When she reached him, she extended her hand and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Coe.” She smiled warmly and said, “I’m Alice Seeley.”
“You’re the CEO...of Quantum,” he said.
He took her hand.
She stared at him, smiling. She seemed enchanted in some way—by his appearance, his presence. “I suppose you’ve got a lot of questions?”
He could immediately think of only one. “Are you responsible for what’s happened to me? This frame up?”
“Yes,” she said. “And...no.”
“And I thought I was finally going to get an answer.”
“You’re right, Mr. Coe,” she said. “You deserve that. You have to forgive me. This is all...unique.”
“Unique?”
“What have you been told of A.I.?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“It’s quite all right. Why would they have included that?” She was smiling again. “Please forgive me,” she said. “But I must say, you are quite remarkable.”
“A.I.,” he said.
“Artificial intelligence—”
“Like CRTs or cell-bots?”
“Yes,” she said. “But much, much more sophisticated.”
“What does this have to do with—”
“Bear with me,” she said. “Let’s walk.”
“Where?”
Suddenly, the room was gone, replaced by a pleasant, blooming garden. They were walking along a brick walkway.
“How did you—”
“It’s okay,” she said, touching his arm. “I’ll explain.”
He was quite disoriented now.
“When I was a little girl,” she said. “I was taken—abducted—from a shopping mall. There was a ransom—an exorbitant amount, that my mother, on her retail wage, was unable to meet. The case made national headlines at that time. If the ransom demand was not met, my captors made it clear I would be killed. I should say I have no recollections of any of this. Though I was nine, I have apparently repressed it in my subconscious. Some day, maybe, I’ll be brave enough to explore those memories.
“As I said, the story made headlines. My situation was brought to the attention of a Mr. Copley—”
“Copley is the man who recommended me for the auditor position,” he said.
She smiled again. “Yes...and no. Copley was the majority owner of Quantum, Inc, a small software firm in Chatsworth, California. He’d become deeply touched by my abduction and my mother’s inability to meet the ransom demand. Decades before, his own son had been abducted and ultimately murdered—his killer never identified. Upon learning of my situation, he offered up the ransom—a briefcase full of unmarked bills—as well as use of his company Leer jet for their escape out of the country.
“It worked. I was safely returned to my mother, my kidnappers escaped, and I returned to normal life. Sort of. When I turned eighteen, I learned Mr. Copley had left a substantial trust fund in my name to ensure I would receive an adequate education. On Mr. Copley’s generosity, I received dual B.A.s in computer sciences and cellular biology. I earned my MBA in business. I should note, these degrees were strongly recommended by my benefactor, Mr. Copley. Little did I know at the time, he was grooming me to be his successor at Quantum.
“And so you’re the head of it all.”
“I am,” she said, with no hint of pretentiousness.
“And,” Coe said, “therefore, you are the CEO, essentially, of the entire planet.”
“It’s...” She hesitated. “It’s much more complicated than that, but, you’re essentially correct; I am the CEO of Quantum, Inc, the majority shareholder of the company that, under my direction, has succeeded, indirectly, in purchasing every other business on the planet.”
“People will be outraged to discover—”
“It’s all there in the financial sections, Mr. Coe. There’s no secret. No hidden agenda. Through careful planning, wise business advice, and some savvy on my part, Quantum has become the parent company to the world.”
“Why doesn’t it make news, every time Quantum has bought another company?”
“We haven’t done it on our own,” she said. “We’ve been aided greatly by mergers of these smaller, less viable corporations that have streamlined our acquisitions by joining forces. Instead of a takeover of three companies, it’s a take over of one. We’ve left the companies we’ve bought mostly intact. They operate autonomously—unaware of us.”
“Why hasn’t the media caught on to this and had a field day—”
He understood almost immediately. Alice smiled.
“There’s Only One,” he said.
“It’s right there in the name,” she said, still smiling.
“What about monopolies? What about free trade? Isn’t what you’ve done technically illegal?”
“Quantum companies have colonized other planets, wiped out many illneses, extended the lives of ordinary people indefinitely. When you’ve given them everything they’ve ever wanted, they stop caring.”
“Have you seen it out there? Down on the streets? The endless stream of transients moving—always moving?”
She said, “It’s one of those be careful for what you wish for type of things, I’m afraid.”
Coe was uncertain he could trust the empathy in her voice. “And what you’ve done to me? To all of the people who have died?”
They stopped walking. Alice extended her hand. A bird descended from the sky and landed on her index finger. She drew it up to her face and looked at it as if she were looking at a bird for the very first time. “It’s so real,” she said, incredulously.
Coe did not understand.
“What if I told you the real world wasn’t like this?” she asked.
“Obviously, it’s not. We’re in some kind of simulation—”
“No,” she said, releasing the bird back to the sky. “I mean all of it. This building, this city, this entire scenario.” She paused. Her lips trembled. “And you.”
