Leo stared at the cracked screen of his laptop. The orange glow of his bedroom lamp illuminated a single, blinking message: “Authorization required. This copy of Ableton Live Suite will expire in 7 days.”

“You didn’t think we’d just let you take it, did you? The patcher you ran? It wasn’t a crack. It was a key. To your machine. To your microphone. To your camera.”

A folder opened on his desktop. Inside were screen recordings of him working. Naked. Scratching his nose. Crying after a phone call with his mom. Every vulnerable moment, timestamped.