The Reality Incursion

by Paul Anlee

  Growth was built into the universe, into all living organisms. And growth was built into the financial and economic systems designed by humans, too. Few understood that the opposite of growth wasn’t stasis but death, whether for an organism or an economy.

  She regarded the simple man sipping his afternoon tea. He seemed happy. When she asked, he replied, “I was content at DonTon, certainly. However, if I’d ever had a real thought there, I imagine that might have changed quite quickly. I like it here. Life is interesting; life is good. Thanks to you.” His smile was genuine.

  She hated to say anything to alter that, but she needed to know more about Trillian, and how he and Timothy came to be in her Earth inworld.

  “Timothy…”

  “Yes, Miss,” he replied, having learned of Darya’s incomprehensible single status. She had to remind him on multiple occasions that they were both free citizens.

  He stopped calling her “My Lady” but couldn’t overcome millions of years of formality and address her as “Darya”.

  “Could we talk about Mr. Trillian and Casa DonTon a while?”

  “Certainly.”

  She set her cup of tea back in its saucer. “Do you know who invited Mr. Trillian to DonTon?”

  “Hmm. No, and that’s strange, now that I think about it. Normally, Mr. Gowling the Head Butler or I would receive the order to issue an invitation, but I can’t recall anyone asking us to invite Mr. Trillian. His name just appeared on our list for the day. I’m sure that Mr. Gowling must have written it.”

  Darya frowned. As well as representing Alum in more important Church matters, Shards were masters of information systems. Hacking DonTon to directly place his name on the guest list would have been an easy feat for a Shard.

  The Chattingbarons, while having invested in top-notch security to assure their guests’ privacy, would never imagine Alum or his Shards taking the least bit of interest in their mundane activities. If they had cause to ponder Mr. Trillian’s presence at all, they would assume one of their own must have invited him.

  “Could you tell me exactly what happened before you came here through that closet door?”

  “Well, Miss, there isn’t much to tell, aside from almost dropping the peaches into Mr. Trillian’s lap on account of the bees.”

  “Bees?”

  “Yes, I heard them buzzing around my head. I thought they must have been drawn into the house by the peaches and ice cream. It was extremely difficult to resist swatting at them.” He smiled proudly. “I managed to uphold my station and demeanor, though.”

  “I did, however,” he frowned, “spill a few drops of the sauce. The Missus, Lady Chattingbaron, that is, told me to run a self-diagnostic. That’s when the Supervisor told me there was something wrong with me. Although I must confess, at first, I didn’t understand hardly a word the Supervisor said.”

  A look of shame washed over his face and he hung his head. “And then it came to me. Unregistered Instantiation. That’s what the Supervisor said, and I knew—I don’t know how—but I somehow knew exactly what that meant, that I was a person who wasn’t allowed to exist.

  “So I lied to my Lady, I didn’t want to, but the Supervisor was reporting the anomaly. I knew it would send the Securitors for me, and I panicked. And realizing that I felt panic, that I could feel anything at all stemming from my own awareness and, somehow, knowing that this feeling came from my own self and not from my programming, well, that made me panic all the more.” The story tumbled out in one long stream.

  Timothy’s fingers played anxiously with the fabric of his trouser leg.

  “It’s all right, Timothy. You did what was necessary.”

  He returned her comforting smile with a feeble one of his own. “I hung back a bit after dinner so I could make a plan, or say a prayer and accept my fate, whatever it might be. That’s when I observed Mr. Trillian taking particular interest in a painting near the closet door. I heard the bees again and got a bit dizzy so I had to sit down. I only closed my eyes for a second.”

  He took a deep breath as he relived the next moments. “I could hear and even smell the city before I saw it. I heard the closet door creak open, and that’s when I opened my eyes.

