Working as a manager at a low paying job had no real advantages. The pay was unchanged, the stress was high, the hours were longer. Worst of all, I had to put up with the hidden glares of my coworkers. Most were convinced I’d gotten the position thanks to favors, even if I had been employed twice as long as them.

“Fifteen minutes till lunch break,” Twinkle said in my ear. One of the new perks of the job were that I was granted some net access during work, including an open line to my AI companion. “Do you want me to message Kyle to get you some food?”

“No,” I hissed. The cat had gotten too helpful lately. Just because Kyle had gotten hold of my phone was no reason to consider him anything more than a random acquaintance. “Any news from Jeff?”

“Nothing, Sarah. You haven’t received any calls or messages from Jeff since yesterday. Do you want me to send him a message?”

“Ask him what’s going on.” I scrolled through the shift’s timetable. There over three hours before the afternoon shift arrived. If I was lucky, Jeff would appear before that and take over. If not, I’d have to remain until ten and lock up afterwards. “And wish him luck.”

The door opened and another three customers entered—an indicator that the midmorning calm was coming to an end. From here on, the noon crowd would ramp up until two, when it would trickle back down to single digits. Any other day, I’d mentally sigh at the amount of work that had to be done. Today, I looked forward to them—that way, people would have less time to gossip about me.

Half an hour later, I still hadn’t made use of my lunch break. Thankfully, being in charge, I was given the privilege of setting my own break time. Another hour later, the flow of people had ebbed enough to allow me to sneak out. Tossing the reigns of power to someone else—I chose the person who disliked me most—I rushed into the street. As expected, Kyle was there, unfazed that I had made him wait over forty minutes.

“All done?” Kyle asked with a wink, handing me a plastic bag.

Looking inside, I saw two plankton rolls and a plastic box of shrimp chips. At some point, they had probably been hot; now, they were lukewarm at best. I suspected that a large part of the taste had vanished with the heat as well. Interesting enough, there was no drink added.

“No soda?” I asked, arching a brow.

“Yeah... sorry about that.” Kyle smiled. “We’re doing a special on exotic drinks and... I’m not sure you’d like the combo.”

“What’s the combo?” I bit into one of the rolls. There were a few remnants of taste spread unevenly throughout the food’s texture.

“Pumpkin beet?” he hesitated. “Not a hundred percent sure. The formula changes a lot and I can’t remember what’s the legal way to describe it.”

A week on the job and still having trouble? I was almost sure that Kyle would be fired in a month. Personally, I’d be impressed if he made it to next week.

“Thanks.” I flashed a smile. “I’d have hated that.”

“Yeah.” He nodded, looking idly in the distance. “Any news from Jeff? I tried calling, but he never picked up.”

“Same.” I took another bite, then dropped the roll back in the bag. If I was twice as hungry, I might have liked it. “Hope he’s fine.” At this point there wasn’t anything more I could do. We stood silently in the city noise. I didn’t have anything thoughtful to say, and Kyle didn’t dare to. In his, case that was a good thing.

“Kyle?” I asked after a while. “Are you good at riddles?”

“As in puzzles?” He leaned towards me. “You could say that.” If he tried to impress me any harder, I’d think I was trapped in a soap opera. “Stuck in a game?”

It was nice that he didn’t openly say he thought I was a poor gamer, though his expression did it for him. I had no idea what his gaming habits were, but based on his attitude, I could be fairly sure he was a talented casual.

“A bit.” I glanced at him. “The combat section is easy, but I can’t solve the logical element.”

“Can’t find any walkthroughs?” He tilted his head.

“Nope.” I took out the chips and tried one. There was enough salt to mask the artificial flavoring, though it tasted surprisingly good. “And I’m not wasting money to peek beyond the paywall.”

“Yeah, those things could end costly.” He glanced at my chips. “Can I have one? I finished mine while waiting...”

“Go ahead.” I handed him the entire bag. Kyle took it, then grabbed some chips and threw them in his mouth. At least one of us didn’t discriminate when it came to eating.

“What’s the riddle?” he asked, still munching.

“It’s not a pure riddle.” I didn’t want to tell him more. Claire and Jeff would probably argue I had said too much already. “There are a number of phrases I must piece together to form a clue or something. Listen to where the wind takes us, the notes are always the key, surrounded by echoes of silence, the symmetry of sound lies in the eyes of the beholder,” I paused. The last hint reminded me of Flicker. “I’m the heart and sound of the key.”

Saying the hints out loud made it obvious that music was the central theme. Sadly, that didn’t help one bit. Twinkle had failed to find a pattern when analyzing, and Claire hadn’t sent any messages either.

“I’m sure it’s something simple,” I added. “It’s in a children’s game. I just can’t see it.”

“Hmm.” Kyle scratched his chin. “Seems music related. Part of a song or something...” he stated the obvious. “Maybe a cross verse.”

“Cross verse?” This wasn’t something I was familiar with.

“There’s probably a legit name, but I call it that.” He shrugged. “My mom worked in edutainment, so I got tested a lot.” Kyle took out his phone and wrote the hints down. I had to admit, his memory was impressive. “The trick is to create a second stanza by stacking the words you have and—“ He suddenly stopped.

Seeing him stare into his phone was almost amusing—he had tried to impress me and had utterly failed. The temptation to rub it in was enormous. If we were online, I probably would.

“No rush. I need to get back to work anyway.” I moved away. Kyle was so busy focusing on the riddle, I couldn’t tell if he even noticed. “Drop me a line if you figure it out.” I stepped back in the shop.

