There is comfort in certainty, even if it's fragile—a belief that the world can be known, its mysteries unraveled with enough effort. But certainty, like glass, shatters easily. Ask why enough times, and the answers dissolve into a haze of unknowing.
Why does a river flow? Gravity. Why does gravity exist? Mass. Why does mass attract? The chain of inquiry spirals into infinity, exposing humanity's ignorance beneath its triumphs.
In a quiet hospital room, a man lay dying, staring out at a city that pulsed with indifference. Machines hummed in rhythm with his fading breath, each beep marking time he didn't have.
The city continued, unaffected. Cars hovered by, lights blinked, life moved forward. His lips parted, breath catching on the weight of a single question.
Why?
And then—silence.
Jason woke with a headache. Not the dull kind that faded after a few minutes, but a deep, aching pressure at the base of his skull, like something was pressing against his brain from the inside.
He blinked at the ceiling. His phone was on the nightstand, screen black. No notifications.
That was weird. Arnon usually sent him a meme or some dumb joke by now. He checked his call log. Arnon's name was there, but the last call was from three days ago. Jason frowned. He could've sworn they talked yesterday. Or was it the day before?
A faint unease prickled at the edge of his thoughts, but he brushed it aside.
After a quick breakfast, he set out food for Jay, his dog—a mix between a German Shepherd and a cutie patootie, or so his sister used to say. She used to drop by unannounced, stealing leftovers and claiming she "just happened to be in the area." But lately, she hadn't. Probably busy with college prep.
Steam curled against the bathroom mirror as Jason showered, droplets collecting and sliding down in uneven paths. He wiped the glass with his hand and left the bathroom along with his lagging reflection.
Closing the door jason leaves to office slowly walking across the corridor.
His apartment was within walking distance from work, but he preferred the shuttle bus—an excuse to zone out, listen to music, and delay the start of the day just a little longer.
The city blurred past, morning light catching the glass of distant towers. Pedestrians moved in coordinated chaos—crossing streets, scrolling through their feeds, rushing to destinations they would barely remember by evening.
At his stop, Jason stepped off, adjusting his bag. The moment he did, a presence settled beside him—too close. He didn't have to look.
"You didn't take the shuttle?" Jason asked.
Arnon grumbled something under his breath.
"Good talk," Jason muttered.
They passed through security at the office entrance. Jason tapped his ID card against the scanner. A brief pause—then the green light blinked, and the barrier slid open.
Inside, the air was cool, humming with the quiet energy of a company that never really slept. Rows of desks stretched before them, monitors blinking in patterns of endless data. A few coworkers were already hunched over their terminals, fingers moving fast, eyes flicking between screens as if expecting something to leap out at them.
Jason's gaze drifted toward the far end of the room. Their manager was there. That was never a good sign.
Arnon let out a low whistle. "Damn. Tiger's in the cage already?"
Jason sighed. "Yep."
Their manager, a man with the patience of a short fuse, paced near the center of the floor, jaw tight as he spoke in clipped bursts to the lead security engineer. There was tension in his stance, the kind that didn't come from a routine firewall issue.
Jason and Arnon exchanged a glance before heading to their stations. Monitors flickered to life as Jason typed in his credentials, the system greeting him with the usual wall of diagnostic reports.
Except something was off.
One of the logs had an anomaly—tiny, almost imperceptible, but there. A ping from an external source, slipping past multiple layers of security without triggering an alert. Precise. Surgical. Like it was meant to go unnoticed.
Jason's fingers hovered over the keyboard. That ping—it shouldn't have been possible. Someone had slipped through the system's defenses without a trace.
He sat back, the weight of his headache pressing against his skull.
This was going to be a long day.