by Jeff Pollard
She slides faster, heading for the drop-off. Her hand skitters across the steel, searching for any little thing to grasp, but finding none. She feels her legs slide past the end of the pyramid, falling free. She feels the lip at the edge of the station move up her thighs, past her stomach, digging harder into her skin. She turns her face away and reaches for the edge, getting a hold with her weak hand. fingers pinch with all the grip they can muster. Her hand gets a firm hold, but she has to hold on as she continues to fall. Her arm stretches over her head, and all at once the weight over her watered down frame pulls her arm taut, straining her elbow which twists and lets out an inhuman cracking sound.
Her descent is arrested. She pulls with her one good arm, trying to raise her heavy sinking body back up to the angled surface. Renee feels a hole in the pit of her stomach, a deep aching as she fights for every centimeter. It's an intense hunger, but she has no stomach, this feeling is completely illusory. She has never felt so hungry in her life, not even in the midst of her hunger strike. Hunger indicated that the animatron batteries are low. Intense hunger like this indicates impending shut-down.
Renee finally pulls herself up, clawing from one seam to another, she lifts herself up. Her feet find small ledges to apply pressure, her hand searches for the tiny protruding seams in the surface.
The blinking light of the helicopter's runner dips into the water amidst a large wave. Paul seems to emerge partially from the water, but his feet kick, stirring up bubbles.
Renee picks up momentum, moving up the surface. When Paul is directly above, she leaps off of the surface, sending her skyward. She reaches with her good right arm for his kicking foot, missing. She starts to fall back toward the depths, needing to claw her way upward again with a few more strokes. The flailing feet seem to rise out of the water. Renee reaches again, grasping the solid boney ankle joint of his right foot. She digs her fingers in with all the hydraulic grip she can muster.
Renee's face breaks through the surface. Paul hangs onto the runner, severely weighed down by Renee's flooding body. His grip loosens. A wave thrusts them beneath water for an instant before they emerge once more. As Renee emerges, her effective weight grows, until at hip-high, Paul's grip fails and they fall back into the sea.
Paul kicks his foot hard, trying to escape her grip as they tumble in the surf. A wave thrusts them up onto the glass wall of the pyramid. The water recedes, leaving them lying face down on the glass. The chopper approaches, its blades seem to be barely above their heads and not far away from the glass. Paul holds onto the blade computer containing Renee's copy. Renee tries to stand but her flooded body is too heavy. Water streams out of her at every little crack or seam. She's lighter every second. Paul manages to half-way stand up on the slanted surface, with Renee still clinging to his right foot. The chopper approaches with the open side of the cabin facing them. Paul tosses the blade computer toward the helicopter. The blade flies through the open door, landing inside the chopper.
Renee finally gets to her feet, grabbing Paul's soaked shirt by the collar, pressing her face against his. The chopper continues to hover.
“Go!” Paul shouts, waving his arm at the helicopter pilot to leave him behind. “Go!”
Renee sees the recognition in the pilot's eyes, he's going to leave his friend behind. The blades zoom only a meter or so directly over head. The pilot turns away, about to fly off, leaving Paul behind.
Renee acts fast. She bends her knees, grabs Paul, yanking him over her shoulder. She jams her feet down with immense mechanical power, leaping into the air with Paul pinned to her shoulder. She plants her hand into his sternum and shoves him skyward with all the power she can muster.
Paul lumbers into the air, flailing in space, he meets the rotor blade face-first. Paul's head and torso are turned into a mist before his heart stops. The damaged rotor suddenly alters the forces it produces. The pilot attempts to correct, but can't prevent the rotor from meandering into the glass wall, completely destroying the rotors. The thick glass holds up, but is cracked severely.
The wrecked chopper hits the water. Renee slides into the water next to the chopper. She swims into the open cabin, looking for the blade. The chopper sinks into the wall of the pyramid and begins a sideways slide. Renee finds the blade, pinned underneath a seat. She tears it out from under the seat and heads for the exit. She emerges from the chopper as it continues its slide down the wall. She plants her feet onto a seam and arrests her fall. She holds onto the blade with her good arm. The helicopter continues its slide down the angled wall. She watches as the pilot tries to escape from the chopper, but it disappears over the ledge, sinking into the deep.
46
The blade computer slides into its docking port. A final shove locks it into place. Renee's original animatron presses a button, and the blade is reconnected. The flesh-bot rests on the ground in the corner, damaged badly, dripping, unpiloted. A new animatron, adult female, sits in a docking station. This animatron belongs to some inhabitant of Solipsis, but not Renee. The brunette animatron comes to life, extending its legs and lifting out of the port. Its eyes meet those of the redheaded animatron that looks like Renee.
“Let's go,” Renee says. They head for the door. The brunette rubs the flesh-bot's head, thanking it. “So what happened? Last thing I remember, we were about to start surgery.”
“And then Paul unplugged you,” the brunette says. “Are you sure this is the closest body you could get? I feel kind of clumsy.”
“The skeletal system is identical, those things only come in so many sizes,” Renee-bot says.
