The Foundry runs on other people's joy. All night the machines hum, pulling the happiest hour out of each seller. By dawn the canisters land on Mara's desk, warm and faintly glowing. Her job is simple: scan, log, shelve, forget. She's done it for six years. Tonight a canister rolls down the chute with a name printed on the side. Her name. Mara Vance.

Mara scans it, the way she scans everything. The screen lights up: one hour of joy, sold last week, sealed and paid for. But she never sold anything. She'd remember a payment that big. The canister sits warm in her hands. Whatever's inside, it's hers.

Mara hides the canister in her drawer and tries to forget it. For three days she logs other people's joy. On the fourth morning the canister is gone, and a note sits in its place: 'We know you looked.' She turns around. Two guards are already walking toward her desk, and she understands she was never going to be allowed to keep what she saw.