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 watches the whole hour, crying the entire time. When it ends, the little girl's face is already fading from her mind. The canister only lets you borrow a memory, not keep it. Now she understands why sellers come back again and again. She presses play one more time, holds her daughter's laugh for another minute, and decides she will spend whatever it takes to buy this hour back for good.