“So why does it feel weird to me?” the brunette asks.
“You got used to that flesh-bot.”
They enter the VR, finding Seth right where they left him.
“Well, let's get to work.”
The twin animatrons sit on the white tile floor. The vivisection room is bloodied, dirty. Seth's body has been reduced to tiny pieces residing in surgical waste bags stacked in the corner. His brain floats in a vat of cerebro-spinal fluid. A small screen at the bottom shows Seth's brain activity. He's unconscious.
“So is there even a real one?” The redhead asks.
“We're equally real,” the brunette replies.
“We didn't both grow up, one of us actually lived those memories. One of us is delusional,” Renee-bot says, talking about herself.
“It doesn't matter,” the brunette replies. “You're just as real as I am. I didn't live those childhood memories either.”
“What if we're dead?” Renee asks. “Think about it, you were about to be killed, shot in the back, and then you have a near death experience, but you're miraculously saved by a person who you didn't even know existed, an impossible person, that saves you, then you save the day, repeatedly, get the bad guy, save the boy, save the girl, everything is wrapped up in a neat bow. Don't you think that's all just a little convenient?”
“So I'm dead? How am I imagining all this?”
“Maybe you're not dead, maybe this is still part of the near death experience. It seems like hours, maybe it's only been half a second.”
“I don't think so,” the brunette replies.
“I know it's not true because I exist. I think therefore I am. Which means there's a copy of you, and how would I be thinking if I didn't really exist?” Renee-bot asks. “But, you can't be sure that I exist. You can only be sure that you exist.”
“Maybe we were never in the real world at all. What if they're test driving AIs, putting us into ethical and moral dilemmas. It's just a game, refining our logic algorithms, seeing how we act. It's all part of a project to create super weapons for the military,” the brunette suggests.
“I think I've seen that movie,” Renee-bot replies, “or maybe I'm god and the universe is just my imagination.”
“I thought I was dead and then a Deus Ex Machina miraculously saved me. So either I'm god, or god likes me,” the brunette replies.
“What was the Deus Ex Machina? Oh right,
it was me,” Renee-bot replies, “I'm the god machine.”
“What if there aren't two of us? I just went nuts and got a second personality to talk to.”
“I've seen that movie too.”
“Really, the only thing you can be sure of is that you exist, and nothing else.”
“But really, what if this isn't real?”
“You can't know if it is. So what difference does it make?”
“It makes a difference.”
“Why? If you can experience something and there is absolutely no way to tell if it is real or not, then the question is moot. Suppose there's one universe where this did all really happen, and one where it didn't, but you think it did. The experience of those two versions of you would be identical, so it makes no difference if it really happened or not. We're nothing but conscious experience, in the moment, nothing else.”
“I think my brain's going to implode. I need a drink.”
“I need to get laid.”
“You do need to get laid.”
“Is that so much to ask?”
“Absolutely not.”
“We could do it.”
“I call shotgun.”
“Shotgun?!”
“Yeah. I'll be the guy.”
“Don't you think that would be a little weird?”
“Well we could both be in different avatars. Then it's not as weird.”
“We could both be dudes and make some gay love, how's that sound?”
The girls laugh at this surreal situation.
47
“Why don't you want to go home?”
“I don't know why, I just...I'm not ready.”
“Because dad won't be there. You're in denial about that. It's not real to you until you go home and he's not there.”
“How am I in denial and you aren't?”
“I've seen him more recently.”
“Right, your near death experience.”
“I'm sensing you have something more to say on the subject.”
They exit the stairwell, walking through the first floor beneath the atrium. This floor was used like a kiosk for visitors: welcome desk, check-in, a small museum of vivisection and animatronics, price and health information, etc. Much of it has been destroyed or vandalized. A few dead animatrons lay on the ground, victims of the cut neural-net.
“Near death experiences are nothing but a high produced by Dimethyltriptamine. Let me guess, warm feelings of love, a tunnel, a light, break down of your time sense, a positive feeling about an after-life or an acceptance of death.”
“Yeah, and?”
“You can get the exact same high by ingesting a chemical. You didn't see Dad, it was just an experience constructed by your DMTed brain.”
“You realize that I know what you know.”
“Which is why it's baffling that you read anything into that at all.”
An unconscious cult-member lays face down, his legs pinned by a fallen animatron. The Renees move in carefully, guns drawn.
“No pulse. He's cold.”
They relax and enter the exhibit on the history of vivisection. There's a robot on display, the first animatron ever piloted in history. It looks more like a skeleton than a person.
“That was dad.”
“You mean mom.”
“Dad slash other mom. I miss him, but... in a way that I feel like I'll see him again, he's just been gone for a while. It hasn't hit me that I'll never see him again. Don't even start talking about how you just saw him.”
“Well I did.”
“Well I don't plan on dying any time soon and seeing him. Why do you read anything into your NDE? I mean, you know it's just a high.”
“Because it's one thing to understand the mechanism, but it's another to have the experience. It affects your brain in a way that changes your thinking.”
“But it's just a drug.”