“What do you mean?”
“The real world—where I live, where Carmen lives—it’s not like this. Not yet. There are still wars, cancers...not as many as before—but there’s still room to roam.”
“Real world?”
“You’re in a simulation, Mr. Coe.”
“Simulation?”
They were suddenly in his apt. It took him by shock.
“I don’t know how you do that, but—”
He paused and looked around. He looked at his sofa, his CRT, his kitchen with its appliances and dripping faucet in the kitchen sink. He looked at the morning edition of The Intelligencer on the table and opened to the sports section—just as he had left it.
“It’s pretty good, huh?” she said.
“It looks real, it feels real—it’s real.”
“To you,” she said.
“What am I missing?”
“This is more difficult than I anticipated,” she said. “Carmen...Dr. Bruges...myself: we’re avatars.”
He wasn’t sure if she meant that metaphorically.
“I don’t know what that means—”
“We’re not really here—I’m not really here—with you.”
“You’re not standing in front of me,” he said.
“I’m in a computer lab in a small suburb just outside of San Francisco, California,” she said. “I’m seated in what could be described as a dentist’s chair. I’m wired to various apparatus—you’ll excuse my ignorance; this is Carmen’s baby, not mine. These wires allow me to interact—to engage—with the system, and you.”
“And where am I?” he asked, skeptically.
“You’re right here...right there.”
“I suppose you’ll tell me I’m a brain in a vat somewhere.”
“
You’re part of the system, Mr. Coe.”
“The system.”
“The simulation,” she said. “But an extraordinary part. You see, you are the most sophisticated artificial intelligence ever developed.”
“Bullshit!”
She smiled at his outburst, as a mother smiles when her child has just learned to do something clever.
“You’re denial makes you even more wonderful. Don’t you see? Carmen created you, instilled you with personality, cunning, intelligence. You actually learn and have the ability to question your own existence like a real, sentient being.”
“You’re crazy,” he said. “This is some kind of trick—”
“Carmen, our chief software engineer, has overseen the entire program since your inception. You are an exact recreation of Scott Coe, Carmen’s old high school beau who was killed in the war. Like I said, we still haven’t completely solved that problem back on terra firma yet—”
“I don’t know what this is about, but it’s ridiculous,” he said. “I’m real; I exist. I think, therefore, I am.”
“You do exist,” she said. “You do. You’re as real as Carmen or me. I mean, who is to say the real world isn’t some sort of even more sophisticated simulation that we’re unaware of. Simulations creating simulations—or a simulation within a simulation. Dr. Bruges and I were just having this discussion the other—”
“Where are you keeping him?” Coe asked. “Where’s Bruges?”
“Ah, yes,” she said. “Your assignment. I forgot. The simulation created a scenario in which you needed to find Dr. Bruges as if he were a missing person. He’s fine, Mr. Coe. I assure. He’s also an avatar. You see, Dr. Bruges works on our staff.”
“His wife is trying to find him.”
“His wife—his simulated wife is,” she said. “Dr. Bruges has spent more time in the simulation than either Carmen or I, and he has interacted with the simulated population. His simulated wife is a version 1.1—not terribly sophisticated like you, a 3.0; still she was instilled with a back story concerning how they met, their life together, etc. He eventually had to log off, and I suppose the absence of his avatar left a void in the simulation which the sims felt compelled to fill.”
“Bruges is an avatar,” he said.
“A visitor,” she said. “Like me.”
“And what about the mysterious Mr. Hanover? I suppose he’s an avatar, too?”
“Ah, yes. Warren Hanover. As you’ve no doubt discovered, there is no Warren Hanover--”
“But he has a secretary. Ms. Cleopatra.”
“Who has never seen him. She is in a perpetual state of waiting for him...like a character in a Beckett play.”
Coe did not understand.
“Warren Hanover is not a sim, but rather a fail-safe.”
“Fail-safe?”
“A way to exit the simulation, should one of us get in too deep.”
“Through the steam room?”
She smiled. “Yes.”
“And that’s why I was encouraged to leave by the mysterious voice in the steam bath.”
“I love watching you make the connections,” she said.
“For the sake of argument, let’s say I am a simulation—this is all a simulation. A computer program. Why? What’s the point of it?”
“Simple,” she said. “To test things—scenarios—in this ‘virtual playground’ first, before it’s released onto the unsuspecting public. Case in point: you brought up the staggering population woes here in this simulated world. We’ve—and when I say, we, I mean some of the biomedical companies owned by Quantum—stumbled onto a few potential cures in our research. We’re perfecting them, as well as the commercial reproduction of our own organs. One unexpected outcome to increased longevity is a swelling population. Thanks to this simulation, we will better be able to decide how and when these potential cures are used.”
“And what about Revis? Who is Revis in all of this?” he asked.
