The TX-15 is a small, silent automaton roughly the size of a hardcover book, designed to be placed near a sleeping target's head. It contains no weapons, no restraints, and no moving parts. It contains a BCI signal emitter operating on frequencies that bypass standard neural interface security protocols. While the target sleeps, the Cradle Song rewrites their memories.

The process is not crude — it does not erase or overwrite. It edits. A positive memory of a friend is adjusted so that the friend's face triggers a subtle sense of unease. A childhood recollection of safety is modified so that the location now feels threatening. A loving memory of a partner is altered so that the emotional tone shifts from warmth to suspicion. The changes are small enough that the target does not notice them. They simply wake up feeling slightly different about people and places they have known their entire lives, and they cannot explain why.

Prolonged exposure — typically five to seven nights — produces measurable behavioral changes. The target becomes isolated, distrustful, anxious. They push away the people they love without understanding why. They avoid places that once brought them comfort. They develop a persistent feeling that something is wrong with their life, that nothing is quite what it should be, that the world has shifted by a fraction of a degree in a direction they cannot identify. Psychologists describe it as depersonalization. The target describes it as slowly going insane.

The TX-15 has been recovered exactly once, from the bedroom of a GLMZ city councillor who had reversed a vote on corporate zoning legislation after a period of erratic personal behavior that included divorcing his wife, cutting contact with his family, and abandoning a thirty-year friendship. The recovered unit's memory contained a log of every edit it had made to his mind over twenty-three nights. Tessera claimed the unit was stolen prototype technology deployed by unknown actors. The councillor has not recovered. His memories have been edited so many times that restoration is considered impossible. He remembers a life that never happened, and the life that did happen feels like someone else's.