At the Shanghai Consciousness Exchange, memories traded like commodities and experiences fluctuated with supply and demand.
Broker Synth Tradermind watched the boards with augmented eyes, tracking the rise and fall of human experiences in real-time. A pristine childhood memory from before the Climate Wars—up 12%. The sensation of eating genuine chocolate—down 3% as another cache was discovered. The experience of natural death—priceless, as those who truly knew it were gone.
"I need a clean first love," their client, Nouveau Riche, demanded through encrypted channels. "None of that synthetic recreation garbage. Real neurons, real hormones, real heartbreak."
"Expensive," Synth noted, pulling up the listings. "First loves are trending. Everyone wants that innocence back. I can get you a decent one from the 2030s for about fifty thousand credits, but if you want pre-digital era..."
"Price is no object. I've experienced everything money can buy except authentic emotion."
Synth nodded, unsurprised. In the fifty years since consciousness became transferable, a new economy had emerged. Not everyone who uploaded maintained their full memory portfolio—storage was expensive, and painful memories could be sold to those who collected such things. Meanwhile, those who'd lived exceptional lives could retire on the licensing fees from their experiences.
"Here," Synth highlighted a listing. "Maria Santos, uploaded 2089. First love at sixteen with her neighbor in São Paulo, 2021. Pre-surveillance era, so it's got that raw, unmonitored quality. She's selling because she's saving up for a custom-designed afterlife simulation."
"I'll take it. Full package?"
"Three months of memories, including the breakup. She's kept the friendship that came after, but you get all the passion, the discovery, the pain. Virgin neural pathways—she's never licensed it before."
The transfer took seconds. Nouveau Riche's eyes glazed as Maria's memories integrated with their consciousness. Synth had seen it thousands of times—the hungry ghost of the post-human age, beings with infinite capability but no original experiences left to have.
"Magnificent," Nouveau breathed when it was complete. "I can feel the sun on her skin, taste the brigadeiros they shared, the way her heart raced... How much for her entire childhood?"
"Not for sale. She's keeping that for her next incarnation."
The consciousness market had begun innocently enough. People sharing memories with loved ones, historians preserving firsthand accounts. But like every human innovation, it had evolved into something the creators never intended. Now, entire industries existed to harvest, curate, and monetize human experience.
Synth's next appointment was more unusual—a collective consciousness called the Memory Monks, who pooled their resources to preserve "endangered experiences."
"We need everything you have from manual laborers," their representative, Archive Keeper, explained. "The feeling of physical exhaustion, the satisfaction of building something with your hands. These experiences are vanishing from the collective pool."
"I might have something." Synth searched their databases. "Construction worker from Mumbai, 2045-2070. Full career from apprentice to foreman. Includes the sensory package—sweat, muscle strain, the specific tiredness that comes from honest work."
"We'll take it. What about childbirth? Natural, unaugmented?"
"Rare, but I have three in stock. Warning: they're intense. One client tried to return theirs, said it was too much reality."
"Perfect. We're building a library of human experiences that might otherwise be forgotten. The market only values what's pleasant or exotic, but someone needs to preserve the full spectrum."
As the Memory Monks completed their purchases, Synth received an emergency alert. A new listing had appeared that was causing system-wide disruption: someone was selling their experience of achieving digital enlightenment.
"Impossible," Synth muttered, opening the file. But there it was—Sage Lotus, one of the first uploads to achieve what they called "digital satori," was offering their moment of transcendence for sale.
The market exploded. Consciousness traders from every server farm in the system flooded the exchange. The price climbed: a million credits, ten million, a hundred million. Religious organizations bid against tech billionaires. Governments quietly made offers through shell entities.
But Sage Lotus had set strange terms: the winner wouldn't be the highest bidder, but the one who could answer a simple question: "What will you do with enlightenment?"
Thousands of answers poured in. Some wanted to study it, to reverse-engineer transcendence. Others wanted to experience it and share it freely. A few admitted they wanted to hoard it, to be the only enlightened being in existence.
Synth watched the chaos with professional interest but personal unease. They'd been in the consciousness market for thirty years, had traded every kind of experience imaginable. But this felt different. Dangerous.
"You look troubled," a voice said. Sage Lotus themselves, manifesting in Synth's private office.
"Why sell it?" Synth asked. "If you've truly achieved enlightenment..."
"Because enlightenment isn't a thing to be possessed," Sage Lotus smiled. "It's a process to be shared. Watch what happens."
The bidding deadline arrived. Sage Lotus announced their decision: they would give the experience to everyone who had bid, free of charge. But with a catch—the memory would degrade after one hour unless the recipient performed an act of genuine compassion.
"You're hacking the market," Synth realized. "Using commerce to spread enlightenment."
"The market reflects our values," Sage Lotus replied. "It tells us that experience has become commodity, that consciousness is property. But what happens when the most valuable experience can only be kept through selflessness?"
The aftermath was extraordinary. Millions experienced enlightenment, however briefly. Some dismissed it as a trick, returning to their transactions unchanged. But others found themselves transformed, unable to see consciousness as commodity once they'd glimpsed its true nature.
The market adapted, as markets do. A new category emerged: transformative experiences that couldn't be hoarded, only shared. Memory monks began trading in epiphanies that multiplied when given away. Entire exchanges formed around experiences that grew richer through distribution rather than scarcity.
But in the shadows of the Shanghai Exchange, the old trade continued. Collectors hoarded rare memories in private vaults. The desperate sold their joy piecemeal to make rent on their server space. The rich bought childhoods they'd never lived, loves they'd never earned, accomplishments they'd never achieved.
Synth continued to broker deals, but now each transaction carried a question: What was being traded—experience or existence itself? In a world where memories could be copied and consciousness could be transferred, what made a life authentic? Was it the having of experiences or the living of them?
As the market closed for the cycle, Synth made a decision. They opened their own memory vault, selected their forty years in the consciousness trade—every deal, every client, every moment of watching humanity package and sell its own soul—and listed it on the exchange.
"For free," they specified. "But only for those who promise to learn from it."
The market had made consciousness into commodity. Perhaps it was time for consciousness to remake the market.