We spent the next three hours going through our accounts, line by line.

We cut every non-essential subscription.

We delayed the delivery of the new silicon panels for the test array.

Every cut felt like a step backward, a small piece of our progress being chipped away to pay for my defiance.

At eleven thirty, Marcus walked into the room, his tie loosened, his jacket gone.

“The automated system just sent the pre-default notification,” he said, holding up his tablet.

“Can we appeal it?” I asked.

“Not until the morning,” Marcus said. “The freeze goes into effect at midnight.”

I looked at the clock on the wall.

Eleven forty-five.

“We should go home,” I said. “There’s nothing more we can do from here tonight.”

“I’m staying,” Derek said. “I want to be here when the system locks us out, just to see if we can still access the read-only historical data.”

“Don’t stay up all night,” I said, touching his shoulder.

“I’ll try not to,” he said.

I walked back down the stairs to the street.

The fog had rolled in from the bay, thick and damp, wrapping around the streetlamps.