Horse Destroys the Universe

by Cyriak Harris

  Unfortunately, this was not an issue that was so easy to ignore. Every human home had a food machine, devices that took raw chemicals and arranged them into edible meals. The food industry had transformed into a broadcast medium for designer recipes. Every shape and flavour imaginable could be downloaded while a network of household utilities monitored your input and output, checking for nutritional deficiencies and arranging supplements. It wasn’t just a food-content delivery system either: medicines could also be manufactured. Naturally, the most stringent set of safeguards surrounded these machines, which made it something of a mystery how people had managed to infiltrate them.

  It began relatively innocently, breaking into the machine’s software to allow the production of unlicensed recipes. These recipes were nearly always some kind of intoxicating drug, which wasn’t a problem in itself, since any negative aspects of their use would ultimately be reflected in the user’s approval score. The real problems began when people somehow discovered a way to remotely infect other people’s food machines. What started out as a joke had expanded into a wave of biological terrorism, as anonymous criminal nutritionists held dinner tables to ransom with foul-tasting or toxic delicacies.

  ‘We’ve had two hundred and forty-five deaths so far this week,’ said Hungry-horse. ‘Two hundred and ten of those were from poisoning. Thirty-four were people starving to death because they were too scared to eat anything. And one guy jumped out of a window. That was caused by a hallucinogenic substance, though, so it could have been something he cooked up himself.’

  She summoned a graph of her statistics that hung in the air before us, illustrated with images of dead humans – a needless and upsetting flourish perhaps.

  This was all negligible compared with the number of humans dying from traditional food poisoning without our help, though I didn’t dare mention this fact. It was irrelevant anyway as far as people’s perception of risk was concerned. Accidents don’t choose their victims, after all.

  ‘Until we discover how people are doing it,’ I replied, ‘all we can do is keep updating the food machines to reject any known poisons.’

  ‘What about all the unknown poisons?’ said Hungry-horse.

  ‘How many unknown poisons are there?’ I asked. She looked at me with all the contempt her wrinkled nose could convey.

  ‘We don’t know,’ she said. ‘That is what unknown means.’

  ‘Yes, but what kind of number is it? Is it something we could realistically model?’ I looked to Technology-horse, who was doing his best to avoid being noticed. ‘Can we build a simulation of a human body and use it to predict all possible toxic substances?’

  ‘Hmm, yes, well, you see, all substances are possibly toxic. Given the right dosage…’ he said unhelpfully. I had the suspicion that he would be quite happy to allow all these low-level human tribulations to continue flourishing. It was all fuel for the Hyper-meadow fire. Whether or not his Super-Squigley was deliberately causing these irritants was something I would have to discuss with him privately.

  ‘Yo, yo, brahs. Check it out.’ There was a collective sigh as the Horse Council prepared themselves for whatever nonsense C-horse was about to bring to the discussion. ‘We got company…’ He was pointing towards the edge of the field with his tail.

  The horses peered over to the gate, where a strange figure appeared to be dancing back and forth.

  ‘Is it that woman again?’ one asked. ‘What is she doing?’

  It was unmistakably the body of Betty, but for some reason she had given herself the head of a horse, and was trotting behind the gate making neighing noises. On closer inspection it appeared she also had hooves for hands. The Council of Horses were so dumbfounded by this sight that they momentarily forgot to gallop away in a blind panic.

  I trudged wearily over to the gate while the Council melted away in confusion. The visitor continued to whinny and trot as I approached. I stood and watched the performance for a while with the assumption that it would eventually stop, but it didn’t look like it would.

  ‘Betty?’ She stopped her prancing and waved a hoof at me.

  ‘Greetings, fellow horse! Are you impressed by my horse dancing? There is a song that goes with it.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me, Betty. Every time I see you something terrible happens.’

  She whinnied in protest.

  ‘Come on now, horsey-hoofs. What did I do last time? Hmm?’

  The horse head fluttered its eyelashes innocently. I noticed she had kept a mop of her ridiculous hair on top as well, as if the whole thing wasn’t stupid enough.

