The disc is unmarked except for a single engraved symbol: a winged lion with the face of a woman. A sphinx.
The screen goes black.
A single line of text, burning white:
She is crying. She does not know why.
Eleanor whispers: "To be known."
The disc ejects itself. The player shatters. Glass and silicon rain onto the floor. Lena sits in the dark for a long time.
The voice softens. Almost kind.
The static on the CRT shifts. Forms a face. It is not a special effect. It is too real. The face ages backward in seconds—infant to ancient and back again. Then it splits into two faces: one laughing, one weeping. Then a hundred faces. All of them Eleanor's. All of them slightly wrong.