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 plugs the canister into the playback cradle at her desk. The glow climbs up her arm, and suddenly she's somewhere else. A kitchen, sunlight, a little girl laughing as Mara lifts her into the air. A daughter. A daughter Mara doesn't remember having.

Mara rips the canister out of the cradle, heart pounding. The Foundry took this from her, a whole hour, a whole child, and erased it so cleanly she never noticed the hole. She pulls up the master archive and searches her own name. Forty-two canisters come up. Forty-two hours of her life, sold without her knowing.