The overhead light in the server room hummed in an almost rhythmic flicker, casting a cold, sterile glow over a row of idle towers. Pale reflections danced off the brushed metal surfaces, shadows twitching with each pulse of the flicker. The scent of hot plastic, ozone, and recycled air hung thick—an artificial musk that clung to every inch of the space like a second skin.

  Callum Stroud sat hunched in a rolling chair that creaked in protest every time he shifted. The chair had once been black, now faded to a dull charcoal grey from years of use and neglect. A half-eaten protein bar rested on the scratched metal surface of the desk beside his tablet, its screen dimmed into sleep. One finger tapped an irregular beat on the chair’s frayed armrest, while the other lazily flicked across the tablet to wake it up, scrolling through a stagnant feed of game news.

  The headline about Void Circuit: Dominion Protocol caught his eye again. Supposedly launching in two weeks. He snorted.

  "They better not delay it again. Been three damn years," he muttered under his breath, his voice low and gravel-edged with annoyance.

  A sharp chime from his headset snapped through the silence like a snapped rubber band. He straightened, eyes narrowing, the sigh escaping him before he even pressed the push-to-talk button.

  “Stroud, we’ve got a service disruption at East 9th and Bellmore,” said Quinn’s clipped, nasal voice in his ear, tight, joyless, and every bit as enthusiastic as an insurance audit.

  Callum rubbed at his temple. “Is it the dental clinic again? Pretty sure they still don’t know how to seat a patch cable.”

  “Not our job to guess. Just go check it out,” Quinn replied, tone flat as drywall.

  “Yeah, alright. I’m grabbing a toolkit.”

  He shoved himself out of the chair, stretching until his shoulders popped. His knee cracked in protest, sharp and unwelcome, and he muttered something impolite under his breath. The worn denim of his jeans sagged just slightly where the multitool on his belt dragged them down on one side. He slung the messenger bag across his shoulder and began filling it: tablet, cable tester, a spare fiber patch cord, and a crumpled half-pack of peanut M&Ms. No day was bad enough that chocolate couldn’t soften the edge.

  He passed down the corridor, nodding at a flickering motion sensor light that buzzed overhead and lit only half the hallway. As he approached the analytics row, he spotted Sadie leaning back in her creaky chair, headphones snug over her ears, foot tapping to whatever beat she was immersed in. Her desk was its usual chaos of sticky notes, glowing graphs, and an empty tea cup balanced precariously on top of a server log printout.

  “East 9th again?” she asked without glancing up, one ear uncovered just enough to catch his approach.

  “Of course. My favorite little patch panel of horrors.”

  “Told you last time—label it in neon tape.”

  “They peeled it off. Said it was ‘unprofessional.’”

  She snorted, flipping a stylus between her fingers. “Idiots.”

  Callum grinned faintly and kept walking. The concrete floor of the back hallway echoed under his boots, each step softened by the weight of routine. As he reached the side door, he pushed it open with a shoulder and was immediately hit by a wall of sunlight. He squinted, the sudden brightness cutting through the haze of artificial light still clinging to his eyes.

  Digging into his bag, he found a pair of scratched sunglasses and slipped them on. The world dimmed into a cool grey, more tolerable but no less busy.

  The van sat across the lot, parked at an angle like whoever had last driven it lost patience halfway through turning. Callum didn’t bother correcting it. He adjusted the strap on his bag, crossed the pavement, and climbed inside.

  The seatbelt clicked into place with a mechanical thunk. He tossed the bag onto the passenger side floor, where it landed with a soft thud, and twisted the key in the ignition. The engine coughed once, then settled into a reluctant growl, like a beast waking up from a nap it didn’t ask for.

  As he nosed the van out of the cramped lot and merged into the slow crawl of midday London traffic, his thoughts drifted almost predictably to Sadie.

  They’d worked together for close to two years now. Shared lunches. Shared frustrations. Shared silence in the kind of way that was rare and easy. More than a few nights ended with them hunched over terminals, bathed in the glow of system logs and error reports, passing takeout containers back and forth like battlefield rations.

  She was smart, quick with a sarcastic jab, and always put-together. Not in a high-maintenance way—just sharp. And maybe that was the problem. Or at least part of it. Women like that didn’t tend to date guys who spent half their life fixing bad cabling and the other half waiting for firmware updates to finish.

  Not that he hadn’t thought about it.

  Hell, he’d almost asked her out three separate times. But each time, the words stalled in his throat, trapped behind some mix of anxiety and self-doubt. He liked what they had. Comfortable, easy. Screwing that up just didn’t seem worth it.

