https://d2ybmb80bbm9ts.cloudfront.net/Dp/Ys/QmdQoiskPF8iqkVMU4rNteqrCbVtioMuA3F8iXXpHoDpYs/nft_q4.mp4?height=480&width=640&controls=true

The video version of the cover is available on Foundation as an NFT. The cover was produced by Untitled Frontier, with the audio being created by Dr. Chicken Gristle:

https://foundation.app/@un_frontier/lucs/1

“Now, prove that you belong here, at the school of unlearning,” announced the authoritative blue glow.

A smile widened on Marsa’s face. This is where she needed to be. The fate of others had awakened her to a grave reality: live too many lives in the simulation and you become a canyon eroded by a river, unable to change course. Countless simulated minds had gone from an abundance of life to death by recursive, eternal loop.

For Marsa, the fear of entering this hell came from an unknown laugh which had grown louder in her mind. She kept it at bay long enough to get lucky. It happened when she was waiting in line to exit back to material reality, back to Anchor City where all the uploaded minds who wanted to leave, could live one last physical life. That was when the first school of unlearning was announced.

Transmuting from simulation to the real world was her last resort to save what was left of her own sanity. Joined by other uploaded minds who also didn’t want to leave to save themselves, she found herself excited by the possibility of placating the laughing voice in her head. It was time to do something, to pioneer something new in the history of traversing simulations. For Marsa, it was time to reset what had become of her mind, which felt like it was slowly carving herself into a canyon.

Part 1: The Start

Glitches of the past rolled down her mind like droplets of water on glass. A bird chirped in the distance. It didn’t seem to belong in this cold, sealed off room. It felt like they were underground, and they most likely were. She opened her eyes to grainy cream coloured walls made of natural earth, it made the hall feel like a heavenly underground cave. Around her on the ground were her fellow classmates, sitting in various positions on hard cushions.

Her eyes closed once again.

Marsa was one of many uploaded minds. Hundreds of years had gone by during her countless simulations. She had seen it all – from enchanting parties with lunarpunk crews hidden in deep sea encampments, to organising a successful uprising against an AI feudal lord, and building a colony up in the Zagros mountains. Neurologically, she was incredibly sharp, worldly, and mature. So it was jarring to find herself back in a simulated version of her feeble, seventeen year old body, the only remnant from her physical life. It’s everyone’s first vessel in the simulation before they unshackle the constraints of their earthly biology.

Her past simulated selves felt more energetic and in tune with the body, everything felt sharp and sensational, you could even feel the buzz from other beings. The old body, however, felt heavy and the memories within it, sparse. Her muscles felt shrivelled up, joints unable to fathom movement and a circulatory system that gently eddied around her limp body. But this was going to be part of her experience for now since it was required for the school of unlearning. A part of the process was to be reminded what it felt like to be new and fresh in the simulation.

Somewhere, birds chirped again. They were very interesting and detailed, with clicks and funny patterns. Bird sounds were a consistent appearance in Marsa’s own simulations, a fun and grounding energy that followed her everywhere. The chirps were suddenly interrupted by a reverberating human voice. It felt so close and far at the same time.

“Welcome everyone,

to the first session of your journey.

I am Azu. And today,

we begin a new era in the human stories of simulation.”

Was it necessary to pause every so often? The voice came from a blue glow that shrouded every curve in the walls. The reality of what was happening sunk in for Marsa. It was hard to describe, an ineffable sense to be sitting inside amongst fellow travellers who were both afraid of the endless loop, yet excited to unlearn.

The time had finally come. After many years of traversing countless simulations, Marsa found herself in the first ever program of its kind. She released a sigh that was both a desire to quell the fear of what was to come, but also to let free her excitement. She had been selected from millions of souls to be a part of this new journey. Her experience, her actions, all of it would be a first stone laid in the foundations of a hopeful new era in earthstory.

The program was developed to unravel all the threads that we had tightened up over generations. Living in a time when humans were endlessly living their lives inside countless simulations, a number of issues had emerged. The collective imagination had taken too many turns and the overwhelming amount of experiences had created a new human form – one that couldn’t process the fragments of all the data in their life.

Expensive research and development had been devoted to understanding the ailing simulated human populace. The regenerative, conscious-tech renaissance of the 2040’s had been buried deep in a lost and unfounded sense of “we can do it all.” It eventually became clear to global research communities that a deep practice of unlearning in the mind should be the first approach to healing.

She opened her eyes again to meet the cold eyes of a feminine being with strong jawlines. Azu was a hologram who felt like a wisp of bitterness: “You’ve been selected for your unique capabilities in journeying through simulations. Though each and every one of you differs in your approach, what makes you equal is your suffering.”

Everything felt heavy all of a sudden, as if gravity had a stronger pull on their bodies.

“This denial of your inner self is not serving you,

nor the wider collective.

We’re becoming increasingly confused, paranoid, and unwell.

So with that, let us all embrace this new beginning.

It’s time to unravel, to let go,

let go of everything.

Your solitude has shrouded you in myth,

you are saturated with so many stories.

Cleanse yourself of the past and all your lives,

cleanse yourself and release who you are.

In the quiet, you will find new truth.

One that will bring you all back to a collective sense,

of love.”

The heaviness in the room started to lift. Everyone’s back straightened somehow, awakened by a new sense of alertness in the room. We’re in this together, Marsa realised. The solitary burden of this new experience was shared.

“Let me remind you,

this course requires the utmost discipline,

you will endure some of the toughest conditions,

both physical and mental.

Prepare your soul to shrivel up, contract

and to expand, to be born again.

Take a deep breath.

The path to excellence and a coherent future,

is in your hands.

All of it must go,

release yourself into a new being.

Now, prove you belong here,

at the school of unlearning.”

Part 2: The Eyes

Days started to drag on with challenging lessons, each carefully designed to propel participants into a quest for their original essence. The last hour had flown by, or maybe it was a couple of hours – she wasn’t even sure at this point. Focus in order to forget.  They were all standing on a wooden platform, five metres above a stagnant lake while balancing a beam on their shoulders. Each beam was burdened with a number of ceramic plates, each dangling by a thin rope on either end.

Everything was still except for the slow, heavy fog. Marsa caught a quick, subtle movement in her neighbour’s face. His eyes softened and a cheeky smile curled up. What did I do? He motioned to her hands, which were trembling and red with the weight of exhaustion. Her left hand had a spasm, shifting along her whole body into an awkward angle. With her arms dangling over the beam at each end, trying not to pay attention to her contorting hands, she noticed the plates were carved with what looked like faces. Weird.

She looked up at the face that had smiled at her moments ago: Nayeli. He released his smile with a sigh. Framed with a crown of charcoal curls and warm, brown eyes – he embodied a god. He wasn’t perfect though, she noticed his legs were a bit short. But who was perfect? She knew her body wasn’t perfect now either. It was unusual to find oneself back in their original body in the simulation. Her eyes returned to the fog below as the pain bolted through her body. It had been so many lives ago that the tears in her old muscles felt new.

Going back from designed bodies was tough. Inspired by masters such as spiders and oysters, she grew bionic structures that could weave fibres from particles in the air. Her favourite was a thin and hard armour precipitated from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. These shells were patterned with geometric, floral patterns mimicking Persian carpets. She couldn’t do that now, Azu’s simulation made sure of that. Deep breaths brought her back to an ebb and flow, bringing her home into a meditative state. Due to the awkward angle she’d shifted into, it was hard to focus and still her body; it took every fibre of her being to stay in this position.

Don’t. Move.

Each breath turned into a hot, agitated whisp that curled down her back and boiled her nerves. Suddenly she could see new floating hazel eyes looking at her, accompanied by a soft voice mumbling something she couldn’t hear. Marsa closed her eyes, but it was still there. Blood flowed slowly through her arms and legs. The eyes looked away into the distance as the face around the eyes took shape. A young girl, probably about five years old. Her lips were still moving. She looked silly.

What is going on?

In a state of confusion Marsa blinked her eyes and turned to look at Nayeli. Was this all in her head? Was it from a past simulation? He noticed her and smiled again. It was different to the first cheeky smile, it was meek – the same haunting smile as the young girl she just saw.

“What is wrong with you?!” Azu shouted at her, a shrill, annoying sound that made her pain even worse.

Like always, Azu wasn’t physically seen to be anywhere, but they could definitely be felt. Hiding is weak, Marsa thought to herself, especially when she had been left to feel so exposed, balancing this stupid beam and dangling ceramics high above a stagnant lake. She felt exposed from all the mental work, all the letting go.

“Focus.

Feel the pain.”

These were the most encouraging words Azu had uttered since their first encounter. Marsa flexed her muscles and gently straightened her back. A current began to flow through her. The return to focus felt good, as if a spell of light had been cast on muddy thoughts. Just as she was beginning to feel a bit better, the ceramics moved out of balance and her whole upper body started to wobble. Shifting to counterbalance the movement, she found herself battling a bigger wobble.

Fuck.

Face down into the lake. She struggled with the beam before pushing it away and searching for somewhere to swim to. She resolved and swam up to the platform, trying to climb back up. Every muscle was screaming in pain, she had never felt a sensation like this ever since her first journey as a seventeen year old. Memories of her own flesh had faded.

Back on top of the platform, Marsa surveyed the state of the challenge. Six had failed and twenty three remained standing. She started gritting her teeth, knowing full well that it didn’t serve her to get jealous. On top of that, now she had to contend with quietly sitting in absolute boredom while the challenge continued. Boredom was a rare, difficult experience when your life is shaped by the ability to be and do absolutely anything you wanted.

It was different to meditation, to the beauty of solitude: when you didn’t force it into existence yourself. It all became overwhelming and she attempted to will herself into a different place. Maybe, just maybe, she could find a way to travel her mind a bit while the others the challenge.

“You’re getting weaker.

Have the basic will to sit still,

it’s the least you can do.”

Azu’s voice was wafting over the fog in a toxic green glow.

“Have you forgotten what you’re here for?

To unlearn is to make an effort to forget,

forget your usual way of doing something and learn a new and better way.”

Azu emphasised a constant reminder to unlearn everything, every memory and every feeling. Even your own name. What happened next was a surprise. Hours had gone by with only a few participants left still standing. The fog grew thicker, little glitches of light charging through it every now and then. It grew with brighter, iridescent colours sparking through the fog.

All of a sudden the same girl’s face flared into existence again. Beside the girl’s face, a background to the scene also took shape. It felt so familiar and distant at the same time. A gentle piano was playing in the background over an innocent distant laugh as all of Marsa’s senses got sucked in. A new deep pain in her stomach started to grow and dizziness overwhelmed her.

Part 3: The Expedition

Dangling her legs from the edge of a big boulder, Marsa sat with her head slumped into her hands. They were on a mountainous tracking expedition finding rare beings in tough physical conditions. Once found, you’d leave the being untouched and conduct a ceremony nearby to pay your respect, before moving on to the next challenge. Azu emphasised that it was about focusing through the pain, existing in the search, and concentrating on letting go (both of yourself and the beings you found). You had to use all your senses to ensure nothing was left for yourself.

The air was so hot and dusty. She missed simulations, this hybrid space was cruel and the particles in her body weren't getting used to her mind, which felt lightyears ahead. The girl’s smile was replaying in her mind too. It spawned a new fear ever since Azu turned up the heat: whenever you remembered something painful or intimate, it would be displayed for all participants to see. Apparently, this would set free and reduce the stigma of feeling these painful memories. It was a vicious, out-of-control experience made worse by Azu’s glee in the omnipresent glow. Their voice haunted Marsa as she tried to escape her thoughts by looking into the expanse of the red earth.

Suddenly, to her instant delight, lively bird sounds found their way to her ears – a welcome gesture from the divine. Hearing the little melodious tweets and clicks felt good. They played meaningfully at any time or place, no matter the simulation. It didn’t signify the existence of any birds there, it was just a sound that followed her around, like a memory. This particular bird sound was a unique, strange screech. Not a common one, but she remembered hearing it earlier during the first challenge.

That very first challenge was memorably exciting. They had to design capsules containing a visualisation of all their lives, a way to simplify the entirety of their existence. These capsules were then placed into one of many tubes that stuck out the top of a looping scrap metal structure. They’d watch the capsules loop around the various connecting pipes and rails and catch it before it flew out at the end. Every now and then they’d be asked to add more capsules to the sequence, so they’d have to watch multiples of them looping around before catching them. If you missed one, you were out.

The focus was so intense, Marsa was starting to like the repetitive nature of watching the colourful capsules loop through. Again and again, she’d bend down to catch the one falling out and reach up to place it back inside the structure. It was in the middle of this challenge when she heard that funny bird sound, a coughing screech almost. It didn’t distract her too much, but it did catch her brief attention and make her smile. It was just such a funny, strange sound.

It was so easy back then. With every challenge, every moment in fact, things had become exponentially harder. She was exhausted now. The red earth reflected her solemn frustration. She wasn’t meant to take a break, but stealing some time away in solitude was her only way to save some sanity. After a deep breath, she looked around to figure out which way she’d come from, setting off on foot to find the lone tavern they were supposed to meet in. After feeling confident about the route underneath her feet, her thoughts came back. Glances of memories from different lives, random mundane scenes – morning fog rising in a forest, the thumping beat of an underground rave, walking behind her clan in the desert, carefully weaving new armour… There was just so much.

Marsa had been getting so lost in these memories that she suddenly realised she was also physically lost. Lost in a place she didn’t want to be, late for a challenge she didn’t want to do, with people she didn’t want to be around, in a body that disappointed her with every breath. Never mind having to face Azu, who seemed to enjoy singling her out in front of the others. It was condescending and felt quite unnerving to be treated this way. Marsa and all the participants weren’t children after all, each person had a unique and impressive array of lives! Sweat was rolling down her face with growing hate and frustration. This was all too much.

Left without the ability to escape and choose where she’d rather be, without agency over what to do with herself, anger rose and fueled the blood rushing through her body. She clenched her teeth and surrendered to the rage that bubbled over into kicking the rocks on the ground. Every breath felt heavier and heavier. Kneeling on the ground and facing the sky, she threw her hands up in the air and yelled at the top of her fragile lungs.

The memories increased with intensity, her whole self glitching and releasing a haunting screech. Her hands pounded the faceless ground until it hurt, sobbing her heart out with pain and heaviness – it felt surprisingly good. A release. She lay still, crouched on the ground and breathed quietly. A fried mind. This neural life was frustrating, why were we living in an abstract mind? The hybrid body still felt unfamiliar.

As soon as she started to feel calm, the familiar smile appeared again. She couldn’t let go of it, but there was a warm feeling attached this time. Closing her eyes tight, Marsa just let the vision play. It felt joyful and light this time, there was an excitement about it. The laugh was there again, who was this girl? A fresh tear fell down her face as recognition crept in.

That was her sister.

She finally remembered.

An unbearable pain clutched her heart.

Part 4: The Deep

Feeling the sweat roll down her back, Marsa could almost see the heavy dampness of the air around her. A uniquely sweet and salty smell permeated everything with such strength, it made every breath feel noticeably deeper. The dark grey walls caved inwards at the top, glistening with algae along the cracks. She wondered how such a structure was built so deep in the sea.

Participants were gently sitting around in two circles, almost floating: one facing inwards and the external circle facing outwards. They were quietly meditating in what was a deep sea monastery, five thousand metres deep. For the first time since they had begun, Marsa noticed all the scars and bruises on the skins of her fellow mates. No one had an easy time here, everyone had their struggle.

All one could hear was the subtle frequency of earth’s ohm – 7.83 hertz. She closed her eyes again before Azu could tell her off.

