Your hands tremble slightly as you minimize the mnemo-scanner interface and pull up your corporate database. The glowing holoscreen casts sickly green reflections across Mr. Tanaka's sedated face. Typing in your credentials, you add 'Kyoto branch' and 'female researcher' to the search parameters, along with the approximate timeline from Tanaka's missing memories.

The system processes for an agonizing thirty seconds before displaying a single redacted file. Only the photograph remains unblurred - the same sharp-featured woman from Tanaka's memory, wearing a pristine lab coat with that damned logo. Your breath catches when you notice the file's metadata: 'Termination: Voluntary' dated exactly eighteen months ago, followed by a secondary classification marker you've never seen before - 'Project Mnemosyne'.

A sudden alert pops up on your internal feed. Security has been notified of unauthorized record access. Your supervisor's ID appears with a priority message: 'Report to my office immediately.' Through the glass walls of your lab, you see two black-suited corporate enforcers stepping off the elevator.

The mnemo-scanner beeps urgently - Tanaka's vitals are stabilizing, but his pupils remain dilated. Flecks of data swim in the whites of his eyes like tiny silver fish. When you lean closer, you realize they're fragments of memory - a laboratory corridor, the same black cases stacked in rows, the woman researcher mouthing silent words directly at you through time.