Wiretap

The lightning storm turned Marcus's apartment into a strobe-lit purgatory. His golden retriever, Hobbes, pressed against his leg—the only living thing who still trusted him.

Marcus had been a corporate spy for twelve years, siphoning trade secrets through tapped fiber cables while his targets slept. Tonight's assignment: bury evidence that his employers knew about faulty wiring in a manufacturing plant. Two workers had been hospitalized last week. The report on Marcus's screen wasn't intellectual property. It was a death sentence.

Hobbes whined. The dog had been prescribed after his divorce, somehow becoming the one who needed saving instead.

Another flash illuminated the Ethernet cable snaking across Marcus's floor—a digital umbilical cord to complicity. His employers didn't care about workers. They cared about leverage, contingencies, profit margins calibrated against acceptable loss.

The power flickered. Marcus's hand hovered over the delete key.

He looked at Hobbes. The dog's eyes carried more moral clarity than Marcus had mustered in a decade.

Marcus picked up his phone and dialed OSHA instead.