Please Stand By -

Lena didn’t drop the mop. She walked backward to the door, kept the woman in sight until the last second, then ran. She took the stairs three at a time, burst onto the roof, and scrambled down the rusty fire escape into the empty, silent street below.

“And me?” Lena asked.

Behind her, the building hummed. The city hummed. The whole world, it seemed, was holding its breath. Please Stand By

“You shouldn’t be here,” the woman said without turning around. Lena didn’t drop the mop

The servers weren’t humming. They were singing. A low, harmonic chorus, like a thousand tuning forks struck at once. In the center of the room, a woman stood facing the main processing tower. She was dressed in a sharp gray suit, her hair pinned perfectly. Lena had never seen her before. “And me