by Loki Renard
COME. STAND. LISTEN. LEARN.
The crowd clusters closer.
“How do I explain this?” He glances down at me, asking the question more to himself than to me.
THIS CITY YOU LIVE IN IS PART OF A SIMULATION. YOU KNEEL BECAUSE YOU ARE BEING RECORDED AS PRESENT BY THE INVENTORY SYSTEM. OH. MY NAME IS KRAVE. I AM YOUR…OVERLORD. I HAVE DECIDED TO ELIMINATE THE KNEELING REQUIREMENT, AND ALSO PROVIDE TRANSPORT TO THOSE WHO WISH TO LEAVE.
Wishing to leave? Where would they even go? It hits me all of a sudden that even I have not asked what lies outside the confines of this simulated space, not really. I saw the other simulation covered in scythkin brood, but anything else could be out there. We are interrupting these people in the middle of the day and we are telling them that everything is fake, and I immediately know that this is not going to go as well as we hoped.
Krave
I knew the humans would react poorly to this news, but to give Seven what she wanted, and to do what might be termed the right thing, I had to do this. They had to know, and there was no subtle way to tell them that wouldn’t come across as a creeping viral madness. They needed to be told this way, in no uncertain terms.
I expected screaming. Riots. I didn’t expect blank stares.
“So whaddahellisthis? Some kinda movie?”
THIS IS REAL.
Some of the humans have already stopped listening. They are walking away, thinking I am one of them, thinking this is merely a ruse or stunt of some kind. It pleases me then, to come bursting out of the veil of humanity, piercing the suit in so many places it does not fall from me, but rather hangs grotesquely about my body in shreds.
“No…” I hear Seven start to say something, but it is too late.
LOOK ON ME, HUMANS. SEE THE TRUTH!
That’s when the screaming starts. At the front, at least. The people at the back still can’t really see what is going on very well, but the ones at the front should frighten them as they surge back away from me, and then press forward again. This could go badly if they stampede.
DO NOT PANIC, HUMANS!
That does not help. They start to scream and shriek and…
TYANK! RELEASE THE SEDATIVE SPRAY
Drones move over the crowd, spraying a soft green mist of calming sedatives into the wide mouths and eyes of those who are panicking, just enough to take the edge off the chaos and restore the humans to a state in which they are capable of listening.
I lower my voice so that I am not booming over the crowd, but speaking to them in what passes for rational tones.
“This is a lot to take in. But the world in which you live is a simulation designed to protect the last of your kind from some very harsh realities. Your home planet was destroyed. Your species almost died out. In this captive space, you have been given the chance to live lives which are not possible in nature. There is no sickness. No aging. No death. You are managed down to the telomeres. But it has been brought to my attention that you might want to choose whether to live here or not. So now you know.”
Someone puts his hand up.
“Yes?”
“Does this mean we, uh, still have jobs?”
I look over at Seven, who is palming her face.
“The jobs are not real,” I explain. “None of this is. It’s a construct…”
“Okay, but see, I’m up for a promotion, and I just put a deposit down on a condo, so if this whole, us actually being a simulation thing is going to get in the way of that, then I’d like to vote against it.”
“Vote against what?”
“Leaving the simulation.”
“There is no need to leave the simulation if you do not wish.
“YES!” Someone else cries out. “LET US VOTE! SIMULATION! LET US VOTE!”
“This… is not going how I thought it would,” Seven sighs. “You’re FREE! Go be FREE!” She shouts to the crowd, flapping her hands at them as if they’re a gaggle of ducks, and not a crowd of very confused people.
“My television ISN’T WORKING!” Someone screams out their window, having apparently gone back to their apartment to check. “I’m missing Magnum PI!”
The rest of the meeting goes more or less the same way. It turns out nobody wanted their Tuesday afternoon to include the end of the world as they knew it.
Seven
He was right. All along.
It’s not that these people don’t want to be free, it’s that they think they already are, and what would count as freedom is the same thing as setting a pet hamster loose outside. It’s going to be a meal for someone. I’m not any better. If I didn't have Krave, I would probably be just as eager as these people to return to the safety of the simulation.
“Everybody who wants their lives to stay as they are is free to return to their homes,” he declares. “Tomorrow morning you will wake and none of this will have happened.”
Even though there is no way that makes sense in their world view, they accept it.
“Do we get a refund?!” Someone shouts the question.
“A refund on what?”
“Uhm, I don’t know?”
“I feel like we should get refunds,” someone else adds.
Next thing we know, everyone wants a refund. Some people say they’d be okay with a coupon. Others want store credit.
“I don’t think they have any idea what they’re saying,” I murmur to Krave. “I think it’s just kind of falling out of their mouths because they’re confused and upset.”
But the worst is yet to come.
Someone is pushing through the crowd. Someone with a short blonde haircut and the spirit of a tigress. She is not content to stay among the people. She deserves better, and she will have better. She comes up over the dais, scrambling up in an undignified, but intense fashion.
“Oh god,” I groan. Of all the people who might take this news badly, she is the one I fear most.