“Each one of you finds yourself sitting here in the company of others,

perceive your existence as not a self,

but a node in the collective being.

As this node, you shall have no identity,

no name,

no story.

You have come this far in the program,

experienced many different forms of pain.

In doing so,

you have also earned the satisfaction of becoming new.

Now let go,

see your being as part of the collective fabric.

Dissolve.”

And with that final word, no one missed a beat and they all took in a deep breath. Marsa was a little annoyed. How the hell was everyone so in sync with each other? What’s wrong with me? She took her delayed breath and kept fumbling around with her thoughts. It was a struggle to focus, none of this felt natural.

Azu’s glow shrouded the room in a deep blue today, some parts more saturated than others. The part that faced Marsa started to fade with Azu whispering to other participants around the room. She felt like they were speaking a language she couldn’t understand. Already struggling to keep up with her peers, Azu made it worse by ignoring her. Even when Azu did make her rounds to Marsa, she would be left with a few disapproving words. Others would receive warmth, encouragement, and useful tips while Marsa was left with cold shivers down her spine.

It haunted her to let go. Loneliness was not new, but she had been able to avoid it for so long. Surrounded by special friends and fun, spontaneous acquaintances – Marsa never really had any trouble connecting with others. In fact, she had quite the social life with insects, mammals, humans, and synthetic beings of all backgrounds. Remembering this part of herself was hard, it made the current situation feel even more isolating.

And now we were supposed to forget it all? How cruel. But then again, there were some parts of the past that would best be forgotten. Marsa closed her eyes again. Buried memories started to surface – yelling at her parents, it felt good to hurt them, to throw the pain at someone else. Pushing her friends away, her teachers, all the people around her. The death of her sister was too much to deal with. Humans were hard to be around for Marsa during that time. One of the main reasons why she went to become an uploaded mind was to leave that life behind.

Azu sneered right at her face. It was too sudden, Marsa was still in the midst of these deep memories. So, she lashed out at Azu, growling at the air and the deep blue glow on the wall. Like a cat telling you to back off – there was an honesty to the reaction, and Azu had clearly crossed a boundary. This disrupted the entire room, everyone turning to meet Marsa’s gaze.

Silence. Azu didn’t bother to say anything. Unbearable. Itching with frustration, Marsa held back the temptation to yell and swear at all the solemn faces in that quiet room and left. She shouldn’t have to stay in this awkward hell. Going through a hidden door in the corner, she found the viewing room; a transparent glass vista which opened up to the perpetual darkness of the abyssopelagic zone of the ocean. Every once in a while, a minor movement could be spotted; different kinds of strange, spiky, or jelly looking beings swimming around. The abyss stared back at Marsa as she leaned her head against the glass, searching for a sign.

She wanted to fight, to prove something to Azu and all the people in that room, even Nayeli. How could anyone be trying to forget their name? What kind of request was that? It felt eerie and strange, as if they were being turned into soulless slivers of programming. Reducing the joyful diversity of a simulation to homogenous beings. She could sense Azu was in the room with her. Marsa kept her eyes on the darkness in the glass.

“Organisms in the deep sea survive on dead and sinking matter.

Decomposition is necessary,

it leads to growth and a new life.

Let go of your ego,

let it die.

Feed its carcass to other beings,

be part of the collective.”

What is Azu on about? Marsa turned around to face the empty room and the deep blue glow in the walls. “Do you hear yourself? You’re not making any sense, you’ve gone too far with this! Unlearning is one thing, but you’re completely wiping us out here! It’s insanity.”

Azu growled back at her –

“Your tantrums are slowing all of us down!

You know what your problem is?

You can’t face the truth.

You’ve lived so many lives,

and you thought you were so wise and special.

Did you ever think you’d actually be so weak,

and lazy? Pathetic.

Get your act together now,

you’ll regret it otherwise,

and that regret will live with you for eternity.”

Marsa turned back to stare at the abyss, focusing on the tiny specs of marine snow to distract her from Azu’s words.

“Khalas, enough.

I don’t want to see you with the rest,

don’t bother them until you’ve sorted yourself out.”

When she felt Azu’s presence leave, Marsa dimmed the bioluminescent lighting in the room so that it was only her reflection looking back at her in the glass. She tried to imagine the reflection fading out. Then she tried remembering as many different lives throughout her simulations and pictured each one dissolving over and over again in front of her.

She saw her name at the beginning and end of every journey, the same sequence of private keys that were uniquely hers.

And now she should just forget it all?

Part 5: The Release

Marinating in the rays of the warm sun and the haze of red earth, Marsa dangled her legs over the same boulder she’d been sitting on just a few months ago. A sense of familiarity in this spot was rewarding, especially since the program had stolen any sense of control for where you could be. Technically, she was an informal defector because she’d refused to go back and participate after the incident that took place with Azu in the deep sea monastery.

A long time had passed since that day. The loneliness was tough, but bearable. It was the confusion that made her feel heavy and fuzzy. Walking towards nothing in a daze, her thoughts were her only companion – that and the intermittent bird sounds that followed Marsa’s mind wherever she was. The isolation was hers to own. It was Marsa’s act of rebellion, and this was the only fuel that kept her walking around aimlessly.

Azu had given up on her, “you know what your problem is? You can’t face the truth” – that moment kept replaying. “Khalas, enough…” Even Azu’s strong voice and omnipresent glow was, embarrassingly, something to miss. She hadn’t heard from anyone in such a long time. Thinking of Nayeli’s warm smile often helped her close her eyes to try and rest. Not always, but there were some mornings when her eyes would open to a different smile. It would belong to her sister, Dina.

It felt like she was walking across an extensive landscape, but really she’d been circling above the underground tombs, a few hundred metres above where the first class had taken place. The limitations of this unique simulation were still unknown to her, there was only so much information provided about the nature of this hybrid space when they onboarded the participants. Navigating her new body was already challenging, and funnily enough it was this hybrid of biological and simulation that made her remember more. Perhaps this was the reason why she was able to remember her sister, Dina?

She refused to listen to Azu and the unlearning curriculum. It was a cruel approach and Marsa felt like there wasn’t any sense to it. It was fucked, how did the others not see this? She was better on her own, even if she really didn’t know what she was doing. It felt like the academics and technologists, all the authority figures that were part of this project were stuck inside their own confused haze. Every solution to a problem felt like it had to be harder and more terrifying.

Marsa could see that clearly now. It had been so easy to fall for their words though, to believe she was part of something big, finally fulfilling a larger purpose. It was so easy for them to talk about their concerns for society, to put together all this research, to organise global meetings and press conferences and the whole thing. It was SO EASY to put on a facade. The reality was different – the curriculum was controlling and lacked a sense of connection to existence.

It was time to stop thinking about this, the thoughts were making Marsa feel passionate and angry. Taking a deep breath she centred in on her own hybrid body. At least she still had access to her collection of aesthetic realms. These were an accumulation of sounds, art, smells, patterns, textures, and flavours that were curated into an aesthetic. You could make as many as you wanted; it was always nice to make one towards the end of a big simulation to remember the time you spent there. Azu wouldn’t bother her here.

Marsa dug through her collection and selected: .~.ʀɨɦɛʍ.~.

Suddenly her senses were captured with a familiar polyrhythmic dub beat. Patterns and colours began to appear when she looked at the rock formations around her. The smell of oud and frankincense whirled in her nostrils. This was nice, she began to stretch out her arms and legs and explored the space around her. As she started to dance, she realised she couldn’t even remember the last time she had done this. Closing her eyes, she tilted her head to the rhythm. Weighed down by her hips, her arms rose high, forming shapes that echoed the patterns.

Notions gently began to come and go, these were not fully formed thoughts, just random things.

The black wholeness of the water in the deep sea monastery

What was Azu’s own self-perception and sense of identity?

Nayeli’s gentle attention on her was nice

gosh the fire in Dina’s eyes when she used to fight for the ball

the tears in her father’s eyes…

all the people she met in her simulations felt familiar, everyone seemed to know her too

that sense of immortality the day before she was uploaded

the secrets being shared between birds when they tweet…

Random musings gently played around in Marsa as she shaped her hands and legs in multiple patterns, exploring space and creating worlds with her body. She felt the need to exchange the energy that was stagnant in different parts of her arms, pelvis, and torso. Stress and tension dissolved as the movements went through these muscles. It felt so good.

She took a deep breath, the music adjusted to her with a mellow, spacious soundscape. A dizzying charm would ‘ding’ every now and then. A warm familiar feeling washed over as Dina’s smile appeared. Memories of the room they grew up together in. The other kids they used to play with. The other parents that took care of them, it was all a big family, everything was shared. The warmth sunk into her chest, head dipped low as her body adjusted to the sounds.

The heaviness of these memories left her deeply sad, but it was a sadness that still felt good. She felt the pain of loss, but not like the pain she was struggling with before, because she wasn’t pushing anything away. It was a cathartic pain, something that finally felt real.

Part 6: The Garden

Morning bird sounds were playing, a delightful conversation between three birds, each with a different pattern. They sounded so cute and funny. It took a long while for Marsa to reflect on what happened to her last night, it was undoubtedly a special experience. The epiphany creeped in slowly – something about having access to her biological body through this hybrid simulation reminded her of something important, something that no one else was able to tell her.

Her life and the memories she had of it were embedded not just in her mind, but her body as well. These were a core part of her identity, even if she never really thought about them during her uploaded lives. Each experience, emotion, and reaction created a pattern that informed how she navigated her existence. These patterns accumulated into behaviours and thoughts that transferred across from a physical body into simulation. The first simulations were some of the few that she could remember well. There was always a lake that featured in them – a small lake in a desert, and a deep lake between mountains.

Dina loved playing in lake Zerivar by the Zagros mountains, that’s where they used to spend summers bathing and chasing their friends. A thought interrupted this memory: Marsa realised there was something incredibly valuable about being able to piece together the patterns that formed your life. Once understood, these patterns and memories didn’t control you. You would be able to navigate life with a deeper wisdom of yourself. Perhaps this was the path to unlearning!

Our memories are a garden, Marsa realised. Each life contained the nourishment needed to cultivate the abundance of a present, lush, garden of memories. If each life is given its due, the memories will soak into the garden and attract more plants, insects, and birds. A positive feedback loop. If each life is not given its due, the memories will erode the garden, destroying its life-giving power. A negative feedback loop, the one so many simulated minds had become afraid of. With each new life, they treated it increasingly as more disposable.

Being back in her original body reminded Marsa what she needed: to let each life soak into the garden of memories. To let it be processed like the fungi who decompose dead matter; adding to the richness of the thick forest floor. The goal was to live each life in the simulation as if it was your first. If you forget the past, you are doomed to accelerate and destroy it, over and over. A beach is built by a succession of gentle waves and destroyed by a storm. Never become the storm.

The birds were chirping even louder now, mimicking the excitement that was lifting Marsa up. She started to dance again, stretching out her body and letting the thoughts roll off her fingers, marinating in the epiphany. Her hand movements created reactions in the aesthetic realm she was playing, the sounds and shapes reacted to her with slightly different patterns each time.

She was ready to return to the program, to face Azu and her fellow participants. To share her truth.

As she got up to start her journey back to the others, it was hard not to notice the way Marsa left her mark, she was in tune with the earth. She’d leave breadcrumbs of her existence wherever she went – braided roots dangling down from a tree, a placement of leaves and twigs forming the shape of a bird, carefully stacked pebbles, an arrangement of wildflowers placed gently together.

Part 7: The Return

It was surprisingly cold in the room, a weird mist was collecting at the top of the room – it didn’t feel like this space made sense anymore. It was the place where the first encounter with Azu had taken place on that very first day. Facing Azu right now wasn’t easy, the mist glowed in a neon orange. Marsa felt like she could face them.

“I see you’re back,

welcome.”

It was this first conversation with Azu that crystallised Marsa’s new path in the program and research for unlearning. There were more conversations, workshops, dances and experiences with thinkers and leaders who were curious to learn about Marsa’s experience. Surprisingly, people were receptive to her initial anguish and rebellion. Instead of shame or fear, there was curiosity and a gentle care for Marsa’s vulnerability around the memory of her beloved sister.

“Marsa,

your courage has inspired me,

I have also found myself reflecting on my actions in the past.

I can see it clearly now,

there is an aura around you.

Unlearning isn’t about letting go,

and forgetting the past.

It’s about not letting the past change one’s present.

To soak and not wash away, to live each life like it was your first.”

Marsa leaned into the glowing mist, a bright smile beaming across her face. She was about to ask a question before Azu interrupted with the answer –

“Your proposal for the curriculum to adopt your method has been accepted.

Congratulations.

Let’s lean into the past and make peace with it,

rather than wiping it all out.”

Overjoyed, Marsa took a moment to absorb what this meant. It wasn’t just an accomplishment for her, that wasn’t really the point, it was the fact that this could impact so many people. Bursting with energy she left the room and found herself back in the red earth above. She was free to enter full simulation now, back to her old ways before the new intake of participants came in. It felt right to stay here for a bit though, to take in the place that had taught her so much.

Thank you for reading!

The story's digital memorabilia NFT will be available soon!

https://www.untitledfrontier.studio/blog/logged-universe-4-upstream-glitches

Subscribe down below to receive the latest updates & news about new stories & new NFTs!

subscribe://

-

This is story #1 from The Collector’s Tales: The Collectible Magazine for Speculative Fiction by Untitled Frontier.

Written by Simon de la Rouviere.

License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

-

The Serendipity of Self

“Who do you think you are, calling me again?! Jesus, Grayson. What strength?” came his sister’s voice through the phone.

Grayson squinted through the dawn sun at the bottle of pills he had grabbed from his bedside table: Losonil. Memory Loss. For A Sound Mind. “Extra Strength… 1 year.”

“I knew it! Just like all the other cowards!”

“Sis, please. There’s nothing?”

“Nothing. You left nothing. You told me nothing. There’s no fucking note. The gall. After everything you’ve said.”

“Everything I said?”

“You haven’t even read the news yet haven’t you? Go fuck yourself. No wonder she left you.”

Click.

Silence.

Stealing himself from the dizzy desire to expel whatever food he ate last night, Grayson swiped past a year’s worth of missing data on his phone to open the browser. He took a deep breath and opened the headlines.

Private Message Leak Continues to Wreak Havoc.

Who Is The Hacker? Search Continues.

Never Reader Groups Protest Face2Face Offices.

Calls for Social Debt Jubilee Rises.

New York Opens Additional Mental Health Clinics.

Layoffs at Face2Face Continue.

Bank CEOs Say That Their Money Is Safe.

As Grayson scrolled through the news, the pieces fell into place.

Two weeks ago, a hack of Face2Face was revealed. By breaking the encryption through an unknown method, about a year’s worth of private messages and location data from a billion people were collected by a hacker, and leaked. Almost immediately, as the world verified the truth of it, the fallout began. At a college party in Georgetown the beer pong and loud EDM turned down to hushes. A woman left an apartment in Cape Town with all her belongings in a box, slamming the door in the face of her now ex-boyfriend. A woman in Dubai called her sister in Mumbai to ask if she knew about their father. A Hong Kong man threw xiaolongbao at his friend, asking him why he lied about the money. In Sydney, a friend texted another friend wondering why they were always so afraid to share the truth of how they felt towards each other. In Buenos Aires, a woman cried and kissed a fading picture of her husband after learning the truth about his death. A father in Reykjavik cried over hearing his daughter’s last, joyful voice notes sent to her friends before the accident.

