Permutation City

by Greg Egan

  “Yeah, very funny. I said you, not him.”

  “I’d like to think of us as inseparable.”

  “Seriously.”

  He shrugged. “What will you do?”

  Maria put her empty plate down, and stretched. “Oh, sleep in until noon, for a week. Lie in bed wondering exactly how I’m going to break the news to my mother that she can now afford to be scanned – without making it sound like I’m telling her what to do.”

  “Perish the thought.”

  Maria said simply, “She’s dying. And she can save herself – without hurting anyone. Without stealing food from the mouths of the next generation, or whatever it is she thinks makes being scanned such a crime. Do you really think she – honestly – doesn’t want to stay alive? Or wouldn’t want to, if she could think it through clearly, without all the guilt and moralizing bullshit her generation saddled her with?”

  Durham wasn’t taking sides. “I don’t know her, I can’t answer that.”

  “She was a child of the nineties. Her kindergarten teachers probably told her that the pinnacle of her existence would be fertilizing a rainforest when she died.” Maria thought it over. “And the beauty of it is … she can still do that. Scan her, put her through a meat grinder … scatter the results over the Daintree.”

  “You’re a sick woman.”

  “I’ll have the money soon. I can afford to joke.”

  Their terminals chimed simultaneously; the first fourteen seconds of life inside were ready to be viewed. Maria felt the food she’d just swallowed harden into a lump like a closed fist in her gut. Durham told the program to proceed.

  The Copy sat in a simple, stylized control room, surrounded by floating interface windows. One window showed a representation of a small part of the TVC lattice. The Copy couldn’t take the same God’s-eye view of the lattice as they had; the software they’d used could only function on a level right outside his universe. There was no simple way he could discover the state of any given automaton cell; instead, a system of construction and sensor wires (all joined to specialized processors) had been built around a small region in the center of the lattice. Durham had christened this apparatus “the Chamber”. What went on deep inside the Chamber could be deduced, indirectly, from the data which ended up flowing down the sensor wires. It wasn’t as complicated as working out what had happened in a particle accelerator collision, based on the information registered by surrounding detectors – but the principle was the same, and so was the purpose. The Copy had to conduct experiments to test his own fundamental “laws of physics” – the TVC automaton’s rules. And the (simulated) modern computers running his VR environment had a (simulated) link to the Chamber, like the real-world computers linked to any real-world accelerator.

  The Copy said, “Setting up the first experiment.” He deftly typed a series of code letters on his keyboard. Durham had rehearsed the whole thing before his scan, until he could perform each of fifty experiments in ten seconds flat, but Maria was still astonished that the Copy – who had woken abruptly to find himself seated in the control room, without any preliminaries, any chance to grow accustomed to his identity, and his fate – had had the presence of mind to leap straight into the task. She’d entertained visions of this first version of Durham to wake inside a computer finally realizing that “the other twenty-three times” were nothing at all like the real experience – and telling his original about it in no uncertain terms. But there didn’t seem to be much chance of that; the Copy just sat there typing as if his life depended on it.

  The experimental set-ups could have been automated. The checking of the results could have been automated, too. The Copy could have spent two minutes sitting and watching a flashing green sign which said EVERYTHING IS JUST WHAT YOU WOULD HAVE EXPECTED, DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE MESSY DETAILS. There was no such thing as a set of perceptions for the Copy which could prove that he inhabited a cellular automaton which obeyed all the rules which he hoped were being obeyed. It was all down to Occam’s razor in the end – and hoping that the simplest explanation for perceiving a display showing the correct results was that the correct results were actually occurring.

  Maria stared into the screen, over the Copy’s shoulder, at the interface window within. When he typed the last code letter, the assembly of cells he’d constructed in the Chamber became unstable and started creating new cells in the surrounding “vacuum”, setting off a cascade which eventually impinged on the sensor wires. Disconcertingly, the Copy watched both a simulation – on his own terms – of what ought to be happening in the Chamber, and then a moment later a reconstruction of the “actual” events, based on the sensor data.

  Both evidently matched the results of the simulations which the original Durham had committed to memory. The Copy clapped his hands together loudly in obvious jubilation, bellowed something incoherent, then said, “Setting up the sec—”

  Maria was becoming giddy with all the levels of reality they were transecting – but she was determined to appear as blasé as ever. She said, “What did you do, wake him up with a brain full of amphetamines?”

  Durham replied in the same spirit. “No, he’s high on life. If you’ve only got two minutes of it, you might as well enjoy it.”

  They waited, passing the time checking software more or less at random, displaying everything from firing patterns in the Copy’s model brain to statistics on the performance of the TVC computers. Intuitively, the elaborate hierarchy of simulations within simulations seemed vulnerable, unstable – every level multiplying the potential for disaster. But if the set-up resembled a house of cards, it was a simulated house of cards: perfectly balanced in a universe free of vibrations and breezes. Maria was satisfied that the architecture at every level was flawless – so long as the level beneath held up. It would take a glitch in the real-world hardware to bring the whole thing tumbling down. That was rare, though not impossible.

