He sat hunched in the middle of the darkened room, the silicon and metal of her smashed mental backups glinting around him, reduced to scrap.

A life violently formatted.

He glanced to the corner, the grayscale of her body cooling in a dark pool. It had hurt him to do it, but the data coded and sewn into meat and bone had been as bad as the rest.

He rubbed his thumb across the one backup he held in his hands. It had cost him to hang onto this one, to lock her out of her net storage, to find her physical drives. But he had the favors to call, the skills to use, and the odd organ to sell.

The backup from 3 years ago, when she was still in love with him. Before the bitdrugs, the Yakuza jobs, the rage, the emotional abuse. Before all those things that made her leave him.

But he found her. He always found her. And he always had the backup. From 3 years ago. From 30 years ago. From 90. From 227. But this time wouldn’t end like all the other times. This time would be different.

This time he’d really change.