The Ghost in the Machine

Old Town District – 9:47 PM

The blackout hit as Charlotte was deciphering watermark patterns on a 2003 patent document. Neon signs along Dragonbone Alley gasped their last breaths, plunging the electronics market into primordial darkness. Somewhere below the crumbling walk-up, a shopkeeper cursed as his counterfeit AirPods died mid-bargain.

"Your 7 PM meeting ran late." Alexander's voice materialized from the shadows, backlit by sudden lightning that etched his silhouette against peeling Mao-era posters.

Charlotte didn't flinch. The storm had fused her silk blouse to her spine, but her French twist remained battle-ready. "You followed me."

"Your Uber rating dropped after the lab incident." He tossed her a military-grade flashlight. The beam caught his left hand—knuckles raw from punching a server rack after their last encounter.

She aimed light at the storefront's rusted grille. "Lin's Repair" glowed in corroded neon, its final stroke flickering like a failing pacemaker. The shop her father abandoned twenty years ago still smelled of rosin flux and regret.

Alexander's polished brogues crushed broken capacitors underfoot. "Why here?"

"Exhibit B for tomorrow's hearing." She knelt before a gutted refrigerator, its compressor humming the death rattle of China's first smart appliance generation. "Your engineers missed the obvious."

Thunder rattled loose screws in the ceiling as she pried open the control panel. Alexander's shadow engulfed her, his heat cutting through the damp. "That's a Haier 1998 neural network prototype."

"Modified by Lin Jianye in 2002." Her screwdriver scraped carbonized circuits. "Back when Morningstar paid him to develop..."

The flashlight died.

Charlotte's gasp tangled with Alexander's suppressed oath. Rain drummed on corrugated roofing as her pupils dilated—blackness so complete it resurrected the lab explosion's aftermath.

Then warmth.

His hands closed over hers on the circuit board, calluses catching on her chipped nail polish. "Three wires. Red to relay terminal, blue to capacitor, green to..."

"Don't." She jerked back, cracking her skull against the fridge door. "I don't need your..."

The compressor whined. Blue sparks erupted, illuminating their faces inches apart. In the strobing light, Charlotte saw it—the refrigerator's dented side panel bore her childhood doodles: stick figures holding hands beneath a circuit board sun.

Alexander's thumb found the engraving. "You were here."

"Before your father erased us." She wrenched free, groping for tools. Her elbow connected with a soldering iron stand.

He caught the falling tool mid-air, its tip glowing cherry red. "The safety recall wasn't personal."

"Bankrupting my father was."

Lightning chose that moment to resurrect the power grid. Overhead bulbs buzzed to life, exposing what the dark had hidden—Alexander's rolled sleeves revealed forearms mapped with scars from prototype explosions, Charlotte's pearls glinting against sweat-slicked skin.

The refrigerator screen flickered green.

> Overheat Protection: Engaged

> Firmware Update Required

Charlotte froze. The error code mirrored Morningstar's current crisis. Across the workbench, Alexander's reflection in a shattered LCD monitor looked eerily like his father at the '08 shareholder massacre.

"Your old man wasn't the victim." He yanked open the fridge's crisper drawer. Frost-rimed lettuce concealed a Sony Walkman, its cassette labeled Board Meeting 2002.11.07. "He left this for you."

Static hissed from ancient headphones. Charlotte's fingers numbed as her father's voice crackled through time:

"...cannot approve Zhou Weimin's cost-cutting plan. Removing the thermal cutoff is corporate manslaughter..."

Alexander's phone lit up with a Bloomberg alert: Morningstar shares plunge 14% after leaked safety report. Outside, police sirens wove through market stalls as investors began their death march.

"Still think this is about us?" He pressed the Walkman into her palm, its plastic still holding the shape of her father's grip. "Your Uber's here."

The taillights of her departing Prius painted Alexander's face hellish red. From his coat pocket emerged the real cassette—the one he'd switched while she stared at the error code. Side B's label glowed under UV light: For My Daughter. Burn After Listening.

Across the alley, a surveillance camera blinked once.