The hum of the server room was the only thing keeping Elias awake. It was 3:00 AM, and the deadline for the massive substation schematic was less than eight hours away. He stared at his monitor, where a corrupt file icon mocked him. His licensed workstation had crashed, and the backup was trapped in a proprietary loop he couldn’t break.
As the sun rose over the city, Elias's office was found empty. The substation schematics were sitting on the desk, perfectly printed and flawlessly designed. The engineers who checked the work later said the design was so perfect it looked alive—but they could never explain why the ink on the page felt warm to the touch.
Suddenly, the lights in the server room flickered in sync with his pulse. A low static began to bleed from his speakers. He reached for the power cord, but his hand froze an inch away. On the screen, the schematic had shifted. The wiring diagram no longer looked like a substation; it looked like a human nervous system. His own.