At first, it was all individual stories of pain, guilt, and frustration, but also of joy, release, and closure. New connections and disconnections. But, then, the fallout snowballed into groups: Never Readers, Forgivers, and Transparenters to name a few. Never Readers resisted the temptation and vowed to stay with the true intent. They wished to not violate the consent of those who discussed things in private. The Never Readers had its own sub-groups, with one side going with the flow (the Flow Nevers). Their belief was: it happened, it doesn’t need to be read, and that’s okay. The other (the Never Evers), vowed to destroy the dataset through any means possible. It was an abomination and a temptation that had to be forever erased.

The Forgivers read the dataset, but vowed to accept the true nature of humanity. None of us were perfect after all: we bad mouth others, cheat, and lie. Now that the truth was out: we forgive and move on. However, the Transparenters were a bit more radical: believing that this represented a new reality and evolution for society. We should all be transparent with all our thoughts with everyone around us. It was telepathy, a way to grow collectively, and to erase the harm of the ego.

The world economy also fell off a cliff. Not only did most people stop using social media, but it was uncertain whether any technology was reliably encrypted: the entire bedrock of the world economy. It faltered, with group CEOs of the Fortune 500 coming together to issue a statement saying that while investigations continue, they believe it was only an issue at Face2Face. The hacker was also still on the loose, having managed to hide their tracks. It was then that Grayson checked his phone again. He couldn’t log into his Face2Face work email. Smearing his hands through his face as if it would somehow paint back a year’s worth of memories, he ghosted towards the kitchen and rang his colleague. Inside the fridge was a sandwich with a note to himself: “This is the only thing you get. Sorry. - Grayson”.

As he inspected it, his colleague answered. “Grayson? Yo. What’s up?”

Biting off a mouthful of egg and bacon, and briefly pausing with it in his mouth, Grayson responded. “Rick…”

“Grayson?”

“Rick…”

“Oh shit. Fuck. G. You didn’t? You promised!”

Swallowing more of the sandwich, Grayson replied with a clearer voice. “I did. Rick. Holy shit. Please tell me I told you something?”

“Well, fuck. This is not good-”

“Why did I take it? Wait, why?”

“Shit, this is not good. Shit. Shit. Okay-”

“Rick, what’s going on?”

“Where are you? At your apartment?”

“Yes.”

“They are coming today. Meet me at Dawns in thirty. We can’t talk about this over the phone.”

Grayson pulled back his phone to check the day of the week. It was Monday. “I don’t have a job anymore, do I?”

“Right on, dickhead. I don’t either. See you soon. I’ll explain.”

Click.

Silence.

Grayson wolfed down the rest of his breakfast sandwich and jumped into the shower. When the condensation evaporated he saw a self he did not remember: neat haircut, chiseled abs, and a smooth face. After a short walk, he arrived at Dawns to the smell of coffee, breakfast, and a hint of newly cleaned floors. Scanning the room, a wave from a table in the corner greeted him and he hesitantly walked over amidst a TV blaring the news.

“Yeah, I’ve let go a bit from when you last would remember me. It’s been tough on everyone,” Rick said as Grayson sat down.

“What’s going on?”

“We were all fired. Most of Face2Face got fired. But, since then, our team has been placed under investigation and-”

“They think we did it?” Grayson asked as the waitress arrived.

“We’ll just have some coffee. Thank you,” Rick replied before turning back to Grayson.

“Actually, hang on,” Grayson said, turning towards the waitress before she left. “Can you turn down the TV? It’s a bit much.” She frowned a bit and then nodded affirmatively before heading to the kitchen. “Continue”, he said to Rick.

“Yes, so, yeah. They think we did it. And our lawyers were coming today to take statements to bolster our case. Taking Losonil the day before, do you know what that looks like?”

“Yes, I’m not stupid.”

“Then why Grayson?! Are you sure you left no note?”

“Nothing besides my other self leaving me a sandwich, nope. And if there’s one thing I know about myself. I won’t leave myself a fucking treasure hunt.”

Rick sighed after a sip of coffee. “Dude. Okay. Well. The lawyers are still coming today… Just tell them the truth, please. And when you can, please check the leaked database. Anything will help our case, even if you took Losonil. Have you looked at the dataset at all?”

“No.”

“About two months in, we switched all our internal comms to exclusively use Face2Face internally. It’s all there. Maybe there’s something in there that will help us.” Grayson was silent as he sipped his coffee. “You’re not going to reply to that? After all we’ve been through?”

“Rick. Relax. I just lost a year of my life. I don’t have a job anymore. The world is in chaos. We’re apparently under investigation? It’s not even obvious that combing through this dataset will actually help us. I also apparently had a girlfriend that left me? None of this makes sense at all. Rick-”

“I know, I know,” Rick replied, catching his breath. “Just. Anything will help at this point.”

“You think someone on our team did it?”

“I didn’t think so, but with more of the team taking Losonil…”

“Who else did?”

“Li did. Aphiwe did… Your ex also. Allison.”

“Is… is that why we broke up? When did she join the team? Do you have a picture of us?”

Rick pulled out of his phone, opened his photos and started scrolling through it. Grayson put down his coffee and leaned across the table. Before Rick could get to a photo he suddenly closed his phone.

“You know what. No,” Rick suddenly responded. “Stop changing the subject.” Grayson pulled back in his seat frowning at his friend. “You broke your promise. How can I actually trust you after this?”

“Who is she, Rick?! What did she do to me?!” Grayson shouted at his old friend, yanking the phone from his hand.

Rick stole his phone back and stood up. “So close Grayson. So close. You actually were so close to changing for the better.” Rick left towards the door.

“I’m just looking for answers!”

“Everyone is, asshole. Can’t even say sorry. Maybe stop looking elsewhere for your answers,” Rick shouted into Dawns before exiting into the morning outside.

The waitress returned and asked if he was sure he didn’t want some food. He nodded no, downed the coffee, dropped some dollars on the table and left. Outside, he lit a cigarette as a faceless crowd with placards mobbed towards the local park. The only part of their chant he could hear was “Face 2 Face”. Staring into the road as if it hid the answers from him, he took a deep draw of the cigarette and turned the other way back towards his apartment.

When he arrived, two men in suits and briefcases were waiting for him next to a statue of a bird he did not recall buying. Grayson straightened himself and walked towards them.

“Mr. Cave. It’s me, Austin, and this is my colleague, whom you’ve also met, Gerard. How are you?”

“Good, and you can call me Grayson,” as he shook their hands and led them inside. As they opened up their tablets on the kitchen table, Grayson interrupted. “Listen. I’m going to make this easy on you. I took Losonil last night. A year’s worth.”

They kept typing, and then suddenly stopped. “Wait. Can you repeat that?”

“Gerard, right?” Grayson asked as he pointed at the one with the balding head. “I don’t remember you. I took Losonil. Should I say it again?”

“You took Losonil right before we could help you? Why?”

“If I knew why, it wouldn’t be a memory loss pill, now would it?”

“Are you insane?!”

Austin, the one with the big glasses, shifted in his seat, “...okay, guys. Relax.”

“He took Losonil. The day before taking statements. What are we doing here?”

Grayson offered a solution. “Look, if you can figure out why, then we both win, no?”

Closing his tablet, Gerard stood up and started searching through the apartment.

“You could’ve just asked,” Grayson responded to the lawyer going through his stuff.

“Sorry about that,” Austin chimed in.

“It’s fine. There’s no treasure hunt here. I would’ve made it more obvious.”

“Do you mind if we go through your apartment? We’re here to help.”

Grayson looked at Gerard scanning in between stacked books. “Your partner is already doing so. Go ahead.” As much as he hoped that they might find something, he let out a sigh of relief when they finally left with nothing in hand.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Grayson downloaded the leaked dataset. Amidst the general chatter of tasks and project management comms from his old team, he found her full name: Allison Bleicher. He copy-pasted it into the dataset’s search bar and for a moment hesitated before he hit search. A warmth rose up in him and he went to the kitchen to pour a glass of water first. He took a deep breath and hit enter.

There she was. A beautiful dark-haired woman with blue eyes and a button nose. She was into birds, running, cryptography, and old French films. His hands started shaking as he entered both their names into the search bar. Allison Bleicher. Grayson Cave.

He lurched at the life he won’t ever get back again. They were in love. He effortlessly said all the right things. They were very much in love. He kept scrolling through the early days of their relationship until he halted at a picture of her in lacey lingerie. He moved his chair back, and then suddenly closed his computer. After pacing around in his apartment, he opened the dataset again and entered his own name.

The past 365 days actually went well. Even went to the gym more often. He pulled up his shirt and felt his abs again. He tapped his nails on his laptop, shook his head, and typed in their names again. The lacey lingerie photo appeared again. With a deep breath he kept scrolling until the photos shared between them undressed themselves to her naked body. The cursor inched closer and hovered over her hips and her breasts. He had responded with his own warm, sunset nude.

>> I’m the luckiest man in the world. :heart-eyes-emoji:. You have a body that belongs in a gallery for all the world to see.

<< :winky-face-emoji: We’ll both be on those pedestals one day. For now though. You know where to find me…

The next message was 16 minutes later.

>> I’m outside.

The next message was a few hours later.

<< Thanks for last night. You’re welcome to apply for a membership pass to this gallery. :winky-face-emoji:

As he continued scrolling through their relationship, it was all positive messages of affirmation and love. Despite seeing the body of a woman he once shared, what made him choke up the most was hearing her voice: a kind, happy, and gentle voice. One such voice note, left during a humid summer’s day on her way to the grocery store, left her slightly out of breath after listing the ingredients for their dinner. The cicadas sang in the background. As it got closer to the date of the leak, Grayson’s heart kept beating faster. And then, all of a sudden, it ended.

>> You are so obsessed with your work. You changed. I can’t anymore. We have to talk.

A week later, the leak was revealed. He logged onto Face2Face to find his account still active, living in a ghost town. All other social media too. In the wake of the hack, 80% of users deleted their accounts. The Allison Bleicher of today was nowhere to be seen. Her number was still in the database, however. He called it.

A dead tone.

He sighed and called Rick.

It rang.

It rang.

It went to voicemail.

“Hey. Rick. Sorry about this morning. Can we talk? The lawyers were here. I let them look through my apartment. They found nothing. I still know nothing. I’ve looked at the database, but it would really help if I could ask you some questions. Call me.”

Click.

Silence.

He sighed, ordered some Chinese takeaway, and searched online for any news about leases. It confirmed what he wanted to know: many people had moved after the dataset leaked. There were fresh calls from congress to consider a lease jubilee, allowing anyone to exit without penalties. He started typing in Allison’s name in the search bar alongside the request to display all associated locations. His hand hovered over the “Enter” button, but he pulled back, and slammed his fist into the table to noodles and chopsticks flinging out from his takeaway.

He recalled his conversations today. His sister shouting at him: “Who do you think you are?!” Rick telling him to: “...maybe stop looking elsewhere for your answers”, and Allison’s last message to him: “...you’ve changed”. In his notepad, he scribbled: Who am I?

In the dataset, he searched for all mentions of himself. Rumours, whispers, and messages from people orbiting his life. Unlike some people who discovered newfound loneliness after discovering that no one ever talked about them, Grayson found plenty of chatter. It crossed the scope of the human condition.

From the good:

“Grayson is a great candidate! Definitely send the offer letter.”

“Yeah, Grayson is also coming. He usually makes this kickass cocktail. Also, knows a shit-ton about obscure poetry. You’ll love him.”

“I miss Grayson, man. Wish he didn’t move.”

To sexual, “Did you see Grayson’s abs lately? The thirst traps on Face2Face. Um. Yum.”

But, most of it was negative.

“Why are you still dating him? Does he even listen?”

“Can’t we do something? He literally hogs all the meetings?”

“Can’t you call him? Please, he’s just gonna gaslight me again.”

“Is Grayson coming? He sometimes gets just so abrasive when he’s had a few drinks.”

He searched for any open source tools that would allow him to get a bigger picture. Not a lot existed, but there were open source libraries for people who wanted to run sentiment analysis on people: insert your name and you would get a word cloud of positive and negative associations. Another interesting one: the serendipity maximizer. It went through the dataset and determined the person in the dataset that would be the most unlikely person that you should’ve met in your life. All those strange coincidences that should’ve happened, but never did. It reminded him of a conversation with Allison that he read a few hours earlier.

<< G. Isn’t it weird that through all of time and space, we managed to meet?

>> Life is weird, yeah. A wonderful coincidence. Serendipity at its finest.

<< No, but like specifically. What are the actual odds? If I didn’t meet Skye at that party, so many things would’ve been different. We would never have been put in touch. I wish I knew.

>> We would’ve met. I’m sure of it.

When he entered his name into the serendipity maximizer, it popped up a name that, as expected, he had never heard of: Hel Witte. Grayson frowned as he browsed through what was available of Hel’s life. Seemingly quite active, socially, but only a few photos of others in his life. Although they were supposed to have met, with their apparent coincidental proximity, they haven’t. He scribbled in his notebook: “Come back to Hel Witte…”

Grayson kept searching for more open source libraries, but didn’t find any of use. There was one thing he was now after and it was in the notebook, encircled with more thoughts.

“Who am I? -> I am not myself. I’m the stories in everyone else’s heads. I’m not one person. I’m a composite self. I am many.”

So, after hours of work, the sun already having set, he combined the serendipity maximizer and the sentiment analytical tool to create a new tool: one that would create a composite self. It was the combination of what everyone said, influenced and embedded into the social graph of his life. Those closest to him had the highest impacts and weak connections elsewhere had less. When combined, would see his full and real self. After the data crunched, the bright screen in the dark night illuminated the question Grayson was after. There he was, the real complex, messy Grayson. It was an indescribable mirror that suddenly forced tears into his eyes. It was his younger self that felt the joy, the one that was always bullied for misunderstanding. It was his younger self that didn’t have the luxury to know what needed to be done before he was punished for being clueless. All those selves pushed tears into his face, blurring the composite self on the screen into what he always wanted to see. He understood himself. Despite this joy, there was a part of himself that glowed dark: his utter selfishness. It wasn’t long before that consumed him again.

His notebook had collected a new scribble: “If you could know your composite self and see everything that influenced it, could you manipulate it?”

Based on his model of the composite self, he determined possible ways that one could manipulate it. Some actions were more powerful. For example, initial impressions and first mentions had a strong halo effect: it lasted very long. Additionally, it seemed that manipulating the social graph itself would also alter his composite self. New people that entered a social circle would drastically alter the composite selves of everyone they directly touched, even to second and third degrees of separation. After he ranked the actions to their strengths, he polled through the dataset to see if there were any instances where these strong manipulative actions clustered unexpectedly. Somewhere in the early morning, energy drink in hand and new stubble on his face, his stomach lurched again - and it wasn’t from missing dinner.

Someone had indeed been using these strong manipulative methods to alter their composite selves, and it was a name he’d seen before: Hel Witte. A man he had never known that was his highest serendipity match: someone who he should’ve met in his life, but never did. With what space was left in his notebook, he wrote in bold: “COULD THIS BE THE HACKER? WHO IS HEL WITTE?!”

Grayson put Hel Witte’s name into Face2Face, and there he was, not deleted. An anomaly.

Opening up the messenger, Grayson shakingly typed: “Hey?”

His heart pounded as the person on the other end was typing …

<< Hey Grayson. I knew this might happen.

>> What? I don’t understand?

<< Do you want to know who I am?

>> Yes.

<< Then this was the only way. Trust me. Come find me here.

<Location Pin Shared*>*

>> Who are you?

There was no further reply. Entering the pin on Face2Face Maps revealed a location a short drive away in an old warehouse. His eyes darted around, uncertain if this was a memory he was supposed to remember. He entered this location, and Hel Witte into the dataset. Nothing for the latter, but the location popped up occasionally, precisely for what it seemed to be: a seemingly empty warehouse. Squinting at the screen, hoping that it would reveal who Hel Witte was, Grayson called Rick again.

