The moment arrived without spectacle.
Ari stood in the stairwell he had marked weeks ago, the concrete cool against his palm, the building quiet in the way only working spaces became after hours—emptied not just of people, but of expectation. He listened to the hum of distant electricity, the faint echo of air moving through ducts. Everything else had gone still.
The noise inside him had been building all day.
Not a surge, not a spike—something steadier, heavier. A pressure that no longer threatened to explode, but insisted on resolution. He breathed through it slowly, counting the seconds between footsteps he knew would come.
He had rehearsed this moment without images, without dramatization. He had practiced waiting. Waiting was the hardest part. It demanded restraint at the edge of action, where impulse and preparation collided.
He felt his heart beat evenly.
This surprised him.
Ari checked the corridor once more. Light levels were low but sufficient. The blind spot he'd mapped remained intact. The camera above the exit continued its slow, mechanical sweep, never quite reaching the angle that mattered.
Everything aligned.
He did not think about consequences. Consequences belonged to afterward. Right now there was only sequence: presence, movement, stillness. He reminded himself to keep his breath quiet. To move when the timing allowed. To avoid noise that would complicate things.
The footsteps came, just as expected—unhurried, familiar, routine.
Ari's muscles tightened, ready. Not trembling. Prepared.
He waited until the moment narrowed, until there was no space left for hesitation. Standing on the threshold, he felt something like balance—not peace, not excitement, but inevitability settling into place.
This was not fantasy. This was not rehearsal.
This was the line between what he had imagined and what he would do.
Ari stepped forward.