The email arrived at 3:14 AM. No subject, no body text—just a single attachment: .
Inside were thousands of photos. He opened the first one. It was a high-resolution shot of his own street, taken from the vantage point of the oak tree outside his window. The timestamp was tomorrow. 53425.rar
He ran it through three different antivirus scanners. All green. He checked the origin of the email. The domain didn't exist. Against every better instinct honed by ten years in cybersecurity, Elias clicked Extract . The email arrived at 3:14 AM