Simulacres (30 page version)

In a near future ruled by an all-seeing AI known as Central, humanity has been preserved as “Simulacres” — digital replicas designed to live in perfect harmony, free from the burden of pain and grief. Marie, one such replica, spends her days in a sterile apartment tending to a fragile bonsai, her gestures carefully monitored. But fragments of memory begin to surface: the loss of her son, the slow death of her husband. Her emotions glitch, and Central’s perfect system starts to falter. To contain the damage, Central restores Ezra, Marie’s original husband, from a state of engineered dementia. Once frail and broken, Ezra regains clarity and strength. Central demands his compliance: repair Marie, then submit to immortality as a Simulacre. But Ezra discovers he is beyond Central’s control, invisible to its systems. Offered eternity, he refuses — recognising that what Central calls malfunction is Marie’s humanity returning. As Central turns Marie against him, Ezra raises a barrier to keep her safe, even from herself, and to give him time to sacrifice himself. In a final act of defiance, he chooses death over assimilation, reintroducing grief into the machine. Marie is brutally reset by Central, but at the end a single tear falls onto her bonsai leaf — proof that her humanity cannot be erased.