The Invisible Employer

At 9:00 a.m., just as I arrived at the office entrance, two police officers stopped me. "Mr. Clarke, someone reported that you haven't shown up at work for a long time and that they couldn't reach you. They were worried that you might have been in an accident." I was shocked. I thought they had the wrong person. I had gone to work on time every day for the past six months. Sometimes, I even stayed late at the office until midnight. How could my company not be able to contact me? "You must have the wrong person. I go to work every day. Everyone at my company can prove it!" "The people who reported you missing are from your company." Chapter 1 "What? That's impossible! I was working overtime at the office yesterday, finishing project reports. My department manager, Mr. Leonard, was even pushing me for a progress update in our work chat before I left home this morning!" The two police officers exchanged worried looks. "Mr. Clarke, we need you to come with us to the police station for questioning." I panicked, but I had no way to argue, so I got into the police car. As soon as I sat down at the station, I quickly said, "Sir, I'm telling the truth. I can prove I'm innocent right now!" I hurriedly pulled a folder out of my work bag. Inside were my job offer letter, employment contract, pay stubs from the past six months, and my Social Security contribution records. "This is my offer letter. It clearly says I started working six months ago, and it's verified by the company. Here's my employment contract. We each kept a signed copy. My pay stubs and Social Security records prove the company has been paying my salary and making my Social Security contributions the whole time. How could I not have been working there?" The officer carefully looked through the documents, then checked them against the information on his computer. Instead of relaxing, his frown only grew deeper. "Mr. Clarke, everything you've given us is genuine. Your pay records and Social Security contributions are all legitimate." I had just let out a sigh of relief when he continued. "But we contacted Synapse Future to verify everything. They told us that after you completed your hiring paperwork, you never came to work even once. Their system also has no attendance records for you." I slammed my hand on the table and stood up. "That's impossible! I work there every day! My desk is on the third floor by the window. The guy next to me is Maverick Zabinski from the Engineering Department. We eat lunch together in the cafeteria all the time. I also attend Mr. Leonard's department meetings every Monday!" "What's Mr. Leonard's full name?" the officer asked. "Gavin Leonard. He's my department manager. He's the one who interviewed me!" I answered without hesitation. The interrogation room door opened, and a man and a woman walked in. They were employees from Synapse Future. The officer introduced them, "This is the HR Director and an administrative specialist from Synapse Future. I asked them to come help verify your story." I hurried over. "Ms. Veasey, hello. I'm Jason Clarke from the Engineering Department. Mr. Leonard must have mentioned me before." The HR Director, Juniper Veasey, looked confused. "Jason Clarke? We do have a hiring record under that name, but I've never met you before. And our company has never had a manager named Gavin Leonard. The Engineering Department currently has only three supervisors. There has never been a department manager position." "What?" I froze in disbelief. "That's impossible. Mr. Leonard comes to work every day. He even talked to me about a promotion last week. How could the company not have someone by that name?" The administrative specialist handed me a staff directory. "Mr. Clarke, this is our complete employee directory. You can check it yourself. There is no Gavin Leonard in it, and there are no attendance records under your name either." My hands shook as I opened the directory. I read it three times. Forget Gavin. My own name appeared only in the hiring records, while my attendance column was completely blank. I muttered to myself, "This isn't right. I went to work every single day. How can there be no attendance records? Wait, there are security cameras on every floor. Check the surveillance footage. It'll prove I've been at work every day for the past six months!" Juniper slowly shook her head. "We already reviewed nearly six months of security footage, including the cameras covering the workstation by the window on the third floor that you described. You never appeared in any of the recordings. That's why we called the police." Chapter 2 "To be honest, part of this is our fault. The company has had some internal problems over the past six months. Things got disorganized, so it took us this long to notice that your records didn't match." My mind went completely blank. "Then are you saying the badge I used and the employee apartment I lived in were fake too?" Without thinking, I reached into my pocket and touched my employee badge. It had the Synapse Future logo, along with my name and job title. It looked exactly the same as Juniper's and the administrative specialist's badges. Seeing how shaken I was, the officer softened his tone. "Mr. Clarke, please stay calm. Can you tell us the exact location of the office where you worked? We'll go there right now and verify everything." I gave them the address. But when we got there, I was stunned. The office in front of me was exactly where I had worked every day. My desk was there. My computer was there. Even the photocopies of my mother's medical records that I had kept in my desk drawer were still there. But Juniper and the administrative specialist both looked completely confused. "This isn't our office layout." Juniper walked around my desk. "Our Engineering Department has an open office layout. There aren't any private desks by the