The roar hit me first, a solid wall of sound from a million tiny fans trying to keep the city’s secrets from melting. I walked the cold aisle, a long, dark corridor between rows of steel and silicon tombstones, each one blinking a slow, green pulse like a mechanical heartbeat. The air had a morgue’s chill, dry and sterile, but it couldn't hide the scent of ozone and burnt-out ambition. My client said the data was "lost," but you don't hire a guy like me for lost things; you hire me for things that have been professionally murdered. Somewhere in this digital mausoleum, a ghost was waiting—a string of code that knew too much, silenced by a keystroke instead of a .38, and I was here to make it talk.