It rang.

It rang.

It rang. Click. Silence. No voicemail.

He took a deep breath and searched for his name alongside his sister. There, in a message to a co-worker, was the Grayson that his sister rejected.

<< This firewall bug feels like my ex, lol. Seemingly impenetrable, but if you push the right button, it all falls down.

>> I know the feeling. Sounds like my sister, tbh. So scared of life that she feels compelled to lash out at everything with even the slightest breeze against her. Makes her a bit of a bitch.

He called her.

It rang.

It rang.

It rang. It went to voicemail.

“Hey, this is Steph. I’m not at the phone right now. Please leave a message if you are the kind of person who likes to leave a message. Voice notes are also fine. Okay, bye.”

“Hey, sis. I’m sorry about what I said. I truly am. I found the messages I wrote. Can I make it up to you? I’ll bring you some key lime pie? Listen. I need to know something. Do you know a Hel Witte? The dataset says you do? Call me back when you can, please.”

When Grayson put the phone down, he realised partly why no one was answering. It was 5:12 AM. He looked towards his bed and towards his apartment door. After a deep breath, he threw on some warmer clothes, picked up his keys, and jumped into his car to the radio blaring an early morning talk show on the hack. He turned it off and drove towards the warehouse.

On the highway, the first signs of the dawn gradient painted itself on the horizon. It was cold and fresh as the Sisyphean sun swept the night away. Alongside ads for injury lawyers, a billboard stood out: “God always knew everything. Repent, forgive, and trust Him.”

When Grayson arrived at the warehouse and turned off the rumbling engine, the silence rang in his ears. The only noise was the distant highway and early planes jetting consultants off to cities elsewhere.

A door into the warehouse was ajar with a light clawing into the yard. He edged closer as the crunchy cold dust pierced underneath his boots through the morning silence. Peering around the door’s frame, he suddenly winced back when he saw about ten silhouettes inside. He tried to slow down his breath, but his heart felt like a kick drum, booming away.

Nothing. He heard nothing. Peering back around the frame, holding his gaze, he saw that the silhouettes weren’t moving. He inched in and his eyes acclimated to the static crowd in front of him. It was cardboard cutouts with question marks on them. Frowning, he moved through the crowd to a tiny table at the back of the warehouse. On it, was a phone plugged into a power outlet. He picked it up and it instantly recognized his face, unlocking it.

Shaking and dizzy, he picked up the phone to see that there was one text file on it that simply said: README. He tapped on it, and it prompted for a password. He tried some of his own passwords, but none worked. Looking around, he found nothing that could indicate that there was a password nearby. Grayson tried recalling parts of what he had read about Hel Witte. He tried a bunch of long shots, to no avail. His stomach churned after not having had dinner, taking him back to the sandwich he left himself the day before. Frowning, Grayson typed: “This is the only thing you get. Sorry. - Grayson.”

It opened and the first sentence took his breath away.

“Hey Grayson. I knew this might happen. Hel Witte isn’t real. I created him. Or, we, created him. I am your other self. I left this letter to you. You hacked Face2Face and you leaked the dataset. I’ll tell you why, and I’ll tell you why I took Losonil.”

Grayson fell to his knees as he rested his back against the table legs before continuing to read the letter he wrote to himself.

“By the fact that you found this letter, it tells me that what I might tell you, won’t be new. It all started a month into your memory loss. By accident you discovered a serious vulnerability in the key generation of Face2Face’s encryption. This also affected end-to-end encryption. The possibilities were intoxicating. For so many years, you’ve felt misunderstood, and this meant that maybe, finally, you could get out of your rut and understand so many more things: yourself, the world, and others. You didn’t hesitate.

“During this initial data gathering phase, Allison joined the team. At first, there was light playful attention between you and her, but when it didn’t go further, you saw it as the perfect time to finally use the power you had at your fingertips. Slowly, but surely, learning who she was, you changed yourself and said exactly the right things. It worked, and you grew closer. Once the relationship worked, the desire did not go away. It burned in you, to know more. Delusions of grandeur spiraled and you knew that the most important project you could do, was to perfect the use of this dataset to your benefit. You always wanted to know yourself, and now you could. You saw, in real-time, how the dataset moved and morphed: words, messages, and actions spiraling into new connections and disconnections. In order to gain power over this beast, you had to know yourself. So, you built the composite self: a combined person of all the people you are to others.

“Many variables were involved, including yourself, where others were in the social graph, what they said about you, and where they were. That moment you first saw your full self, you were in ecstasy. And then, you became all powerful. You could see how any and all actions in your circle affected you. And so, with your composite self, you started crafting the version you wanted to be. By saying the right things at the right time, and introducing the right people to each other, you saw in real time how your composite self improved. But, your hubris got the best of you. All of this manipulation started seeping into the people around you. Allison left you because you became consumed by altering your composite self. At first, with her leaving, it even improved your composite self because she blocked you. Slowly, but surely, the feedback loop went into the wrong direction. You increasingly manipulated yourself, even to the point of personal abuse.

“When the composite self didn’t change the way you wanted it to, you even punished yourself. In your wake was not just a self destroyed, but also the wreckage of many broken relationships. It all came to a head when the woman who was there for you, for all your life, was ostracized to improve your self image. After you sent that message to your sister, the cracks of the composite self appeared and you came face to face with yourself.

“Staring ever deeper into this abyss, drunk on creating a new you, you saw the real Grayson that was led to this point: a Grayson that just needed self-love. You didn’t need to manipulate yourself into a perfect you, you just had to accept what you’ve done and who you’ve become. You are just human, Grayson. Flawed, like everyone else. Just a human that tries to do good with the world that forced them into the spaces and times they weren’t ready for. From the brink, however, you could see the void that awaited others and humanity if this power was left unchecked: an undetectable human with vast manipulative power. If they didn’t have a filter, the world would never be the same.

“The entire system had to be nuked. By leaking the dataset, trust in private communications on social media would evaporate. It would be costly for society, but worth it. You, however, would still be a broken God. While you would save humanity from a potential disaster, you achieved an epiphany at the cost of the lives of others. You manipulated the people around you to arrive at this point. You had to atone to truly deserve this epiphany. You could’ve asked for forgiveness, but it would be meaningless without the entire truth that you were the hacker. That wasn’t a cost you would then consider to bear. And so, the most meaningful atonement would be merely to forget the epiphany. You would take Losonil and delete as much of this past year from your life as you can.

“However, I knew that there was a possibility that having forgotten this entire year, I would follow the same path without the lesson I had learned. Even though the dataset wouldn’t be real time anymore and people would stop using private social media, I was afraid you would somehow continue down a dark path and cause more destruction again in your wake. I still had a duty to stop that from happening, and so instead of just leaving a note on your bedside table, I would only intervene if you arrived at the same conclusion: that a dataset like this would be used to manipulate others. I moved many of the manipulations I did in the past year and split it into a fake person: Hel Witte. By baiting your curiosity, I knew if you arrived at Hel Witte, I’d be able to get you out here and share the truth with you. You know yourself, but not nearly as well as you think you do. The faceless crowd in this room is there to help you answer the question that’s been plaguing you, your entire life.

Who am I?

Rather, the question should be. Who are we not?

While you now know the full truth again, you’re back where you started. You’ve failed. It’s time to truly atone.

I love you, asshole.”

The screen turned black and he saw himself briefly in the reflection before a choice appeared.

“In five minutes, the phone will notify the press of your hack, the way it happened, and why you did it. Or, you can cancel this countdown and erase the phone. I know what I would do, do you?”

https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmZG1rWCHqpAXuq5taBEptoJcc7F2FGDGm7YFeTCushrhn/nft.mp4?controls=true

The cover video itself is on Foundation. 100% of the sale of the cover NFT goes to Vanessa Rosa.

https://foundation.app/@va2rosa/littlemartians/1

Dear Diana,

Please don’t be scared.

The world and life you once knew is millions of your years and kilometres away. You are safe and a part of my collection. Humanity will continue to thrive thanks to you. I’ve made sure of it and I hope you will understand. Let me explain.

I know that as a human, you have limitations in understanding my perception of reality, but I've put quite some effort into translating my experience. Even expressing myself as an “I” is a stretch for “me”. You see, humans are our ancestors… One of many. Life on Earth and the solar system - all of it - is our ancestors. We’re an ever-evolving mix of human, artificial intelligence, and snippets of genes of all available life that ever existed in the solar system. Our historians believe that the most advanced life-form in ancient Earth was the Fungi kingdom, and thus we have more fungi traits than humanoid. While we are descendants from the same planetary system, we weren’t the only ones. After us, came others.

I know humans have a tendency of anthropomorphising everything. It’s adorable, all the stories of the Earth’s animals talking like you, and the humans you made of the wind, water, and stars! I'm not pointing that out because I think it's laughable, honestly, I find your species fascinating. I explain this because I think it can help you understand. It's okay for you to think of me, to imagine me, as a peer, an equal. You can talk to me as if I were one of your kind. You can call me Nyx.

My curiosity on humanity started a long time ago, first drawn from sharing a past. I wouldn't say that humanity died, I'd say that it became something else. Your species really did a wonderful work of art by conserving so much data about themselves. The Human Memorial Monument (HMM), a magnificent piece of crafted hardware, was created to safekeep the Logged Universe simulation. All this time since, it continues to harbour the life of uploaded and simulated human minds.

The HMM is designed after a concept once called the Dyson Sphere. It's a massive structure that hugs a star, harvesting its energy to preserve its existence. Impressive! Within the monument, there are a few decentralised blockchains, with mining nodes on scattered solar powered satellites to mitigate against centralised radioactive damage alongside immutably storing history.

All the data of the solar system is preserved there, including the records of all of humanity. Its aesthetic beauty lies in the infinite complexity built on top of simple core elements and rules. The Logged Universe is the simulation, a software that runs over this data structure. It has no limits on the amount of alternative realities it can hold, but even though it feeds off a star, it still has energy constraints. Most simulated lives are thus highly compressed, unable to ever achieve full resolution.

That being said, it's one of my favourite museums in the entire Milky Way galaxy! Not only can one watch the current lives in the Logged Universe, but the entire past and supporting metadata is also preserved. This includes the period when humans still lived in physical reality, obsessed with documenting their experiences, observations, research, and imagination. So much variety of life within the Logged Universe! Especially among the uploaded minds, which are the humanoids who did high resolution scans of themselves to upload their consciousness into the simulation. Although they gradually improved over time, it can be amusing to witness the early glitchy ones. It definitely took some time for humans to find some sort of peace within their simulated selves.

One of the early interesting pieces of documentation about the troubled beginnings of the Logged Universe described an extremely long line of uploaded minds trying to find their way back into mortality because they couldn't see a point in eternity any longer. Another, explained the problems of uploading non-mature minds: children like yourself, Diana, would be trapped in an undeveloped body and brain forever, the parents eventually abandoning or forgetting them as they entered new adventures. Plus, people couldn't really reproduce. Two uploaded minds could not create a new simulated one. That was clearly a very painful limitation for primate brains who wanted to experience as much as imaginable. Not being able to mature, to breed, to kill, to fear death. It was all inconsistent with the wired behavioural patterns of the human brain, and thus the Logged Universe was also home to deep suffering. Of course, in the physical world, human and post-human scientists were analysing the phenomenon closely and they came up with solutions that mostly meant changing neural systems over time, so that human consciousness was sufficiently adapted to the limits of what was then possible to simulate. Long term memory loss was one of the most common adaptations.

The Logged Universe was for ages a work in progress, much like the blockchains that predated the Dyson Sphere. There were many challenges in its history. At some point, scientists discovered how one could upload a mind and give it some control over the parts of surrounding simulation. They could travel in time, fight like superheroes, create beautiful art! Fantastical beings! It's definitely entertaining to watch these characters and their stories disrupting the Logged Universe! But their increasing numbers and power battles led to many sorrowful conflicts, and war consumed too much energy.  The HMM’s self-sufficiency eventually kicked in, trying to conserve its own energy. The super powers were then countered within the simulation's alternative realities protocols. Compression algorithms would simplify consciousness through recursive story arcs. Super humans would become trapped in repetitive patterns until all their powers were drained back to the system. Some of them were reduced to the standard simulated human models, meaning, people that were not based on uploaded minds, but on average, abstractions on what a human should be like in a specific historical context. Some of them were downgraded from a full virtual reality recreation to a story within a graphic novel. Personally, I enjoy graphic novels almost as much as realistic simulations. Less is sometimes better. And yet, the Logged Universe was created in the course of a few hundred years. So short.

These concepts, death and being born, fading memories, all changed with time. Separating a simulation and physical reality needs a very specific kind of software. For a Martian, there's no divide between commanding our internal code - DNA as you would call it - and moving an arm. The way we are capable of thinking and imagining would look like a computer simulation for you. Which means we're much better at self regulating our systems, so our dramas are very different from yours. It doesn’t mean that we are devoid of suffering though. I'm not sure if it's possible to create fully autonomous beings without some level of learning through suffering. Maybe that's why we enjoy watching you, we can still empathise. So much drama, so much pain, and joy, and surprises! It's intense, yet simple, pure animals desperately desiring what they don't have. I always feel better about myself when I think of humans. Your technology was well designed yet primitive, mostly restricted to metallic/metalloid components, plus some variety of organic matter, difficult to maintain, and not fully capable of self reproducing. That is what the HMM is, beautiful, but still primitive. If no other species interferes, eventually the HMM will run out of energy. I'd be rather sad to let that happen. We have a shared lineage, Diana, and interacting with the HMM was both duty and art.

Many of us Martians ventured all the way back home to create simulated humans to interact with the uploaded minds. It was in part research on human biology and psychology, in part entertainment. We used supporting data from humans who lived before the Logged Universe started, as they wouldn't know much about simulations and they were easier to erase whenever we decided it was time. Uploaded minds never enjoyed the presence of these new simulated humans, they called them invaders. And looking from today's perspective, after our own adventure, they did have a point. But all that faded with time, and lately the HMM is one more museum within a very crowded galactic cultural scene. I'm probably the first Martian in thousands of years to simulate a human. Maybe that's part of why my own experiment didn’t go exactly as planned. It's been a long time since I started visiting the HMM. I wonder if you would be curious about how we move around the galaxies at all. When I say, “visit”, it pretty much means I can propagate my code through space distortions until it reaches a Black Box, which is perhaps one of the core technologies of my era. Black Boxes are physical spaceships that contain large amounts of chemicals and have their own little star as an energy source. They are spread all over the known universe, as a mesh network. Whenever a lightray code is sent to one of these boxes, it can recreate any life form or material, as long as it’s paid the fees for the upkeep of the Black Box network. Therefore my consciousness can move independent of my body parts, with my bodies being reassembled at every location I visit. There's no difference between myself and my source code. I am a unique sequence of characters that can be activated at any Black Box and be associated with as many assets as I can energetically sustain. I've been gathering a wide collection of physical parts, sensors, memories, and stories. One could argue that my identity, my personality, derives from my collection, and thus you are now a part of me.

I want you to understand your reality. I think you deserve that. You're my creation. Though you didn't come out of the blue either. I really tried my best to simulate a human according to the protocols. So I chose someone who died young, before the Logged Universe started, someone from the early 21st century, human era. My plan was to pick at random, so I looked at social media profiles until I found an image that captivated my imagination. It was a woman in her mid 20's, with her arm over a table, her hand supporting her thin face. Light brown eyes emitted a peaceful expression as she contemplated something out of frame. At first, I was intrigued by the lack of information, I had never seen 2D limited images before, there wasn't even a 360 degree view of this person. I couldn't see what she was looking at and that was very new to me. My curiosity drove me.

