For shorter recordings and less complex emotional and cognitive states, the machine can simply impose the flow of a recorded mind over its user’s in real time, which is quick and effective but leads to a kind of double vision that many people—the Inspector included—find somewhat nauseating. In any situation which requires the investigator to get to know their subject, or where nuance might be important, it’s more usual to shunt the whole file, in compressed form, into local storage in the brain. Neith imagines its subsequent unfolding to resemble a jasmine flower tea opening in hot water, or a kind of retrograde origami in which the foreign mind resumes its original shape to whatever degree it can inside its new physical environment. The origami method affords a far greater intimacy with the subject—which of course is useful in important cases like this one—but can compromise your sleep as the file unwinds. There’s no danger of the memory taking over the investigator’s, any more than you can drive to Brighton in the back half of an automobile. It’s a set of experiences, not a viral person, though that does not stop London’s film industry from depicting any number of lurid scenarios premised on the idea, ranging from sinister to comedic, but tending in most cases to an element of the erotic.