  He tapped the steering wheel lightly, eyes flicking between the bumper ahead and the ETA ticking upward on the satnav. Eighty-seven minutes. He groaned.

  Could’ve taken the train. Could’ve even walked if he’d left earlier. But no, policy was policy. If there were a chance he’d need tools, he had to take the van. And if he took the van, he got stuck in the endless, grinding hellscape of London traffic—Quinn’s rules.

  A black cab lurched in front of him with the kind of casual recklessness that only came from a lifetime of doing it. Callum yanked the wheel just in time to avoid clipping its rear bumper, tires squealing for half a breath. Pedestrians turned their heads.

  “You blind sod,” he growled, slamming his hand on the horn in protest.

  The cabbie didn’t even flinch. Just kept going like it never happened.

  Callum exhaled sharply and guided the van back into its lane. Quinn was probably sitting in his office right now, sipping tea and patting himself on the back for following “fleet protocols” while the people actually doing the work suffered for it.

  The rest of the drive unfolded in stuttering starts and grudging stops. He gnawed through the last of his protein bar somewhere around Holborn and cursed softly every time he hit another traffic jam.

  When he finally pulled up in front of the squat brick building at East 9th and Bellmore, the sun shifted lower in the sky, and the fatigue settled in his bones.

  He killed the engine, grabbed his bag, and stepped out into the thinning afternoon. The air smelled like rain that hadn’t arrived yet—thick and electric.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  The clinic’s glass door swung open with a soft chime. Inside, the lobby was exactly as depressing as he remembered. Faintly mint-scented air mixed with the sterile bite of antiseptic. A chipped sign taped to the reception desk asked patients to please silence their mobile devices.

  Callum stepped inside, adjusting the strap on his shoulder as the door clicked shut behind him.

  "About time," the receptionist muttered without bothering to look up. Her voice was sharp, clipped, the bare minimum threshold of professional tone.

  He gave a dry chuckle and walked up to the desk, already dreading what fresh idiocy awaited behind the server cabinet.

  "Afternoon, Ms. Harrell," he replied calmly, keeping his tone even. "I got the ticket. Just here to take a look."

  She finally met his eyes, arms folding a little tighter across her chest. “Well, maybe this time you can fix it properly. After you left last time, the whole left wing lost access again.”

  "I'll take another look," he said, unbothered.

  She huffed and flicked her fingers toward the hallway. "Same panel as before. If it’s still broken after this, we’re asking for a different vendor."

  He walked past her without responding, letting the weight of his silence speak for him. There was nothing new about this script—it played out in different variations at every site with a particularly fussy office manager. He’d dealt with dozens just like her.

  The hallway was dimly lit, and fluorescent panels above flickered in soft pulses like a tired heartbeat. The IT closet was exactly where he remembered it—door ajar, panel exposed, and chaos visible at a glance.

  He knelt, the cold linoleum pressing through the fabric of his jeans, and took stock of the mess. Ms. Harrell stood behind him, hovering like an auditor, her presence as subtle as a fire alarm.

  The main power cord drooped out of its socket like a limp vine. He pinched the plug between two fingers and slotted it home with a soft click. The device beneath it whirred to life, fans spinning in a steady rhythm.

  Above that, two ethernet cables dangled like forgotten limbs, swinging slightly from the door's motion. He opened his tablet, pulling up the job notes from the last visit. Sure enough, he had documented exactly which ports they belonged to. The labels matched. With a sigh, he pushed them back into place with an audible snap.

  Seriously? That’s what all this was about?

  He kept his face unreadable, but mentally he was unleashing a blistering rant against whoever had been poking around this panel. His hands moved on autopilot now, methodically reseating every visible cable and double-checking their labels. He even ran a diagnostic from his tester for good measure, just to be thorough.

  Fifteen minutes later, the panel looked like something out of a product brochure—organized, powered, and perfectly functional.

  Behind him, Ms. Harrell’s voice came sharp and smug. “Well, it’s working now. I hope it stays that way this time. You might want someone to double-check your work before you leave next time.”

  Callum stood slowly, brushing dust from his knees. “Glad it’s sorted.”

  “For what we pay, we expect better than repeat visits.”

  He didn’t bite. Just gave her a polite nod and turned for the door. “Understood. Have a good day, Ms. Harrell.”

  Her “thanks” was half-hearted at best. He waved lazily over his shoulder without looking back.

