Eye Serial Number: Security

I walk through the mill. The silence is thick, the kind that absorbs your footsteps. The air smells of rust and old grease. When I reach the east loading dock, I see it. The same gray半球. The same smoked plastic, now yellowed and crazed with cracks. The stencil beneath is barely legible, but I know what it says without looking.

I fix them for a living. I am a field technician for Argus SecureVision, a mid-tier security contractor. My van smells of solder, coffee, and the particular melancholy of late-night service calls. My job: install, repair, and decommission the world’s unblinking eyes. Security Eye Serial Number

Earl drops the envelope. He backs away, hands raised. The younger man pulls something from his coat—a small, dark shape. A revolver. I walk through the mill