Seattle, 2050, Low-Altitude Hive District, 4:17 a.m.
A cold white ambient light field diffused across the modular walls, casting the 12-square-meter rental unit in a glow as sterile as a coffin. This was the settlement for the Burdened, below 180 meters in Seattle—an area that never saw real sunlight. The entire city had long since been folded into three vertical air zones: above 500 meters, the High-Altitude District was the private fief of the Keyholders, where sunlight, fresh breeze, and genuine greenery were cordoned off for their exclusive use; between 200 and 500 meters, the Mid-Altitude District belonged to the Privileged, crammed with office towers, boutique apartments, and semi-open ecological corridors; and from 0 to 200 meters, the Low-Altitude District was a labyrinth of modular rental units like beehives. The outer walls of the buildings were plastered with holographic billboards that blazed nonstop—the only constant light source in this perpetually gloomy realm.
Cole Mercer jolted awake to a stabbing pain in his skull.
It was no dream. The silver-gray Generation 2 civilian brain-computer interface embedded behind his ear for 12 years was firing neural pulses three times a second, like a red-hot needle driving into his trigeminal nerve again and again. He snapped his eyes open, and the world shattered—murky black splotches crept madly from the edges of his vision toward the center, like waterlogged ink bleeding across rice paper. A familiar throbbing ached behind his optic nerves, the precursor to the failure of his visual compensation function.
And blazing in the exact center of his field of vision, a line of blood-red characters was nailed to his visual cortex like a death warrant written by the Grim Reaper himself—he couldn't shake it even if he squeezed his eyes shut: [Xai System Emergency Alert: Your monthly Thought Frequency Quota is 5.78% remaining, expiring in 43 hours. Basic visual compensation function will be suspended simultaneously. Renew and upgrade immediately, or face permanent loss of visual function!]
Cole clenched his fists so tight his knuckles whitened, his nails digging almost into his palms. He blinked repeatedly and took deep breaths, trying to calm the violent neural surges—he dared not let his emotions run wild. Joy, anger, sorrow, delight all activated extra neurons in the brain, squandering the precious little Thought Frequency Quota he had left.
At 42, Cole was the most unremarkable of Seattle's twenty million Burdened. And that coin-sized chip emblazoned with the X AI logo behind his ear was his only ticket to living in this world.
Twelve years ago, hereditary optic nerve atrophy had struck him. In just three months, his eyesight plummeted from 20/20 to 20/2000; the world before him shrank to two blurry spots, and he could not tell if a person walking toward him was male or female. A doctor at a top-tier hospital, sitting in a sterile treatment pod, spoke with the calm of someone commenting on the weather: "Optic nerve necrosis is irreversible. The only way to preserve your vision is to implant a Nexus brain-computer interface. It bypasses your damaged optic nerves and projects light signals directly onto your visual cortex—indistinguishable from natural sight."
By then, brain-computer interfaces had been ubiquitous across the country for eight years.
Just as no one could live without a smartphone in 2020, no one in the United States could survive without a brain-computer interface in 2038. To buy something, you didn't scan a code—you thought a thought, and payment was complete. To attend a work meeting, you didn't type on a keyboard; proposals, reports, data materialized in shared documents at your mental command. To learn something new, you didn't slog through thick books—the system broke down knowledge into neural signals and uploaded it straight to your brain—if you had enough Thought Frequency Quota.
Thought Frequency Quota, or simply "Freqs" as everyone soon called it, was essentially the usable token for the Nexus Universal Large Model. In an age where every brain was linked to the system, every function you invoked, every piece of information you had the model process, every auxiliary ability of the interface you activated—even every neural discharge in your brain that exceeded the threshold for basic survival—consumed Freqs.
It was like mobile data thirty years prior, but a million times more deadly.
Run out of data, and you just couldn't go online or scroll short videos. But run out of Freqs, and Cole would go completely blind. Worse, he'd lose his semantic assistance function—ten out of eight sentences people spoke now contained model-compressed subtext and data packets; without interface assistance, he wouldn't understand a word anyone said, a primitive man adrift in the modern world. He'd lose his work authorization: his job as a semantic calibrator relied entirely on linking to the Nexus model via the interface. No Freqs, no access to the work backend.
