“An archaeologist is like a detective–for history!” Aniridia mutters to herself, the kind of platitude that assembles itself in your memories of childhood when you’re not looking. She wipes her dry brow; she’s tired but not thirsty. The floor is yielding up evidence.

She’s torn out a rough square of boards underlaid with dense stacks of newspaper, its print archaic and blurred with time. Monochrome faces stare up without expression. She’s filthed her hands with ink.

Aniridia is struck by the idea of one way out of this place, and then struck again, with the certainty that it won’t burn.