“Are you the manager!?” Kar3n shrieks, her red manicured finger as aggressive as Krave’s own clawed hands. She pokes the digit up toward his nose in an accusatory manner.
“For the purposes of this discussion, yes,” Krave says. I’m waving my hands in a NO motion to try to stop him from saying that, but it’s too late. Hearing that the manager has finally arrived is blood in the water to Kar3n.
“This is not acceptable!” She snaps. “We have a right to a basic, fundamental, material of reality, and what you’ve done here today has been nothing short of disruptive. I’d like to hear what you intend to do to make this right.”
“I’m doing what’s right now, shrieking human.”
“What’s next? You’re going to tell us gravity is an illusion? You’re going to charge us for having our feet stick to the ground? Really. What next? Hm? We have a right to know what planet we’re on. We have a right to know if the sun is really our sun, or some off-brand sun. I was told my whole life that this was planet Earth, and now I find out that it is some knock-off simulated version, and I haven’t ever experienced real life. How am I… what am I supposed to do about with that?”
I’m shocked. Out of everyone, Kar3n seems to understand the problem with this place. I never thought I’d have so much in common with her. She’s stumbling over her words and making next to no sense, but I get what she's saying.
“How do I go to real Earth?”
“Real Earth is gone. You can never go to real Earth.”
“Well,” she huffs. “That’s disappointing! I expect you to make it right.”
“You expect me to make the fact that your planet was destroyed by a rogue corporate state and your species was enslaved into a simulation which we conquered and have been tending since… right?”
“Yes,” Karen says. “And I want to know, if this is a simulation, why is my apartment so small? Why don’t I have everything I want?”
“It’s a simulation of human life, which is inherently disappointing.”
Kar3n draws herself up. “I find that OFFENSIVE!”
She says th
e word as if it is a magical talisman which will somehow make the massive, clawed, horned, sharp, and fiery alien bend to her will.
She is disappointed. Krave stands there unmoved, as if she hadn’t said anything at all.
“Did you hear me? I don’t think you’re taking this seriously enough. I don’t think you’re even the real manager. Look at you. You’re so pointy! You should have to wear rubber stoppers on all those bits and pieces…” her eyes range over his body, then settle on his crotch. “Are you… NAKED!?” She turns around and throws her arms in the air. “He’s here NAKED! Telling us we live in a simulated world, someone arrest this man already, he’s not even a man. That should be illegal just by itself.”
But nobody is coming to arrest Krave. The police are happily sedated and even if they weren’t there is no way they would approach him. Nobody besides Kar3n is daring to get within ten feet of the podium. They’re confused and afraid and a lot of them are continuing to scatter back to their lives.
“What is your name, human woman?” Krave finally addresses her.
“Kar-three-en.”
“Well, Kathren.”
“Not Kathren, Kar-three-en With a three.”
“Alright,” he says. “Are you mated to anyone?”
“That’s none of your business. And no, I broke up with my ex when he…”
“TYANK!” Krave shouts to his broodkin who must be monitoring the situation from on high. I bet he’s enjoying every moment of this. “SEND IN THE DRONES.”
“Oh no,” I say, covering my mouth. “Oh no. Oh. No.”
“Please,” Krave says. “Have a drone ride courtesy of the company.”
“A drone ride?” Kar3n looks at him, trying to work out if she should be pleased or if there is still something to complain about.
“You don’t want to get on that ride,” I tell her.
“Oh really? And why not? Because that’s reserved for manager’s favorites like you? Don’t think I don’t notice that you’ve been getting priority service from the moment this all started. That’s corruption, that’s what that is.” She glares back at Krave. “Do you have a manager? Who is the manager above your manager?”
“I’m going to refer you to our most dedicated customer service officer, who is going to ensure you get exactly what you need,” Krave says with a dark smirk which should be a warning, but Kar3n misses it completely.
“Good, because this isn’t good enough…” neither one of us hear what she has to say next, because two drones have swept her up from the ground and are carrying her, still complaining, up into the air.
“She is not going to like that. Why would you inflict her on Tyank? What has he done to deserve Kar3n?”
“She’s not so bad,” Krave says. “She’s strong willed and tenacious. Good qualities in a mate for Tyank. And she has the organizational chops to keep the murketeers in line once we’re gone.”
“Once we’re gone? Where are we going?”
“To a new world,” Krave winks. “But, first things first…” he turns back to the stragglers left behind after the rest of the population fled the strangeness in the square for the comfort of what they believe to be their ordinary lives. “I need to free these humans from the shackles of their imprisonment. Or at least, free the ones who haven’t already fled back to the shackles of their imprisonment.”
I eye him with some suspicion. I do not know what is best for us all. Having seen a glimpse of the universe outside the simulation, I think that the people who scurried for the comfort of the familiar are making the best decision.
“Maybe freedom isn’t the answer,” I say. “Maybe it would be kinder to do what you have done before and just return everyone to their previous state, and…”
“No,” he says, firmly. “Humans are not truly human unless they have the power to choose their fate. You taught me that.”
I feel a gnawing sense of guilt. There’s only a few people here, but they might all suffer terribly and eventually die because of what I’ve convinced Krave to do.
