“The eleventh of August, 1906,” I said at last. “I saw a man killed on the street by an automobile.” Pulling back my shoulders and glancing once at the nurse, I continued: “I’m Extract No. 1.”

“Of course,” the Banker replied. “I only had to ask for the record.”

“Of course,” I echoed. If there was a record—and my testimony on it—I should be thorough. “I returned earlier today. Or yesterday, I should say.” At that, he made an acknowledging sound.

“Were you awake when she expired?”

“I don’t know exactly when it occurred. But she was nearly gone when I arrived.”

The nurse’s gaze leaped on me, and I stopped short of describing the symptoms of expiration that she should certainly have noticed. If she’d been intimidated by me at the nurses’ station, she now seemed to have settled on disdain. For his part, the Banker exhaled audibly.

“She expired quite quickly for a memory like hers,” he said, speaking as if to himself. “I feel certain the duration has something to do with the condition of the Source.”

I caught at his statement but didn’t speak while he tapped his chin with a ballpoint pen.

“But then, she was a reprint. Maybe that’s all it takes.”

While the third silent member of their team lifted the shell in his arms, the nurse placed a long white bag on the bed, and the expired Mem was placed inside and the bag fastened shut. I’d remained because I hadn’t been excused, though I’d been careful not to appear interested. It was a behavior I’d learned in my years outside the Vault, blending into the background so as to avoid notice. A strategy, I’ve come to believe, that serves real people as well as it serves Mems.

When the silent man transported the Dolores from the room, the Banker spoke again and stopped the nurse as she was preparing to go.

“Has Dolores No. 1 been examined since returning, at least?”

She made a sound, the way one does to put off responding, her fingers strumming through the sheets in her file. “A day nurse would have made the exam.”

“But would the record be there?” My voice didn’t break, though my gaze did when she glanced up at me. “Or do we all share a single file?”

The Banker took a seat on the bed between my own and the one belonging to the recently expired Mem, tapping his chin again. The gesture reminded me of that first cover of The Delineator, of Camille, and of my life outside, all at once. And the memory of that life—that, despite how far away it felt already, it had in fact existed—reminded me that I was underground now. The walls were tightening around me by the moment and I was in the Vault, for any number of bureaucratic reasons, but only one that mattered: because I was not real.