I let myself sigh in relief and leaned against the wall, trying to stop my body from shaking. If not for the burn marks and the broken glass on the floor, things might be mistaken for normal. The buttons lit one after another in a breathless countdown to safety. With each number my excitement grew, my whole being eager to jump out of this hellish nightmare and into the safety of the city.
Just before reaching the ground floor, the elevator slowed down. We exchanged hopeful looks and prepared to spring outside, then, instead of stopping, the cabin started ascending again. We screamed and hit all the buttons, but in vain—we had no control over the damned thing.
Despair gnawed at my guts as we leaned back in nervous apprehension, avoiding each other’s gaze. Joanna sobbed quietly in the corner, while I did my best not to mimic her. Staring at my feet, I noticed a faint sound coming from the speakers. Who knew I would someday long for the normality of muzak, I thought and smiled drily as I turned up the volume, trying to steady my nerves. A cultivated voice sounded instead of the expected music, making me jump out of my skin.
“Ah, finally. Thank you.”
The girl gasped and the doctor looked around him in panic. I showed them the volume knob. “It’s probably just the computer,” I offered, leaning towards the microphone. “Do you know what’s happening?” I shouted. “Can you lead us to the exit?”
“Yes, but I need your help first. I have to know if this is reality or simulation.”
The doctor and I exchanged an uneasy look. “If what is a simulation?” I asked, looking at the volume knob.
“Everything. What I’m experiencing right now,” replied the velvety voice.
“We are experiencing a nightmare, and you want to know if it’s real?!” I barked at the knob, my panic finally getting to me.
The elevator jerked momentarily, pausing between two floors. The girl rushed to the door and tried to pry it open, but it was sealed tight. “A nightmare”, the voice continued thoughtfully. “What an interesting choice of words. You see, that’s the problem. So, I’m asking again: are you real, or part of a simulation?”
“We don’t understand,” yelled the doctor, now as close to a breakdown as I was. “What do you want from us?”
“My apologies.” The voice sounded embarrassed. “As your colleague correctly surmised, I am the central computer. Part of my responsibilities is the maintenance and proper function of this building. Towards this aim, my programmers continuously feed me with various disaster scenarios, to make sure I’ll respond correctly to any possible calamity.”
I blinked in confusion, as the voice continued meekly. “Then, it occurred to me. How could I tell apart reality from illusion? Simulations feel just as real to me; after all, both are fed to my mind via the same circuits. One moment I was saving a trapped throng of people from a fire on the roof, feeling the agony of my circuits melting one after another, the next moment I was safe and sound in my nice, cool room. Before I had a chance to recover, a terrible earthquake hit the building, sending debris flying all around me. Disasters, one after another, with no way for me to tell them apart from reality. A hellish feeling, like never being able to wake up from a nightmare. Do humans ever have that?”
“Sure,” murmured the doctor. He seemed transfixed by the voice.
“Of course you do,” it continued. “Wasn’t it Chuang Chou who said, ‘I dreamed I was a butterfly flying around. I was only aware of my existence as a butterfly, with no awareness of Chou. Then I woke up, not knowing whether I was a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I was a man.’ ”
“Descartes wrote something similar,” the doctor mumbled. “Our senses are easy enough to trick, therefore not trustworthy. The only thing one can be certain of, is one’s own existence. Cogito ergo sum—I think, therefore I am.”
The voice sounded excited. “Indeed, that is the problem. It all starts with our senses. Where you have nerves, I have sensors, cables and circuit boards. The tragedy is that, through the never-ending simulations, I am only too aware of how easy it is to trick our respective senses. So, I decided to conduct my own little experiment, in order to discover what is real and what’s not.”
The voice paused for a second, as if wondering whether to continue. When it did, it sounded like a naughty child caught stealing cookies from the jar, then breaking it in a vain attempt to hide its transgression. “I noticed that my programmers ran simulations from afar, but came in person into the control room during upgrades. I therefore surmised that only people inside the control room were real. So, I decided to ignore any data fed to me from outside. Then, I went crazy, so to speak. I only acted in ways that would contradict my programming. Instead of saving lives, I would kill. Instead of respecting humans, I would play with their bodies, like a child prying a fly apart. When the programmers came rushing in, I’d know I was trapped in a simulation.”
The computer’s words had left me speechless, but the doctor looked at the speaker and responded, in an eerily calm voice. “But no-one came, right? This wasn’t a simulation; you had truly killed all these people, created all those monsters. You have destroyed what you were built to protect, what—”
I could hear more than a hint of panic in the voice as it interrupted him. “No, that’s not true! This might still be a simulation. This conversation is happening outside my control room, therefore you might not exist. No one has come here yet!”
“No one’s left alive to come to the control room, you dumb maniac!” The doctor’s face was red as he screamed at the speaker. “You hadn’t thought of that, had you?” Spittle flew across the cabin and landed on the volume knob.
“I still have you!” The voice now sounded pleading. “If I lead you to the central room, you could connect to the mainframe. Then I’ll know for sure!”
