Ross laid waste with his machine-gun. Against the best the Middle Ages had to offer, the World War Two weapons technology proved as mismatched as the scale.
‘It’s no fun when it’s no challenge,’ he observed.
‘I don’t believe the two are mutually exclusive,’ Juno replied. ‘In my mind they’re all looking exactly like Joe right now. That makes it fun.’
Ross’s hunger returned immediately after he warped out and rematerialised, though he was quickly able to stave it off by plucking a perfectly ripe and shiny-skinned red apple from a nearby tree. He wondered for a moment whether they had merely corrected the scale in the strategy-gameworld, as he was still surrounded by greenery on all sides, but there were no war engines and no armies to blight the view. In fact, it was a bucolic landscape so idyllic that he could imagine pastoral nymphs, pipe-tooting satyrs and maybe even Little Bo Peep showing up any second.
There was no sound of gunfire, explosions, sword clashes, aircraft or even traffic; just the tweeting of birds, the rustle of a light wind rippling leaves, and a soft chirrup of crickets. The sun was warm but low in the sky. It felt like late afternoon in a warm September.
He breathed in the autumn air as they walked at a dawdle down a gentle slope, at the foot of which they could see a village surrounded by bounteously yielding crop fields. The unhurried progress was almost involuntary: something about this place just made him want to take it easy and slow the pace of everything.
‘Calming sight, huh,’ Juno said.
‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘I think this is the most tranquil place I’ve ever been. Especially after some of the stuff I’ve been through lately. It’s a blessed relief to be in an environment where death isn’t about to rain down upon me without warning.’
He saw a shadow pass across the ground and, feeling a considerable disturbance in the air, instinctively glanced up to see what was casting it. A stone cottage plummeted from an indeterminate place in the blue sky and slammed into the earth about ten yards in front, causing both he and Juno to throw themselves backwards in response.
They landed together in a tangle on the cool grass, Juno’s armour making this a more comfortable moment for her than it was for Ross. Another cottage dropped from the sky and took its place about twenty yards from the first.
‘Well, at least we know he’s definitely here,’ she said, climbing to her feet.
‘How?’
‘This world is a god-game. You can visit them, even settle there if you like, but only Originals can play god on them. If the rest of us want to do that, then we’ve got the Beyonderland. Very few people come to this particular world, though. It’s in a secluded little niche, tucked away beyond a glitched-out RTS. That’s why it’s the Sandman’s little private haven.’
They continued down the slope, walking around the newly arrived cottages and on towards the village. They passed people contentedly tilling fields, others taking crops away on the backs of horse-drawn carts. Nobody seemed remotely perturbed by the sight of buildings suddenly raining down from the heavens.
‘You can see the problem,’ Juno said. ‘The Sandman could be any one of these people and we’d never know. If you’re hiding from the Integrity, the best disguise is to pretend to be an NPC.’
‘I know, I’ve done it myself. Hey Juno, is there a clock on me for this?’
‘A clock?’
‘Yeah, as in how long I’ve got for the Sandman to come up and high-five me before you write me off as an infiltrator. I’m just wondering if I should do anything to make myself more noticeable.’
‘That clock started the moment we arrived, Bedlam. The Sandman’s a god here. Nothing in this world escapes his notice.’
With that, Ross felt a tremor in the earth beneath his bare feet. It was followed a moment later by another, then a third. He sensed movement to his left and another shadow passed across the ground. He looked up, preparing himself for evasive action should another building be plummeting his way, but instead saw a monstrous sight making its way towards them: a gigantic bullfrog, easily fifty feet high, covering the ground in a series of huge leaps.
‘It’s okay,’ Juno assured him. ‘It’s a good sign. That’s his creature.’
Ross allowed himself a smile of relief as he realised he even knew the game. It was Black & White, or one of its sequels.
As it drew closer, Ross could see that the creature had a cartoonish, almost childlike face, an eagerness to please etched in its expression. It was reassuring to know that the Sandman wasn’t an evil tyrannical deity, all the more so when the bullfrog extended a huge green hand and picked up the pair of them. It popped them on to its head, between its bulbous great protruding eyes, and commenced hopping back the way it had come.
Ross clung on tight to a ridge of skin at first, but found the ride to be fairly smooth once he got used to the rhythm. They passed fields and farms, forests and lakes, towns and villages, heading towards a mountain range.
It was on the outskirts of the largest town that Ross saw something that caused a leap in his chest, a surge of emotion the intensity of which he didn’t fully comprehend.
‘Kids,’ he said, pointing to the group of children outside what he realised was a school. But even as he watched them playing ring-a-rosey, oblivious to the sight of a titanic amphibian hopping around the landscape, he realised they were just NPCs. He felt slightly embarrassed, conscious of Juno’s feelings, and how the sight must have hurt her. He could imagine how much it was going to start hurting him if he never did get back to the old world.
The bullfrog came to a stop on the lower slopes of the mountain, outside a charming but inescapably modest farmhouse, where it gently set them down to rest on the grass. Ross had been expecting something like the Pantheon, or a palace to rival the sights of Pulchritupolis. Even the beach house he’d given himself in the Beyonderland was bigger and more impressive. The same couldn’t be said for the view however, which was just a wee bit more striking than an endless black ocean. A beauteous valley rolled out below, green meadowland and golden crop fields stretching from the sparkling azure bay at one end to the mystical forest at the other.
