The Deplosion Saga

by Paul Anlee

  “Oh, it’s true enough. And you seem to be pushing a particular political agenda.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “Space exploration and colonization.”

  Gerhardt scoffed, “The Realm has been in space for over a hundred million years. I hardly think that should threaten Alum.”

  “Are you interested in threatening Alum?”

  Gerhardt stood up. “I think I’ve had enough of this conversation.” He threw a crumpled twenty dollar bill on the table. “Please feel free to enjoy one of their fine desserts on me.”

  He noticed the air had gotten chillier in the past few minutes. “I trust you got what you wanted and won’t feel the need to follow me anymore,” he said. He gave Trillian a cold glare. “Enjoy your stay on Alternus, Mr. Trillian.” He turned to leave.

  The door into the café was blocked by two of the trackers. They must have moved in while he was distracted by Trillian’s questioning. Gerhardt turned back to demand the man leave him alone.

  Trillian leaned back in his chair, smiling pleasantly, one arm casually draped over the back of the chair. The other hand held a pistol, aimed at the center of Gerhardt’s chest.

  “Why don’t you sit back down?” he asked. The tone was friendly, but the gleam in his eyes was anything but. “And tell me all about what you, Mary, and Darya are cooking up.”

  Gerhardt went cold. How does he know about Mary and Darya?—he wondered. “You must realize that even if you kill this body, I’ll merely de-instantiate and return inworld in a different body. My next instantiation is certain to be promoted to this same position.”

  “I’m glad you’re so confident of that.” Trillian’s smile broadened. “Now, sit down.” He waved the gun barrel toward the empty seat.

  Gerhardt’s shoulders slumped, and he sighed heavily. He closed his eyes and counted to three. He opened his eyes and staggered back to the table. He put his hand on the back of the chair, seemingly to support himself. He began to sit down but stopped halfway in a crouch. His left foot snapped out, sending the gun flying from Trillian’s hand.

  The two men at the door rushed forward, and Gerhardt spun around to face them. The heavyset fellow in front swung a roundhouse punch. Gerhardt leaned right, letting the man’s fist pass in front of his face, and brought his hand up, inside, and across, deflecting the man’s arm outward. He latched onto the passing wrist and pressed firmly against the other’s elbow, locking the arm tight. With the arm as leverage, he whipped the brute backwards into his unsuspecting partner, sending him tumbling over a chair.

  Still holding onto the man’s wrist, Gerhardt reeled the man completely around and into the now standing Trillian. The two crashed in a heap, taking tables, chairs, and dishes with them.

  A server yelled into the back, “Call the cops!”

  Gerhardt turned back toward the second attacker, who’d recovered and was resuming his charge. He faked a punch at the man’s face, just enough to make him pause, then swiveled and launched a spinning kick that connected squarely with the other’s head, dropping him to the ground, unconscious.

  This suit is not cut for this kind of fighting. Gerhardt loosened his tie, unbuttoned his tailored jacket, and took out his Glock.

  “Now, Mr. Trillian,” he began. “I believe we might have that little chat, after all.” He waited for the man’s eyes to lose their intensity. Normally, Gerhardt would read that as a sure sign the persona had fled its instantiation, leaving only the original Partial behind.

  Trillian returned Gerhardt’s stare with an eerie concentration and smiled.

  Too late, Gerhardt realized one of the thugs had slipped his observation and was taking aim. As he dove for cover, two shots ripped through his torso, puncturing his heart and aorta. He landed hard on the patio, losing whatever breath remained in his lungs.

  What a senseless waste—Gerhardt thought as he initiated the disconnection sequence, unplugging his persona from the dying sim body. He felt his awareness pour down the long conduit toward his Cybrid body, which was safely docked at an anonymous recharging station.

  He was already thinking about how soon he could get back to the Alternus inworld, and how to best reintegrate into the project.

  Who is this Trillian character, and what’s he doing here in this game?

  He would have to discuss upgrading security measures with Darya and perhaps query the Supervisor for background info on the guy.

  This isn’t an adventure game. What’s he trying to gain by killing off my Character and making me lose a few hours inworld while I reinstantiate?

  Without warning, his persona slammed into a barrier.

  What the…?—the way back to his true Cybrid self had been blocked. Shortly after the Lysrandia fiasco, Darya had given the inner circle a software update to ensure their consciousness would never again be caught without an escape route back to their trueselves. Yet he was unable to leave the sim. How could that have happened?

  He reversed course and headed back inworld, to find another Partial to inhabit. It wouldn’t really matter which one; he’d find Darya and explain what happened. Together, they’d sort it out.

  Gerhardt set up the parameters to search for a new body.

  The Supervisor directed him back to the bullet-riddled, soon to be dead body of the Chairman of the Fed.

  What? No, I can’t do that. Start again.

  He retreated once again toward his trueself, but his channel was deteriorating rapidly.

