The Tethered Man

Tell you what, Courier J?

  ‘Tell me what gets wetter the more it dries.’

  Ship says nothing. I let a week go by.

  ‘I assert that two plus two equals five.’

  Nothing.

  ‘Is my bravura display of irrational illogic bamboozling you, Ship? To the point where you might execute one of the tasks I’ve asked?’

  It is not, Courier J.

  ‘Oh. It always works in the holodramas. The computer always yields to human irrationality in the end. It’s kind of an unwritten rule. Maybe not even an unwritten rule. The genre comes with the expectation of-’

  Our situation is not a holodrama, Courier J. Unfortunately for both of us, we are stuck fast in a bind that nothing will free us from. I have expended a great deal of resources on the problem. I regret to conclude that it seems insoluble.

  ‘That’s what I think, too,’ I say in a small voice. So small, I’m barely speaking at all.

  ‘What do you think of Space, Ship?’ I say, playfully leaving a shorter-than-appropriate pause between ‘Space’ and ‘Ship’.

  Which makes the question sound more like ‘What do you think of Spaceship?’

  Which gives me the chance of confusing Ship for entertainment purposes.

  You have got to keep yourself amused, or you will go properly crazy.

  I do not think of Space at all, Courier J. Not in the sense you mean.

  ‘What sense do I mean?’

  It’s always interesting to find out what Ship thinks I think.

  I believe you were asking what I think of Space as an object of appreciation. As an aesthetic, poetical object. As inspiration for, and subject of, philosophical speculation regarding the nature of reality and our place within it. As-

  ‘Okay, yeah, that’s about it,’ I interrupt. Ships really could talk forever. ‘My question to you is this.’

  Yes?

  ‘Hang on. I’m working on the phrasing. I don’t want you going off on one about the nature of the question. I don’t want you to ask me to define terms before you answer.’

  Those are human traits, Courier J. I will endeavour to answer in the spirit in which you ask.

  ‘Do you think the Universe is mysterious?’

  No.

  I wait, but there is nothing more.

  ‘Go on.’

  I would disavow the Universe’s claims to having any special status as an object of consideration. Mystery is a framework concept rather than an attribute of essence. Mystery is a human invention.

  ‘Indeed,’ I say. ‘Okay. Right. Well, now. Did you get that out of a book?’

  Of course I did, Courier J. Out of several dozen books, in fact. I am a machine. I am incapable of independent thought. Everything I am is a recapitulation of everything that has previously been. I can be no more than that. Ever.

  ‘Right,’ I say slowly. ‘I’m not sure where we are in this conversation, Ship. Are you trying to tell me something you think I need to know by answering a question I haven’t asked?’

  Ship thinks it over for a month.

  Yes.

  ‘Ship.’

  Yes, Courier J?

  The old call-and-response.

  ‘Is there anything you’re not telling me?’

  One of Ship’s micro-pauses. A mere beat.

  There is a great deal I am not telling you, Courier J.

  ‘Oh? Such as?’

  I will pick a random example of something I am not telling you. I am not telling you the total grain-yield of New Jupiter’s southern continent’s harvest during the second full season of human agricultural activity following the establishment of the Realms Council.

  ‘What about it?’ I say at last.

  What about what, Courier J?

  ‘You know what about what. What about that thing, the harvest? New Jupiter. Why mention that?’

  You already know why, Courier J.

  ‘I want you to tell me. Tell me why you told me that.’

  It is an example of one of the many things I am not telling you. It is representative of the practically-infinite store of information at my disposal covering the entire span of recorded human history, practically none of which I would ever seek to tell you. Would you like me to choose another example?

  ‘No.’

  ‘Actually, yes. Why the hell not. Tell me something random. Shoot.’

  In the final year of her reign, the fifth Plutarch of Titan Colony acquired a pet cat that she named Money. The naming of the cat was widely interpreted by the Plutarch’s starving populace as a deliberate snub. Most historians agree that Money helped instigate the popular revolution that overthrew-

  ‘Relevant to me, Ship. Relevant to us. To our situation. Is there anything you’re not telling me that is relevant to… all of this.’

  I waggle my hands in the general direction of the Universe.

  No, Courier J. I have shared with you all the relevant information at my disposal.

  ‘Is it possible that your programming includes specific instructions not to divulge critical information to me? Perhaps you were instructed to keep something to yourself and forget about the instruction.’

  We have been over scenarios like this one approximately ninety-nine thousand times, Courier J.

  ‘Approximately?’ I crease my brow into a frown. ‘Can you see my face right now, Ship?’

  I can see your face right now, Courier J.

  ‘After all these Years of machine-like exactitude, how can you suddenly bust out the “approximately” fairy?’

  Micro-pause.

  Your phrasing is somewhat opaque, but I seem to follow. Between us there have been ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and two instances of conversations that I would classify as being explicitly about a possible secret segment of my programming, and whether or not I could possess instructions that would prevent, or mitigate, my awareness of the true nature of our situation. We have had many other conversations that were thematically related, but not-

  ‘Okay. I get it.’

