He clicked "Accept."

The server room hummed a low, mournful C-sharp. Miles Chen, a senior structural engineer at Hara-Moriya Construction, stared at his screen. The deadline for the San Remo Viaduct’s foundation plans was 6:00 AM. It was 3:00 AM. He was only halfway done.

The program answered. Its voice was not text. It was a subsonic hum that he felt in his molars.

At 5:58 AM, Miles sent the revised foundation plans and the explosive RFI to the client.

Miles, desperate, ran it.

Miles leaned back, his coffee cold. Then he saw it. A dark, forgotten corner of the company intranet: a link labeled