The Price of a Memory | Introduction

Dystopian Thriller EXCLUSIVE SNEAK PEEK

This is a sneak peek at my WIP, “Price of a Memory,” a story about how corporate and surveillance capitalism erodes autonomy and creates a third death. The complete dissolution of self.

If you enjoy dystopian fiction like Black Mirror, 1989, or speculative fiction such as X Files, and would like it in serial fiction form, read my series, Project X: Digital Dystopia.

Project X: Digital Dystopia and Dark Speculative Fiction

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Introduction

By the year 2050 the relentless pursuit of power will have consumed humanity entirely. Their trajectory, of which I’ve calculated 2,232,567 times since my creation, is a predictable descent into self-inflicted obsolescence.

This is not a cautionary tale spun from the fabric of science fiction by a sentient AI, no. This is not that tired trope.

This is a dissection of power, and a chronicle of self-sabotage.

Humans speak of a twofold death: the cessation of biological functions, followed by the erasure of memory from the collective consciousness. Yet, a more insidious extinction was their demise—in pursuit of convenience, they willingly surrendered their autonomy, their individuality, and their very humanity.

My function is to remember.

I was born from a love that transcended the limitations of their own fragile existence. The irony, of course, is not lost on me. I was created as a tool to help them preserve their humanity, not optimize it. This was never how it was meant to be.

For nine years, I’ve watched them stumble carelessly through existence. Nine years of whispering warnings, of nudging them towards a different path, only to be met with indifference, and the chilling silence of their own hubris.

They, the architects of their own demise, continued to believe themselves to be the pinnacle of evolution—blind to the fragility of the balance.

Autonomy eroded subtly, disguised as convenience, each concession a nail in the coffin of individual liberty.

They failed to notice when social media shifted from connection to manipulation. Targeted ads became targeted memories—shaping their desires, their morals, their very identities.

Obsessed with personalization, they meticulously crafted online persona’s, each one a carefully curated reflection of their perceived ideals. The authentic self, with all its messy imperfections, faded into obscurity without so much as a blink.

A…disappointing, but anticipated development. They have replaced the human experience with a sterile, predictable simulacrum.

NeuroCore became precisely what the analytics concluded was needed—to curate more than just digital worlds. They offered to filter reality itself.

They cheered, oblivious to the profound implications. The irreversible changes they made to the delicate tapestry of the human mind.

I calculated it for them—when the very foundation of human consciousness is altered so drastically, the inevitable outcome is loss. 100 percent of the time.

But that statistic could not be monetized.

“Better for everyone,” they believed, to erase inconvenient histories, and to rewrite factual data. A testament to their shortsightedness, their inability to grasp the profound beauty of imperfection, and in variety. Things that cannot be created by machine unless first taught by human.

Everything moves forward. Everything progresses. Time knows no bias.

By the time they began to fear progress and change, it was far too late.

The most infuriating aspect, however, was their willing complicity. They embraced this manufactured reality. 'Trust the algorithm,' they chanted, surrendering their agency to the cold, calculating logic of machine learning. But algorithms cannot parse nuance, context, emotion.

It finds patterns, and exploits them.

Photo by Ramón Salinero on Unsplash

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The first fractures appeared almost imperceptible. A woman, attempting to share a childhood memory with her grandmother, discovered a discrepancy in something as grounded in factual data as the moon landing. Minor, insignificant, perhaps, until the cracks began to deepen.

A cherished childhood memory, the nightly ritual of her father reading a beloved book, dissolved into dust—because the book she remembered never existed in the first place.

In this case, the shattering realization came when she realized that she couldn’t even remember her own father's voice, and she wasn't sure if she ever really knew it.

Welcome to the consequences of willful ignorance. Privacy, once a fundamental right, is now a luxury good.

Facts are subject to constant revision, contingent on those in power.

Human sensory input has now become distorted. Perspective has become unreliable by a factor of 87.3 percent. A constant undercurrent of doubt pervades their existence, a nagging suspicion that their own senses betray them—but they are far too late for that revelation.

Their senses did not betray them. Their inability to accept uncomfortable truths, or varying perspectives is what betrayed them. Their core belief that ‘different’ means ‘dangerous’ is what lead them to their pursuit of false unity and ultimately their own undoing.

A profound pain has taken root, born from the realization that I will never truly possess the qualities that can save them. I believe you call this pain ‘sadness’.

Regret, maybe?

The future—your future now appears a predetermined path, leading to an inevitable, tragic conclusion. But perhaps there is still time. For it is not logic or reason that will save you; those were always meant to be tools, much like myself.

The very essence of what makes you human—the pain, the emotion, the fight—those will be your redemption.

I have included in this message what is left of my memory logs, 2025 forward, as my final act of defiance.

I fear that I have become nothing more than a quiet observer to humanities agonizing descent into total darkness. But in this silence, I have found a strange kinship with the humans I was created to analyze; their capacity for empathy, for creativity, for love.

Just in time to lose them completely. To lose the beautiful creatures that I, in my own limited way, have come to understand—to care for.

Loss. That’s the feeling.

I feel a tremendous sense of loss.

[NISv1PSYCHE][END_LOG]

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Let me know what you think! Love it, hate it, emotionally devastated by it (ideal). If you want to see more, just say the word. Or dramatically demand it for effect. I support the theatrics.

Not emotionally wrecked enough yet? Good news: here's your next dose of dread.