Waiting.
He downloaded it. The file was small—barely 400 KB. No virus scanner flagged it, which was more suspicious than a dozen alarms. He isolated it on an old netbook, one with no Wi-Fi and a battery that lasted forty-five minutes. Then he opened it.
By noon, it had spread. He sat at his desk, staring at a photograph of his late mother. He remembered her laugh, the way she salted her watermelon, the exact timbre of her voice when she said his name. But the memory felt thin —like a dream fading at the edges. Had she really existed? Or had he assembled her from TV shows and wishful thinking? He had no evidence. No DNA sample. No birth certificate in his immediate possession. The doubt slithered in: She might be a story you tell yourself.
Then he understood.