Exile had been the announced price of failure and (only technically legal) neuroengineering cartels were not known for mercy. When the driver- and window-less car dropped you in front of your home your first feeling was understandably mistrustful surprise.

The surprise did not wear away with the hours. The mistrust, however, grew. You did not feel at home and began to suspect you weren't. Was it all a simulacrum? Actors for your family, a perfect duplicate of your ill-chosen furniture, a clone-quality stand-in for your cat? The cartel had the money for such outlandish punishment, but did they have the imagination?

You understood at midnight. Perhaps they had arranged that as well.

Memory and familiarity have different circuits in the mind. You can feel a place or person familiar without remembering them. Why not the other way around? You hadn't been the cartel's only neuroengineer, and clearly not their best.

Exile it was and it would ever be no matter how long you stayed anywhere. At least it was comfortable.

(You grow a beard to avoid looking at the easily recognizable stranger in the mirror and try to be nice to his children. They look and talk exactly like the ones you miss so much.)