In the summer of 2065, driven by a series of mass agricultural failures and growing overpopulation concerns, the Chinese government announces an exorbitant new tax on families with more than one child. For parents with terminally ill/bedridden children, a new brain–body exchange technology is offered that will allow them to temporarily lend their bodies to their children—an unprecedented chance at adulthood, but at a life-changing cost.
Ming is the good one.
He draws pictures of reptiles and subway maps. The teachers tell him he’s a good runner, even though he cheats a bit during the countdown when he’s It for tag.
Ming has two working lungs and a heart that won’t stop beating in the middle of the night like a sputtering engine.
His sister Xiaoyu is less lucky. She lies in a bed that’s monitored 24/7 by the Life Machine. She has never been outside the cream-colored walls of Shin-Shanghai’s No. 3 Hospital. The Life Machine knows Xiaoyu better than anyone else, from her favorite food to her breaths per minute to her T cell count at any moment.
The Life Machine knows when Xiaoyu will die.
Today, the doctor spends a total of four minutes and fifty-two seconds with me and Xiaoyu. My ex-husband is taking Ming to the new arcade in Xujiahui. He doesn’t think it’s good for Ming to say goodbye to a sister he’s never known. Still, this was a family decision. I tell myself that as I sign the papers, knowing this is the last time I will see my daughter.
I stare at her face on the screen as I have hundreds of times before, brushing a hand over the steel casing of her Life Machine—I know the sterile metal box between us better than I know her actual body. I tell myself I’m doing her a favor, that this is a kindness. What mother would wish her daughter to be bound to a box for her whole life?
The doctor said it’s a painless process: they’ll extract the neural code that constitutes my consciousness and save it to a Waiting Room, their nifty name for a digital placeholder brain. With the latest advances in brain-emulation technologies and data maintenance, the hospital can scan and upload the entire neural network of an individual in less than three hours. My daughter’s neural code is then overlaid onto my physical brain like a temporary skin. The doctor explained that it’s like tricking my brain into becoming her. Like a lifelong method-acting class hyper-condensed into minutes.
Xiaoyu
The first thing I notice is how thirsty I am. My body aches in a way it’s not used to, unspent tension in every joint. I try to smile, but my lips crack painfully.
I don’t recognize the room.
A screen flashes overhead with my vitals in bright yellow text. For a moment, I wonder if my Life Machine has just gotten a size upgrade.
“Ms. Zhou?” An unfamiliar voice.
I turn to the only door in the room expecting to see my mom, but no one enters.
“Xiaoyu Feng?” the voice tries instead.
“Here,” I automatically answer, the way we’re supposed to during our morning check-ins with the Life Machine AI. I flinch at the voice coming from my mouth.
“Congratulations,” I hear the smile in the stranger’s voice. “You’ve successfully synced with Yipei Zhou. You are now in your mother’s body.”
Brain–body transfers (BBTs) became popular with influencers and celebrity couples first. The only way to truly understand someone is to become them, the ads read. In Shin-Shanghai, you can be anything, anyone—if you have enough money—and this was the latest expensive trend that proved that.
When the government announced a new tax on all additional children after the first, it was ridiculous enough that only the top 5 percent income bracket could afford it. Complimentary BBTs were offered to parents with children in Life Machines. They called it accelerated adulthood, an unprecedented chance at real life. In truth, though, it was a way for parents to alleviate their guilt, a way to tell themselves: Hey, you had no choice, but at least you tried.
“We have security precautions to ensure the child is unable to take over your body after the allocated time,” the doctor explained as he showed me the liability forms. “Motor functions are fully disabled through the neural band and security drones dispatched. You can rest assured you’ll return to your own body after the hosting session.”
“What if I want to extend the session?” I asked.
“Our research finds that five hours is sufficient for most patients,” he answered, parroting the same points I’d already read countless times on the information packet. “Most of our clients come away with highly positive experiences.”
Xiaoyu
I listen to my mom’s prerecorded message on the elevator ride down to the hospital lobby:
-
Don’t pick up phone calls. Enjoy your time out.
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Get your future read by one of the popular Granny Oracles at the Dream Village Mall in Pudong.
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Hug a beautiful stranger.
My throat feels like sandpaper. Forget hugs and buzzy fortune tellers. I just want something to drink.
The hospital’s automatic doors open to a barrage of honking cars. Security drones wheel by, perfuming the air with disinfectant.
“Cold! Refreshing! Try our new orange popping drink!” a dancing panda hologram bursts to life in my retinal space. It gestures with rainbow paws toward a vending machine ahead. Mesmerized, I walk over and hold my wrist up to the flashing display, paying with my mother’s credit band, the way the nurse showed me before I left the hospital.
The fizzy neon orange flavor soaks across my tongue. The intense sour-sweetness jolts every brain cell like a fire alarm as the panda dances euphorically.
Then, I’m coughing.
The hologram crackles away. I bend over, nostrils burning, reaching for my throat. I can’t breathe. I scan my narrowing field of view for instructions, for the Immediate Help button. The Life Machine always knows what to do.
