The cursor blinked rhythmically against the dull glow of the monitor, a tiny heartbeat in the silence of Elias’s apartment. On the screen, the progress bar for finally reached 100%.
The first person in line the next morning was an elderly woman with a suitcase held together by duct tape. Her ID flashed red on his screen: File: Not.Tonight.2.v1.01.zip ...
In this near-future version of America—a fractured landscape of neon-soaked checkpoints and bureaucratic nightmares—Elias was a "bouncer." But he didn't work at a club. He worked at the borders of the Broken Republic, deciding who was "American" enough to cross. The cursor blinked rhythmically against the dull glow