  They viewed the second installment of the Copy at work, then took a coffee break. Einstein on the Beach was still playing, repetitive and hypnotic. Maria couldn’t relax; she was too wired on caffeine and nervous energy. She was relieved that everything was running smoothly – no software problems, no Operation Butterfly, no sign of either version of Durham going weird on her. At the same time, there was something deeply unsettling about the prospect of the whole thing unwinding, exactly as predicted, for the next six hours – and then simply coming to an end. She’d have the money for Francesca, then, and that justified everything … but the absolute futility of what they were doing still kept striking her anew – in between bouts of worrying over such absurdities as whether or not she could have made a better job of A. hydrophila’s response to dehydration. Durham would let her publish all the Autoverse work, so that hadn’t been a complete waste of time – and she could keep on refining it for as long as she liked before unleashing it on the skeptics … but she could already imagine the – bizarre – regret she’d feel because the improvements had come too late to be incorporated into the “genuine” Planet Lambert: the one they were currently flushing down a multi-million-dollar drain.

  She said, “It’s a pity none of your passengers’ originals have bodies. Having paid for all this they should be here, watching.”

  Durham agreed. “Some of them may be here in spirit; I’ve granted them all the same viewing access to the simulation that we have. And their auditors will receive a verified log of everything – proof that they got what they paid for. But you’re right. This isn’t much of a celebration; you should be clinking glasses and sharing caviar with the others.”

  She laughed, offended. “Others? I’m not one of your victims – I’m just the confidence artist’s accomplice, remember? And I’m not here to celebrate; I’m only here to make sure your doppelgänger doesn’t hot-wire the software and wake me up.”

  Durham was amused. “Why would he try to wake you so soon? Do you think he’s going to become unbearably lonely in the space of two minutes?”

  “I
have no idea what he might do, or why. That’s the whole problem. He’s just as fucked up as you are.”

  Durham said nothing. Maria wished she could take back the words. What was the point of needling him and mocking him, again and again – did she think she could ever bring him down to Earth? It was all a matter of pride; she couldn’t let a second go by without reminding him that she hadn’t been seduced by his ideas. Computer junkie, artificial life freak; she still had her feet planted firmly in the real world. His vision of an Autoverse biosphere had impressed her – when she’d thought he’d understood that it could never be anything but a thought experiment. And all the work he’d done on the TVC universe was ingenious – however ultimately pointless it was. In a way, she even admired his stubborn refusal to give in to common sense and accept his delusions for what they were.

  She just couldn’t bear the thought that he harbored the faintest hope that he’d persuaded her to take the “dust hypothesis” seriously.

  #

  At three minutes past ten, the money ran out – all but enough to pay for the final tidying-up. The TVC automaton was shut down between clock ticks; the processors and memory which had been allocated to the massive simulation were freed for other users – the memory, as always, wiped to uniform zeros first for the sake of security. The whole elaborate structure was dissolved in a matter of nanoseconds.

  Night had turned the windows of the flat to mirrors. No lights showed in the empty office towers; if there’d been cooking fires from the squatters, they’d been extinguished long ago. Maria felt disconnected, adrift in time; the trip north across the Harbor Bridge in sunlight seemed like a distant memory, a dream.

  The individual components of the Garden of Eden were still held in mass storage. Maria deleted her scan file, carefully checking the audit records to be sure that the data hadn’t been read more often than it should have been. The numbers checked out; that was no guarantee, but it was reassuring.

  Durham deleted everything else.

  The recordings of the spy software remained, and they viewed the last brief scene of the Copy at work – and then replayed the whole two-minute recording.

  Maria watched with a growing sense of shame. The individual fragments had barely affected her, but viewed without interruption, the Copy took on the air of a deranged sect leader driving a bus full of frozen billionaires straight toward the edge of a cliff – accelerating euphorically in the sure and certain knowledge that the thing would fly, carrying them all off into a land beyond the sunset. She clung to her rationalizations: the Copy’s limited separate identity, his joyful demise.

  When the replay stopped in mid-experiment, Durham closed his eyes and let his head hang forward. He wept silently. Maria looked away.

  He said, “I’m sorry. I’m embarrassing you.”

  She turned back to him; he was smiling, and sniffling. She wanted to embrace him; the urge was half sisterly, half sexual. He was pale and unshaven, obviously drained – but there was more life in his eyes than ever, as if the fulfillment of his obsession had liberated him from his past so completely that he faced the world now like a newborn child.

  He said, “Champagne?”

  Maria hardened her heart. She still had no reason to trust him. She said, “Let me check my bank balance first; I might not have anything to celebrate.” Durham giggled, as if the very idea that he might have cheated her was preposterous. She ignored him, and used the terminal. The six hundred thousand dollars he’d promised had been deposited.

  She stared at the digits on the screen for a while, numb with the strange truth that the simple pattern of data they represented, sanctified as “wealth”, could travel out into the living, breathing, decaying world … and return, enriched beyond measure: imprinted with everything which made Francesca human.

  She said, “One glass. I’m cycling.”

