The console hummed low and dangerous, a deep thrum that vibrated up through the cracked linoleum floor of Alex’s basement. On the screen, the words had just finished scrolling across a custom boot screen, a signature of a machine that no longer obeyed the rules.

"Unauthorized access detected. User: [unknown]. Sanction: file corruption."

The console’s disc drive slowly ejected. Inside, not a game disc, but a CD-R with a single word written on it in sharpie: