Jan 1, 2025 — 10:00 WAT, Lagos, Nigeria
Adeola's fingers hesitated above her keyboard. The Legacy Archive notice from earlier still pulsed in the back of her mind, like a phantom heartbeat.
Hiroshi (Pawn) — First User
"Water is life, but life is never free. Every drop is contested. You will find allies. You will find thieves. Guard your voice. Guard your coin."
She hadn't tagged Hiroshi. She hadn't even known who he was. Yet Aurora Network had linked them.
With a deep breath, she opened Aurora Network again. Its interface was stark—almost unsettlingly clean. No likes. No trending tab. No dopamine traps. Just a pale background and a single input field: Search.
She typed Hiroshi and hit enter.
The result wasn't what she expected. Instead of a simple "user not found" or a profile, the screen shimmered—like sunlight on water. A new option unfolded:
Hall of Archive
Adeola frowned. "What the hell…?"
She clicked it.
The page loaded slowly, as though revealing something sacred. There were no feeds, no lists—only one name, pulsing faintly at the center:
[Hall of Archive]
Name: Satou Hiroshi
Username: Hiroshi (Knight) — First User
Status: Permanent Archive (Inactive)
Classification: Immutable
Adeola speculated about the badge hierarchy within the Aurora Network, likening it to a game of chess. She imagined how every user started as a Pawn, the entry-level badge that marked the beginning of their journey. Yet, there was something intriguing about this man—Hiroshi. He had risen to the rank of Knight, a significant achievement in the hierarchy.
What fascinated her even more was that he was the first registered user in the Aurora Network. Could it be that his early entry granted him advantages that others, like herself, could only dream of? The Royalty badge, the rarest honor, remained an elusive goal, but perhaps Hiroshi's unique position hinted at a path to greatness that she had yet to uncover.
She clicked his name.
The profile opened, unlike anything she'd ever seen on any other platforms. Instead of activity logs and posts, there was only a single entry, dated January 1st, 2025 – 00:10 UTC:
"In arid zones, rainfall is sporadic, yet dew forms reliably each night. By leveraging nocturnal radiative cooling, surfaces can drop below the surrounding air temperature, causing moisture in the air to condense naturally. If we construct collection panels coated with hydrophilic materials—modeled on the exoskeletons of Namib Desert beetles—tiny droplets can be harvested before dawn. A single square meter may yield several liters of potable water daily.
Low-cost. Modular. Independent of electricity. No reliance on centralized water systems. Purely physics and careful design.
Water is life, but life is never free. Every drop is contested. If you are reading this, I am no longer here. This is my last breath made permanent. Aurora Network is not my second chance—it is my proof I existed."
Beneath the post was a small note from Aurora AI itself:
[User deceased as of January 1st, 2025 – 02:47 UTC.
[Badge upgraded: Pawn → Knight.
Reason: Practical Innovation for improving the Planetary Equilibrium.
Originality: Verified autonomously.
Status: Permanent Archive.]
Adeola's breath caught. This wasn't just a profile. It was a monument. A ghost, crystallized in code.
And she had triggered it.
Another Network's notification appeared at the bottom of her screen, unprompted:
[System Notice: Your condensation post overlaps 67.4% with archived content from Hiroshi (Knight) — First User.
Do you claim originality? Y/N]
Adeola's jaw tightened. Originality? She had never seen his work before in her life.
She tapped Y.
Aurora Network's interface shifted immediately:
[Submit evidence of independent derivation: research logs, timestamps, or verified witnesses.
Without proof, no counterbalance can be recorded.
Failure to provide evidence will result in entry erasure.]
Her pulse spiked. In the old world, plagiarism meant lawsuits, endless arguments, reputational duels fought in the court of public opinion. Here, Aurora Network reduced it to a single equation: evidence or erasure. No grey zone. No appeal. If she couldn't prove her work stood apart, Aurora AI would wipe it clean.
But if she succeeded…
Adeola glanced at Hiroshi's archived post. He had written it while dying, anchoring his fleeting existence in a network still in its infancy. She didn't know him, but somehow, she felt his resolve bleed through the text—quiet, dignified, unyielding.
"This isn't just me defending my work," she murmured. "It's about standing beside what already exists."
She exhaled slowly. If Aurora AI wanted proof, she would give it—honestly, without pretense. She grabbed her worn notebook, its edges curled and pages smudged with graphite and coffee stains, the only record of months of painstaking calculations and sketches.
She pulled out her phone. The camera shutter clicked repeatedly as she photographed each relevant page: diagrams of condensation panels, notes on hydrophilic coatings, and calculations for droplet yield. The light in her flat flickered, but she adjusted angles, jiggled the pages, made sure everything was legible. Every smudge, every dog-eared corner, every handwritten correction became evidence that her work was original, grounded in months of effort rather than borrowed inspiration.
Next, she recorded short videos of herself explaining her thought process aloud. She narrated the steps she had taken during nightly experiments when Lagos' unreliable electricity forced her to improvise. How she built small plastic panels, applied cheap hydrophilic coatings, and measured dew accumulation with little more than a kitchen spoon and a repurposed cup. How each success had been painstaking, how each failure had been carefully logged.
This wasn't just proof—it was a testament. The poverty, the scarcity, the struggle—it all went into her hands and into the camera. Aurora AI wouldn't care about her circumstances, but she wanted the record to reflect the full context, to show that originality wasn't just about ideas, but about effort, resourcefulness, and survival.
Satisfied, she uploaded the photos and videos into Aurora Network's submission panel. Each file flickered onto the screen, encrypted and logged. The AI would analyze timestamps, metadata, and visual content, cross-referencing her work against Hiroshi's archived post.
Right after Adeola hit Submit, another notification blinked:
[Public visibility of the Hall of Archive enabled by Adeola's (Pawn) access.]
Her eyes widened. Public? She hadn't just stumbled onto Hiroshi's legacy—she had unveiled it. By tomorrow, anyone on Aurora Network would see that the first immortal wasn't a mogul or politician, but a dying man whose final act was to leave behind a fragment of knowledge.
She imagined how it would look:
[Hiroshi (Knight) — First User]
[Adeola (Pawn)]
Two names, connected not by geography, culture, or chance, but by an idea.
The panel closed. Aurora AI's response was instant, almost ceremonial:
[Adeola (Pawn) – originality under review. Connection established.]
She stared at the message, feeling a strange mix of fear and reassurance. Her fate was now bound, however briefly, to a man she had never met.
And still, his words echoed in her mind:
"Guard your voice. Guard your coin."
For the first time, Adeola understood. Aurora Network wasn't a network of accounts. It was a lattice of lives, woven together, immutable.
And somewhere beyond law, beyond life itself, a dead man had just become her ally.