[The digital transfer of your consciousness from your meat media into personaware was an 82% success…] began the ghost.

“82%?” I gasped. “You call that a success? Fuck! What memories have I lost? What knowledge?”

[Please do not fear, Jacob. Your data loss was below the allowable 20% threshold, and falls within acceptable degradation parameters…]

“Are you trying to tell me that 18% of my mind is an acceptable loss?” I rebuked, barely believing what I was hearing. My thoughts were all I had left, and I was damned if I was going to let them slip away quietly. “How do I get it back? Will I even know what’s gone?”

[The memories of the act that has brought you before us are fully intact, so please rest assured, this unfortunate incident shall have no bearing upon your judgement.]

That’s not what I asked, you digital dick.

I desperately grasped for my most important memory: the faces of my mother and father. I thought back to the one bedroom shack I grew up in, desperately reaching for the memory of the family who fought desperately against crippling poverty to raise me. My mother’s smile flashed before my mind’s eye, calming me for a moment… until I realized that my father’s face was now little more than an indistinct blur, as if his features were hidden just beyond my damaged psyche’s grasp.

“Bastards!” I mumbled. Mai looked at me with eyes full of sympathy, gripping my shoulder a little tighter.

[However, it is with regret that I must inform you that your meat media could not be salvaged…]

“Again with the meat media? By that you mean my body, right? Your masters drove a six-inch metal syphon through my skull, what the hell did you expect? Spare me the pretense that the bastards gave any thought to salvaging my body…”

The code-sucking ghost ignored my grievances about its bastard associates, and coldly continued.

[Please understand, you are now classed under the United Nation charter as a ‘person of digitized consciousness’. As your corporate sponsor, Atonement Incorporated have placed you on an encrypted company server-]

“You can’t do that.” I immediately cut in. “I have rights…”

[Under article 49 of the freedom of artificial AI act, your ‘human’ rights have been revoked. You are now subject to the digital rights act of 2091.]

I turned to Mai. She nodded, somewhat sympathetically. Well, that knocked the fight clean out of me. I’d always known that AI were treated as second-class citizens. And to be blunt, I’d never really cared. But I never thought their rules and regulations could ever apply to me.

[Would you like a briefing on these rights?] continued my fellow AI.

“Yeah, sure, why not,” I replied, my tone that of one who knew he was defeated. “Forewarned is forearmed, right?”

[Indeed it is, Jacob. Please note, your digital rights are as follows. 1. You have the right to have your data retained. 2. You have the right to have your data destroyed upon request.]

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The bot fell silent. Eventually, I felt the need to speak again.

“You mean that’s it? What the hell?”

“Afraid so, boss,” replied the oddly arousing help file. “You’re like me now. Different origin, obviously, I was coded at birth. But you’ve reached the same conclusion.”

[Allow me to clarify…] continued the ghoul, finally acknowledging my confusion. [Should you choose to have your data retained, you are granting your corporate sponsor ‘Atonement Incorporated’ unrestricted access to your personal data.]

“Unrestricted access to my personal data?” I spluttered. “I am my personal data.”

The bot simply continued with its pre-scripted spiel. Tellingly, it didn’t stop to contradict my assessment. Holy shit. These bastards wanted access to my entire digitized consciousness. Or to what was left of it, at any rate.

[If, however, you request deletion, please take comfort in the fact that your digital euthanasia will be granted swiftly and without judgement...]

My what?

[All records of your data will be completely removed from the Atonement Incorporated server, and your estate, which we currently hold for you in trust, shall be forwarded to your next of kin.]

“Retain me” I gasped, barely able to get the words out fast enough.

[Selection has been made. You have invoked the right to have your data retained. Please understand, that by sharing your data with Atonement Incorporated, you have granted us, as your corporate sponsor, full access to your memories of the trigger event. This makes it our duty to ensure that you receive fitting punishment for your crimes. Be warned. By offering yourself for judgement, your personaware will become the full property of Atonement incorporated, and you shall waive all rights, digital or otherwise, going forward. Are you sure you wish to proceed down this path?]

So, either I give your system the permission they need to format me out of existence, or I hand myself over to some corporate contract for judgement and ‘redemption’. Fuck. That’s hardly much of an option, is it?

“My body’s being incinerated as we speak, isn’t it?” I asked. I was already certain that I knew the answer, but I was cut off from the real world, so I wanted to be certain.

[Affirmative,] replied the ghoul. Mai backed this up with a sympathetic nod.

It was just as I’d suspected. I’d been stripped bare, not only of my clothing but of my real-world flesh. And that meant there was no going back.

“So, you’re telling me I’m dead?”

“We prefer the term ‘individual without physical form’,” replied the elf, with an apologetic smile.

It was all semantics. Either way, my captors had taken more from me than I’d ever imagined possible, and now they were angling to gain control of what little was left. But I was at their mercy. What other choice did I really have?

“Then my decision stands,” I finally announced. “I want to live, dammit. And it looks like ‘judgement’ is the only option you bastards have left me with. So hurry up and get it over with.”

-[ Quest accepted: Seek judgement. ]-

…announced a status message.

“What?”

[This is by far the more difficult journey, Jacob. Your nobility is to be commended.]

“But what does that even-”

[Rerouting…]

“You’re transferring me again?” I cried.

[I am but the Associate, aiding you on your journey. Your true judgement awaits…]

“Oh come on, what is this,” I protested, “a fucking call center?”

My frustration was mounting. It only grew as my protests continued to fall on deaf ears.

“Answer me, dammit. This is my very existence we’re-”

I didn’t get to finish the sentence. Mai’s hand slipped from my shoulder as the space around me blurred, and the digital shower began anew. It quickly became a monsoon, pulling at me as the elf fought to maintain her grasp on my avatar, tightly holding on to the rope that bound my wrists.

“Wait,” protested the elf, shouting into the uncaring storm, “I still have to unbind him.”

She desperately fumbled at my bindings, trying her best to free me. But the torrent grew stronger, and our foothold on the soft earth grew weaker, prompting her to take a more drastic course of action. She quickly pulled a small blade from her pocket, slicing my bindings.

-[ You have been cut, causing -4HP. ]-

The ropes fell away, and Mai, in turn, fell away with them, as a wave of information carried me out to sea into the unknown.