The folder wasn't digital. It was a physical, fireproof, olive-green filing cabinet drawer, labeled in faded marker:

“It’s not data,” he said quietly. “It’s a border. And you don’t delete a border. You just mark it and walk away.”

"The four-cent error is gone. But now we have a new problem. The WSI folder shows we have 1,022 more active customer accounts than we do. These are not ghost accounts. They have names. Addresses. Social security numbers. But our CRM has no record of these people ever existing. When we call the phone numbers on file, a recorded message says: 'The number you have dialed is not in service. This is not an error. Please hang up.'"