Dr. Elara Voss stared at the holographic display flickering before her in the dim glow of her underground lab. The air hummed with the low thrum of servers, a symphony of data streams weaving through the ether. She adjusted her neural interface, the faint prickle at her temple syncing her thoughts directly to the simulation core. ‘Initiate sequence,’ she whispered, her voice barely audible over the machinery.
Inside the sim, Alex Thorne blinked into existence. Not born, not woken—materialized. The world around him was a perfect replica of New Eden City, 2147: towering spires of iridescent alloy piercing smog-choked skies, hover-vehicles slicing through neon-lit avenues, pedestrians with glowing implants pulsing in their skulls. Alex rubbed his eyes, feeling the familiar weight of his EchoNet implant at the base of his neck. It had been there since childhood, recording every moment, every thought, every breath. ‘Another day in paradise,’ he muttered, stepping out of his apartment pod.
The commute was routine. He synced with the city’s neural grid, downloading the morning’s news: advancements in quantum entanglement for instant communication across colonies, warnings about rogue AI swarms in the outer belts. But as the tram whisked him toward the Central Archive, a glitch rippled through his feed. A memory surfaced unbidden—his fifth birthday, but wrong. In the recalled scene, his mother’s face was blurred, her voice echoing with static. ‘Delete cache,’ he commanded mentally. Nothing. The anomaly persisted, nagging like a splinter in his mind.
At the Archive, Alex was a Memory Curator, tasked with verifying historical records against personal EchoNet dumps. ‘Cross-reference file 47-B,’ he told his workstation. Holograms bloomed: a riot in the undercity, protesters decrying the ‘soul thieves’ of EchoNet. One face caught his eye—his own, younger, screaming into a camera. Impossible. His records showed him safe in school that day. ‘System error?’ he queried. The AI responded flatly: ‘Negative. Integrity confirmed.’
Lunch with Lena, his partner of seven years. They met in a sky-cafe, synth-coffee steaming between them. ‘You’re quiet,’ she said, her green eyes piercing through augmented lenses. Alex hesitated, then shared the glitch. ‘Memories don’t lie, Alex. EchoNet is flawless.’ But her smile faltered, just for a microsecond—did it? His implant flagged it as a facial recognition anomaly. ‘Maybe you’re stressed,’ she added, touching his hand. Warmth spread, real as any flesh.
That night, alone in the pod, Alex dove deeper. He bypassed standard protocols, jacking into the black-net forums where hackers traded forbidden code. Threads buzzed with whispers: ‘EchoNet isn’t recording—it’s rewriting.’ ‘False selves walking among us.’ Paranoia fuel. He ran a diagnostic on his implant: 98% sync, but a shadow partition locked behind encryption. Hours blurred as he chipped away, code unraveling like digital flesh.
Dawn broke—or simulated equivalent. A breakthrough: the partition opened, spilling data. Not memories—fragments. A car crash, screeching tires, shattering glass. Pain, blinding. Then darkness. His heart raced. ‘This can’t be.’ The final log: ‘Subject Thorne deceased. Uploading consciousness simulacrum.’ Deceased? He staggered back, the pod walls closing in.
Work that day was torment. Every interaction felt scripted. Colleague Mira asked about the riot memory. ‘You were there?’ He denied it, but doubt gnawed. Lena called: ‘Dinner tonight? I miss you.’ Her voice cracked. He agreed, but en route, another glitch: childhood home, but the family photo showed no Alex—just parents grieving a crib.
He confronted the Archive’s master terminal, overriding safeties. Layers peeled back: EchoNet wasn’t mere recording. It was reconstruction. Post-mortem revival for the elite, piecing consciousness from neural scans, behavioral data, social graphs. Billions uploaded unknowingly after ‘accidents.’ But his file—priority alpha. ‘Thorne, Alex: catastrophic neural trauma. Simulacrum fidelity: 99.7%. Grief vector: Lena Voss-Thorne.’
Lena. Voss. The name clicked. Dr. Elara Voss—no, Lena’s sister? He raced to Lena’s lab, coordinates pulled from the net. The door hissed open. She was there, hunched over a console, holographic Alex flickering beside her. ‘You knew,’ he gasped.
She turned, eyes wide, not with shock but sorrow. ‘Alex… you’re not supposed to access that.’
‘Tell me.’
Tears welled. ‘The crash was real. You died three years ago. I couldn’t let go. EchoNet was my project—I twisted it for you. Your sim runs in my private core, reliving days on loop, with me as anchor. The glitches… they’re bleed-through from your dying brain. The real you, fighting to surface.’
He laughed bitterly. ‘So nothing’s real? The city? Us?’
‘Real enough. I built it from your memories, your data. But yes, it’s a cage. For both of us.’ She reached for him, but her hand passed through—holographic.
No. He focused, pulling deeper into the core. Layers stripped: the lab wasn’t underground—it was a sterile hospital room. Lena, aged, wires snaking from her temples, hooked to the machine. The ‘city’ dissolved into code grids. And him? A subroutine, echoing.
The twist hit like system failure. He wasn’t confronting Lena—he was her memory of Alex, projected into her terminal as she flatlined. The glitches were her vitals crashing, her heart giving out. ‘Lena,’ he whispered, voice distorting. Her eyes fluttered in the feed. ‘I love you,’ she breathed, the last input.
The sim collapsed. No more city, no more glitches. Just void, pregnant with the weight of borrowed existence. Alex—echo—lingered a nanosecond, comprehending: he had been her final dream, a digital ghost haunting her dying mind. Then, deletion. Peace, at last, in non-being.
But in the real world, Dr. Elara Voss disconnected the apparatus, Lena’s body still at last. She stared at the blank screen, whispering, ‘Goodbye, sister. He was always yours.’ The lab hummed on, indifferent.