He woke up abruptly to the noise of a garbage truck making its morning rounds. He had to get out of bed, but he had no desire to do so. The last few days at the service had made him completely loathe his job, and he couldn't wait to make the decision to leave that place for good. He finally dragged himself up and managed to reach the bathroom. The lightbulb was burnt out, and he hadn't had time to change it.
At least a little light came in through the air shaft window. It was already dawn. A wild face smiled back at him ironically. Several days’ worth of stubble bothered him, but he was out of razor blades. Another thing to note on the shopping list for the supermarket. His hair had started to grey at the temples, but at least he hadn't started going bald like his brother. He must have taken after his grandmother, it seemed.
He had started out as a Hacker at the end of the 90s, before the internet had even properly begun. Everything had evolved at incredible speeds, and after several adventures, he had been recruited into the Cybercrime department of the Hellenic Police. They hadn't left him many choices, after all.
His Commander, to give him one last chance, was sending him today on a "little leisure trip." He had to report to the headquarters of an IT service in Belgium to assist with a strange case. It had been made clear to him that there was no room for error and that he had to be flawless during this mission.
The meeting was the next morning at Synforge Dynamics. Two other investigators sat around the table: Patrick from Belgium, and Leo from France. Rolf, the company's CEO, introduced the nightmare they were facing:
"As you can understand," Rolf broke the silence, "we had the first casualty from Black Ice in history. The organization somehow managed to short-circuit our implant and cause an overload, resulting in it exploding and exterminating our engineer... You have seven days to satisfy our terms."
