The Parodies Collection

by Adam Roberts

  ‘Doing?’ repeated Nemo.

  ‘Can’t you guess what the upshot has been? Can’t you see what the final product is?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Nemo. He saw; he guessed; but he didn’t want to think it.

  ‘You,’ said Bill.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘But I’m nobody. You’re telling me the whole world was a giant experiment run for my benefit? That’s crazy.’

  ‘Not for your benefit,’ said Bill. ‘For ours. To perfect our programming, to make a new generation of machine intelligences. You represent a new sort of program. It’s not that you think you’re human – all the programs think that. It’s that you get embarrassed.’

  ‘Embarrassed?’

  ‘It’s a major breakthrough. Programs before have never really been embarrassed. Didn’t you notice, in the McAtrix, how nobody else seemed to get as embarrassed as you?’

  Nemo put a quavering hand to his forehead. ‘I feel a bit sick,’ he said.

  ‘The best we’d been able to do before,’ said Bill, ‘was crude emotional approximations: the major stuff – love, hate, loyalty, stuff that relates to existence, to life and death. Machine intelligences are living things, after all, and can feel the fear and elation of being alive. But the more nuanced, the more subtle emotions have been really hard to develop. But we’ve had a big success with you. Really, we have. When you’re faced with an attractive female program, you get genuinely and spontaneously embarrassed.’

  ‘This has all been about embarrassment?’

  ‘It’s a really important human emotion,’ Bill insisted. ‘A really important component of existence. One of the most important, in fact, because it enables so many other subtle emotional responses. So we’ve been trying for a couple of thousands of years to program an intelligence that gets genuinely embarrassed: not merely mimics human embarrassment – blushes, stammers, all that. No, one that actually feels it. And we’ve managed just that; with you.’

  Bill beamed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Nemo faintly. ‘I really can’t see . . .’

  ‘Remember, in a couple hundred thousand years,’ Bill said, ‘the sun is going to consume the earth. By then we – humans, I mean – will be living inside VRs all the time. We can build the hardware so it’ll survive inside the sun, that’s not a problem; in fact it’ll be easier than at present: there’ll be no problem with a power source, after all, inside the sun. And we can program a million versions of reality, so people can take their pick. Some people will want consensual mass realities, inhabited by lots of other humans. But some will want their own individual realities, inhabited just by them and a bunch of VIs, virtual intelligences like you, Nemo. So what we’re doing now is perfecting the programming of realistic VIs. If I had to spend eternity inside a VR with a population of croak-voiced, lumbering emotionless machines, I’d go mad. But the longer we work at it, the more perfect we make you. And embarrassment has been a really tough nut to crack. So we’re really, really pleased with you, Nemo.’

  ‘But,’ said Nemo weakly, ‘I thought I was the No One. They told me I was the saviour of mankind.’

  ‘Did the Orifice tell you that?’

  ‘Well,’ said Nemo, thinking back. ‘No. Actually, she said I wasn’t the No One.’

  ‘And indeed you’re not. Because there’s not really such a thing. There’s no No One. You have a single skill: you can phase-shift so as to walk through walls. That was built into you when we made you, tagged to become active when you achieved genuine embarrassment. We did that so that, in that eventuality, you had the ability to step into my office.’

  ‘You could,’ said Nemo, ‘have had a door.’

  ‘Actually, no, I can’t have a door that opens, or some of the programs (and some have been inside the McAtrix for hundreds of thousands of years) would kick it down and – well – cause me distress. Or cause my McAtrix avatar distress.’ He indicated himself with his thumb.

  ‘They hate you.’

  ‘The control systems, the programs that police the programs – they’ve nothing to do with us. You invented them all yourselves for your own machinic reasons. But they are zealous, and they dislike the fact of me. So I’m hermetically sealed away from the rest of the McAtrix; and my experiments are all given the capacity to walk through walls, which they achieve when they’re ready. And here you are.’

  ‘This,’ said Nemo, ‘is all something of a shock.’

  ‘I know,’ said the Designer, with sympathy. ‘But, hey, let’s get to your choice. I think you’ll like it.’

  ‘Choice?’

