In twenty years, Secretary Dev Sharma has marked 288 of 341 staff cases reviewed, no action indicated. His predecessor did it in six per cent. Director Meghna Rao carries the numbers into his office in a thin folder.

Model confidence across all of Twelve-East has dropped six points since the spring. No directive, no policy change. Samar carries the number across the checkpoint to Kavya, two nights after their argument.

Everyone on the floor says Prakash forgets a file the moment he closes it. He has never forgotten one. Seventeen years, perhaps sixty thousand files, and two exercise books of names in a drawer he does not open.

Confidence 98.9. Renu Sen closes forty files like this a week without thinking. This one holds two stories about the same address, and after thirteen years she asks to see the audit log.