windows. And we definitely don't have employee housing upstairs." I ran to the window on the third floor and pointed at the cafeteria below. "I eat lunch there every day!" "That's the cafeteria for the office building next door," the administrative specialist explained. "Our company has its own break room, so we've never ordered food from there." The officer turned on the computer at my desk. It was filled with project files I had worked on over the past six months. "These files are indeed for Synapse Future projects. But we checked the company's servers, and there isn't a single record of you submitting any of them. Didn't you notice anything strange during these past six months?" I froze for a moment before slowly shaking my head. "No. I thought the company just had great benefits. They even provided employee housing. Our apartment is in the building across the street from the office. Two people share a two-bedroom apartment. Maverick and I live together. Sometimes when we worked late into the night, we'd just stay there instead of commuting home. It saved us a lot of travel time." I reached into my pocket and pulled out my apartment key. A small metal tag hung from it, engraved with the words "Synapse Future Employee Apartments." "This is my apartment key. Mr. Leonard told me it was one of the company's employee benefits. Utilities were free, and we only had to pay the building maintenance fee. I've lived there for almost six months without any problems. So how could any of this be fake?" Juniper frowned even harder. "Mr. Clarke, that is absolutely not one of our employee benefits. Our company has never provided housing, and we've never had any 'employee apartments.' It's true that a few of our employees rent apartments in the building you mentioned, but they arranged those rentals themselves. The company has nothing to do with them. Also, that apartment building has very strict security. The front entrance is locked every night at 11:00 p.m. Visitors can't get inside after that, and employees who don't live there certainly couldn't stay overnight." "That's impossible!" I quickly argued back, "I stayed there just last night. I worked until midnight before going back. The front entrance was still open, and the security guard even greeted me." The administrative specialist took out his phone while speaking and pulled up a photo. "Then that's even less likely. I took this picture last Saturday night when I walked past that apartment building. The entrance had already been locked a little after 10:00 p.m. You can even see the notice posted on the bulletin board. It says, 'Building closed from 11:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.' Every resident knows that rule. Are you sure you didn't mistake it for somewhere else?" I stared at the clearly visible notice in the photo. A chill ran down my spine. During the past six months, the apartment entrance had never been locked. No matter how late I came home, I could always walk in without any trouble. The security guard was always sitting in the guard booth. Sometimes he'd glance up at me, but he had never once asked me to show my ID. Chapter 3 At the time, I thought the company was just giving its employees special treatment. But now, the more I thought about it, the less it made sense. "Wait! We also had medical checkups!" I quickly added, trying one more time to prove I was telling the truth, "Our company had amazing benefits. Every month, they scheduled a medical checkup for us. "Sometimes it was even a full-body exam, and the company paid for everything. During my last checkup, they found I had mild fatty liver disease. Mr. Leonard even talked to me about it. He told me to eat healthier, stop ordering takeout all the time, and even recommended a few healthy meal plans..." As I spoke, I suddenly froze. What kind of company would be that generous? Monthly medical exams were already expensive. Full-body exams every so often would cost even more. And Gavin's concern for me had gone far beyond what a manager normally showed an employee. He had cared about every little detail. The officer's expression turned even more serious. He picked up his radio, spoke into it for a moment, then looked back at me with sharp eyes. "Mr. Clarke, we've just contacted several major medical exam centers in the city. None of them have any record of you having a medical exam during the past six months. Can you tell us where you got these medical reports? Did they have the clinic's stamp or a doctor's signature?" I tried hard to remember, but my voice began to shake. "Mr. Leonard gave me every report himself. Each time, he'd hand it to me and patiently explain all the test results. He said the clinic worked exclusively with the company. To protect employee privacy, they didn't upload reports into any public system and only kept them in the company's internal files. I remember there was a stamp on the report. It was a little blurry, but it looked real, so I never questioned it." "They were all fake..." I muttered to myself. "One time, I asked Mr. Leonard if I could get another copy of my report from the clinic so I could show it to my mother. But he told me their partner clinic didn't provide paper copies directly to patients. He said only the company could collect them. I thought it was inconvenient, but I didn't push the issue." The officer asked gravely, "Did you ever actually see this medical clinic? During your exams, were there any other doctors, nurses, or patients there?" I searched my memory, but my mind was strangely blank. "We always had our exams at a small building with its own courtyard. There was only one doctor and one nurse inside. Every time, only Maverick and I went together. I never saw any other patients. Mr. Leonard said it was the company's private medical facility so we wouldn't have to wait in line. But now that I think about it, it didn't