You override the safety protocols, letting the memory unfold at full intensity. The alleyway snaps back into focus, the neon signs now casting long, wavering shadows. The younger Tanaka stares into the open case where the strange hybrid device pulses like a living thing. Its surface shifts between metallic sheen and organic texture, tiny tendrils writhing beneath a translucent membrane.

The blurred woman's voice cuts through the memory static with surprising clarity: 'This will make you better than human.' As she speaks, the case's interior lighting reveals intricate branding along the device's side - not just a corporate logo, but a serial number matching the one tattooed on your own wrist beneath your archive uniform's cuff.

Young Tanaka reaches inside just as the memory fractures into prismatic shards. Your real-world vision floods with overlapping images - surgical theaters, screaming test subjects, rows of identical black cases being loaded into armored vans. Mr. Tanaka's body convulses violently in the chair, the biometric alarms screaming as his brain activity approaches seizure thresholds. The mnemo-scanner's emergency lights bathe the room in crimson.

The final memory shard shows the woman clearly for one terrifying instant - her amber eyes reflecting not light, but lines of cascading code. Then everything goes black. The scanner powers down automatically, its cooling fans whirring like exhausted breath. Mr. Tanaka slumps forward, his breathing shallow but steady. A single droplet of blood trickles from his left nostril onto the corporate logo on his sleeve.