Story code: ST-001542
Part 2: The Expiring Window
The hand was heavy, the grip unforgiving, and the scent of spearmint gum and stale coffee immediately gave him away. It was Marcus.
Instinct hijacked Leo’s motor functions. He didn’t turn his head. He didn’t gasp. Instead, he blindly jammed his thumb against the side of the tablet, depressing the power button until the backlight snapped out of existence. In the same fluid motion, he shoved the cracked device under the waistband of his sweatpants, letting his oversized hoodie drape down to cover the bulk. The hot battery burned instantly against the bare skin of his lower back.
“What are you doing lurking in the dark?” Marcus demanded, his voice kept to a harsh whisper. His older brother wore the navy blue windbreaker of the community watch, the fabric rustling loudly as he hauled Leo to his feet by the collar.
“Nothing,” Leo said, keeping his spine rigidly straight so the tablet wouldn’t slide down his leg. “Just listening.”
“Mom wants a united front. She noticed you weren’t standing behind her when she made the opening remarks,” Marcus muttered, giving Leo a rough shove toward the top of the stairs. “Stop acting like a ghost in your own house. Go down there and be visible.”
Leo had no choice. He moved down the wooden steps, every shift in his weight threatening to dislodge the burner device hidden beneath his clothes. His mind was a frantic blur of calculations. The secure portal had a strict inactivity timeout. Five minutes without a registered keystroke or a page refresh, and the session would automatically terminate to protect the patient’s data. If it timed out, he would need a new two-step verification code. He wouldn’t be able to generate one without risking a total memory crash on the tablet’s ancient browser.
The living room was blindingly bright after the gloom of the landing. Crystal bowls of expensive mixed nuts sat on glass coffee tables. Over a dozen neighbors occupied the beige linen sofas, all leaning in as Elaine held court by the unlit fireplace.
“There’s our missing man,” Elaine announced, her bright, commanding tone returning the moment Leo stepped off the bottom stair. She waved him over, her smile perfectly manicured but her eyes flashing with a silent warning. “Come here, Leo. Help me pass out the zoning petitions.”
Leo crossed the hardwood floor, his heart hammering against his ribs. The tablet pressed painfully into his lumbar spine, the sharp, spider-webbed crack in the glass snagging against his skin. He took a thick stack of glossy cardstock from his mother’s hands.
“Look at this neighborhood,” Elaine said to the room, gesturing to Leo and Marcus as if they were prized show dogs. “This is what we are protecting. If we allow the Haven Initiative to set up a mobile clinic in the old recreation center, we are opening the floodgates. We are inviting addiction, crime, and instability directly into our children’s backyard.”
Leo stared down at the petition in his hands. *The Haven Initiative.* The words blurred out of focus. It was the exact organization he was trying to reach. The clinic he desperately needed to access was the very same one his mother was organizing the neighborhood to destroy.
He moved like a machine, handing a petition to a woman in a tennis skirt, then to a man in a golf polo. He was running out of time. Three minutes had to have passed since he locked the screen on the landing. Two minutes left until the portal kicked him out permanently.
He approached the corner armchair, extending a petition toward Mr. Martinez. The older man took it with a curt nod, leaning over to speak to the neighbor beside him.
“Elaine is absolutely right to be proactive,” Martinez said, tapping the cardstock against his knee. “I’m not taking any chances with these people lingering around our property lines. I just logged into my home network’s admin application and pushed a full remote firmware update to our router. Booted every unrecognized device, changed the frequency channels, and rotated the security key. Nobody is piggybacking off my bandwidth to organize their little encampments.”
Leo stopped breathing. The blood drained from his face, leaving his skin icy and prickling.
A remote firmware update.
Martinez’s router was the only source of unfiltered internet Leo had access to. When a router rebooted for a firmware update, it took roughly ninety seconds to drop the network and come back online. Once it returned, the new security key would lock Leo out forever.
He had less than ninety seconds before the single bar of stolen WiFi vanished for good.
Leo dropped the remaining petitions onto a side table. He didn’t care how it looked. He didn’t care if Elaine was mid-sentence. He let out a dry, violent cough, covering his mouth with his elbow as he backed away from the pristine living room setup.
Elaine paused, her smile faltering as she looked at him. “Leo, please. If you’re coming down with something, go get some water. Don’t cough over the guests.”
It was the only permission he needed. Leo spun around and practically ran into the kitchen.
The space was vast, sterile, and entirely devoid of shadows. White marble countertops reflected the harsh overhead recessed lighting. He hurried past the center island, pressing his back against the stainless-steel refrigerator to block the sightline from the hallway.
His hands were shaking violently as he reached under his hoodie and pulled the hot tablet from his waistband. He mashed the power button.
The screen flickered to life. The battery icon in the corner was flashing red at three percent.
The browser was still open, but the blue progress bar had vanished. In its place, a spinning gray wheel mocked him. The Martinez router was already cycling down. The WiFi indicator at the top of the screen showed an empty gray wedge with a small ‘X’ beside it.
*No, no, no. Please.*
Leo scrambled toward the back of the kitchen, pressing the tablet flat against the cold glass of the patio door, aiming it directly across the dark lawn toward the Martinez house.
*Reconnect. Just give me five seconds of bandwidth. Just five seconds.*
The empty wedge flashed. A single white bar appeared.
The gray wheel on the browser stopped spinning. The page stuttered, tearing into jagged lines of code before snapping into a fully rendered inbox. There was one unread message sitting at the top of the queue, bolded and glowing against the dim screen.
**Subject: Confirmed Intake Appointment & Location.**
Leo tapped the message. The screen went blank as the tablet struggled to pull the data through the dying connection.
The heavy oak door connecting the dining room to the kitchen swung inward with a loud, pneumatic hiss.
“Mom wants to know if you’re dying in here or just hiding,” Marcus’s voice echoed off the tile floor.
Leo froze, the tablet still pressed against the patio glass. The bright white glare of the loading screen illuminated his face, reflecting clearly in the dark windowpane for anyone behind him to see.
The text of the email suddenly popped onto the screen, rendering the address and a map link. The information he needed to save his life was right there in his hands.
Footsteps approached from behind, heavy and deliberate. “What is that in your hand, Leo?” Marcus asked, his tone dropping its casual annoyance, replaced instantly by cold, focused suspicion.