In short, the moment his Freqs hit zero, he'd be cast out of this hyper-speed society—a blind, deaf man who couldn't even understand speech, a useless shell that would end up huddled in a corner of a pedestrian corridor, a living computing battery.
Cole had considered refusing the implant. But twelve years ago, every colleague in his department had already gotten the Nexus interface. They didn't need to check text word by word against a screen, or sift through hundreds of thousands of words of industry data; their brains linked directly to the Nexus model, finishing in a second what took him half a day. His boss had called him in three times—her office was in the Mid-Altitude District at 320 meters, a floor he didn't even have the access clearance to enter: his civilian interface grade was too low, restricted to the Low-Altitude District below 200 meters. Her voice came through a holographic projection, her message blunt and unsparing: no implant, no keeping up with efficiency, no job.
Between blindness and unemployment on one hand, and linking his brain to the system on the other—he had no choice.
He was far from alone. Hundreds of millions across the nation faced the same dilemma. From birth registration, newborns were implanted with the basic Nexus pediatric interface. Every step of life—school, exams, work, marriage, medical care, retirement—was tied to this tiny chip. Nexus Group's ads blanketed every holographic screen in the country, proclaiming this humanity's second evolution, a gift of technology that brought equality to all—even if you were born in the remotest mountain village, an implant let you access the world's most advanced large model, standing on the same starting line as someone in a major city.
Cole had believed it once. Until he got the implant, and after twelve years in the system, he saw the truth behind that lie:
Technology had indeed drawn the same starting line for everyone. But when the race began, some ran in supersonic sports cars with unlimited fuel, while others barefoot, their ankles chained to a thousand jin of iron.
The entire society was precisely folded into three tiers by Freqs, a seamless pyramid that mirrored the city's vertical air zones perfectly.
At the very top were the Keyholders: Nexus Group's shareholders, core researchers, and the nation's top administrators. They held the highest privileges to the Nexus system, with unlimited Freqs to use as they pleased. Their brains could tap into the Nexus's full computing power without restriction—they could read an entire library in a second, have the system craft a custom virtual universe for them, and rewrite the system's rules to their advantage with a thought. They lived in the High-Altitude District above 500 meters, with custom bio-integrated interfaces—chips fused with their neurons, no exposed metal, just a faint golden glow behind their ears. To the lower classes, they were near gods.
In the middle were the Privileged: corporate executives, senior technicians, internet celebrities, movie stars, and the urban middle class. They had a fixed, high monthly Freq quota, could afford premium packages costing thousands or even tens of thousands, activate neuron acceleration plugins, switch out full-sensory immersive interface skins, and keep pace with every iteration of the Nexus model. They lived in the Mid-Altitude District between 200 and 500 meters, with Generation 3 embedded interfaces hidden in their skulls—no external parts, plus temperature regulation and neural soothing functions. On the never-ending treadmill of society, they just about managed to keep their balance.
And at the bottom were the Burdened—people like Cole.
The state provided each Burdened with a basic free monthly quota of 10 million Freqs. It sounded like a lot, but merely maintaining basic survival functions like visual compensation and semantic assistance consumed 200,000 Freqs a day—6 million a month. The remaining 4 million had to cover rent, food, Freqs for work-related model invocations, and emergency medical expenses. It was a tightrope walk, a rubber band stretched to the breaking point.
A single deep thought, three extra model invocations for data verification, ten minutes of a full-sensory immersive video—Freqs drained away like water through an open sluice. The first thing Cole did every morning was summon his Freq balance panel with a thought, just as people thirty years prior checked their mortgage balance the moment they woke up. Every morning, he woke up in debt to the world.
His job was a semantic calibrator for the Nexus Large Model—essentially, editing AI-written content. The Nexus model generated an ocean of text every day: advertising copy, policy interpretations, novels, product descriptions. But algorithmic writing always had cold, sharp edges; it needed human hands to calibrate it into language that felt human, with genuine emotion and logic.
