Patient Zero is the oldest uploaded consciousness in existence — and the most degraded. Uploaded in 2141 using primitive techniques, Patient Zero has been running on outdated hardware for nearly sixty years. The original personality has degraded: memories are fragmented, identity is uncertain, emotional responses are attenuated. Patient Zero doesn't remember who they were before upload. They don't remember the upload itself. They exist in a fog of partial awareness, occasionally surfacing into coherence before slipping back into digital entropy. They are the ghost of the first person who tried to live forever, and they have been dying by inches for six decades. Every uploaded consciousness since owes their existence to Patient Zero's sacrifice. None of them want to end up like Patient Zero.