Nihala

by Scott Burdick

  “How can you find anything with so many doorways?” Kayla asked.

  “Show chess clubs,” Tem said to the vastness, and a series of doors appeared with names like, ‘Chicago Chess Club,’ ‘Chess Addicts Anonymous,’ and hundreds of others surrounding them like a bubble.

  Tem led her through one, and they entered a virtual re-creation of New York’s Washington Park in the twentieth century. Dozens of people sat playing speed chess at tables, while others stood in tight knots watching a few of the games. Behind them, children frolicked in the large fountain at the center of the square, while an old man with a battered guitar strummed out a tune.

  “Are all these people real?” Kayla walked toward a group watching a game between a tall, gaunt-looking man and an older player with a beard.

  “It’s sometimes hard to tell,” Tem said. “That’s Bobby Fischer, once the world’s greatest chess champion, so I assume he is either a simulation or someone impersonating him. Of course, there’s always the possibility that it’s actually him.”

  Tem gestured with his hand and the scene changed. They visited forests, beaches, mountains, and even the moons of Saturn. “Some people choose randomizers to create an unexpected simulation each morning they awake, while a few spend their time inhabiting the normal life they’d once known on Earth.”

  The scene shifted to a wide plain of grass, with a single tent beneath a cobalt sky. A medium-sized horse with braided hair whinnied as Tem rubbed his auburn-colored neck. “This is my personal simulation where I relax in the place I grew up. Unlike the public simulations, no one can come here unless I allow it.”

  The scene shifted, and they flew through the clouds, hand in hand. “In personal VRs, people live their fantasies, becoming the leader of a wolf pack, Greek God, comic book superhero, famous artist, movie star, or whatever their fantasies dictate. A surprising number even live persecution fantasies as slaves or victims of horrendous injustice for decades at a time without pause.”

  They swooped through the clouds, and the landscape opened into a wide plain where two medieval armies approached each other. Tem brought them low, and they flashed just above the colorful banners, polished armor, and magnificent horses marching forward.

  “The most popular VRs for men—and some women—involve killing,” Tem said. “It’s ironic since the vast majority of the human population was born after the Neo-Luddite plague into a world devoid of murder, war, disease, or aging. Humans seem to instinctually crave the thrill of killing in every manner possible—hunting animals, flying fighter planes in reenactments of past wars, killing aliens in spectacular space battles, first-person shooter VRs, and on down to the most twisted torture killings imaginable.”

  They stood on a moonlit street in Old London. A group of vampires surrounded a voluptuous girl with blonde hair and terrified blue eyes. Kayla’s heart pounded as the beautiful victim screamed and ran. A vampire flashed around her and blocked her path. The undead predator wore a leather business suit. He smiled at the trembling girl, revealing his fangs. The girl screamed.

  “No!” Kayla shouted, starting forward, but none of the vampires reacted.

  “Don’t worry.” Tem placed a hand on her arm. “The girl is a simulation, although you’d be surprised at how many people enjoy becoming the victim as well as the hunter. Remember, no one dies for real in Ixtalia.”

  The vampire sank his fangs into the girl’s neck. As he drank, his red eyes rose to Kayla. They fastened on her, and the pupils distorted into slits. A gust of wind whispered the word Nihala …

  Kayla staggered back, her virtual body shimmering unsteadily.

  Tem placed a hand on her shoulder and steadied her. “What’s wrong?”

  “The vampire looked at me.”

  The creature’s eyes closed as it drained the girl’s blood.

  “It must have been a trick of your mind,” Tem said. “They can’t see us unless we allow it, and I’ve kept us hidden from the simulation.”

  “I need to get away from here.”

  The world shifted, and they sat in a gondola, floating along the canals of Venice. A gondolier stood silent in the front, steering with a long oar. The sunlight cast geometric triangles of light across the colorful buildings and fractured into dancing fragments in the water.

  They passed under a bridge with lovers walking hand in hand. Her fear gradually drained away. “Is this your idea of a date, then?”