  The virtual conduit grew narrower and narrower, constricting his ability to move. He zoomed back and forth between inworld and outworld terminals. Each time, he spread himself thinner. Soon, his concepta and persona inhabited the entire length of the slender conduit leading to his trueself in the real universe. As it contracted, the only thing he could do was shrink himself to fit.

  He started by throwing away memories of games and then of people. He discarded a good portion of his life. I can reconstruct that later.

  The pipe kept shrinking, forcing him to discard more and more of himself in order to survive. Before long he was down to the essentials, his most basic memories, knowledge, beliefs, and preferences. Everything that made him a unique individual was being squeezed from his existence.

  No! I can’t! I’ll die! He made one last desperate attempt to push past the block, back to his trueself, but there was no escape. His only chance was to go back into the Alternus body and experience its death. Perhaps, at the end, he could figure out somewhere for his essential concepta to go. Maybe to the mythical Heaven that so many humans of the twenty-first century believed in. Wouldn’t that be hilarious, a modern-day heathen like me getting into Heaven!

  With no other option, he returned to his dying virtual body inside the sim.

  His simulated heart stopped beating, and his brain halted electrical activity.

  In creating the inworld Earth, Darya had wanted everything to be as realistic as possible. She’d left no particular instructions regarding the death of entrapped personas.

  There was a brief pause as the inworld Supervisor contemplated what to do next.

  Alternus was supposed to be realistic, and real humans died. Partials died in Alternus all the time, at quite an alarming rate as far as the Supervisor was concerned. What else could one expect, given the number of small wars, insurrections, acts of terror, or violent crimes going on at any time?

  The Supervisor could return the body of the Chairman back to simulated life, or set aside some temporary storage space for Gerhardt’s concepta and persona. But both options seemed contrary to the whole point of a realistic simulation. The Alternus inworld Supervisor made its decision.

  In the temporary bliss of a dead body with an inactive brain, Gerhardt waited for something to happen. There was no sensation, no pain, no worry, no real thought. There was the hum of existence, a persona processing clock slowly ticking over on the quark-spin lattice substrate that housed the Earth inworld.

  The Supervisor released the bits of mem
ory that housed Gerhardt into recirculation. Like so many billions of humans before him had discovered, there was nothing after death. Gerhardt’s persona simply dissipated into the mythical computational ether.

  29

  Once Darya got Timothy off the streets of New York and cleaned him up with a fresh shave, haircut, and a new set of clothes, he settled into life in her Manhattan apartment quite nicely.

  In return for her kindness and generosity, he insisted on cleaning up around the place, and preparing and serving her meals on the days she ate at home.

  He turned out to be quite a good cook, voraciously poring over her recipe books to learn all about modern international cuisine, and scouring the local shops to find the finest and freshest ingredients.

  Within weeks, he was preparing dishes he’d often served, but never tasted, in Casa DonTon: boeuf bourguignon, coq au vin, and soufflés from the continent. He quickly expanded his repertoire to include Italian, Chinese, Thai, and Indian dishes, and became expert at baking breads and pastries. Millennia of observing the chefs at DonTon had seeded the foundations of all manner of food preparation techniques into his virtual neural pathways.

  Darya had to remind herself that the realistic physics, chemistry, and biology of the Alternus inworld meant her simulated body could easily put on realistic-looking extra weight. She tried to eat sparingly. For the first time in her life, she had to exercise to burn off an excess of simulated calories. She had to admit, she didn’t much care for it. She’d have to talk to the Supervisor about tweaking her simulated metabolism.

  Darya and Timothy often discussed the basics of life in the twenty-first century and how it differed from nineteenth-century England. Even with a full persona, Timothy was a simple man with simple ideas. She couldn’t easily change that and quickly gave up trying to explain the intricacies and nuances of her work with the political and financial leaders of the world.

  “Why would you need to reach the heavens, let alone colonize them? Aren’t we all going to get there soon enough when our God-given time on Earth is up,” Timothy asked, when she’d tried to explain the project she and her team were working on.

  “Exploring and colonizing other planets and asteroids is necessary to secure new resources and new frontiers,” she’d explained. “And remember, we don’t call it Earth here. We know the planet as Alternus. And Alternus is fully occupied, used up, depleted. This is the only way to allow our population to expand.”

  Timothy stood near the edge of the seventh-story terrace overlooking Central Park, pleased with his change in circumstance. “I don’t see why humanity needs more people,” he sniffed, looking out over one of the most densely populated cities in the world.

  Darya changed the topic. It was hopeless to try to explain to one with so little education, how the basis of the economy, of finance, and of the money that drove it all, was debt; that this debt required continual servicing; that ongoing servicing demanded an ever-increasing money supply and inflation which, in turn, required unending growth. Without growth, it all came crashing down in a stagnant, fetid heap.

  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 w
ish 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.”