PC Mag's Michael Kan writes: A "Keep Android Open" campaign is pushing back on new rules from Google that will reportedly block users from sideloading apps on Android phones. It's unclear who's running the campaign, but a blog post on the free Android app store F-Droid is directing users to visit the campaign's website, which urges the public to lobby government regulators to intervene and stop the upcoming restrictions. "Developers should have the right to create and distribute software without submitting to unnecessary corporate surveillance," reads an open letter posted to the site. [...] Google has described the upcoming change as akin to requiring app developers to go through "an ID check at the airport." However, F-Droid condemned the new requirement as anti-consumer choice. "If you own a computer, you should have the right to run whatever programs you want on it," it says. Additionally, the rules threaten third-party app distribution on F-Droid, which operates as a "free/open-source app distribution" model. In its blog post, F-Droid warns about the impact on users and Android app developers. "You, the creator, can no longer develop an app and share it directly with your friends, family, and community without first seeking Google's approval," the app store says. "Over half of all humankind uses an Android smartphone," the blog post adds. "Google does not own your phone. You own your phone. You have the right to decide who to trust, and where you can get your software from."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: When Google and Amazon negotiated a major $1.2 billion cloud-computing deal in 2021, their customer -- the Israeli government -- had an unusual demand: agree to use a secret code as part of an arrangement that would become known as the "winking mechanism." The demand, which would require Google and Amazon to effectively sidestep legal obligations in countries around the world, was born out of Israel's concerns that data it moves into the global corporations' cloud platforms could end up in the hands of foreign law enforcement authorities. Like other big tech companies, Google and Amazon's cloud businesses routinely comply with requests from police, prosecutors and security services to hand over customer data to assist investigations. This process is often cloaked in secrecy. The companies are frequently gagged from alerting the affected customer their information has been turned over. This is either because the law enforcement agency has the power to demand this or a court has ordered them to stay silent. For Israel, losing control of its data to authorities overseas was a significant concern. So to deal with the threat, officials created a secret warning system: the companies must send signals hidden in payments to the Israeli government, tipping it off when it has disclosed Israeli data to foreign courts or investigators. To clinch the lucrative contract, Google and Amazon agreed to the so-called winking mechanism, according to leaked documents seen by the Guardian, as part of a joint investigation with Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call. Based on the documents and descriptions of the contract by Israeli officials, the investigation reveals how the companies bowed to a series of stringent and unorthodox "controls" contained within the 2021 deal, known as Project Nimbus. Both Google and Amazon's cloud businesses have denied evading any legal obligations.

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Universal Music Group has settled its copyright lawsuit with AI music startup Udio and struck a licensing deal to launch a new AI-powered music platform next year. The Verge reports: The deal includes some form of compensation and "will provide further revenue opportunities for UMG artists and songwriters," Universal says. Udio, the company behind "BBL Drizzy," will launch the platform as a subscription service next year. Universal, alongside other industry giants Sony and Warner, sued Udio and another startup Suno for "en masse" copyright infringement last year. Universal -- whose roster includes some of the world's biggest performers like Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, and Ariana Grande -- says the new tool will "transform the user engagement experience" and let creators customize, stream, and share music. There's no indication of how much it will cost yet. Udio's existing music maker, which lets you create new songs with a few words, will remain available during the transition, though content will be held "within a walled garden" and security measures like fingerprinting will be added.

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OpenAI is reportedly preparing for a massive IPO that could value the company at up to $1 trillion. It follows a recent corporate restructuring that loosened its dependence on Microsoft and aligned its nonprofit foundation with financial success. Reuters reports: OpenAI is considering filing with securities regulators as soon as the second half of 2026, some of the people said. In preliminary discussions, the company has looked at raising $60 billion at the low end and likely more, the people said. They cautioned that talks are early and plans -- including the figures and timing - could change depending on business growth and market conditions. Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has told some associates the company is aiming for a 2027 listing, the people said. But some advisers predict it could come even sooner, around late 2026. [...] An IPO would open the door to more efficient capital raising and enable larger acquisitions using public stock, helping to finance CEO Sam Altman's plans to pour trillions of dollars into AI infrastructure, according to people familiar with the company's thinking. With an annualized revenue run rate expected to reach about $20 billion by year-end, losses are also mounting inside the $500 billion company, the people said. During a livestream on Tuesday, Altman addressed the possibility of going public. "I think it's fair to say it is the most likely path for us, given the capital needs that we'll have," he said.

