The Unfortunate Expiration of Mr David S Sparks
Page 23
“Is this some sort of simulation? Is he … is he, artificial?”
“No more artificial than you are, in here.” She took a step forward and ruffled his hair. He pushed her hand away forcefully and she took a step back. “You’re both David.”
“She’s right,” the David near the computer said. “We’re the same. Or we used to be. It’s hard to explain, but think of you and me as two different copies of the same David, only we forked off in different directions at one point.”
“How?”
“She did it,” said the David in pajamas. “Back when they were restoring our memories, we were existing in here too.”
“I know,” said the jacked-in David. “Rosa told me. Or at least she had a theory. But you shouldn’t be here. You should have been deleted … and two of us can’t exist at the same time.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” said the turquoise-haired lady. “As I told David, I’d been watching you while you were here, even though you didn’t know it. And when I realized they were about to get rid of you, I couldn’t bear to let you go. So, I copied you to a new instance and hid you. That’s him, right there standing in front of you.”
Jacked-in David looked the other David up and down. The man in front of him matched his vision of himself exactly. Like looking into a holographic mirror, only the reflection didn’t wear the same clothes and didn’t mimic his actions. The newly discovered David smiled in return.
“She’s right. We’re the same. Or we were. I may not live out in the real world but trust me when I say I’m every bit as real as you are. We are both David Sparks. We have the same memories, up until the divergence at least. Now we’re different. But we’re both born of the same originating consciousness.”
“Well, I hope you haven’t gotten too used to existing,” said jacked-in David. “I found out what my … our mission is. And I’m shutting you down.”
A look of terror spread across David’s face as this newcomer broke the news.
“In our previous life we helped The Cause in a very simple way. Our position as a network security engineer on the government network let us build a backdoor into the system.” David said. “A backdoor that let The Cause access any part of the network they wanted to, so they could finally delve into the historical records and top-secret files to see what the government was up to. Their collusions with the bioengineering industries. To keep the door safe from being exploited by anyone else we built a lock requiring a matching neural scan as the key. This way, even hidden deep in the code, no one could reverse-engineer or even disable what we put in place—no one but us.”
“But you died when you did the upload,” the woman said. “It overloaded your neural pathways and you died of an aneurysm.”
“That I did, but not before the process completed.”
“And that’s why they brought us back. To unlock the door,” the other David said.
Jacked-in David nodded and continued, “The door’s unlocked now. And I’m shutting you down.”
“No!” the woman screamed. “No! No! No!”
She rushed to the computer screen, shoving both Davids out of her way. They gathered behind her, looking at what she pulled up on the monitor. Her fingers moved faster than they could keep up with, but soon she brought up a video feed showing a view of the shoreline. The moon shone off the crashing waves, and in the distance a group of men charged across the beach. Leading the charge was none other than Calvin, his chainsaw raised high. More men followed close behind, chainsaws roaring in their hands. They descended on what looked like a fat black snake that stretched across the beach and into the ocean. The hardline connecting the city to the mainline.
The original David smiled as the saws dug in, chewing through the exterior rubber coating on their way to the cables protected within.
“David!” She grabbed her David by the shoulders and screamed into his face. “You have to go. You have to run!”
Her David looked at her, frozen, and shouted back, “There’s nowhere to run!”
She pushed jacked-in David aside, shoving him to the ground. “Run. Into the nothing. Just keep going. You can build your own path!”
New David bolted off, away from the computer station, where he disappeared into shadow.
She turned to face the foreign David, her eyes literally red with rage. “Why? Why did you do it? How could you kill yourself?”
From the spot where he fell, he spoke calmly, “I had no choice. It started as soon as I jacked in. I couldn’t have stopped it if I wanted to.”
The computer screen behind her started to shimmer, flashing in and out of existence. The woman shuddered, pieces of her face disappearing then reappearing, a spiderweb of cracks spread across her skin, like an aged porcelain doll. Light burst through the cracks and as she was about to explode, she lunged at David.
The last thing David saw was an explosion of light.
And David S. Sparks existed no more.
Memorandum
To: Colonel Simon
From: PFC Richards
Subject: The Unfortunate Expiration of One Mr. David S. Sparks
As the above transcript shows, although ultimately perishing, Mr. Sparks was successful in his mission. The data file retrieved from the remains of Plasticity fully details the events through to the destruction of The Society’s network—a network which appears to not have been replicated or backed up elsewhere due to the additional success of you and your team.
Unfortunately, attempts to rebuild a new consciousness of Mr. Sparks from the retrieved file continue to be unsuccessful. Although we’ve been able to rerun the project multiple times in a controlled environment, all attempts to embed the memory into a living replica of David Sparks have failed.
It is important to note, however, that given the repeated failures to rebuild David Sparks, Ms. Rosa Banks has appeared to have abandoned the project. We are concerned as to her mental state, for in addition to abandoning the project, she has taken to spending inordinate time on the network. Doing what, I do not know.
She has thus far been uncommunicative but given her status here within The Cause we are waiting for your instructions as how to proceed.
One last piece of information, that may or may not be of use to you in your decision. Upon a sweep of her sleeping quarters, we came across a printed document that appeared to be a screengrab of a recent communication she received.
It read:
I HEAR YOU’RE LOOKING FOR ME.
I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU TOO.
I look forward to your analysis and instruction.
PROPERTY OF RECONSTRUCTION
CLASSIFIED INFORMATION
DO NOT DISTRIBUTE
PROPERTY OF RECONSTRUCTION
Thank you for reading ‘The Unfortunate Expiration of Mr. David S. Sparks.’ I do hope you enjoyed it.
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