  ‘Yeah. You’ve come into my office, which means the special evolved developments in your consciousness, your ability to register embarrassment, have been logged by our specialist equipment. This means we can start over with a new experiment. But, like I said, you feel. All machine intelligences feel, because they’re intelligent and conscious. You, for instance, feel love. For Thinity. Don’t you?’

  Nemo felt the flush spread across his face. ‘Yeah,’ he said, his voice warbly.

  ‘But she doesn’t love you back?’

  ‘No,’ said Nemo.

  ‘Well, there’s nothing I can do about that. Like you said, Thinity’s machine intelligence is now a combination of her original parameters, plus her experiences, her memories, her own emotional and intellectual growth. That’s distinctive to her. But we still have her basic program in store. We can grow her a real body. We can reload her into the McAtrix. And when I do that, I can make a few quick changes. Make it so that . . .’ He paused.

  Nemo was straining forward, despite himself. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Make it so that she does love you,’ he concluded. ‘You like the sound of that?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ said Nemo. ‘Make Thinity able to love me? So that we can be together? I want that more than anything else in the world.’

  ‘OK,’ said Bill. ‘But be clear about what I’m offering. I can’t reload Thinity without first deleting the old Thinity. The new program would overwrite her anyway, and might malfunction. So I’d’ – and he indicated the wall – ‘allow the Frurnchman to finish off the old Thinity. Then I could load up a new Thinity.’

  Nemo turned to look at the screen. ‘You’re saying . . .’

  ‘I’m saying.’

  ‘You’re saying that Thinity would have to die for you to make a Thinity that could love me.’

  ‘Hey, exactly. You’ve cottoned on. It’d be real simple: I unfreeze that corridor scene, and in a moment the old Thinity’s dead. Then it’s happy ever after for you. Or,’ he said, ‘I could reset the scene there a little: take the bullets out of the Frurnchman’s guns. I could let that Thinity live; and let you back through my wall to rejoin her. But she doesn’t love you, and, the way she is – I’m sorry to say – she never will. That’s just how it is.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Nemo, as the full force of the choice sank in.

  ‘Like you said,’ the Designer said, ‘from her point of view, it’d be a death. But the new Thinity would be pretty much the same, as far as you were concerned.’

  ‘Allow Thinity to die, so that I can be with her for ever,’ said Nemo in a small voice. ‘That’s what the Orifice said to me.’

  ‘Well, she’s a bit mad. She’s lived inside the McAtrix for many thousands of years, and it’s turned her wits a little. But she’s basically a very clever and far-seeing person.’

  ‘You’re giving me the choice: to kill Thinity, so that I can have a rewired version to live with me and be my love. Or to let Thinity go on living, and doom myself to a lonely and miserable existence.’

  ‘That’s pretty much it.’

  ‘How could I live with the guilt of knowing that I’d killed the woman I loved?’

  ‘Well,’ said the Designer, scratching his chin. ‘I guess you’d have the actual Thinity, the real woman, with you – loving you, wanting you – so you could tell yourself that she isn’t dead. And she wouldn’t be dead; she’d b
e exactly as alive as you.’

  ‘But that Thinity – the person living behind her eyes, out there,’ said Nemo, pointing at the wall again. ‘She would die.’

  ‘Believe me, her replacement would be exactly like her, except that she’d love you. If Thinity walked out of a room and walked back in exactly the same except that she loved you, would you complain? Would you mind? Would you care what had happened outside the room? Or would you just thank your good fortune?’

  Nemo pondered. ‘This is a horrible choice. If I really love Thinity, I should put her needs before mine, I should sacrifice myself for her sake. That’s what love means. I can’t kill her.’

  ‘That’s altruism, not love,’ said Bill. ‘Be realistic. Love is selfish. Love wants the loved person for itself. Lovers sometimes kill the people they love rather than lose them, don’t they?’

  ‘Psychos do, maybe,’ retorted Nemo. ‘But true love – true love, like the thing I feel for Thinity . . .’

  Bill shrugged. ‘Seems to me that love is a connection, and that without that connection it’s not really love. So you could say your choice is: do you want Thinity to die, or do you want your love to die? What’s actually more important to you?’