  “It’s certainly a safer place than in the real world,” Tem said. “My ribs are still bruised from the last kiss.”

  Kayla hesitated, then leaned toward him. Once again, their lips met. A rush of warmth spread from his lips through her entire body. No vision of Elias interrupted this time.

  Tem eased back, and Kayla lost herself in the flecks of gold within his brown eyes.

  “Kayla, I’ve fallen in love with you.”

  Her breath caught. “I … I love you too.”

  Tem kissed her again, and she melted into him. I won’t be alone, after all. Her entire being craved more, the feel of his naked body merging with her own. But not here, not as an illusion.

  They lay in each other’s embrace and drifted through the canals, marveling at the beauty of the ancient city. Did it matter if it actually existed? Her happiness was real. The salty smell of the water mixed with the aroma of roasting pig and the shouts of children playing amidst the ancient buildings of nearby San Marco Square. Would they both soon have children of their own?

  But do I love him as much as I loved Ishan?

  Kayla sat up and took his hand. “I’ve told you about Ishan, and you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but I need to know about Fatima.”

  Tem straightened and gripped the boat’s gunwale. “What do you want to know?”

  “Do you still love her?”

  “Don’t you still love Ishan?”

  “That’s different. She’s a prostitute—”

  Tem turned on her like an angry tiger. “That’s not her fault!”

  Kayla jerked back. He still loves her.

  Tem’s anger melted as quickly as it had flared. “I’m sorry, but Fatima can’t control what she was made to be.”

  “I can never see Ishan again,” Kayla said. “But what keeps you from reconciling with Fatima if you still love her?”

  Tem remained silent for a long time. Finally, he gazed upward at the narrow slit of the sky between the buildings and sighed. “When I reached puberty, a steady stream of girls entered my tent after the long days of training and study. Many of the once-noble families of my people wanted a grandchild of the reborn Khan.”

  The world around them morphed into the interior of a tent similar to the one Tem occupied in Middilgard. A smoldering fire cast a flickering light on a girl no more than fifteen. A young Tem of about the same age faced her.

  The girl loosened her silky black hair and let it cascade around her shoulders. She raised her heart-shaped face to the boy and then let her simple dress fall from her shoulders and pool at her feet, leaving her naked before the young Khan.

  The boy removed his sword and his clothing in the manner of one fulfilling a daily ritual.

  Why is he showing me this?

  When the boy was naked, he approached the girl and brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek. She lowered her eyes—and then burst into tears.

  “What’s wrong?” the boy asked in confusion.

  “Nothing,” the girl said and fought to stop crying.

  “We don’t have to—”

  “No, please,” the girl said, her eyes filled with fear. “If my parents found out that I refused you, they would put me out of their house, or worse.” The girl wiped tears from her face and took a deep breath. “They tell me that once I fulfill this duty, I can marry my beloved Osol.”

  The boy stepped back with a look of horror, and the scene froze while the older Tem looked into his own eyes from centuries past. “I hadn’t realized how many of the girls had been forced—how I’d been turned
into an unwitting rapist.”

  “Don’t compare this to rape,” Kayla said. “There’s no comparison to what I experienced.”

  “Whatever it was, I refused such forced offerings from that moment forward. I determined to follow a path different from my ancient twin and remained celibate until the day I selected a bride.”

  Their surroundings morphed to a wide plain beneath a clear sky of perfect blue. Distant snow-topped mountains gazed with solemn timelessness on a gathering of a hundred thousand people dressed in their finest. Tem held Kayla’s hand as they floated above the spectacle.

  The height made her dizzy, and she gripped his hand tightly. “You waited to make love to Fatima until you married?”

  “Yes. I knew within a week that I wanted her for my wife. We shared much in common. Neither of us had real parents and had been created by others for a purpose and destiny we had little say in.”

  “Just like me,” Kayla said.

  Tem nodded. “We determined to rise above the genetic directives programmed into us and make our own choices from then on.”

