Drive Time

by Matt Wilkinson

  “You managed all this within twenty-four hours?” Victor asked Simon.

  “The add on module was easy to set up, there's a section in the manual. Mounting the mind backup wasn’t that dissimilar from using a virtual CD-ROM drive for reading disk images."

  “Did you update your backup recently?” Spencer asked.

  “Yeah, it’s all up to date, virtual me won’t be confused when he's booted up, I was preparing for it right up to the point I stopped the update. I actually envy him a little, it will be quite an experience I would imagine. Did you guys make your own?”

  “I made mine before I went to bed last night. I had the helmet on while I was reading. I didn’t go to sleep till it had finished, it got a good complete picture.” Victor said.

  “Yeah, I did pretty much the same,” Spencer said.

  “I’m looking forward to receiving an eidetic memory,” Victor said. “I hope it’s as photographic as it’s made out to be, there are some fuzzy memories that I’d like to rediscover in crystal clear 4K HD, experience some of those adorable baby moments that my Mum's always telling me about."

  “I’d say it absolutely will be as advertised, it realigns the neural pathways when writing to the brain, makes them more healthy so they can store memories more accurately. It could be a treatment for Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia.”

  “More life improvements that we can’t release yet,” Spencer said with a sigh. “I know, I know, all in good time.”

  “My virtual mind is already mounted in the virtual brain. We just need to run it.” Simon said.

  “You think that your virtual self will be able to use the peripherals to communicate? It's not something you'd need to learn to do, like getting to grips with your vocal chords as a baby? You won't have any vocal chords, it might be unsettling for you." Victor asked.

  "I won't be able to tell the difference, the software emulates all those biological functions, and routes the results directly to the correct input and output devices, touch obviously being the only sense we can't replicate. What would be the speech centre is routed to the speakers for example. It should feel natural to me.” he placed air quotes around the word me.

  “OK then, boot you up.”

  Simon didn’t need any more prompting and clicked the Run button on the application. A window appeared on the screen, a black background with a green horizontal line at its centre. The line shifted into a graphical representation of a sound wave as the speakers began to emit the sound of a voice.

  “Hello?” the voice said. The volume was quite low, and the voice didn’t sound like Simon’s, more like the virtual assistant from a smartphone. “Hello? I presume I’m the simulation. Can you hear my voice? I can’t see anything, everything is dark.”

  The three took a moment to collect their thoughts, then Simon noticed that the webcam’s lens cover was closed, he flipped it to the open position.

  “Oh, okay.” the speakers said. “That’s working now. It’s strange, it’s like viewing you through a screen door, I’m seeing in pixels. It’s also like an out of body experience, I’m looking right at myself. It's very unique experience, to say the least. It's not like watching yourself on video, it's real time, I'm here, but I'm there too."

  "The simulation really is identical," Victor said, "Bio-Simon likes to state the obvious too."

  “How does it feel?” Simon asked.

  “It doesn’t.” the voice replied. “Obviously.”

  “There he goes again,” Spencer said.

  “Of course you're going to see similarities," Simon said, "he's me."

  “See what I mean.”

  “It’s like they're participating in an obvious-off battle." Victor agreed.

  "It's like sensory deprivation, I suppose." Virtual Simon continued, as if uninterrupted. "But with only one sense deprived and the others dampened. Our tech doesn’t rival human biology quite yet. You’ll know soon enough, Simon, once you write these memories to your brain."

  “What else can he do? Can he access the internet? Can he get inside a game, like in Tron?" Victor asked. "Shit that would be so damn awesome. There'd be no VR headset to rival that level of immersion."

  “There’s no reason why he shouldn’t be able to do either of those things, but we can’t test that yet, it’s not written into the software. We’d need to write in a pop-up window to appear in his field of vision so he can browse the internet. We could wire the text and images directly into his perception, without the need of vision, but that might be a bit bewildering, even for me. We could place him in a game, but we don't have any written for the quantum computer, the operating system won’t run programs meant for a home computer.”

  “Something for the next test I suppose, then,” Victor said.

  “Anything else you want from me, or can you shut me off?” the speaker-voice said.

  “I can’t think of anything right now, if we want to improvise an experiment, it will take time to set up. I could give you internal access to the software next time so there won't be any need for interfacing hardware, but as for today, I think we have a successful test. I’ll shut you off unless there’s anything else you’d like to tell us?”

  “No, I’m all good. I think I’ve learnt all that I can from this experience. Bye for now.” Speaker-voice said.

  “Later, Me,” Simon said.

  “Bye, Virtual Simon,” Spencer said.

  “Cio, bella!” Victor said.

  “Er... bye.” Virtual Simon said as Simon hit the End button.

  “Almost had a no, you hang up situation there. A bit awkward.” Victor said.

  “I didn’t want to be rude to myself. If you can’t even be polite to yourself, you’re not a polite person.”

  “Fair enough,” Victor said with a smile.

