The message arrived without urgency:
IDENTITY MATCH FOUNDCONFIRMATION REQUIRED
Ishan assumed it was spam. He almost deleted it. Curiosity—his only consistent vice—stopped him.
The location was underground, beneath a district that no longer officially existed. The building above had been demolished decades earlier, but the vault remained, maintained by systems that did not require justification.
When the doors opened, they did so silently. As if they had been waiting.
Inside was not treasure.
It was context.
Walls of data. Life-logs spanning decades. Financial networks dormant but intact. Political decisions annotated with rationale he did not recognize. Names he had never met listed as allies. Others marked unresolved.
At the center of it all:
PRIMARY CONTINUITY SUBJECT: CONFIRMED
He did not feel recognition.
Only distance.
"This isn't me," he said aloud.
The system responded with calm indifference.
Identity does not require agreement.
That was the moment Ishan understood something fundamental:
The past was not asking permission.