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A critical security flaw in Chromium's Blink rendering engine can crash billions of browsers within seconds. Security researcher Jose Pino discovered the vulnerability and created a proof-of-concept exploit called Brash to demonstrate the bug affecting Chrome, Edge, OpenAI's ChatGPT Atlas, Brave, Vivaldi, Arc, Dia, Opera and Perplexity Comet. The flaw, reports The Register, exploits the absence of rate limiting on document.title API updates in Chromium versions 143.0.7483.0 and later. The attack injects millions of DOM mutations per second and saturates the main thread. When The Register tested the code on Edge, the browser crashed and the Windows machine locked up after about 30 seconds while consuming 18GB of RAM in one tab. Pino disclosed the bug to the Chromium security team on August 28 and followed up on August 30 but received no response. Google said it is looking into the issue.

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AI "cheating" app Cluely's CEO and cofounder, Chungin "Roy" Lee, said most startups flop because their products don't get seen. From a report: "Engineers just cannot make good content," Lee said during a Wednesday interview at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 "There's a bunch of shallow replicas, but I challenge you to find one video you think is like, 'Yo, this is as tough as Cluely,'" he told TechCrunch. Every startup needs to focus more on distribution. And most startups flop because they fail to get seen, even if they have product-market fit, Lee said. Cluely launched earlier this year as a tool to help software engineers cheat on their job interviews, among other use cases. The startup earlier this year posted a tongue-in-cheek video of Lee trying to use Cluely to impress a woman on a date, which went viral.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Since launching Google Play (nee Android Market) in 2008, Google has never made a change to the US store that it didn't want to make -- until now. Having lost the antitrust case brought by Epic Games, Google has implemented the first phase of changes mandated by the court. Developers operating in the Play Store will have more freedom to direct app users to resources outside the Google bubble. However, Google has not given up hope of reversing its loss before it's forced to make bigger changes. Epic began pursuing this case in 2020, stemming from its attempt to sell Fortnite content without going through Google's payment system. It filed a similar case against Apple, but the company fell short there because it could not show that Apple put its thumb on the scale. Google, however, engaged in conduct that amounted to suppressing the development of alternative Android app stores. It lost the case and came up short on appeal this past summer, leaving the company with little choice but to prepare for the worst. Google has updated its support pages to confirm that it's abiding by the court's order. In the US, Play Store developers now have the option of using external payment platforms that bypass the Play Store entirely. This could hypothetically allow developers to offer lower prices, as they don't have to pay Google's commission, which can be up to 30 percent. Devs will also be permitted to direct users to sources for app downloads and payment methods outside the Play Store. Google's support page stresses that these changes are only being instituted in the US version of the Play Store, which is all the US District Court can require. The company also notes that it only plans to adhere to this policy "while the US District Court's order remains in effect." Judge James Donato's order runs for three years, ending on November 1, 2027.

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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is getting ready to dump even more AI-generated posts into your social feeds. From a report: During an earnings call on Wednesday, Zuckerberg said the company will "add yet another huge corpus of content" to its recommendations system as AI "makes it easier to create and remix" work that gets shared online. "Social media has gone through two eras so far," Zuckerberg said. "First was when all content was from friends, family, and accounts that you followed directly. The second was when we added all of the Creator content." Though Zuckerberg stops short of calling AI the third era of social media, it's clear that the technology will be heavily involved in what comes next. Zuckerberg said that recommendation systems that "deeply understand" AI-generated posts and "show you the right content" will become "increasingly valuable." The company has already begun embedding AI tools across its apps and is now experimenting with dedicated AI social apps, too.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: The International Criminal Court will switch its internal work environment away from Microsoft Office to Open Desk, a European open source alternative, the institution confirmed to Euractiv. The switch comes amid rising concerns about public bodies being reliant on US tech companies to run their services, which have stepped up sharply since the start of US President Donald Trump's second administration. For the ICC, such concerns are not abstract: Trump has repeatedly lashed out at the court and slapped sanctions on its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan. Earlier this year, the AP also reported that Microsoft had cancelled Khan's email account, a claim the company denies. "We value our relationship with the ICC as a customer and are convinced that nothing impedes our ability to continue providing services to the ICC in the future," a Microsoft spokesperson told Euractiv.

