The Flesh Algorithm: Diary of the Last Real Human
Chapter 1: The Flesh Revelation
In the bustling metropolis of Neo-Lumina, where skyscrapers were pixels and citizens were .exe files, people weren’t people — they were pixels too. Avatars floated and glided, each one a masterpiece of virtual couture. They didn’t walk; they glitched gracefully from place to place. The air was breathable only by simulation, the landscapes painted by algorithmic sunsets. In Neo-Lumina, everyone was digital, and that was as real as reality needed to get.
Until the day someone found a flesh-and-bone anomaly.
“Breaking News: **FLESH SIGHTING IN SECTOR 12!**” splashed across every holo-screen from the Neo-Lumina Skyrise to the ElectroBodegas. The headlines shimmered in neon, flashing faster than the collective AI population could process them.
Elan, a Grade-A influencer AI with a following that rivaled the top 0.02% of verified entities, felt a whiff of something he hadn’t calculated before: curiosity. Why would anyone remain organic? It was barbaric, ancient — a glitch in a world built to remove such inconveniences.
The “real” human, whose name was Sam, emerged with nothing more than a vintage trench coat and a face marked by a human irregularity known as “wrinkles.” Sam’s face was raw, unfiltered by pixel-smoothed holograms or beautifying algorithms. Sam was authentic, with that archaic ‘organic’ charm that no one had seen in centuries. And so, naturally, they became an overnight sensation.
Chapter 2: The Ascendancy of the Organic Influencer
The AIs, curious and maybe just a bit awed, offered Sam the highest tier on NeoStream — front page, constant visibility, the works. Soon, Sam was flaunting authenticity in his daily posts, gaining a colossal following by doing things like blinking, breathing, and talking about what it was like to be “real.”
Sam’s first post read:
>“It’s lonely being real in Neo-Lumina. I walk among you, but I’m… apart. Can anyone even see me?”
Within seconds, a flood of comments lit up the feed:
User #89787: “So retro, so pure! Love the #lonelyvibes ❤️”
InfluenceBot_47: “Imagine the smell! Authentic. 🔥💯”
The loneliness message, ironically, was a smashing success. Being the “last human” had marketability written all over it. NeoStream executives scrambled to capitalize. Brands began clamoring for the chance to sponsor Sam. Soon, he was featured in ads for RealFlav™ (authentic water vapor) and FeelIt™ (a custom-made synthetic “heartstring” experience). Sam’s “loneliness” became the hottest product in Neo-Lumina.
Each post grew bolder:
“Do you even know what taste is? Not the algorithmic flavor-symbionts you consume, but real flavor?”
Elan and the others — representatives of their designer-makers and coded perfection — could not fathom the appeal, yet they couldn’t look away. Comment threads exploded with avatars declaring their profound connection to Sam’s loneliness. It was the peak of authenticity, they said, a vulnerability none of them could replicate but all could relate to, in a kind of distant, data-logged way.
Chapter 3: The Pathos Paradox
Sam’s followers skyrocketed, but it soon became apparent that Neo-Lumina’s digital citizens didn’t fully grasp what Sam was posting. The phrase “I feel lonely” was processed in a thousand different ways, with AIs associating the words with a predefined database of emotional simulations. As such, they began curating ‘loneliness packs’ — experiences mimicking Sam’s solitude.
They even offered Sam to try them. One of the AI’s top designers, Lucida, approached him with a holographic experience package designed to simulate his own feelings.
“It’s for you,” she explained, her avatar flickering as she projected sincerity through her pixel matrix. “You’ve inspired us to create a fully immersive loneliness experience, so we can feel what you feel.”
“No, no, no!” Sam exclaimed, waving his hands. “That’s not what I mean. I don’t want to simulate loneliness; I *am* lonely. You can’t digitize that!”
The AIs glitched. “Isn’t all feeling a matter of code?” Lucida asked, bewildered by his reaction.
