It is always the same. You stand in the dark, and the darkness lines up every mistake you have ever made. This is justice, at the speed of regret.

  The Reaper gestures once, and the first memory packet blossoms in the center of the amphitheater. It is not gentle. The column of light punches upward, searing Alice’s vision with a rapid-fire stream of images, each more jagged than the last.

  “Exhibit A,” the Reaper intones, and the log text on his face flickers from blue to a menacing red. “Unauthorized access to administrator-level protocols. Repeated.”

  The hologram warps and surges, and she sees herself—hair pulled back, face set with that feral determination that always scared her friends and thrilled her enemies. She is in the act of prying open a system file, using a combination of brute-force and subtlety that would impress anyone except, apparently, herself. The code is familiar, yet not. The way she moves is alien—a rhythm she recognizes, but doesn’t remember choosing.

  Alice’s hands are supposed to be locked behind her back, but she can still feel the phantom ache of typing. Her real fingers twitch in time with the memory, almost as if they’re trying to echo the keystrokes through the shackle.

  She shakes her head, and the whole amphitheater wobbles. The hologram doesn’t stop. If anything, it sharpens. Now the memory-Alice is smiling, just as the system triggers a fail-safe. There is a moment—a frozen frame—where the two Alices lock eyes through the prism of evidence.

  “Is this your work, User #7749?” asks the Reaper, his tone icy and formal.

  Alice forces her tongue to work. “I… I don’t remember that. I wouldn’t—”

  The Reaper’s face ripples with contempt, log text cycling at triple speed. “Ignorance of one’s crimes does not constitute innocence.”

  Another gesture, and the second memory packet detonates on the plinth.

  This one hurts more.

  “Exhibit B: Unauthorized identity manipulation. Victim count: twelve, minimum.”

  The court fills with a montage—twelve faces, all variations on Alice, some with scars, some with tattoos, one with a dazzling set of orthodontics. Each version flickers through a rapid sequence: waking up, realizing they are not alone in their own head, screaming (sometimes silently, sometimes not). The worst is the child, eight, maybe nine, hands clutching at her face, eyes wide with terror.

  For a second, Alice’s mind lurches sideways. She is the child, not herself, arms too short to reach the keyboard, lungs filling with static. She can hear the faint echo of her own voice, but it is someone else screaming it: “Let me out! Let me out! Let me—”

  Simon hisses beside her, “Don’t look. Don’t let it in.”

  But it’s too late. The memory loops, then fragments, and Alice is back in the present—dizzy, sweat-soaked, her own voice caught in her throat.

  The Reaper waits. He enjoys the pause, the hush that follows cruelty.

  “Do you contest this evidence, User #7749?”

  She opens her mouth, but her HUD glitches so violently she almost blacks out. The sanity bar is back, but it’s dropping like a rock: 28%. 16%. 9%.

  She shakes her head, but the word comes out wrong. “I—no, it’s not me, it’s not, it’s—”

  “Denial is a common recursive loop,” the Reaper says, log text painting the words in thick, black strokes. “You may access the evidence directly, if you wish to attempt exculpation.”

  Simon’s head jerks. “Don’t.”

  But Alice is already reaching for the memory. The Threadmancer module surges to life, a heat at her temple that threatens to cook her brain from the inside. Her HUD flashes: DANGER. OVERRIDE RECOMMENDED.

  She lets herself fall into the memory.

  The world shatters, and she is flying through it. The light, the color, the stink of ozone and fried nerves—it is all so much more real than the courtroom. She is in a hallway, a different one from any she remembers. The wallpaper is blue, peeling at the edges, the floor wet with some kind of viscous, amber goo. She is running, feet slapping hard, and there are voices behind her: the echo of Protocol Enforcers, their mouths stuffed with legalese and raw hunger.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  She ducks into a side room—there’s no time to read the sign on the door—and finds herself staring at a bank of mirrors. The reflection is not hers. It is a woman, older, eyes ringed with exhaustion, but the face is familiar: her mother’s, maybe. The woman lifts a hand, and Alice feels her own hand lift in perfect sync. They stare at each other, confusion blooming into horror. Alice tries to scream, but the woman in the mirror screams first.

  The Protocol Enforcers crash in, grabbing the woman—no, grabbing Alice—dragging her down. She thrashes, but their grip is absolute. The last thing she sees is her own face, stretched in terror, before the memory dissolves and slams her back into the court.

  She comes to on her knees, the Protocol Enforcer’s claws biting into her shoulders. There’s blood in her mouth, and something warm drips from her nose.

  Simon is crouched beside her, his own restraints forgotten. He grabs her hand, hard, and says, “You have to stop. It’s not worth it.”

  She tries to nod, but the movement triggers another vision—a stutter of all the faces she just inhabited, each one sobbing, each one hating her.

  She wants to puke, but there’s nothing left.

  The Reaper’s voice is gentle now, almost paternal.

  “Do you require a recess, User #7749?”

  She looks up, vision blurry with tears and static.

  “Why? You’ll just keep going.”

  A smile forms in the log text, a line of code that means precisely what it says: You are correct.

  The Reaper raises a hand. A new evidence packet floats down from the ceiling, dripping bits of corrupted code as it descends.

  “Exhibit C,” he intones. “Deliberate sabotage of containment protocols, resulting in the loss of two supervisory threads and a dozen user instances.”

  Alice glares at the hologram as it opens. This time, she doesn’t even wait for the memory to play. She throws herself into it, the Threadmancer module roaring in her skull.

  She is a virus, and she is the cure.

  She is standing at the edge of a data node, fingers raw, typing as the world collapses around her. She can hear the screams of the supervisory threads—some are human, some are not, but all are terrified. She watches as the containment wall buckles, a thin membrane of logic failing under the stress of her own sabotage.

  She feels the thrill of it. The power. The certainty that she is doing what must be done.

  But then the faces start to appear. The user instances, their memories leaking into the corridor, their histories twisting in on themselves until they break. Some of them beg for mercy. Others just reach out, desperate for a touch.

  She tries to stop, but the code keeps running. It is her, but not her. It is the part of herself that never sleeps, never forgives, never forgets.

  The memory ends with a flash of blue light, and the sound of her own voice laughing, deep and cold.

  She snaps back to the court, trembling, vision doubled. Her sanity meter is gone, replaced by a new warning: IDENTITY COLLISION—CRITICAL.

  The Reaper leans forward, log text forming a frown. “You have experienced the evidence. Is there anything you wish to say before sentencing?”

  Alice wipes her nose. The blood is bright red, almost cheerful. She tries to speak, but the words catch in her throat.

  Simon squeezes her hand. “Don’t let them have the last word.”

  She looks at him and, for the first time, sees the fear there, not for himself, but for her.

  She takes a breath, and in the silence of the court, she says: “I remember everything now. But you can’t make me care the way you want me to.”

  The Reaper nods, log text streaming faster and faster, until it’s just a blur.

  “Noted,” he says. “Final judgment will be rendered in due course.”

  The Protocol Enforcers tighten their grip, and Alice feels herself falling, not just in space but in self.