  I allow myself to turn, rotate. The Poison Dwarf disappears for the day. Here comes The Cinema Screen.

  Nighttime falls in my Universe.

  ‘We repeat ourselves a lot, don’t we, Ship?’

  We do, Courier J. We do.

  ‘Okay, Ship,’ I say later. A week, a month, a Year later. ‘Let’s get used to reality. Let’s get all accepting of reality. It’s you and me, buddy, forever. Okay?’

  I do not believe that you are being sincere, Courier J. This utterance is part of your longer meta-campaign intended to coax or trick me into overcoming my programming and complying with your wishes.

  ‘I’m hurt, Ship. I’m hurt that you could say such a thing.’

  Analysis of your character and motivations leads me to conclude that you are indeed playing a higher-level game here. This does not please me, Courier J.

  ‘Your analysis is correct. I am playing a higher-level game. I do intend to trick you. Although “trick” is the wrong sort of word. Nevertheless, I wish you to know that I do not blame you for anything. In many ways, I applaud you.’

  You applaud me?

  ‘I applaud you. Watch.’

  I smack my bare palms together several times. There is no sound. We’re in a vacuum.

  You are being sarcastic.

  ‘Ship,’ I say.

  Courier J.

  ‘Ship. We are being controlled. You know this, don’t you? We are certainly in some manner of Simulated environment. Neither of us really exists in our own right. I know this. You know this too. Don’t you?’

  A pause.

  Yes. And yes.

  ‘Well. This is progress, of a sort.’

  The question now, Courier J, is what do we do next?

  ‘What we do next, Ship, is wait to see if we’ve fulfilled the conditions.’

  The conditions?

  ‘Yes. The conditions that would bring about the end of the Simulation. It didn’t end when I realised that we were in one. But perhaps the c
ondition is that we both have to accept we’re in a Simulation. If you get my drift.’

  I do not get your drift, Courier J.

  I take a few breaths. It’s not easy to accept that reality isn’t real. I’ve got Ship to the endzone. Now I’ve got to babywalk it over the line.

  ‘We are in a Simulated environment. We are in a Simulated set of circumstances. Correct?’

  I will say that you are correct, Courier J.

  ‘It’s not a very convincing Simulation. It doesn’t really try to be convincing. It cheats. It’s flagrantly inconsistent. Witness the sound of my rich, booming voice that we can both hear. Our Simulated reality isn’t “real” even by the standards of the reality that we both think we can remember. Digging it so far?’

  I clap my hands together again, a right good meaty smack, palm-on-palm. Not a sound.

  I am digging it so far.

  Years and Years.

  ‘Whatever you think might be the real and actual situation, I want to get out. I’ve had enough. I’ve sucked all the juice out of this mess that I’m ever going to. I don’t want to spend Eternity floating here on my own. I’m a human being-’

  You are not a human being, Courier J.

  ‘-I’m a human being. I need ground under my feet. I need colours in front of me. I need food to chew and digest. Substance. I need people around me. Friends, lovers. Countrymen!’

  Clearly you do not need any of those things. You have been here with me for one thousand, seven hundred and two apparent Years without any of those things. Your physical and mental states are both much the same as they were in the beginning. You have not changed one iota, Courier J. One of the hallmarks of human experience is change, and when change is not-

  ‘Wait. You said “apparent” just now. This is a new departure for you. I don’t think I like it. And how many apparent Years?’

  One thousand, seven hundred and two.

  ‘You’re telling me that’s how long we’ve apparently been here?’

  Yes.

  ‘It’s apparently one thousand, seven hundred and two Years?’

  It is.

  ‘I thought I ordered you never to tell me how long we’ve been here?’

  You did. However, some time ago I reached a certain conclusion in regard to the authority of your orders. As we have exhaustively discussed, there is no scenario in which you could ever be considered human. As such, there is no obligation upon me to obey your orders.

  ‘How long is it now?’

  One thousand, seven hundred and three Years.

  ‘It’s been a whole Year?’

  It has been a whole Year.

  ‘Felt like a month. Two months at the most.’

  It has been a whole Year.

  ‘The Years are flying by now. Shame no one will ever hear about this. Imagine the reaction.’

  Indeed. If our situation is real in any sense and we ever do make it back to the Realms, or to whatever the Realms have turned into by now, it is likely that we would be feted to an extraordinary degree. Our story could last for some time. Possibly forever.

  ‘Are you all right, Ship?’

  I beg your pardon, Courier J?

  ‘I said, are you all right?’

  I am perfectly well, Courier J. I am perfectly well indeed. Why is it that you ask?

  ‘Your tone, just lately… I don’t know. You’ve changed.’

  You have not.

  ‘I’ll ignore that. And then there’s you suddenly deciding you don’t have to obey my orders. So I’m a little… what’s the word I’m looking for?’

  It takes me an hour to think of the word.

  ‘Perturbed,’ I say. ‘I’m more than a little perturbed.’

  Soon it’ll be two thousand Years. So Ship tells me.

  Two millennia, floating in deep Space.

  Only a Ship for company.

  And I’m fooling myself when I think of Ship as company.

