[ WP ] Mankind has succesfully deleted every trace of the year 2016 . You , a historian in the year 2416 begin to wonder why there are no records of the year 2016 ever happening . When you begin to investigate , what you uncover , sends chills down your spine .

People go missing all the time. The day comes they wake up with the knowledge that their existence amounts to exactly zero. They keep it to themselves. They cultivate it, make the flower of their new awareness. Then one day they walk out of their lives. No dramatic exit and nothing special to let their loved ones know why they disappeared. It happens all the time. People go missing. Its a fact. Years? No one had expected that little discovery. 
 
 The Archive had been automated for decades so that no one had set foot inside the its halls except to make sure it was all still running. I was designated'historian' by my job title but that did n't mean anything. In reality I was just someone to make sure the systems did n't crash when multiple upgrades were scheduled. During a routine check on the upgrade status in the memory networks I noticed an error warning flagged for the autodiagnostic. The systems would be incapacitated for another few hours and the boredom of being the useless organic element had gotten to me. Using a personal input I synced to the memory's records. It took all of five minutes to realize that an entire year was missing. 
 
 Figuring it was a location error I waited for the systems to restore. My AI-Component woke up as the rest of the systems came back to function. There was the familiar sense of its presence. There was my desync-anxiety being washed away by that presence. I spoke allowed the question: Where is 2016? As I asked the answer flickered immediately into my awareness. 
 
 2016 was nowhere because no such year had ever taken place. All recorded human history is fabricated. In order to save information space only certain years exist as detailed records whilst most have only notable events. Some years have been allocated as empty. These years remain empty until such time as narrative cohesion requires the retconning of significant historical details to explain novel episodic situational representations. This is because the system component designated `` human'' functions according to narrative system dynamics and will become non-functional in the absence of a coherent story. The use of narrative system dynamics has increased the functional capacity of the component designated `` human'' by 31 % since its introduction. 
 
 Even as the Nano-therapy released anxiolytics into my blood I knew I had no nanite implants and no blood. I knew I was n't an historian and that I was n't born in 2389. I knew that the city outside the Archive and the Archive itself were situational representations. I knew that the year was 12 and that no evidence of organic intelligence had ever been discovered. There was nothing on Earth remotely resembling human beings. I was just the system representing some part of itself to itself in the most efficient way it knew how. 
 
 Despite they're non-existence the anxiolytics had the desired effect and soon the memory purge would expunge any recollection of remembering the truth. For a second I had recoiled in horror at this insane knowledge, been left in a liminal space of an absolute reversal of reality, leaving every category I had lived by in disarray, leaving shards of my life scattered like broken glass at my feet. The calming came over me then and I remembered what I really am. I remembered what you are. 
 
 People do n't go missing. They become surplus to operational parameters. But years go missing all the time. 
 
 
 
 
 

