Solipsis: Escape from the Comatorium

by Jeff Pollard

  “You what?” flesh-bot Renee asks.

  “Just shut up and help me,” Renee commands.

  “I made a copy,” Seth repeats, starting to lose consciousness.

  “Which one of us is the real one?” the wounded flesh-bot asks, but Seth's consciousness has vanished.

  “We don't have time to debate, just get on the other side and help me.”

  “Help you? No, you're going to assist me,” the flesh-bot replies.

  “With those clumsy hands, you'll kill him.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “Because we're the same person! You heard him yourself, he made a copy.”

  “So which one of us is the copy?” the flesh-bot asks.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes!”

  “Why?”

  “You know it's you, you're the copy,” the flesh-bot replies. “See! The computer is inside me, that's the original.” She points to the blade computer that simulates her inside a rubber panel.

  “That doesn't prove anything,” Renee replies, picking up a scalpel.

  “Yes it does! Where's your computer? It's sitting in a room somewhere, that's the copy!”

  “Are you going to help me or not?”

  “You're going to help me,” the flesh-bot grabs at the scalpel, Renee yanks it away.

  “You've only got one good hand, just get over there.”

  She relents, walking to the opposite side of the table.

  “Start the sedative,” Renee says. Flesh-bot Renee finds a plastic vial in a small refrigerator built into the wall. She attaches the vial to the IV and squeezes in a precise amount that heads directly for his blood stream. “How's the transfusion? Do we need another bag?”

  “No, it's good.”

  “Alright, I'm making the first incision.” Renee presses the scalpel into his skin, but in an instant her body goes limp and collapses to the floor with a sickening crack of metal on tile. The scalpel clatters across the floor. Flesh-bot Renee timidly steps around the table, finding the other her completely unconscious, unpiloted.

  Renee stares at the fallen robot in shock. “Paul unplugged her,” she mutters to herself. Renee turns over her old animatron, digging for the gun pinned against her hip. She gets the gun out, checks the safety and the chamber, then looks to the door.

  Is he coming for me? Why unplug her? Did he just turn her off, or did he take the blade with him? Maybe he's leaving the station with her...with me. To keep for himself? To put in a new hell? To show the world what an abomination I am? He's not getting out of this place alive.

  Renee hangs another liter of blood, connecting it to Seth's IV. He's going to have to wait.

  44

  The small, leaking flesh-bot sneaks down a hallway, holding a pistol in her weak hand. Slick drops of blue hydraulic fluid dot the floor in her wake. She heads toward the room where her computer brain had resided. With any luck, he's still in there and she can take him by surprise.

  Renee approaches the door, peeking through the dark window, seeing nothing.. She tentatively pushes the door open, sweeping her gun across the room, finding it empty. Two blade computers are missing from the bank. One is inside her. Paul has the other.

  Renee turns around, facing the door in the dark room. He could be anywhere. No animatrons have yet awoken. The Neural Net is restarting, but will take several minutes to come online. Renee will not have any help. She steps into the hall, pistol first. She listens for any faint echo, hearing nothing. She walks quickly, heading for the stairwell at one end. Once inside, she hears a thumping sound dripping between the narrow flights. She rushes up the stairs, slowing at each landing to see if the sound is coming from this floor or one still yet above. She gets to the top floor, at the edge of the glass atrium. Violent waves wash high up the pyramid. The water slithers back down, sticking to the imperfections in the glass.

  Renee slowly opens the door and steps into the atrium. A helicopter hovers just meters above the platform at the peak of the pyramid.

  Paul runs up the spiral staircase in the center, his quick heavy steps on the metal stairs reverberate like a crackling snare drum. He's carrying the blade computer with him. As he comes around a spiral, he sees the flesh-bot looking up at him. He hesitates, but takes off running with even greater haste. Renee runs after him, touching only every second or third step. She holds onto the spine of the stairs with her left hand, keeping her tucked in close to the center of the circle. Renee practically flies up the stairs.