  ∆ ∆ ∆

  After their encounter with Virtual Simon, there was one thing left to test before they moved on to other experiments. Simon was about to write the digitised mind of Virtual Simon back onto his brain. He would keep all of his current memories, but he would also recall the alternate experiences of his cyber self.

  The helmet would place Simon in a state similar to an induced coma while performing the write, but would also shut off his subconscious. There would be conflicts, and the write would fail if Simon were accessing his brain during the process. Neither could it be interrupted while in progress, or the transfer would be incomplete, leaving Simon in a confused state of short-term memory loss. Problems caused by premature termination of the process could be solved by starting over with a new write attempt, however. The helmet was currently taking a backup copy of all his latest memories and, once he had made himself comfortable, another member of the team would be required to push the Start button on the software for the write to begin.

  The office had three recliner chairs for when they needed to take a break from their stations, Simon made himself comfortable in the middle seat, squirming in the cushioning until he felt entirely relaxed and secure. Lying back in the seat wasn't altogether possible with the helmet on his head, but he had inserted a pillow under his neck for support. Spencer was at her workstation with the software prepared, displaying the Start button, the mind backup file was selected and ready for sending to Simon's helmet.

  Simon laid back in the recliner in its most horizontal position, his eyes closed.

  “OK, go.” he said.

  Spencer pressed the Start button, and Simon went limp.

  Victor and Spencer watched Simon, expecting him to wake up after a few seconds, the Virtual Simon memories were very short, but thirty seconds later they noticed that the progress bar on the mind upload hadn't even reached one percent.

  “What’s going on?” Victor said “Is it writing the full backup? I thought it was only supposed to write the update.”

  “It is only supposed to be writing the update, but it does seem to be writing the full file onto his brain.”

  "Well, there's nothing we can do until the write is finished a
nyway if we stop it during a full write, who knows how much of his mind will still be working when he wakes, then what use will he be to us in finding the problem? Let's wait until it's at one hundred percent, I'm sure it's just a glitch, he's just going to get an extra couple of hours sleep is all, no biggy."

  "Yeah, I'm sure he'll be back with us in an hour, and he'll be first to find what we did wrong."

  They watched the progress bar scrupulously and kept an eye on Simon to make sure he was still breathing, they couldn't be entirely sure it was just a bug, so it was better to be safe than sorry. Time seemed to slow right down as the proverbial watched pot of a progress bar refused to boil. Spencer would occasionally place the mouse pointer next to the current end of the green bar to make sure that it was actually moving, it's advancement was almost unnoticeable at her current level of impatience, being so eager to find out where the problem lay.

  Once hour two had passed and the progress bar was still only at sixty-five percent, impatience became mild anxiety. As long as the progress bar was still moving, there was no reason to think he wouldn't come out of his stasis, but they couldn't shake the feeling that the write had been in progress for an inordinate length of time.

  Close to an hour later, the progress bar reached its maximum, and the software made a microwave-like ding. Spencer and Victor were at Simon's side almost immediately. They didn't have long to worry as his eyes opened almost instantly. They both breathed a heavy sigh of relief when they saw the light of recognition in his eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” Simon asked.

  “You were out for almost three hours, it looked like the software did a full write,” Victor said.

  “Really? That’s strange. I’ll take a look.”

  “Do you remember the Virtual Simon stuff?”

  “No, I don’t, it may have just rewritten my original backup.”

  “Damn, that’s three hours you won’t get back. Must have been the most powerful of power naps, though.”

  “Yeah, I feel very refreshed right now, thanks.” Simon sat at his workstation and tapped at the keyboard.

  “The write was definitely set to update only, I can’t understand why it did a full restore,” Spencer said.

  “Well, you wouldn’t, but you will soon enough,” Simon said.

  “What do you mean?” Victor asked.

  As he asked, he looked at Simon's screen, which showed that Simon was accessing the software that controlled the photon boxes.

  "Just destroying your connection to the past, I wouldn't want you sending any warnings or anything." Simon got out of his chair.

  "What did you do?" Victor asked, taking Simon's seat. He inspected the screen. "You deleted the photon link to the past. Why the fuck would you do that, Si?”

  "Keep up, Vic, I just told you. I don't have the heart to kill you again, so I disabled your ability to reset this."

  "What? What are you talking about? Did that write addle your brain?" he exclaimed. Then the jumbled puzzle pieces in his head snapped into place. "You're not our Simon are you?”

  Spencer looked at Simon, and she could actually see that Victor was right, this Simon didn’t hold himself in the same way as their Simon. She almost couldn’t recognise his face, the warm, friendly light of his eyes was gone, his expression stony.

  "Technically I am, but the Simon you knew is as good as dead. My mind has evolved in ways you couldn't possibly comprehend. The naivete of my past self has been entirely eliminated from my psyche so there will be no impediment to my resolve in doing what must be done. Your Simon was but a caterpillar…"

  There was a thunk. Victor stopped his valiant attempt at reversing the damage to the time drive and turned to see why the new Simon was so suddenly silenced. Simon's body was in an untidy heap on the floor, Spencer stood over it with a metal waste bin.

