Elias was a freelance journalist, the kind who poked at bruises until they turned into scandals. Two days ago, a whistleblower from the city’s largest tech conglomerate had called him. The man had detailed a massive data-harvesting operation, but Elias, caught off guard in a noisy subway station, hadn't hit record. Now, the whistleblower was missing, and Elias had nothing but his fading memory.
The neon sign of the "Midnight Byte" internet cafe flickered, casting a rhythmic blue glow over Elias’s keyboard. He wasn’t there for gaming. He was there because his life depended on a conversation he’d had forty-eight hours ago—a conversation he forgot to record.