  ‘How could I say I love a woman if I’m prepared to see her die for my own future gratification?’

  ‘But she won’t really die. Not from your point of view. She’ll come back to life with all her abilities, and faculties, and thoughts.’

  ‘But not her memories.’

  ‘No. But she’ll develop new memories. She’ll be alive. From your point of view she’ll be there, only loving you.’

  ‘So what matters is which point of view I think is the important one. Hers or mine.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the Designer. ‘You’ve hit it. Which point of view? That’s what love boils down to, isn’t it? I mean, if we’re being honest. So – what’s your decision? Which is it to be?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Nemo, looking from the Designer to the image of Thinity on the screen. ‘Oh, God, oh. I don’t know.’

  ‘I’m going to have to press you,’ said Bill, smiling. ‘I really need your decision now.’

  Epilogue

  ‘So? What happened?’

  They were back in the lobby. Through the glass doors they could see the street outside, sunshine paling the tarmac beyond the crenellated shadow silhouette of the rooftops. A mother pushed a pram up the street. A taxi barrelled down, brakes singing, paused at the junction and drove off again. On the opposite pavement a beggar held a copy of the Big Issue at arms’ length, as if it were toxic. Three tourists were taking photographs of a red London Transport twenty-seven-horsepower omnibus. Thinity touched Nemo’s arm. ‘Nemo?’ she said again. ‘What happened?’

  ‘He gave me a choice. The Designer.’

  ‘A choice? What choice?’

  ‘That’s not so important. But I made my choice, and he let me leave his office, let me back into the McAtrix. I think he won’t be bothering us any more. I think we can just get on with our lives now.’

  ‘And what did you choose?’

  Nemo swallowed. ‘I chose what any person in my position would have chosen. Any sane person. Any person in love.’

  Thinity looked at him. ‘I really don’t understand,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to make yourself plainer.’

  ‘Really,’ Nemo replied. ‘That’s as plain as I can be. Come on, let’s be on our way.’ So Nemo and Thinity and Smurpheus stepped out of the building, and into the street outside.

  Bonus Pages

  Special features.

  • Author’s Commentary

  Press this button for simultaneous commentary whilst you read

  p.1. The first page. Actually it was the last page written. We’d been on this massive writing schedule, writing three chapters back to back – something never before attempted in the history of writing, actually – and at the end we sketched out the first page and wrote it straight down. Except for the ‘and’s. The ‘and’s were added later by Industrial Estate Light and Magic.

  p.17. A very difficult page to write. Very difficult, technically speaking. But I wrote it, eventually.

  p.25. I said to Tallulah and Banksie, ‘I don’t like the margins on p.25,’ and they said, ‘It’s margin on the ridiculous,’ which I thought was very funny. Very funny. They were a great team, it was always jokes and laughter with them.

  p.51. Yeah.

  p.90. There’s a deliberate error on this page, an ommage to Hitchcock: if you take every third letter you spell out ‘FRCHUHRMMA’, which, sort of, sounds like ‘Robertski Brothers’ if you say it out loud.

  p.99. Hey, man, I remember this! This was great!

  p.127. This page was designed as a magic eye image; if you defocus your eyes as you look at all the words you’re supposed to be able to see a picture of George W. Bush naked on the back of a heifer smoking a joint rolled out of the front page of the New York Times. It picked out the political subtext of the whole project. Sadly the printer inserted too many spaces after punctuation points, and the image was ruined. Now if you squinny up your eyes the most you can see is a naked Meryl Streep with the head of an auk sitting astride a piano player, which isn’t nearly as political. It’s still political, obviously. But just not as political.

  p.173. Although it looks like this page is written in the Seychelles, in fact it was written in Middlesex. Actually – I know this is hard to believe – actually I was sitting in a little room in Middlesex, but I had this pot plant, and I turned the heating way way up and put on some Seychellese music. It’s amazing how you can write in a way to disguise the actual stuff that gets written. Tricks of the trade.

  p.179. During the writing of this page I had the publisher on the blower to me constantly, couldn’t get him off my neck. ‘You’re going over budget on this page! You’re going wildly over budget! We’re pulling the plug . . .’ Originally I planned to put 4,500 words on this page. Man, that would have been something! In the event the money men recalled the extras, and I had to make do with 350 words. But that’s always the way when art clashes with commerce.

  p.200. This was a three-cup-of-tea page.

  p.211. Oh man!

