The data center breathed like a sleeping giant, all cold aisles and blue status lights, rack after rack stretching into the dark like steel coffins stood on end. Condensation clung to the overhead pipes, and the chill had a way of getting into your bones, same as regret. Somewhere beyond the cages, a bad power supply clicked like a nervous finger on a trigger, while fans whispered secrets no one would admit to hearing. I moved between cabinets with my badge turned backward and my collar up, watching green LEDs blink out their alibis in neat little rows. In this town, everybody stored something they didn’t want found—accounts, lies, a second life zipped and replicated across three availability zones—and tonight the servers were humming like they knew which file had killed a man.
