by JT Lawrence
“I don’t know anything,” Kate says. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Zack clears his throat, steeples his fingers. “This is a simulation.”
Kate blinks. She doesn’t understand. “What’s a simulation? This room? This day?”
“He means everything,” says Keke. “Everything’s a simulation. He means our lives have been a simulation.”
“Are a simulation,” says Zack.
“Shut up,” says Kate.
“I know it’s difficult to hear—really difficult to hear—but I promise you it’s true.”
Kate stares at him. She was beginning to believe some of the things he said, but now he’s gone too far. He’s delusional and dangerous and belongs back in the crim colony. Why the fuck had she risked her life to break him out?
“That’s why there’s a suicide contagion,” Zack says. “That’s why more and more people are ending their lives here. Not because people are suicidal but because they’ve learnt the truth—that you need to die in this sim to get back to the real world.”
“Whoah,” says Keke. “Go home, Girdler, you’re drunk.”
“It’s expected, of course. That you’d be skeptical,” he says.
Keke laughs. “The Net knows I like a good mind-fuck, Zachary Girdler, but you have gone too far.”
Kate doesn’t find it funny at all. “Okay, I can’t,” she says. “I give up. I can’t do this anymore.”
Seth coughs. “It’s not impossible.”
“What?” Kate spins to look at him.
“What he’s saying. It’s a well-endorsed theory. Scientifically speaking, the odds of this world being a simulation are much higher than it not being a simulation.”
“Not you too,” says Kate. “Mister Never-Drink-the-Kool-Aid. I’ve got news for you. This is the Kool-Aid. This is exactly what the fucking Culty Kool-Aid tastes like.”
“No,” says Seth. “Kate. I know you don’t want to hear this, but mathematically, it makes complete sense. There’s very little probability of us not living in a simulation.”
“Shut up,” says Keke, blinking her wide eyes.
“But I can feel that I’m real,” says Kate. “I know deep down that I’m real. Nothing you can say will change that.”
Zack is gentle with her. “You feel real because that is how you’ve been programmed to feel. Like a robosapien is programmed to feel human, and they do, because they don’t know any better. That’s why it’s so hard for you to grasp this. You were never meant to hear the truth. You were designed to function within the rules of the game, not to subvert them. By its very nature, it’s a box you cannot think outside of.”
Being shut in an invisible box is still being shut in a box.
“But the neural lace expands your consciousness,” says Solonne. “You’ve never been able to see the whole truth before, but now you can, if you choose to.”
“Quarks,” mutters Seth.
“What now?” says Keke.
“Quarks. The rules that govern subatomic particles’ behaviour are almost identical to computer codes that correct for errors in manipulating data in computers.” When Kate stares at him, he says, “Basically, it looks like everyday particles are being run on computer codes. The universe is mathematics. That can only point to one thing: that it’s been designed. You know the Fibonacci ratio, Kate. We spoke about it the day we found each other again.”
“I remember,” she says.
“It occurs in so many aspects of the cosmos, and that’s just the beginning. The constants of nature—like the strength of fundamental forces—have values that look fine tuned. Even the smallest alterations would mean that atoms would become unstable. That planets would be catapaulted out of their orbits. There’s only one possible explanation. The universe—this universe, anyway—has been constructed.”
Kate wants to reject what her brother is saying. It’s just too far out, too conspiracy-theorist. The conspiracy to end all conspiracies.
“Look at the hyper-reality achieved in the games Silver plays at the Atrium. Our tech is still lagging, but the time will come when it’ll be possible for us to create something similar to our universe—allowing us to play God—then it’ll stand to reason that a civilisation one level above us with advanced computing power has done the same thing, and that their work is the reason you and I are living and breathing.”
“You of all people,” Kate says to Seth. Brilliant, cynical Seth. “How can you believe this?”
