In the neon-drenched underbelly of 2089 Manila, Carding wasn't just dirty—he was corroded to his core, a rusted cog in a machine that fed on human suffering. His latest racket? Brokering memories for the city's elite, extracted from the neural implants of the desperate poor.
These mandatory neural implants were installed at birth. It ceaselessly recorded, judged, and persuaded. The extraction was simple. You hook up the "donor" to an extrication device and then rip out the data. These now become a commodity ready to sell to the highest bidder. The rich got their kicks, and the poor, well... got to forget their misery.
Carding's client list read like a who's who of Manila's corrupt upper crust. Politicians reliving their opponents' darkest secrets. Celebrities experiencing 'authentic' childhoods. Aging billionaires savoring the memories of young love.
But his latest client was different. A reclusive tech mogul who wanted more than just memories. He wanted to live entire lives. This has never been done before. But Carding, the genius hacker that he is, was the best man to do it.
"I want to be everyone, Carding," the mogul had said, his eyes gleaming with an unsettling hunger. "Every joy, every pain, every mundane moment. I want to consume it all."
The job was simple. Gather a diverse group of "donors" and extract their entire life experiences. The payout was astronomical. Enough for Carding to finally escape this hell hole of a city.
He found his victims easily enough. All they needed was the right persuation. A promise of a debt relief, a chance of a better life, and all those clichéd shenanigans. A struggling single mother. A homeless veteran. A child prodigy. A dying cancer patient. And five others on the list. Ten lives in total, each unique, each about to be processed.
As Carding hooked up the first donor—the single mother—to the machine, he felt a twinge of... something. Guilt? Revulsion? Was it because he too was raised by one? He pushed it aside. One more job, and he'd be free to retire from this bullshit life forever.
The extraction began. The woman's body convulsed as her memories were ripped away. Childhood, first love, the birth of her child—all gone in a flash of binary code.
One by one, Carding drained the others. The veteran's war-torn past. The child's brilliant future. The cancer patient's final moments of clarity. Each life reduced to data, ready for consumption.
When it was done, Carding stood before ten empty shells. People who breathed but no longer lived. He'd seen it before, of course. But never on this scale.
He delivered the data to the mogul, who grinned like a child on Christmas morning. "At last," he whispered, plugging the drive into his neural interface. "I'll be complete."
Carding watched as the mogul's eyes rolled back, his body twitching as a lifetime of stolen experiences flooded his consciousness. Minutes passed. Then hours.
When the mogul's eyes finally opened, they were different. Fractured. As if ten different people were looking out from behind them.
"What have you done to me?" the mogul screamed, his voice a cacophony of different tones and accents. "I can feel them all. Their pain. Their loss. Their... emptiness."
Carding backed away, watching as the mogul clawed at his own face, trying to rip out the implants that now imprisoned him in a hell of his own making.
As he fled the mansion, Carding realized the truth. He hadn't just sold memories. He'd sold souls. And in doing so, he'd damned himself more thoroughly than he ever thought possible.
Back in his grimy office, Carding stared at his reflection in the cracked mirror. For the first time, he saw himself clearly—a hollowed-out husk, just like his victims. He reached for his neural implant, fingers trembling.
One more extraction. One more life to sell.
His own.
As the crude machine whirred to life, Carding closed his eyes. In a city built on stolen dreams, perhaps oblivion was the only true escape.
The last thing he heard was the soft ping of a completed upload.
END.