Work continued for another few hours. Half of the devices brought in were so badly kept, it was a wonder they didn’t fall apart during cleaning. Several were barely functional in today’s environment. They reminded me of the ancient tablet my grandfather had. Its battery had been completely shot, and the software protocols were so outdated he couldn’t connect to the web, yet he stubbornly refused to change it for a new one, claiming it had “all the books he needed”.

The afternoon shift ended almost without incident. With no news from Jeff, I had to make all the management decision, including arranging the shifts. Usually, half the people would go by now. Few customers came after five, even less after evening. Keeping two people on the next shift seemed sound, so I did that. The moment I did, I got a message informing me that one of the people had quit. A minute later, another followed from the city transport authorities, letting me know that the other coworker had been caught in a massive accident and was detained for questioning. Any other day, I’d curse this as the worst coincidence possible. After yesterday, I knew it wasn’t a coincidence at all.

“Twinkle, send a message to Jeff and the owners,” I whispered. “Tell them I’ll be leaving in an hour.”

“Sure thing, Sarah!” the AI giggled.

“And forward the messages.” This way, they didn’t have an excuse to fire me without compensation.

I looked around. Three of the afternoon shift were still here, but there was no way they could help if anything happened, and neither would my security app. In the unlikely event that the dark hackers involved hadn’t done anything to disable my phone or DDoS the city’s emergency call center, it would take a first responder seventy-two seconds to arrive.

The minutes stretched on painfully. Every time the door opened, I tensed up, expecting the worst. The first three turned out to be regular clients, which I deferred to one of my coworkers. The fourth time, a courier arrived.

“Yo,” he shouted as he glanced at his echart. “Who’s in charge?”

In charge? I skimmed through the schedule planner. No deliveries were expected until next week. The courier’s uniform was slightly fancier than expected, containing a logo I hadn’t seen before. A thin circle indicated he was from the same state.

“Come on, I’m losing minutes here!” The man grumbled. He was large and balding, probably on the job longer than I'd been alive but never getting a promotion. I somewhat sympathized. Human couriers were in the same boat I was. The only reason they still existed in today’s age of automation was because of government programs and hacker threats. As easy as it was to trick a person through social engineering, it was ten times easier to corrupt an entire system of thousands of courier vehicles.

“I’m in charge.” I raised my hand. “What’s the problem?”

“Have a delivery for you,” the courier said with an annoyed sighed, wiping the sweat off his forehead with a sleeve. He then walked to my workstation and placed a small brown packet on the shelf. “Mark here.” He gave me the echart. There were no names, no descriptions, just a small rectangle in the middle of the screen.

“Signature?” I asked.

“Heck if I care,” he laughed. “It’s paid for. Just need GPS confirmation.”

GPS confirmation... That meant the delivery was guaranteed anonymous. The courier had no idea what they were sending it to me, nor who I was. They had only been paid to deliver it to a certain location. One thing immediately came to mind—dark hacker package. If Jeff hadn’t had family problems, he’d probably have gotten it before the courier entered the shop.

“Right.” I quickly drew a line across the rectangle. A green check mark appeared on the echart’s screen. “Done?”

“Yep.” The man turned the screen around, nodding twice. “See you, kid.” He made his way out, puffing.

“I’ll put this away,” I grabbed the packet and went to the back room. Jeff, you idiot! Why do you have your deliveries at work? Then again, his entire work was a cover. The owners didn’t mind since they could exploit him for cheap and everyone else would cycle away within a few years.

“Hello, Sarah.” A deep voice came from the packet. I froze. Is this another nightmare? “You should have listened to me.”

In order to survive in today’s environment, there were a few rules that one had to follow: don’t cheat in pro games, don’t steal too much from a corporation, don’t provoke the authorities too much, don’t get involved with the dark web unless you have to, and never ever open a package not addressed to you. In this case, however, I was going to make an exception.

Wrapped in the rough brown paper was a small plastic box. Holes covered its entire surface, giving a glimpse of the item inside. Taking a deep breath, I removed the cover. It was a last-century flip phone. In this pristine a condition, it was worth at least five figures.

“We need to talk.” A voice came from the phone.

“No.” I tried to sound firm.

“I can’t hear you. You’ll have to put it to your mouth. Just like in the good old days.”

“How do I know you haven’t modified it?” I asked. No response. Either the caller really couldn’t hear me, or he was set on remaining silent until I obeyed.

Shit! I flipped the phone open. The words On Speaker were written in green letters on the small crude screen.

“What do you want?” I pressed the phone against the side of my face.

“The phone you’re holding is worth eighty thousand,” the voice said. It sounded unmodified, just an average male voice, completely unremarkable. It could belong to anyone. “Take it and forget the game.”

Eighty thousand? The phone felt heavier in my hand. Instinctively, I pulled it away from my face.

“Sound good?” the voice asked.

“You want me to quit?” Someone had warned me earlier I would face consequences if I did.

“Yes.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You really don’t want to be part of the game. When you do, you’ll become a target. Until then, you’ll be safe.”

“I don’t feel safe,” I hissed. “I already got one threat of what would happen to me if I didn’t go through. And that’s not even counting the deals I’d have to break.”

“You were threatened?” I caught a notes of surprise in his voice.

“Who are you?” I took a chance and grasped the opportunity. “Why do you care?”

“Legion.” The reply was almost instantaneous. The name sounded oddly familiar. “The reason I care is because I’ve been where you are... and I wish someone had warned me to walk away.”