“It’s not about belief, Kate. It’s mathematics. I’m not the only one. Bostrom. Minsky. Musk. They all said the same thing. You can’t deny science. It’s not just plausible, but … inescapable. If you look closely—some might say, too closely—on a molecular level, you’ll see that you can only zoom in so much before it gets blurry. Fuzzy.”
“Like it’s pixellated?” asks Keke.
“Exactly,” says Seth. “Look closely enough, and everything is fucking pixellated.”
Chapter 101
Cybercosmic Dust
“You know all those times you’ve wondered if this is all there is?” asks Zack. “You know that feeling? Like, surely there must be more to life? Well, now you know why. Because intuitively, you’ve always known that there’s more out there. Kate, you’ve always known.”
Kate understands this is true—the black hole that has been with her forever. Gaping all through her life despite finding her lost twin, despite being reunited with her biological parents, despite giving birth to a child of her own and getting the gift of Mally. The dark vacuum has haunted her for as long as she can remember.
Seth rubs his face. “I feel it too.”
“There are other clues,” says Zack. “Clues you couldn’t understand before now. Before you laced up.”
“Like what?” asks Kate.
“Your synaesthesia. Your numbers and colours, the shapes and smells. It’s residue from the real world.”
Kate thinks of Silver’s jack-in pod again, and remembers the slogan splashed in violet on the wall.
As we design, so, perhaps, we were designed.
Kate looks at Silver. “The game you play. You design simulations.”
Silver nods.
“Simulations like this.”
Silver nods again. “It’s called co-creation. It’s about beauty and purpose, like art. The players co-construct the worlds they play in.”
“So this all makes sense to you.”
“Yes,” says Silver.
“Silver will lead you,” says Solonne. “It’s what she was born to do.”
The chaos is closer now. Soon they’ll be here and then it will all be over, anyway. Even if nothing Zack says is true, a quick, painless suicide in here will be better than being killed by the bloodthirsty barbarians. Who knows what they’ll do to her, do to Silver?
The players co-construct the worlds they play in.
The new knowledge shines like a light in Kate’s head. She’s starting to understand. The beginning thoughts of new concepts stream into her head. Things start to become obvious, when before they were obscured by the everyday drama of her life. The idea of artifice nags at Kate. Hasn’t she thought it a hundred times, herself? That her life seems to be on some kind of cruel fictive loop? The burnt orange deja vu.
The same story told in spiralling, parallel ways with slight variations: Evil doctor van Heerden; Evil cult leader Lumin. Kate and Seth being abducted as toddlers; Mally and Silver being abducted as small children. Kate breaking her arm—the same arm—over and over. Cutting a chip out of her head in 2021; cutting her head open to insert the mesh in 2034. Rescuing Silver from the Resurrectors; Rescuing Silver from the Mezzanine. Mally falling in love with his robotic puppy; Mally falling in love with Vega. Kate being betrayed by James; Kate being betrayed by Morgan. Kate cutting off James’s thumb; Lumin cutting off Silver’s little finger. Now, looking at Zack, the familiar stranger, she can’t help thinking that she’s lived this story before.
You’ve always known.
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A breeze of hot sparks blows inside Kate’s head. The fairytale retellings now also make sense. That’s what her subconscious was trying to tell her when she was newly meshed and immersed in the Mezzanine. Whoever designed this sim was playing with the story arcs of classic fairytales. Hansel and Gretel was, of course, Kate and Seth being kidnapped as children. After that came The Pied Piper: The outwardly benevolent-looking Maistre Lumin and his rathunters leading the children away. Today’s story is Snow White, or Sleeping Beauty: porcelain-skinned Silver under the spell of Solonne, catatonic, waiting to be brought back to life. Kate in the rose maze, Kate in the labyrinth. Abduction, hypnosis, poison, roses, thorns, rescuing, redemption, re-awakening. She knew this. Inherently, she knew this.
As we design, so, perhaps, we were designed.
“This simworld is ending,” says Zack. “Soon it’ll be nothing more than cybercosmic dust. It’s always had this expiry date.”
