by Dima Zales
Okay, so I feel like my version of normal.
“I don’t want to start philosophizing,” Phoe responds, “but you wouldn’t feel a difference, since the emulation the Test created is perfect. You are you in every sense of the word, except that on a very small scale, I doubt this place emulates the molecules that make you up. Then again, some of your ‘real’ body’s molecules change from day to day and get replaced with new ones at varying rates. So yeah, being an upload doesn’t make you any less real. That’s part of the problem.”
“Fine, so I’m an upload,” I think tersely. “It’s not what you expected to happen, I get that, but what’s the difference? What’s the danger you’re so concerned about?”
“I don’t even know where to begin.” Phoe’s thoughts enter my mind faster. “For starters, your brain’s state is easier to manipulate here. The Test can make you forget or misremember things, whereas VR can’t. I’m not sure how much I can protect you from that. What worries me more is that anything that happens to you here will get written back into your real-world brain by the Test’s interface at the very end, before you wake up in the real world. If, say, you get so scared you develop a permanent stutter, your real brain will also get damaged and you’ll develop a stutter, potentially for a long time, if not for the rest of your life.”
“That isn’t how the IRES game operates? I’m fairly sure I developed a fear of insects after that fight with a giant mechanical scorpion.”
“No. Fear of bugs is a natural human response, and when you saw them, you merely learned something about yourself. Your core self wasn’t changed by it. If you hit your head and wake up with amnesia in IRES, after the game is over, you’ll be back to normal. This Test is different. If you develop amnesia and come back to your body before your memory is restored, the loss will be permanent. But that’s not even the most frightening difference between the Test and IRES. If you die here, this version of you will really be dead. The Test doesn’t make any backups of you or anything like that. If you die, you’ll wake up in your body, and it will be as though this conversation never happened. Death means no information is written back to your sleeping self. Even if you lived in this place for thirty years, longer than you’ve been alive outside, those years would be gone. That person you became would be gone.”
“But I would still wake up out there.” Despite my words, I feel a growing anxiety. “Wouldn’t it be more like a form of amnesia?”
“In my opinion, irreversible amnesia is a type of death. Imagine if in two seconds from now, something happened and you became a different person. Say you decided to dedicate your life to a noble cause, found love, or even became evil. All that would get erased if you—”
“But there’s still that sleeping me,” I think stubbornly. “How can you say I’d be dead?”
“I guess we have a different way of looking at existence. To me, we are, at the core, patterns of information. You’re now a new pattern—a pattern that has seen these watery walls and diverged from the sleeping version of you. Until and unless your memories are written back, you’re a new Theo. If you die, that will be final, and I don’t know if I would consider the sleeping Theo the same person as you. He’s still someone I care about, as are you, but you’re two different people, until he remembers being you.” She pauses. “Still, if your view of the matter makes you less scared, I’m glad. I would be petrified if I were you. I’d want to leave this place as soon as I could, and I insist we do just that.”
“Okay,” I think and stop next to another icy-looking door. “How do I escape?”
“I think if you walk without opening any doors or sit here looking dumb, the Test will eventually spit you out with a score of zero. I think that’s your best course of action.”
“But if I leave, doesn’t that mean you won’t get the resources we need?” I wipe my too-sweaty-considering-they-are-virtual palms on my shirt. “And doesn’t that mean there’s a good chance I’ll be killed in the real world once Jeremiah gets the Council to vote on my neural scan?”
“I won’t let that happen.” Phoe’s thought is like a lash in my brain.
“I know you would try to protect me,” I think back. “But how can you protect me without messing with Jeremiah’s mind? And what if the Envoy stops you or learns about you? We still don’t know what he is and if he can kill you.”
“I don’t think I can be killed—not without destroying the ship. The worst the Envoy can do to me is lobotomize me again by taking away the resources I’ve gathered.”
“Wouldn’t that make you Forget so many things? Like our friendship?” She doesn’t respond, so I press on. “Wouldn’t that make this version of you die? Wouldn’t that make the danger I’m currently facing pale in comparison?”
“My survival is more nuanced than yours, and I’m willing to take certain risks for your sake. For what it’s worth, I took precautions by storing my important memories in a bunch of places, including the DMZ—”
I take a determined step toward the nearest door. That she would Forget that we kissed, or one of our many conversations, is unthinkable.
“I see what you’re planning to do, Theo, and I beg you not to do it.”
“Then you know how determined I am to keep you safe.” I make my thoughts resolute. “I’m walking through this door, so please, just help me shut the Test down.”
“No, Theo, that’s another thing.” Phoe sounds like she’s on the verge of crying. “If this were VR, I would be limitless. But I don’t have a real foothold in this world. I’m bound by the resources the Test allocated to you, which means there aren’t any resources left for any type of sophisticated hacking. And, as I feared, there’s an anti-intrusion algorithm running around this place. If it suspects my presence or doubts your integrity—”
I can tell she’s just trying to convince me to leave, so I think, “You’ll have to figure it out. I’m walking through this door.” I take another step forward.