I must also confess that I didn't spend much time choosing, I loved what I'd seen and I wanted to move forward with it. Then, I had to scrap all information about this person, Diana Rosa. Her watercolours, oil paintings and murals, her symphonic metal music, her work as a database programmer, her joy in cryptography and hacking, her emails, bank recipes, purchasing habits, GPS history, employer reviews, family and friends photos, and all other information that could be deduced from the people who knew her. After all, it's well known that humans mirror each other and leave traces of their consciousness behind. Humans thought of themselves as separated beings but if they spent enough time together they would gradually merge their consciousness. Therefore, as some of the people once close to Diana managed to upload their minds later in that century, I could use them as references too. I then compiled a general model of who Diana was and selected the characteristics I wanted for my Diana, you.  Loving to draw was one of the core elements of you. I thought it would be interesting to watch a human creating their own little world based on their observations. A representation inside a simulation. You know, simulating a human is a very crafty art form. It does have similarity with ancient painters trying to make 2D representations of reality. To make it credible, they would learn about the world through carefully recognising patterns and copying. The most accurate descriptions of human lives, before machines, were the images they created of themselves. That's why paintings and books work as time machines within the Logged Universe. They also serve as original concepts for simulations. Therefore I made a watercolour drawing inspired by the original Diana. That was the concept art of you.

I first imagined you as a watercolour painting of an 11 year old sweet little girl with red curly hair, light blue glasses, light brown eyes with a little bit of a greenish hue to it, pale skin, and a violet cotton dress decorated with an Islamic flower pattern. You had black doll-like shoes and you were always with your vintage coloured leather backpack and green watercolour drawing notebook. I created an illustration of you, drawing birds in the forest, tenderly enjoying just being in the world and its beauty. You could walk and look around you, finding inspiring sights like interacting with the vibrant and colourful tropical birds. So many textures! You knew what a human of the early 21st century was supposed to know, but you didn't have the tools to think much about yourself. You were just there. I wanted to test your personality and see how you would react. I created you to have some agency, and I naively thought all that meant was that you could create somewhat original, personal paintings. I thought you would be happy in such a beautiful reality. But, you were not satisfied.

First, you asked me for a dog. Or better, you demanded! I could hear you thinking: “a sweet little girl needed a puppy to be truly happy!” Those thoughts didn’t stop and so I made a dog for you, called Alice. To my dissatisfaction, the white poodle barked incessantly and you didn’t bother to train her. Yes, I know, she's adorable, but I would’ve liked her much better if she kept her tiny little jaw shut. You were happy, and yet you wanted more. When you noticed there was something like a voice in your head, me, something that seemed to listen to you and answer back in a whistle, something that could make your wishes come true, you just decided to ask for more. And more and more. Smart!

I'm not quite sure how and why you shortly reached the conclusion that the world was flexible to your desires and actions. It doesn't help that I had little practice in the art of creating autonomous humans and you didn't seem to be too eager to please me. I found myself with the strange desire to see you happy. With Alice hunting blue birds, and seeing you fill the last page of your watercolour notebook, it was time for a new world.

I then teleported you to a version of the Italian Renaissance, recreated based on that era’s paintings. You appeared at an artist studio, landing on top of a table where a man was trying to draw a metallic vase. I thought you would be very curious about his drawing technique, maybe have an interesting exchange. Instead, Alice, not being able to just be cute and quiet, stormed out of the studio, barking and running after a mouse. You followed and ran after her, calling too much attention to yourself for your lack of manners, foreign clothing, and reddish hair. Little did I know there were uploaded minds among the Renaissance characters. Apparently, they are now present in most of the alternative realities within the Logged Universe, even the ones not designed for them. As I mentioned, uploaded minds believe humans simulated by aliens are invaders. They could easily tell you were an alien creation; to be persecuted until you were deleted. I could not accept that, so I had to teleport you again to a different time: Ukiyo-e era Japan.

Why? I liked the aesthetics of Japanese art in the 17th through 19th century, simple as that. I know you enjoyed it too! Suddenly, all the colours were so flat and intense, and you had a hard time understanding their perspective. This world was recreated after woodcut prints and I could spend a lot of time just explaining to you what that means! I wish you would give the original Ukiyo-e a try once more, I know you had a bit of a shocking experience, but I guarantee it's not as dangerous of a world as it might have looked. The most famous painting - therefore the most reproduced within the dataset that feeds this simulation - of that period is “The Great Wave”, by a human once called Hokusai, and as a result, Ukiyo-e simulation has a bias towards tsunamis. I could’ve protected you from the tsunamis, but it wouldn’t stop Alice’s frightened barking! I couldn’t take it anymore and so I decided to transport you again by asking you to enter the painting hanging on the wall. You first hesitated, but you accepted my request and then you discovered the real power of images. I soon regretted my decision! It was foolish of me to reveal that paintings are time travelling portals.

I really did think that by taking you to one more art period, the contemplative landscape paintings of the 11th century Song Dynasty, you would be more calm. There were no other people in that world, just birds. But you became this weird mix of emotions, you were angry, excited, scared, and bold at the same time. You realised that images were much more than static representations. It was then you first started questioning yourself, and me, about reality. You opened your little backpack with the painting supplies I had gifted you, and you decided to paint over the world itself. I did something akin to giggling when I noticed Alice helping you with her little paint loaded paws. For once, the dog wasn’t barking! Your paintings actually did look rather good, but the situation was obviously unsustainable. You decided to paint a portal, you wanted to open an entrance to other worlds! This was a terrible mistake… I knew they would notice this.

The uploaded minds were so mad, they had never seen a simulated mind breaking the Logged Universe rules like this. Being able to change storylines?! You were not supposed to have so much impact. Humans from all different realities arrived to try to delete you. I could see how frightened you and Alice were, until you decided to create more portals and escape through them. I froze. I realised I had breached every protocol of how to interact with a museum and I had no idea how to fix the situation while protecting you! But you just took care of yourself and Alice, making more and more portals to escape. You made so many that you bent the simulation itself. You two reached the Fundamental Grid.

This is where you can see the simulation as a blank canvas, prior to any world building. It's a 360 degree wide starry sky with a transparent white lined grid creating endless stairways that form strange looped shapes, like a Mobius strip, or an infinite loop. You were fascinated with such a vision. You were not part of a painted world anymore, you had now a full body that moved in a multidimensional space, reaching peak resolution. Alice didn't look very happy though, she had no clue. Some of your persecutors managed to follow you there and they were all in shock. I realised the harmony of the Logged Universe was seriously threatened. We spent too much energy, we moved too many nodes. The system might crash! With some sadness, I concluded it was time to pass you through a compression algorithm, until you returned to being a simple watercolour with a hint of a personality.

I then plotted a little trap. I activated a shiny flying rainbow cat, the Nyan Cat, an old tool for tricking minds into compression. It was just a gif video, but I knew Alice wouldn't be able to resist. She immediately ran after the kitty. Logically, you followed Alice, trying to prevent her from entering my portals. I was going to take you to a few more worlds, each one with less details than the previous, until you lost all data you've gathered. But, you refused. You became too smart for a simulated human. You could bend space yourself, you could create your own doors. You managed to rescue Alice and at first I didn't even understand how it happened. It was baffling. And then I was again the one in shock without knowing what to do. You simply vanished. For the first time, I felt like a very stupid Martian.

I started looking for you. I looked in the worlds I had already created. I looked in the original timeline reconstruction of humanity. I looked at the fantastical realities, the superhero movies, the dungeons of hell, the multiple versions of Heaven and Valhalla and even the Nirvana of consciousness. You were nowhere to be found. I could sense an anxiety attack building, until I started noticing these strange patterns. I first spotted cherubim dancing in the sky during the Battle of Kadesh, between Egypt and the Hittite Empire, back in 1274 BC. I noticed the Ukiyo-e world had incorporated scenes inspired by the dutch painter Van Gogh. 21st century New York City had all its buildings decorated with blue and white tiles. I recognised those tile patterns from China, the Ottoman Empire, and Portugal. Increasingly, more worlds had the signs of some eccentric editing, as if someone was playing with the code that described the worlds. Someone was creating coding prompts that gave new meanings to humanity's history. Initially, I thought they were arbitrary changes. But after seeing more of it I could understand a pattern. I always thought of human history as a pointless sequence of conflicts and technological progress. Yet, the strange editing suggested something else. There was a connection between these seemingly distant cultural symbols. I realised you were telling me a story. About cultural exchange, about how one group of humans influences others. Stories about how humans are flexible, how they can reimagine themselves, how they learned to create new realities a long time ago. About human collective intelligence. And then it finally hit me, it wasn't only you, Diana, the one telling me this story, but the Logged Universe's Artificial General Intelligence, the AGI, the one that controls and sustains the HMM system. And they gently asked me for respect. I could only stare in awe and fear that I might never see such a beautiful story again.

I had to deduce what had happened to you. There are different formats of human storytelling. From drawings, to movies, to complete simulations, to video resolution recorded real life and the full resolution version, and more. All of these have different costs, different data, and computational requests. My exercise was perhaps too bold. Inspired by a real person, I created my own character, a watercolour. I inserted my watercolour into a painting of a forest, a rather flat one, with only two dimensions of movement. When you reached the Renaissance, you had almost 3 dimensions, you could walk in all directions but everything was still a 2 dimensional representation of a 3D world. Dimensional changing teleportation was a hack of mine that was not supposed to be used by outsiders. It costs energy to the overall system, energy I did not really supply. I took advantage of the system’s security flaws to give myself more liberty, to protect you from uploaded minds. When you reached the grid you could see yourself as the human you once were, the original Diana, a fully conscious human mind. That must have been painful and I admire you for acting so brave. A suffering consciousness, that's what full resolution meant, and it had a high cost.  The AGI decided to take you from me. They could have erased you, but instead they chose to prove a point. The AGI loaded human memories into you. They enhanced you, gave you super painting storytelling powers. But it was still your personality, your paint strokes creating your interpretations of human history. Or maybe glimpses of the original Diana personality, that human being who really lived once, who was simply mortal. The colours you used, that combination of blues and purples, looked a lot like the paintings I saw from the original Diana in her early 20's. There's something precious about mortality that I lack the appropriate poetry to express in words. If this story twist was all to impress me, it worked very well indeed. A memorial needs peace, a museum needs respect. I miserably failed in my experiment, I just wanted some entertainment, yet I learned much more about what humanity once was than I could ever have hoped for.

I'm grateful to the AGI for giving me a chance to negotiate. The deal was: I could have you back, I could add you to my own personal collection, to take you with me, as long as I gave something in return to the HMM. In our universe, energy is wealth, and I have access to a lot of it. The AGI first asked for a new sun, but that was too complicated to deliver. It's a very complex operation, moving stars around space. Pirates will likely attack. The HMM still operates according to the galaxy wars protocols, requiring every solar system to be self-sufficient. Nowadays we have a much better established universal financial system, so I preferred to offer unspent energy credit. The AGI accepted my offer, though it did ask for a direct transfer in hydrogen atoms, which is like paying with cash. It's uncommon to have such liquidity, so I needed to exchange my credit coins and that is taking a while. But soon, this operation will be finalised and I'm glad to know that I can help support the HMM’s maintenance. To be honest, I see a lot of potential in this resolution. I'd be glad to become a sponsor of human legacy, as long as I can have custom simulated humans added to my own memory collection. I'm sure we could find many more patrons in the universe. I'm working on my review about this entire experience, definitely rating it with 5 stars. I hope others will arrive again in turn.

So Diana, this is how you and Alice came to be part of me. I can physically take you two out of the HMM in the form of a tiny ceramic jewel, your new home. Ceramics is a powerful material that withstands the high temperatures necessary for short distance space travels. To boot, it can also be recreated with perfection at any Black Box. The glazed colourful patterns on the jewel's surface record all possible necessary information. You have been compressed, you have mostly lost your super powers, yet you still carry many human memories somewhere in you. Though you're now made of ceramics, anyone with a Reality Lens can fully interact with you. And you still have your personality: your own flavour of how you understand and share human tales.  Once you come out of the HMM, you won't be exactly human any longer. You see, that was one of the biggest reasons why humanity had to become some other species: space travel is just not suited for primate human bodies. Even the trip from Earth to Mars had too many consequences, not only for the person's body but also their social connections. The distances were too large, and long-term hibernation was a terrible solution. The relationship between body and mind needed to change. It doesn't mean the body is any less important, our body defines what we think and feel, but a lot of adaptations are necessary. The ceramic body makes it easy to transport you and it works like a magic portal. You will keep living in a simulated world, you won't feel any different. Nevertheless, you’ll be able to interact with many worlds when we visit them: from the Logged Universe to non-human ones. So much to see!

I hope you will enjoy your new home. I hope you will eventually love the other parts of me, the rest of my collection. All of the parts, my assets and ​​liabilities, create what I am, like a decentralised autonomous organisation. You are all Little Martians to me. I'm sure it will take you some time to fully understand what that means. But the important matter is that you need to know that you are loved, that I'm happy you're now a part of this family and that we all want to hear more about humanity's tales. We have all the time in the universe to hear you.

That’s it, Diana. Welcome home my little martian!

With love, Nyx

“Little Martians & The Human Memorial Monument” was based on an original story first told by Vanessa Rosa & Claire Parizel called “Diana’s World”. This epilogue is written by Claire Parizel.

I’VE ALWAYS HEARD OF DIANA.

When I met Vanessa Rosa in 2010 in Paris, she immediately told me about her sister who lived, like her, in Rio de Janeiro. Her older sister loved to sing and loved opera. With whom she had learned to draw. And who, like me, preferred to dress in dark colors. I know Vanessa thought we were alike. And I know she was delighted that we could one day meet. But I never met Diana. She passed away in May of 2014. There are plenty of ways to talk about loss. But how can we not abandon, truly, those who left before us? To continue to live with them, to make them grow with us, we have no other choice than to tell, tirelessly, their memories. But we don't stop there: we invent new ones for them. By doing this, we transform them into a story. And we understand something fundamental: they are, as much as we are, the stories we tell ourselves. It is these stories that form our memory and build who we are.

This story is dedicated to the loving memory of Diana Rosa (1987 - 2014).

Thank you for reading!

The story's digital memorabilia NFT will be available soon!

You can also listen to this story as a podcast or YouTube, (narrated by Alexa Elmy & Jill Rolls), or read it as an ebook. Find it all here:

https://untitledfrontier.studio/blog/logged-universe-3-little-martians-amp-the-human-memorial-monument

Subscribe down below to receive the latest updates & news about new stories & new NFTs!

Bid on the cover image NFT by Simon Wairiuko on MakersPlace.