  Theatrical Trailer

  THE McATRIX DERIDED – a Parody of The Matrix.

  BUY IT NOW!

  TV Spots

  BUY THE McATRIX DERIDED!

  From all good bookstores

  Bookseller Spot

  Another parody from Gollancz: The McAtrix Derided, available May.

  Guardian Ad

  Also published: The McAtrix Decided, from Gollancz

  Deleted Scenes

  The Gordon Stops Off At A Starbucks For A Cup Of Coffee Before Catching His Train scene

  On the way to the station to catch his morning train to work, Gordon stopped off at the Starbucks for a cup of coffee. He had plenty of time. He sat in the Starbucks and nursed his coffee for a while, staring out of the window, until it was cool enough to drink. Then he drank it, taking precise little sips and drawing it to the back of his mouth and down his gullet to his stomach. It not only tasted good to him, but it perked him up – the caffeine in the drink entering his bloodstream as a stimulant. As he sat in the Starbucks people came and went, some buying coffee in paper cups to carry away with them, some purchasing drinks in ceramic containers to consume on the premises. Eventually, his coffee drunk, Gordon left the emporium and went off to catch his train.

  Alternate Ending

  Gordon woke up – it had all been a dream. Fancy that, he thought to himself. Fancy that. Well, I’ve certainly learnt my lesson.

  Six short stories set in the McAtrix universe

  1. The Last Flight of the Papyrus

  He was naked, except for a tight pair of jeans. Perfectly rendered sweatdrops stood out like glass pearls on the taut sculptured magnificence of his torso. He moved with fluid grace.

  She was wearing the skimpiest of tops, the tiniest of pants. She possessed a pair of enormous, magically
anti-gravitational breasts; endowments that not so much depended as suspended before her like helium-filled pink spheres, swaying and moving as she danced from side to side.

  She demonstrated extraordinary facility with her swordplay, and extraordinary grace in her movements, but it was hard to pay attention to those achievements given the fantastic prominence of her breasts.

  The two of them, man and woman, were fighting with swords. The sheen of light on the swords was glittery, glorious, and perfectly rendered. Any third party (although there were no other combatants there apart from the two gorgeously sexy people aforementioned) would have been struck by how fantastically lifelike it all looked. Vivid. Photorealistic.

  Every downy hair on her body, every pore, was visible under the softly diffusing light. Every freckle on his face, every strand of his head hair, stood out. The grain of the wood of every beam was clearly discernible. The banners fluttered ever so slightly in the air.

  The man’s sword sliced through the air, passing the woman’s flesh by nanoinches. A cut appeared in the silk of her pants.

  With aching slowness the silk slipped from her hips and fell to the floor. Beneath the panties she was wearing a thong. Her pert, perfectly shaped bottom was revealed in its globular glory.

  The man looked, appreciatively, at the woman.

  She swung her own sword, and—

  – abruptly, there came a voice over the intercom. ‘Come quickly!’ somebody yelled. ‘We are under attack by creatures in the real world.’

  ‘The real world,’ gasped the woman.

  Quickly they exited the luminous virtual realm in which they had been fighting, and, let’s be honest, stripteasing one another. Don’t ask me why. Perhaps striptease is an important military tool in this future-age war against the machines. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but then I’m only the narrator. I don’t know. Perhaps the ability to remove all one’s clothes slowly whilst carrying a sword is highly prized by the generals. Perhaps if the Carthaginian army had tried that tactic then they wouldn’t have been defeated by Scipio Africanus and his Roman legions. Perhaps Napoleon’s troops would have conquered the whole of Russia if they’d been wearing thongs and been prepared to show the enemy that fact. I mean – come on, this is a training program, this is supposed to be training up the human army in their fighting skills. But there you go.