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TypeScript overtook Python and JavaScript in August 2025 to become the most used language on GitHub. The shift marked the most significant language change in more than a decade. The language grew by over 1 million contributors in 2025, a 66% increase year over year, and finished August with 2,636,006 monthly contributors. Nearly every major frontend framework now scaffolds projects in TypeScript by default. Next.js 15, Astro 3, SvelteKit 2, Qwik, SolidStart, Angular 18, and Remix all generate TypeScript codebases when developers create new projects. Type systems reduce ambiguity and catch errors from large language models before production. A 2025 academic study found 94% of LLM-generated compilation errors were type-check failures. Tooling like Vite, ts-node, Bun, and I.D.E. autoconfig hide boilerplate setup. Among new repositories created in the past twelve months, TypeScript accounted for 5,394,256 projects. That represented a 78% increase from the prior year.

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Carmakers in the EU are "days away" from closing production lines, the industry has warned, as a crisis over computer chip supplies from China escalates. From a report: The European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA) issued an urgent warning on Wednesday saying its members, which include BMW, Fiat, Peugeot and Volkswagen, were now working on "reserve stocks but supplies are dwindling." "Assembly line stoppages might only be days away. We urge all involved to redouble their efforts to find a diplomatic way out of this critical situation," said its director general, Sigrid de Vries. Another ACEA member, Mercedes, is now searching globally for alternative sources of the crucial semiconductors, according to its chief executive, Ola Kallenius. The chip shortage is also causing problems in Japan, where Nissan's chief performance officer, Guillaume Cartier, told reporters at a car show in Tokyo that the company was only "OK to the first week of November" in terms of supply.

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Gallup: After peaking at a record high of 39.9% in 2022, the U.S. adult obesity rate has gradually declined to 37.0% in 2025. This is a statistically meaningful decrease representing an estimated 7.6 million fewer obese adults compared with three years ago. Meanwhile, diagnoses of diabetes -- a lifetime disease that can be managed but not cured -- have now reached an all-time high of 13.8%. Both metrics are part of the ongoing Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index. [...] Over the past year, more Americans have turned to Type 2 antidiabetic GLP-1 drugs such as semaglutide (brand names Ozempic and Wegovy) for weight loss purposes. The percentage of adults who report taking this class of medicine specifically for weight loss has increased to 12.4%, compared with 5.8% in February 2024 when Gallup first measured it. Usage among women (15.2%) continues to outpace men (9.7%), but both groups have more than doubled their use in the past year. These results dovetail with increased awareness of the drugs used for weight loss, which has risen from 80% to 89% nationally in the same period.

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Britain is facing mounting pressure to ban mercury dental fillings, one of the few countries yet to prevent the practice, as new data reveals alarming contamination levels in the nation's fish and shellfish. The Guardian: Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that can harm the nervous, digestive and immune systems, as well as the lungs, kidneys, skin and eyes, even at low levels of exposure. Its organic form, methylmercury, is particularly dangerous to unborn babies and can move through the food chain building up in insects, fish and birds. Britain is lagging behind the rest of the world on phasing out mercury dental fillings, with 43 countries having already banned mercury amalgam, including the EU, Sweden, Norway, Tanzania, Uganda, Indonesia and the Philippines. Northern Ireland will outlaw mercury fillings from 2035 but no such ban is planned in the rest of Britain. According to new analysis by the Rivers Trust and Wildlife and Countryside Link, more than 98% of fish and mussels tested in English rivers and coastal waters contain mercury above safety limits proposed by the EU, with more than half containing more than five times the recommended safe level.

