As the memory package unspooled across the computing latticework that embraced his brain the Widower remembered sitting with his children, acknowledged lovers, and various associates and pretend-friends of his and of his late wife to hear the Detective tedious' recap of a doomed investigation.
"The term Gödel Poison, while popular, is a misnomer," the Detective's high-priority transmission had instructed his implants to remember having said. "Fork bomb would be a more accurate one, but not technically so. Algorithmic regulators refer to them simply as malignant code, and we cannot fault the dramatic overtones of the term. It is a heinous form of neurosoftware attack: code that cannot be removed from neural implants without damaging the personality, but that, left running, traps the person into thinking an infinitely long thought that can never be interrupted even by medically forced sleep or coma."
The Widower shook his head. The Poirot-like avatar was rather badly designed, but the AI was right. It was a horrible way to attack a person and in the right circumstances one nearly impossible to track down.
The Widower smiled, alone with his triumph and the fresh memories of the Detective's summary of his failed efforts. It had begun by talking about the etymology of the crime and how horrible it was, and then
"As the family company specializes in hypersoftware engineering, I believe you are familiar with the fact that the basic approach to solving this sort of cryptographically untraceable crime is the solution of logistical/game-theoretical equation systems. For example..."
How long had the Detective's exposition been? It had gone on for hours: there had been boring facts and outrageous accusations and the mention of frowned-upon but binding punishment laws and his name had been mentioned and there was so much more to remember and the Widower kept remembering as his implant kept weaving an infinite thread.