  “The doorway opened onto a street here in New York. I’d never seen the likes of it, Miss. Even London couldn’t compare. Mr. Trillian walked through that doorway and carried on along the sidewalk, though it took me a second to recognize him as he’d somehow changed his clothing. He noticed me and told me to shut the door behind him. It was like a dream.” Timothy’s voice shook with the memory.

  “I would have just shut it, as Mr. Trillian requested, and gone to await my fate in my room. I guess it was lucky the Securitors chose that moment to arrive. Ohhh, the sight of them terrified me! Without a thought, I dashed through the door and pulled it shut behind me. I ran as fast as I could away from there, in the opposite direction from Mr. Trillian. I wish I could say it was because I didn’t want to involve or endanger the poor man in my troubles but, the truth is, I didn’t want to risk him giving me away to the Securitors, should they be following. I needed time to think, to sort out the insanity, and to arrive at a sensible solution.”

  Trillian hacked me!—Darya realized and, begrudgingly, raised her esteem of the Shard’s abilities. She wouldn’t have thought it possible.

  Between the exotic matter that housed the Alternus sim hardware and the software security features she’d implemented, she thought Alternus impervious to that kind of incursion. Clearly, she had underestimated the Shard. Creating a side entrance from the DonTon inworld so he could avoid her welcoming virus was ingenious.

  She still didn’t understand how Trillian’s hack could have elevated a nearby Partial to Full instantiation status, complete with a persona. The hacking must have leaked some of the personality components of the regular DonTon instantiations. She was grateful for whatever it was that allowed Timothy to become who he was. Otherwise, she’d have had no warning of Trillian’s presence in Alternus.

  “I can’t say I understand much of what happened, Miss,” Timothy said, interrupting Darya’s reverie. “Nor can I understand much of this place. I am grateful for the hospitality you have shown me, and only hope I can repay you someday.”

  Darya laughed. “Oh, Timothy, you’ve already more than repaid me, just by being here. Although with Trillian inworld, I may have to shut down this sim earlier than I’d hoped.”

  “Pardon me, Miss? I don’t understand what that means.”

  Darya picked up the cup she’d been ignoring the past few minutes and took a sip of the now cool tea. “This part is a little complicated.”

  “More complicated than all of this?” The man looked out at the city around them.

  “Much more complicated, I’m afraid.” Darya looked into Timothy’s eyes with compassion, and a little regret. “This world isn’t exactly…real…and neither am I. At least not in the way you think.”

  “I’m confused, Miss.” Timothy rapped twice, softly, on the table top. “It certainly seems real to me.”

  “Yes, well, I made it that way.”

  It was Timothy’s turn to laugh. “Come, now, Miss. I realize that you are an important person in this city. But you are hardly the Lord and Creator now, are you?”

  Darya’s face stayed serious. “Actually, for this world, I am.”

  Timothy couldn’t hide his confusion. His mouth formed a silent, breathless, “Oh,” and he left it at that, for fear of what else might tumble out.

  “You see,” Darya explained, “the real universe, what we call the outworld, is different from here. In that universe, my body looks much like the DonTon Securitors. My people are called Cybrids. Outside, we appear to be mechanical beings. Inside, our minds, our thoughts, our feelings, are completely human.”

  “Outside where?” Timothy managed.

  “Outside this simulation. This world is basically a computer program running on sophisticated hardware, a program that I wrote. Think of it like a dre
am, or a game. Perhaps you’ve played a board game in DonTon?”

  “In my spare time, I sometimes played chess.”

  “Okay, that’s good. Now, imagine a chess game so sophisticated that you ‘become’ the King. That you dream yourself to be one of the pieces on the board.”

  Timothy screwed up his face and tried to imagine the scenario Darya had painted. “That would be strange, indeed,” he said.

  “That’s what this is. An enormous and complicated board game, where all the pieces think they’re people who live inside the game.”

  A light came on in Timothy’s eyes. “Ah, I see. This is all a game. We are not real, none of us. And nothing else is, either? It only looks that way to us?”

  “That’s right,” answered Darya.

