Mark Weston stood awkwardly near the entryway as the two officers scanned his small apartment. It was tidy. Tasteful, even — books lined the walls, a record player sat in the corner humming faint jazz, and a mug of chamomile tea still steamed gently beside his laptop.
“You said your neighbor was using your Wi-Fi?” the younger officer asked, pausing near the router.
Mark nodded. “I didn’t give her the password. She must’ve guessed it or had a tech-savvy friend help. I only noticed when my speed dropped and I saw devices I didn’t recognize on the network. I changed the password this morning. Nothing dramatic.”
The older officer tapped something into his phone.
“She called it ‘an act of aggression.’ Said you were monitoring her activity. She claimed you had… a backdoor into her phone.”
Mark blinked. “What? That’s ridiculous.”
“She also said you threatened her last week.”
“I haven’t spoken to her in months.”
The tension in the room thickened. Then the younger cop pointed to a closed door in the hallway.
“That your office?”
Mark’s brow furrowed. “No. That’s just a storage closet. Why?”
“Mind if we take a look?”
Before Mark could answer, the older officer’s radio buzzed.
“Dispatch to Unit 14. We’ve got a tip—possibly connected. Stand by.”
The older cop stepped aside to take the call.
The younger one opened the door.
And everything changed.
**
Inside, it wasn’t a closet.
It was a room.
A small, windowless chamber lit by a single, flickering bulb. And in it — monitors. At least eight of them, arranged in a semicircle. All displaying live feeds.
Different apartments.
Different neighbors.
Mark froze. “Wait—what is that? That’s not mine. I don’t—”
The younger officer reached toward one screen. It showed the living room of Apartment 3B — the neighbor who made the call.
She was sitting on her couch.
Sobbing.
The screen went black.
Mark stammered. “I don’t know what this is. I didn’t set that up. I don’t even have cameras—”
But the officers weren’t listening anymore.
The older one stepped back into the room, eyes sharp.
“We just received a tip,” he said slowly. “Anonymous source. Said this apartment had ‘unauthorized surveillance equipment.’”
Mark shook his head, panic rising. “Someone planted that. That’s not mine—”
The younger officer pulled open a drawer beneath the monitors.
Inside: a USB stick labeled BACKDOOR.exe.
A list of names.
Wi-Fi passwords.
Device IDs.
And photos.
Some recent.
Some… very old.
The officers exchanged a look. Then one of them drew his weapon.
“Mr. Weston,” the older one said calmly, “we’re going to ask you to sit down.”
Mark backed up.
“No. No. This isn’t—I’m being framed. I work in cybersecurity. I help companies patch vulnerabilities, that’s it!”
“Looks like you exploited a few yourself.”
“No! You don’t understand—”
**
What followed was a blur.
Backup arrived. Handcuffs clicked. A stunned silence descended on the building as Mark was led out in front of neighbors — some confused, some filming, some whispering.
And in the crowd, she stood.
The neighbor.
Apartment 3B.
Her eyes locked on Mark as he passed.
She didn’t look smug.
She looked afraid.
**
EPILOGUE – “INTERFERENCE”
Two days later, investigators confirmed that someone had been piggybacking off neighbors’ Wi-Fi signals for over a year.
Not just stealing bandwidth — but monitoring everything. Smart TVs. Phones. Laptops. Even baby monitors.
And someone had buried it deep. A setup so sophisticated, it took federal tech teams to unwind.
But one file — hidden under layers of encryption — named the true creator of the system.
It wasn’t Mark.
It was his predecessor.
The former tenant of Apartment 5C.
A man who disappeared nine months earlier.
Mark had unknowingly inherited the setup.
The equipment.
The network paths.
The silent surveillance.
All of it had lain dormant—until he changed the password.
And tripped the system.
**
The anonymous tip?
From a burner phone.
Untraceable.
Whoever sent it… wanted Mark found.
Not because he was guilty.
Because he was the last thread to something far worse.
And someone had just cut it loose.