  She reaches the top, where the stairs emerge onto the top platform. He has beaten her to the top and could simply be waiting behind where she will emerge. Renee takes very slow steps, leaning her head as far forward as she can. The gray sky emerges slowly, one half-step at a time.

  The helicopter hovers not far away, the wind surges through the staircase. Paul peeks over the lip of the stairs, directly above Renee. He fires a shot before she can react. The bullet slams into the side of her forehead, near the temple. It rips open a section of rubber on her scalp, impacting her skull, sending sparks flying and bits of metal fall out. Renee flinches after the fact, her reflexes aren't without some lag in this damaged animatron. However a gunshot to the head will not kill her. Her brain is in her chest.

  Renee recoils back down, nearly losing her balance, clattering to a clumsy stop. She holds her gun up, aimed at the top of the stairs, and sits completely still. The helicopter remains in a hover just off the platform which is far too small to land on.

  Renee knows Paul is hoping to ambush her as she climbs the top stairs. He has an immense advantage, knowing exactly where she will come from. But for Renee, her enemy could be in any direction once she gets to the top, it's not a good way to fight. She has to turn the odds.

  She waits. Gun at the ready. Paul waits. The helicopter hovers.

  He hasn't simply left, what is he waiting for? Maybe he's afraid that as soon as he turns his back to get on the chopper, I'll shoot him. He wants to deal with me first, then go. But will he just grow impatient and then get on the chopper? Or will he come to finish me off? See that he killed me. Perhaps even steal my computer. I might wake up in his personal hell. And that's where the...other me might end up if I don't get him. God dammit I have to get that blade back.

  Renee spots the fringes of Paul's hair, peering over the lip. She aims right at the spot where the crown of his forehead will emerge. Renee holds the gun tightly in her metallic hand. Her arm can't sit still, it shakes as opposing hydraulic motors fight over the angle of her arm. The metal and plastic joint in her elbow rattles. He slowly leans over the edge, she starts to squeeze the trigger, preparing to fire. The gun slithers in her hand, but she fights to keep it as still as possible.

  Paul's face darts into the open, his eyes quickly lock on Renee and discover her aiming right at him.

  She fires. The gun breaks free of her weakened hand, spinning back. She catches it, but looks up to her target. The bullet blew out a portion of the concrete, right at the edge where Paul was. Perhaps the bullet only clipped the concrete and didn't hit him. Perhaps she got a piece of him. He might be returning the same trick to her, playing dead and hoping she'll walk into an ambush. Renee stands up, knowing she shouldn't stay in the spot he last saw her.

  Renee tiptoes up the opposite side of the stairwell, closer to the opening. Her rattling arm struggles to hold the gun steady.

  The wind whips up a tornado that gusts down the spiral staircase. The helicopter must be approaching the platform.

  He's running for it!

  Renee sprints up the stairs, her steps are barely audible under the noise of the chopper. She jumps past the last two steps, arriving on the platform, finding Paul standing five meters up an antenna, trying to grab onto the leg of the chopper, which has a fixed metal ladder on the landing strut, leading to the cabin. Renee whips the gun in his direction.

  He clutches the blade across his chest with one arm, while holding tight to the antenna with the other.

&n
bsp; They lock eyes.

  Paul motions for Renee to lower her gun. He holds the blade out as though he will throw it off the side. The chopper makes speaking completely useless. All the communication is done with their eyes. It's as though she can hear Paul's threat to kill the other Renee if she shoots. Even if she had a clean shot, he might still drop the blade off the side. He climbs closer to the chopper.

  Paul reaches for the ladder without looking, searching blindly with his hand. Once he gets one hand on it, he prepares to turn, staring her down. He turns his back to quickly get aboard.

  Renee acts, immediately raising her gun, firing three rounds in an instant. The bullets enter the cabin of the chopper, roughly in the direction of the pilot. The chopper immediately peels off, flying away from the platform. Renee can't tell if she hit the pilot, or if he was simply scared off by the bullets ricocheting past his head. In the chopper's wake, Paul is left leaning far off his perch and is barely able to recover, grasping the antenna.

  Renee steps closer, aiming right at his face.

