From the first words, Eng knew him. The device wasn’t magic so much as an architecture of memory and intention. RJ01173930 held a compact core of curated data: conversation modules, emotional heuristics, and a light mesh of AR projection filters that layered virtual softness over reality. She referenced a few things he hadn’t thought anyone remembered — a song lyric he’d once hummed, the way he pressed his thumb to the inside of his wrist when thinking — not surveillance but the illusion of being seen.