“Wait,” Phoe hisses. “I have an idea.”
I stop. “I thought you might. The least you can do is be completely honest with me.”
“Fine. Beings that were near or exactly at human-level intelligence made this place, which means it’s pretty buggy as far as software artifices go. I think I see a vulnerability already. Someone used a relatively small memory allocation to permanently store the Test score of every participant after it’s sent out into the real world. In the right hands—my hands—that design choice could become this system’s downfall.”
“Phoe, if you’re expecting a Eureka moment from me, it’s clearly not happening,” I think in frustration. “Break it down for me as though I have ‘near-human-level’ intelligence.”
“The designer thought the scores would never go above a certain number. He knew many people will take the Test, so he was stingy on this memory space. That means that if you were to get a ridiculously high score on your Test, a condition called a buffer overrun will happen. It’s when the system tries to cram a too-big value into a too-small-for-it space. I could exploit that to bring this whole system crashing down.”
“So I’ll just take the Test until I get the score you need,” I think. “That sounds like a decent-enough plan.”
“Yes, except this place will throw you out after you fail a predetermined number of times, which is most likely a single failure. Otherwise, everyone would have a super-high score.”
“Can we cheat?” I absentmindedly touch one of the water walls. It feels like that Jell-O stuff Phoe told me about. “Can you figure out how I can reach a high score?”
“I can try,” she responds. “But like I said, it’s—”
“Blah, blah, too dangerous,” I think with false bravado. “We settled this already. I’m doing this.”
“In that case, I’ll try to help you cheat,” Phoe thinks grimly. “Obviously.”
“Good. Now how long will this take? There’s a Guard in the real world who may wake up from his zap-nap soon.”
“I’m al
ready in your mind, so yeah, I can get you out of the building. But there’s something else you should know—another thing that makes this place a little different. You see, digital minds—like ours are right now—don’t work as slowly as chemically bound meat ones. Your thought processes inside the Test are many times faster than in the real world. In other words, you may get a lot of Testing done in subjective, real-world time. That may be why someone opted to use this technology over VR.”
“Time is running differently for me?” I can’t help but feel a sense of wonder at that. “Kind of like it does for you?”
“Not at the same rate and without the massive parallelism I leverage, but it’s a good comparison.”
“Okay, that’s good news. I have more time here.” I brush my fingers against the door. As you’d expect from something made of ice, it feels extremely cold, almost burningly cold. “You should still get the sleeping version of me out of that room.”
“Obviously,” Phoe responds. “And before you ask, here. You can see the outside world through that.” A familiar watch-Screen appears on my wrist. “The anti-intrusion stuff shouldn’t notice anything that’s on your body. The Test didn’t make your clothes, but pulled them from your memories. You could’ve easily ended up with that watch on your own.”
I look at the watch and see my real-world, Guard-disguised self lying unconscious, with the Guard also passed out near the bed.
“He, I mean you, I mean—let’s call him Guard-Theo—is getting up already,” Phoe says. “Due to the time differences, Guard-Theo’s head is moving very slowly off the pillow. I wouldn’t worry too much about the outside world if I were you. I only gave you that watch to keep you informed. I’ll take care of your real body while you focus on taking the Test.”
“Got it,” I think but can’t help glancing at the watch again. Nothing’s changed. Time really is moving faster here.
“Good luck.” Phoe’s thought is imbued with trepidation. “I wish I could kiss you.”
Without responding to her sentiment, I push on the icy door.
The door swings open, like in ancient times.
I walk through, and as soon as my whole body crosses the threshold, all my senses turn off.
19
My mind is muddy. I can’t recall how I got here. I’m even less sure where ‘here’ is. I’m standing by train tracks. Something about this doesn’t make sense. I feel as though this is the first time I’ve ever seen train tracks, but I’m meant to treat them as a regular occurrence. Then again, if I never saw train tracks before, how do I know what they are?
“You’re missing more than just those basics,” a voice says. “I bet you don’t even remember your name.”
I look around. The voice was female, but I don’t see any women in my immediate vicinity.
It occurs to me that the voice might be a thought in my mind, even if it was female. Worst of all, she might be right. I can’t recall my name or much else for that matter. The oddest thing is that something is preventing me from panicking.
I hear screams in the distance. I run toward the sound to see what’s going on.
The ground begins to shake.
I keep running until I crest a small hill. The tracks separate into a fork, one set of parallel metal lines becoming two. There’s a large switch—a mechanical contraption designed to direct the train either left or right. Everything is set up to make a passing train go left. If someone needed to divert the train right, they would have to pull the red mechanical handle of the switch.
“For someone who’s never seen train tracks, you sure know a lot about them,” the mysterious female voice intrudes as a thought. “Strange, isn’t it?”
I fleetingly question my sanity, but then I get distracted when I see the source of the screams.
Five people are tied to the tracks on the left. They’re screaming their lungs out. Their terrified eyes are looking behind me.
