Leo stared at the swirling blue circle of doom. It was 8:55 AM. His History final was in five minutes, and Zoom was blocked.

He was in. A ghost in the machine.

His fingers flew. https://zoom.com/join

In the group chat, chaos erupted.

He opened his phone’s hotspot. The school laptop refused to connect to non-school Wi-Fi. Brute force: fail.

Mrs. Gable’s pixelated face appeared. "Leo! You're the first one here! Everyone else is… stuck?"

Connecting…