The Cold Aisle

The cold open

At three in the morning, the city's pulse is kept alive by three thousand humming server blades in the subterranean belly of the financial district. The air in the facility's cold aisle sits at a dry fifty degrees, smelling of ionized copper and chilled air. Inside the sub-floor cable trench of Server Bay 4, Julian Sterling lay face-down between the fiber trunks, choked to death with a braided patch cable.

The victim

Julian Sterling

The lineup

• Kaan Demir
• Maya Lindqvist
• Boris Grigoriev
• Chloe Moreau