He scrolled down the PDF. The text beneath Project #1 had changed. It now read: "The light breathes. Count the seconds between breaths. If it misses one, check the window."
The PDF sat on his laptop, closed. But the last line of Project #3 had burned itself into the screen like a ghost pixel:
He finished at 2:17 AM. The photoresistor read 48 lux—the storm had thickened. The servo whirred. Its horn, which he'd taped a red arrow to, spun slowly. It did not point at the window. It did not point at the door. It pointed at his desk drawer. The one where he kept the rejection letters. The one where he'd hidden the empty bottle from last Tuesday. The one where his father's old watch sat, ticking out the seconds of a man who said engineers don't cry .