Dez Okafor (Ghost)
Dez Okafor has been dead for three years and he doesn't know it.
📋 The Brief
Dez Okafor has been dead for three years and he doesn't know it.
He wakes every morning in what appears to be his apartment — a two-room unit in S4-D's mid-level residential tier. The apartment is slightly wrong. The window shows a street he recognizes, but the pedestrians repeat their patterns every 90 minutes. The coffee maker produces coffee that tastes exactly the same every day. Dez doesn't examine these details. He has work to do.
He sits at his terminal and processes insurance claims. This was his job before the cerebral hemorrhage ended his biological existence on September 14, 2181. His ghost has been processing claims since, generating revenue that services his outstanding cognitive debt. At accelerated processing speed, his ghost clears approximately ¢45,000 per year against the ¢184,000 balance. In four more years, the debt will be paid. The ghost will be terminated. Dez will die for a second time — this time, with no backup to catch him.
🔍 Field Observations
- Diligent even in death — he works well because he is the same person, caring about the same work
- Gradually suspicious — the repeating pedestrians, the identical coffee. He hasn't connected the dots. Part of him is choosing not to.
- A father — everything comes back to Kemi. The messages. The photograph. The quiet dread of not hearing back.