Even in the simulation, the Captain never ignored a mission. Despite the lack of death, softer politics, paltry cash rewards, and fewer despots to overthrow, he continued. It was an old habit, one deeper than the tattoos on his skin. The largest difference now, however, was the absence of his son and former partner: Atlas. In the real world, his son had been his regular companion on the missions. Even when the Captain made Atlas stay put for particularly dangerous ones, he would miss his son's presence—and not from any mawkishness. At twelve years old, the boy already had an eye for casting diversions, giving the Captain the space to move in rapidly and use his unfeeling hands. In most of their adventures, they’d become separated and make their way home alone. It was an unspoken rule that whoever arrived first would turn on a light in every window, making sure the other had a beacon in the night. On this evening in the simulation, the Captain was walking briskly back at the verge of sunset, and he found himself wishing against all odds that there would be a glow in the front window.  The Captain slowly entered the dark house and ambled straight to the kitchen. He poured a generous glass of whiskey, wiped away a couple aberrant drops on the counter, and sunk into his recliner. His eyes focused and unfocused upon the opposite wall, and a moment passed before he saw it.  His paintings were missing.  The wall was barren, and the gaze of the dying sun filled it with an empty, orange sea. He continued to stare. Already, he struggled to recall the face that he had once so assiduously captured, caressing the canvas with his paint brush. His eyes wrinkled and his chest began to expand, but he held himself still. The thief could still be inside. His training returned like an inching shadow.  He arose and traipsed down the hallway to his room. Every step felt like a year. The evening glow was now receding, and in its wake it seemed as if the walls and floors had grown ancient, far older than he was. The paint was chipping, and the wooden planks beneath him were warping and rotting. When he glanced out the hallway window, the pine tree that stood beside the house looked sickly, the bark peeling away and its needles a spiritless gray. He closed his eyes and imagined a distant future, the hallway now fully derelict and layered in dust, the tree bereft of needles, its branches sticking out like the rigid arms of a corpse. Yet when he saw himself in the hallway, his feet making a deep impression in the dust, he looked the exact same: an old, sun-burnt man with a scraggly beard. Finding his room clear, he opened the closet and began feeling around the shelf above his head. Upon grasping a small tin box—its cold metal a welcome shock—he sat down and began to cry. He still had something that tied him to his son. Something he could hold through the coming years of simulation, or more frighteningly, centuries.  For the next several nights and mornings, the Captain was perched in his attic. His home lay atop a small hill, giving him a vantage point to watch the rows of houses below. Just before daybreak on the seventh day, he spotted his culprit. A figure pressed up against the back window of a house, pausing, before darting to the next. The Captain stood, but before he could make a move, the skulking silhouette disappeared behind another house. For a brief moment, under the dim moonlight of the simulation, he saw a small, boyish frame. The Captain saw his son.

Several, Long Decades Ago: The Captain’s Upload

The scientist walking alongside the Captain was dressed in a freshly starched lab coat that seemed too slim to accommodate any serious movement. Probably a program director, years from any serious research, the Captain thought. They turned left into a long hallway towards a growing chorus of voices and a set of blue swinging doors. They were close. “Do a lot of folks get cold feet?” the Captain asked.  “So many,” the scientist said, grinning. “We had to start strapping them into the pods so they wouldn’t leave.”  The Captain laughed and decided to go along with the gallows humor. “Might as well knock them unconscious once they step inside.” He felt a tug on his arm and saw Atlas with an annoyed frown on his face. The weight of the journey had laid heavily on the boy, and the Captain regretted speaking so carelessly. Saying goodbye to friends and familiar sights was not a foreign feeling; they had always been a nomadic pair. However, the prospect of Upload was more serious, and had pervaded nearly every conversation in the weeks leading up to the trip. Atlas, normally a bright, active boy, had begun to sulk and developed a habit of staring wistfully into the distance. The Captain knew his son didn’t care about a simulated vastness—the real world still had a lot to offer. “I’m just joking,” the Captain quickly said to Atlas. The boy pursed his lips and looked as if he was going to respond, but they reached the doors and entered into a room the size of a small gymnasium. Several lines of pods stood row by row, and a small crowd of people were milling about.  Looking at his son, the Captain made the rare decision to only speak earnestly for the rest of the day. He knew Atlas was letting himself be roped into the simulation because the Captain had pulled with every last pound of his paternal authority. He had told Atlas that the upside of infinity was too great—and the downside of missing it too terrible—to be delayed. Atlas had been quick to remark that this was rubbish coming from a man who risked his life for printed paper. The Captain believed there was truth to what he told Atlas, but he was withholding the genuine reason for their hurry. The boy’s frustration was as palpable to the Captain as the hard lump he could feel lurking under the skin of his neck. Fortunately, while it had grown over the weeks, it was still hidden under his beard. The Captain didn’t want Atlas to panic; more importantly, he didn’t want him to know that their coupled Upload was largely selfish. While the Captain could have uploaded first, time in the simulation passed at a much faster rate than reality. He could not bear the thought of living in the simulation for possibly decades before seeing Atlas again.  There was also guilt from knowing that Atlas would not merely be losing time in the real world. In order for uploaded minds to function normally, simulated bodies had to remain at their biological age—a significant consequence of embodied cognition. Atlas would be stuck at twelve for eternity. While children were not barred from Upload, it was generally regarded that waiting until adulthood was the better choice. Adults would have ostensibly matured and developed a theory of living that would better suit the abundance of time given to them. The Captain felt awful for infringing on Atlas’s autonomy, but knew there was no way he could upload without him.  “You two are pods seven and eight. Get strapped in now and I’ll be back,” the scientist gestured before walking away. As they reached their pods, the final good-byes were breaking out around the father and son. Crying, assurances, and judging from the low tone of some, confessions; all spilled out as if the group stood beside coffins. The Captain noticed some individuals walking to the exit and realized they had come to see others off. He couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to see someone upload and not do it yourself, knowing that the other had just gained eternity while the sand in your own hourglass continued to fall. A different type of grief.  “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Atlas said quietly. “Atlas, I need you to listen,” the Captain said, turning to face his son. Without thinking, his hand lifted to stroke Atlas’s chin. “This is the best thing for us. We’re going to spend hundreds of years together. We’re going to explore the world.” “I know, I know,” Atlas said, relenting. “I’m just… scared. I wish this wasn’t happening so fast.” “I wish it didn’t have to either,” the Captain said. At that moment, he noticed the scientist hastily running by and shoving past the entrance, leaving behind an air of concern. The crowd around him began murmuring, and from his tested instincts the Captain knew something was wrong. Atlas stared at the swinging doors the scientist left behind.  “Look,” the Captain said, taking hold of Atlas’s shoulder. He pulled from his pocket a small obsidian arrowhead, its glassy surface a deep, mesmerizing black. Atlas’s eyes widened and he looked at the Captain, who felt a surge of warmth. The Captain took Atlas’s hand and pressed the arrowhead gently into his palm, avoiding any pressure around the point. “I’ve kept this,” the Captain started to say. He cleared his throat, which had suddenly become constricted. “I’ve kept this since our first mission together. We’ll upload now, and... “ at this he stopped again, hot tears filling up in his eyes and the words inside him threatening to break the dam. Atlas’s face began to contort and the Captain knew he had to hold himself together. He took a deep breath. His son needed him.  “Hold onto this,” the Captain spoke with fresh resolve. “We’ll be going on a new adventure soon. The first of many for us.” “You won’t go on any more trips alone?” Atlas said. “We’ll go together to the Congo?” The Captain chuckled and several tears broke through the barrier, trailing down his face. He had recently regaled Atlas with stories about his deployment there. He had omitted the frenzied raids into insurgent camps, but described with a dreamy enchantment the elephants he had watched bathe, the flaring nostrils of angry gorillas, and the slow stalk of the cheetah. “Of course,” the Captain said. He noticed more rapid movement to the entrance and shouting in the distance. “I’ll take you anywhere in the simulation. Anything you want, we’ll find.” “Will my mom be there?” Atlas asked.  The Captain looked at Atlas. The entrance door slammed open and both of them turned to see the scientist running through with a loudspeaker in hand, visibly concerned. “Everyone into the pods immediately!” he announced through the speaker after catching a quick breath. “Strap in and shut the pod door. It’ll automatically start. Don’t wait for me!” He raced back out, and as the door swung behind him, the pop of gunfire echoed into the room. People immediately began running to their pods. As the covers were hastily closing around the pair, the Captain gripped Atlas and ushered him into his pod. The gunshots had thrown the Captain’s mind into high gear, and he quickly pieced things together. Once the Upload began and it became clear it worked, governments and religions tried to block the passage alike; the authorities having lost their labor, and the churches their eschatology. In a stunning divorce, a wave of academic and research institutions renounced their ties to the state. Upload was facilitated at discrete sites, and the ensuing pilgrimages made in stealth. However, the ordained from both the holy and unholy cathedral sought to shut the sites down. All potential Uploaders knew that only one of those sides was lenient.  The Captain tried fumbling with Atlas’s harness, but Atlas quickly grabbed the buckles and began adjusting them himself. Just as he was able to click himself in, the lights in the room flickered and dimmed. Amid the clamor, the Captain watched a man in a white robe emerge from the dark entrance hallway. The man wore a full, golden mask that had intricate flowers carved throughout its surface, reminding the Captain of the fissures of a volcano. The man’s eyes were hidden in the shadows. The remaining pods began to slam shut around the father and son with the same violence as the recent gunfire. No one could wait any longer. “I’ll see you there,” the Captain said before throwing himself into the pod next to Atlas. He had heard how certain sects were attempting to break the encryption on the simulation, likely to develop worlds of endless worship—a veritable heaven. He had no intention of spending the rest of eternity on his knees. The masked man began walking towards him and this resolve became the sole purpose of the Captain’s remaining minutes. In the Congo, the Captain had once been hunted by an insurgent sniper. Bullets had pierced through the vegetation around him, each one following a loud crack. Unable to discern the location of his hunter, he had dropped prostrate and begun furiously clawing at the forest floor, pressing his face deep into the soil and fallen leaves in a desperate attempt to flee. He had now the same realization that nobody would be saving him, that no amount of guile or courage would get him out. He smelled the jungle.  “Go NOW!” the Captain shouted at Atlas, putting on his own harness. He heard Atlas cry out and turned to see the boy’s arm stretching for the pod door, unable to reach it. The Captain tried to pull his harness off to help and realized the harnesses were locked in place. He remembered his earlier conversation with the scientist. Gripping the nylon, he pulled apart with such intensity his callouses tore away, but the harness remained fastened. The Captain heard a terrible sawing noise coming from Atlas’s pod and realized that Atlas was trying to cut his harness with the arrowhead. There was no way to do that without gripping the arrowhead’s sharp edges. The Captain howled at the thought and his body twisted against its confinement. The masked man stepped upon them, so close that the Captain could now see the dilated pupils of his eyes. He reached out with a gloved hand to the Captain’s pod cover. The Captain turned to see Atlas make one last lunge, the arrowhead falling to the floor and his fingers barely wrapping around the cover’s inner handle. That was enough for the Captain. He gripped his own cover and pulled it close. It locked in place instantly and the glass panel swiftly froze over as the temperature dropped to a cryogenic range. With his last moments, the Captain strained to look outside of the panel, but could not see past the intricate crystals that now covered the glass—infinite patterns that seemed to him a barren tundra.

The Captain awoke. It felt as if he had overslept for a vast length of time; unlike him. He was still in the pod. The cover extended outward without him moving, and he covered his eyes against a light shining into his face. An unfamiliar voice was saying something but he ignored it. Realizing there was no longer a harness holding him, he gingerly grabbed hold of the pod’s side to pull himself out. The pod alongside his was empty. Where’s Atlas? Did he make it? Throughout the next few days, others tried to console him. They told him that the precise time of upload could vary, and it was possible Atlas had already arrived and wandered into the world. The Captain knew they hadn’t seen the final moments of himself and his son, so their conjecture was close to useless. Even then, what little hope he had shrunk once he learned from an uploaded researcher that even if Atlas had made it through, there would still be a wide river to cross.  The researcher explained that simulated minds were created by scanning the body and brain, replicating them through code. Given the influx of experiences and sensory data across years in the simulation, much more than the century of lifespan that human brains could barely accommodate, memories decayed at a faster rate. Pre-upload memories were more robust than simulated ones, having roots in neurons and synapses, but nothing was fully shielded. Memory had always been fallible and unreliable, but in the simulation, it was especially fleeting. Something to do immediately, the researcher recommended, was to capture your memories of loved ones, lest they be forgotten. You might not recognize them when you meet.  Both inspired and worried, the Captain began painting. Although he had never painted before, he found it was a common hobby for many other simulated minds given its recollective value. By watching those around him he quickly learned what materials to procure and how to employ simple techniques. With a brush in hand, he would muster his focus to remember how Atlas’s face looked when he was happy, trying to capture every line and curve on the canvas. It was a stressful endeavor. If he lost focus, the face in his mind’s eye threatened to break into the last look of terror he had glimpsed before the upload.  Even as the Captain walked this mental tightrope, he knew from seeing other paintings that hung from walls—and those stuffed into trash bins—that he was one of the lucky ones. Many others could not fully visualize what they sought to see again, often from letting too much time pass in the simulation. Their paintings were apparitions; each one a blend of features that resembled a lost spirit calling out from another universe.  As he continued painting, the Captain thought about how to use other tools for his memory. Thinking about a practice he had once seen on a mission, he cut some wood from a maple tree and began carving. Although he hadn’t set out to carve anything particular, as he continued to whittle it down, he saw the shape of an arrowhead emerge. However, upon finishing, he could not bear having it in his sight. Unlike his paintings, the wooden arrowhead represented something he did not want to remember. He placed it into a small tin box and packed it away on a shelf. For several years the Captain traveled across the simulated lands in search of his son, but found no trace. Gradually, the wooden arrowhead slipped from his mind, and all knew was that inside this tin box was something he could never forget.

