There's a human-shaped hole in the secret memory of the world. Somebody who walks without footprints and stands without shadow. No record no photos no financial or social ripples. Missing from high resolution satellite cameras and the sideways glances of cars.
I found the hole because I am uniquely, monstrously good at finding people: that's the word used by the ones I hunt and the ones I hunt for and I have no frame of reference to know if they are wrong. My gift can't be explained so I failed to convince my masters of the hole's existence and meaning, which I did not understand but intuited terrible. To hide from intelligence agencies is easy. To hide from me I had thought impossible.
At the end it was. I took some days off for the first time in my life and a week later I was standing in front of an unmarked door not mentioned in any building plan.
I rang the bell and by retroactive inference somebody must have opened the door. There is a hole in my memory the length and breadth of a few hours and the world's databases are smooth now. There is still no digital archival room I can't access but however many walls I knock on I never hear that hollow sound.
Sometimes I cry without knowing why.
(Originally posted on my blog.)