  They weren’t getting a new vendor. He knew it. She knew it. Word got around. Several other vendors had dropped them after similar complaints and repeated calls. From what he’d heard, their account had become such a nightmare that now they were billed extra anytime a technician had to come out. It wasn’t just incompetence—it was budget poison.

  Gods, she’s such a pain to deal with.

  Outside, he stepped into a wall of damp wind. A fat raindrop hit his cheek, then another. By the time he reached the van, it was a full-on downpour. He sprinted the last ten feet, jacket flapping, shoes slapping against the wet concrete.

  “This damn country and its rain is going to be the death of me,” he grumbled, yanking the door shut behind him as thunder rumbled overhead.

  The rain tapered off by the time he reached the lot of the little Thai place tucked between a vape shop and a dry cleaner. The awning above the entrance sagged on one side and leaked in a corner, but it kept most of the rain off. He ordered without needing to glance at the menu—red curry, medium spice, extra rice—and grabbed a corner table outside under the awning’s slightly better section.

  The scent hit him first: lemongrass, chili oil, something tangy and rich. He leaned back in the plastic chair, closing his eyes for just a second as the steam from the curry rose in comforting waves. Each bite brought a heat that built on his tongue, spreading to his chest and flushing out the last remnants of the damp.

  There were no calls. No emails. No interruptions.

  Just the scrape of a fork on ceramic and the distant clatter of dishes inside the kitchen. Laughter drifted from the counter—someone telling a joke in Thai. For a few precious minutes, the day didn’t feel like a long slide toward burnout.

  By the time he finished and got back on the road, the sky had cleared into that strange patchwork of blue and bruised grey that meant the rain might come back—or it might not. The van rumbled along quieter streets, the route home blessedly uneventful.

  He pulled into the headquarters lot just shy of an hour later, engine grumbling to a stop in its usual crooked spot.

  The air was still heavy with humidity, but the worst of the weather had passed. He sat in the van a while longer, hands resting on the wheel, watching clouds drift overhead like bloated ghosts.

  Another day. Same nonsense.

  But at least the curry had been good.

  He leaned back in the seat, hands resting lightly on the wheel, fingers still as bone. He wasn’t going anywhere—not really. Just stuck. Same job, same pay, same run-down flat he split with his roommate, Darren. They’d chosen it because it was cheap and close to a bus line. Neither of them could afford better. Two low salaries didn’t go far in London.

  He hadn’t been on a date in over a year. Not from lack of interest, but it never seemed like something he could justify. Every day felt the same. Wake, work, come home, repeat. And lately, the loneliness had started creeping in, soft and insistent, like damp seeping through stone.

  Darren had a girlfriend now—Emma. She came over a few nights a week. They tried to be quiet about it, but the walls were thin. Callum heard enough. He didn’t resent them, not really. It wasn’t jealousy.

  It was just a reminder.

  A reminder that he was standing still while everyone else moved forward. No direction, no plan, no spark. Life felt like a loop with no break in the pattern. He didn’t even know what the first step forward would look like anymore.

  Maybe he was waiting for something. That could be the problem.

  Frustration flared, sudden and sharp. He shoved the door open and climbed out of the van with more force than necessary. The hinges groaned. He yanked his bag from the passenger seat and slung it over his shoulder, the strap biting in harder than it should. His boots crunched against the gravel as he rounded the van’s nose, eyes down, jaw tight.

  He didn’t see the car.

  Didn’t hear it, either—not until the moment it was already too late.

  “Callum!” a voice shouted.

  Sadie.

  His head snapped toward the sound, confused and instinctive—and that split second of hesitation sealed it.

  Brakes screamed. Rubber scorched asphalt. There was a sickening, metallic crunch, then silence. Not complete—just... still. Suspended. He felt the impact more than he heard it, the dull, snapping jolt of momentum torn away.

  He didn’t scream. Didn’t flail. There wasn’t enough time.

  He just existed in that strange, weightless moment—airborne, disoriented, untethered. Thoughts scattered like dry leaves in the wind. Somewhere, almost amused, he thought:

  Perfect. Life never really started. So, of course, this is how it ends.

  The world flipped. Then the pavement came up hard. Bone met stone.

  Then—nothing.

  Only clouds.

  White, formless, smudged like chalk across a pale sky. Voices came and went, distorted, like shouting underwater. He heard beeping, too—sharp, urgent, panicked. Then one final sound: a long, flat tone that cut through everything else.

  Even with paramedics around the corner, it hadn’t been enough.

  Figures, he thought, drifting into the dark.