The morning shift at the library began with a sterile, mechanical chime that echoed through the vast expanse of the archives. Zeta walked toward his workstation, his posture carefully calibrated to convey the fatigue of a man who had barely slept through the night. His mind, however, was in a state of absolute, razor-sharp alertness. He knew what today brought. The notification had appeared on his retinal display shortly after he woke up: mandatory neural synchronization testing for all personnel. It was a direct response to the security anomalies that had plagued the library over the last few cycles, a sweep intended to flush out any staff member whose cognitive output deviated from the accepted baseline.
He reached his desk and sat down, his movements slow and deliberate. He could fee
