Detective Sarah Chen stood outside Marcus's memory shop, her badge gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. She had never needed to investigate a memory merchant before, but times were changing.
"Mr. Marcus?" she called as she entered the shop. "I'm Detective Chen. I need your help with a case."
Marcus looked up from his work, surprised. "A detective? How can I help you?"
Sarah pulled out a small evidence bag containing a memory crystal. "We found this at a crime scene. The suspect claims he doesn't remember committing the robbery, and we need to know if this memory device was used to erase his recollection."
Marcus examined the crystal carefully. It was different from the ones he usually worked with – darker, with strange patterns swirling inside.
"This isn't a normal memory crystal," he said slowly. "It's been modified. See these dark lines? They're like scars in the crystal structure."
"What does that mean?" Sarah asked.
Marcus connected the crystal to his analysis machine. The screen showed chaotic patterns, like a storm of memories all mixed together.
"Someone used this to scramble memories," Marcus explained. "Not just erase them, but mix them up so badly that the person can't tell what's real anymore. It's like taking a puzzle and throwing all the pieces in the air."
Sarah frowned. "Is this legal? Can people really sell these memory-scrambling devices?"
"No, it's not legal," Marcus said firmly. "Real memory merchants follow strict rules. We help people store, organize, or sometimes remove traumatic memories safely. But this... this is dangerous. It's like brain surgery with a hammer."
He showed her the difference between his legal memory crystals and the corrupted one. "My crystals preserve memories intact. They can be removed or returned safely. But this device destroys the connections between memories, making them impossible to reconstruct properly."
Sarah took notes quickly. "So someone could use this to commit crimes and then erase the evidence from their own mind?"
"Yes, but they'd also erase a lot of other memories in the process," Marcus warned. "The person using this would lose pieces of themselves. They might not remember their childhood, their family, or how to do basic tasks."
Detective Chen looked at the corrupted crystal with new understanding. "Then we're not just looking at a robbery case. We're looking at someone who's destroying people's minds for profit."
Marcus nodded gravely. "And I'm going to help you stop them."