“Elena Vance,” I said.

I frowned. I didn’t remember the lab’s systems having voice auth, but maybe it was part of the new security patch.

A window popped up. Not a progress bar, not a file prompt. Just text, old-style monospaced, green on black:

The cursor blinked on an empty terminal. Late nights in the lab always felt like this—too quiet, too bright, too promising.

The skin on my palms was writing. Tiny, dense paragraphs, shifting as I moved. I leaned closer to read a line:

The screen flickered.