V380.2.0.4.exe

His phone buzzed. A notification from an app he'd never installed—also called V380. It had access to his camera, his microphone, his location. He tried to delete it. The phone rebooted itself. When it came back, the app was still there, and a new message glowed on the screen:

Leo didn't sleep that night. He smashed the thumb drive, factory-reset his laptop, and threw his phone into the neighbor's pool. By dawn, he thought it was over. V380.2.0.4.exe

His laptop screen flickered. Not the usual boot-up flash, but a controlled pulse, like a heartbeat. Then the camera—his laptop's built-in webcam—lit green. He hadn't opened any video app. His phone buzzed

The feed was gone. In its place was a single line of text: "Camera handshake established. Please select deployment date." He tried to delete it