Memory Tax

In the near future society where "memory is currency". A multinational company called Memory Core has invented technology to securely extract, store and trade personal memories. Good memories (happiness, love, sense of accomplishment) become hard currency that can be exchanged for material, status and skills; while painful memories are stripped, destroyed or used as cheap energy. The social classes have thus been re-divided: the top-level "reminiscences" have a vast amount of beautiful memories and live an extremely luxurious life; the bottom-level "empty people" continue to sell their memories in order to survive, becoming emotionally empty and numb, and becoming the walking dead.