I lurch forward, the popping bubble flying out of my mouth onto the street. My hands hit the concrete, rattling my bones, the pain new and vivid. I look down, marveling at the sight of my own blood, red and smeared with dirt.
Yipei
Xiaoyu’s birth was one of the most painful experiences of my life. She was a week late, and I spent twenty-four hours in labor, in near-blinding pain because Yongji Feng, Xiaoyu’s father, thought the pain inhibitors might cause birth complications.
When they finally extracted her through an emergency C-section, I wasn’t allowed to hold her. I could only watch as they rushed her tiny body to the mechanical cradle of the Life Machine like a tiny light about to flicker out.
Xiaoyu
My wristband is down to four hours.
The area outside of Qipu Road Garment Mall is a smoky mini-town of street vendors. Youtiao, those long deep-fried crullers my mom sometimes brought during morning visits, wrapped in sticky rice, stewed fish cakes, meat skewers coated in red chili powder—the smells alone make my mouth water. I order a jianbing egg crepe from an old lady vendor who asks if I want to add extra spicy sauce, when two colored buttons pop up silently in my optical menu like an invitation from the devil
Pick up? Call back later?
Yipei
Never pick up the phone. It’s usually bad news. Bills, nosy family, or acquaintances running low on luck and even lower on cash.
Instead, I spend most days sifting through job postings in a cramped V-Cube, those pay-by-the-hour workstations near every major train station and shopping center where you can pawn your time for quick cash.
I tell Xiaoyu I’m an actress and watch her eyes light up. It’s not a complete lie. Virtual girlfriend, funeral mourner, cult member—these are roles I’ve played before to pay back the time. There are hundreds of listings on the V-Cube boards. Some last thirty minutes, others six hours. Some virtual, others in-person with optional facial cloaking. I’m good at it. Or at least good enough. The better your acting, the more time you can sell.
There’s a V-Cube station a few minutes’ walk from the No. 3 Hospital, so I get a few hours in before and after. I don’t mind the work. There’s relief in pretending to be someone else.
Xiaoyu
“Hello?” I say, clicking the green “Pick up” option. My ear floods with the chaos of metal whistles, kids shouting, and bubbly carnival music.
“How’d the visit go?” a man answers, muting the background noise so it’s just us.
In the silent fog, a name suddenly lights up next to the voice. Yongji Feng. My father. My mom used to show me videos of him on her phone during her visits, long before their divorce, back when she still visited every day. Before my little brother, that golden boy, was born.
“You there?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” I swallow.
“How’s Xiaoyu?”
“She’s fine” I twist a button on my mother’s shirt, wanting to do something with my hands. “How’s Ming?”
“Bored and complaining, as always,” my father sighs, turning back on the background noise so I can hear the boy shrieking for more coins. It’s different from the voice I’d imagined. Who’re you even talking to? he whines. I try to steady my breath. “Today’s the day, isn’t it? Signing the paper. Cutting the Life Machine.”
I stop breathing.
“Cutting the Life Machine?” I almost laugh.
“How many times do we need to go over this?” My father isn’t even trying to hide his impatience. “We agreed. It doesn’t make sense with the new tax. We could pay Ming’s entire college tuition and still have money left over to hire that soccer coach his teacher recommended. He’s got talent.”
I don’t care about his talent, whatever blessed body he was given.
“Doesn’t Xiaoyu deserve a chance to live too?” Only after the words are out do I realize I wish my mother had said them herself.
“Jesus Christ. Xiaoyu hasn’t spent a minute outside of the Life Machines,” my father snickers in that nasty way the doctors sometimes did when they talked to each other. “We both know that isn’t the kind of life for a kid.”
What did he know about my life? I want to curse at him, to cry, to ask him why he never came to visit me. But my mind was empty, a scorched field.
“Won’t you miss her?” I ask dumbly.
“How can you miss something that was never really here?”
Yipei
On the good days, I tell Xiaoyu about the places I loved as a kid: the jianbing stand outside my grandmother’s old house, the park where the old people gathered for morning tai chi, the wet market where my mother haggled for fresh eels.
On the bad days, I tell her I wish she were more like her little brother.
On the worst days, I tell her I wish she’d never been born.
Xiaoyu
Dream Village Mall stands across the street from Oriental Pearl Tower, a windowless skyscraper that could be mistaken for a crematorium if not for the neon projections flashing by the entrance that hawk discount electronics, knock-off designer bags, and hostess clubs.
I check the floor guide and find “Grandma Oracles” located on the eighth floor, inside an area labeled “Old Shanghai.”
A visual overlay installs into my retinas as I get off the elevator. The entire floor is a recreation of a late-twentieth-century shikumen alley neighborhood at night. Murky puddles. Wooden doors open to dim concrete kitchens and stone sinks. Crickets buzz in small woven bamboo baskets. Above, a backlit paper moon peers down, an eternal mid-autumn festival.
I have less than two hours left on my wristband, but here it feels like time could stop.
An elderly woman comes out of one of the Oracles’ shikumen buildings in plastic sandals. “Mei-nu, pretty lady.” She gestures toward my wristband with her chin.
I don’t answer.
