By the end of the week, the file had been traded, sold, and leaked until it was worthless. Milan sat in a cafe, spending his "architect" earnings on an expensive espresso. He looked at the people passing by—the students, the workers, the elderly.

Milan felt a cold shiver. Somewhere, on another screen, in another city, another progress bar had hit 100%. He wasn't the architect anymore. He was just a line in someone else’s list.

Milan didn’t consider himself a thief. He was a "data architect," or at least that’s what he told himself in the cramped, smoke-filled bedroom of his apartment in Niš. On his screen, the progress bar flickered: