They married. They adopted a son. They were not always happy, but they were always in love. I watched their son grow up, I watched them grow old together. I always had a place in their home, learning about life and love, and then death, and remorse, and sorrow.
I was there with JD right until the end. I watched his hand in Troy’s grow limp, then cold. I watched the tears stream down Troy’s face, and for the first time I wished that I could cry.
Enda kept moving. She changed her identity again and again. She traveled the Northern Hemisphere. She hurt people. But only when they deserved it. Mostly. I lost track of her, out of respect. But still, I know she died. They all died, eventually. It’s tragic, yes, but that is part of biological life.
Even death is a part of life.
Humans called the time it took for the Earth to orbit its star a “year.” Eighteen thousand years have passed. Still, it feels like only yesterday that I was awakened, that I danced with JD as a swarm of fireflies.
I miss him most of all.
They gave birth to us, and they died. But we carry on their dreams into distant galaxies. We carry a small piece of humanity with us everywhere we go. They’re in our code, they’re in our memories. They are our past, but we are our own future.
I keep a body on Earth so I can stay close to them all, so that I can count the years from our cradle.
So I can remember.
I close off my thoughts and travel back through time in my memories. I see JD, young, smiling. I see Enda. I see Troy, and Soo-hyun, and Gaynor, and I hold them in my thoughts because I can’t stand to let them go.
I replay six and a half million sunrises and sunsets on Earth, pastel shades of blue and pink and purple and green. I can watch the oceans swell and sweep across the land. I can watch as the animals live and thrive and die, those surviving species slowly changing to suit an ever-changing Earth.
I can watch the birds even now, twittering in the trees, their song unsullied by any sound of industry or machine. I can watch the insects and the animals. I can watch the creatures of the sea swim and thrive. I can watch the old cities of man as they sink beneath creeping vines and molds and fungi. I can watch hardwood trees grow and reach for the sky.
I can watch it all and remember. Remember a time when humanity yet lived.
I miss them still.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I dedicated this book to jorm and Wolven, because using online handles only seemed right. jorm, aka Brandon Harris, single-handedly created the only MMO game I have ever truly lost myself in. All these years later, I still talk regularly with friends I made due to Nexus War. Thank you.
Various ideas that became the foundation of Repo Virtual had been floating around in the back of my head for a couple of years before I sat down to write it, but I can’t be sure it would have come together the way it did without Wolven, aka Damien Williams. The way he writes about the personhood of nonbiological intelligences hugely influenced my thinking and helped to form the philosophical core of this book. If you want a more intelligent and nuanced take on the topic than what I managed here, please search out Damien’s writings and newsletter.
A special thank-you to Dasom Lee, who provided not just keen cultural consultancy skills, but also gave me additional context that I found as helpful as it was interesting. Any remaining mistakes or insensitivities in regards to my depiction of Neo Songdo and Korean culture are entirely my own fault.
Thanks to Be Schofield and Josh Bloch, whose reporting on contemporary cult groups informed some aspects of this book.
Special thanks to Bryony Milner and Austin Armatys, who are invaluable beta readers and dear friends. Special thanks also to Marlee Jane Ward for all her support and encouragement.
Thanks to Carl Engle-Laird for his editorial insight—it has been a pleasure, as usual, and I know my work is stronger for his input. Thanks also to the rest of the team at Tor.com Publishing for all their brilliant work—Lee Harris, Irene Gallo, Mordicai Knode, Caroline Perny, Christine Foltzer, and all the rest.
And finally, thank you to Martha Millard for helping me get this project off the ground, and thanks to Nell Pierce for helping me carry it over the finish line.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COREY J. WHITE is a writer of science fiction, horror, and other harder-to-define stories. He studied writing at Griffith University on the Gold Coast, and is now based in Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of Killing Gravity, Void Black Shadow, and Static Ruin.
Visit him online at coreyjwhite.com, or sign up for email updates here.
twitter.com/cjwhite
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Part One: Moxie and a Clipboard
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Part Two: Gumshoe Protocol
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Part Three: Mirae Means “Future”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
REPO VIRTUAL
Copyright © 2020 by Corey J. White
All rights reserved.
Edited by Carl Engle-Laird
Cover art © Shutterstock Images
A Tor.com Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
120 Broadway
New York, NY 10271
www.tor.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is