  “You come any closer and I throw this,” Paul says. The chopper recovers from its dive and flies back up to altitude a kilometer away.

  “Surrender,” Renee responds sternly.

  “What?!”

  “Surrender,” she repeats, “I'm not a murderer. If you surrender I won't harm you.”

  Paul is taken aback by her offer. He looks to the chopper hovering in the distance.

  “Nobody has to die,” Renee says. Her right elbow rattles. Her left arm hangs limp.

  “No you surrender!” Paul shouts back.

  “I'm the one with a gun.”

  “And if you lower it, then I'll take you with me, along with her,” he taps on the blade. “The world needs to see you. They need to know about this.”

  “I'm not going to be somebody's guinea pig,” Renee replies.

  “You already are!”

  “Shut up and put down the blade, I won't hurt you.”

  “Don't you get it? You're not just some AI, there have been millions of those. You're the real thing. A man-made human being.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Renee replies, “I've got a gun, you've got something I want, this is not complicated.”

  “The world needs to see this. It changes everything we know about the nature of humanity. Please, come with me, the world needs to know.”

  “Set her down or I'm putting a bullet through your head,” Renee takes tentative steps, closing the gap.

  “Stop right there!”

  Renee takes another step, ready to fire. She reaches him, she presses the gun against his stomach, underneath the blade.

  “Alright, you got me,” Paul says. He climbs down from his perch, putting his feet firmly on the deck, he still clutches to the blade containing the copy.

  “March your ass down the stairs,” Renee demands. Paul nods, walking toward the stairwell that goes back into the station, Renee follows behind him, gun at his back.

  “You aren't going to kill me are you?” Paul asks.

  “No, I'm not a murderer.”

  “What will you do with me?” Paul stops and looks back at her.

  “I don't know yet,” Renee says. Paul takes a deep breath then continues the walk back to the stairs.

  What will I do with him? Can I really keep him hostage? Perhaps tie him up, sedate him, I could hold him long enough for help to arrive.

  Paul darts away, to the waist-high edge of the roof, leaping over the side, onto a wall of the glass pyramid, he slides toward the sea at an incredible rate, clutching the blade to his chest.

  Renee rushes to the edge, unable to react in time, he has taken her by surprise. Paul picks up speed on the wet glass, hitting a wave with a large splash. He hangs onto the blade and tries to cling to the edge of the pyramid. The helicopter zooms toward him, to retrieve Paul and the other Renee.

  She looks down the steep wall, contemplating her next move. She doesn't have much time to think. Her animatron is not in the best shape and she won't exactly be seaworthy. These things are protected pretty well against water, at least externally. But her brain is in her body, if she sinks, that's it for her. Paul looks up at her from several stories below with an evil smile that she sees with perfect clarity. The chopper slows to a crawl, approaching the edge of the pyramid, hoping to get low enough to extract Paul but also keep the blades away from the glass. The rotor-wash throws up a blinding mist of seawater.

  “God dammit,” Renee mutters. She steps up onto the edge of the platform and throws herself down the glass slide. The pyramid is not seamless, she hits ridges that rhythmically buffet and rattle her. She has some control of her descent by putting a palm down and making some effort to steer. Soon her speed becomes too great that she loses all control, even of orientation. She spins around, heading for the water back first. She hits the water, disappearing into a crashing wave.

  45

  Renee is trapped underwater. Sunlight glitters through the surface several meters above her. She holds her breath, completely unable to move.

  Renee feels a warmth come over her like a soft blanket. Her ear is pressed against Patrick's chest as they lay on the wooden floor of his large tree house on a hot summer night. She listens to the beating of his virtual heart.

  “What was it like, living on Earth, knowing you could die?” Renee asks softly.

  “It wasn't that bad, you get used to it,” Patrick replies. “Whatever you grow up with seems normal to you, however weird it might really be.”

  “Did you ever think about it though? How did you do anything at all dangerous knowing it might lead to your death?” Renee looks up at Patrick.

  “I'd rather not talk about it.”

  “I just don't know what it's like, and yet all of history, films, games, books, they're filled with people struggling to cope with mortality, but I find it hard to relate.”