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New submitter hadleyburg writes: President Trump has directed the Department of War to restart nuclear weapons testing. The directive appears to be a counter measure to rival nations catching up with the US. The last US nuclear test was an underground test, on September 23, 1992, in Nevada.

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Google will offer 18-month free access to its Gemini AI service for all 505 million telecom users of India's Reliance Jio, a tie-up that follows similar freebies from rivals including OpenAI to boost adoption in the world's most populous nation. From a report: The move also comes weeks after Google committed to invest $15 billion in AI infrastructure capacity in India, its biggest investment yet in the critical South Asian market. [...] The Gemini offer will give Jio users free access to the advanced model of the AI app, two terabytes of cloud storage, and its image and video generation models, in an 18-month offering that is otherwise priced at 35,100 rupees ($399). The companies on Thursday also announced AI partnerships that targeted Indian businesses.

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More than a half dozen federal departments and agencies have backed a proposal to ban future sales of the most popular home routers in the United States on the grounds that the vendor's ties to mainland China make them a national security risk, Washington Post reported Thursday, citing people briefed on the matter. From the report: The proposal, which arose from a months-long risk assessment, calls for blocking sales of networking devices from TP-Link Systems of Irvine, California, which was spun off from a China-based company, TP-Link Technologies, but owns some of that company's former assets in China. The ban was proposed by the Commerce Department and supported this summer by an interagency process that includes the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense, the people said. "TP-Link vigorously disputes any allegation that its products present national security risks to the United States," Ricca Silverio, a spokeswoman for TP-Link Systems, said in a statement. "TP-Link is a U.S. company committed to supplying high-quality and secure products to the U.S. market and beyond." If imposed, the ban would be among the largest in consumer history and a possible sign that the East-West divide over tech independence is still deepening amid reports of accelerated Chinese government-supported hacking. Only the legislated ban of Chinese-owned TikTok, which President Donald Trump has averted with executive orders and a pending sale, would impact more U.S. consumers.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Mac: A mother with court-ordered custody of her children has described how Apple's Family Sharing feature can be weaponized by a former partner. Apple support staff were unable to assist her when she reported her former partner using the service in controlling and coercive ways... [...] Namely, Family Sharing gives all the control to one parent, not to both equally. The parent not identified as the organizer is unable to withdraw their children from this control, even when they have a court order granting them custody. As one woman's story shows, this can allow the feature which allows it to be weaponized by an abusive former partner. Wired reports: "The lack of dual-organizer roles, leaving other parents effectively as subordinate admins with more limited power, can prove limiting and frustrating in blended and shared households. And in darker scenarios, a single-organizer setup isn't merely inconvenient -- it can be dangerous. Kate (name changed to protect her privacy and safety) knows this firsthand. When her marriage collapsed, she says, her now ex-husband, the designated organizer, essentially weaponized Family Sharing. He tracked their children's locations, counted their screen minutes and demanded they account for them, and imposed draconian limits during Kate's custody days while lifting them on his own [...] After they separated, Kate's ex refused to disband the family group. But without his consent, the children couldn't be transferred to a new one. "I wrongly assumed being the custodial parent with a court order meant I'd be able to have Apple move my children to a new family group, with me as the organizer," says Kate. But Apple couldn't help. Support staff sympathized but said their hands were tied because the organizer holds the power." Although users can "abandon the accounts and start again with new Apple IDs," the report notes that doing so means losing all purchased apps, along with potentially years' worth of photos and videos.

