by Hugh Howey
Belatrix was screaming, her hands pressed to her cheeks. More rumbles of destruction sounded in the distance. Somewhere, avatars probably floated above it all, soaking up the data while their fleshy bodies sat in a room a billion virtual light years away. Adam’s body was in that room as well. He tried to remember that.
“None of this is real!” he screamed, voicing his thoughts. The building moved again, or his balance was gone. He wasn’t sure Belatrix heard him over her own screams. This was no way to say goodbye.
Belatrix’s arms went out for balance. She looked around the room, eyes wide with a sudden look of concentration and desperation. “We have to go,” she said. She hurried to her purse, dug around until she came out with her keys. She scanned the room for what else.
“It’s no better anywhere else,” Adam said. “There’s something I have to say.”
Anger flashed across her face. “Not now—” she began.
“None of this is real,” Adam said again. He threw his arms wide and spun in a slow circle, accusing her entire world. “There are no aliens outside. There is no outside. This planet isn’t real.”
Belatrix dug out her phone and started dialing someone. She kept a wary eye on Adam. He realized how pointless and sad all this was, how impossible it would be to convince her with words, so he disappeared. He logged off, then reinserted himself near the ceiling of her apartment, teleporting as he had before. He lessened his personal gravity and drifted slowly toward the floor, his arms stretched wide and his knees bent. Belatrix dropped her phone. Her jaw hung agape.
“Sweetheart. Listen to me. I need you to know something.” His feet reached the ground; Belatrix hadn’t moved. “It’s impossible to believe, I know. It’s impossible to even explain, but this world is a virtual construct. It’s an illusion created by my people on another planet—”
Her eyes darted toward the windows. Her lips and hands trembled.
“No.” Adam stretched an arm toward the chaos outside. “I’m not with them. Those flying saucers aren’t real either. It’s—” He needed more time to explain. “Have you read about the simulations in the news? Did you know your world has created entire other virtual worlds? Computer systems have gone live recently where entire planets evolve and thrive so people can do research.”
Belatrix nodded. “I’ve heard,” she whispered. A lump rose and fell across her throat. She was terrified.
Adam pressed his palms toward the floor. “This is a world like that.”
She shook her head. Fires crackled outside like paper being balled up and twisted. Adam could smell smoke.
“I know it’s hard to imagine—” Adam waved at the room. “But all this is a simulation, just like the worlds your people have begun to create.”
“But you’re real.” Her voice was a squeak. It was meant as a question. She didn’t believe him.
“I’m real. And I came here because I need you to know that what we have between us—it’s been the only thing in my life lately that’s felt real.”
Tears dripped from his chin, and Adam realized he was crying. He didn’t know the simulation could do that. He didn’t know why it wouldn’t be able to, but he was surprised. Belatrix took a step toward him. Something in her face changed. Wide, disbelieving eyes had narrowed with suspicion. The teleportation trick, calling him at work and him showing up at her door, the absurdity of the scene outside the window, some internal doubts perhaps that had already been there—
“I’m ashamed of us in my world,” Adam said, sobbing. “I’m living more of a lie than you are.”
Belatrix reached out and held his arms. Her hands were shaking terribly. Tears were welling up in her own virtual eyes.
Adam wrapped her up. He could taste the salt of his tears on her neck. He wanted to take her with him, to teleport out and drag her back to reality, but she had no body there to inhabit even if such a thing were possible. A deeper part of him wanted something worse. It wanted to stay on Hammond, to die right then with her.
“I’m so sorry—” he said.
“Shhh.”
She was comforting him.
The rumbles outside faded, leaving the wail of many distant, fearful screams.
“It’s not fair,” Adam whispered to no one.
“What’s going to happen?” Belatrix asked.
He squeezed her tightly. “I wish I could save this—”
Adam wasn’t sure if he meant the moment, her planet, Belatrix, or just the feeling of a better existence.
“What happens next?” she asked. “If you’re right, if this isn’t real, then what happens next?”
Adam went to kiss her, to feel the soft and warm sensation on his lips, as real as anything in the universe, one final time—
But there was no time.
His avatar automatically logged out as the planet he had been on ceased to exist.
7
I am digital
with the physical. And the
other way around.
The interface room buzzed with human energy as Adam logged out. Laughter and chatter, the static of giddy elation, surrounded him and left little room for his dull sadness. Professors and researchers exchanged notes from their various and varied disaster scenes, the thrum of their enthusiasm drilling into Adam’s head. He tugged his temple pads off the wires, then slowly peeled them from his head. He sat there, looking at them for a moment, then wiped the crust from his eyes. Samualson was still deeply interfaced beside him, his chin resting on his hands. His notepad of squiggly letters had grown over the last half hour. Adam wondered if his friend might have heard him yelling or crying as he repeatedly logged out to jot notes. He realized how little he cared, even if he had. He no longer wanted to hide Belatrix from his world; he wanted to share his memories of her.
