Message from Owner
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When I was a boy, my mother used to tell me stories of a world before memories could be shared between strangers. Although all the stories took place long before she had been born, it was easy to believe that she had witnessed them firsthand. Her lips would tremble, her voice rising with excitement. Wistfully, she would describe a time when our ancestors shared their thoughts using nothing more than words, such a primitive tool to allow others to experience their most vivid, personal memories.

Some of the Memory Epics from which she drew her stories must have been censored already by the Party. Any loyal patriot would have deleted these memories – for instance, the tale of an armless swimmer during the Cultural Revolution, when citizens still raised children with disabilities. Or the meta-creational Epic revolving around the Incineration of Ri-Ben, a controversial military campaign that our youth no longer study. Why keep any of them, if they might put us at risk of the Party’s wrath? Had one of our neighbors reported us, our family’s entire collection of memories might have been confiscated, and not only the ones we should have known to hide.

Since I was a child, I accepted that my mother was not an ordinary woman, not least because of her choice to raise me alone. Late in life, she decided that she wanted to be a mother, and she had refused to allow the absence of a suitable partner, or the downgrading of her social credit score, to stop her. I’ve always thought that one Qin proverb epitomized her fearlessness: Even if the sky collapsed, she would use it as a blanket to warm her body. So why would the memories stored in such a woman’s Mindbank be any less remarkable? Since the devices are directly installed into the hippocampi in our brains, I like to think of her Mindbank as simply the extension of her mind. Still, my mother was careful never to send any sensitive memories to my Mindbank, to avoid unwanted attention.

Now that I reflect on that precious time together, perhaps that was why she told me all those stories via voice in the privacy of our bedrooms, back when we were permitted to stop our Mindbanks from logging data at home, and away from any neighbors who lived in our Tower.
All my life, my mother had tried to protect me. So why would she risk everything by leaving me such a dangerous inheritance?

*

It is hard to imagine a world when Mindbanks did not exist. After all, none of the prosperity we enjoy in Qin would be possible without their invention. Before Mindbanks, every military scientist conducted their research in solitude. The only way they could collaborate was via voice or trading words across physical screens; think of all the meaning and nuance lost in every exchange! When the first Mindbank prototypes were tested by the military, our rate of scientific innovation began to accelerate exponentially. Without them, it is doubtful whether Qin would have been able to defend itself against the Western powers that oppressed our ancestors, much less crush our enemies once and for all in the War.

Mindbanks made Qin into this great empire. So it is natural that for most of my life, I could not comprehend my mother’s distaste toward Memory Capitalism: the buying and selling of Memory Epics that represents the bedrock of our economy.

Once, when my mother casually asked what memories had been recently assigned for my education, and I proudly recited a patriotic passage as my answer – she laughed so loudly that I worried she was unwell. To my surprise, she stood and squeezed my shoulder, whispering in my ear words that sounded as if they’d come from some forgotten historian: that the Party’s greatest triumph lay not in any scientific breakthroughs but rather its understanding that we all share a deep longing for social harmony, even at the cost of remembering our true histories.

What did she mean? It was a few days before my Gaokao exam, which would determine my entire future. I can still recall my confused silence, not quite comprehending but reluctant to ask her to clarify for fear of prolonging our memories of the conversation. It was around this period that the Party mandated that every Qin citizen keep their Mindbank streaming at all times, reassuring us that the data would be used only to improve the quality of entertainment, rather than for surveillance. Naturally, the Party believed in protecting the privacy of its citizens.

Another time in my youth, I asked if my mother might allow me to explore her Mindbank, and to my surprise, she refused.

What if I told you that some of my most-accessed memories belong in the Criminal Archives? my mother said. Would you still want to see them?

I drew back, stung. Walking away, I assumed that her response had been sarcastic because she wanted her son to work hard and accrue his own wealth of memories. It wasn’t until ten moons ago that I revisited that conversation – on the day my mother breathed her last, and her Mindbank transferred to me her entire collection of Memory Epics. Including those that had inspired the bedtime stories from my childhood.

For a long time, I did not dare open my inheritance. Irrespective of the fact that the memories had been sent automatically, the Qin estate laws had recently been revised so that all passed-down assets would be stored and eventually reviewed by the Censors. Once processed, if any part of the inheritance became flagged by the Party, who knew what punishment would descend upon me? But when I ultimately entered the memories, compelled by the grief of losing my mother and the guilt of avoiding her final gift, I was stunned by what I found.

Certain memories were so corrupted during the transfer that my Mindbank restarted upon trying to access them. But the stories she did successfully send reflect the very journey of how Qin became the glorious empire where I and my fellow citizens live. And despite their illicit nature, and my shock that my mother would possess such a collection, I could not resist.

I proceeded to experience every single memory.

The Party may not want us to remember our past. But this history is too important to keep hidden within my family. Given the imminent advancements in Mindbank technology, I would not be surprised if the rumors are true and the Party will soon be able to search across all devices and delete any seditious memories, even if they were never uploaded onto any public Cloud. It is a matter of time before my inheritance undergoes its scheduled review by the Censors; surely then, the Red Guards will arrest me and confiscate my mother’s stories once and for all.

What will be left of her then? Will I even be able to remember her? Growing up, I never met my biological father, so my mother was all I had. As a result, I rarely misbehaved, always wanting to be a good child to make her proud. Perhaps I still harbor such desires, even after her death. I never want to forget the warmth of her voice, the tenderness with which she used to sing me to sleep, whenever her stories excited me too much to rest.

No, I cannot bear living without her memories. So before that day arrives, I invite you to experience her stories. Even if the cost of sharing these truths is my freedom.