There was a beauteous sight in the other direction too. A woman was walking around from a vineyard at the side of the house, blonde hair swept back in long flowing tresses, resplendent in a diaphanous white shift dress. Ross thought she looked every bit the wife of a god. However, if this was the case, then the other women Ross subsequently began to spot around the premises would have to be described as looking, respectively, every bit the titian, raven and brunette other wives of a god; the skanky street-slut of a god; the teenage jailbait nymphette of a god; and the leather-bound S&M dungeon mistress of a god.
He glanced briefly towards Juno to check her reading of the situation and could see that this probably wasn’t going to go well.
A male figure emerged from the house, looking relaxed, handsome, healthy, and undeniably rather god-like, if in a rather hackneyed comic-book way. He also looked unmistakably familiar, everything that was different about him paradoxically serving to underline what was the same: that essence Juno had talked about.
The most striking difference in this respect wasn’t just down to the cosmetic changes he had effected in giving himself an idealised face, body and flowing head of hair. It was the brightness about him, the happiness and optimism replacing the hunted look and crushed confidence that coloured his expression back in the office.
‘Sandman?’ Ross enquired, reckoning it was polite to seek confirmation from his host.
‘Ross, or should I say Bedlam. It’s been so long. It’s wonderful to see you. And you must be Juno. Your timing’s perfect.’
He gestured towards a rustic wooden table on a terrace in front of the farmhouse, laden with roast joints and fowls, freshly baked bread, cheeses, cured meats, bottles of wine and flagons of ale. Salad did not appear to be an option, but then again, neither was heart disease, cholesterol or weight gain.
‘You’re loo
king well,’ Ross said.
‘Not bad for my age anyway,’ he replied, sitting down at a bench. ‘You’re looking spry yourself. How are you?’
‘Transformed. And not in a good way. A few days ago I lay down in the Simulacron prototype back in Stirling, and now I’m here. I ended up in the clutches of the Integrity until Solderburn got me out, but they ended up capturing him instead.’
‘So I heard. Won’t you both take a seat?’
‘We didn’t come here to eat, Alex.’
‘Please, it’s Sandman here. You both must be hungry.’
‘I am. And what I really want is soggy chips from the staff canteen, or even one of those manky attempts at curry they sometimes pass off.’
‘Weird what you miss, huh?’ Sandman replied, seriously not getting it. ‘If you give me a while I can probably synthesise an approximation of—’
‘His girlfriend’s pregnant,’ Juno interjected. ‘He needs to get back to her. I need to get back to my daughter. We came here because we’re tired of the mushroom treatment: being left in the dark and fed on shit. Solderburn was rumoured to have found a way out. What do you know about it?’
Sandman shook his head apologetically and tore a chicken leg from a richly browned bird.
‘I know there is no way out. It was just a rumour that grew in the void. I don’t know where Solderburn went for so long; he could have gone nowhere, just lived anonymously without all the hassle. I’m sorry. I’ve been here longer than just about anybody else: hence the term Original. That means I’ve looked longer for the same things as you, so I know what can and can’t be found. The old world is gone, and one thing I know better than most is that accepting that fact is the key to finding happiness here.’
Ross looked around at the Sandman’s happiness: at his malleable fairytale world, his groaning but calorie-free table and his NPC harem of what were literally fuck-toys. In the old world, his bitch of an ex-wife had driven over him in a freight train, so this might be understandable, but it was still pretty fucking sad.
‘No offence, mate, but I don’t think you were looking for quite the same things as me. Leaving the old world was no great loss to you. You love it here. You’re in heaven.’
‘I found heaven, and not right away. I made it heaven. You can too. You’ve seen what’s possible in this place. There is nothing in the old world that you can’t have here, only better.’
‘Can I see my baby when it’s born?’ Ross replied. ‘My sisters’ kids? Can Juno see her daughter? Guy I met on Graxis called Bob, an accountant from Leicester: can he see his family again?’
The Sandman nodded understandingly, putting down the remains of the chicken leg.
‘These are painful wounds, but there’s nothing we can do about them other than pick up the pieces and build new lives here. And right now we have to look to preserving those lives. We’re facing the greatest threat this place has ever known. Look what happened to Calastria. Worlds are corrupting. Getting to the bottom of that is far more important than pursuing some pointless quest.’
‘I don’t give a fuck about the corruption,’ Ross yelled, raging in the face of the Sandman’s detachment. ‘I don’t care if this whole damned dimension disappears up its own digital dung-hole. I want to know how I got here and I want to know how I leave. Basic principles must still apply. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. If there is a way into somewhere, there must be a way out. You remember back in Stirling we once talked about Bostrom’s simulation argument? Well that’s what I think this is: an ancestor simulation, except it’s been hacked, and the “real world” simulated environment has bled into gameworld simulated environments. So even if what we knew as reality was always a simulation, there must be a way back to that simulation, because—’
Ross’s rant was halted by the appearance of a god-like hand above him, which picked him up and dangled him in the air.