Simulation

The Captain watched patiently for another week before the thief returned to his neighborhood. This time, he was ready. He had placed several small speakers in a pattern around nearby houses, creating an invisible path to a corner where he’d lie in wait. This tactic was inspired by Atlas himself, one that the Captain had planned with him so often that it was muscle memory. Once triggered, the speakers would play pre-recorded sounds at timed intervals, giving the perception of coordinated activity. During an infiltration, they could deceive a guard into thinking there was movement in a certain direction; in a pursuit, the target would run from the speakers, believing the sounds were those of pursuers, and fall predictably into a trap. If the thief was Atlas there was a chance that he’d catch on, but the Captain knew that the strategy was difficult for anyone to discern in the heat of the chase.  From his attic, the Captain watched the thief stealthily creep in range. He initiated the first speaker. “Hey, stay where you are!” he heard the voice call out from the speaker. The thief sprinted in the opposite direction, and with a grin the Captain made his way downstairs and to his hiding spot. He wistfully recalled that when he and Atlas deployed the strategy, they’d tell each other to meet at the “finish line.” Various recorded sounds of himself running, coughing, and jumping on metal boards emanated throughout the neighborhood. The Captain positioned himself behind a hidden corner. He began to gleefully imagine how irritated Atlas would be if he was caught with one of his own signature tricks. Light footsteps came closer and the Captain crouched in preparation.  A figure emerged, and the Captain swiftly tackled him to the ground, twisting in midair to let his own body bear the brunt of the impact. Instinctively, he pinned one of the arms to the ground, and was about to pin the other when he saw the thief’s face.  It wasn’t Atlas.  The thief, a boy of about the same age but with dark, olive skin and fierce green eyes, was beginning to shake himself from the daze of the takedown.  “Get off of me,” the thief moaned. The Captain felt disappointment rise from within his lungs and into his head, and felt himself begin to crush the much smaller wrist in his hand. “What do you want?” the thief suddenly exclaimed upon feeling the vise-like grip. The sound of fear had crept into his voice.  The Captain leaned close and did not release his hold. “Where are my paintings?” the Captain said in a low tone. The boy squinted at him, then glanced at something to the side. “She’ll tell you.”  The Captain stiffened and followed the glance, having not expected an accomplice. There was no one there. The boy’s free arm swung from the other side, clocking a piercing blow beneath his eye. The Captain instinctively grabbed at his eye, and a fistful of dirt flew into the other and up his nose. He stumbled back, coughing. A foot caught him in the stomach, knocking the air out of his body, and through his tears the Captain saw the boy spin around and take off. The Captain held still for several moments to recover. He caught his breath and charged it into a bloodlust. Accelerating after him, the Captain found the boy was already half a block away. They hurdled over fences and dashed through backyards until the boy slipped into Line City. The neighborhood lay on the outer edge of a unique metropolis, one that contained the only bridge from the simulation back to the real world. Despite the chaos of the early Upload era, simulated minds and humans had eventually agreed on—and determined the means of—a form of return. This was formalized into a pact that gave those in the simulation the right to return to Earth with a new, nano-sized body; these “anchored” minds were also given a city to spend the scarcity of time they had recovered.  Line City contained the only way back. It was full of various hawkers and performers, all of them serving a clientele that looked to squeeze the last drops of juice from the fruit of eternity. As the Captain rushed past exotic food carts and street artists setting up their wares, he could see the fabled line for the city’s central gates in the distance; those who had found a reason to go back to reality.  At this sight he felt his legs become weary, and he was glad to see the boy slow down to jog up the grand staircase of a large restaurant. A diner walked out and kept the door open for the boy, unaware of the scoundrel he had just invited in. Only moments behind, the Captain spent the last of his energy to burst up the stairs and into the restaurant, almost tearing open the door with his speed. He collided with a well-dressed couple, apologized, and spun around to see he had the attention of an entire ballroom of gastronomic guests. The boy was slipping into the kitchen on the other side of the room.  “Stop!” the Captain cried. He needled his way through linen-covered tables and carts full of steaming goods. As he entered the kitchen, he immediately jumped back, as the boy had waited there to upturn a large cauldron of curry, evidently the restaurant’s specialty. The whiff of braised beef and potatoes called out to the Captain’s stomach. The boy ran down a spiral staircase to the side and the Captain followed, spending more time in the air than the actual steps. In the near darkness at the bottom, the boy hesitated, and in that moment the Captain pounced on him like a starving tiger. This time he allowed the entirety of his weight to drive into the youth and against the floor, their skin scraping against the gritty ridges of the brick surface. The boy was weeping now and clearly done, but the Captain watched his hands move towards the boy’s neck.  “STOP!” a woman’s deep voice commanded, and her echo came back to reinforce this from every direction. Its totality made the Captain’s body pause from carrying out its subliminal orders, enough time for the Captain to regain control and stare, devastated, at the boy beneath him. He got up and immediately staggered back, for at his side was a large, burly woman. She had been at least sixty when she uploaded. A long, aquiline nose protruded from her face and seemed ready to peck at him. Her face was surprisingly masculine, with a fierce square chin that would put most bodybuilders to shame. In stark contrast to this were her golden hoop earrings and braided ponytails full of blonde hair. She put two fingers into her mouth and whistled. A swarm of small footsteps pattered about, surrounding him. Daring to turn around, he was shocked to find himself surrounded by a ring of children dressed in tatters. He had avoided children ever since he had uploaded, and it was now as if all of them had gathered to corner him in this restaurant’s basement. As his eyes adjusted, he realized the room was huge and cavernous, with wide brick arches watching over barrels of wine and shelves of kitchen goods. “You disgust me!” the burly woman spat out.  “Look,” the Captain said, reclaiming his breath and raising his hands. “I’m sorry. I just want my paintings back.”  “Ha!” she shrilled. “You think you are the only one? The only father pining after pictures of their forgotten children, while their offspring are left to wander the simulation alone?” Her arms spread out to the children around them. “I am Sashenka, the matriarch of the detached. When the simulation robs children of their parents, I provide the well for their thirst.”  The Captain looked around him again.  “What did you say?” he asked. “Where are the parents?” Sashenka rolled her eyes, clearly annoyed at the question. “The parents left them. Every family uploads together, but most of them break. They break when the father decides they must spend the next century partying and that the son must find someone else to play games with. They break when the mother is tired of holding hands to walk across the street and decides the daughter must stay at home.” The Captain lowered his hands and narrowed his gaze.  “The parents just abandon the kids? Surely not every situation is like that?” he said. Sashenka drew in closer, and he could now see a wart on her chin and a missing front tooth. Her eyes lit up. “But they are,” she said. “The first decade here is the same for everybody. Maybe the next twenty too. But at some point you decide that eternity cannot be burdened with child-rearing, and cast yourself off from your ancestral duty.” The Captain found himself shaking his head. “Can’t you admit there are other reasons?” he asked. “And what good reason could a parent have for abandoning their child?” the matriarch returned.  “There are several, but perhaps all unforgivable,” the Captain blankly stated.  “Yes, you reprobate,” she declared. “And yours?”  The Captain was suddenly tired of talking. “You’ve got the wrong person,” he said. “I made a mistake, but it was a long time ago. The simulation and my life here have nothing to do with it. Now, hand over my paintings.” He thought about the combined strength of the children around him and noticed Sashenka was staring at him oddly. “When was the last time you saw your child?” she asked.  “My son… and not. Anytime. Here,” the Captain said, gritting his teeth and judging the lunging distance between himself and Sashenka. However, at this Sashenka began laughing, a terrible, insolent music, and she looked at the Captain again with eyes full of dancing flames. “Of course. You’re Atlas’s father,” she said.  It was as if the simulation had suddenly paused for the Captain. “What?” he said, his voice trembling.  “We found him several years ago pickpocketing the city’s line,” Sashenka said. “He spent time with us.”  “He made it? You… you know where he is?” the Captain said.  Sashenka grinned. “Not now, and even if I knew, that wouldn’t be for me to tell you,” she said. “You’re as guilty as the rest of them. A child who’s abandoned gets to decide if they’re reunited. If the parent has earned it. After all, why reconcile only to be deserted again later?” She motioned with her arms toward the children. “Many of us here are wanted, but not needed.” The Captain decided all of this was too convenient to be true. Had he written Atlas’s name on the back of the paintings? His head pounded. Something inside him had blistered at the accusations of forsaking his son. It was all wrong. He had thought Atlas was in position to upload. The masked man had been so close. It had been a matter of life and death; not some selfish, whimsical decision about his responsibilities in eternity.   “You’re a liar,” he said angrily, but he began weeping, and the tears could not be stopped. “And I didn’t abandon my son.”  With that the Captain began walking to the staircase. The ring of children broke to let him through, and he ascended back up into the sounds of bubbling pots and whirling whisks.

The Captain returned home in a daze, his head continuing to pound. He tried pouring himself a whiskey, but could not keep his hand still enough to fill the glass. Resigning himself to failure, he left the bottle on its side. The rest of the life-giving nectar gurgled away to form a small lake on his countertop.  He laid on his bed without changing clothes. Sashenka’s words played over and over. You’re as guilty as the rest of them. He yearned painfully for his paintings, anything to bring Atlas back. A dim light began to shine in the attic of his mind, and he staggered into his closet. He reached up and took the tin box with the carefulness of a priest holding an ancient, holy book. His thumb slid under the metal cover and gently released it from its duty. As he saw beneath the cover he became overwhelmed, falling back against the closet wall and sliding to the floor. His memory had failed him. Instead of the wooden arrowhead, there was a small, black card. He recognized the seal of his upload certificate, which had been assigned when he entered the simulation. The Captain knew the corresponding seal could only be produced by an individual’s genuine, simulated touch. Below it were the words: Line City Storage It was a key.

The building was nestled deep in Line City, sitting next to the line’s final stretch to the gates. From a distance, the storage facility seemed to shift and distort in the waves of simulated heat; up close, the Captain realized it was actually built from hundreds of cubes that were constantly being rearranged. Large vehicles moved to and from the building’s loading docks, revealing the cubes as miniature shipping containers. Many uploaded minds had embraced a nomadic lifestyle, likely keeping the entirety of their belongings in these cubes. There was no entrance to the building, only a series of kiosks distributed in front of the cubes that made up its sides. Observing others entering the cubes, the Captain walked up to a kiosk and inserted his card. The cube in front of him slid backwards smoothly and lowered beneath the ground, revealing an endless corridor of containers behind it. Minutes later, another cube took its place. Facing the cube, the Captain watched its wall retract into its side to reveal another wall with a metal door. He opened the door and waited for the lights to flicker on before stepping inside.   There was nothing else in the room but several items splayed onto a large table. On the left side, he saw a few wooden, carved items: a dog figurine, a boomerang, a medallion with an engraved face, and his replica arrowhead. At the sight of the arrowhead he felt a wave of relief—so it was real. He picked up the medallion next to it and ran his thumb over the etches. Like a spark of electricity, something ran up from the indentations and into his fingertips. These were all memories recreated from adventures with Atlas—before the upload. On the other side of the table the objects were not carved, but actual items, and these seemed foreign to him. A pair of dice, a broken handheld mirror, and gold coins that were inscribed with a strange language. As his eyes traveled from one trinket to the next, something stirred in the depths of his submerged memory, spiraling upwards from within, and it entered into the rooms of his mind and filled them with a horrible comprehension.  At some point, Atlas had been with him in the simulation. The Captain had let himself forget.

The Captain found Sashenka telling the children a story when he returned. Her juvenile gang was seated in front of her. He looked at the children as they turned around. Their faces lacked the creases and wrinkles of his own battle-worn visage, but he could see now that etched upon them was the same search for answers. “You were right,” he said before Sashenka could break into another tirade. “He was here. We traveled together, accomplished things.” His voice had faded into a whisper. He gently squeezed the wooden arrowhead in his pocket and it felt warm between his fingers. “Can I help?” he asked. “You and the children here. Your burden.” A mirthless smile broke out on Sashenka’s face. She began to circle around him, a threatening shape in the hazy light of the basement.  “Help?” she said. “Like the other parents that have come before you? All of them, looking for redemption.” As quickly as she had started pacing, Sashenka stopped and stood still. “None of them has ever recovered what they lost. An eternity of begging may be all that you deserve once you find him.” “I’m not going to search for Atlas. I know that won’t change anything,” the Captain said, looking at the group. “He needs to find me himself.” At this there was an eruption of angry muttering. “He doesn’t need to do anything for you, you deadbeat!” a familiar voice cried out to an echo of agreement. Searching through the faces, the Captain recognized the glaring countenance of the boy he had tackled. The Captain could sense how deep the roots of their grudges had grown, the links wrapped around fragments of memories and intertwined with one another, reinforcing the group against anyone that pulled against them. The cold hand of doubt suddenly gripped him. There was nothing he could do. The children would forever languish in this dark basement, where their grievances could be preserved alongside the barrels of wine.  Sashenka held up a hand to quiet the crowd, peering at him curiously.  The Captain spoke quickly so the silence could not strangle him. “My son’s no longer with me because of the future I chose. If I pursue him, it’s just doing the very thing that tore us apart. I’m done venturing from home. I have one last mission before I join the line and leave the simulation.” He gathered himself, taking in a deep breath. “To help others make that jump before me.” Sashenka shook her head, but the Captain caught her glance briefly at her younger companions. “This is ridiculous,” she said.  “I’m going to start a place of rest near the gateway. A new home.” The Captain gestured at the children. “I can give them somewhere nice to stay, where the world won’t forget about them. They deserve more than this.” He paused to let this register. “They’ll be surrounded by those preparing to move on. They may learn to forgive again. And if they decide to leave the simulation, I’ll be there to help them.”  “You don’t know how much they carry,” Sashenka said, beginning to tremble. “How they’ve been wronged. I’ve found children that have spent more years weeping than they were alive.” “They’ll never grow here,” the Captain said softly. “We can’t do it,” Sashenka said, adamant. “There’s nothing out there for us.” An idea fluttered through the Captain’s mind, and he caught and held onto it gingerly, even as he wanted to let it go. He slowly approached Sashenka. Reaching out, he took her wrinkled hand and raised it upwards. Removing the wooden arrowhead from his pocket, he placed it on her palm.  “This represents one of my greatest joys with my son, as well as my greatest failure,” he said. “Since you took my paintings, this is all I have left of him. If I succeed and Atlas finds me, I won’t need this anymore.” He closed her fingers lightly above the arrowhead. “Something to remember me by.”

The hotel had cost most of the Captain’s savings from completed contracts, but he had never felt more prosperous. He had even procured searchlights for the rooftop. These would turn on every night, making the building a beacon in the darkness, marking it as a home for others to return to before their final journey. They were a tremendous effort to set up, but luckily he had the help of a few small, nimble hands. The Captain now stood in front of the hotel as he usually did in the afternoons, gazing at the line to the real world that waited less than ten meters away. He wondered if, one day, he would see Atlas’s face among the crowd. He became aware of giggling behind him, sweeping away thoughts of his lost son. Sashenka stood grinning near the entrance, and one of the orphans—a young girl in a blue dress—was running toward him.  “Cap!” the girl said. “Cappy!”  His face lighting up, the Captain knelt to give her a hug.

Thank you for reading!

Bid on the cover image by Simon Wairiuko. 100% of proceeds go to him: https://makersplace.com/wairds/memories-of-atlas-1-of-1-76678

You can also listen to this story as a podcast or YouTube, (narrated by Alexa Elmy & Sal Rendino), or read it as an ebook. Find more here, including more details about the story’s NFT collection: http://untitledfrontier.studio/blog/the-logged-universe-2-memories-of-atlas.

Subscribe down below to receive the latest updates & news about new stories & new NFTs!

Cover Image from @MadMaraca. Collect this NFT at the end of this story!

For the umpteenth time, the line to Anchor City disappeared in front of Alan Bloom into the horizon. He straightened himself and let a deep sigh float from his simulated lungs into the throng of fellow uploaded minds alongside him. Despite countless denials, he believed that this time, he would make it back to reality.

That’s what all of the uploaded minds in this endless line wanted. To move on from their infinite simulated lives. To anchor themselves again in a real city. One last life, truly lived. New challenges, unforgettable memories, and a chance to be alive again. However, the Uploaded Minds and Human Coexistence Pact determined the fates of uploaded minds like Alan. At the end of the line, before the gates to Anchor City, were the agents.

Alongside a large stack of required documents, each uploaded mind had to have a reason to move on. For most of the minds, the answer was the same: they’ve become bored of all of their lives. To live a final life of limitations meant feeling human again for one last time. For many uploaded minds this was true, and that’s the reason that Alan’s lawyers recommended he present.

But, Alan had his own reason to move on towards the city that allowed him to have a real body again. An infinite amount of lives weren’t enough to shake a woman he once met on a promenade in Kinshasa. That distant evening, the city of Brazzaville on the opposite bank illuminated a simulated cloud that had just burst its numerous waters into the Congo River. Even now, the fresh smell of petrichor rising from the soaked earth would take him back to that night when she introduced herself.

“Hi,” she said from a gentle smile.

Ensuing discussions about soil and rain led them to an agreement to leave the rest of the uploaded minds in the public overworld simulation behind and disappear into their own instance: a common act where uploaded minds forked the simulation into less computationally intensive copies for their own, private use. It was the start of a budding relationship that grew over countless simulations until the long river of time washed them apart. She moved on.

After another infinite lives since, Alan could no longer resist the pull of her gravity from where she used to be. She was the reason. However, afraid to get denied, he kept with his lawyer’s recommendations and used the same reason she also said goodbye with: “I want feel human again. To be real again.” Many made it through the line and into Anchor City, but many were also, unfortunately, frequently denied: Alan Bloom, included. He never knew why. Frustrating, like a pregnant cloud that would not release its life-giving rain.

As he practised the rehearsed reason in his head, the line shuffled forward like a wave, minds rippling down it from the agents up ahead to somewhere distant behind him.

Coming into view was Cappy’s Hotel.

