Seen at 02:07 AM

The report came in with the rest of the overnight logs. Access points. Camera pings. Routine movement summaries. One line stood out because it shouldn’t have been there.

Seen at 02:07 AM.

The location was correct. The camera was real. The timestamp was exact. What didn’t fit was the person attached to it.

He hadn’t been in the building at that hour. He knew where he was. He could prove it, if necessary. Credit card receipts. A witness. A timeline.

Still, the system couldn't log something that didn't happen.

He pulled the footage. The corridor looked empty. Clean. Still. No one entering the frame. No door opening. No shadow passing. And yet the metadata insisted someone had been identified.

Not just someone. Him.

He checked the logs twice. Facial recognition required more than a glance. More than a blur. It needed a clear match. Deliberate positioning. A certain time in frame.

Someone had stood there long enough to be recorded, then stepped away.

The rest came together quickly after that. The security override he’d approved months ago. The credentials he’d shared once and never revoked. The access to raw footage that only two people had.

This wasn’t an error.

It was a rehearsal.

Whoever had done this didn’t want entry. They wanted presence. A timestamp that placed him inside the building after hours. A marker they could use later. When the question wasn’t who, but when...

He closed the file and didn’t flag it. Not yet.

At 02:07 AM, someone had made sure he was seen.

They hadn’t needed him there.

They just needed proof that said he was.