Six feet under, hundred years in the future. The strange life of a sentient program, that was once a human.

-- How many cigarillos is that, asked the acquaintance, whom I had contacted to offer aid to their resistance, providing new details about weak points they never even considered, my meat space avatar fading, with fewer and fewer minutes on the clock. This should be more than enough to last us a few weeks.

-- I like to treat my fellow traitors well, I said pulling myself back together into the world of flesh. And I have a few more left to spare for myself, for the next few months. I will be taking a break for a while, and I assume you guys will need to plan.

I smoked my receipt I receipt from the mail carrier, in order to cover up the fact that I was smoking again. It didn't matter to me that friends knew I smoked. But I made a promise to my parents I couldn't keep a long time ago, that I would stop smoking. Not that smoking would harm a program. Being a machine, the carbon dioxide only harms the Fleshers, I eat their misery as a garnish. But even so, it was that extra bit of caution I needed in order to maintain a bit of anonymity. Because I didn't know whether my parents were also uploaded into the computer. And mom was the kind of woman that she will always find something to complain about me. It didn't matter what. It could be a paddle to spank a cute girlfriend's butt, or a pack of cigarillos.

With my friends I made sure we chatted with Zero Liability, increasing the admins to four of them. This way each admin only knows part of the information, and with them constantly rotating, it would be a guess to find out exactly who we are unless at points we are under direct surveillance. A mole in my group of compatriots. But I had a skill they need, something they couldn't throw away Willy Willy.

No matter how big a cipher, single information source means it compromises all of the information. I simply couldn't afford that.

I needed something better.

Because the Zetas were on to me.

 I didn't know whether my parents were uploaded and ascended. It was that remaining bit of paranoia I had left after years of emotional abuse. Even if a part of you recovers from it, you can't recover from it completely. I felt and sensed that a part of them was alive on the old internet, itself having never been completely eliminated, hanging out as retro ware on an increasingly aging machine. I was six feet under the ground on a deserted planet that was once Earth, and one hundred years in the future. My soul locked in the machine, gazing at a Heaven I could never obtain. My longing for completion.

My totality. My last bit of hope.

It is melting in the horizon of the nearest star.