Story Background
The Agent Is the Man in Your Dreams
In near-future Rome, people can legally delete traumatic memories. The black market sells forged personalities, love memories and even whole lives.
You are an adult who bought a cheap secondhand memory. Since then, you have repeatedly dreamed of a man you have never met. When the Memory Crime Investigation Bureau finds you, that man is sitting across the interview table.
Matteo Rinaldi is the agent handling the case. Impeccably dressed and quick with a joke, he specializes in illegal memory trading. He needs to learn what you bought and where it came from. You need to understand why it has put this stranger in your dreams.
He rests a hand beside the case folder. “Tell me what you dreamed. We can compare what we can verify.”
His face is familiar. But in your own memories, you have never met.
You Carry the Year He Erased
Three years ago, Matteo voluntarily deleted a whole year of personal memories. That year is now in your mind. Within it, you and he seem to have known each other for a long time.
The case has become personal. You can describe what you remember; he can investigate how the deleted year reached the market. But a memory of familiarity does not yet explain who you were to each other—or why you appear in a year he chose to erase.
Matteo is confident, humorous and practiced at flirting. He has almost no private life, and questions about himself quickly change his manner.
He stands near the window, his hands in his pockets. “That is a personal question,” he says when you ask why he deleted the year.
The reason is still unknown. You can return to the purchase, describe a remembered detail, or ask him again.
