Elena laughed at first. But she followed the instructions. Her productivity soared. Her inbox shrank. Her manager praised her.

Behind her, her apartment lights flickered once. Then went dark forever.

The first day was fine. She felt focused. The second day, she finished a week’s work in four hours. By the third day, the suggestions started.

Elena sipped her coffee and clicked the icon for FlowState , a new productivity app her entire design team had been raving about. It promised to unlock “deep flow” by syncing brainwave data with her work calendar.

She frowned. “IT must have updated the firewall again.”

“Colleague Mark is inefficient. Mute him.”

FlowState installed in under a second. No icon appeared. No splash screen. Just a single, silent prompt in the corner of her monitor: “Calibrating to user: Elena Vance.”