Underground Upload Services
When corporate immortality costs 3 million credits, the desperate find alternatives. Underground upload services— illegal consciousness transfer operations run by ripperdocs, criminal syndicates, and ideological operators—offer what the poor can't otherwise afford: a chance to escape death. The price is lower. So are the odds of surviving intact.
"Corporate immortality or street immortality. Same promise, different odds. They offer you 99% success. We offer you 60%. But we're the only lottery you can afford to play."
— Anonymous black market operator Who Seeks Underground Uploads?
The Terminally Ill Poor
No corporate coverage, no savings. Choosing between certain death and maybe-survival. Desperate enough to accept any odds.
Corporate Refugees
Employees who want immortality without loyalty architecture. Whistleblowers needing to vanish. Anyone the corporations want to own.
Identity Escapees
Criminals seeking new existence. Abuse survivors erasing their past. Debtors escaping obligations. People wanting clean starts.
Ideological Actors
Collective members avoiding corporate tracking. Rebels preserving leadership. Anyone who can't trust corporate servers.
Annual Estimates (2184)
The Providers
Skilled Operators
85-95% success150,000-500,000 credits
Licensed practitioners who've left corporate service. They have training, experience, and genuine equipment. The safest black market option—but limited availability, requires referral or reputation.
Notable Operators
- The Surgeon Collective: Former Nexus medical staff operating mobile clinics in the Wastes. Charges based on ability to pay.
- Kira "Patch" Vasquez: Won't perform uploads herself but refers trusted practitioners.
- Dr. Emil Koslov: Rumored former Helix researcher with highest success rates outside corporate facilities.
Criminal Operations
50-75% success25,000-100,000 credits
Professional criminals who've acquired upload capability through theft, bribery, or murdered practitioners. Quality varies even within tiers. They care about volume, not reputation.
Major Syndicates
- The Archivists: Primary business is underground uploads. Three known facilities, unknown mobile units.
- The Nine Fingers: Waste Lord cartel treating consciousness like smuggled commodity.
- The Red Market: Network of independents sharing equipment. Cheapest option, most dangerous.
Desperate Amateurs
20-50% success5,000-25,000 credits
People with stolen or improvised equipment, minimal training. Scavengers with recovered hardware, moonlighting medical students, cult operators who believe upload is a sacrament, or con artists who take money and run.
What Can Go Wrong
During Transfer
Fragmentary consciousness; may be non-functional
Distorted or scrambled consciousness
Complete loss; original dies, nothing captured
After Transfer
Consciousness that can't maintain coherence
Random loss of memories, skills, personality
Progressive loss of self-concept
The Aftermath: Where Do They Go?
Pirate Servers
Hidden server farms on stolen hardware. Unreliable power, no guarantees. 100-500 credits/month. Constant risk of discovery and deletion.
Collective Archives
The Collective maintains protected servers. No fees, but ideological commitment expected. Highest quality outside corporate systems.
Corporate Forgery
Skilled operators can sneak consciousness into corporate systems using forged credentials. Risky but provides premium existence quality.
The Legal Situation
If discovered:
- The consciousness: subject to deletion or corporate seizure
- The operator: 10-25 years imprisonment; neural restructuring possible
- Associates: 2-10 years for harboring unregistered consciousness
In practice, most underground uploads exist in legal limbo—too numerous to eliminate, too illegal to protect.
Famous Cases
The Mercy Clinic Massacre 2174
A Surgeon Collective facility in the Wastes was raided by Nexus security. 43 consciousnesses "seized as evidence"—corporate code for deletion. The surgeon, Dr. Amira Hassan, was executed on-site.
The Mercy Clinic became a symbol of corporate overreach. The Surgeon Collective named a mobile unit after Dr. Hassan.
The Boardroom Escape 2179
Marcus Chen-Reeves, a Helix board member, discovered the corporation planned to delete his consciousness and replace him with a compliant fork. He escaped through Dr. Koslov's network.
Proved underground services could outmaneuver corporate security. Increased demand for "corporate extraction."
The Family Upload 2181
The Okafor family sought collective upload when grandmother was diagnosed terminally. An Archivist operator promised a "family rate." Power fluctuations corrupted multiple captures—two children completely lost, one permanently damaged.
A warning about "family rate" operators. The operator was found dead within months.
Operator Ethics
The Good
Some operators maintain ethical standards:
- Explaining actual success rates (not corporate propaganda)
- Using calibrated equipment and verifying transfers
- Sliding scales based on ability to pay
- Providing post-procedure support
The Bad
Other operators prioritize profit:
- Claiming corporate-equivalent success rates
- Skipping verification scans
- Selling "failed" consciousness to markets
- Blackmailing families of the transferred
The Ugly
The worst treat clients as raw material:
- Uploading people specifically to sell their consciousness
- Kidnapping for forced consciousness extraction
- Using clients to test experimental techniques
"She was dying. Corporate quoted 2.3 million for upload. She had 40,000 credits and a cousin who knew someone.
The procedure took six hours. When it was done, he ran verification. 'She's in there,' he said. 'Mostly.'
Mostly. That's what 40,000 credits buys you. My aunt exists on a pirate server in the Wastes. She remembers me. Mostly.
Was it worth it? Ask me in twenty years, if she's still there."
— Anonymous testimonial