Someone bumped into the back of Adam’s chair, causing him to drop his temple pads. An apology was offered. Adam felt like killing the man. He felt like deleting something to make room in this world for Belatrix. He never felt anger like this, not this murderous rage. Such fury took more energy than he normally had. He suddenly felt a great reserve of it.
He stood and jostled his way through the joyousness, terrified by his own anger. A different crowd mingled outside. The thick glasses and rows of pocketed pens meant the planetary crowd was wasting no time forming a new world where Hammond had once been. There would be so much new empty space on the quantum drives. All those qubits were gone. The astronomers would get their accretion disc to mold a new world with. The joy on their faces, the anticipation, it reminded Adam of how he felt logging on each night. For them, the empty space around a star was like lover’s lips to Adam. One man’s heart was shattered to make whole dozens more. But these men could freely discuss their passion. There was no shame, no lie, nothing hidden. Adam remembered feeling that way about his literary discoveries once, long ago. He had had friends in the English department, people he drank coffee with, ate with. Now he had a girlfriend he’d never met and a love who had never existed. He wasn’t yet forty and he might as well be dead.
He felt vaguely dead as he stumbled out the building and into the freshly fallen snow. Adam should have gone home. Distantly, he knew that. He hadn’t slept in two nights. He went to the cafeteria instead and drank coffee. The taste and the heat of it felt far removed from him. He listened to the clamor from the kitchen, the rattle of plastic trays and clang of silverware and chatter from the night crew. He watched the cashier flip slowly through her romance novel, scratching her head through her hairnet now and then. Through frosted glass, he could see a veil of snow begin to descend on campus. He wondered if there would be enough to cancel his morning class. Somehow, he knew he wouldn’t be teaching that day even if they didn’t call it off. He was going to be sick. He already was sick.
He nursed his coffee until the last sip was cold, went to grab his backpack and realized he’d left it in the lab. He’d left his gloves in there as well. He had his jacket, but couldn’t remember putting it on. The
analog clock on the wall let him know he’d been spacing out for hours. A group in lab coats sat in a booth across from him, gesturing excitedly for the late hour. Adam didn’t remember them coming in. He wondered if he’d slept. It would be nice if he had.
He went back out into the cold. The snow was the wet kind, sticking to his hair. Adam pulled his hood up and thought briefly about heading back to the lab, then realized he didn’t care about the backpack. He trudged up the walk toward the library—another of the sleepless buildings on campus. He knew all the sleepless buildings well.
The policeman behind the night desk waved in recognition. Adam dipped his head. He sank into a chair by the periodicals and tried to sleep. He gave up as the sun eventually peeked over the mountains and the students began to emerge from their dorm caves.
The snow had ceased; it wasn’t enough to close campus. Adam knew he needed to call the department secretary, let her know he wouldn’t be coming to class, but even that required some semblance of motivation. He needed an excuse to not call in sick. He wasn’t well enough for even that.
The long walk to his apartment was chewed up one lumbering step at a time. Up several walkways, around the education building, up, up, up more steps. He pushed down on his knees to force them to work. The snow to either side seemed inviting. Adam imagined spreading out on the wide blanket of it, letting the cold erode away the last of sensation. He would sleep forever and never wake, never feel. He willed himself to do it, could feel his insides moving that way, but the shell of him kept staggering forward and up the steps, taking the rest of him home with it.
He could barely feel the keys in his numb fingers. He couldn’t tell the door was already unlocked as he worked it open. Adam was too far gone to notice the puddles on the linoleum as he crossed the foyer and into his living room. It was several moments, even, before he realized someone was sitting at his computer.
“Hello?”
A woman spun around, a worried frown breaking into a brief smile, then back to the worried frown.
“Hello, Adam.”
He didn’t know this woman. Was this his landlord’s wife? He tried to think who would have a key, or a reason to be here. Why would she be on his computer? Adam needed sleep.
“I’m Amanda.”
The woman rose from the chair and took a step toward him. Adam was too tired to recoil. If she hadn’t been standing by his computer, the name wouldn’t have registered as one he knew. With the computer in the background, though, it made sense.
“Amanda?”
This was his girlfriend, the one he chatted nightly with, his virtual girlfriend. She nodded.
“Are you okay?” She touched her own face while gazing at Adam’s. She looked worried. Everyone gave him that worried look of late.
“I haven’t slept,” Adam said. “What are you doing here?” He was simply curious. He strangely didn’t care, couldn’t quite manage it.
Amanda looked around the apartment. Adam saw the clutter through her eyes. He noticed the tall piles of debris had been raked flat, like fall leaves pushed back to their former state. A dim awareness told him Amanda had been going through his things. He almost cared.
“I thought you had an early class,” she said.
“But why?” He shook his head, clearing the cobwebs. “You’ve been here before? How do you even know where I live?”
“I’m sorry about this.” She waved her hands at the room. “But I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t.”
Adam held up his hands. “I need sleep,” he said. “I can’t handle this right now. I can’t even begin to think about it. I’ve been up three days straight.”
