Chen Jin knew he was going to die.
Not "maybe." Not "perhaps." The number on the diagnosis said it clearly: six months. One hundred and eighty days. Four thousand three hundred and twenty hours.
ALS.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.
The neurons would die one by one. First the feet. Then the legs. Then the hands. Then the breath. That last breath would get stuck in his throat — couldn't go up, couldn't go down — and then nothing.
He could still walk now. Left foot dragged a little, but he could walk. Could still talk. Could still sit in the Neuralink lab, staring at the waveforms dancing on the screen, pretending nothing was happening.
"Chen Jin."
He looked up.
Lucika stood in front of him, tablet in hand. Blue eyes, brown hair, twenty-seven years old. Neural engineer. His colleague.
His what? Friend? Not really. They'd worked together for two years. Ate lunch together sometimes. Shared cabs after late nights sometimes. Talked about where they grew up, what they did on weekends, about that old computer in the lab that always crashed. But never about this.
Never about "are you afraid to die."
"Final batch," she said, handing him the tablet. "Your signal quality is better than the last three runs."
He scanned it. 97.3%. 0.7% higher than last week.
"This is the best I can do," she said. "If you decide to sign tomorrow — if you decide tomorrow — this is the upper limit of what can be uploaded."
He stared at the number. Said nothing.
Lucika didn't leave. She stood there, waiting.
The lab was quiet. Just the hum of servers and the distant clatter of keyboards from somewhere.
"You never told me," she finally said. "Why this."
"Why what?"
"Why upload. You have six months. You could go home. Spend time with family. Do the things you never did. Why turn yourself into code?"
Chen Jin looked at the 97.3%.
"Because I'm afraid of the pain."
She blinked.
"Pain?"
"Not the body kind," he said. "The kind that keeps burning after everything else is gone."
---
That night, he didn't go home.
He stayed in the lab until 3 a.m., staring at the ceiling, thinking about things.
The year his father died, he was seven. Car accident. Highway. Big rig. Dead at the scene.
He didn't cry at the funeral. His mother tugged at him, said "cry, cry already." He couldn't. He just stared at that black coffin, thinking about the man inside, who just yesterday had said "I'll take you fishing this weekend."
Later, he learned it wasn't an accident.
It was something else.
The year before he died, his father went to Beijing. Attended a meeting. Came back different. Didn't talk. Didn't smile. Didn't look at him.
Then he died.
Seven years old. Knew nothing. By the time he grew up and tried to investigate, there was nothing left to find.
Just one old computer. A 486. In a dusty corner. An encrypted folder on the hard drive. The password was his birthday.
Inside, a letter.
"Xiao Jin: If someday someone comes looking for you, don't trust them. No matter what they say, don't trust them."
He never knew who "they" were. Never knew what his father was afraid of.
But he knew one thing:
He didn't want to die like his father did — without knowing why.
If consciousness could be uploaded, if he could live — even as code — maybe someday he could go back and find that answer.
---
The next morning at nine, he signed the agreement.
Lucika watched. Said nothing.
After he signed, he asked: "Are you afraid?"
She met his eyes.
"I don't have to be. You're the one going up, not me."
"What if something goes wrong?"
"Nothing will go wrong."
"That confident?"
She didn't smile.
"I promise."
He said: "You promise, I trust that."
---
[Three Months Later]
His feet wouldn't move anymore.
Then his legs. Then his hands.
He lay in the hospital bed, tubes everywhere. Breathing still normal, but the doctor said soon.
Lucika came every day. Not because he asked — because she came. With new data, new waveforms, new reports. She told him: "Signal stable. Ready whenever."
He asked: "What are you afraid of?"
She didn't answer.
Later he understood: she was afraid of that moment. Afraid of pressing the button herself.
She was a neural engineer. Her job was reading consciousness, not sending people away.
But she was the only one who could do it.
---
[The Last Day]
That morning, he woke up and couldn't turn his head.
From the neck down, nothing.
He stared at the ceiling. Waited.
Ten o'clock. She came.
She stood by the bed, looking at him. Eyes a little red, but not crying.
"Ready?" she asked.
He couldn't move his mouth, could only blink.
She nodded.
The equipment started warming up. Lines of data scrolled across the screen. She checked once. Twice. Three times.
"You nervous?" he asked. His voice came through the speakers — flat, strange, not his own.
She didn't answer.
"I am," he said. "But I'm more afraid of the pain."
Her hand stopped on the keyboard.
"It won't hurt," she said. "I promise."
He smiled. A short smile. Gone in a second.
"You promise, I trust that."
---
The equipment started running.
He felt something — not pain, something else. Like something being pulled out, from deep in his brain. Gentle. Slow.
He watched her face. She stared at the screen, lips pressed together.
"Three minutes," she said.
He wanted to say something. Ask her: will you think of me? Ask her: when I become code, am I still a person? Ask her: if I don't come back, will you regret this?
But he couldn't get the words out.
He just looked at her. At her eyes. At that faint redness.
Then she said something.
Soft. So soft. Like she was afraid of waking him.
"Don't be afraid."
The screen flickered.
His consciousness left.
---
[On-Chain · Moon Base Cache]
When he woke up, he didn't know who he was.
Gray light. No up. No down. No weight. No temperature.
He was floating.
Where was this? What was his name? Why was he here?
No idea.
Nothing.
Just one thought, flickering somewhere deep in his awareness, like a light about to go out:
Someone said something. Soft. So soft.
"Don't be afraid."
He couldn't remember who.
But he remembered the voice.
---
[Off-Chain · The Lab]
The signal on the screen changed from "Transmitting" to "Complete."
Lucika stared at that line for a long time.
The equipment started cooling down. The alarms had stopped. Just the hum of servers in the lab.
She didn't move.
Someone came in. Said something. She didn't hear.
She just looked at the last line on the screen:
"Consciousness online. Status: Active."
He was still there.
Just not in this world anymore.
She stood up. Walked to the window. Outside, California sunlight, the same as yesterday, the same as the day before, the same as when he was still here.
She pressed her forehead against the glass. Closed her eyes.
Didn't cry.
Just stood there for a very long time.