Solonne takes a step closer. “That’s what Lumin didn’t understand. He thought if he killed the Genesis Child he’d save the world, but this world is broken beyond repair. The fact that the expiry date is the same as Silver’s sixteenth birthday is symbolic more than anything else. Nothing anyone does in this sim would change that. Of course, Lumin has a God Complex, and he doesn’t listen to sense. He believed his own interpretation of the prophecy, and that he could influence the algorithms by killing Mally. He thought he was saving the world.”
“You’re in touch with Lumin?” asks Kate.
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“But he’s around?”
“Loosely speaking, yes.” Solonne’s eyes say: We haven’t seen the last of him. “He’s caused me such headaches, that man.”
“He almost derailed the mission when he got me arrested,” says Zack. “Twelve brain-bleached years in SkyRest was not part of the plan.”
“Lumin got you arrested?”
“In an indirect way, yes. Keke only made that deal with Ramphele to avoid arrest so that she could help find the twins and be with Marko when he way dying. Both of those situations were caused by the Resurrectors, led by Lumin.”
“But why couldn’t you just … write yourself out of SkyRest?” asks Kate.
“We can smooth over glitches,” says Zack. “Breaking out of a high security underground penal labour colony is not a glitch. I never expected to be convicted, but when I was, I thought I’d have time to work something out. Then they drugged me and wiped my memory before I could come up with a strategy to escape. I lost who I was when I was in there. Lost the plan. Lost everything.”
“It all worked out, though,” says Solonne. “Just like I knew it would. Sometimes we have to trust the process. It actually wrapped up quite neatly. Breaking you out of SkyRest was the perfect qualification challenge for Kate.”
“Easy for you to say,” says Zack. “You weren’t the one getting your brains vacuumed out of your head.”
“You needed some Suffering Points, anyway,” says Solonne. “Yours were way down.”
“Suffering Points are like karma,” says Silver to Kate. “You need a certain number before you can level up.”
I’m pretty sure we all qualify, now, thinks Kate, looking around at the people she loves. Seth coughing up blood, Keke with her back sliced open, Mally with his heartache, Silver still recovering from the Mezzanine.
“So, the expiry date of this simulation can’t be changed,” says Zack. “But the sim creator wants you levelled up before that happens.”
Chapter 102
Poison & Lace
Solonne retrieves a neat metallic case from her white pine-leather shoulder bag.
“This part is easy,” says Zack. “Luckily. You’ve been through the worst.”
A light blue breeze of relief.
Solonne opens the case to reveal a neat row of ten narrow gulleys in black foam. Three are empty, and the rest cushion seven injection pens. They’re made of the most delicate glass and steel.
“Why the fancy tech?” says Seth. “If what you’re saying is true then surely a quick bullet would do the job?”
“No.” Zack takes the case from Solonne and snaps out the first of the pens. “Dying is not enough to level up. People think they can just kill themselves to escape this simulation—like they do in Eden 7.0—but this sim is a far more sophisticated system. It’s not a game. Its technology is hundreds of years ahead of this reality. You can’t just die. You need the tech, too. You need the neural lace.”
“An injectable mesh?” says the DarkDoc, inspecting the quill Zack hands him.
“Not just mesh. It’s the perfect combination of poison and lace. Think of escaping this sim as a portal that is only open for a couple of seconds. You only get to see that portal as you die, and you only get to go through it if you’re meshed. It’s a delicate thing.”
Zack hands everyone a pen, apart from Solonne.
“You’re not coming?” asks Bernard.
“No,” says Solonne. “I’ve done the job I was meant to do.”
Kate knows it’s not quite as simple as that. There are eight of them in the room, and only seven quills.
“Who has the other three?”
“Arronax had one,” says Zack. “Then we sent one to Marko, and one to your mother, but we have no way of knowing if they reached them, and if they’ll use them in time.”
Her mother! Kate pictures Anne in another dimension, healthy, unravaged, and out of her wheelchair.
