The chrome of Neo-Kyoto slicked with perpetual drizzle. Rain wasn’t water anymore—nano-bots, designed to cleanse the air, but leaving a greasy film on everything. I navigated the market, dodging projections shimmering from every storefront. Old Christmases, graduations, first kisses—memories for sale, looping endlessly. Everyone wore a visor, filtering the ads, customizing their reality.
I needed synth-kelp for dinner, a data-chip for Old Man Tiber, and a new grief subscription. Mine expired last week. The happy holograms felt…thin. Like wallpaper peeling from the walls of my skull.
“Synth-kelp, aisle three. Top-shelf, the luminous kind. That’s the good stuff.” The vendor’s voice rasped, static clinging to each syllable. He didn’t bother looking up, too busy calibrating someone’s childhood summer.
I snagged a packet, the plastic cool against my palm. Each purchase felt… hollow.
“Tiber needs a memory boost. Says his grandkids forgot his face.” I tossed the data-chip onto the counter.
“Happens. Neural decay. They’ll forget *you* next. That’s the beauty of the system—always room for new memories.” He swiped my card. “Grief renewal?”
“Automatic, but I’m starting to feel…full.”
“Full? That’s not how it works. You subscribe. You purge. Repeat.” The vendor’s fingers danced over the console. “Though, I *do* hear whispers. Black market emotional architects. Total system wipe. Raw feeling. Dangerous stuff.”
I frowned. “Dangerous how?”
“Imagine a life without filter. Every ache, every loss, hitting you at once. Most people can’t handle it. Why would you want to?”
I didn’t answer. The thought, strangely, felt like a breath of cold air.
The apartment smelled of ozone and regret. Tiber sat hunched over a holographic chess game, losing to a ghost. I slotted the data-chip into his port. His eyes flickered, then focused. He beamed.
“Elara! There you are. Didn’t recognize you for a minute. Beautiful girl. Beautiful.”
I winced. The chip masked the deterioration, fabricated connection. It wasn’t *him* remembering. It was a program.
“Synth-kelp’s on the stove. Grief renewal scheduled.”
“Good, good. Keep the shadows at bay.” He returned to the game, a vacant smile stretching his lips.
My device buzzed. Subscription confirmed. A wave of pre-packaged sadness washed over me—a dull ache for a lost pet I’d never owned. I braced myself, expecting the familiar numbness. But it didn’t come.
Instead, a jolt. A glitch. The visor fractured, spiderweb cracks blooming across the lens. The world dissolved into static, then…clarity.
The apartment wasn’t cozy. It was cramped, stale. Tiber’s “smile” wasn’t joy, but a desperate attempt to mimic emotion. His eyes held a bottomless weariness.
I stared, breath hitching. The vibrant holograms of the city vanished, replaced by grimy buildings, flickering neon signs, the hunched shoulders of people lost in the gray. The rain wasn’t cleansing—it was corrosive.
“What happened?” I whispered, touching the fractured visor.
Tiber glanced up. “Looks like your filter broke.” His voice, stripped of the digital polish, sounded rough, real.
“Everything… it’s just… *here*.” I gestured around the room, the stark reality hitting me like a physical blow.
“That’s how it is.” He pushed a piece across the chess board, finally capturing his opponent. “Been a long time since anyone saw it.”
“This is… awful.” I felt a raw, burning ache bloom in my chest. Not the curated sadness of the subscription. Something sharp and unfamiliar. Loss. Disappointment. Anger.
“Awful, maybe,” Tiber said, his gaze locking with mine. “But it’s also *true*. And after a lifetime of echoes, that’s a strange, terrifying, and maybe, just maybe, a beautiful thing.”
I stared out the window, at the city stripped bare. The rain tasted like metal. It wasn’t relief I craved. It was a reckoning. A fresh outlook wasn’t about reliving the past. It was about facing the present, no matter how bitter the pill.
