Despite being surrounded by fine beach sand, cerulean water and coconuts, ice had formed on every surface. Glistening icicles hung from the monitor, and frost coated everything, his hair, his eyes, even the adjustable office chair. Cold was creeping into his very soul and he fought to stay conscious.

‘Preposterous.’ muttered Levi, knowing full well this was exactly what would happen. An inscription on the office door had warned him to abandon this foolish errand, but he had brushed it aside. He hadn't gone to all this trouble, installed all those mods, to turn back because of some nonsensical threat in Mandarin.

Outside the manager's office, sand shifted as guests walked to and fro. The resort teeming with life, with potential help, but who was he kidding. Nobody was going to the office in this weather, not even the manager.

You must finish the upload before the dragon returns. That’s what the cipher said, that was the gig, and Levi always delivered. His reputation as the best slicer this city has ever seen rested upon it. So he picked the lock, accessed the workstation, and that's where things went sideways.

Moments after inserting the floppy containing the Wurm and running the executable, a fiercely territorial dragon had appeared from behind a mess of wires and leapt onto his arm.

Four inches long, all finely crafted clockwork, it dug its titanium talons through his armored epidermis and locked him in place. Levi roared obscenities and tugged, but it wouldn't budge. Instead, a nebulous vapor had oozed from its body, a writhing abomination that engulfed Levi's arm and torso.

The temperature dropped, his lubricants started to thicken and his joints seized. His vision darkened, it was over. Only the stuttering sound of the drive could be heard as it read the disk.

The station beeped cheerfully and the screen switched from its hospitality management suite to a flickering ASCII image of a skull. Hope surfaced in him. He knew the screen had but a single prompt.

Shall I take command Y/N?

The Wurm upload was complete. A specialised piece of malware more art than programming, a god in the machine, and all it needed was a command. A single signal, spoken, typed or even transmitted over LiFi would be sufficient.

But how?

His arm was frozen above the keyboard. The cold incapacitated his vocal cords. The LiFi transmitter was inoperable against the cold. The only parts that weren't frozen were his legs and what use was that…

The chair. Adjustable. His vision was kaput, but he could swear his index finger hung right above the Y key. With the last of his energy he bent his leg and lifted the lever adjusting the seating height and felt the painfully slow descent. The keyboard made a satisfying click and the Wurm took control of the system.

Outside the lights dimmed and the background reggae got replaced by the soothing tones of fusion jazz. Inside, the dragon twitched once, twice, retracted its talons and fell limply to the floor.

Levi’s homeostasis manager immediately kicked into overdrive and within minutes he was back on his feet. Cycling the menus, he found and executed the command he had been hired to do. Somewhere in the billing manager, a substantial number was reduced to zero.

Never take anything from the minibar.