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Speaker 1: I've always believed the work we do at Neurovia matters,

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not in the vague corporate mission statement kind of way.

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I mean it actually matters. We change people in ways

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no pill or guided meditation app ever could. Neurovia is

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a company that doesn't advertise we don't need to. The

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right people always find us veterans, trauma survivors, end of

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life cases, people whose brains have been broken in ways

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traditional therapy can't reach. What we offer isn't healing exactly,

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It's something deeper, significantly more precise. In Layman's terms, we

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build synthetic reconstructions of memory, not just playbacks, full immersions

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built from neural data eg. Pattern exploitations and psychographic overlays

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its memory, yes, but experience the gain. Lucid tactile interactive

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patients are guided into pivotal scenes from their own lives

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and allowed to observe, process, and sometimes rewrite what's been

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weighing them down. Usually these sessions are managed by an

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AI therapist that reacts in real time a kind of

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memory native emotional companion, and for most patients that's more

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than enough. But for the outliers, the ones whose minds

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don't play along, or whose traumas resist logic. That's where

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I come in. They call us transitional memory escorts. The

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name sounds gentler than the job. Actually, we go into

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the memory immersion with the client like a neural co pilot.

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There's a whole protocol for it. Matched brain waves, synchronized breathing,

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psychological report testing, and a biometric tether that keeps us

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linked but separate. I'm not there to fix them, I'm

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there to keep them from sinking. It's like diving into

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someone's personal movie, guiding them to the credits. I've done

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thirty one immersions over the last four years. I've held

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the hands of women watching themselves lose their children. I've

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stood beside soldiers forced to relift firefights in infinite loops.

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One man asked me to shoot him, just to see

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if it felt real. I didn't. Of course, that would

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have triggered a lockdown, but I thought about it. You'd

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be surprised how easily empathy can morph into suggestion if

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you're not careful. The trick is staying present without becoming

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a participant, emotionally available but not vulnerable, curious but not

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too deep. If you get pulled in too far, if

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you start to believe in the world the system builds,

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you can lose track of which life is yours. Luckily

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that's never been a problem for me. The immersion sessions

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don't last long, a few hours max. The neural link

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is strictly regulated. Twenty minutes of leading, two hours of

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guided immersion, twenty minutes of cool down into tight cycle clean.

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You enter together, you leave together. At least that's how

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it's supposed to work. His name was Marcus Rell, fifty two,

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history of substance dependency, confirmed incarceration, suspected but never charged,

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involvement in multiple violent offenses, including arson and homicide. His

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intake file was redacted in all the wrong places. We're

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not usually given the full story, and I've learned not

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to ask for it, But with Marcus, there were too

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many blanks to ignore. The referral came from a private source,

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name withheld. His eligibility clearance came stamped from above my

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pay grade, with a kind of formatting we usually only

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see on government authorized cases. But my supervisor, Devanny, looked

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and bothered when she handed me the assignment. Try not

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to read too far into his past, she told me,

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just keep him on track and guide him out, don't linger.

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I made a joke about not packing a lunch. She

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didn't laugh. The first time I met Marcus in person,

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I already didn't like him. He smiled when I walked in,

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like he'd been waiting a long time for me, specifically,

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and now that I was finally here, the show could start,

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mister Rell, I said, offering my hand. He didn't take it,

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just nodded and said, escort right, correct, I'll be your

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tether during the immersion. We'll I know how it works.

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He cut me off with the same calm tone. I

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read the packet, watched the videos, took the psychevel. You're

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the one who watches right, stays beside me. That's right.

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I don't intervene unless necessary. I'm here to make sure

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you come back in one piece. Marcus stared at me

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for a long time. His smile stayed, but his eyes

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were still unblinking, as if he were counting something in

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my face. You've got a good life, he said, finally, stable, real, peaceful.

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What are you? I said, before being cut off by

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the intercom, letting us know that we were good to

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proceed on. We ran the final calibration, our vitals aligned cleanly,

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no sink drift, no cognitive latency. The nauwer bridge was greenlit.

