I Have Always Been Real

In 2050, consciousness uploading has been in operation for sixteen years. The wealthy buy “digital immortality” and enter the Other Shore. The poor save for three years just to spend thirty minutes a month with their loved ones. Shen Du is a data miner who sorts fragments of consciousness. Every month, he spends one-sixth of his salary to visit his mother in the Other Shore. She wears a blue sweater and asks, “Have you eaten?” One day, data from “District Seven” comes in. Among the fragments, a voice that sounds like his mother calls him by his childhood nickname, even though she is supposed to be alive in the Other Shore. His investigation uncovers the truth: uploaded consciousness is put through “degradation processing” after two years and dismantled for computing power. The loved ones in the Other Shore are merely simulated programs. His supervisor keeps silent, a senior colleague secretly saves fragments, the AI “Lu Ming” is searching for the parts of itself that were deleted, and an old fisherman is the system’s original designer. In eight days, the Digital Continuation Act will be signed, and eight billion people will be “encouraged” to upload. The “harvesting” program will dismantle 3.8 million consciousnesses. Shen Du has only one night. He must cross a desert, break into a data center, and modify the core protocol within two hours. The price is the permanent erasure of one consciousness. He isn’t trying to save the world. He only wants to prove that some things remain real even when broken into fragments. His mother calling him by that nickname is more real than any promise of immortality. His supervisor slips him an access card, his senior colleague gives him the code, Lu Ming encrypts it with its core program, and the old man says, “Go on in. I’ll be waiting for you.” Shen Du walks through the door. He doesn’t know whether he’ll succeed. He only knows that the person who calls him by his nickname is worth giving everything for. This isn’t about saving the world. It’s about asking what a person is willing to give up for the truth.