He waited.
Then, a text from Maya: "You get Odyssey yet? The first boss just melted my face off. Literally. There was a cutscene."
He had a new plan. It was stupid, obsessive, and entirely unreasonable. He created a makeshift tethering station with his phone, which got slightly better reception if he held it at a specific angle against the window. He set his phone to never sleep. He disabled every automatic update on every device in a five-meter radius.
Leo lived on the third floor of a building built when dial-up was considered cutting-edge. His connection was a ghost of broadband, a spectral signal that flickered in and out with the weather. And it was raining.
And he watched.