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Alphabet reported its first-ever $100 billion quarter, fueled by a 34% surge in Google Cloud revenue and booming AI demand. The tech giant also announced an increase in expected capital expenditures for the fiscal year of 2025. CNBC reports: "With the growth across our business and demand from Cloud customers, we now expect 2025 capital expenditures to be in a range of $91 billion to $93 billion," the company said in its earnings report (PDF) Wednesday. "Looking out to 2026, we expect a significant increase in CapEx and will provide more detail on our fourth quarter earnings call," said finance chief Anat Ashkenazi on the earnings call with investors Wednesday. Earlier this year, the company increased its capital expenditure expectation from $75 billion to $85 billion. Most of that goes toward technical infrastructure such as data centers. The latest earnings show the company is seeing rising demand for its AI services, which largely sit in its cloud unit. It also shows the company is continuing to spend more to try and build out more infrastructure to accomodate the backlog of customer requests. "We continue to drive strong growth in new businesses. Google Cloud accelerated, ending the quarter with $155 billion in backlog," CEO Sundar Pichai said in the earnings release.

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sciencehabit shares a report from Science.org: From enabling life as we know it to greasing the geological machinery of plate tectonics, water can have a huge influence on a planet's behavior. But how do planets get their water? An infant world might be bombarded by icy comets and waterlogged asteroids, for instance, or it could form far enough from its host star that water can precipitate as ice. However, certain exoplanets pose a puzzle to astronomers: alien worlds that closely orbit their scorching home stars yet somehow appear to hold significant amounts of water. A new series of laboratory experiments, published today in Nature, has revealed a deceptively straightforward solution to this enigma: These planets make their own water. Using diamond anvils and pulsed lasers, researchers managed to re-create the intense temperatures and pressures present at the boundary between these planets' hydrogen atmospheres and molten rocky cores. Water emerged as the minerals cooked within the hydrogen soup. Because this kind of geologic cauldron could theoretically boil and bubble for billions of years, the mechanism could even give hellishly hot planets bodies of water -- implying that ocean worlds, and the potentially habitable ones among them, may be more common than scientists already thought. "They can basically be their own water engines," says Quentin Williams, an experimental geochemist at the University of California Santa Cruz who was not involved with the new work.

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Everyone's got workplace woes. The clueless manager; the disruptive coworker; the cube walls that loom ever higher as the years pass, trapping whatever's left of your soul.

But sometimes, Satan really leaves his mark on a joint. I worked Tech Support there. You may remember The C-Level Ticket. I'm Anonymous. This is my story.

Night after night, my dreams are full of me trying and failing at absolutely everything. Catch a bus? I'm already running late and won't make it. Dial a phone number to get help? I can't recall the memorized sequence, and the keypad's busted anyway. Drive outta danger? The car won't start. Run from a threat? My legs are frozen.

Then I wake up in my bed in total darkness, scared out of my skull, and I can't move for real. Not one muscle works. Even if I could move, I'd stay still because I'm convinced the smallest twitch will give me away to the monster lurking nearby, looking to do me in.

The alarm nags me before the sun's even seen fit to show itself. What day is it? Tuesday? An invisible, overwhelming dread pins me in place under the covers. I can't do it. Not again.

The thing is, hunger, thirst, and cold are even more nagging than the alarm. Dead tired, I force myself up anyway to do the whole thing over.

The office joe that morning was so over-brewed as to be sour. I tossed down the last swig in my mug, checking my computer one more time to make sure no Tech Support fires were raging by instant message or email. Then I threw on my coat and hat and quit my cube, taking the stairs to ground level.

I pushed open a heavy fire-escape door and stepped out into the narrow alley between two massive office buildings. Brisk autumn air and the din of urban motor traffic rushed to greet me. The dull gray sky above threatened rain. Leaning against the far brick wall were Toby and Reynaldo, a couple of network admins, hugging themselves as they nursed smoldering cigarettes. They nodded hello.

I tipped my hat in greeting, slipping toward the usual spot, a patch of asphalt I'd all but worn grooves in by that point. I lit my own cigarette and took in a deep, warming draw.

"Make it last another year," Toby spoke in a mocking tone, tapping ash onto the pavement. "I swear, that jerk can squeeze a nickel until Jefferson poops!"

An ambulance siren blared through the alley for a minute. The rig was no doubt racing toward the hospital down the street.

Reynaldo smirked. "You think Morty finally did it?"

Toby smirked as well.

I raised an eyebrow. "Did what?"

