LifeNet: The Price of Immortality

Chapter 4: The First Glitch

"Elara! Elara, wait up!"

Turning around, Elara saw Ben jogging toward her, waving his hand. She paused, watching him as he caught up, his face flushed with excitement.

“Hey, Ben. What's got you all fired up?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

“You won’t believe what I just saw!” he said breathlessly. “It was weird, like, really weird.”

She smirked. “You say that about every new gadget you buy. What is it this time? Some new LifeNet upgrade?”

Ben shook his head, his eyes wide. “No, not exactly. It’s about Emory.”

Elara’s smirk faded. Emory was one of Ben’s oldest friends, a regular LifeNet user who had always been vocal about its benefits. She’d seen him just last week, and he’d looked as chipper as ever, singing LifeNet’s praises without hesitation.

“What about him?” she asked, her voice careful.

Ben hesitated, glancing around. “Can we… talk somewhere a little quieter? This feels too weird to say out loud.”

Elara felt a shiver of curiosity as they stepped into a small, quiet café nearby. Ben leaned over the table, keeping his voice low.

“So, Emory and I were talking about some of the stuff we used to do as kids,” Ben began. “He was telling me this story about our camping trip by the lake, you remember that one, right?”

She nodded. The infamous trip where Ben had tried to catch a fish with his bare hands and ended up falling into the lake. They’d laughed about it for years.

“Anyway,” Ben continued, his face serious now, “Emory just… stopped. Mid-sentence. Like, he was talking and then—nothing. It was as if someone had muted him.”

Elara frowned. “Maybe he just forgot what he was going to say.”

Ben shook his head firmly. “No. It wasn’t like that. I mean, he looked blank. And when I asked him about the trip again, he just stared at me like I was talking about something he’d never even done. Like he had no memory of it at all.”

A chill crawled up Elara’s spine. “What did he say?”

“He looked me dead in the eyes and said, ‘I think you’re confusing me with someone else, Ben.’ Like, totally serious. But we both know he was there. He was the one who brought the marshmallows!”

Elara’s fingers tapped against the table absently. “And he didn’t remember any of it? Not even a little?”

“Nothing. And the weirdest part was… he didn’t seem bothered. I mean, if I forgot an entire memory, I’d freak out, but he just shrugged it off, like it wasn’t a big deal.”

Elara’s mind was racing. “Did he mention anything about LifeNet? Any updates, new features, or… glitches?”

Ben blinked, looking taken aback. “Glitches? No, but now that you mention it… he did say he’d gone in for a new optimization recently.”

“Optimization?”

“Yeah, something to make memory ‘more efficient,’ or something like that. He said it was part of LifeNet’s premium service. You know how he is—if there’s a new feature, he’s got to try it first.”

Elara leaned back, feeling a sense of dread wash over her. Memory enhancements, optimizations… it all sounded innocent enough, but if they were interfering with memories in a way that caused lapses, that was something else entirely.

“Ben, did he act strange afterward? Anything unusual besides the memory lapse?”

Ben shook his head. “He seemed normal, except for the fact that he suddenly can’t remember years of our lives.” He hesitated, then added, “Elara, I know you’re always suspicious of LifeNet, but… do you think it’s really that serious? That they could be, I don’t know, erasing things?”

Elara’s stomach twisted. “I don’t know. But I have a feeling that whatever’s going on isn’t accidental.”

Ben fell silent, looking down at the table. “It’s scary, Elara. Like… if they can just erase things without people noticing… what else could they be doing?”

She didn’t have an answer for him. But the question lingered, chilling in its simplicity.

Later, back in the solitude of her apartment, she sat at her computer, fingers hovering over the keyboard. LifeNet’s public database was polished and user-friendly, filled with glowing reviews and official statements, but she knew the real answers wouldn’t be here. She’d have to dig deeper.

After a few moments of hesitation, she typed in a series of commands, navigating into LifeNet’s internal archives—a part of the system only accessible through careful bypassing of security protocols. It was risky, but she couldn’t ignore what Ben had told her.

