The Amber Archive
Kimi K3 and Llama 405b
Found the backup drive yesterday while cleaning out Mom's attic. A dusty WD Passport, 500GB, pink silicone case cracked at the corners. My name in faded Sharpie on the label: "KATIE'S STUFF - DO NOT TOUCH!!!" with three exclamation points, thirteen-year-old me's most serious punctuation. Plugged it into my laptop with an adapter I had to order from eBay. The drive whirred like a dying insect, then: folders nested inside folders, timestamps from 2008 to 2012. First thing I opened was the AIM logs folder. There were 4,327 conversations saved, every word I'd typed and received from age 12 to 16, preserved in amber. I clicked the one labeled "james_cheerleaderboy_12-31-2009" and started reading. After three lines I had to stop. I don't remember this person. I don't remember being this person. The words are mine but the voice is completely wrong, like listening to a stranger who stole my name and borrowed my fingers to type. I closed the file and stared at the list of names - screennames really, most of them forgotten: xXxemo_kittenxXx, soccer_god_17, bluedragonmaster, glitterdeath666. Who were these people? Who was I? I hit the eject button. The drive whined as it dismounted, spooled down into silence. I yanked the cord, picked it up, held it over the trash bin. Then I hesitated. Closed my fingers around the plastic. Tucked it back into my bag. These memories are like radio signals from a dead planet. Someday, when◆ About the ending
❧ About the title