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Mike stood before the full-length mirror in his high-end suite, adjusting the knot of his maroon striped tie. His blue suit sat perfectly on his shoulders. Today was the day he was meant to close a massive, career-defining deal. He felt invincible, right up until the moment a thick manila envelope slid beneath his door with a quiet, sinister scrape.

He picked it up, expecting a last-minute contract revision. Instead, he pulled out a stack of glossy photographs and printed emails. His stomach dropped. It was ruinous. Decimating. Everything he had built—his marriage, his career, his reputation—was detailed in the pages, ready to be burned to the ground. Taped to the back of the final photo was a heavy brass key and a single typed sentence: The Elmwood Inn, ten blocks south. Room 301. You have 30 minutes.

Mike abandoned his briefcase and ran. He bolted out of his luxury hotel, bursting through the revolving glass doors and hitting the unforgiving concrete. Panic fueled him as he sprinted down the busy sidewalks, dodging pedestrians, his polished brown oxford shoes slapping loudly against the pavement. Sweat began to slick his forehead, dampening his crisp collar, his breath coming in ragged gasps by the time the faded, flickering neon sign of the Elmwood Inn came into view.

He vaulted up the stairs of the cheap hotel, desperately searching the numbers along the dreary corridor. When he finally found Room 301 and jammed the key into the lock, he practically fell into a space completely unlike his own suite. It was dingy, lined with faded floral wallpaper and dominated by a cheap, sagging four-poster wood bed. A black plastic garbage bag sat waiting on the nightstand.

Before he could even catch his breath, a small, two-way radio resting on the nightstand crackled to life with a loud burst of static.

"Welcome, Mike. You have exactly two minutes and 30 seconds," a mechanically distorted voice echoed from the small speaker. "Take off everything. Strip down to your size 32 tighty whities and size medium undershirt - yep, we watched you getting dressed this morning. Bet no one at the office knows you're a tighty whities boy. Suit, shirt, tie, belt, socks, shoes. Your glasses. Your watch. Your wallet. Your keys. Even your wedding ring. Put it all in the bag and throw it out the window into the dumpster below. A garbage truck is turning the alley corner in…well, it’s two minutes and 5 seconds now. If you miss that truck, the deal is off, and the info we have goes to your wife and the board. Go."

Panic, hot and suffocating, seized his chest. The horrific realization that they had been watching him in the privacy of his own hotel room—that unseen eyes had been tracking his every mundane move all morning, and god knows how long before—sent a sickening jolt of nausea straight through his nervous system. Mike fumbled blindly with his cuffs, popping a button off his shirt in his frantic haste. He yanked off the jacket and shirt, revealing his white ribbed tank top. He quickly kicked off his polished oxford shoes and stripped off his dark dress socks, his bare feet hitting the cold, sticky linoleum.

Then, he ripped his leather belt loose and unzipped his trousers. As the heavy wool slid down his legs and pooled at his ankles, a profound, burning embarrassment flushed his skin. Stepping out of the trousers, he was left standing in nothing but his snug white briefs and undershirt. The skimpy garments barely covered his body. Instead of clothing him, the stark white cotton seemed to merely frame and expose him, clinging to his form and leaving him feeling entirely bare, ridiculous, and deeply vulnerable under the unseen, mocking gaze of his tormentors. He desperately stuffed the expensive fabric and his shoes into the cheap plastic bag. He threw his watch, wallet, and keys in without a second thought. He hesitated for a fraction of a second at his gold wedding ring, a sickening wave of guilt washing over him, before he pulled it over his knuckle and tossed it into the dark plastic void. His glasses went next, instantly blurring the sharp edges of the room.

He hauled the heavy bag to the window, the cold glass biting against his bare skin as he forced the sash up. Down in the alley, the heavy, hydraulic whine of a garbage truck bounced off the brick walls. He heaved the black bag out into the damp air with a groan of dismay, watching it plummet straight down into the open top of the dumpster just as the truck's mechanical arms locked into place to lift it away.

Mike turned back to the room, his chest heaving, standing in nothing but his undershirt and white briefs. He felt entirely stripped of his dignity, his armor gone, his vision swimming slightly without his prescription lenses.

The radio crackled again. "Lie down on the bed. Face up. And wait."

Mike swallowed hard, his throat dry. He climbed onto the sagging mattress, resting his head on the flat, lumpy pillow. He stared blindly up at the cracked plaster ceiling. The sheer absurdity and terror of the situation caught up with him, and he brought a trembling hand up to rub his sweating forehead.

"I said hands flat by your sides, Mike," the voice snapped immediately from the speaker.

Mike froze, his blood running ice cold. It was a brutal, jarring reminder of his utter helplessness; they were watching him right now, scrutinizing his every flinch, just as they had watched him pull on his underwear that morning. He was completely trapped in their twisted game. His eyes darted around the blurry room, desperately searching the smoke detector, the lamp, the corners of the ceiling, but he couldn't spot the hidden lens. He slowly lowered his arms, pressing his palms flat against the scratchy, synthetic bedspread.