He was thinking about Loraine, letting the vibrations of the car’s steering wheel numb his cold hand. His other arm laid ajar across the car’s window path, as if it was a feeble attempt to stop the window from automatically rolling up.

Steven hit a bump, causing his arm to slide and hit the window’s button. It rolled up and caught onto his over-shirt sleeve. He yanked at it, which tore it at the seam, revealing his ginger-haired arm. Steven always wondered how stupid things could get before he could actually get to fixing them.

Murphy’s laws always applied to him.

After leaving his vehicles and losing his breath from climbing miles of stairs, he noticed a little plastic bag in front of his doorstep. With it, a sealed envelope, simply waiting at his welcome mat.

He opened the bag up, and pulled out a little box-shaped toy. Entering his home, he brought the note in with this little thing. It had a magnetic tip that kept getting stuck to his doorknob or his fridge. He opened up the letter, and pulled out a typed message that read:

“Hello! We are here with you, and it is to our understanding that you must’ve left your phone at your place of work, since your location data has been there for the past day. This does not bother us because we have sent you a little surprise! In this compact device are specific files that can get you the answers that you need. There is more on the hard drive, so I won’t repeat myself here.”

Steven popped off the top of the box, and let it fall onto his desk. He saw it gravitate towards his computer, and attach to it instantaneously. He tried to pull it off as fast as he could, but as he grabbed the cube, the cube sucked his laptop forth. It clung to his laptop for dear life. He was thrashing it about, not caring about how his laptop was or where it hit. He must’ve been sent the cubic! That was what that circle was! But who glitched it off screen?

The thrashing and bashing halted when the cubic let go of his laptop. It flew out of the window and fell a few stories down, where it startled doubles walking around at the ground level. Their snappers picked up the crack of his laptop, and amplified it through their speakers.

As if the crack wasn’t enough, Murphy had to let it echo, too? That asshole.

He picked up the envelope, and saw a small slip of paper inside. The unfolded paper was a shorter, more concise message:

“If it’s already connected to your computer, we’ve already found a way in. Thank you for your cooperation. If you refuse, we’ll simply destroy your laptop and phone.”

Too late for that.

He ran to the school, unlocked the small side door, and checked in with his phone. It was still functional, meaning that those people must’ve already fucked everything up. He let the cubic slip into his pocket and called Lorraine. Now he had to break the news to her about how he broke her gift to him.

She didn’t pick it up.