The login screen. Crisp. Clear. The black wallpaper was gone, replaced by the default blue-green hill and the wispy clouds. He logged in. He right-clicked “Computer” and hit “Properties.”

That’s when the old admin from the computer lab, a man named Theo who smelled of solder and ozone, slid a USB drive across the table.

In the dark, the rain still hammered the glass. Jensen sat very still. He had wanted to own his machine. Now he wasn’t sure the machine owned itself anymore.

He was a grad student. He couldn’t afford the $199 exorcism.

A command prompt flashed—so fast he almost missed it. A single line of green text: “Installing system privilege token…”