“LSD is just a drug, but one dose can seriously alter your perceptions because it alters the way you think. It doesn't change your thoughts, it changes your thinking. That's the real beauty of drugs, at least the good ones. They don't just make you feel good, they fundamentally alter the makeup and operation of the physical brain that constructs your consciousness. They change your mind, your consciousness is produced differently in a way that experiences things fundamentally differently. I mean, you can travel the world all you want, but me, I'd rather alter my consciousness, it's the only way to really experience anything different.”
“Okay but any insight you get from this different viewpoint should be something you could express logically to another person and convince them of the truth of that new idea. But you can't, so it's not insight, it is just a superficial jerk-off.”
“But that assumes that the standard mode of thinking is somehow privileged against all other modes of thinking, and that the way you understand logic and reason is the true way to understand it.”
“Well you took a drug and saw things differently. Why should I put any faith in the truth of those visions or ideas?”
“You're still putting standard consciousness up on a pedestal where it gets to be the arbiter of truth. But there is no such thing as standard consciousness, even supposedly unaltered minds are operating on drugs and chemical impulses, they are just the ones stumbled upon and refined by evolutionary processes. There's no such thing as a pure or right consciousness. I mean, look at the people who did this to us, they see things differently from you without the need for either of you to be drug altered. There's just not a standard, pure, right consciousness. Changing it up with a drug doesn't send it further away from purity, they're all just lateral moves.
“Shhh. There's a man looking at us.”
The Renees walk down the stairwell with their prisoner. Footsteps come up the stairs towards them. They freeze, getting guns ready. One Renee takes the lead, the other holds the prisoner. They open a stairwell door and find several piloted animatrons, busily making repairs, moving damaged animatrons, putting repaired ones into docking stations to be charged.
Two animatrons see the Renees. They stop and watch her in awe. Renees walk past silently, the stare makes them uneasy.
“Is he one of them?” a boy asks, his voice-box crackles with hatred. The Renees turn to find the animatron of Bobby, their first patient.
“Yeah.”
Bobby rushes forward, sending his metal fist at high speed toward the man's stomach. Renee deflects the blow, slapping his arm out of the way.
“Don't.”
“We're collecting the prisoners in the atrium,” a wise, elder voice announces. It belongs to Dr. Graeme. “Don't worry, we'll take it from here, you've done enough.” He puts his hand on the shoulder of Renee's animatron. Two animatrons working with Dr. Graeme take the prisoner away, leading him back to the stairwell. “I told you you were capable of great things,” he smiles, fighting back sentimental tears.
“It wasn't just me,” Renee's animatron replies. “Actually she did more than I did,” Renee gestures to the other Renee, who Dr. Graeme doesn't recognize as Renee. His mechanical eyes focus on her face.
“Sarah? Sarah...Wissenger? But how did you help?”
“You might not recognize me in this body.”
Dr. Graeme's eyes focus on her, his mind's eye turns on his display system and searches for the meta-data that normally would communicate her name, age, gender, and other information. However he finds that the data belongs to Renee. He turns back to Renee's animatron, finding that her meta-data is completely missing. The Solipsis servers have no profile for this connection.
“If you're Renee, then who are you?” Dr. Graeme asks.
“Renee two-point-oh.”
“You can't be two-point-oh, that makes it sound like you're an improved version of me.”
“And that's inaccurate how?”
“Okay, then I'll be Ren-A, and you can be Ren-B.”
“There are two of you?” Dr Graeme can't believe it.
48
Renee st
eps out of the televator into the home in which she grew up. Medved and Gwen are asleep on the couch, curled up together in a ball of fur. She quietly closes the door behind her, it clicks closed. Medved's big brown eyes drowsily open, then lock on, becoming ecstatic in an instant. Renee tries to shush Medved to keep him from waking Gwen, but his enthusiasm cannot be contained. He leaps from the couch, he gives her the embrace only a an anthropomorphic teddy bear can give. He lifts her off the ground. She makes eye contact with her mother through the fur on his arm.
Gwen doesn't smile. Her eyes only stay on Renee for a moment before darting toward the floor.
Renee pushes Medved's arm away and goes to her mother's side.
“We made it Mom,” Renee says. “Everything really is going to be okay.”
Gwen barely nods in response.
The televator door opens and out walks another Renee.
“Medved!” the new Renee says, rushing to hug him. He hugs her happily but is deeply confused by this development. This Renee greets Gwen, sitting on her other side. Her spirits still cannot be lifted.
“I'm sorry about everything,” Renee says. Both Renees, who appear entirely identical, sit beside Patrick in his tree house. Six feet dangle off the edge.
“I'm just sorry that I can't be everything you want me to be for you,” Patrick says with sad eyes that break both of her hearts.
“I want exactly who you are and nothing more,” the Renee on his left replies.
“You're my best friend, and I love you, and that's that,” the Renee on his right adds. He lets out a small sheepish smile.
“You really do need a new avatar though, I can't help but want to jump these bones,” left-Renee adds, tapping her hand on Patrick's chiseled abs.