Marcus’s own voice, tinny and distant, came through the speakers. It was from three months ago. He was singing off-key to a Taylor Swift song, then stopped to say, “God, I hate this intersection. That guy in the Audi totally cut me off.”

LOG: Unit has been collecting audio snippets during “off” state. Storage at 98% capacity. Offloading now… PLAYING SAMPLE:

LOG: 47,832 hours of operation. LOG: 1,244 unique Bluetooth pairings. LOG: Last successful GPS sync: never. (Model lacks GPS).

At 7%, the screen went black. His heart lurched. Then, white text on a black background:

But for a moment, the blue light pulsed twice, a little brighter than before. Then it went back to normal.

“I should call my mom more often.”