“What is your will, humans?”
A man steps forward. He seems faintly familiar. “There’s been a small group of us for a long time who thought this place was run by an alien intellect. It was the only thing that made sense. We know what we want.”
“And what is that?”
“To live on a planet of our own. Found a people of our own. We want to go forth and multiply.”
“And you want to do that, knowing that outside the confines of this colony lies sickness, death, disease, famine, and war?” I’m asking that, not Krave. “These aliens have somehow worked out how to make it so we live basically forever. If there is a paradise, this has to be it.”
“We want to live real lives,” he says. “We’ve known for a long time that something is wrong. There have been signs, memories that don’t make sense, instincts that never have any outlet. We crave reality and freedom, at any cost.”
“It will come at great cost,” Krave intones. “It will cost you your lives. You will not live in the light of the simulation. You will be cast into darkness and disease, you will find your bodies deteriorating in front of your very eyes. Every day you will wake and find yourself closer to an inevitable grave, and meanwhile those who live here will continue to stay just as they are now, never growing old, never truly suffering.”
“We know. It’s what we want.”
Of tens of thousands of people, there are only thirteen left. Thirteen people who are willing to give everything a human could want up, to find out what a human really is.
“There are seven human males in the group, that provides some variation for breeding in the short term,” Krave muses. “It could work. The odds are against any of them surviving their first night on a neutral planet, but who knows.”
I find myself looking at the people who are still standing with a lot of admiration. They’re so brave. I wonder if they’re truly brave, or if they really don’t understand what they’re doing. But then again, do any of us ever really understand what we’re doing? I’m almost certain I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. But I do understand that my refusal to kneel all that time ago is what led to this moment. The smallest decisions can have the most momentous outcomes, and for more than just ourselves. Now there are seven men and five women, tasked to begin the wild human race all over again. It seems a momentous, perhaps even overwhelming task, but they are eager for it. They are smiling broadly, their eyes gleaming with excitement. This is something they’ve been waiting for, I can tell. In the city I have lived in for as long as I can remember, these people have been craving freedom just as I have, but I didn’t know it.
“It is not too late to change your minds,” Krave says. “Understand that inside the simulation, you will not get sick, you will not age, and you will most likely, barring invasion or serious system malfunction, never die. In the wild, you will be immediately assailed by all manner of parasites, bacteria, and viruses, which you will have little ability to protect yourself from. If you manage to survive the founding stages of your civilization, you will find that you exist in constant worry for yourself, and your offspring. You will mate, and as a result, no doubt fall pregnant. This will lead to an angry small human exploding out of you nine months later, baying for revenge…”
I put my hand on his arm and shake my head. He has a tendency to describe things through the scythkin lens, and these people know what they're in for. They don’t need to be told again.
“Krave,” I say. “Let my people go.”
BROKEN SPACE, HEALED HEARTS
Seven
POOF!
That sound heralds thirteen souls being hurtled into the outer reaches of the atmosphere, headed for an empty planet capable of supporting carbon based life.
“I thought that shuttle would make a more impressive sound when it left the planet.”
“That’s because your idea of space faring comes from television, even though you’ve actually been on a shuttle yourself.”
“Hi guys, hows it going?” Tyank comes into the room. He has a sheepish expression in his tone that even I notice.
“What’s wrong, Tyank?”
Tyank is cradling the scythkin infant in his arms. It is gnawing on something that looks like raw meat. I don't want to know where or who that came from.
“Uncle Tyank doesn’t love the fact that you sent a demon down here to torment him.”
“He’s just a little guy, he’ll grow out of it.”
“I’m not talking about Czar. I’m talking about that woman,” Tyank says. “She’s like a matriarch but without the ovipositor.”
“Sounds perfect for you. Where is she?”
“Bedroom,” he says. “Sex is the only way to get her to be quiet.”
“Attaboy. What else did you need to tell us?”
“Oh. Sorry. I was distracted by Czar. He needs a LOT of meat. I’ve been feeding him the rest of these puppies, but…”
“You’ve been feeding him PUPPIES!” I exclaim. “You can’t do that!?”
“Sorry, not puppies, pirogies. All your human words are the same, and there’s far too many of them,” Tyank complains, shifting Czar in his arms. It is difficult for even a fully grown scythkin to handle one of their infants. Tyank has little cuts all over his body oozing black goo where Czar’s super sharp appendages have sliced through his thick outer skin.
Tyank! What did you need to tell me.”
“Oh,” he says as Czar grabs his horn and starts trying to yank his head off, while making incredibly aggressive snarling sounds. “Actually, a lot. While you were shooting those thirteen humans toward a distant rock, something really weird happened.”
“What?”
“The good news is, the fleet has arrived and is in orbit around simulated space. So we’re protected by several thousand scythkin warriors just zipping around getting more and more bored by the minute which can only lead to a bloody battle for fun. But there’s also bad news. Galactor wasn’t only trying to attack our service station. They were doing something even weirder. Oh, also, Vulcan didn’t return with the scythkin fleet. He stayed behind to taste Galactor blood.”