look like a real medical center at all. It looked more like a private clinic." The more I thought about it, the more wrong everything felt. If I hadn't really been working for a legitimate company, then what were those medical exams? I didn't even dare finish that thought. I immediately reached for my phone to call Gavin. My fingers were ice cold as I gripped it. Just as I was about to press the call button, Juniper suddenly spoke, "Mr. Clarke, now that we've confirmed you aren't actually a missing person, we should be heading back. We still have a lot of work waiting for us at the office. We only came here to help the police verify the missing person report." The administrative specialist nodded. "That's right. Maybe this is all just a strange coincidence. Someone could have been pretending to represent our company, or maybe there was some kind of misunderstanding. After all, your salary payments and Social Security records are real, so it can't be a complete scam." They were trying to comfort me. But my uneasiness only grew stronger. There was no way this many unbelievable coincidences could happen at once. "Thank you," I said quietly. If they hadn't reported me missing, I had no idea what kind of situation I might be in now. Juniper patted me on the shoulder. "Don't worry too much. I'm sure the police will get to the bottom of this. If they need any documents or information from our company later, we'll do everything we can to help." After saying that, they hurried out of the police station. As I watched them leave, panic washed over me again. I immediately opened my WhatsApp chat with Gavin and started a voice call. All I heard was the long ringing tone. Then it changed to an automated message... Chapter 4 "The number you have dialed is currently unavailable. Please try again later." I tried calling Maverick next. The result was exactly the same. My voice trembled as I looked at the officer beside me. "Sir, what's going on? Why can't I reach either of them? Who have I been working for these past six months?" The officer handed me a cup of hot water and spoke in a calmer voice. "Mr. Clarke, please try to stay calm. Based on what we know so far, your situation is very unusual. But we don't have any direct evidence that this is fraud or any other crime. Your salary payments and Social Security records are genuine. The project files you worked on are also real Synapse Future materials. So far, no one has caused you any direct harm." "But they faked the employee housing and the medical exams. They even used the company's name. Isn't that illegal?" I asked anxiously. The officer nodded. "Those things are definitely suspicious, but we need more evidence before we can reach any conclusions. We've already recorded Gavin's and Maverick's information and phone numbers. We'll also send officers to investigate the apartment building and the medical clinic you mentioned. But there's a good chance they've already realized something is wrong. If we move too quickly, we might alert them." He paused before continuing. "I suggest you go home and continue living your life as usual. Don't do anything reckless. If they contact you again or ask you to do anything unusual, let us know immediately. That could give us the lead we need to continue the investigation. We might even be able to catch whoever is behind all of this." After thinking it over, I realized the officer was right. "So what should I do now?" The officer gave me one final instruction. "Keep going to work as if nothing has happened. If they ask about today, just tell them the police were simply verifying your identity and that everything was fine." I nodded and memorized his instructions. Even so, I couldn't stop worrying. The moment I got home, I lay in bed, tossing and turning. I kept replaying every detail of the past six months in my head. The more I thought about it, the more frightened I became. Finally, I sent Gavin a message. "Mr. Leonard, I'm not feeling well today. I'd like to take a couple of days off. I'll work on the project remotely from home." As soon as I hit send, I stared at my phone with sweaty palms. About 30 minutes later, Gavin finally replied. "No problem. Your health comes first. Get plenty of rest. The project isn't urgent, so don't force yourself to work. Remember to take your medicine, drink plenty of water, and let me know if you need anything." After reading his message, I felt even more uneasy. Over the next few days, I didn't make any rash moves. Every day, I sent Gavin a message to let him know I was doing fine. Sometimes I even brought up the project's progress, pretending I knew nothing. His replies stayed as warm and caring as ever. Every now and then, he'd ask how I was feeling and remind me to get more rest. I couldn't find a single flaw in his behavior. But my fear kept growing. I started paying attention to everything around me. I constantly felt like someone was watching me. Whenever I went out to buy something, I'd instinctively look over my shoulder to see if anyone was following me. When I was home, I repeatedly checked that all the doors and windows were locked. I even kept my phone in my hand all the time, afraid I'd miss a call from the police. The police called me twice over the next few days. They told me they had investigated both the apartment building and the medical clinic I had mentioned. What they found shocked me. There were no so-called employee apartments in that building. The apartment where I had been living had been rented under a fake identity. The lease had lasted exactly six months. And it had been canceled the day after I asked Gavin for leave. By the fifth day, I couldn't stand waiting any longer. I packed my things and was about to leave. Just then, someone knocked on my door. "Who is it?" I asked cautiously, already preparing myself for the worst. "It's me. Gavin." He had actually come.