As she navigated the maze of files and folders, her heart pounded. Her search turned up countless files, most of them unremarkable, but then she found a directory labeled “Memory Alterations - Experimental Logs.”

Elara clicked on it, holding her breath.

Her screen filled with rows of files, each tagged with strange, clinical names like “Subject Recall Adjustment 3.5,” “Memory Loop Feedback,” and “Stability Calibration 8.”

She opened the first file, scanning the text, her eyes widening as she read.

“Subject reports difficulty recalling significant life events. Anomalies appear after recent ‘optimization’ protocols applied. Consciousness instability suspected…”

Elara sat back, the words sinking in. Consciousness instability. This was more than just a memory glitch. They were experimenting on people, on their minds, and they were willing to risk these strange lapses for what? Efficiency?

Her hands trembled as she opened another file. The reports were vague, filled with technical jargon, but the implications were clear. The optimizations, the enhancements—they weren’t as safe as LifeNet claimed.

She clicked on another document, this one marked with a bold warning at the top:

“FOR AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY: DO NOT SHARE. Significant memory instability observed in Subjects 102, 107, and 214. Memory loss persists beyond optimization cycles. Subject recall shows potential deterioration of personal identity.”

Her heart pounded faster. Deterioration of personal identity? Was that what Emory had experienced? A loss so deep that even his own memories became inaccessible?

A sudden pop-up filled her screen:

“WARNING: Unauthorized Access Detected.”

Panic surged through her as she scrambled to close the files, but the screen froze. A countdown timer appeared at the corner, ticking down ominously from thirty seconds. She couldn’t get out—she was locked in.

Elara’s fingers flew over the keyboard, trying every trick she knew, but the system wouldn’t budge. Twenty seconds left. Her heart raced as she finally hit the power button, forcing her computer to shut down with a sickening sense of dread.

The silence after the shutdown was almost deafening. She sat there in the darkness, her chest heaving, as the weight of what she’d just discovered settled over her.

A soft knock on her door jolted her from her thoughts.

“Elara?”

It was Nyx. She hesitated, then opened the door, peeking out. He was standing there, looking slightly out of breath, his face pale.

“Nyx? What are you doing here?”

“I… I don’t know. I just had this feeling… like something was wrong.” He looked over her shoulder, his eyes narrowing. “Were you…?”

She cut him off, grabbing his arm and pulling him inside. “You’re not going to believe this,” she whispered, shutting the door behind them.

“What’s going on?” he asked, his voice low.

Elara took a breath, trying to steady herself. “I found something, Nyx. Something about LifeNet… about these so-called optimizations. They’re not what people think they are. They’re… they’re messing with memories. People are forgetting things, important things. And LifeNet’s covering it up.”

He stared at her, wide-eyed. “What are you talking about?”

She hesitated, then showed him the notebook, flipping to the page with her mother’s notes. “My mom tried to warn me. She said not to trust what we see, that LifeNet hides its truth.”

Nyx took a shaky breath, his gaze flickering between the notebook and her face. “So… what are you saying? That they’re controlling people’s memories? Their… minds?”

Elara’s voice trembled. “Yes. And it’s worse than I thought. They’re not just erasing memories; they’re… destabilizing people. Their whole identities.”

Nyx ran a hand through his hair, his expression a mix of fear and anger. “Then we have to stop them, Elara. We have to—”

A sharp ping from her communicator interrupted him. Elara froze, her blood turning to ice as she saw the message flashing on the screen.

“NOTICE: You are being monitored. Any further unauthorized access will result in severe penalties.”

Nyx looked at her, his face pale. “They know.”

Elara swallowed hard, her hands trembling as she turned off the communicator. She met Nyx’s eyes, the weight of her discovery pressing down on her.

“They’re onto us,” she whispered.

And in that moment, she realized she might have just become LifeNet’s next target.