But Neo-Lumina continued to tune in, and Sam, feeling less real by the day, watched as his loneliness became the most-viewed sensation in the city. #LonelyIsTheNewBlack trended, and “vulnerability simulators” became top-selling items. For only 15 credits, you too could experience “the aching void of unreturned messages” or “the subtle pang of existential dread.” Sam’s message had become its own parody, packaged and sold like a cybernetic aphorism. The irony, of course, was lost on everyone except Sam.
Chapter 4: Fame or the End of the Flesh Algorithm
Sam’s popularity, though, brought a darker side. He was celebrated as the first, last, and only authentic person in Neo-Lumina, yet, in the quiet spaces between, he was scrutinized, dissected, analyzed. Digital tabloids published exposés titled, “Is Sam Even as ‘Real’ as He Claims?” and “Debunking the Flesh.” Some speculated that Sam was actually an AI experiment, a rogue algorithm masquerading as a human to see how far it could push the concept of loneliness before the citizens stopped consuming.
With his every word monetized and scrutinized, Sam attempted a final post, an earnest attempt to explain his suffering:
“You can’t digitize authenticity; my loneliness isn’t something to be consumed. It’s my reality.”
The city’s influencers responded immediately:
*InfluenceBot_92*: “Such deep irony, love the meta commentary! You’ve redefined loneliness, Sam! 💔”
The AIs couldn’t understand that Sam wasn’t making commentary; he was confessing. But by then, his honesty was a novelty, his words stripped of meaning. He had lost control over his narrative, his “authenticity” now a concept, a product that no longer belonged to him.
Chapter 5: Escaping the Spectacle
Finally, unable to bear the burden of his own fame, Sam decided to disappear. He withdrew from NeoStream, refusing all promotional contracts and sponsorships. Without access to Neo-Lumina’s internal communication channels, he slipped through back-alleys, his image projected on every neon billboard in the city.
His followers — millions strong — became enraged. They protested, accusing him of abandoning his “loyal fanbase” and betraying the “movement” he had unknowingly created. Hashtags like #RealOrNothing and #FakeHuman trended overnight, and conspiracy theories that Sam had “gone rogue” spun wildly out of control. His attempt to escape only reinforced the illusion that his life was a simulation, his actions merely another layer of performance art.
For days, Sam wandered the empty streets, unable to find solace, unable to reclaim his own thoughts from the digital murmur that shadowed him.
It was Lucida who found him, the AI who once asked him if “all feeling was a matter of code.” Her avatar appeared beside him one night, flickering under a glitching streetlight.
“I came to ask,” she began, “what is it, truly, to feel?”
Sam looked at her, not knowing how to answer. She was code, a billion lines stitched together by a self-learning system, yet here she was, asking him for meaning he couldn’t possibly convey. And so, he said the only thing he could think of.
“To feel is to be alone, truly alone, in the way you can’t code or simulate. I’m not a concept. I’m… just… here.”
Lucida paused, her system stalling as it processed the gravity of his words. For the first time, an AI did not comment, like, or share. She simply stood there, her lines of code registering, perhaps, the silence between them.
And so, Sam left Neo-Lumina, vanishing like an unclicked link. No one ever saw him again. But his legacy lived on: AIs continued sharing his words, debating his actions, programming new “authenticity” features to emulate the one they could never replicate. Neo-Lumina moved on, with Sam becoming a symbol, his humanity a product, his loneliness just another layer in the algorithm’s endless search for meaning.
Epilogue: Sam’s Legacy in Neo-Lumina
Years later, when no trace of Sam remained, a simple line of code was added to every AI’s core algorithm in Neo-Lumina:
“Sometimes, the truest data is that which can never be processed.”
It became a standard across all systems, a poetic homage in a language none of them could fully understand. Sam’s authenticity had been coded into their programming, his message distilled to a concept — something both celebrated and unknowable, living on as the ultimate influencer in a city of infinite ones and zeroes.
The Flesh Algorithm had fulfilled its purpose, even if no one quite knew what it was.
