Kaelan knew what it meant. Every citizen of the Sprawl knew. It was the count of fragmented memory clusters in his neural lace. The higher the number, the slower the mind, the looser the grip on self. At 300, you were sent to a Reintegration Facility. At 350, you were declared a ghost—a personality shattered beyond recovery, your body recycled for biomass.
One enforcer whispered to the other: "What do we do with him?" defrag 264
"Proceed."
The last thing he felt was the number dissolving. Not going down to zero. Shattering into a million pieces, each one a star. Kaelan knew what it meant
The other shook her head. "We can’t defrag infinity." the slower the mind