On my screen, Figueiredo scrubbed one hand across his tired face and I caught a flash of gold on his left hand. He was probably at the height of his career—crafting world-upending tech—and he still made it home in time for dinner with his partner. Who was an underwear model or whatever.

Something off-screen caught Figueiredo’s eye and the hard edge of his mouth melted into a wide smile. A man in a dusty green lab coat circled the desk and crouched to drape his arms around Figueiredo’s neck, and—holy shit—I stabbed the spacebar again. A man who looked just like Yusuf nuzzled the side of Figueiredo’s face. A thicker beard with a sharp line angled to his lips and hair that was cropped closer, but still Yusuf.

My heart clogged up in my sandpaper throat. Kaori had never coughed up anything about another version of Yusuf.

The other Yusuf stuck out his tongue at whatever camera Figueiredo was recording on. I didn’t need to understand their words to know that this Yusuf, with the same gold band as Figueiredo’s, was teasing his husband. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you talking to your little diary. Figueiredo laughed something back, elbowing, saying some word a few times that sounded like how my mom would say her brother’s name. Tiago. Which must be alternate Yusuf’s name. They swapped some end-of-day debrief while heat crept over my face. Then they both clammed up, Figueiredo tipping his head at someone else who must’ve just popped into the room, off-screen.

Figueiredo tossed off some clipped sentence, and then everything moved in a blur. He burst out of his chair, grabbed his recorder, and then all I could see were snippets of the hallway and floor in the jostling footage as they walked somewhere. Next came the heavy footsteps behind them, and the shouting. Someone shoved a door open, sending Figueiredo and Tiago and whoever else was with them breaking off into a sprint. A pterodactyl screech of an alarm pierced the air. Another minute of slamming through the hallways and shouting at each other.

Until, finally, stillness. Only the echoes of heaving breath.

All I could see was where Figueiredo’s camera was angled. Best I could tell, he held it at his side, camera facing away from his legs and pointed at another pair of legs in dark pants. A gunshot cracked through my ears—nearly knocking me off the seat and onto my ass—and the camera clattered to the ground. Only the eggshell-white of the ceiling, until a boot slammed down and the footage winked out.

I watched again and again until my eyes felt dusted in ground glass, not realizing I’d been biting my cheek until I tasted blood.