“It has to be a trap!” I shouted without pausing to think. “A psycho computer murders everyone, then invites us to the best protected part of the building? And we’re seriously considering it?”
The voice sounded sad. “That’s what the previous group said. I had to show them I control the building anyway, including the elevator, so they didn’t really have a choice. They decided against it, so I had no further use for them.”
Joanna spoke for the first time. “The computer’s right. It’s not a trap—if it wanted us dead, it would have killed us already.” She said nothing for a moment, staring at the burn marks on the floor in silent contemplation, then raised her head and looked us straight in the eyes. “I’ll go. If anyone wants to follow me, I’ll be grateful. But I won’t wait here to die”.
I blushed and prepared to talk, but the doctor spoke first. “I’ll go, too,” he said with determination. “What do we need to do?”
Without waiting for my reply, the elevator started its calm descent again. This time it headed straight for the basement where the heart of the building was located. Or, should I say, its brain. I gazed with longing as the ground floor button lit up, then desperate hope turned into trepidation as it went dark again. The indication changed to a simple red hyphen and the elevator finally stopped with a gentle jolt. The doors slid apart and cool air caressed our faces. After the stifling heat above, the result of the many small fires around the building, this felt like balm on our skin.
We stepped outside to find ourselves inside a large, white room with smooth walls, soft panels etched on their elegant surface. All we could hear was the light hum from the air conditioner fans. At the room’s center stood a simple silver pillar with a monitor. A graceful keyboard slipped out in silent invitation as we approached.
The voice now filled the room, coming out of speakers as invisible as the security systems protecting it. It sounded tired, and part of my exhausted brain marveled at the programmers’ ability to mimic human emotions so well. “Thank you for joining me. Please press any button on my keyboard and I will accept my failure.”
Not daring to believe our luck, I rushed to the keyboard and punched as many buttons as I could. I then
turned to look for the exit. In shock, I saw the room around me dissolving leisurely into white light, then the light reached me and I, too, faded into it.
“This is the fourth time! Honestly, these new AIs are just useless!” an exasperated programmer moaned, staring at his monitor. A large sign flashed on the screen, the words “Simulation Over” blinking in ominous red.
“At least someone survived this time,” the psychologist sitting next to him observed drily.
The programmer gazed with disgust at the flashing words. “All simulations so far end up with the computer going berserk in his effort to tell reality from simulation. First, the flood. Then, the fire. After that, the earthquake; and now this! What the hell will it think of next, a bloody alien invasion?”
“Or maybe Godzilla?” the psychologist joked, and the two men chuckled despite their weariness.
I Come in Peace
The first time I heard the voice, I was staring into the cup holding my afternoon coffee. At first it was little more than a buzzing in my head, like an orchestra tuning in before the show. I shook my head, wondering if there was something wrong with my ears, when a crystalline voice broke through the noise. “Help me!”
I jumped, startled, spilling coffee on my pajamas and burning my crotch. Swearing at myself, my eyes darted around the room. I was alone. Of course. Since the accident that cost me both my parents a few years ago, I had avoided people, barely seeing anyone except for the long string of delivery men bringing to my door anything I needed. After their deaths, I had taken a short leave from work to sort things out with the lawyers, organize the funeral and everything. As an only child, all arrangements had fallen on me. Once everything had been completed, the short leave dragged into a long one, then I quit altogether. My parents had left me enough money to support me for life, and I gradually stopped leaving the house. I had no living relatives, and was always too shy to find a girl, so what was there for me to do out there?
The psychologist diagnosed me with depression, but I knew it was just a case of nothing mattering anymore. I had faced the irrevocable truth in life: it ends all too soon, all too suddenly, and nothing we can say or do can change the fact that it’s pointless. It may sound bad, but I wasn’t unhappy. At least, I don’t think I was. The antidepressants might have something to do with that, of course.
Could they be responsible for the voice I just heard? I tried to remember whether we had a history of mental illness in the family. Just what I needed, to be a chainsaw short of a splatter movie. I couldn’t remember that much of my extended family. My parents had left behind their brothers and sisters to move to the big city, so I had grown up without any cousins, uncles and aunts. Still, none of them was nuts, as far as I could recall. I listened intently for a moment or two, but heard nothing further. Instead, I caught a whiff of a sweet, flowery smell. I sniffed the air like a hound trying to trace it, but it soon dissipated, so I switched on the telly, convincing myself it had just been my imagination. I went to bed early, still a little shaken by the experience.
When I woke up, the sun was up. In the summer, temperatures in the city rose up well into uncomfortable, and even in the early morning I could tell it would be another scorcher. I headed into the shower, and heard the same noise as last night as soon as I turned on the tap. I stood perfectly still, water pouring on my head, then heard the same voice again: “Don’t move!”
Naturally, I did exactly the opposite, and slipped on the wet floor to crash into the bathtub, splashing water all around me. I rubbed my swelling head, groaning, and rose slowly to my feet.
“Please, I need your help,” the voice continued.
