He bypassed the first three firewalls of a dormant satellite server based in Svalbard. The progress bar crawled. 1%... 12%... 45%.

The fluorescent lights of the "Glitch & Grind" internet cafe hummed with a low-frequency buzz that matched Leo’s anxiety. He stared at the encrypted message on his burner phone. No sender, just a string of characters and a prompt:

The men in suits were already tracking his MAC address.

A world no longer dependent on the grid Silas’s enemies controlled.