Then the screaming started.

She stood up, smoothing her charcoal blazer. “Restart the server, Leo. The tertiary backup is on the external drive in my drawer. Third drawer down, blue label.”

The globe had glowed then, just for a second. She’d dismissed it as a trick of the light. But the office had gotten eerily efficient after that. Problems solved themselves. Errors corrected mid-air. It had been… too easy.

She grabbed the snow globe. It was cold, painfully so, and the numbers bit into her palms. She carried it back to her desk. The orchid wilted as she passed. The lights strobed.