by Paul Anlee
“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 dream, 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 Da
rya 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.
30
The apartment intercom went off at 3:00 am. Darya’s inworld self was asleep, fulfilling its simulated biological needs.
She’d considered eradicating this needless waste of time, just for herself and no other players. In the end, she decided to stay true to the rules of the Alternus inworld, however inconvenient. The lost time was small enough and if something really pressing needed consideration, she could always exit into her outworld trueself and let her Alternus body sleep.
Sleeping was a little like the long voyages in space when she reduced her processor activity to nearly zero and let random lattice processes flood what minimal consciousness remained. She found she rather enjoyed dreaming with no particular goal in mind.
The insistent buzzing of the apartment doorbell penetrated her sleeping inworld consciousness. She rolled over and squinted at the control panel on the night table beside her bed. An obviously distraught Mary looked back at her from the downstairs lobby view screen.
Darya pressed the answer button. “Mary, what’s wrong?”
“Gerhardt’s dead!”
Darya’s first reaction was confusion. Gerhardt dead? What? People died inworld all the time; it was no big deal. Why would Mary be so upset?
“Don’t worry. When he re-instantiates, we’ll arrange for the New York Fed to rehire him. It shouldn’t set us back more than a few weeks.”
Even over the intercom security camera, Darya could see the tears welling in Mary’s eyes. “No, Darya. He’s really dead. Trueself dead.”
What? Darya pushed the Enter button. “Come on up.”
While she waited for Mary to arrive, Darya made a hurried pass through the bathroom. She did her best to rearrange her long hair and wipe the sleep from her eyes, then went out to the foyer to wait for the elevator.
The metal doors slid open, and Mary staggered out. She was sobbing uncontrollably and fell into her friend’s arms.
Darya shuffled the two of them into the nearby living room where they collapsed onto the sofa. She tried awkwardly to calm the other woman. For her millions of years of existence, Darya still wasn’t sure how to react to grief. She passed her a tissue and let the sobs play out until the heaving slowed and the tears abated.
Darya held Mary at arms length and searched her weepy, red, swollen eyes, looking for a sign she was ready to talk. She collected Mary’s hands in her own and took a deep breath, hoping her distressed friend would emulate it.
“Now, tell me what happened,” she said.
Mary blew her nose and folded the wadded tissue over and over. “That’s the thing. I don’t exactly know. Gerhardt and I were supposed to meet last night for drinks. We wanted to fine-tune the proposal for some new derivatives but he didn’t show. That’s not like Gerhardt; he’s never late. I waited half an hour and then tried his phone.
“Some cop answered. She asked who I was, and how I knew Gerhardt. It took a lot of pressing but she finally told me his Director Campeau instantiation was shot earlier that afternoon in Manhattan.” The recollection threatened to bring on a fresh wave of tears.
“Take your time,” Darya soothed, “I’ll bring you a glass of water.”
Mary collected herself more easily this time. “She wouldn’t give me any more information over the phone. She told me to report to the precinct station to find out what happened and to tell them whatever I could about Gerhardt.
“Apparently, he was involved in a fight at a café—you know how proud Gerhardt was of his martial arts skills—and some thug shot him. One of the bullets hit his heart. He bled out right there, almost instantly.”
“That’s terrible,” Darya said. She handed her friend a glass of water and a fresh tissue. “Here, drink a little water and take another deep breath for me, sweetie. Okay?”
She sat down beside Mary and rubbed the distraught woman’s arm with genuine tenderness. “I’m sorry. I know this must be really difficult for you, but getting it out will help you feel better, and then we can figure out what happened. “Are you okay to continue?”
Mary nodded, and wrung the fresh tissue into a tight spiral.
“Okay,” Darya prompted, “so he gets in a fight and somebody shoots him.”
“I didn’t believe it either, at first. I mean, given all his training, plus that gun he walks around with, to be brought down in some bar fight? No way, that’s not Gerhardt.”
“But you said his trueself was dead, not just his inworld self,” Darya pressed.
“Right. Even if someone got the upper hand on him, inworld death would be just a minor inconvenience, wouldn’t it? We take our twelve-hour timeout from Alternus, and start over in another instantiation. No biggie, right?
“So I wasn’t worried about him at all, at that point. I figured I’d pop outworld and give him a call to reschedule our meeting, and maybe give him a bit of a rough time for standing me up. I know the docking bay he uses; it’s not far from my recharge station so I drifted over there to set up a line.
“There was no response. I tried a half a dozen times—nothing. That’s when I started to worry. Actually, I was more confused than worried. Where’d he go?” Mary looked down and twisted, untwisted, and retwisted the disintegrating tissue. “I’m embarrassed to say, I even approached bodily and bumped him, if you can believe it. I mean, who does that? But he wasn’t there, Darya. He wasn’t in his trueself body, either.” She took a shuddering breath.
“So what did you do?” Darya asked.
“What could I do? I returned to Alternus and put in a query about him to the Supervisor. It told me Invalid Insta
ntiation. He’s no longer connected to this sim at all.
“I dropped back out to the Routing Supervisor at the recharge station, to see if he’d taken a break in some other inworld or something. I don’t know why I bothered. Gerhardt would never leave me hanging like that. He would’ve at least left a message for me. I’ve never known anyone so punctual and responsible; it’s like a compulsion with him. Not even inworld death would’ve stopped him from checking in,” Mary tried to chuckle but it came out as a choked cough.
“He’s nowhere, Darya. Not outworld, not inworld. I didn’t know what else to do. I mean, people don’t just die, right? That’s when I came here.”
“Give me a second,” she said. She sent her own detailed query to the Supervisor.
Invalid Instantiation—it returned. Subject did not correctly exit simulation. Dissipation detected.
What? That wasn’t supposed to happen! Darya looked away to hide the worry written across her face.
Even when the Securitors had crashed her dragon-killing show in Lysrandia, they’d only blocked people from leaving, they didn’t de-instantiate them. Administration did everything it could to avoid promoting substitute Partials to Fulls until absolutely necessary. To be fair, training newbies was always a pain. Replacing a talented and experienced mind with a fresh and unpredictable new persona was never done lightly.
And why didn’t the safeguards kick in? Remembering how violent the real Earth had been in her days, Darya had designed measures that ensured trueselves could not be trapped in the Alternus inworld, especially not her team members. They were supposed to have a way out if they needed it. Always.
She interrogated the Supervisor a little deeper. She queried its stored version of events in the café. She replayed Gerhardt’s conversation and the fight with Trillian and his henchmen. Her worry grew.
“We need to shut down the Alternus inworld,” Darya said when she’d finished her review. “I don’t know how, but Shard Trillian’s hacked into the sim from DonTon, and he got past the introductory virus without being infected. Until yesterday, I wouldn’t have thought that was possible, but it’s the only reasonable explanation. I’ll contact Qiwei and Leisha, and get all three of you out immediately. As soon as they’re safe, I’ll send out a System Maintenance Alert to everyone else inworld.”