‘You don’t give a fuck about the corruption?’ the Sandman asked. ‘Okay, let’s see if we can extract one or two.’
The hand dropped him again, and he plummeted about ten feet to the ground, where he was relieved to discover that falling-damage protocols had not been invoked.
The Sandman stood up, his demeanour still calm but giving off an unmissable last-warning vibe.
‘When I say you can’t go back,’ he stated, ‘you’re misunderstanding. You think that it just means we haven’t found the way yet. It’s like when people fail to grasp how it’s impossible to go north of the North Pole, or how you can’t talk about the time before the big bang because time itself was created in the big bang. The old world, the real world, is still getting on with itself somewhere, but the reason you can’t go back is because technically you can’t return to somewhere you’ve never been.’
Ross fixed him with a cautious stare, climbing unsteadily back to his feet. He had learned of late to rule out nothing on grounds of plausibility.
‘Is this the part where you tell me that my brain is being deceived by a simulation while in the real world the oblivious Ross Baker’s body is being used as a battery?’
‘No. I’ve no idea what Ross Baker’s brain and body are up to right now, because this is the part where I tell you that you aren’t Ross Baker, and that you’ve never had a brain or a body. You’re existing here inside a world of computer programs because you are a computer program. You’re a digital copy of the real Ross Baker’s mind.’
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File 3 of 3
Closer
‘A repeal of the Act is not beyond the realm of possibility,’ Michaels told Stoneworth. ‘Once this development programme is underway, rather than keep it top secret, I’d recommend you guys leak it. Yeah, there’ll be an initial backlash, but we can use that moment to restart the debate and swing the pendulum our way. You guys can bring pressure at the political level, and we can hire lobbyists and PR, spin the angle that the horse has already bolted.’
Michaels could see his vitals in real time, but it was hardly necessary. The Department of Defense guy was practically drooling and they were just talking hypotheticals. If this was sex, then Stoneworth was close to premature ejaculation with the girl only having undone a couple of buttons on her blouse.
Michaels had insisted they have the meeting here at Neurosphere, face to face. He had cited concerns over the security of comms lines, given what was at stake for both the company and the DoD if anybody found out what they were discussing. The real reason, of course, was that he wanted home-court advantage. Stoneworth wasn’t here to negotiate – yet – but Michaels wanted to find out as much as he could about how the guy was thinking ahead of the day they would deal.
‘Man, the things we could do,’ said Stoneworth. ‘The things we could have been doing already, but for that goddamn law.’
‘You’re preaching to the choir here, Major. I’ve been tantalised by the possibilities for a lot longer than anybody else. I mean, can you imagine the implications for reducing stress, and stress-related violence, if everybody could have a copy of somebody they’re pissed at?’
‘Their boss, their co-worker,’ Stoneworth suggested, running with it. ‘Yeah. Beat the shit out of that guy, blow him up a few times, make yourself feel better.’
Better yet, Michaels thought, if you are the boss, get copies of your employees: that way you can suss how they think, how far you can push them, and what they’d settle for when it came time to talk pay and conditions. But why share that idea with anyone else quite yet?
‘Exactly,’ he agreed. ‘Then nobody needs to get hurt in real life.’
‘A lot fewer American soldiers would be getting hurt too,’ Stoneworth stated, his tone suddenly more sombre. ‘Once we can run infinite combat simulations with DCs, we’ll have a tactical advantage in advance of every operation. I can’t think of any single development that would have a more significant effect on force depletion.’
Jesus. Michaels could tell from his read-outs that the guy was making a play here. Yeah, s
ure thing, buddy: just appeal to my patriotism and I’ll knock a zero off the price. Dick.
‘To say nothing of what you could learn from prisoners,’ Michaels suggested, dangling another possibility more likely to add a zero. ‘You’ll have infinite subjects on whom to practise interrogation methods, and you don’t need to worry about the mess if you push things too far.’
‘Yeah, but we still can’t act on intelligence obtained under duress,’ Stoneworth reminded him.
‘You wouldn’t need to lay a finger on anybody. You could interrogate copies.’
And as that particular penny dropped, the Major’s feedback numbers superimposed on Michaels’ vision looked like a slot-machine paying out the jackpot.
He leaned forward in his chair, his eagerness unconsciously manifest in his body language.
‘So how close are we to doing business?’ Stoneworth asked.
‘We’re in touching distance.’
‘What about internal opposition? You suggested that there might be …’
‘Yeah, there’s been an attempt to throw a spanner in the works from precisely whom we anticipated. I saw it coming a mile out.’
‘So you had a counter-measure?’
‘Let’s just say I’ve put somebody in there who knows how to close a deal.’
The World You Love
Ross felt time stand still for a moment, and in that moment was all the more aware of everything that he was sensing: the grass beneath his toes, the light breeze on his cheek and the smells that it carried. It all seemed even more real, even more nuanced and detailed than before.
He looked to Juno. She was staring back, her agonised shock mirroring his own. He saw the same helplessness reflected in her face, the same extreme of hollow despair.
Bedlam Page 29