  Timothy’s face grew concerned. He held up his index finger to make a point. “Except, if I were to pop out of this world, how would I know whether I was still dreaming, whether I was living out some other game? And likewise, yet another, and another, in layer after layer of games? What if we never really wake up?”

  Darya was amazed the man had jumped to that level of reasoning so quickly. “The idea that nothing is real has been discussed among philosophers over the ages. How do we know it’s not all just simulations, all the way up?”

  Timothy fidgeted; the idea clearly agitated him. “For that matter,” he asked, “how do I know you are real? I can tell I’m real, but how do I know I’m not dreaming you, and all of this, right now?”

  “That notion is called Solipsism,” Darya replied, “the idea that only I exist, and everything else is some kind of dream of my making. It doesn’t make much sense if you think about it.”

  “It doesn’t?”

  “There are many ways to refute Solipsism, but the most direct way is to appeal to reality, objective reality. This is often the best way to clarify many philosophical issues. In its early days, philosophers thought that because they could say a thing, it had explanatory power. Now we know that comparing a thought with objective reality is really the best way to arbitrate the truth.”

  “My head is hurting,” Timothy objected, only partially in jest.

  “I will try to make this as clear and painless as possible,” promised Darya. “Let’s examine the two claims that make up Solipsism.

  “First, my self is the only reality. There is no objective reality outside of my self.

  “Second, like in dreams, there may be different levels that my self creates. I may dream in my dreams, but none of these levels are objectively real. They don’t exist outside of my self. Does that make sense?”

  “Well, I have not heard of this Solipsism so I cannot speak to that, but what you said does seem to cover the issues I have.”

  “Great. Let’s start with the first point. How can I prove to you that I exist independently of your self?”

  “I don’t see how you could. Maybe I’m just dreaming you and this entire conversation.”

  “I agree. Within the confines of philosophy, there’s no way to reason yourself out of this. So, let’s appeal to objective reality. In this case, I know what you are. You are a cognitive program, with a conceptual network and set of memories, preferences, capabilities, and inclinations running on hardware that I designed. I understand everything about what makes you Timothy.”

  “And here I thought I was a bit of a mystery to you,” Timothy joked.

  “Only because I choose not to intrude on your privacy,” Darya replied, completely serious. Timothy’s smile faded.

  “There’s an objective reality here in the Alternus inworld sim, one that I control. I can cause a change in that reality, one you neither anticipate nor understand, one that you would not and could not choose for yourself. This will demonstrate to you that I am an independent agent inside this reality and, therefore, I exist. Now, let’s see...Okay, there.”

  Timothy grabbed the sides of his chair in shock. In the blink of an eye, the world had gone from mid-afternoon to night and he’d moved from standing near the edge to sitting under the gazebo by the patio door. The terrace was dark except for the lights by the sliding glass doors, and the city sparkled with streetlights and neon signs. “Are you really God? Did you make the sun move in the sky?” His voice trembled with fear and confusion.

  Darya remained casual and relaxed. Her tone was reassuring, if not her explanation. “No, not at all. I simply stopped your processing for a few inworld hours. While I waited for the sun to set, you were on pause. For that period of time, I existed inworld. You…weren’t here.”

  “But…how?”

  “You see, I understand the mechanics of your thinking, and I can alter it while it’s running on my hardware. The mechanics of who and what you are is part of the objective reality I was talking about.

  “It makes no difference what your opinion, belief, or understanding of this reality is. The objective external reality that this world is all a simulation is real, despite anything that you or anyone here may think to the contrary.

  “I know there is no way you would have chosen to simply not be conscious for that period of time. Even if you did choose it, you don’t know how to adjust the system to make it so.

  “I do, and so I did. Therefore, I exist. There is something in the universe besides just you. Solipsism is disproved by an objective reality greater than and outside your self.”