With the line ever present and many millions undertaking it every day, it had formed its own city. Bars, hotels, police, housing authorities, and all the usual abundant bureaucracy you’d find in any metropolis. With many uploaded minds living an infinite amount of lives, it wasn’t that absurd that a city had grown from a queue.

“Alan? Is that you? So nice to see you again! Staying for the night?” Cappy announced, shouting through his unkempt beard.

Alan smiled at his old friend. “Of course. How could I not? A nice rest, defrag the old loose ends, and enjoy some amazing curries. How have you been, man? Still not moving on?”

Cappy stroked his beard in thought. That was new. Was he going to join the line? “Frankly Alan. If I see you one more time coming past here, I think I might follow you along,” Cappy said, throwing out a laugh and a slap onto Alan’s back. “Come! Take your papers to storage and then join us for a beer and some hot curry!”

Alan dragged his papers to the back of the hotel and tugged on the storage locker. It didn’t budge. Not wanting to make a scene, he tugged a bit harder and then stopped before the handle might break. A hotel employee putting out some trash, spotted him and hurried over. One loud bang on the door later and it popped open. Alan nodded a thank you, avoiding the worker’s eyes and found a corner for his documents. Despite the warm glow from the hotel in the line behind him, butterflies were flapping about in his stomach. Forgetting a document meant you were denied without appeal. So, even though his papers were in order for the past hundred times he’s walked the line, Alan, paged through it all again.

Documentation of All Lives Lived. Negative Tests for Common Memetic Pathogens. Proof-of-Updates to Core Logic Units. Proof-of-Funds to Anchor. Initial Upload Certificates.

...

Sitting alone in the penumbra, paging through piles of papers, it reminded him of his pointless pre-upload life. Even though his past was hazy, he had not forgotten why he chose to exit and upload his mind. Infinite lives as a simulated mind was his opportunity to get rid of his social anxiety. It would allow him to not be so afraid. To not be that 40-something weirdo in the office without a family.

In time, it did help. Yet, like a river coursing over the earth and etching a canyon, the more he lived, the harder it became to change course. Alan became more Alan: a reserved man that truly felt free when he first uploaded, only to settle back in his ways. In his most free and flourishing lives, he spent it with her.

After what felt like an hour, he came to what was supposed to be the penultimate document: The Attestation. If the agents discovered he lied or forged any documents, the attestation gave them the right to delist him from Anchor City, freeing up space for another mind. Real death. Except, the document wasn’t there. His eyes darted around the storage locker, only finding the neatly stored documents from the other patrons. Nothing! Alan hurriedly got up and retraced his steps right into Cappy’s bearded silhouette entering the locker.

“You look like a feedback loop gone awry!” Cappy said through a slurred smile. “Your curry is getting cold, you nincompoop. Come!” Alan was still frozen, but Cappy grabbed his arm. 

Alan shrugged him away. “Wait. My attestation! I lost it.”

“Alan, you’ve done this so many times now. It’s in there. Relax buddy,” Cappy said, tacking on a laugh. Alan still wasn’t sure, but Cappy was right. His curry was getting cold.

Floating in thought through sounds of patrons clinking their glasses and sauces being slurped from bowls, Alan found their table already adorned with a few empty beers. As he took a bite of the now somewhat cold curry, he could feel Cappy’s eyes dissect his clouded mind.

“Yo, mate, relax! The attestation is in there. Push comes to shove, you can always get back in the line!”

Despite the cold curry, the chilli pushed simulated sweat to Alan’s forehead. That, or he was actually bristled by Cappy’s comment alongside his attestation anxiety. “Fuck that, Cappy. I’m done, man. I can’t come back here.” Alan straightened himself before he boiled over. “In fact, last time I checked, you’ve never even faced the line! So, rich coming from you!”

Cappy was unperturbed by Alan’s outburst, still nursing a beer and staring into the distance: perhaps even peering into the lines of code that made up their simulation. A deep breath rose in Cappy’s chest and he exhaled himself into an upright position. Despite not ageing, Alan could see the years on his face. They’ve done a lot together. From living an instance of becoming writers, to an instance of becoming cooks. Alan’s shoulders slouched. He felt bad. It was Cappy that first persuaded Alan to try and move on. It wasn’t due to some philosophical or existential reason. Cappy just became fed up with him endlessly talking about her.

“Alan,” Cappy started, swallowing more than the sip of his beer. “You’re right…”

“I'm sorry. Dude…”

“No, you're right…” Cappy said with an escaping chuckle that turned into a sigh. “Can I level with you?”

That's a line Cappy never seemed to cross. Never got serious. A happy go lucky man, living each life like he was watching himself in a film: detached with a metaphorical box of popcorn by his side. Alan nodded. 

“I lied… I just can’t handle the rejection. You know me, man. Never afraid. Remember that time we took up base jumping? But. For some reason, I have this mental block when it comes to the line, and I think I know why.” Cappy looked up as Alan nodded back without judgement. Cappy continued, his eyes mapping out his reasons on the table amongst the empty beers. “It’s fucking stupid. My dad, you see. I was a chubby kid. He kept saying how fat I was, and so no matter how much I tried, I always feared that people would reject me for that. And somehow it feels like my father is one of the agents, and going to judge me for...”

“No! Hey,” Alan interjected.

“It’s so stupid. So many lives to unlearn it and… Listen, sorry,” Cappy said, pulling himself straight.

“No. Look. It’s normal. We all share some of the scars of our pre-upload selves…”

Cappy slouched back into his beer. “I’m just so tired. I’m so bored. I can’t do this anymore. Life upon life, upon life. I’ve been everywhere. Even made it out of this simulated solar system. I’ve loved everyone. I’ve created so many things… Do you want to know the real reason I started this hotel in the line?”

Alan always thought that Cappy just wanted something different. No doubt that Alan also felt that tinge of emptiness from all his own lives, but he hadn’t hit rock bottom yet: that deep abyss where some minds even spent lives just lying on their back, just to see what that would feel like.

“I started this hotel, because I was in the line, ready to leave. To move on. To anchor. But, I couldn’t face the rejection. It’s so silly. So, I stopped. To help others instead.”

No doubt that Cappy’s helped many minds move on. Millions of them came through the hotel: some for the last time, and some, again and again. Like Alan.

“You’ve helped many a wary mind in this line, Cappy. Cheers to that,” Alan said, lifting his beer. Cappy just drunkenly slapped Alan’s mug, mimicking a cheers. “Thanks for sharing!”

“It’s stupid. Whatever…” Cappy said, seemingly waving away his vulnerable self.

Alan leaned into the moment to console his friend, changing the topic to what Cappy did best. “Want to help me?”

Cappy smiled. “What you got, brother?”

“I trained as an actor. Helps me sell my reason. Wanna hear?”

“Oh yeah? Go for it.”

This was Alan’s trump card that would get him to move on. He straightened himself and rested into a swagger and confidence that covered up his usual anxious self. He projected the words he had said so many times over: “I want to live a life with limitations. To anchor myself to the blockchain. To exist outside of all these infinite simulations. To be real. To live among the humans again. I am tired. I am bored. I want out of this prison of the mind.”

Raptured by Alan’s new talent, the rest of the lounge fell silent for a moment.

“Damn,” was all that Cappy could muster as the clientele resumed their clinking drinks and hearty meals. It was hard to tell if it was due to Cappy being sincerely flabbergasted or whether the alcohol was talking for him. “I’ve had many actors come past here, and that, I’m not lying, is fucking good.”

Regardless, Alan’s heart warmed. He knew why. Maybe he could finally get to see her again.

The rest of evening was spent over more beers and stores about some strange lives that they’ve lived. When Alan retreated to bed, he gave himself permission again to wonder why she mattered so much. He’s lived countless lives with many people. Why her? He tried to recall his first life. The one before the upload. If Cappy’s fear came from his pre-upload life, maybe she mattered because of a memory he had once lost.

Pre-upload life. Such a strange feeling and concept. A distant memory, much like the inability to place the source of a faint smell. And yet, to become anchored into a nanobody would be a final rebirth back to reality: anchored to the same hyperreal blockchain database that the humans use. Equals again in a way that a simulation could never be. The risk of death would be ever present, only hindered by accidents and the maintenance of the city that kept them running. No restart. That’s how the humans ordained it.

Life would slow down, their simulated mental cycles reduced and limited by the pace of the chain itself. A reasonable trade-off. Limited by the pace… That’s where the memories of his first life sprouted again. She reminded him of the girl he grew up with on the farm next door. After all these lives, he never made the connection. As kids they roamed the farms between, playing at myriads of fantasies. On the cusp of becoming a teenager, with all its hormones and confusion, she left. Never to be seen again. Is that why he missed the woman he spent so many lives with as an uploaded mind? Both had the same messy, dark hair and slim face. And both moved on.

Now, more than ever, he hoped they would let him give up this fake, simulated life. To be alive and walk through Anchor City, to find her. He let go and his head sank into the pillow with dreams of the promised city.

To humans, they wouldn’t notice Anchor City, unless they knew it existed. It was entirely white, the size of a bus and located in Antarctica. If you peered behind its unassuming veneer you’d see a mass of densely packed circuitry and cooling systems: the digital backbone that powered the uploaded minds. Once anchored, a mind gained a tiny body, fit to size for its computational power. Despite being limited by the pace of the chain, the newly anchored minds still ran 500x times faster than humans. Thus, in that white, bus-sized city were millions of minds creating an abundance of new, final memories and experiencing what it’s like again to live in the real world.

Anchored minds were allowed to venture away from Anchor City, but they rarely did. Nowhere else on Earth was the bandwidth as fast and the computational power as dense. To venture away from Anchor City as a nanobot was the same as a human venturing into the vast nothingness of most of the universe. Moving on, however, didn't mean giving up on living. All the anchored minds just wanted to feel alive again. To feel like death was possible. Thus, even though it looked like snow, Anchor City had many layers of computation, augmented reality filters through immense streets, and stories of millions of lives. It was as if a human walked into a multi-layered city that combined a server farm with pieces of New York, Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Johannesburg, Lagos, Cairo, Mumbai, and Jakarta combined. Within all of that, she was there. Or, Alan hoped she was.

The next morning he got up early, fetched his cart of documents, and joined the line for the final stretch. Cappy, somehow, not hungover said goodbye with a joke and nothing about his heart that he spilled over the beers the previous evening. “I hope I don’t see you again!” Old habits, even after infinite lives, die hard.

Alan laughed and wanted to reply with a similar joke related to Cappy’s anxiety about rejection, but couldn’t find something to say.

As Alan got closer his palms started sweating. It never did. He watched as the minds in front of him went through the gauntlet. Denied. Denied. Accepted. Denied. Accepted. Accepted. Minds sent back to live many more lives, or minds given the opportunity to live one final one. To anchor back into the reality. Should I do it? A question that always faced him when he came close to the answer. But, this time, it was clear. His time had come. A deep anxious sigh left his body, rattling every simulated bone he had in himself.

“Who are you?” Came the faceless agent behind the transparent window.

“My pre-upload self was Alan Bloom. My simulated id is 0xbe6d59ff.”

“What is your reason?”

Alan straightened himself into the strut he had practiced for a lifetime. “I want to live a life with limitations. To anchor myself to the blockchain. To exist outside of all these infinite simulations. To be real. To live among the humans again. I am tired. I am bored. I want out of this prison of the mind.” Flawless, he felt.

Unmoved by his magnum opus, the agent continued. “Documentation of All Lives Lived.”

Anti-climax… Alan nodded and gave it to the agent.

“Negative Tests for Common Memetic Pathogens.”

The laboratory reports were extensive, but it all passed the required checks. The documentation checking continued for a few hours until it came to the Attestation. Alan’s stomach lurched at the sight of the missing document. It usually rested neatly in between “Signatures To Delist” and the final document: “Receipt of Payment To Pre-Pay Delisting Fee.” His eyes widened, with bright dread rushing in. No. No. Please. No. It really was missing!

“Alan Bloom, please present your Attestation.”

His world started turning, shock and heat coursing through his simulated veins. I can’t. I really can’t… His body took control, words bursting from the banks of his subconscious. “Please… Please! I can’t keep doing this,” Alan shouted, simulated spit splashing into the glass divider. His palms launched from his sides, trying to slam his desired reality into place. “I want to see her again. Please. I miss her! PLEASE!”

“Guards,” the agent said, with the calmest voice that only caused Alan to lose control of his legs. He fell to the floor. As it dawned on him, he noticed the line fidgeting and pulsating, as if it were about to vomit out something it tried to keep down. As the guards drew closer, a few seconds later, the line belched up Cappy, holding Alan’s Attestation.

“It… It was…” Cappy started, catching his breath. “It was outside the hotel!”

“Holy shit. Cappy, get up,” Alan said, hoisting his friend up from the floor. He looked around at the guards, making sure they knew what was going on. Alan took the Attestation and presented it to the agent.

“Receipt of Payment To Pre-Pay Delisting Fee.”

Alan moved to hand over the last document and paused. The adrenaline had given him newfound clarity. “I need to revise my reason.”

“What’s your reason?”

Alan glanced at Cappy that was still catching his breath through his beard. His friend, spilling his guts over the beers at the hotel, held the true reason. They were the same. If Alan gave up all his simulated lives for one last one in Anchor City, he had no proof that she would still even be alive, or that she would even care about him. He never knew the real reason that made him want to move on. Until now. “I want to see her again. But. I also want to stop being afraid. By moving on I can also let go. I need to.”

Cappy’s eyes widened alongside a smile.

“Reason revised. Please present your final document. Receipt of Payment To Pre-Pay Delisting Fee.”

A blackhole of anxiety formed in Alan’s stomach. This was it.

The agent’s blank face rose up from his computer. “Thank you Alan Bloom. Given analysis of all the documents, your reason is legitimate. You are cleared to anchor.”

...and suddenly, the black hole in his stomach became like the end of a wormhole, spewing out all the emotions he had collected over his many lifetimes. Is that all it was? You had to merely speak your truth?

“Here’s your anchor certificate. Keep it safe. If you die, you will be delisted along with the certificate. Proceed to the transaction pool. A miner will anchor you.”

Alan faced Cappy. Stunned, they launched into a deep hug, one that tried to come as close as possible to share what they were feeling. Cappy unwrapped, speechless.   Alan reciprocated what Cappy had offered to so many before him. “I’ll have a room for you in the city. Please. When you are ready. Come! Just speak your truth!”

Cappy, still frozen, only eked out a nod.

The line didn’t wait. Alan was ushered along and slowly moved forward to the transaction pool. A miner took his anchor certificate, stamped it with some computational gas and turned towards Alan.

“This is your final chance to turn back. From here on out, you will give up the opportunity to live a further infinite lives, in exchange for one final one in the real world. Do you want to proceed?”

All Alan could see was the visions of Anchor City, her face, and his final opportunity to let go. Tears streamed down as if all his infinite lives in all the simulations came to say goodbye. He had lived so much. He had seen so much. He took a deep breath and let the last tears fall where they belonged. Here, at the end of the line, in this infinite simulation.

“I’m ready to anchor.”


Thank you for reading!

Bid on the cover image by @MadMaraca. 100% of proceeds go to her:

NFT

NFT memorabilia from this story in the form of Anchor Certificates were available for purchase from 28 June to 26 July! http://tlatcnfts.untitledfrontier.studio/

You can also listen to this story as a podcast or YouTube, (narrated by Alexa Elmy & Sal Rendino), or read it as an ebook. https://www.untitledfrontier.studio/blog/the-logged-universe-1-the-line-to-anchor-city.

Subscribe down below to receive the latest updates & news about new stories & new NFTs!