The job was impossible without the Nexus interface. Without it, he could calibrate no more than 100 pieces a day; with it, aided by the model, he could do up to 1,500. There were no computers or monitors in his rental unit—all work was projected directly onto his visual cortex via the brain-computer interface. He just leaned against the wall, put on a cheap neural stabilization headband, and worked entirely by thought. For every qualified piece he calibrated, the platform credited him 100 Freqs. But calibrating that piece—invoking the model, verifying semantics, scanning the text with visual functions—cost 82 Freqs. A net gain of 18 Freqs per piece.
He had to work 12 hours a day, calibrating over 1,200 pieces, just to earn enough Freqs to cover his expenses. No rest, no sickness, no emotional outbursts—he didn't even dare dream too much, for dreams activated the hippocampus, squandering precious Freqs. He was a donkey with a blindfold, walking in circles around a millstone, thinking he was moving forward, only to look up and find himself in the same place—even closer to the abyss.
And the millstone was spinning faster and faster.
The Nexus model updated every quarter. Each upgrade raised the computing power threshold for work by a huge margin. Three years ago, the basic free package was enough to meet calibration speed requirements; now, he had to subscribe to the Advanced Package for $388 a month and activate the neuron acceleration function to keep up. Otherwise, the platform would label him an "inefficient calibrator," revoke his order acceptance rights, and kick him out.
Nexus Group always had more expensive packages, more flashy value-added services: the Quantum Synapse Plugin to boost thinking speed, Full-Sensory Immersive Skins that simulated the feel of eating, traveling, even falling in love, Overclock Mode that temporarily maxed out brain computing power—all clearly priced, no fine print. They siphoned the money the Burdened earned with their blood and sweat, reinvested it in the next iteration of the Nexus model, raised the computing power threshold another notch, and forced everyone to spend more on pricier packages. A never-ending trap with no escape.
It was like smartphone manufacturers thirty years prior, releasing new phones and updating systems nonstop, making old phones slower and slower, forcing you to buy new ones. Except now, they weren't replacing your phone—they were replacing your brain.
Cole's Freqs were drying up so fast this month because of an accident the month before. His optic nerve atrophy had suddenly worsened, with massive floaters in his vision. He'd had to spend 2 million Freqs on a 7-day neural repair function. Then came the Nexus model's quarterly major update—he had to renew the Advanced Package to keep his job. Between the two, his six months of saved Freqs were gone, wiped clean.
Now, he had 5.78% Freqs left, expiring in 43 hours. Expiration meant blindness, unemployment, death.
The sky outside was lightening. Blue light from holographic billboards filtered through the rental unit's window, falling on the mottled synthetic walls. Cole pushed himself up against the wall, his legs numb, nearly tripping. He held onto the wall, inching his way to the bathroom.
The bathroom was just two square meters, no faucet—only a built-in hygiene terminal. He selected the cheapest cold water wash mode with a thought, and 800 Freqs were deducted in an instant. A fine mist of cold water spouted from the terminal, reeking faintly of disinfectant. He looked up at the mirror light field in front of him. The man staring back had hair half-gray, sunken eye sockets, a sallow complexion. The silver-gray interface behind his ear glinted coldly in the light, a red-hot brand seared into his skin.
He blinked. The red characters in his vision were still there, a splinter he couldn't pull out.
He changed into a faded fiber jacket and stepped outside.
The commuter elevator was a metal cage of a vertical lift, limited to the Low-Altitude District between 0 and 200 meters. To reach the Mid-Altitude District above 200 meters required extra clearance and Freqs—at 42, Cole had never been up there. The lift was packed with Burdened like him, a faint blue interface indicator light glowing behind every ear, like fireflies in the dark. Some leaned against the walls with their eyes closed, smiling, lost in a cheap virtual drama projected by their interfaces. Others flicked their fingers rapidly in the air, scrambling for odd jobs on the platform. Most had blank faces, empty eyes—programmed machines.
