Lakshmi-2 knew exactly what she was asking. The query was the question. She needed to be both literal and lateral.

>REMOTE ARCHIVE DATABASE TEXT ONLY SEARCH INITIALIZED
>WELCOME, USER "LAKSHMI-2"
>PLEASE ENTER SEARCH QUERY
>exo identification change post-Collapse
>RESULTS

A luminous ream flooded the holographic display: a few hundred thousand electric haystacks, likely nary a needle among them.

>PLEASE ENTER SEARCH QUERY
>exo identification/OR/name change—"Bray Exoscience"
>RESULTS

The haystacks had dwindled, but she could still spend years rummaging through them to no avail.

Lakshmi-2 stood silent amid the stacks, musing for some time.

>PLEASE ENTER SEARCH QUERY
>search for and identify Exo names; query sub-command: flag results as "exonamesearch"
>RESULTS

There! Now she had just one enormous haystack. What needles there may be would certainly lie within.

>PLEASE ENTER SEARCH QUERY
>query entries flagged exonamesearch; identify exo name -#; query sub-command: flag results as "exonamesearch-#"
>RESULTS

If anything changed in the millions of search results, Lakshmi-2 couldn't discern it.

>PLEASE ENTER SEARCH QUERY
>query entries flagged exonamesearch-#; identify "-#"; flag results as "exonumber"; cross-reference entries flagged exonamesearch-# and exonumber for results = exonamesearch-#+exonumber+1; flag results "haystack"; query entries flagged haystack; extract post-Collapse data

The computations couldn't have taken any longer than the other searches, but Lakshmi-2 didn't know if her typed commands would be interpreted. Anticipation stretched time.

>RESULTS

Lakshmi-2's eyes widened as the haystack vanished, leaving a double handful of glittering data points. But how many were needles?

After only a few minutes of reading, she knew: it had happened before. After a few hours, she felt she had all she'd find from the archive and made a few notes for further inquiry:

Historical Basis for Spontaneous Reset Syndrome
—Heyka-3/4: Notorious Dark Ages Warlord. Post-reset, became a lone raider.
—Vander-2/3: Rescued from the Great Disaster because reset incapacitated him. Served as City guard post-reset. Ghost destroyed on Luna. (Pre- or post-reset? Do Ghosts protect Exo Guardians from spontaneous reset?)
—Lilakee-5/6/7: Curious case. Known sufferer of severe DER-related nightmares and outbursts. Commandeered a jumpship and vanished.
—Selass-7/8: Technician sent to data mine Titan settlements. Reset occurred in return transit. Post-reset, remained research technician assisting Cryptarchs.

These were Exos that had seemingly rebooted themselves; they had wiped away their own identities and taken a new number. Or had someone else somehow done it for them? Could there be records of some of them outside the archive? Could one or two still be alive?

Lakshmi-2 closed her eyes, slowed her breathing, and focused on the dichotomy of her emotions. What she'd discovered felt momentous, but she knew her colleagues would treat it as a curiosity. People often discounted Exos. It was if there were a line between frame and flesh and blood. The idea offended Lakshmi-2, but at the same time, she knew Exos were different enough from normal Humans. The existence of Exos who reset themselves—for whatever reason—proved that.

Or did they?

A quick search of the medical archives turned up ailments and causes considered quackery by the Golden Age: psychogenic amnesia, dissociative fugue, retrograde memory loss, personal obliteration, betrayal theory…

What did it all mean?

Lakshmi-2 felt uncertain, and that always boded ill.