My brother actually laughed at dinner and said, ‘I sold that useless laptop of yours for five hundred bucks. Finally got rid of your junk.’ My cousins cheered him on. Then he added, almost proudly, ‘Already handed it off to the buyer.’ I got up, stepped outside, and called my supervisor. By the time I made the report, the FBI cyber team was already tracking the device…
me. Maybe it was the way too little sleep turns every fluorescent panel into an interrogation lamp.
I parked just after dawn. The sky was dirty steel. Security gates rose and fell with slow mechanical patience. People in badges and lanyards moved with clipped, efficient urgency, the kind that says the day began long before sunrise.