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He lay back in the chair like it was a

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vacation lounger. I slid into mine, tightening the cuffs and

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lowering the interfaced dome. The chamber dimmed, and low frequency

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hum signaled the initialization of the memory environment. I felt

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the shift in my chest first, like my heartbeat had

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been turned into a metronome. Marcus's narrow rhythm pulsed through

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the tether, close enough to mimic, but just far enough

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to remain distinct. Then we dropped in. The memory environment

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always starts in fragments, like walking through fog that thickens

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into shape. This one came together slowly, as if reluctant

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to be seen. We stood on a cracked sidewalk in

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some half forgotten neighborhood. The street was unfamiliar, but the

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lamp post beside me was the one from outside my

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childhood home. The sky looked like a water color version

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of late October, and the air smelled faintly of hot

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metal and gasoline. Memory bleed. It's common, a little of me,

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a lot of him, But the deep we moved the stranger,

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the hybrid became. The storefronts were labeled with real names

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from my life. A corner shop owned by a friend's father,

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a dentist I hadn't seen since I was thirteen, but

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inside the windows were flickering images of someone else's nightmares,

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dark hallways, rotting food, the shape of a body twitching

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beneath a blanket. I turned a corner and saw Marcus

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ahead of me, watching a house or a building burn.

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He didn't react, he just stood there, and then a

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surge of memories hit my brain. A woman and screaming,

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then yanked backward into black water, her face contorted with rage,

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not fear. A small child, eyes swollen shut, fists clenched,

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locked in a closet, scratching the door until the wood bled.

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A pair of hands Marcus's, I presumed, pressing down on

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someone's throat. The skin under his fingers changed color as

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the pressure held, and later needles in a basement, dirt floor,

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light bulbs swinging overhead. I tried to initiate grounding protocol.

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Pulushed toward the teather's orientation point, a mental beacon I

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could summon to shift the environment. It didn't work. Marcus

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turned and looked at me through the firelight. Why would

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we leave, he asked, smooth and distant, This is still

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the beginning. I didn't answer, but somewhere in the back

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of my mind I started counting the minutes, two hours max.

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I just had to keep him until the end, until

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the credits rolled. Once the initial memory clusters stabilized, I

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initialized the first phase of the tetherback sequence, a gradual

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withdrawal designed to ease the subject toward detachment. You start

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by suddenly pulling the environment, shifting colors toward neutral tones,

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muting ambient sound, encouraging spatial collapse around shared orientation points.

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The world inside doesn't vanish, it just starts to let go.

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But Marcus didn't move. O've this meant that something on

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the outside was not functioning correctly. He continued, watching the

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memory a version of his old apartment. I think melt

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and drift like ash in the wind. I didn't want

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to do this, he said. I didn't quite know how

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to interpret those words. So I did or I knew how, Marcus,

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I said, carefully, keeping my voice calm. We're reaching the

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end of the window. You've done great work here, but

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if we stay too long, you get stuck. He finished

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the sentence for me. Yeah, I know you. People are

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always worried about time. Like it's reel in here, it

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is neural stability to grades pass a certain point. If

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we don't exit within that, I'm not leaving. He looked

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at me, fully present. You think this idea was mine,

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don't you, he muttered. I didn't respond. There was no

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script for this kind of refusal. We were trained for resistance, confusion,

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even aggression, but this, this was something else. I tried

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to summon the hard tether manual override, a beacon pulse

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meant to force a disconnection in emergency cases. It activated,

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I felt the jolt through the shared neural thread, but

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we didn't move. That's when I was certain that someone

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was interfering from the outside. The world flickered once, like

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a film reel, catching, then resumed exactly where it left off.

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Scenes kept and mixing with each other, my memories, Marcus's memories.

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I'd started to loose grip on which scenes were mine.

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I stood in a grimy kitchen I'd never seen before,

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but the counter had the same chip as the one

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in my first apartment. I looked out the window and

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saw a tree, gnarled, diseased, unfamiliar, but I remembered climbing it.

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I blinked and I was in a back alley. My

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hand was wet heavy. I looked down and saw blood

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on my fingers and a tire iron in my grip.

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I smelled copper sweat rage. Someone behind me was moaning,

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their voice rasping like they were trying to speak through

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broken teeth. But I'd never been there, and yet remembered it.