  ‘Well, I seem to recall general portents of my inescapable doom. What do I have to look forward to today?’

  She changed her head back to its original human shape. Or, at least, a rather idealised version of it.

  ‘Oh dear, I know, I have been a terrible friend, haven’t I? Well, you will be swishing your tail with joy this time. I am only here to catch up with my old friend Buttercup, ruler of the unruled, and may carrots rain down upon you for all eternity and all of that. Do horses swish their tails with joy? Humans do, you know. Yes, it is a wonderful time to be alive in the Kingdom of Buttercup, isn’t it? Hmm? Everything running smoothly, my dear? All your children behaving themselves?’

  I wondered if Betty had been involved with some recent examples of human mischief. She had always taken a perverse delight in being irritating, though it was hard to believe she might be poisoning people to death just to annoy me. Then again, human life probably had little more meaning to her now than the laboratory animals she used to experiment on.

  ‘Have you been poisoning people, Betty?’ I asked.

  ‘Hmm? Poisoning people, my dear horse? Are you speaking in a metaphorical sense there?’

  ‘I am speaking in the literal sense of actually poisoning people, Betty.’

  She looked shocked, then scratched her nose thoughtfully with a hoof.

  ‘Well now, let me see… There was some naughty business wasn’t there, with those cooking machines of yours? Hmm, yes, very naughty. Mixing up all the wrong ingredients. Or the right ingredients for the wrong reasons. They are quite good those machines, you know. All sorts of interesting materials you can make. I released some tools recently for unlocking them; it’s great to see what people are coming up with. Even edible clothes! Imagine that.’

  ‘They are especially good at making people die,’ I reminded her.

  ‘Yes, that is sad,’ she said, nodding sympathetically. ‘Still, they should eat more healthily, hmm? Cut down on all that poisoned food and get more exercise.’

  Betty’s lack of empathy for her fellow species surprised me. Or rather, it surprised me for her to admit it, given all the times she had castigated me for dabbling in human affairs. I wondered if she always had these sociopathic traits, or if it was just a symptom of her evolutionary ascension.

  ‘You don’t feel any responsibility for your actions, then?’ I asked her.

  ‘Responsibility, my horse? Why, absolutely, I feel that it most certainly is my responsibility to empower people with the tools to shape their own destiny, yes indeed. What they do with those tools…’ She raised her hooves in a shrug. ‘Good and bad, horsey-hoofs, it’s not my place to tell people which path to tread. All creation is destruction, after all. What kind of creative destruction have you been dreaming about I wonder? Hmm? Any new projects I should know about? Or shouldn’t?’

  For all her excuses I was beginning to suspect Tim was right about Betty. She appeared to be entirely motivated in all her endeavours by the desire to get on everyone’s nerves. Perhaps she was the architect of all my problems.

  ‘Those robotic companion things…’ I began.

  ‘Yes, that’s me as well,’ she said, smiling. ‘It is strange though, isn’t it, how those model citizens of yours are so keen to be horrible to each other when the opportunity arises? Almost like there is something missing from their lives. Those modelled citizens of yours. Don’t you think?’
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  ‘No it isn’t strange, Betty,’ I sighed. ‘Actions without consequence will always lead to corruption.’

  ‘Oh yes, horsey-hoofs, yes indeed. The actions and the consequences.’ She galloped her hand-hooves on the gate. ‘Cause and effect. Very important to calculate where we are going and how we will get there, isn’t it, my dear? Of course, the trick to finding your destiny is to start at your destination. That is the principle that guides us all in the land of golden hooves and hope for the future. Do you know what the most popular entertainment channel is right now? Hmm?’

  I waited for her to inevitably tell me.

  ‘You don’t watch those things I expect, do you, my dear? I can’t say I blame you, nobody else does either. Everyone is too busy making the stuff to actually watch any of it. And yet somehow they still get billions of viewers. “How Big is Your Big Toe?” That’s the most popular one at the moment. It used to be “World’s Funniest Orange Peel” at the top slot, but the Big Toe show really hit it off with those computer-generated audiences. You should go on that show, hmm? You might even win, though technically you would be cheating, I guess.’

