In early 1955 in Washington, DC, Lisavet forces herself to answer to the name Moira Donnelly as she moves into a boardinghouse room Jack Dillinger has arranged and begins work at the TRP as the director’s personal secretary. Patrick Brady drives her to the office and makes it clear she is being monitored as much as “helped.” Shelley Watts orients Moira to office routines and warns her that Dillinger’s secretaries rarely last, while Moira struggles with basic expectations—including flirtation from male timekeepers and the fact that she cannot use the office’s electric typewriter.

When Jack arrives, Moira admits she is untrained, and he publicly but pointedly teaches her, then explains why he chose her: unlike other secretaries, Moira knows what the TRP truly is and can handle sensitive meetings and paperwork. Jack also tells Moira that Ernest Duquesne is away in Boston for a “family situation,” which briefly relieves Moira’s dread of seeing him. Over the following days, the other secretaries help Moira improve, while Jack’s work persona stays controlled and “protective,” with a constant undercurrent of coercion.

In Moira’s third week, trainee timekeeper Fred Vance corners her in the break room, escalates from harassment to assault by putting a hand up her skirt, and Moira punches him hard enough to bloody his nose. Ernest suddenly appears, scolds Moira for violence, then presses for the real reason; when Moira tells Ernest what Fred did, Ernest grudgingly shifts to disciplining his trainee and warns Moira to come to him if it happens again. Jack walks in mid-moment, reads the tension between Moira and Ernest, and later treats Moira’s act as both a statement and a useful deterrent, insisting she has clearance to attend meetings and shutting down Ernest’s objections.

After a year on the job, in 1956, Jack finally uses Moira for the true purpose of keeping her close: erasing dangerous knowledge. When general secretary Pauline overhears a conversation she was not meant to hear, Jack holds Pauline unconscious and orders Moira to remove Pauline’s memories into the black notebook Jack has given her. Jack frames it as mercy compared to killing Pauline, but reinforces compliance by threatening to investigate Moira’s hidden daughter. Afterward, Jack’s possessive control turns more overtly sexual and invasive, and Moira leaves his office shaken; in the months that follow, he repeatedly has Moira “clean up” more people’s memories, and the notebook rapidly fills as the TRP reshapes lives.

The viewpoint shifts to Ernest, who watches Moira with growing suspicion and attraction, while Brady warns him that Moira is likely dangerous and “Jack’s girl.” At the same time, Ernest has begun quietly resisting Jack’s work: he takes assigned memory-erasure files into time space, burns only the required pages to avoid detection, and hides the rest of the books to preserve intact memories. In the stacks, a specter dressed like a monk confronts Ernest about sparing memories, warns him it once brought “a girl” trouble, and reveals there are others who refuse to burn; the specter offers to connect Ernest to Russian timekeeper Vasily Stepanov. Despite the risk, Ernest agrees to a secret meeting the following Friday at midnight.