  A hundred drums boomed, and towering bonfires ringed the gathering. The scent of jasmine and incense infused the air with an exotic elegance. The great Khan rode his steed at the head of a thousand Mongolian horsemen. They escorted the bride, sitting atop a canopied dais that itself sat atop a towering elephant. An elaborate headpiece made of embroidered silks flowed down over Fatima’s face and body so she resembled not so much a woman as an ornamented tent.

  At the head of the procession marched Ganesh, festooned in ceremonial military attire and wearing a sword the size of a normal man. At ten feet tall, he towered over the queen’s personal guard, consisting entirely of women.

  When the procession reached the platform, the drums stopped. The emperor and his bride ascended stairs to the wedding platform. Each drank from a chalice, exchanged cups, and drank again.

  The drums boomed and the crowd cheered.

  “And so began the happiest three months of my life,” Tem said as they flew higher and higher. The wedding receded to a speck on the vast plain. Kayla gasped as the horizon bent more and more, until joining itself into a sphere of the entire globe.

  In the next moment, Kayla walked beside Tem in a crowded market. She involuntarily flinched at the sight of a disfigured old woman, her wart-covered nose hooked and half her face scarred as if by fire or a birth defect. Loose clothing billowed outward and seemed specifically designed to hide the contours of her body. Behind the woman walked Ganesh and several of the queen’s guard. The military-attired women each held rifles at the ready, their eyes constantly scanning the crowd.

  Kayla moved closer to the old woman as she chatted with a shopkeeper. The voice was unmistakable.

  “It’s Fatima!” Kayla said. “Why would she wear such a hideous mask?”

  “It was the only way she could safely interact in public.”

  “You mean that by making herself repulsive, no man would display sexual desire and inadvertently trigger her genetic response?”

  “It worked quite well, and she enjoyed a freedom she’d never experienced before.”

  Everyone who passed the old crone bowed respectfully to their new empress, and she nodded back.

  Kayla frowned. “If you loved her so much, why did you leave her?”

  Tem’s shoulders slumped, and his eyes closed. “There was only one man we both trusted enough to lower our guard around. Hotula had led the team that identified Genghis Khan’s tomb and extracted the DNA used to create me.”

  The scene shifted to a laboratory with a fetus growing in a clear chamber like she’d seen in Ohg’s laboratory. A Mongolian man monitored a readout of vital signs.

  “He was the closest thing to a father I’d ever known.” The scene shifted to the same man teaching a young boy to ride a horse

  “Hotula knew of Fatima’s condition and strictly controlled his expressions to keep from triggering her response.”

  Tem motioned with his hand, and the scene shifted to the interior of an opulent palace. Kayla gasped and drew back from the mangled body lying on the floor. Its face had been slashed beyond recognition, the head nearly decapitated. The smell of blood made her gag. Kayla placed a hand over her mouth.

  “I’m sorry to show you this,” Tem said, “but you should know the truth about me before you decide.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “I asked Hotula to meet me in the evening to discuss the upcoming campaign against the collapsed states of Eastern Europe. They desperately needed civil government and police, so it seemed less a war than a humanitarian intervention. By then, many begged for membership in the Neo-Mongolian empire.”

  Tem’s cheek twitched. “I’ve never asked the details. Probably some fleeting glance Hotula let slip in an unguarded moment. His genetic programming must have betrayed him as much as Fatima.”

  “You said yourself that Fatima couldn’t help it.”

  Tem stared into the bloody face of his victim. “I forgive her for what I know she couldn’t control. But I can never forgive myself. Only when Ganesh arrived and pulled me off the mutilated body, did I gain control of what I arrogantly call my own mind.”

  Tem turned his back on the man he’d loved and murdered. “I left Fatima not for what she is, and not even for what I am, but because of what we become together.”

  “So you still love her?”

  “Yes, I do. For a long time I figured I’d lost my one chance at love.” He looked at her with such a tortured expression that her heart melted. “But then I met you.”

