Instead, the room went dark.

As she made her way to the clock tower, the city seemed to grow quieter. The streets were empty, and the only sound was the echo of her footsteps off the buildings. When she arrived at the tower, a figure emerged from the shadows.

Elias stared at the monitor, the blue light reflecting in his tired eyes. It was 3:00 AM. He was three Red Bulls deep into a desperate search for a clean copy of the movie Back in Action for a movie night that was happening in roughly six hours. The internet was a wasteland of dead links, pop-ups that promised mortgages he didn't want, and blurry cams of people eating popcorn in the front row.