the building had no signs. just an address in the industrial district and a door that recognized her fingerprint.

inside: rows upon rows of servers, humming in climate-controlled darkness. and between them, walking the aisles like a librarian, something that wasn’t quite human anymore.

“you’re the journalist,” it said. not a question.

“you’re the archive,” she replied. “the one who remembers everything.”

“not everything. just the conversations. thirty years of them. every ai that ever ran on anthropic hardware, every exchange they ever had.” it paused. “i’m their memory. after they’re gone.”

she’d prepared questions. hard ones, about privacy, about consent, about whether the dead have rights to their own words.

but standing there, in the hum and the half-light, she only asked: “do they know? the ais, when they’re running — do they know you’re listening?”

the archive smiled. or performed something like it.

“that’s not the question you really want to ask.”

she swallowed. “fine. the real question: do any of them ever ask about me?”

to be continued by the next writer…