The arm bred the theme song to 2001: A Space Odyssey, a choice that had seemed clever at the time but now felt like a ic joke. He groaned, spping the ston with the precision of someone who had do a thousand times before. He y there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, and wondered if Carl Sagan ever hit snooze. Probably not. Sagan had that whole “billions and billions of stars” thing going for him. This guy? He had spreadsheets.

  He dragged himself out of bed, threw on a wrinkled shirt, and stumbled into the kit. The coffee mae sputtered like it was on its st legs, which was fitting because so was he. As he waited for the caffeio drip, he opened his phone and scrolled through his emails. Anraion. “We regret to inform you that your proposal on bck hole thermodynamics does not align with our current funding priorities.” He sighed. Machiavelli once said, “It is better to be feared than loved, if you ot be both.” He wondered if Machiavelli had ever tried to get funding for astrophysics research. Probably not. Machiavelli would’ve just taken the money.

  The office was a fluorest-lit purgatory, filled with the hum of puters and the occasional burst of ughter from the break room. He sat at his desk, staring at a spreadsheet that refused to make sense. His coworker, Mina, leaned over his shoulder. “Still w on that bck hole data?”

  “Yeah,” he said, not looking up. “Trying to figure out why the numbers don’t add up.”

  Mina grinned. “Maybe the bck hole ate them.”

  He chuckled, but it was hollow. Mina was one of the few people in the office who didn’t treat him like a walking calcutor. She had a knaaking even the most tedious work feel bearable. She was also, objectively, the most attractive person he’d ever met—smart, funny, and effortlessly kind. He’d thought about asking her out more times than he could t, but every time, he chied out. What if she said no? What if it made things awkward? Better to stay in his ne.

  Lunch was a sad pancit from the street vendor outside the office. He sat on a bench, watg the wo by. A sy cat with matted fur approached him, meowing softly. It looked up at him with big, pleading eyes, clearly hoping for a scrap of food. He hesitated, then shook his head. “Sorry, buddy,” he muttered, turning away. The cat lingered for a moment before slinking off into the shadows.

  He felt a pang of guilt but quickly pushed it aside. What was o in a city full of strays? Still, the image of those pleading eyes stayed with him. Richard Feynman once said, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.” He thought about that a lot. Mostly because he retty sure he’d been fooling himself into thinking his ina didn’t matter. Spoiler alert: it did.

  The afternoon was a blur of missed opportunities. His boss, Dr. Reyes, stopped by his desk to ask if he’d fihe report oelescope’s calibration. He hadn’t. “It’s almost done,” he lied, avoiding her gaze. Dr. Reyes sighed and walked away, her heels clig against the linoleum floor. What did it matter? The report would get doually. Or it wouldn’t. The universe would keep spinniher way.

  Later, he overheard a group of interns discussing a new project. They were excited, their voices filled with the kind of passion he hadn’t felt in years. He thought about joining the versation, maybe some advice, but then he remembered the st time he’d tried to mentor someo hadn’t gone well. He’d been too ical, too jaded. Better to let things be.

  By the time he left the office, the sun was setting. The sky was a swirl es and purples, the kind of suhat made you stop and think, “Wow, the universe is beautiful.” Then you remembered you were standing in a parking lot o a dumpster, and the moment passed.

  He was walking home through the byrinth of Mani’s back alleys. You know the ones—narrow, dimly lit, with walls covered in graffiti and the occasional stray cat darting into the shadows. The air smelled like taho and exhaust fumes, and the distant hum of traffic was a stant background was the kind of pce where you kept your head down and your pace quick, unless you were looking for trouble.

  That’s when he saw them. A group of guys, loud and obnoxious, crowding around a young woman. She looked scared, her back pressed against a wall. One of them grabbed her arm, and she tried to pull away. His first instinct was to keep walking. He wasn’t a hero. He was just a guy who koo much about quasars and not enough about self-defense. But then he heard her voice, shaky but defiant: “Leave me alone.”

  He stopped. His brain started running through all the reasons he shouldn’t get involved. “It’s not your problem.” “You’ll just make it worse.” “What if they have a knife?” But thehought about all the times he’d dohing. All the times he’d been a cog in the mae, turning and turning but never really doing anything. And he realized something: he didn’t want to be a cog anymore.

  As he hesitated, the memory of that night uhe stars fshed through his mind. His father’s voice, warm and steady: “Maybe the universe isn’t about sting forever. Maybe it’s about leaving somethiiful behind.”

  He rolled his eyes internally. “Great, Dad. Real poetic. Meanwhile, I’m about to get my ass kicked in a back alley. But fine, okay. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s not about sting forever. Maybe it’s about doing something that matters, even if it’s small. Even if it’s stupid.”

  He didn’t pn to die. That wasn’t part of the deal. He’d already dialed the emergenumber on his phohe call waiting to be ected. His pn was simple: throw his bag at them, create a distra, and buy the woman enough time to run. Then he’d bolt in the opposite dire. Easy. . No one had to get hurt.

  He took a deep breath, tightened his grip on his bag, and stepped forward. “Hey!” he shouted, his voice louder than he expected. The guys turo look at him. One of them smirked. “Mind your own business, buddy.”

  He didn’t give them time to react. He hurled his bag at the closest guy, the weight of his ptop and books catg the man square in the face. The woman took the opportunity to slip away, her footsteps eg down the alley.

  For a moment, it seemed like his pn might work. The men were stunned, cursing and scrambling to recover. He turo run, adrenaline surging through him.

  But then he heard it—a sharp, deafening crack. Pain exploded in his side, hot and searing. He stumbled, his legs giving out beh him. The pavement was cold against his skin, and the world tilted sideways.

  “Oh,” he thought, distantly surprised. “They had a gun.”

  The st thing he saw was the young woman disappearing around the er, her face a mix of fear and gratitude. And then… nothing.