Miles slammed his thumb down on the spacebar.
The key clicked loud enough to cut the silence of the room, and on the screen the dark purple waveforms lurched forward — not smooth, but jagged, like fractures spreading across ice.
The laptop speaker didn’t throw music.
It threw a low, wet rumble that vibrated straight through the wood of the desk and into the bones of his wrists.
The phone against his ear went dead.
The engine idle on the other end cut out, replaced by a high, piercing whistle that made his left eye twitch, and he dropped the device — it clattered against the ramen cup, knocking a crust of dried broth onto the keyboard.
The blue text flared in his vision, bleeding warm into his lower eyelids.
FREQUENCY PROPAGATED.
STREET NETWORK OVERLOADED: 100%.
TARGETING SEDAN INTERIOR.
He didn’t move, his shadow pinned under the bare bulb, and through the wall came a sudden metallic bang from the street — like an iron pipe striking an engine block.
Then another.
He went back to the window and pulled the blind down, knuckles white on the plastic.
The sedan’s headlights were flashing erratically now, dimming to a faint amber then bursting into a blinding blue-white glare that cut through the exhaust smoke.
The phone-glow inside the cabin was gone.
The horn started up — a solid, unbroken shriek tearing into the empty morning.
A door on the sedan threw itself open and a man stumbled out onto the asphalt, both hands clamped over his ears, elbows locked against his ribs.
He dropped to his knees beside the front tire, and even four floors up Miles could see his chest heaving, his mouth stretched open in a scream that made no sound at all.
The horn let out one last distorted shriek and died.
The headlights went dark.
The lines in his vision tightened, pulling like a band of wire across his temples.
DISTRACTION ELIMINATED.
CREATIVE INDEX RESTORED: 94/100.
REACH AMPLIFIER STABLE.
NEW SYSTEM REQUIRED DIRECTIVE:
The target has dropped a physical storage device during evacuation.
Secure the hardware within 180 seconds.
Failure to retrieve will result in data corruption.
A timer appeared.
02:59.
02:58.
He looked down at his hands — stiff, the cold from his wrists reaching into his palms and leaving his fingers numb.
On the laptop, the waveforms kept looping silently on the black screen.
The fan had gone quiet, but the room smelled different now — sharp, chemical, burnt plastic and old copper.
02:45.
He turned for the door, his wooden frame creaking as he moved.
He hadn’t left the apartment in three days; his boots felt twice as heavy as they should.
The brass doorknob was freezing against his bare palm, and he pulled it open onto a dark, unlit stairwell that smelled of wet cement and old rain rising up from the street.
He stepped onto the concrete landing.
Behind him, the laptop speaker gave a low, rhythmic thud — like a slow heartbeat, keeping time.