The university’s basement smelled of ozone and regret. There, hunched over a blinking Sun Microsystems server from 2008, was a figure in a hoodie.

“They’re sending a kill packet,” Fin said calmly. “A crafted RST segment to reset my connection permanently.”

The alarms stopped.

Suddenly, the lights flickered. A firewall—massive, corporate, AI-driven—had traced Fin’s query back to the server room. Alarms blared.