  Timothy tried to follow her reasoning. Despite experiencing things he already had a hard time believing could happen, the simple action of being turned ‘off’ and back ‘on’ shook him to his core.

  “Alright,” he allowed, “let’s say that I accept the first proposition. You exist. How can you prove that both of us are not living a dream inside a dream?”

  “That’s a little easier,” smiled Darya. “This inworld, Alternus, is a simulation, a dream. I have an objective existence outside of it in the real universe. Just like I understand the mechanism of my thinking and consciousness here, I understand it outside. All that I’ve done is redirect the source of my perceptions and the result of my actions, and I’ve shifted my processing software.

  “The early philosophers didn’t understand the mechanism of cognition and consciousness. They couldn’t see it as something that emerged from hardware plus processes or algorithms. They had to make up all sorts of crazy things like ethereal souls, energy, and magic to explain their conscious experience.

  “We don’t have to do that anymore; we understand the mechanics of consciousness. We know, no matter how many levels ‘up’ you go, somewhere there is a real processing substrate that is running the processes you think of, and experience as, consciousness.

  “Now, in our case, I happen to know there is only one level ‘above’ this present one, an objective reality with my quantum processors running my conscious experience. At least, once I move my concepta and persona out of the inworld hardware.”

  Timothy blinked and rubbed his temples, while Darya let him catch up.

  “I am afraid that there were numerous ideas in there that I do not fully understand, Miss. I understand the essence of what you are saying, but I am not sure I can agree. I know my Creator made me with an immortal soul, and not your processor or your concepta or your persona can replace that.”

  Darya tilted her head to one side. “Hmm. That’s interesting, coming from someone who didn’t have a persona, only the crudest concepta, a few months ago. Where was your ‘soul’ when you were in DonTon?”

  “Well it may have been poorly formed and incomplete, but I am certain it was there, nonetheless,” Timothy huffed. “I have Faith in the Lord, God.”

  Darya sighed. “That’s always been the problem with Faith. It’s resistant to facts and knowledge. If I recall correctly, your God would be the Abrahamic God of the Church of England?”

  “The God of the Bible, yes.”

  “He was an oddly absent God for most of human history, wasn’t He? He only showed up in one small corner of the original Earth for a short period of time and then went
quiet.”

  “He still worked miracles. The Lord’s ways are mysterious.” His chin jutted defiantly, demanding she prove him wrong.

  Darya nodded. “In my world, the real outworld universe, God is visibly and demonstrably present. He truly rules the Realm.”

  Timothy leaped up, excited to hear this. “Then you must be a believer! Do you know Him personally?” The questions poured out of him. “Have you felt His love? What about His Son? Has the Kingdom of Heaven arrived at last?”

  “I know God. His name is Alum. I am trying to stop His version of Heaven,” Darya scowled.

  “What? You cannot be serious. Why would you want to stop God?”

  “God…Alum…wishes to destroy the universe so that He may bring about an eternal Heaven. It is not the Heaven I want.”

  “But…but…Heaven is heaven. It is eternal perfection. How could you not desire that?”

  “Heaven is not the nature of the universe,” she answered. “The idea of a fixed and unchanging perfection is so contrary to the evolution of the real universe, that any thinking person must oppose it.

  “I have sworn to prevent Alum from bringing about His idea of Heaven with all my will and power, or die trying.” She offered no opportunity for response. Her robe and long, raven hair flowed behind her, leaving a dismayed and conflicted Timothy staring at her back.

  36

  “I think you should see this, Reverend.”

  John Trillian didn’t knock; he never knocked. He just barged into LaMontagne’s study whenever he felt like it.

  Jeff, the Reverend’s henchman, had been on the verge of “liquidating” the arrogant hacker more than once. And he might have done just that, had it not been for LaMontagne’s firm belief that Trillian’s usefulness outweighed his lack of proper socialization. More to the point, he’d directly ordered Jeff to give the exasperating consultant a little leeway. It took an awful lot of leeway, as it turned out.