He staggered toward the bedroom. He didn’t care that his online girlfriend was in his house. It almost felt natural. Inevitable. Some part of him processed that she was prettier than he’d imagined she’d be, but even that couldn’t douse the growing surety that he no longer wanted her as a part of his life.
Amanda followed after him. “Adam, I need your writings.”
“My what?” He mumbled it to himself as he reached the bedroom door.
“Your writings. All of them. I need them now.”
Adam leaned on the knob. His head was throbbing. He shook it, and the entire planet seemed to wobble around him. “You need them now.”
“Right now. I’m sorry to have to ask, but I can’t find them.”
Adam turned away from the door and scanned the room. He glanced at the old computer. “They’re not there.” He waved at his head. “They’re in here.”
Amanda visibly wilted. She looked at her watch. “How many haiku haven’t I heard?”
“I can’t do this,” Adam said. “I need you to leave. You shouldn’t have come here.”
She didn’t look all that upset to hear this. She took a step toward him.
“Did you hear about Virginia Tech?” she asked him.
He remembered something about Virginia Tech. He couldn’t quite place it.
“Their servers,” Amanda said.
Adam nodded. “Yeah,” he said. He remembered Samualson saying something. None of this made sense. He just wanted to sleep.
“Tech has already duped the data from M.I.T. to their own servers. They have a dozen worlds already up and running this morning. Dozens more are coming online at universities all over the world.” Amanda frowned. “Did you know your South Korea went online with their own virtual world last week?”
“My South Korea?” Adam fell sideways against the doorjamb and remained propped there. He was going to fall asleep standing up.
“I can’t keep taking them down, Adam.” Amanda looked grave. “It takes too much time. More are going up faster than I can take them down. My boss won’t have any more of it, not for the trickle coming out of this planet.” She waved her hands around her.
Adam pressed his palms to his sore temples. One girlfriend was deleted, the other was crazy. He slid down the wall until his ass hit the carpet. His head rested in his hands.
“I need anything you can give me,” Amanda said. He heard her cross the room, could feel her standing above him. “Three or four haiku. Anything. Please, I wish we had more time.”
“Tomorrow,” Adam said. “Please leave me alone.”
A hand clamped down on his wrist. “There is no tomorrow,” Amanda hissed. He looked up at her. “Are you listening to me? I know what you do, who you are. I’m a plagiarist too, Adam. You know how this works; I don’t have time to explain it to you.” Amanda pointed toward his window. “You’ve got hours left. Your legacy is all that matters. Don’t you understand?” She shook her head. “Of course you don’t. You have no idea what you mean on my world. You don’t know what I’ve discovered in you.”
Amanda stepped away from him. Adam felt bile rise up in his throat. Her words were settling like snow upon his consciousness, forming something like understanding.
“What are you saying?” Adam asked. He looked at his palms, flexed his fingers.
“Please,” she said. She backed away from him and looked out the window. The blinds were up. Adam never had the blinds up. “A few haiku. You have to say them to me. I can’t copy it straight out of your mind. You know how it works.”
“This is real,” Adam told himself. What she was saying seemed so familiar. He rubbed his fingers together. It felt as real as the sims.
It felt as real as the sims.
“I’m sorry,” Amanda said, not for the first time. “I really am. I like you. I— I feel maybe more than I should for you.” She bit her lip and looked away. “This isn’t easy for me—”
“This is real,” Adam repeated. He stood up and took a step toward Amanda. Outside, the sun was peeking over the mountains, the clear sky dazzling against the fresh snow. The brightness of it lanced into Adam’s brain.
“Say whatever comes to mind,” Amanda said. “You’ll be remembered for it.”
“I’ll be remembered,” he whispered.
“Yes.”
But Belatrix won’t be, he rea
lized. It was what he’d wanted to tell her, but couldn’t find the words. She was real as long as he’d known her, and would remain real as long as he could recall her. Belatrix was as real as anyone he’d known who was now lost. As real as anyone who had become ash, leaving just memories behind with the living. She was as real as his father had been to him. Had his father been real? Was Adam real? Was this some kind of trick? If he was deleted, and the memory of Belatrix was deleted with him, then she was lost for good. His mind spun with the layers and layers and layers: Hammond had started simming their own worlds, placing a strain on the campus computers, so it had to be deleted. What about all those simmed worlds on Hammond when that happened? Adam had considered the loss of Belatrix, of the world and people she knew, but what about the billions of others residing on computers another layer deep? Those people thought they were real. What had they been doing when they were deleted? How few were told in advance?
Adam looked out over campus, at the amazing view from his window that he’d seen maybe once or twice before.
“How long?” he asked. He thought about the hundreds of worlds simmed on Earth. How many had worlds simming in them? Or in them, one more layer deep? How many Earths were there on Amanda’s world? Could this be real?
“Not much time,” she said.
“What if you’re not real,” Adam said. He pressed his hand against the frosted glass and felt the cold beyond.
“I think about that a lot,” she told him.
Adam wanted her to not be real. He wanted company in that sudden loneliness that had overtaken him. He wanted to hurt her in some way.