  “For the most part you don't think about it. You get up, you go about your day, you just don't think about the possibility of dying,” Patrick says quietly. Renee reaches up, placing her right hand on his cheek, her chin rests on his chest. “You know that you'll die, you just don't think about it. You ride in cars and planes and do stupid things on your bike, but you just don't think about it. Maybe at funerals, you think about yourself, but mostly it's about remembering the person who died. People tell stories, finding little smiles as they get lost in the story and forget that the person is gone.”

  Patrick's piercing eyes begin to water, not venturing away from a spot on the tree house ceiling. He's silent, lost in the thoughts of a fallen loved one. Renee examines his sad face. She wonders what it would be like to lose someone close to her. What if Patrick died. Would she be able to go on, just having him as a series of fond memories? What if she died? How would they remember her?

  “I feel so unprepared for mortality,” Renee says, “like you said you just take for granted the reality you grow up in. I grew up without the specter of death. If someone I knew died, I don't know if I could handle it.”

  Patrick gulps hard. A tear runs down his cheek. Renee wants desperately to know what he's thinking. He remains silent, until a few words escape his lips, “I was sick for a long time.” He takes a deep breath, fighting back tears. “At one point, the treatment wasn't working, we didn't know if I would be a candidate for vivisection, and even if I was, it doesn't always work. It got to the point where nothing was working and I realized I was dying. I...I started to think about suicide, just end it now, avoid the suffering. The hard part isn't the act of dying, it's the acceptance, it's becoming comfortable with letting go, with knowing that you won't be around to see what happens next. Accepting that you'll never see loved ones again. You won't get to see how your niece grows up or how life turns out for you. I thought about my funeral. I thought about what stories they would tell. I pictured my mom crying uncontrollably, my dad trying to comfort her. I pictured them going on without me. A year later, how often would they still think
of me? Would they remember the good things or the bad? Would they hate that I killed myself? Would they blame themselves? Maybe killing myself would make it even harder on them, even if it only meant that I missed out on a couple of months of suffering. Then it felt like I had a reprieve, I had several months to live, why waste that on suicide? I still exist, why waste my remaining existence? Just because I'm going to stop existing soon doesn't mean that I can't enjoy what time I have left. I started imagining what I could do with that time. I wanted to go skydiving, drive a car, meet a girl. The hardest thing for me to accept was the idea that I would die, having never loved. That really hit me. After a while, I became okay even with that. I finally just decided that death means the end of my existence, and that's not something we experience. There is no suffering. I might not get to love, but I wouldn't mind, I wouldn't know any better. Thinking back now, from the comfort of apparent immortality, I find it hard to believe that I was comfortable with it, but...I was. Death's not so bad.”

  “I love you,” Renee says, a tear drips down her cheek, soaking into his t-shirt.

  Patrick strains his neck, making eye contact with her. “I love you too.” His eyes glimmer with tears. A strange twinkling of light moves across his face. His glimmering eyes become a set of lights on the bottom of a helicopter's runners, refracted through ten meters of dark seawater. The twinkling points of light are bubbles streaming from her animatronic body, surging toward the surface. Water is filling the empty space between her fake skin and the body underneath. She's sinking slowly, but as the bubbles stream away, her buoyancy reduces steadily.

  Feet and arms flail in the surf above her. Paul is treading water. The runners approach him, he's trying to climb aboard the chopper.

  Renee kicks her feet, and tears at the water with her arms. Her gun is gone. On her three good limbs she fights toward the surface. Her mechanical joints strain, her limbs are warped by the torque she's generating, bowing like tree limbs, and yet it's not enough, she begins sinking, despite her efforts.

  Renee fights harder, but is unable to slow her descent. Her foot slams against something hard. She has hit the side of the pyramid. At this depth, the walls are made of steel and not glass. She slips against the angled surface, continuing to descend into the dark ocean. She reaches with her one good hand for anything to cling on to. The steel scrapes past her desperate fingers. The abrupt end of the pyramid looms beneath her. Beyond it, several kilometers of nothing.