The Bureau gave Mira one job: erase General Vael Tisseren from the world's memory. Forty years of his crimes sat in her terminal, ready to delete. But the machine didn't really delete. It digested. Every file she picked turned into a soft warmth that filled the room, like the data breathed out one last time before it died. Mira cracked her knuckles and opened the first file.

Mira started where the Bureau told her to: the early years. She picked the village massacre, the crime that made Tisseren famous. The room warmed. The file blurred and vanished. But the warmth didn't fade. It pressed against her skin, and for half a second she smelled smoke that wasn't there.

Mira pushed through the nausea and erased ten files in a row. The smoke smell got stronger. Then her own memories started to shift. She suddenly remembered giving the order for the massacre, the cold thrill of it, as if she had done it herself. She backed away from the desk, shaking, no longer sure who she was.