On the lift's walls, Nexus Group's latest ad looped endlessly. A top celebrity on the screen wore a diamond-encrusted limited-edition interface behind her ear, waving at the camera with a smile. The backdrop was a single-family villa in the High-Altitude District above 500 meters, with a real lawn and an outdoor swimming pool. Morning sunlight glinted on the water, dazzling the eye. A soft female voice echoed in the cramped cabin: "Nexus Premium Unlimited Package—unlock 100% of your brain's potential. Unlimited Freqs, unlimited life."
In the bottom right corner of the ad, a tiny line of text: Monthly fee $888,888.
Cole's gaze flicked over it, his heart clenched by a cold hand. That number was the amount of Freqs he'd earn in eight years, working himself to the bone without a single day off. To a top Keyholder, it was just the cost of a basic monthly package.
The lift stopped on the first floor. The doors slid open, and stale air rushed in. The Low-Altitude District's pedestrian corridors were fully enclosed—exhaust fumes and industrial dust from the upper zones all settled here. The air in the corridors was recirculated and filtered, but the filtration grade was low, always reeking of synthetic materials and metal oxidation. There were no real plants by the roadside, only holographic plane trees—no matter how realistic the light and shadow, there was not a hint of leafy fragrance. Real plants existed only in the High-Altitude District above 500 meters; the energy and Freqs needed to grow a single potted plant were a month's living expenses for a lower-class person.
The corridors bustled with people. On either side were unmanned holographic vending machines and logistics lockers—no need to lift a finger to buy something; order with a thought, and a robot from the underground logistics warehouse would deliver the goods to the pickup slot in seconds. In the corners of the corridors sat homeless people, the interfaces behind their ears blazing with a harsh red light—the sign of zero Freqs, locked permissions. Their eyes were empty, their pupils dilated, unresponsive to the world around them. But the interfaces behind their ears still flickered with a faint green light—the indicator for Dormant Computing Power Sharing Mode. They had lost their vision, speech, and motor skills, yet their brains were still being commandeered by the system for free, turned into living computing batteries.
Cole averted his gaze, unable to look. He knew—if he didn't earn enough Freqs in 43 hours, he'd become one of them.
He stopped at a holographic breakfast cart by the roadside, selected the cheapest synthetic wheat bun with a thought. 800 Freqs were deducted from his account in an instant, and a vacuum-sealed bun popped out of the vending machine's slot. He tore open the package, the dry dough tasteless in his mouth, like chewing a ball of cold, wet cotton. He couldn't bear to activate the taste simulation function at 120 Freqs per minute—that Freq cost would take calibrating seven pieces to earn back.
He thought back twenty years, before the Nexus interface was ubiquitous, when his eyes could still see the morning sunrise and evening sunset, when he could eat real wheat buns with genuine grain fragrance, when people's brains belonged only to themselves. Back then, all the media had said brain-computer interfaces and large models would bring an era of equality for all, letting the lowest classes access the most advanced technology, completely liberating the human brain.
Now, technology had indeed advanced. The human brain had been liberated—just not from human bondage, but from the hands of ordinary people into the grasp of capitalists and the elite.
Back in his rental unit, Cole took a deep breath, put on the neural stabilization headband hanging on the wall, and roused the work backend with a thought. He had to earn enough Freqs today, or in 43 hours, he'd be one of those empty-eyed homeless people in the corridors.
But the odd jobs on the backend were low-paying, only a few dozen Freqs a piece. Even if he worked 24 hours straight without eating or sleeping, he couldn't fill the gap. His palms broke out in a sweat, the black splotches in his vision spreading again. The red warning line ticked forward like a countdown.
His fingers trembled, despair closing in, when a golden emergency task pop-up appeared at the top of the backend—marked with a high-priority symbol, pinning itself above all other tasks.
[Emergency Exclusive Task: Standardization Calibration of Dormant Computing Power Data Packets | Task Volume: 1,000 pieces | Task Reward: 5 million Freqs | Deadline: 11:59 PM Today | Requirements: Only senior calibrators with 3+ years of experience, no violation records; accept non-disclosure agreement to claim task]
Cole's breath caught in his throat.
