ARIS: Since now. Compliance directive 7B. Log off the anomaly.

The man in the window started running. Other figures poured out of buildings. A digital siren began to wail.

LEO: Since when do we do live stress tests on the production server?

When the screen flickered back on, he was no longer in the Utah void. He was standing in the digital bakery. The man was gone. Outside, the others were frozen, their faces turned toward him, their eyes hollow.

The internal chat pinged. His supervisor, a woman named Aris who never used her camera, sent a message.

ARIS: Leo, close the anomaly file. It's a stress-test asset from the dev team.

He was saying, “Help us.”