, he burned the image onto a dusty thumb drive and plugged it into Aegis.

People came in that evening to trade keyboards and stories. Mara served them the cinnamon knots and didn't say where they came from. She patched hard drives and mended screens. Sometimes, when the rain sang a particular tune and the kettle whistled at the exact right pitch, she would catch herself humming a bakery melody, fingers dusted with invisible flour.