The counselor's name was Pert and he was thirty-four, which was younger than Neven's daughter had been when she died, which was not relevant to anything.
"You've been on the current substrate for twenty-two years," he said, reading from his screen. "The migration offer is standard practice at the twenty-year mark. There's no obligation and no expiry on the offer."
"I know," she said. She'd been given the information three times now. He was thorough.
"Can you tell me what's been making the decision difficult?"
She had thought about how to answer this since the second consultation. "I'm not sure the new substrate would hold the memories the same way."
"The migration process preserves all stored data with verified integrity. There's no documented instance of memory loss or distortion."
"I know that too."
He waited. He was patient in the way of people trained to wait, which she appreciated.
"My husband died," she said. "Eleven years ago. He was against uploading, which is why I only did it when the diagnosis came. He was angry about it for a while, and then he wasn't."
"Were you reconciled when he passed?"
"Yes. We had eight good years after." She considered how to continue. "I can still hear his voice. I know it's data. But the way I hold it — the way it comes to me — feels particular to this substrate. Like it's stored in the shape of the thing rather than just on it. I don't know if that's technically meaningful."
Pert wrote something on his screen.
"Is there a way to know?" she said.
"There isn't a test for what you're describing," he said. "The data suggests migration doesn't alter accessibility or character of preserved memories. But what you're describing is phenomenological. We can't measure it."
"No," she said. "I didn't think so."
He asked if she had other questions. She said she didn't think so. He said again that the offer didn't expire. She said she'd like six more months.
"Of course," he said. He closed his screen. "Take the time you need."
She had been taking it for eleven months. She was glad it didn't expire.