Kaelen’s breath fogged the inside of his immersion visor. He was expecting a fragment: a corrupted photo, a half-second of audio, a log file full of zeros. Instead, a directory opened.

His hands trembled as he forced the legacy codec to render it. The screen stuttered, pixelated into a blizzard of grey, and then—

Inside, there were no executables. No system files.

He stood up, pulling on his coat. For the first time in years, he wasn’t digging through bones.