  #

  They emptied the bottle. Durham paced around the flat, growing increasingly hyperactive. “Twenty-three Copies! Twenty-three lives! Imagine how my successor must be feeling, right now! He has the proof, he knows he was right. All I have is the knowledge that I gave him that chance – and even that’s too much to bear.” He wept again, stopped abruptly. He turned and gazed at Maria imploringly. “I did it all to myself, but it was still madness, still torture. Do you think I knew, when I started out, how much pain and confusion there’d be? Do you think I knew what it would do to me? I should have listened to Elizabeth – but there is no Elizabeth here. I’m not alive. Do you think I’m alive? If a Copy’s not human, what am I? Twenty-three times removed?”

  Maria tried to let it wash over her. She couldn’t feel simple compassion – she was too tainted, too culpable – so she tried to feel nothing at all. Durham had systematically pursued his beliefs as far as they could take him; he’d either be cured by that, or ready for another round of nanosurgery. Nothing she could do now would make any difference. She started to tell herself that by helping with the project – without ever conceding its premise – she might have helped him exorcize his delusions … but that wasn’t the point. She’d done it all for the money. For Francesca. And for herself. To spare herself the pain of Francesca dying. How dare the woman think of refusing? Copies, like funerals, were for the benefit of the survivors.

  Durham suddenly went quiet. He sat down beside her, disheveled and contrite; she wasn’t sure if he’d become sober, or just moved on to a new phase. It was half past two; the opera had finished playing hours ago, the flat was silent.

  He said, “I’ve been ranting. I’m sorry.”

  The two swivel chairs they’d been sitting on all day were the only furniture in the room besides the table; there was no sofa she could sleep on, and the floor looked cold and hard. Maria thought about heading home; she could catch a train, and collect her cycle later.

  She stood; then, barely thinking about it, leaned down and kissed him on the forehead.

  She said, “Goodbye.”

  Before she could straighten up, he put a hand on her cheek. His fingers were cool. She hesitated, then kissed him on the mouth – then almost recoiled, angry with herself. I feel guilty, I feel sorry for him, I only want to make up for that somehow. Then he met her eyes. He wasn’t drunk any more. She believed he understood everything she was feeling – the whole knot of confusion and shame – and all he wanted to do was smooth it away.

  They kissed again. She was sure.

  They undressed each other on the way to the bedroom. He said, “Tell me what you want, tell me what you like. I haven’t done this for a long time.”

  “How long?”

  “Several lives ago.”

  He was skilled with his tongue, and persistent. She almost came – but before it could happen, everything broke down into isolated sensations: pleasant but meaningless, faintly absurd. She closed her eyes and willed it, but it was like trying to cry for no reason. When she pushed him gently away, he didn’t complain, or apologize, or ask stupid questions; she appreciated that.

  They rested, and she explored his body. He was probably the oldest man she’d ever seen naked; certainly the oldest she’d ever touched. Fifty. He was … loose, rather than flabby; muscle had wasted, rather than turned to fat. It was almost impossible to imagine Aden – twenty-four years old, and hard as a statue – ever succumbing to the same process. But he would. And her own body had already begun.

  She slithered around and took his penis in her mouth, trying to psych herself past the comic strangeness of the act, trying to grow drunk on the stench of it, working with her tongue and teeth until he begged her to stop. They rearranged their bodies clumsily so they were side by side; he entered her and came at once. He cried out, bellowing in obvious pain, not histrionic delight. He gritted his teeth and turned ashen as he withdrew; she held his shoulders until he could explain. “My … left testicle went into spasm. It just … happens sometimes. It feels like it’s being crushed in a vice.” He laughed and blinked away the tears. She kissed him and ran a finger around his gr
oin.

  “That’s awful. Does it still hurt?”

  “Yes. Don’t stop.”

  Afterward, she found she didn’t want to touch him; his skin turned clammy as their sweat dried, and when he seemed to fall asleep, she disentangled herself from his embrace and shifted to the edge of the bed.

  She didn’t know what she’d done: complicated everything, set herself up for yet another stage in their convoluted relationship – or simply marked the end of it, bidden him farewell? An hour of disastrous sex hadn’t resolved anything: she still felt guilty for taking the money, “taking advantage” of him.

  What would she do, if he wanted to see her again? She couldn’t face the prospect of spending the next six months listening to him fantasize about the grand future which lay ahead for his home-made universe. She’d taken some pride in the fact that she’d never once humored him, never pretended for a moment to have accepted his theories – and she’d never met a nominally sane person who could disagree with her so graciously. But there’d be something dishonest about trying to forge a lasting friendship between them, in the face of her skepticism. And if she ever succeeded in disillusioning him … she’d probably feel guilty about that, as well.

  The long day was catching up with her, it was too hard to think it through. Decisions would have to wait until morning.

  Light from the kitchen spilled through the doorway onto her face; she called out softly to the house controller, to no effect, so she got up and switched off the light manually. She heard Durham stir as she felt her way back into the room. She paused in the doorway, suddenly reluctant to approach him.

  He said, “I don’t know what you think, but I didn’t plan this.”

  She laughed. What did he think he’d done? Seduced her? “Neither did I. All I ever wanted from you was your money.”

  He was silent for a moment, but she could see his eyes and teeth flashing in the dark, and he seemed to be smiling.