He opened the latest one. A video feed flickered to life. It was a high-angle shot of his desk, taken from the vent above his head. In the video, he saw himself, hunched over, staring at the screen, waiting for a download to finish.
The cursor blinked at the end of the line:
Leo forced the file open using a raw data reader. Suddenly, his screen didn't show code or images. It showed a map of his own apartment, rendered in perfect, photorealistic detail. A small red dot pulsed in the center of the living room—exactly where he was sitting.
In the real world, Leo froze. He didn't remember turning around. He hadn't looked up once.
The progress bar crawled with agonizing slowess. 10%... 24%... As the file grew on his hard drive, the hum of his cooling fan grew louder, a mechanical heartbeat in the quiet of his studio. He wondered if this was a mistake, a virus, or perhaps the "lost" architectural renders his mentor had mentioned before disappearing into a digital detox three months ago.