The ground shakes with increasing violence, and a loud tadum-tadum sound is coming up somewhere behind me.
Before I get a chance to look back, I see another person tied to the tracks—on the right set. This person isn’t screaming, but he looks distraught.
The noise gets overwhelming, and I finally look behind me.
I should’ve guessed.
It’s a train barreling down the tracks with ever-increasing speed.
Belatedly, I understand why the five people are screaming. They’re about to get killed. I look at them, then look back at the train. Then I look at the switch next to me.
I only have a moment to act.
My decision isn’t rational. It’s instinctive.
I pull the lever to save the five people, cognizant that I just doomed the man on the right.
The train whooshes past me and veers onto the right tracks. Before I witness the horrible result, my mind turns off.
* * *
I’m back in the Test corridor, surrounded by the water walls.
My name is Theo. Of course it is. How the hell did the Test make me forget something so basic?
“I told you,” Phoe says in my head. “The Test messes with your mind.”
“Fuck.” I rub my temples. “This Test is wacky.”
“Yeah.” If it were possible to think disapprovingly, that’s what Phoe’s mental acknowledgment managed to do.
“But why?” I risk saying this out loud. I figure a normal person might say something like that to himself after living through that episode.
“To figure out your moral reasoning,” Phoe thinks with that same undertone of distaste. “At least I guess that’s the point. The scenario you saw is ancient. It’s called the Trolley Problem.”
“How did I do?”
“I think you made the Test makers happy,” she replies. “Look at the door.”
The door is no longer made of clear ice. It’s now a solid piece of green gemstone, either malachite or quartz.
“Green for pass,” Phoe explains. Then, dripping with sarcasm, she adds, “Great job.”
“Why do I have a feeling you disapprove of something?” I think at her.
“It’s not you,” Phoe responds. “I can just see what’s coming and what they want you to do to get a good score. Don’t worry about my feelings. Just take the next Test. I’ll try to make it so you’re not as clueless about your identity as you were in the first one, or at the very least, I’ll make sure when I talk to you, you can remember who I am.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I think and walk to the door next to the green one. “Wish me luck.”
She doesn’t say anything, so I walk through the doorway and my thoughts stop again, as if a light switch has gone off.
* * *
I’m standing in the middle of a plateau. Giant mountains surround me, their orange and red colors contrasting with the lapis lazuli of the midday sky. A sliver of metallic train tracks crosses through the rocks below. Someone’s cut into the ancient mountainside to make way for human transportation.
My heart rate skyrockets. Despite my fuzzy memory, I know I’m absolutely terrified of heights.
A man is here. Correction, he might be a giant. He’s so tall and broad-shouldered that I wonder if he isn’t a statue carved into the rock face. But no, he’s moving from one bare foot to another, proving his realness. He clearly doesn’t like something he’s looking at, because his tree-sized arms are tense and his hands are squeezed into fists.
Screams echo from below.
The screams are familiar, though I’m not sure where I heard them before.
I run up to the edge of the cliff farthest from the big guy. I have to swallow my heart back into my ribcage before I look down to see the source of the noise.
Right below, train tracks cross through a narrow passageway.
Five people are tied to these tracks, and, understandably, they’re screaming.
Then I hear the honk and feel the vibrations of the oncoming train.
I instantly assess the situation.
The big guy is standing on a cliff between the screaming people and the train. There are only moments left before the train reaches them.
Conviction overcomes me. I don’t know how, but I know with absolute certainty that this guy is so large that if he were to fall on those tracks, the train would halt and the five people would be saved. Someone of my size would get run over, though, and the train would keep going and kill the five people.
I also know there isn’t enough time to ask the big man to sacrifice himself, and I’m sure the idea hasn’t occurred to him.
My choices are clear.
I could run up to him and, before he realizes I’m here, push him down and save the people below. Alternatively, I could do nothing.
I freeze, appalled that the idea of pushing the man even entered my mind. Pushing him would be wrong. He’s just standing here, watching this horrific event unravel. If I push him, my action will bring the horror onto him.
“Push him,” Phoe thinks forcefully. “Quickly.”
I know Phoe is a voice I should obey. I run toward the big man. My past rushes into my mind. I remember who Phoe is, who I am, and most importantly, I remember what I’m doing here.
The man stands there as I close the distance between us.
I slam into him. He falls down the cliff as though he really were carved out of rock. The train screeches below, but before I can see the consequences of my actions, my consciousness fades again.
* * *
I’m back in the never-ending hallway, surrounded by ice doors, though now there are two green gemstone ones among them.
“Do you see now?” Phoe thinks with agitation.
I suck in a breath, the horrifying images still fresh in my mind. “Why did you tell me to push that guy? I know this isn’t real, but that wasn’t the right thing to do. That wasn’t—”
“Don’t you understand? As far as the designers of this Test are concerned, that was the same exact choice as your first session. You had five people versus one in both cases. You could’ve done nothing in both cases. You ended up killing one person to save many, which is clearly what you should continue to do to get the best score. I’ll try not to puke along the way.”