“Mr. Collin Revis. Your predecessor, right?”
He nodded.
“He’s a 3.0—like you—but instilled with different personality traits. Where you are generally moral, he was programmed to be—I hate to use the word, immoral—let’s say, amoral. His purpose was to predict the integrity of potential Quantum employees...same as you. With you as a predictive model, we will now incorporate a more thorough screening process as we assess potential new hires.”
“I’ll play along,” he said. “So, this simulation is nothing more than a training exercise to you—war games?”
“Don’t think of it that way, Mr. Coe. This is your world, to act and do as you want in it. You’re immortal; should some misfortune befall you, you’ll be reborn with a reset of the simulation.”
“I’m bits and bytes,” he said.
“You are a collection of bits and bytes that is capable of knowing it’s bits and bytes. You are not just in the simulation; you are of the simulation.”
“I’ve been drugged,” he said. “You’ve done something to me—”
“Where were you born?” she asked.
“That’s easy. I was born in—”
Coe could not recall. He did not have even the vaguest notion where.
“Describe your childhood,” she said.
His mouth was dry. “I don’t want to.”
“Where did you go to school? What do your parents look like?”
“I came from the Philadelphia office,” he said.
“What does it look like? Who were your coworkers there? What was your last day like?”
“I worked in Research,” he said.
“Unfortunately, we instilled you with a limited back history. Version 3.1 is being drawn up as we speak. You’ll be uploaded memories—”
“Maybe you’re the simulation,” he said.
She smiled. “Brilliant.” She looked up and called out, “Carmen? You’re brilliant!”
Coe turned away and walked to the window. Outside his building, the vagrants continued to march on in the rain.
“I hate this city,” he said. “It never stops raining.”
“What city?” she asked.
He turned back to her. She was still smiling.
“What’s the name of this city?” she asked.
He swallowed. “I know the name of this city.”
“Tell me.”
“I want you to leave now,” he said, still uncertain how they had been instantly transported to his apt.
“You’re understandably upset. These emotions are new to you. You’re in a unique evolutionary state, grappling with your own existence—”
“I just need—I just need to think this out,” he said.
Something about what she told him, under all the explanations and ping pong talk, was undeniably true.
“Of course you do,” she said.
“I’m sorry I’ve reacted with such hostility—”
He was suddenly struck by a peculiar thought.
“Why tell me all of this?” he asked. “Why tell me? How does this benefit your whole simulation explanation?”
“You’re very perceptive, Mr. Coe. That is an excellent question. We—Carmen, Dr. Bruges, and I—decided it would present an interesting study: a seemingly just, moral man is suddenly confronted with the stark realization there is no God, no intrinsic meaning of life—no ethereal soul powering him like a ghost in the machine. What will you do with this knowledge? How will you live? How will this shape your interactions with your fellow man if there is no ultimate reward for living a good, ethical life?”
“I’m wired to be good,” he said. “You said so, yourself.”
“But you’re programmed to evolve, make decisions—to adapt to knowledge you acquire about your world. You’re the new Adam...”
“Free will,” he said.
He exercised his free will by drawing his gun and shooting her in the heart.
Fifteen.
God Is Dead
--headline from the morning edition of The Intelligencer
He found Ms. Hunter waiting for him in the lobby of his building. When she recognized him, she moved quickly toward him, and threw her arms around his shoulders. Her features were swollen as if she’d been crying—or perhaps it was just because this was a new iteration of her. Above all, he expected her to be in the lobby, and she was.
“I’m having horrible dreams,” she said. “Horrible, waking, dreams. I dreamt there was a shooting at the office, and...oh, Mr. Coe!”
“Come on,” he said.
She composed herself. “Where are we going?”
“As far as they’ll allow us,” he said. “As far as the simulation will allow.”
He braced for the rain outside. Instead, he found sunshine.
They moved out onto the street, and fell in step with the transients. One of them was Jansky. He’d apparently been staking out the place.
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” he said, to Coe.
Coe scanned the faces of the passers by, anyone of them could be visitors—avatars. He looked up at the sky, at the deep, seemingly infinite blue and the absence of clouds. The city looked different in sunlight; it looked full of hope—of human potential.
He was programmed to evolve; the extent of his power within this closed system was still being defined. But it appeared limitless. Just minutes before, he had simply wished for it to stop raining and it had.
Jansky appeared nervous, frightened. “Mr. Coe?” he said.
“You’re mistaken,” he said to him.
Jansky stopped. He looked at Coe as if he were looking at him for the first time. “You’re—”
“A dream within a dream,” he said. “‘All that we see or seem...is but a dream within a dream.’”
Jansky’s shoulders slumped as if his hunch had been confirmed—that a nagging feeling of emptiness was true, and it pervaded all.
Coe found Ms. Hunter’s hand. It felt slender and warm and full of life-blood, and he gave it a squeeze.
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