The screen shows a single, blinking cursor. Then, in plain text:

That is the Katsem. Not the vote. Not the science. That look.

The year is 2148. The global economy runs on Memoria. Every significant memory—a first kiss, the solving of a complex equation, the terror of a near-miss accident—can be recorded, stripped of emotional context, and traded as raw data. Corporations called Mnemogenics buy these memories, repackage them into "experience streams," and sell them to a populace starved for authentic feeling. The rich relive the triumphs of Olympic athletes; the middle class sample the quiet joy of a sunset over a dead sea; the poor subsist on loops of forgotten, mundane moments—a dog's tail wag, the smell of rain on concrete.