"Your Workforce, Optimized."

It was an assimilation .

The Media Creation Tool hadn't created an OS. It had created a warden.

Alex yawned, the blue light of three monitors washing over an empty coffee mug. The server room hummed like a beehive. The task was routine: deploy a fresh Windows 11 Enterprise image to fifty new laptops for the night shift at

His phone rang. The caller ID: . He picked it up.

He shrugged, selected the standard build, and clicked .

Alex looked at the Media Creation Tool in his hand. It was just a gray drive again. Innocent. Silent.

Zzt.