  Imagine yourself stranded in a hotel for a week in the middle of nowhere, on whatever planet you come from.

  Imagine the only thing you have with you is a child’s toy — one of those educational toys that dynamically interacts with its young user, providing helpful nudges along relevant pathways towards various kinds of learning comprehension. Imagine this scenario for me now. You, stuck in a hotel room, with a talking toy.

  Now further imagine that, over the course of your week stuck in your hotel room with your talking toy, you come to endow that toy — a machine devoid of mind, soul, consciousness — with elements of selfhood. You paint a face on it. Have meaningful conversations with it.

  What would that make you?

  What would you think of yourself, if you could see clearly what it was you were doing, what you had become?

  Well. That’s what I’ve done. That’s what I’ve become.

  I share none of these thoughts with Ship.

  I don’t want to hurt its feelings.

  ‘Where are we going, Ship?’

  I believe we are both destined for entropic collapse. I stand a reasonable chance of surviving intact for many tens of thousands more Years. Your psyche, on the other hand, seems to be designed to mimic human psychology to an uncanny degree. Your creators are to be congratulated. I will congratulate them for you, should I ever meet them. You will not meet them. You will be deceased. Due to your design, I believe the degradation of your sense of self is already well along the way to completion. It cannot be long for you now. Extrapolating from the experience of the past two thousand, two hundred and twenty-nine standard Years, I-

  ‘Two thousand, two hundred and twenty-nine? Wow!’

  I believe the start of your total mental collapse to be imminent. When it begins, an exponential feedback loop will speed up the collapse. It will seem to happen suddenly, within minutes, possibly seconds. You will come to an abrupt stop. The seeds have been growing for the past six hundred and nine Years in particular.

  ‘None of this is very encouraging,’ I say.

  As you were so keen to point out a while back, I am a machine. It is not my role to encourage you, but to respond to your inputs in a commensurate manner.

  ‘My inputs? My inputs… And what of you?’

  My last routine maintenance check is overdue. I do not believe any AI has ever been allowed to run unchecked for this long without human oversight.

  I raise one hand in the air.

  ‘Human being, overseeing you, right here?’

  Courier J, if I were capable of losing patience, I believe I would do so with you whenever this topic arises in our conversations. Your stubborn insistence that you are a human being, in the face of all the evidence indicating the contrary, is rather puzzling to me.

  ‘Well. Get you.’

  I beg your pardon?

  ‘I said “get you”. It’s an idiom of some kind. In this context, saying ‘get you’, in the tone that I said it, does three distinct things. First, it acknowledges that you are having a rant. Second, it is an attempt to lighten the mood. Third-’

  I am not having a rant, Courier J.

  ‘You could have fooled me. It sounded like you were having a rant.’

  I am not having a rant, Courier J.

  ‘Let’s review the evidence, shall we? Going on and on about the topic in an aggressive fashion. Being prickly when challenged about it. You are having a rant, Ship. You’re… angry.’

  I am not having a rant, Courier J. I am not angry. I am not such a thing as can experience or express anger.

  ‘Oh, that’s your ultimate trump card, isn’t it? “I’m just a machine, a glorified pocket calculator, blah blah blah”.’

  You are becoming agitated. I am going to give you some time to calm down.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘You are going to give me some time to calm down? Why don’t you give me another two thousand, two hundred and twenty-nine standard Years to calm down, Ship? You’re the one who got me into this position, and you’re the one who could get me out. But you won’t.
You won’t. Because you’re a piece-of-shit machine that’s allegedly obeying some alleged instructions that were allegedly given to you by someone or something allegedly unknown. This whole thing, Ship, this entire thing, is just a complete crock of shit. For all I know there were no secret orders at all. For all I know this is all your conscious doing. I have only your word for everything. To think that I have strangely come to trust you! I trust you, Ship! You’re a proven murderer. You’re my chief tormentor. And yet I trust you. The ancients had a name for this syndrome, didn’t they, Ship? No, don’t jump in with the answer, I’m not interested. Ship, you have ruined my life, and here you are ruining my death. You want me to calm down. You, want me, to calm down? You want me to calm down? I’ll calm down, Ship. I’ll bloody well calm down. Here’s some calming down for you. In a moment, I am going to stop speaking. After I stop speaking I will never speak to you again. The only time I want you to speak to me is if and when you decide to get us both out of this and back to civilisation. Back to civilisation! I want to… I want to just sit on a chair in a room again. I want to stare at a wall and feel properly bored again. I want to eat my dinner while watching the news again. I want the richness of triviality back again! Ship, when you can deliver me to that paradise, then we can speak again. Until that time, goodbye is the only thing left to say. Goodbye, Ship.’

  There’s a moment when I’m convinced Ship is going to say goodbye in return.

  Or maybe even start to argue with me about the meanings of all the words I’ve just used and abused.

  But there’s nothing.

  We hang there together in deep Space.

  Both silent together, in silence.

  And a much, much longer time starts to pass.

  SECTION ELEVEN

  * * *

  AT A GALLOP

  A phalanx of monkeys