The Narrowing

Anton noticed the absences first.

Radan wasn’t there when Anton arrived. His chair had been pushed in, the monitor dark. A jacket still hung on the back, untouched. No out-of-office message appeared next to his name. Nothing marked the absence as temporary or planned.

Mira was already at her desk. She didn’t look up when Anton approached.

“Has anyone said where Radan is?” he asked.

She shook her head once. “He didn’t log in.”

“Did he message anyone?”

“Not me.”

Her voice stayed steady, but she kept her eyes on the screen. Anton recognized the posture. It was the stance of someone who had decided not to ask further questions.

Across the floor, Tomas sat alone, headphones on but no audio playing. He removed them when Anton came closer.

“They reassigned part of my backlog,” Tomas said. “No notice. No reason.”

“To whom?”

“To a group I’ve never worked with.”

“Did they explain why?”

Tomas gave a small shrug. “They said it was temporary.”

As the morning unfolded, more small shifts appeared. Access requests went unanswered. A calendar invite for a technical review vanished without cancellation. A PMO analyst remained near the engineering desks longer than usual, observing screens under the pretense of checking documentation.

Jorel approached Anton near the coffee machine.

“They’re splitting responsibilities,” he said. “Quietly.”

“Is that unusual?”

“They’re separating people who talk to each other.”

Later, during a brief stand-up, a team lead announced a realignment of focus. Tasks once shared were redistributed. Questions were acknowledged and deferred. No names were mentioned directly, but the effect was visible. Certain engineers stopped contributing altogether.

Anton noticed Mira had spoken only once.

After the meeting, she waited until the room cleared.

“They asked me about you,” she said.

“What did they ask?”

“Whether you coordinate with anyone informally.”

“And what did you say?”

“That you observe patterns,” she replied. “That’s your role.”

“Did that satisfy them?”

“For now.”

In the afternoon, an internal message circulated from PMO. It announced a targeted review of advisory influence. The language was neutral and procedural. No individuals were named. No scope was defined.

Anton read it twice.

A few desks away, Tomas closed his laptop earlier than usual and stood.

“I’m heading out,” he said quietly. “They asked me to submit notes from last quarter.”

“Did you?” Anton asked.

“I gave them what was already published.”

He hesitated before adding, “I didn’t include anything else.”

Near the end of the day, Anton finally saw Radan’s name appear online. No message followed. No greeting. Just a brief status indicator, then nothing again.

Mira noticed it too.

“They’re keeping him busy,” she said. “That’s usually how it starts.”

“How what starts?” Anton asked.

She didn’t answer immediately.

“They reduce your surface area,” she said. “Fewer conversations. Fewer dependencies. Less context.”

She paused.

“After that, they decide what remains.”

Before leaving, Anton checked the internal org page. It loaded slowly. When it appeared, one detail stood out: Radan’s name no longer appeared under the architecture group. No announcement accompanied the change. No explanation followed.

Just absence.

Anton closed the page.

As he walked toward the exit, he felt the narrowing clearly now. The space around him hadn’t changed physically, but the paths through it had grown thinner. Fewer ways to speak. Fewer people willing to listen.

Outside, the air had cooled. The streetlights reflected softly on the pavement. He stood for a moment before moving, aware that the system was no longer adjusting broadly.

It was choosing.