on the other side of the room, across from Panopticon and above the control console, the master router for the Appartment's public WiFi is attatched to the wall.
it is a weirdly bulky piece of tech, significantly larger than most household models, with extra sockets and buttons and antennae all over it.
normally it just sits there silently, small LEDs occasionally flashing, and its antennae splayed at odd angles as it works to provide the residents access to the internet even as the world devolves into chaos.
but now there are strange, almost meaty popping noises coming from it.
in under a minute the router mutates and shifts unnaturally, with fleshy veins spread across the black plastic, eyeballs cropping up to replace a number of the buttons and plugs, and even the antennae seem to shudder and bend slightly like long stiff fingers.
the eyes across the mutated router look around, each wandering in different directions as they scan across the darkened room.
after a moment an eye glances upon the Panopticon past the screen between them, slides past, then a half second later every eye on the mutated router snaps to attention, staring at them.
there is a long silent staredown between the two, until the mutated router's antennae begin to lightly shake back and forth, as if tentatively waving hello.
Oh. Hmm. That's... new. They must take this calmly. There was a vague sense of the Wi-Fi itself being tampered with, just slightly. Fortunately, their cameras don't need an Internet access to operate.
Their digital eyes don't move, simply staring, unblinking. Except one eye that kept on the camera screens. If only they could give some more expression, with, say, narrowed eyes or a gesture of the hand... they barely move at all, actually. Pretty in-character for Panopticon. What could this thing possibly need? From here? This place? Unless there wasn't anywhere else to go, this was... an inconvenient spot, at the very least.
