It sees only assets and obstacles, and it converts the second into the first by whatever means are available.

Most of the frauds I had dismantled stopped short of the human body.

This one had not.

And standing in that dining room, understanding it fully at last, I felt something in me move past anger into a cold and total resolve.

These two would not be reasoned with.

They would be dismantled, completely, by the systems I had spent my life learning to operate.

And then my mother would be brought back into the light.