With the immediate spike of morning panic safely folded away and his passport returned to its drawer, Ryan finished his routine, pouring out the remainder of his stovetop tea into a heavy ceramic mug. The apartment settled back into its familiar, quiet rhythm, save for the distant rumble of a T9 commuter service rattling past along the Parramatta River rail corridor. Slinging his canvas messenger bag over his shoulder, he paused by the low kitchen table to double-check his belongings before heading out to catch the 7:42 train at Rhodes Station. Resting neatly on the timber surface was his zipped leather work folio, packed with the printed event run-sheets and vendor briefs he had brought home to review the previous evening.
As he unzipped the folio to ensure the documents were flat and uncrewed, a flash of bright neon yellow caught his eye against the crisp white paper of the top marketing schedule. Stuck firmly to the bottom corner of the Wednesday activation brief was a standard sticky note, bearing a brief message scrawled in an unfamiliar, sharp-angled handwriting: Check the pallet audit logs from Tuesday. The numbers on row B don't match the manifest. Ryan frowned, tilting his head as he examined the ink. He lived entirely alone, and the folio had remained securely zipped inside his bag during yesterday's commute and on his desk all afternoon, making the sudden appearance of an inter-office note inside his private apartment an impossibility.
Standing in the quiet light of his sixth-floor kitchen, Ryan stared down at the small yellow square, a faint, lingering unease prickling at the back of his neck. It was likely just a stray memo from a colleague that had slipped between the pages during the chaotic rush of packing up yesterday evening—perhaps Sarah or someone else from the marketing pod had slid it in while he was away from his desk. Still, as he carefully peeled the note off and slid it into his pocket alongside his transit pass, the ordinary morning commute suddenly felt weighted with a strange, unspoken question. He checked his watch, locked the apartment door behind him, and headed down toward the station, determined to check the warehouse manifests the moment he reached the Barangaroo office.