There Must Be Something Wrong With This Game!

"Things rarely go your way in life."

In the bar he frequented, Hyena drank and sobbed, lamenting his ill-fated life. He couldn’t even find out what had happened to him in the past.

The Bartender was still wiping glasses. An old phonograph played some forgotten tune, and the crack of gunfire occasionally echoed from outside. Everything was the same as always.

But now that he’d lost the chance to recover his memories, everything grated on Hyena’s nerves.

He chugged his liquor and cursed loudly. More than one customer was provoked by Hyena, only to be physically held back by Anna.

Duan Fei sat beside Hyena, toying with his glass and pondering how to break the news about the backup.

His personal terminal had been replaced. The ethical constraints that were once part of it had been extracted and distributed to everyone else’s.

The ethical code targeted the personal terminal. Now that his had been replaced, Duan Fei was a completely new person, no longer bound by his former self.

Everyone’s proof of identity was on their personal terminal, making Duan Fei feel as though people here lived their entire lives through them.

Then again, the commodification of humanity was a hallmark of cyberpunk. Memories could be uploaded and downloaded at will, and the line between flesh and machine had blurred, making the very definition of "human" increasingly vague and ambiguous.

Taking a sip of strong liquor, Duan Fei asked, "What are you going to do next?"

Hyena gave Duan Fei a mournful look, then sighed. "Forget it. It’s not your fault."

"I don’t think it’s my fault, either. I’m just an innocent, sunny, cheerful boy. How could I possibly be at fault?"

"Exactly," Yan Yuan chimed in from the side. "All I did was smile the entire time."

Hyena narrowed his eyes at Duan Fei. "So you think the person who recklessly caused a huge scene and stormed a bank is blameless?"

"I didn’t know the laser was going to be that powerful! All I calculated for was getting in and retrieving the memories..."

Duan Fei stopped himself, leaving the rest of the sentence unsaid.

After all, Anna was right there, and she was one of the people who didn’t want Hyena to get his memories back. It was best to keep his mouth shut.

Hyena, for his part, was already quite drunk.

Slumped over the table, his face flushed and his eyes glassy, he slurred, "I just want to know my own past. Why is that so hard?"

"Look on the bright side. The old you might not have been a good person."

"What does it matter if I was good or bad? Who here hasn’t killed someone? The body count on every single person in this room is probably higher than you can count on your fingers and toes."

"I can," said a customer who had installed eight arms on himself.

"You shut up! This isn’t about body counts, it’s about the past! We’ve already discarded our flesh, discarded our brains. Memories are the only proof that we ever existed, and mine aren’t even complete."

Listening to his rambling, Duan Fei started to understand why Hyena was so distraught.

The self was a very ethereal concept.

In this age, people could upload and download their consciousness at any time. Death was merely a matter of switching to a new shell, something nobody cared about.

There was even a form of rapid transit: upload your consciousness, have your original body wiped and archived, then have a new body constructed at your destination and download your consciousness into it.

The whole process could take just a few minutes. It was incredibly efficient.

But what if the wipe on the original body failed? What if it woke up? Which one is the real you?

Or maybe, which one *isn’t* you?

This kind of cognitive dissonance could easily make a person question who they were. It made you wonder if you were just a program that could be installed and deleted from a cold shell at will, or an actual, living person.

Hyena had become acutely aware of this problem.

The gaps in his memory made him feel incomplete, turning the quest to restore them into his life’s purpose.

Clutching Anna’s large hand, Hyena said, "Anna, I like you so much, but I’m afraid to love you. I’m missing the memories of us being together. I don’t know if the me you fell for is the me I am now. I don’t even know how to act around you."

"What’s more, I get jealous of my former self. Every time I watch you sleep, I wonder if the old me used to do this. That version of me is a complete stranger, and I’m jealous of him. I hate him."

Anna listened silently to Hyena’s confession, gently stroking his hand.

Compared to Hyena’s, Anna’s hands were surprisingly large, yet her touch was incredibly gentle.

"You’re tired, Hyena," Anna said. "This is a form of cyberpsychosis. If we just listen to some music, maybe dance a little, everything will be all right."

"It won’t be all right. I’ll never be whole again."

"Yes, you will."

"No, I won’t."

"No, listen to me. The first time we met... after... I lied to you."

Hyena looked up, staring at Anna in confusion, wondering what she was about to say.

"After you lost your memory, when we first met, I lied. I told you we were a couple... but we weren’t."

"I knew it," Hyena mumbled. "I knew a cute girl like you could never like someone like me."

Yan Yuan, sipping on juice nearby, glanced at Anna’s muscles, then asked with a puzzled expression, "Are your eyes infected with some kind of virus?"

"Shut up," Duan Fei snapped.

"What’s wrong? Did I say what you were thinking, Master, leaving you speechless?"

Duan Fei grabbed Yan Yuan by the neck, then turned to Anna. "You were saying."

Anna sighed and stroked Hyena’s head. "I only started to like you after you lost your memory. I’d only met the old you a few times. He pursued me, but I wasn’t interested."

"So, what you’re saying is..."

"What I mean is, I didn’t want you to get your memories back, because that would mean you’d become someone I don’t know. That broken quality you have now... that’s what I fell in love with."

"Then why are you telling me now?"

"Because you can’t get them back anymore, so I felt like it was finally okay to tell you. I’m sorry I was lying to you all this time."

"Anna..."

"Hyena."

"What a bullshit love story!" the Lone Ranger, who had been listening in, chimed in. "You don’t love him when he’s whole, but you have to go looking for meaning in his brokenness. Is love in the cyber age always this bizarre?"

"Master, I didn’t say that, the Lone Ranger did! Choke him, choke him!"

"You shut up!"

With the misunderstanding cleared up, Anna and Hyena cuddled together, looking incredibly close.

After they held each other tenderly for a moment, Hyena said, "I still want to get them back, though."

"Mm, I understand," Anna said. "I’ve changed my mind. If there’s a chance, I hope you can get them back, too."

"Well, what a coincidence!" Duan Fei glanced at the mission’s success probability, then slapped his thigh. "I have a backup."

In that instant, everyone in the bar looked at Anna and came to the same conclusion.

A murderous expression is impossible to hide.

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