She was wearing a standard Microsoft polo—navy blue, embroidered with the four-paned window logo. But her eyes were wrong. They had no pupils. Instead, each iris displayed a live feed: one showed a first-person shooter lobby, full of spinning player cards and mute icons; the other showed an Excel spreadsheet, columns labeled Latency , Packet Loss , Reason for Ban .

She reached out and tapped his forehead. The link in his eye flashed.

“And the second choice?”

“Ctrl+Alt+F12,” the woman said softly. “Just let it go.”