO CONCERN.

I ignored it and scanned the last page.

If you’re reading this, come to the old transit tunnel under Lumen Square at 23:10. Don’t bring your band.

I checked the time.

22:41.

Removing a wristband without authorisation was illegal.

Being untracked was dangerous.

Dangerous meant deleted.

I stared at the book, at my own words staring back like a dare.

“Of course I would do this,” I muttered. “Of course.”

The calibration kit was still in my father’s drawer. He’d brought it home once while complaining about lazy technicians. I’d watched him use it and memorised the steps without knowing why.

My fingers didn’t hesitate.

The clasp popped. The band slid free.

The apartment lights flickered. An alarm tried to sound.

I muted it and shoved the band beneath a stack of school files.

The silence afterwards was immense.

I flexed my bare wrist. It felt wrong. Light. Like stepping into open air after living underwater.

I left the apartment before I could change my mind.

Without the band, the city didn’t see me properly. Lights hesitated. Doors paused. Drones passed overhead without slowing.

For the first time in my life, I wasn’t fully accounted for.

The stairwell to the old transit tunnel smelled like rust and damp concrete. The further down I went, the quieter the city became, until all I could hear was my own breathing.

23:09.

Footsteps echoed.

I spun.

Three figures emerged from the dark. A girl my age with a scarf pulled over her mouth. A boy carrying a drone pack that looked older than him. An older woman leaning heavily on a metal cane.

“Don’t run,” the girl said. “It messes with the pattern.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” I said weakly. “But thank you for the confidence.”

Her eyes flicked to my jacket. “You brought it.”

“You knew I would?”

She hesitated. “We hoped.”

The older woman stepped closer, studying my face with unsettling familiarity. “You look like her,” she said. “And like you don’t remember a thing.”

“That obvious?” I snapped.

The girl lowered her scarf. “Clara Wynn,” she said. “You used to sit right there.” She pointed to a cracked bench behind me.

“I don’t—”

“We know,” Clara said gently. “That was the point.”

The boy shifted his drone pack. “Jonah Reed. You always underestimated how much people listened to you.”

“I don’t even know you.”

“You did,” he said, quietly.

The older woman tapped her cane once against the concrete. “Edith Lorne. I taught you how to write without being detected. You hated it.”

“I still do,” I said automatically.

Edith smiled. “Good. That means something stuck.”

They explained slowly, carefully, as if I might shatter.

The Unlisted weren’t rebels. They weren’t trying to tear the city down. They were archivists. Witnesses. People who believed truth mattered even when it was inconvenient. Especially then.

“You helped build this,” Clara said. “You insisted on consent. On paper. On failsafes.”

“And then I quit.”

“You erased yourself,” Jonah said. “On purpose.”

Edith met my gaze. “You knew remembering would flag you. You knew they’d make you choose between silence and betrayal.”

“So I chose ignorance.”

“No,” Clara said. “You chose time.”

They handed me the book.

“Read the last page,” Clara said.

I did.

Suppose you’re angry, good. That means you care. Suppose you’re scared, better. That means you understand the cost.

You don’t owe us anything. You already gave enough.

But if you choose to remember again, we’ll be here.

I looked up at them, at the tunnel, at the quiet city pressing down above us.

“What happens if I close it?” I asked.

Clara didn’t lie. “You stay safe. You stay listed. We keep going without you.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you remember everything,” she said. “And nothing stays easy.”

I held the book. Felt its weight. Its stubbornness.

The paper doesn’t ask for permission to remember.

I closed the book.

Not because I was done.

But because I finally understood what opening it meant.

For now, I stayed unlisted.

And that was a choice I knew how to live with.