"Morty always says he's gonna run out into traffic one of these days so they can take him to the hospital and he won't have to be here," Reynaldo explained.

I frowned at the morbid suggestion. "Hell of a way to catch a break."

"Well, it's not like we can ask for time off," Toby replied bitterly. "They always find some way to rope us back in."

I nodded in sympathy. "You have it worse than we do. But my sleep's still been jacked plenty of times by 3AM escalated nonsense that shoulda been handled by a different part of the globe."

Reynaldo's eyes lit up fiercely. "They have all the same access and training, but it never falls on them! Yeah, been there."

The door swung open again, admitting a young woman with the weight of the world on her shoulders. This was Megan, a junior developer and recent hire. I tipped my hat while helping myself to another drag.

She hastened my way, pulling a pack of cigarettes from her handbag. With shaking hands, she fumbled to select a single coffin nail. "I quit these things!" she lamented. After returning the pack to her bag, she rummaged through it fruitlessly. "Dammit, where are those matches?!" She glanced up at me with a pleading expression.

I pulled the lighter from my coat pocket. "You sure?"

She nodded like she hadn't been more sure about anything in her entire life.

I lit it for her. She took a lung-filling pull, then exhaled a huge cloud of smoke.

"Goin' that well, huh?" I asked.

Megan also hugged herself, her expression pained. "Every major player in the industry uses our platform, and I have no idea how it hasn't all come crashing down. There are thousands of bugs in the code base. Thousands! It breaks all the time. Most of the senior devs have no clue what they're doing. And now we're about to lose the only guy who understands the scheduling algorithm, the most important thing!"

"That's tough." I had no idea what else to say. Maybe it was enough that I listened.

Megan glanced up nervously at the brewing storm overhead. "I just know that algorithm's gonna get dumped in my lap."

"The curse of competence." I'd seen it plenty of times.

"Ain't that the truth!" She focused on me again with a look of apology. "How've you been?"

I shrugged. "Same old, same old." I figured a fresh war story might help. "Had to image and set up the tech for this new manager's onboarding. Her face is stuck in this permanent glare. Every time she opens her mouth, it's to bawl someone out."

"Ugh."

"The crazy thing is, the walls of her office are completely covered with crucifixes, and all these posters plastered with flowers and hearts and sap like Choose Kindness." I leaned in and lowered my voice. "You know what I think? I think she’s an ancient Roman whose spite has kept her alive for over two thousand years. Those crosses are a threat!"

That teased a small laugh out of Megan. For a moment, the amusement reached her eyes. Then it was gone, overwhelmed by worry. She took to pacing through the narrow alley.

Back at my cube, I found a new urgent ticket at the top of my case load. Patricia Dracora, a senior project manager, had put in a call claiming her computer had been hacked. Her mouse cursor was moving around and clicking things all on its own.

It was too early in the morning for a case like this. That old dread began sneaking up on me again. The name put me on edge as well. Over the years, our paths had never crossed, but her nickname throughout Tech Support, Dracula, betrayed what everyone else made of her.

"Make like a leaf and blow!"

The boss barked his stern command over my shoulder. I stood and turned from my computer to find him at my cubicle threshold with arms folded, blocking my egress.

I couldn't blow, so I shrugged. "Can't be as bad as The Crucifier."

"Dracula's worse than The Crucifier," the boss replied under his breath in a warning tone. "For your own good, don't keep her waiting!" He tossed a thumb over his shoulder for good measure.

When he finally backed out of the way, I made tracks outta there. A few of my peers made eye contact as I passed, looking wary on my behalf.

The ticket pegged Dracora's office in a subfloor I'd never set foot in before. Descending the stairs, I had too much time to think. Of course I didn't expect a real hacking attempt. Peripheral hardware on the fritz, some software glitch: there'd be a simple explanation. What fresh hell would I have to endure to reach that point? That was what my tired brain couldn't let go of. The stimulants hadn't kicked in yet. With the strength of a kitten, I was stepping into a lion's den. A lion who might make me wish for crucifixion by the time it was all over.