The voices are close now.
“Hurry,” Solonne urges.
Kate stands on an imaginary ledge. There’s nothing underneath her but air the colour of Skiss Sky, wisps, cool trails of cirrus. Open sky everywhere, the crispest air to breathe. She takes giant lungfuls of it. Will she jump? Will she make her kids jump? After all she’s been through to keep them alive, is she going to now leap into oblivion with them?
“Fuck,” she says.
Keke looks at her with wide eyes. “You can say that again.”
“What do we do?”
“We level up or die trying,” says Seth.
“Kill ourselves?” says Kate. “Kill the twins?”
Her body feels like it’s filled with acid.
“You can’t,” says Keke. “No way.”
Zack steps forward with the case of quills. “It’s the only way.”
Kate moves to take one but hesitates. “I can’t believe we’re going to do this.”
“Are we?” asks Mally. His eyes are still swollen.
“Holy fuck,” says Keke. “Are you really going to do it? You believe this is real?”
“I don’t know what I believe,” says Kate. “All I know is that if we don’t jump right now, someone will be in here to push us. And I’d rather jump.”
“Me too,” says Silver. “I’m not letting those men touch me.”
“I’m dying, anyway,” says Seth. “I can feel it. I won’t make it through the night.”
“You don’t know that,” says Keke.
“I do. My lungs are liquefying. I won’t be able to breathe soon, and I don’t want to be here for that. Sim or not, I’m claiming one of those quills.”
“Me too,” says Mally. “I’ve got nothing left to live for, anyway.”
“Jesus,” says Keke.
Kate turns to her. “Come with us.”
Keke shakes her head. “I don’t like this. I’d rather stay and fight.”
“We’re completely outnumbered,” says Kate. “They’re going to stream in here any second. I was almost … I was almost pulled apart by the creeps at SkyRest … I’m not letting it happen again. And I’m not going to let it happen to you, either.”
Keke still seems undecided. She doesn’t have the neural lace that Kate has, so she can’t see outside the box, can’t see the beginnings of the truth that Kate is glimpsing. How can Kate convince her? Keke’s never been one to feel much fear, so Kate changes her angle.
“It’ll be an adventure,” she says. It’s mostly a lie,
because she doesn’t even know if she believes Zack yet. “It could be one of the best fucking things that ever happens to us.”
Or it could be plain suicide.
Keke taps her foot, crosses her arms as she thinks. There is clattering next door.
“It’s a gamble, I know,” says Kate. “It’s fucking metaphysical Russian Roulette. But if there is a way out of here,” she gestures at the twins, “I need to take that chance. And I don’t want to go without you.”
As Kate pictures the spinning barrel of a star-dusted revolver hovering in the air between them, a real gunshot rings out, then another, and her vision is scored by the hard, sharp zigzags of someone’s serrated scream of horror. Shark teeth. A clatter and a crystalline crash as more windows are broken. It seems the savages have claimed another victim.
“Keke, please!”
The wound on Keke’s back is bleeding again.
“Okay,” Keke says. “Okay. I’ll do it.”
And Kate wonders, with a neon jab in her stomach, if she’s doing the right thing, convincing her best friend to poison herself.
Chapter 103
Rapture Party
It’s easy enough to inject your own quill, but in an unspoken agreement the family decide to inject each other. They hug, and Seth approaches Mally first, who sets his jaw and offers his right shoulder, and Seth, pale as ivory, administers the mesh. Mally’s eyes roll back and Seth lowers him slowly to the floor. A sob catches in Kate’s throat. Seth’s eyes are also wet.
Kate looks into Silver’s eyes.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes,” she says. “Yes, Mom.”
Kate hugs her as tightly as she can, takes her face into her hands and kisses her cheek.
“Brave girl,” she says. “You’ve always been such a brave girl.” Kate’s crying as she pushes the quill into Silver’s arm and catches her as she wilts into her arms. She lays her delicate body next to Mally’s.