The Wiretap's Companion

Elena's cat, a morose Bombay named Samson, stared at her with yellow eyes that seemed to know everything. She'd come home from another sixteen-hour day at the intelligence firm, her fingers still smelling of copper wire and plastic insulation from the cables she'd spent hours splicing.

"You're looking at me like I'm the monster," she whispered to him, setting down her bag. Samson blinked slowly, unimpressed.

For three weeks, Elena had been living a double life—not the romantic kind, but the corporate espionage kind. Her firm had hired her to spy on a competitor's startup. Each night, she'd tap into their server room through the building's neglected cable infrastructure, threading her own wires alongside theirs, an invisible parasite in their digital bloodstream.

The morality of it had stopped keeping her awake at around 2 AM on day four. What kept her awake now was the man who worked the late shift at the startup's office. She'd seen him through the tiny camera she'd installed—a balding guy in his fifties who drank tea from a mug that said "WORLD'S OKAYEST DAD." He'd talk to photos of his daughters while he ran diagnostics.

Tonight, something was wrong. Her monitor showed him collapsed on the floor, chest not moving.

Elena's hands hovered over her keyboard. She could call 911 anonymously and disappear. Or she could do nothing—complete the mission, get paid, let nature take its course. Samson wound around her legs, purring, and she realized with sudden clarity that her cat was the only living thing she hadn't betrayed recently.

She picked up her phone and dialed, watching through the camera as paramedics arrived eight minutes later. The man survived—a heart attack, treatable, survivable.

Elena packed her equipment, gathered Samson into her arms, and walked out of her apartment without looking back. Some jobs weren't worth the price of admission.