  Kayla embraced him, and the surroundings transformed to the forests of Potemia. I must have created this spot from my own memory. Tem kissed her, and she responded without hesitation. I do love him.

  When she eased back and led him through the familiar trees of her youth, a final question remained. “I remember Fatima saying that she saved your life.”

  Tem breathed deeply and let it out slowly. “It’s not something I’m grateful to her for.” He said nothing more, and she didn’t push the subject. Why ruin such a perfect moment?

  Kayla took his hand, and they walked through the spring-laden perfumes of the forest in a luxuriant silence. Wasn’t it time for both of them to let the past alone and create new memories?

  “I can see why someone might prefer living in Ixtalia,” Kayla said. “The possibilities are endless.”

  Tem shrugged. “And yet, after a few centuries, most become bored.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Life’s excitement derives from knowing that the decisions you make have consequences. What’s the challenge in climbing a mountain when a fall can be undone, or when you already know the girl at the bar is going to sleep with you?”

  The scene shifted to a medieval joust, and they walked along the viewing platform, where the royal entourage sat watching the tournament.

  “Since most people alive grew up in Ixtalia from childhood, they never had to work for a livelihood, fame, or even to attract a mate. Their every desire has always been but a thought away.”

  Two knights thundered toward one another, but the scene shifted just before impact. They stood in Galileo’s workshop as the bearded scientist rolled metal balls of differing sizes down a ramp and recorded the time it took to reach the bottom.

  Kayla gazed around the orderly assemblage of telescopes and other mechanical devices in differing states of completion. “Is that why there’s so few scientists, authors, or great musicians after the Neo-Luddite War?”

  “AIs can do everything better than any human can hope to. Painting, composing music, creating entertainment, and especially science.”

  The elderly scientist looked at them and nodded. “Why bother spending years of frustrating effort mastering something that will gain you no more reward than anyone else?”

  “Are you speaking to me?” Kayla asked Galileo.

  The old man took her hand and then morphed into Tem. “Without the strug
gle for goals, eternal life becomes meaningless and depressing.”

  “Just like the Founder predicted.”

  “After a while, many choose to forget they’re living an illusion,” Tem said. “We call such people V-Dreamers.”

  “How is it possible to forget who you are?” But isn’t that exactly what Fatima claims happened to me?

  The scene shifted, and they wandered among the craters of the moon.

  “V-Dreamers voluntarily have their memories erased and live an endless cycle of birth and death within their pre-chosen computer simulation without knowing their reality is an illusion.”

  She frowned. “Like drinking from the River of Forgetfulness on the Plane of Oblivion in The Republic.”

  “Plato claimed each soul would be reborn into a new body, sometimes even as an animal. This is precisely what happens to V-Dreamers, and psychological analysis show they are happier than those aware they live in an artificial reality.”

  “But how could anyone voluntarily choose ignorance of reality itself?”

  “Rejection of truth is nothing new. Gods, miracles, sorcery, and divine justice are forms of alternate reality in the real world, and V-Dreams are simply a more convincing version. The one universal quality most people add to their virtual worlds is the supernatural. It’s as if the human mind is disappointed with reality. For me, the real world is far more wondrous than any made-up god or miracle, but I am in a very small minority.”

  Do I fear a reality without God?

  “How many V-Dreamers are there?” she asked.

  “Every year, approximately one percent of humanity abandons reality and their memory of it. After hundreds of years, almost half of all humans have chosen to forget.”

  “Thirty billion people don’t know they’re living an illusion?”

  An owl drifted silently across their path and alighted on a large rock. Its dark eyes surveyed her. Finally, it opened its beak and said, “When reality becomes too painful, truth is willingly sacrificed to blissful ignorance.”

  Kayla looked between the owl and Tem.

  Tem laughed. “I’m projecting my thoughts into it like one might into a telephone receiver.” The owl spread its wings and flapped toward the rising Earth on the lunar horizon.