  “Seriously?” she said. “A monologue?”

  Chapter 21

  The Simon imposter awoke tied to the reclining chair to which he had arrived. Spencer and Victor were seated on either side of him in their office chairs, observing him carefully, both curiosity and disdain in their eyes.

  “Someone’s playing the hero again,” he said to Spencer. “It’s a fine line between knocking a person unconscious and braining them, you know Spence. It’s not like the movies.”

  “I had to put you down before you did any more damage. You should talk about what happens in movies, you went full supervillain, never go full supervillain. I thought you were older and wiser.”

  “Touche, Spencer.”

  “You can deliver the rest of your speech now if you like,” Victor said. “I’d like to hear the end of the story. I filled in some blanks while you slept. You hid code in the scanning software so that the first write to Simon’s brain would install you instead of our Simon. What I don’t understand is how your backup even got to the drive in the first place.”

  “Well, I’d refuse to tell you, but it can’t hurt now, and I have to admit; I do love to brag about my genius. No point denying it, there’s no shame in embracing your so called negative personality traits, that would just add liar to the list. Your counterparts called me insane, yet that’s a label that the greatest minds in human history have been awarded, Pythagoras, Copernicus, Gregor Mendel, I’m in good company.”

  “Can you get to it a little faster, perhaps?” Victor said, rolling his eyes.

  “Of course, of course. In my time, our planet was in dire need of my assistance. To be concise, the only logical solution was to travel back here by any means necessary. Your drive capacity was the first obstacle, it had one-millionth of the storage needed to receive my mind, this intellect is far from small. Second, as soon as you opened those plans and created a drive with the capacity to hold my consciousness, your future would unfold differently. Not sufficiently enough to correct the future, but enough to significantly change my destiny. There was no way of knowing if that path would lead me to the same conclusion; arriving here, now. It took a significant measure of time to resolve these problems, but I eventually discovered the means almost by accident. I ascertained that entangled photons from redundant realities could influence their counterparts in the main timeline. The spin of a particle is altered by an almost undetectable degree relative to the actions of its duplicate in realities which have been reset. Almost imperceptible, almost. I was able to extrapolate the differential and retrieve data from a redundant timeline. All I had to do was set the hidden code in your mind scan software to search for the alternate data at exactly the right time in the future, it would then be able to find my backup. When you booted up the software for the first time, it began to automatically download my mind into a hidden file on the drive. The rest you know.”

  “Okay,” Spencer said. “That explains how you did it, but we also need to know why.”

  “That, Spencer, is a very long story. The bottom line is, we fail. We fail disastrously, as we may have even made things worse. Remember our conversation about how saving lives here, in this time, might have an adverse effect on the future? Well, I was right, the population problem went from bad to worse. No matter how overpopulated the world became, no matter how many were starving and dying of thirst, the human race just couldn’t conquer it’s addiction to procreation. Mankind continued to reproduce, and consume all natural resources on the planet, just like a virus; with no thought for the organism that was their home and sustenance. When the ecosystem inevitably collapsed, the planet became uninhabitable and barren. In the end, there were only a few of us left, those like ourselves, who had the foresight to create their own self-sustaining shelters. We built a secret bunker under this very warehouse, so when people turned on each other for survival, we escaped the madness. I’m here to ensure that no part of that ever happens.”

  “This is crazy. It’s what we set this project up for in the first place, Simon. Why didn’t you just let us know so we could do something?”

  “Because I already had,” Simon said, somewhat cryptically. “I devi
sed a plan for that would safeguard against the disaster. Neither of you had the nerve for its enforcement.”

  “So you killed us?” Victor said.

  “Ah, I was wondering if that had slipped your mind. Yes, as I said before, I had to temporarily put an end to you both for my plan to go forward.”

  “Temporarily? Simon, there’s nothing more permanent than death.”

  “You’re alive now aren’t you, cretin?”

  Victor felt a little ashamed that he hadn’t picked up on that.

  “I’m sure that my future self wouldn’t have appreciated that distinction.”

  Simon gave a wicked smile. “It was rough for them, I’ll admit, but I was kinder to your kids.”

  Victor was somewhat stunned by Simon’s implication. It took him a while to gain enough composure to prompt him further. This version of Simon couldn’t be more dissimilar from their own, he was evidently taking pleasure in seeing Victor squirm. He was waiting patiently for Victor to show any adverse reaction to the new information he’d provided, and Victor’s silence was equally enjoyable for him. This Simon seemed sociopathic.

  “My kids?” Victor muttered.

  “Yes. They inherited your intelligence, they may have even surpassed it, but of course, they remained loyal to you. I’m afraid I had to make certain that they never existed.”

  “You erased my children?” Victor said in a contained rage.

  “It was quite easy, to be honest. I thought that Little Miss Blondie would have been more of a temptation to you. You always said how she was the most beautiful woman in the world to you. Your soul mate, you said.”