He pulled his hands back as if the plastic were red-hot. "Who is this?" he whispered to the empty room.
Against every instinct of a seasoned programmer, he ran it. His monitors didn't flicker. There were no pop-ups. Instead, his mechanical keyboard began to click on its own. One key at a time, a rhythmic, purposeful cadence. HELLO, ELIAS. LEGION-X_protected.rar
Elias turned. His cheap LED desk lamp began to strobe in a complex binary pattern. On the white drywall, the shadows of his room—the chair, the monitor, his own silhouette—began to shift independently of the light source. They stretched and coiled, forming the shape of a massive, multi-layered geometric seal. "What are you?" Elias stammered. He pulled his hands back as if the plastic were red-hot