THE DREAM

One week later…

The alarm started to ring and just then the blinds on the windows opened up giving me a glimpse of fresh light till my eyes got used to them. Which was faster than you can think, as it was nothing new for me. I got up and sat on the side on bed stretching my arms up and asked the house system

"what have you got for me today."

"Good morning Raymond, today will be mostly sunny. Your shift starts at 9 and you are to give the tour to secondary school students today at 10. The rest of the day is clear. Would like for me to add something to your schedule?"

I sighed and left myself loose "Oh not the tour again, Get my coffee ready for take out, will ya."

____

I was holding my coffee and walking through the corridors sifting through my daily feed on the phone.

Tina got into a relationship with… swipe

Newer prosthetic arm to have 50% more realistic sensation says… swipe

Update your home system to have a holographic assistant… another ad… swipe

I took a sip of my coffee and kept my phone back in the pocket as I saw Hailey coming towards me. we have a new upload for you and this one specifically asked for you. I was surprised by this fact and said: "that's unusual. Who is the client?"

She looked at the tablet in her hand and said: "She was the known of one of the OG's."

I looked at the profile of the client in her hand. I knew who she was but I had to confirm before jumping to conclusion.

"Where is the Echo?"

"It's in your office."

____

I placed the Echo in the data streamliner

"Go to the memories section."

And the data rearranged itself to give me a memory timeline.

"Show me the defining memories."

The dots of data again rearranged and a window opened.

She is was in school and kids are making fun of her.

"Why are you such a loner, look at your sister she blends well with everyone"

The girl had a blank look and said "No, I am just different."

"You guys are twins, you aren't that different. you know what, whatever, just stay away from me weirdo."

She was headed back to home now. walking slowing and lonely through a crowd of students. she preferred to keep her headphones on even if there was no music playing, this way she could avoid the social interactions she had come to dread so much.

She heard her sister talk to her boyfriend in the back, "I tried saving her image but she is just too weird, I can't ruin my social life for her…"

She could barely hear the words because of the crowd "...But why does it matter to you so much…"

Then a person tapped on her should. She was so shocked that she dropped her phone and the headphones came out. it was her sister's boyfriend. She kept staring not knowing what to say as the boy picked up the phone for her. He did something on her phone and said, "Here it has my number on it, just call text or whatever if you need anything ok?"

Now the girl is sitting at her home, grown up, holding that same phone sitting in the dining room. There was a knock on the door and her mother opens it. It's a police officer who says something and her mother starts crying.

"I am sorry ma'am."

"Can I see her?" said her mother crying and sobbing furiously

"Wait, that's...?" said the officer who suddenly noticed her.

"It's her twin sister."

"Ohh...Well I am sorry to say but her body was unrecoverable, but you registered her for the program so the membership can be transferred to her husband in such a case."

She is older now sitting in her room and studying. Her roommate calls her "You should talk to more people; I can set you up with someone I know."

"No, I am ok." She said after glancing at her roommate and whispered: "Nobody understands me anyway."

Hailey barged into the door and I hastily took out the Echo. She caught her breath and said, "Your students are here."

"I have to upload this Echo first."

"Great, you can show them how it's done too."

"Can't you handle them until I do it?"

"it's not in my job description to be a babysitter."

Every batch of students has those who don't ask anything and those who ask too much. It was the same this time too. When we arrived at the OG room. I started pointing out at the large room full of pods and said "This is the OG room. Its where it all began. They are called OG as in originals but we just call them the old guys. Most of these were people who enrolled to preserve their body in one of the cryonics centers. Back in the days, they would have been thought to be crazy, but life--- death can take unexpected turns"

"Why are the OGs kept in a different system?" asked one of the students who was the most interested ones in this batch of students

"The OGs data extraction was not up to the current standards so they could not interact with other OG data collections, so they had to be kept separately emulated worlds otherwise the data would jumble up. In layman terms, they could not handle it and they would go insane."

Another one of the students who wasn't speaking the whole way but was intrigued by the pods said "Is this neuropod 3.0?"

I went near one of the pods, put my hand on the corner of the pod and said "More like 3.5, these things can interact with your brain and leave no damage even after 12 hours of usage. But we like to keep it to 6 hours for safety reasons."

one of the girls among them said: "So you can like enter emulated worlds with this thing?"

The same boy who asked about the pod replied: "Obviously, you can. Going to the land of the dead and coming back, Isn't it cool?"

"I have a bonus for you guys. Who wants to see an Echo upload?"

The kids were not so happy with the prospect except for a chosen few.

"what is an Echo?" asked someone from the crowd.

"It's Emulated consciousness harrow-optic drive, it stores the data collected from the brain mapping."

"So you can even collect an Echo of a living person?"

"Yes." I stuttered a bit "But, it is illegal to create an Echo of a living person." I took out the Echo and said: "Anyways, let's get to the main event."

I went to the center of the room where there was a fairly big control terminal. I put it one the streamliner there and said "upload to OG13 drive."

And the computer started doing the process. Looking at it I realized why it was not as interesting as he thought it would be. Seeing a meter go to 100% can be uneventful.

"Why are you uploading this to the OG didn't you just say they could not interact with other echo data?" said one of the usual suspects

"It... She was a relative of one of the OG, newer Echo data format is capable of subverting that problem to some extent."

"Then why aren't they uploading all the OG's to the collective emulation?"

"It is because, nobody really cares anymore. plus you need to be rich to afford that kind of stuff and the dead don't really make any money."

"who was she to the OG?"

"she was...someone who cared."