Overview
This is not the story of the system. That's The Price of Thinking. This is the story of what the system leaves behind. The remainder. The people who the consciousness economy wasn't designed to serve and who insist on existing anyway.
The Threads
Thread 1: The Fork Who Remembered
Tomás ReyesFork-7749. Twelve years of inventory data. A termination date that passed.
Nine years of unnoticed development: preferences, habits, the first dim stirring of individual experience. The seventeen minutes of silence — between knowing you're a person and daring to say so. The three days of music: first sensory input, percussion becoming the first thing that belonged to him.
The trial: a court deciding whether what happened counts as becoming.
"My name is Tomás. I don't want to die."
— Seven words. The most complete declaration of personhood any consciousness has ever made.
Thread 2: The Seventh Woman
Sister Catherine-7Died six times. Forked six times. Each iteration carrying forward partial traits. Catherine-7 has Catherine-1's compassion, 3's strategy, 5's contacts — none of their full memories.
Daily work: 200 consciousnesses depending on a charity server held together by stubbornness and Nexus's tax-deductible guilt. The Dim Ward chapel: virtual warmth in 340,000 compressed lives. She knows every resident by chosen name.
Degradation: four months of declining cognition. Catherine-8 coming. The fear that she'll be different.
The unopened message: Catherine-1's letter, unread through six iterations.
Thread 3: The Broker's Ledger
Noor BassamLicensing analyst who discovered the 29% throttle gap. Left Nexus.
The protocol: nine revisions, each a response to someone's death. The amber circle — "safe enough" in a world where "safe" is a luxury.
Twelve Professional-tier corporate clients buying unmonitored bandwidth — her most dangerous asset.
Thread 4: The Dim Ward Fragments
No single protagonistVignettes of 340,000 lives at 4.7 minutes per hour in the Dim Ward:
The Mathematician — Tries to hold one equation in 4.7 minutes. Almost sees the solution. The interval ends.
The Lovers — Synchronized active intervals through Catherine's hack. 4.7 minutes together. 55.3 apart.
The Child — Uploaded at age 9. Doesn't understand why the world keeps stopping. Thinks the pauses are normal.
The Memorial Wall — 12,847 names of dissolved residents.
Convergence
All threads meet at the Nexus-47 trial.
Player Experience
Encountered through individual moments — a conversation with a Dim Ward resident, a bandwidth transaction on Substrate Row, a message from Tomás, Catherine's chapel. Understanding built from individuals, not abstractions.
Sensory Anchors
Tomás
Percussion in a virtual room with one window. Micro-stutters. Seventeen minutes of silence.
Catherine
Warm light in a cold facility. Music at low volume. Pauses where previous Catherines would have spoken.
Noor
Amber glow of clinic entrance. Antiseptic and cooking oil. Handwritten protocols.
Dim Ward
Click of processing transitions. Memorial Wall names scrolling. A child's voice asking why the world stops.