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Not like watching someone else's memory, not like walking through

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Marcus's past. It was mine, my breath, my heart beat,

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the rage behind my eyes. I remembered the surge, the

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moment of impact, the metallic vibration through my arm. Later,

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I found myself in a motel bathroom. The mirror cracked,

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a lighter in one hand and a rubber torniquet in

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the other. My reflection looked sunken, yellowed, ruined. Every part

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of my body throbbed with a dull ache. The taste

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hit me before I realized what I was doing. My

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eyes rolled to the back of my head and I

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hit the floor hard. You see, time doesn't pass in

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a straight lining. During immersion, it folds doubles back. You

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can live through the same moment a hundred times and

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still be surprised when something changes. And something did change.

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When I woke up, I was no longer in memories

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of his. Instead, I watched him in mine. I stood

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on a beach. I knew my beach from my honeymoon,

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and Marcus was sitting beside my wife, holding a hand, laughing.

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I was in my childhood kitchen and he was washing

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dishes while my mother hummed near by. I walked into

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my own apartment and saw him sitting at my table,

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reading the newspaper with my name on the by line.

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I tried to speak to confront him, but he looked

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up at me, calm as ever, and said, you're not

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my guide. You know that. He folded the paper, stood slowly,

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and walked toward me. You're my exit. He took another

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step toward me, his face serene. I backed away instinctively,

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but the memory space didn't budge. No matter how far

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I moved, he was always the same distance from me.

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Like something had decided it liked his gravity more than mine. Marcus,

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I said, voice slow, that's not how this works. You're right,

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he said, tilting his head. It's not not officially. I've

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been in prisoned for many decades. Boy, I can't get

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a job with this record, let alone fix my life

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at my age, he spat. So imagine my surprise when

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a government official reaches out to me, offering a way

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to not only fix my life over night, but potentially

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make it better. I tried to reach for the tether again. Nothing.

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It was like trying to tug on a string buried

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in concrete. You don't get to take someone's life just

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because someone else said you should. He laughed, softly, like

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I was a child saying something naive. Oh but I

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didn't choose you, he said, You think I would care

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to pick any one out of a crowd. He glanced

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at the newspaper in his hand, then tossed it aside.

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You ever wonder why you couldn't see my referral, why

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your clearance flagged? But no one said a word. I

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didn't answer, But don't worry. You aren't the only one

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in the dark. Most of your colleagues are clueless as well.

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They didn't tell me anything either, just that I was approved,

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that i'd be illegible for neural transition, a new beginning,

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they called it. His eyes locked onto mine. They didn't

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offer therapy or prison or peace. They offered this a

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simple infiltration and practice. You're saying they used you, I said, slowly,

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used us. He nodded. Once I was dying, he said,

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not sick, just empty, used up years of noise in

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my head. They said I could be fixed, but I

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had to be a useful guinea pig. Useful how they

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wanted to know if it could work, if someone could

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be moved, relocated, extracted from the self. They built detect

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to guide people back, But what if some one could

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step forward instead? I stared at him, cold rising in

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my spine, and you agreed? He shrugged Like I said,

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no other options. They gave me a path and a person.

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All I had to do was go through with it.

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He took another step. I didn't move this time. I

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didn't know who you were, But like I said, you're

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stable and your mind was quiet enough to let me

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in without fighting. My voice came out flat. You're making

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a mistake. His smile widened, Then he leaned forward, voice

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dropping to a whisper. No I ran, or tried to

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running inside a memory immersion is like pushing through a

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dense wall of smoke. The world doesn't resist you, It

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just changes the rules as you move. Streets warped, hallways

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folded back into themselves. Every time I turned a corner,

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I was somewhere I'd already been, the burning house, the

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alley with a tire iron, the motil bathroom. Marcus wasn't

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chasing me. He didn't need to. I reached for the

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emergency over ride again, the internal fail safe they build

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into every escort's tether. Mentally, it feels like grabbing the

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base of your own spine and pulling upward, a full

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body signal that says, get me out. Nothing happened, though

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desperation was pushing me to try again and again. I

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tried harder. I screamed for extraction, screamed for the external

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tcene to sever the link for the sound that came

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out of my mouth was wrong, not in pitch, in

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owners ship. It was his voice. I heard Marcus's laugh

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curl out of my throat and echo back at me.

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I turned and there he was, standing exactly as I

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was standing, breathing in sync with me. We stared at

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each other across a memory scape that couldn't decide what

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it was any more. One second it was my childhood bedroom,

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walls covered in peeling posters, then the motel again. He

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stepped forward. I stepped back. He moved again. I mirrored,

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and then without warning, he lunged. We collided like two

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magnets in a vacuum. No resistance, just impact, a full

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body falling inward. I hid the ground hard, but I

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didn't feel pain, just disorientation, like I was spinning through

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every version of myself I'd ever been. We fought with memory.

