She looked up and smiled. "I used to spend my Fridays waiting for exports. Now I spend them at the pub. It’s not a laptop; it’s a 'get-my-life-back' machine."

"Do I actually need this?" he muttered to his reflection in the dying monitor.

The screen on Leo’s seven-year-old laptop flickered with a rhythmic, taunting pulse, as if it were breathing its last. He stared at the checkout page on his phone: The price was a jagged pill to swallow.