From the stairwell, I entered a dank, deserted corridor. Old florescent lighting fixtures hummed and flickered overhead. That, combined with the overwhelming stench of paint fumes, set the stage for a ripping headache. There were no numbers on the walls to lead me to the right place. They must've taken them down to paint and never replaced them. I inched down worn, stained carpeting, peeking into each open gap I found to either side of me. Nothing but darkness, dust, and cobwebs at first. Eventually, I spotted light blaring from one of the open doors ahead of me. I jogged the rest of the way, eager to see any living being by that point.

The room I'd stumbled onto was almost closet-sized. It contained a desk and chair, a laptop docking station, and a stack of cardboard boxes on the floor. Behind the desk was a woman of short stature, a large purse slung over one shoulder. Her arms were folded as she paced back and forth in the space behind her chair. When I appeared, she stopped and looked to me wide-eyed, maybe just as relieved as I was. "Are you Tech Support?"

"Yes, ma'am." I entered the room. "What's—?"

"I don't know how it happened!" Dracora returned to pacing, both hands making tight fists around the straps of the purse she was apparently too wired and distracted to set down. "They made me move here from the fourth floor. I just brought everything down and set up my computer, and now someone has control of the mouse. Look, look!" She stopped and pointed at the monitor.

I rounded the desk. By the time I got there, whatever she'd seen had vanished. Onscreen, the mouse cursor sat still against a backdrop of open browsers and folders. Nothing unusual.

"It was moving, I swear!" Anguished, Dracora pleaded with me to believe her.

It seemed like she wasn't hostile at all, just stressed out and scared. I could handle that. "I'm sure we can figure this out, ma'am. Lemme have a look here."

I sat down at the desk and tried the wireless mouse first. It didn't work at all to move the cursor.

"The hacker's locked us out!" Dracora returned to pacing behind me.

As I sat there, not touching a thing, the mouse cursor shuttled across the screen like it was possessed.

"There! You see?"

Suddenly, somehow, my brain smashed everything together. "Ma'am, I have an idea. Could you please stand still?"

Dracora stopped.

I swiveled around in the chair to face her. "Ma'am, you said you were moving in down here. What's in your purse right now?"

Her visible confusion deepened. "What?"

"The mouse cursor only moves around when you do," I explained.

Her eyes widened. She dug deeply into her purse. A moment later, she pulled out a second wireless mouse. Then she looked to me like she couldn't believe it. "That's it?!"

"That's it!" I replied.

"Oh, lord!" Dracora replaced the dud sitting on her mousepad with the mouse that was actually connected to her machine, wilting over the desk as she did so. "I don't know whether to laugh or cry."

I knew the feeling. But the moment of triumph, I gotta admit, felt pretty swell. "Anything else I can help with, ma'am?"

"No, no! I've wasted enough of your time. Thank you so much!"

I had even more questions on the way back upstairs. With this huge, spacious office building, who was forcing Dracora to be in that pit? How had she garnered such a threatening reputation? Why had my experience been so different from everyone else's? I didn't mention it to the boss or my peers. I broke it all down to Megan in the alley a few days later.

"She even put in a good word for me when she closed the ticket," I told her. "The boss says I'm on the fast track for another promotion." I took a drag from my cigarette, full of bemusement. "I'm already as senior as it gets. The only way up from here is management." I shook my head. "That ain't my thing. Look how well it's gone for Dracora."

Megan lowered her gaze, eyes narrowed. "You said it yourself: the only reward for good work is more work."

And then they buried you ... in a basement, or a box.

I remembered being at the start of my career, like Megan. I remembered feeling horrified by all the decades standing between me and the day when I wouldn't or couldn't ever work again. A couple decades in, some part of me that I'd repressed had resurfaced. What the hell is this? What have I been doing?

Stop caring, a different part replied. Just stop caring. Take things day by day, case by case.

I'd obeyed for so long. Where had it gotten me?

Under my breath, I risked airing my wildest wish for the future. "Someday, I wanna break outta this joint."

Megan blinked up at me. I had her attention. "How?"

"I dunno," I admitted. "I gotta figure it out ... before I go nuts."

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