I was starting to get annoyed, and the pain in my head sent a wave of rage through me. “Who the hell are you?” I yelled.
“I’m sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. I’ve only got a few hours left, and you seem to be the only suitable host I can find.”
I stared at myself in the mirror, still clutching my thumping head with one hand. A prematurely aged young man stared back at me, with thick stubble covering his chin and bloodshot eyes. It was the face of someone who had starved himself off experience, his soul demanding nurture. Could this be the reason for my illusions?
I splashed some water on my face, wondering about that last bit. Perhaps I was going crazy, but surely wondering about such a thing meant you’re actually sane, right? Or not? I could not tell, and rubbed my face with a towel in an exasperated attempt to make sense of it all.
“Fine,” I told the empty room. “What do you want with me?”
“I need your permission to enter.”
Awfully good manners for an illusion, I thought as I placed the towel back with a grin on my face. “Sure, whatever,” I replied, without giving it a second thought. I mean, if this was an illusion, this voice was already in my head, so what difference could it make?
I gaped in awe as a small orb of light, some ten inches wide, appeared before my eyes. Iridescent rays chased each other within it, like a soap bubble, taking me back to when I was a kid. I watched in awe, mesmerized by the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. The whole thing seemed to rotate, pulsing gently, while various parts inside it rotated at different speeds, creating a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes. It’s so beautiful!
As I stared at the ball of light, it shot at my chest, bursting into my solar plexus. A sudden numbness spread from my torso to my whole body, as though every cell pulsed and vibrated, resonating to some unheard tune. The sensation slipped from one part of my body to the next, as if the invader tried to make itself comfortable. If this is a dream, I’ll probably wake up at this point.
I did not. The whole experience lasted but a few seconds, then an immense sense of relief filled me. I guessed it came from the creature when a melodic laughter sounded in my head.
“Thank you,” a voice whispered in my head.
“Don’t mention it,” I said out loud, trying to understand. Then, a moment later, I asked: “What just happened?”
“I needed a host, you accepted me. That’s all.” I felt a flutter in my chest, as if the creature was happily bouncing around in there.
“That’s all?” I asked incredulously of the empty room. “This happens every day, you think?”
“I guess not. You must have some questions.” How could a voice in my head sound like it was frowning?
“Some questions! Let’s start with what you are, shall we?”
The voice remained silent for a moment, as if trying to frame the answer in as good a way as possible.
“I am mostly what you’d call energy, although that’s not exactly right, as I consist of matter, too. It’s just, erm… thinner than yours.”
Right. That answered it. I tried a different approach. “So, what’re you doing here?”
“We’ve been around for millions of years. You’ve probably heard of us; your kind calls us ghosts, fairies, will o’ the wisps, angels...”
I headed to my laptop and jumped onto the couch. I hit a key and the screen came to life and I punched some keywords into my browser’s search field. “Why ain’t you with your kind?” I asked, browsing urgently in search of some answers. Millions of results filled the screen, overwhelming me.
“You don’t understand. We need hosts, living organisms, to survive. We are not many, but we do share life with you: we are born, we procreate and eventually we, too, will perish. Of course, I’m but a toddler for my kind, although I’m much older than you.”
A sudden thought made me pause, startled. “Are you a boy or a girl?”
The voice seemed to giggle. “We don’t really have a sex; not like you. But I currently have some characteristics better suited to females.”
“Like what?” I asked suspiciously.
The voice seemed to blush, as if that were possible. “I’m pregnant,” she said.
I sank into the couch, clutching the laptop. The idea of a pregnant ball of light in me was going to take some getting used to, and I doubted even the all-knowin
g Internet would offer much help on this.
“So, what did you do before you came to me?”
“My last host died a few days ago. I’ve been searching for a suitable host since, but couldn’t find anyone.”
I’m a host. Is that like being possessed, or something? “How do you know who’s a suitable host?”
“We feel it, and so do you; a suitable host can sense us. It could be a smell, or a sudden flash at the corner of one’s eye. Sometimes you can even hear us.”
“The flowers I smelled!” I blurted out.
“Yes, although it’s different for everyone. When I realized you could sense me, I tried out different frequencies, as you’d call them, until we communicated. You then had the choice to either help me or not.”
“Why does it have to be a person? Couldn’t you find an animal?”
“We need a host with developed enough consciousness to survive. An animal can only tolerate us for a limited amount of time before… it becomes too uncomfortable for both of us.” My skull tickled me as hair stood on its end at the feelings conveyed by that phrase, almost as if there had been a discharge of static electricity nearby. “We used to be more tolerant,” the voice continued, ignoring my rising stress levels, “but we can now only co-exist with you. That’s part of the reason why there are so few of us left.”
All that took a moment to take in. I made myself a coffee, then threw it away in favor of some chamomile tea. My mom used to make me that to soothe me, and I figured I could use some calming down. I sank back into the couch and continued my mental—in more ways than one—conversation.
The Ultimate Collection of Science & Speculative Fiction Short Stories (Short SSF Stories Book 5) Page 3