And in the background of his next Zoom call—just for a second—his mic picked up a distant, impossible sound: the low hum of something enormous, moving beneath the earth.

The progress bar filled in six minutes flat. Impossible for 73GB. His SSD light flickered erratically, then stopped. The launcher appeared.

When he looked back at the monitor, the game was gone. The desktop was normal. A single new file sat on his C: drive:

And standing in the corner, someone in full tactical gear, face hidden by a matte-black helmet.