00:00 Chapter 1 — The Ping That Never CameThe night the world changed, Arjun Dev’s phone stayed silent.No vibration. No chime. No “Update Successful” banner that everyone else was waking up to.Just a dead screen and the faint smell of burnt circuits.He was a cybersecurity engineer—he trusted errors more than perfection.And this one, he would soon learn, had just saved him.--When he stepped onto his balcony, Bengaluru felt… off.The city was awake, but not alive.Drones moved overhead in neat grids, delivering breakfast packets to doors that opened before they even knocked.People walked with eerie synchronicity, eyes fixed ahead, no chatter,