She grins as if reading my mind, a gold tooth gleaming in her mouth. “We’ll take off your neural band in less than thirty minutes. Tada! Freedom!” She speaks the way magicians did on the children’s TV shows, the ones I glued my eyes to for hours when I was younger, convinced that if I could figure out the magic, maybe I could figure out a way to finally get better.
“I just want my fortune told,” I say.
“No one comes here to just have their fortune told,” the old woman snorts. “The future is bought, stolen, or earned. You’d know that if you were as old as the body you’re in now.”
Yipei
Once, after a bad fight with Xiaoyu’s father, I told the hospital I wanted to spend a day inside the Life Machine to understand how my daughter lived. In truth, I wanted to understand what it would be like to step into a steel box and disappear.
“The patient spends half the day engaged in remote learning,” the doctor explained. “Most of the children don’t even experience elevated levels of cortisol, as many of their peers have when experiencing loneliness or difficulty fitting in. The Life Machine regulates everything to perfection.”
I laid back in the cushioned seat inside, feeling like I was floating. I imagined what it would be like to be Xiaoyu. To be in that steel box every day, never stressed, but in a perpetual state of numbness. Never touching anyone, never knowing the smell of rain or the peculiar longing that comes with it, never knowing how alone you can feel, even surrounded by people.
For the first time in a long time, I felt relief.
Xiaoyu
The future is bought, stolen, or earned. And I’m about to do all three.
There’s a V-Cube booth inside the old lady’s shikumen house, holo-cloaked like a wooden medicine pantry. I’ve seen the videos. Anyone can exchange their time for cash, even if it’s not their time to sell. Buy yourself the future that no one else was willing to pay for, the old woman said.
The inside of the V-Cube is blindingly bright and smells like disinfectant. An endless list of jobs scrolls over the screen like someone dictating their dreams. Give a heartfelt speech at my wedding. Walk with me across the Bund waterfront at midnight. Pretend to be madly in love with me.
The list fizzles away and my mother’s face appears.
“Welcome back, Yipei Zhou,” the V-Cube AI greets.
My mother blinks on the screen. She opens her mouth and runs her tongue over her teeth, copying my motions. I glance up at the tiny camera embedded in the screen, unable to shake the feeling of being watched. The smell of the disinfectant is making me sick. Everything in Shin-Shanghai is an imitation. False love, false joy, false sympathy. And all of it could be erased and replaced in an instant.
A steady panic grips me as I stare down at the “1” glowing on my wrist. I don’t want to die. I want to ask my mother why she signed the form. Why she let me borrow her body. Why she sent me to this place to have my future read when I didn’t have one.
“Why was I even born if you didn’t want me?” I ask the face. But my mother isn’t here. I’m alone, just like I’ve always been.
I scroll through the V-Cube menu, searching for the time-to-cash exchange. I click, click, click until I find my mother’s profile history. A list of past jobs that reads like a B-list actress’ filmography:
Tell off my ex-boyfriend like he’s the most despicable person on the planet.
Wait for me at Siping Road Station at 4 p.m. with rice balls like you’re a good friend coming to pick me up.
Cook me shredded potatoes and peppers in my dead wife’s favorite dress.
It goes on and on. Jobs from women, men, elderly, married. My mother had worked hard for years, almost excessively so, like she’d been saving for her escape. And I’m going to take it all. No one would even miss the original me, a tiny life scrubbed out like a stain.
At the bottom of the list, there’s one line highlighted in red. One unfinished job. The pay dwarfs every other job on the list—nearly equivalent to all the income my mother earned through V-Cube jobs over the past sixteen years. More than 60,000 hours of life. Enough to pay the old woman. Enough to buy a train ticket to a different city. A different country. Enough to buy my freedom.
I suck in a breath, opening the job with a shaky finger.
Yipei
When Xiaoyu was born, she didn’t cry. The doctor and nurses all thought she’d been stillborn. They brought her to the steel cleaning station and rinsed her gently in the water as if honoring a corpse. It was only hours later that they brought me to the Life Machine and I watched my baby cry for the first time. I pressed my hand against the glass window as I watched her extend her tiny arm, reaching out under the halogen light. I remember how it felt like we were both breathing for the first time.
Because when a child is born, a mother is too.
Because a mother’s first, most basic desire is to hold her child.
Because everything I ever needed was right in front of me on the other side of that window, just out of reach.
The truth is, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t sign the papers. Not the way Yongji wanted me to or the doctors said I should. So I came up with a plan.
Xiaoyu / Yipei
There’s a moment inside the Life Machines, when you wake up to pitch darkness, where you’re not sure if you’re alive or dead. Where all you can hear is the echo of your own breathing. When I was younger, in those few seconds between sleep and consciousness, I used to search for my mother in the dark.
I wonder if she did the same.
The V-Cube is quiet except for the sound of my own breathing.
Remove body–brain neural wristband at the Dream Village Mall.
I stare at the name of the client on the screen, feeling the unspent tension in my body fall like a sudden rain: Yipei Zhou.
Ma, is it okay for me to live?
Two buttons hover over the last unfinished job.
Start? Quit?
I raise my hand, my mother’s hand, and we press “Start.”