The rig in the darkened room looked like something out of a network technician’s nightmare. Wires sprawled all over the floor and hung vine-like from the ceiling. Six linked computer towers lay half-open and forgotten, victims of successful, but unfinished surgery.

Ann Murray sat, eyes fixed on the screens of six monitors, her hands a blur. Slender fingers darted here and there, hunting down and stabbing keys with precision. Occasionally her hands would drift to a trackball. Windows grew within windows, shrank, documents were saved or deleted in seconds. Her eyes took it all in. Sometimes she would nod to herself or murmur some half finished phrase but there was no one to hear here. She was alone in her world of information.

The flow was interrupted when the doorbell rang.

Vexed at the interruption, Ann slowly spun her chair around. Her mirrored glasses reflected the motion across screens that were slowly dying without her input.

Wiry haired, corpse-skinned, and vacant eyed, she didn’t look human at all.