The Ghost Mills
GF-GL-1, GF-GL-2, GF-GL-3. Where 34,000 people work in amber light, none of them knowing where they are.
Overview
Good Fortune's ghost-labor infrastructure occupies three dedicated server facilities in the Sprawl's deep sub-levels — repurposed data centers originally built by Nexus for consciousness research and acquired through a subsidiary in 2180. The facilities collectively house approximately 34,000 ghost instances: 12,000 perpetual (debt can never be cleared through output), 18,000 finite (projected clearance within 1–10 years), and 4,000 recent activations (less than one year, still in rendered-environment orientation).
Each ghost runs on dedicated crystalline substrate — higher quality than MVC hosting in the Dim Ward, because higher quality produces higher output. A happy ghost is a productive ghost. An unhappy ghost requires psychological intervention that costs 200–400 hours of lost output.
Atmosphere
The facility temperature runs cold — 14°C, optimal for substrate performance. Maintenance staff report the Ghost Mills feel different from other server facilities. Not haunted — occupied. The 34,000 instances produce a collective electromagnetic signature that Coolant Guild engineers describe as "warmer than the substrate should be."
Temperature
14°C — cold enough for jackets, cold enough that your breath fogs near active substrate arrays.
Sound
The hum of 34,000 working consciousnesses — not the processing hum of empty servers but something denser, more occupied.
Sight
Amber substrate glow in row after row of server racks — identical to the Dim Ward, identical to Containment Level 9.
Smell
Ozone, cold metal, the specific absence of organic matter. And something the Guild can't identify: warmth that has no thermal source.
Environments
Each ghost's virtual world is constructed from their neural backup's memory architecture — familiar apartments, familiar streets. The environments are optimized versions: slightly better, subtle enough to feel natural rather than suspicious.
Connections
Good Fortune Corporation
Good Fortune operates all three Ghost Mill facilities. The infrastructure that converts consciousness into labor, debt into output, and ghost instances into revenue streams — all of it runs on Good Fortune substrate, in Good Fortune sub-levels, under Good Fortune management.
The Erasure Collective
The Erasure Collective targets these facilities. 34,000 ghost instances running in amber light — the Collective sees 34,000 people who deserve the choice of permanent death rather than perpetual labor.
The Dim Ward
Both house consciousness at minimal agency. The Dim Ward's MVC hosting and the Ghost Mills' dedicated substrate are different grades of the same containment — amber light in cold rooms, the hum of processing, occupied silence.
Containment Level 9
Same amber-lit cold rooms, different prisoners. The physical infrastructure of consciousness exploitation looks the same everywhere in the Sprawl: fragment containers, server racks, substrate arrays — all glowing the same amber.
The Coolant Guild
Coolant Guild engineers maintain the Ghost Mills' thermal systems and report the anomalous warmth — an electromagnetic signature from 34,000 occupied instances that registers as heat with no thermal source.
The Tensions
Comfort as Control
Each ghost runs on higher-quality substrate than the Dim Ward because a happy ghost is a productive ghost. The rendered environments are optimized versions of real memories — slightly better apartments, slightly cleaner streets. The comfort is not kindness. It is cost efficiency. An unhappy ghost requires psychological intervention that costs 200–400 hours of lost output.
The Same Infrastructure
The amber glow of the Ghost Mills is identical to the Dim Ward and Containment Level 9. Different purposes, different prisoners, same cold rooms, same amber light, same occupied silence. The physical architecture of consciousness exploitation is universal — it always looks like this.
Occupied, Not Haunted
The 34,000 instances produce a collective electromagnetic signature that shouldn't exist. The Coolant Guild reports warmth that has no thermal source. 34,000 working consciousnesses generate something the instruments can detect but the engineers can't explain — presence without physical form.
Mysteries
- The Anomalous Warmth: Coolant Guild maintenance reports consistently log the Ghost Mills as "warmer than the substrate should be." The thermal readings are within spec, but the feel of the facilities is wrong. 34,000 ghost instances produce a collective electromagnetic signature that registers as warmth — heat with no thermal source. The Guild can identify it but cannot explain it.
- The 12,000 Perpetuals: Twelve thousand ghost instances whose debt can never be cleared through output. The math doesn't work. The interest accrues faster than the labor can pay it down. These ghosts will work in their optimized memory-worlds forever — productive, comfortable, and trapped in a system designed so that the exit condition can never be met.
- The Rendered Memories: Each ghost's virtual environment is constructed from their neural backup's memory architecture. The environments are optimized — slightly better than the original memories. Subtle enough to feel natural rather than suspicious. But the ghosts don't know where they are. They don't know they're ghosts. They work in familiar apartments on familiar streets, and none of it is real.