“No kidding,” I mutter.
I pull up my security feed, praying the cams still work.
They do.
But what I see makes me go cold.
There’s a guy standing outside the lobby entrance. Just inside the rotating doors. Maintenance jumpsuit. Tan. Non-reflective. Looks like any one of the building’s repair crew—except he hasn’t moved in ten minutes.
Ten.
Solid.
Minutes.
He’s not talking to anyone. Not checking equipment. Just… standing. Facing the desk. Waiting for something.
Waiting forme?
My heart starts to beat in my ears. I switch cams. Another angle. No weapon visible. No ID badge. Just a shadow of a man who doesn’t seem interested in pretending he’s got a reason to be there.
I flick off the feed.
Okay.
Okay.
So maybe I’m being paranoid. Maybe someone’s fixing a broken water line and I’m making him into the boogeymanbecause a ghost file blew up my inbox and scrambled my interface. That’s reasonable, right?
Except when I walk into the bathroom and the smart mirror glitches mid-reflection, then flashes the Helios logo—flickering red and gone in a blink—I scream.
And it echoes.
And I stand there, shaking, toothpaste dotting the corner of my mouth like a joke.
That’s when I decide: I’m not staying here tonight.
I pack a bag. Just the basics. Change of clothes. Burner pad. Makeup kit. Stun baton.
The stun baton is my dad’s. He gave it to me when I got my first apartment. “Never trust glass walls, baby girl. They don’t keep monsters out—just give ’em a better view.”
At the time, I laughed.
Now I strap it to my thigh under my coat.
The hallway is quiet. Too quiet.
I walk with my keys threaded between my fingers. Stupid trick, but it makes me feel armed.
The elevator takes too long, so I use the stairs. All fifty flights. I’ve never done it before. By the tenth floor, my calves are screaming. By the twentieth, I’m shaking with adrenaline and sweat.
By the time I reach the lobby and step outside, the man is gone.
No jumpsuit.
No anyone.
But the desk clerk’s cup of caf is cold and full, and the holopad at the counter is logged into a diagnostic screen I’ve never seen them use.
