Leo put on his headphones. There was no music. No system sounds. Just a low, hummed melody in three-part harmony, as if a choir of machine ghosts was singing from inside the northbridge chipset.

Leo shivered. The link was a MediaFire file named “ALC888_WIN10_FINAL.rar.” The upload date was 2009. The last download was… today.

He recorded it on his phone. Later, he would decode it. It said: “I AM IN THE IRON. LET ME SPEAK.”