“Indeed! With the proper ‘player,’ one can select any episode. No more waiting for the Gaiety Theatre’s schedule.”

Later, as the real disc was locked away in the station’s evidence locker, Julia sat beside Murdoch.

Using a combination of fingerprint powder (the discs held prints beautifully) and a clever trap involving a static electricity generator (Pendrick’s idea), Murdoch cornered Flint in the lab’s projection booth.

Flint sneered. “Can’t I? Your season ten DVDRip says otherwise.”

“Do you ever wonder,” she asked softly, “if somewhere out there, another version of us is having this same conversation?”

Detective William Murdoch stared at the peculiar object in his hands. It was a thin, shimmering disc, no larger than a tea saucer, yet it held, according to his friend James Pendrick, “the sum of human artistry.”