"I'm locking up," Spiro calls to no one in particular, as the heavy key clicks in the lock that holds together the chains that tie the front door shut. The owner of the tiny corner store on the intersection of two cracked, dust-dry outer-city roads is at the bar down the street again, getting himself wet. Never mind that the city is in a constant state of drought. Spiro licks his lips and stares up at the sky.

He moves to the other side of the crumbling pavement and picks out the key to his bicycle lock from his key ring. The chrome handlebars glint dully in the faded evening light. There's a large dent on one side of the handlebar where the previous owner had, presumably, crossed paths with something heavier, harder, and faster than the unfortunate bike. The paint on the body is scratched and chipped. At some point, the faded color seems to indicate, the bike was blue. MALIBU, it says on the side in almost illegible white lettering.

Spiro stuffs his lock into his pack and slings it over his back.

The ride home is bumpy. The dust gets into his eyes and stings. He squints.

--

"Hey," Spiro says, a note of weary in his voice, turning to shut his apartment door behind him. "I'm back."

A blue glow glows from the floor desk in the dark, which is the only piece of furniture in the room. Spiro flicks the lights on. A fluorescent bulb flickers valiantly from the ceiling lamp hanging over the middle of the room.

"Did you miss me?" He says, pausing at the threshold. The blue light pulses once. He smiles.

"Did anything interesting happen today?" He asks. The blue light pulses once again. A screen on the table flickers to life. Spiro drops his bag in the threshold and goes to read the words scrolling across the screen.

> Welcome back.

The words type themselves out on a blue-backlit screen. After a moment, news headlines scroll up the screen, sorting themselves into categories by topic and relevance.

"An article about the escalation of conflict in the next country over," he murmurs, rubbing the dust from his eyes. "That's interesting, all right, isn't it, Orion."

He keeps reading. The screen flickers. Spiro looks up in surprise.

"Is everything alright?" He says.

>I believe... there's been some kind of... breach, Orion, the computer program, replies. After a moment, its blue interface flickers, and the screens turn black. A white cursor blinks on the screen that Orion had been speaking on.

The screen flickers. It shuts down. The blue light begins to blink.

Spiro frowns.

"What the..." He mutters.

White text begins to type itself out in the center of the screen. Spiro's eyes widen.

> HELLO

Spiro hesitates.

"...hello?" He says.

The text erases itself.

> PARDON THE INTRUSION

"What in the world..." Spiro mutters, pulling a dingy keyboard off the paper-covered desk and into his lap. "What is this?"

> YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO FIGURE OUT

"I should..." Spiro says under his breath. "What?"

He opens a few windows and runs diagnostics. "Everything looks fine," he says. "You haven't breached my security anywhere I can detect." He pauses. "Except for the fact that you're apparently listening to me right now."

> TRY AND KEEP UP

Spiro scowls.

"Whoever you are, I don't think I like you very much," he says.

> YOU DON'T HAVE TO LIKE ME

> YOU JUST NEED TO DO SOMETHING FOR ME

Spiro frowns.

"Why?" He says.

> MY OPERATION REQUIRES

A pause. Spiro watches expectantly.

> SOMEONE OF YOUR PARTICULAR SKILL SET

He scoffs. "My skill set?" He says. "What skill set? I work at a corner store."

The monitor to Spiro's very left, mid height off the wall, flickers to life. Spiro watches as window after window opens itself up, containing thousands of flickering records of illegally downloaded manuscripts from old, lost network archives about anything imaginable, hastily-written and never-debugged code, and finally, a massive file tree. Dozens of file folder names scroll across the screen.

Spiro recognizes it. ORION, the file tree is titled, a name conjured on a whim on a rare starry night years ago, when the air had been crisp and clear for once, the city's choking smog and dust lifting for one night only.

"Hey!" He says, scrambling to grab his keyboard and open a command terminal."Hey, hey, don't touch that! That's-"

The original monitor blinks.

> IMPORTANT? it says. Spiro doesn't know how a line of text on a screen can look knowing and somehow slightly smug, but it does.

He glares at nothing in particular. He is slightly reassured by the fact that the old, scratched webcam that he had scrounged from the garbage of a run-down electronics shop and installed for periodic experimental use is taped over. When in doubt, he thinks, with no small amount of vindictive edge, physical barriers are best.

"That's..." He says. "Yeah. It's important."

> I KNOW

"Thanks." He mutters. He types quickly and efficiently. His fingers click over the sticky keys. "Where the hell are you coming from?"

> YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW

Spiro makes a noise.

"Well, I'd like to," he says. "So I can kick you out. Get out of my system. I don't even know why you're here."

> LIKE I SAID

> I HAVE AN OFFER OF EMPLOYMENT