She staggered into the kitchen, fumbling her way through the darkness. Somewhere farther off she could hear voices, three different pitches crashing over each other, fighting for decibels. She pushed through the kitchen, emerging into the house's foyer, and found the lights on, blazing. Squinting against them, she traced the shadows of her parents and someone else - another Memory Recoder - that she scarcely recognized but couldn't place.

The third entity, the Memory Recoder, had dark ...