“That’s the job,” I said, placing my kit on the glass table. The kit was a silver briefcase lined with velvet and neuro-syringes. “You know what that means?”

I pressed the syringe to the port behind her ear. The plunger slid down like a sigh. Her eyes fluttered. For one second — just one — her expression shifted from resignation to terror. Then it smoothed out, like a pond after a stone sinks.

“A Little Agency,” I whispered to the rain. “We do the little adjustments that break everything.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and for the first time, I meant it.