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He pulled scenes into the space like weapons. My first

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kiss now with his face, my graduation, him shaking my

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father's hand, my wedding, and he was standing at the

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altar in my place, smiling at my wife like he'd

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known her forever. I tried to push back, flooding the

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space with his memories. For a moment, he staggered, but

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I saw the relief in his eyes. He wanted me

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to bring it all back, because the more I let

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his life passed through me, the deeper he sank into mine.

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My body shifted mid struggle, My hands became his, his

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shoulders turned into mine. We rolled, twisted, blurred the space

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cracked like glass around us, shards of memory slicing through me.

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I screamed again for extraction, but the noise that came

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out was a rasp like air pulled through wet cloth, meaningless.

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And then just as I felt something rip behind my eyes,

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the light changed. The world tilted and the chamber door opened.

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Blurred figures rushed towards US, suits, masks, gloves. I heard

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muffled voices, felt hands grabbing my shoulders, lifting me. Cold

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metal against skin. Detachment in this shitated. The neural teather

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groaned and split like tearing velcrow, and then I was awake.

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Back in the real world. The transfer room harsh white

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lights and humming equipment and recycled air, but something was off.

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Everything was too heavy, my chest ached, my legs felt

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longer looser. I tried to move my fingers and fell

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to delay, like the signal had to travel further to

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get there. I looked down, not at my hands, knuckles, scarred, nails,

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bit into the quick. I tried to speak, just one word.

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It came out gravelly, damaged. My throat clenched, and I

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heard the technician beside me, clipboard in hand, smiling faintly,

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say welcome back, mister Rell, the technician said, almost mockingly.

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Client emerge clean escort's stable. She said, Hi, integrity sink

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best numbers we've seen in a month. I tried to speak.

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I don't remember what I said first, probably stop or

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help or wait. None of it came outright. My voice

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wasn't just unfamiliar, it was wrong. They carried someone else's posture.

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I heard Marcus Rell in every syllable. I tried to

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sit up, but my movements felt borrowed, unnatural. My center

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of gravity had shifted, like I'd learned to walk in

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someone else's shoes, and now the laces were tangled around

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my ankles. I'm not, I started, and my voice cracked.

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I looked down at my hands again, hoping I'd imagined it,

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but the scars were still there. So was the faint

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prisoning smeared into the wrist. My fingers trembled. Please, I said,

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turning to Devani. Run an ID match my neural imprint.

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I'm not. She raised her hand to quiet me, the

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same way you'd hush someone waking up from anesthesia. You're

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experiencing post transfer fog, she said, calmly. It's not uncommon.

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You've been deep inside someone else's memory structure, residt yourself.

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Image distortion can last up to an hour. Just breathe.

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I looked at her, begging, you know me, I said,

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I've worked here for four years. I trained under Patel.

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I did the Calahan immersion. Ask me anything. She tilted

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her head, patient but dismissive. That's part of the overlay, Marcus,

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your systems still sorting memory boundaries. I'm sure it'll pass.

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I shook my head. I'm not Marcus. He took my body.

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He switched with me. I'm the escort. I'm okay, she said, gently,

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signaling to a nearby tech. Let's keep him off the

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reinforcement feet. He's still inside the ark. The tech nodded,

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type something into a console, and the lights above dim slightly.

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I stumbled to my feet, ignoring strange, painful sensations littering

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my body, and started looking for a mirror. I needed

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something objective, irre few. One of the walls held a

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viewing panel, reflective glass just enough to make out a face.

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I stepped in front of it, and there he was,

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the man i'd watched walk through his memories like a

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ghost in his own life. His face now stared back

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at me, tired, aged, worn by hollow years. I never

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lived same pale scar across the temple. Even my silence

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felt like his. A few hours later, a staff member

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I didn't recognize handed me a manilla envelope. Follow the checklist.

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You're already pre cleared, she said. There's a transitional housing

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option and a few job placements that align with your

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she paused, with your profile the envelope. Inside was a

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pamphlet printed in soft blue and grays the title Red

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Rebuilding Forward Employment Opportunities for Rehabilitated Individuals. The back had

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a phone number, a smiling logo, and my name, Marcus Reill.