I live an analog life in a digital world.
Every morning, when I wake, the city hums beneath me — a steady mechanical breath rising from a population that forgot how to slow down. I used to live differently once. Hikes. Poetry. Long nights wasted on classical Russian dramas. Little rituals that softened the edges of living.
Now I am a machine pretending to be a man.
After that incident, routine became the safest thing I had left.
Monochrome days, predictable hours, nothing unexpected — nothing that could hurt.
Breakfast is always the same: a hot cup of coffee, two slices of bread with peanut butter. I eat in silence, with the television murmuring in the background. Not because I enjoy gossip, but because silence feels too close to memory.
This morning, a familiar voice filled the room:
"Today, a group of citizens was arrested for using unauthorized Echo Integration. Neuro-ethicist Dr. Lira Venn states that Echo Integration is considered taboo due to—"
I turned the TV off before she could finish.
Dr. Venn's warnings were everywhere these days. Echo misuse, memory corruption, identity drift.
People feared the technology even as they depended on it.
I finished getting dressed, still thinking about a quote I used to believe in:
"We are our memory, we are that chimerical museum of shifting shapes, that pile of broken mirrors."
— Jorge Luis Borges
Lately, I've begun doubting it.
The world changed too fast, almost violently so. The invention of Echoes — digitized memories, extracted straight from the neural network — reshaped everything. Not just photos or videos, but entire emotional experiences. The smell of rain. The warmth of holding someone's hand. The last breath of a dying parent.
And that's where my work begins.
I am an Archivist — one of the thousands tasked with preserving the memories people fear losing. I copy Echoes into Vaults. I maintain them. I correct corruption when it creeps in. I assist the system's AI with audits and stability assessments.
The Echo Vaults — corporate and governmental — all fall under the watch of Mnemosyne, a regulatory authority with more influence than any court. Neuro-ethicists write the rules. The AI enforces them. And we Archivists stand in the quiet space between human grief and digital preservation.
At least, that's the official version of my job.
The truth is simpler:
I preserve other people's memories because I cannot bear to face my own.