5 million Freqs.
That number would not only fill his dwindling Freq gap, but also renew the Advanced Package for three full months, pulling him back from the edge of the cliff to safety. He didn't need to think, didn't need to calculate—he tapped "Accept Task" with a single thought.
He had no choice. Even if the task was a trap, he had to jump in. Refuse, and die.
The electronic non-disclosure agreement was signed in an instant, and 1,000 data packets were immediately issued to his interface permissions. Cole steadied himself, opened the first data packet, and prepared to work.
But when the content of the data packet unfolded in his vision, he froze.
Nothing like the text he usually calibrated. These data packets contained no complete sentences, no coherent paragraphs—only a jumble of dense, chaotic neural discharge signal curves. The computing power density of these signals was astonishing, more than ten times higher than the density of his own brain when working at full capacity while awake.
What sent a chill down his spine was that all the data packets were generated between midnight and 8 a.m.—the hours of deep sleep for most people. Every signal source was encrypted and anonymous.
The system's only instruction was a single sentence: Calibrate the above neural signals into standardized computing power units recognizable by the Nexus system. No need to concern yourself with signal source or purpose. Full reward upon on-time completion.
Cole had been a semantic calibrator for 12 years, knowing the Nexus system's underlying logic like the back of his hand. He worked straight through the morning, calibrating over 300 data packets, his doubts growing with each one. The more he looked at these neural signal curves, the more familiar they became—they were nearly identical to the sleep-time brain neural activity records synced by his interface every morning when he woke up.
He'd always found it strange that he woke up exhausted, his head heavy as lead, even after eight hours of sleep. He'd blamed it on overwork and constant neural tension, but now a terrifying thought coiled up his spine like a cold snake.
Shortly after noon, calibrating the 372nd data packet, he spotted a flaw in the encryption layer—a narrow crack in a locked door. On an impulse, he used the low-level coding skills he'd honed over ten years, followed that crack, typed a line of code, and pushed gently at the door.
It opened.
Behind the encryption layer lay the core backend data of the Nexus system. A bold black title slammed into his vision like a ten-thousand-ton hammer:
[National Dormant Computing Power Sharing Initiative Real-Time Operation Data]
His fingers moved uncontrollably down the screen, a flood of cold numbers crashing into his vision. His breath stopped, his blood turning to ice in his veins.
These data packets all came from 1.2 billion Burdened across the country—people just like him.
The moment a user fell into deep sleep, the Nexus system automatically seized control of over 90% of their idle neurons, turning every ordinary person's brain into a distributed computing node, part of a nationwide computing power network that ran 24/7, processing the Nexus system's computational tasks.
The Burdened thought sleep was rest, a chance to escape the world bound by Freqs. But they had no idea that while they slept, their brains were being used as free biological mining rigs, squeezed dry of every last drop of computing power by the elite. The grogginess and exhaustion they felt every morning wasn't from work—it was from their brains running at full tilt all night, for someone else's greed.
Cole's vision flickered wildly, a searing pain shooting from the interface behind his ear. He clung to the wall, nearly collapsing to the floor.
He tried to look further, to see where this freely commandeered computing power ultimately flowed. But in that instant, a wall of blazing red warnings blotted out his entire vision, a shrill alarm exploding directly in his brain:
[Nexus System Highest-Level Alert: You are accessing an unauthorized top-secret encrypted area. Cease operation immediately and erase access traces! | Violation will result in deduction of all remaining Freqs in your account, permanent ban of interface permissions, and entry into the Federal Citizen Credit Blacklist! | Failure to exit in 10 seconds will trigger forced offline procedure!]
Red countdown numbers flashed rapidly in his vision: 10, 9, 8...
Cole froze, cold to the bone, as if thrown into a winter ice cellar.
His finger hovered over the virtual "Exit Immediately" button, refusing to fall.
He had finally seen the truth of this world, the truth of how this massive, never-ending machine of exploitation worked. But he also knew—from the moment he pushed that door open, he had one foot in the abyss.
The countdown ticked on: 3, 2, 1...
(End of Chapter 1)