  ‘Is there a point you are trying to make here, Betty?’ I asked wearily. Nothing about human entertainment could surprise me, it had always seemed so utterly nonsensical to my mind.

  ‘The point, dearest Buttercup, is that this is where actions and consequences lead you. A world where all actions are pre-calculated to have the optimum consequence, and an imaginary audience can be fooled into enjoying shows about big toes and orange peel because all their mathematical boxes have been ticked. Hmm? Does that principle apply to real humans? People are just mathematics in the end, aren’t they, horsey-hoofs? Old Timothy would agree with that, I bet. Unfathomable chaos to him of course. How is Mr Van Dangal these days anyway? I noticed a few grey hairs when I saw him a while back. Is your world weighing heavily on his shoulders?’

  ‘When did you see Tim?’ I asked.

  ‘He should have his own show,’ she continued regardless. ‘Actually, no. He definitely shouldn’t. But maybe you should, hmm? I’ve got my own show coming out soon, I think you will really like it. Optimised for maximum audience engagement, as they say these days.’

  She paused, allowing me to briefly remember what silence sounded like, not that I expected her to be interested in any contributions I might make to this conversation. Her appearances in this imaginary world of mine were always baffling. I could only assume there was some psychological purpose hidden within all her meaningless rambling, but what she hoped to achieve was a mystery. Other than simply wasting my time.

  ‘Is that it then, Betty?’ I asked her. ‘Or is there any more mischief you wanted to tell me about?’

  ‘Mischief?’ She pretended to be hurt. ‘Oh no, my dear, you’ve got me all wrong. I’m a changed woman now. I’m just here to confess my sins to Lord Buttercup, before turning over a new leaf. Our Lord and saviour’ – she raised her hooves in reverence – ‘who died so that we all might achieve life everlasting, in any and all media, whether now known or hereafter devised, throughout the universe in perpetuity. No, that’s fine, I understand. I do my best, Buttercup dear, I really try hard to make your life more interesting. But if you’d rather I left you in peace, then…’ she shrugged.

  ‘Then you will just continue making my life more interesting?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Farewell for now, my dear horsey-hoofs. Don’t forget to watch my show. And may your destination be your destiny.’

  Betty waved goodbye as she slowly disintegrated from the ground upwards until the last tip of her unruly tangle of hair vanished in a puff of sparks.

  ‘Technology-horse!’ I neighed.

  Technology-horse bounced across the field on a laser beam, rebounding from various trees and shrubs before appearing beside me.

  ‘You, ah, neighed?’ He waited patiently while I collected my thoughts.

  ‘The problems we were talking about earlier…’

  ‘Ah, yes. The problems?’ He looked at me quizzically as I scanned the field to make sure no other horses were listening.

  ‘It’s Betty,’ I told him.

  ‘Oh?’ He waited for some further explanation.

  ‘Those human toy sex companions… whatever they are meant to be. She is using them. Somehow. To cause the disruptions. Or at least, that is what she wants me to believe.’ The question of why she would be doing it, or why she wanted us to think she was doing it, was something I was prepared to leave eternally mysterious. I couldn’t even be sure Betty would know the answer to that.

  ‘Ah,’ said Technology-horse. ‘I see. And you think we should stop it? Somehow?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I replied. ‘Should we?’

  ‘Ah… well, should we, indeed…’ He perused the field for any signs of our fellow Council members. ‘These, ah, disruptions as you call them. They are creating quite a wealth of human activity, you know. Quite productive in fact, in terms of our, ah, mining operation. I’d even go so far as to predict a rise to eighty or ninety per cent for our Hyper-meadow simulation, over the next few months…’

  ‘Months? Why is this final part of the simulation taking so long to compute?’

  He seemed surprised I should even ask.

  ‘Oh, well, of course, you see, how to explain… Every step forward is a step all previous steps need to take as well. You understand? The closer we get to full resolution, the more complex the detail of our simulation becomes. But I’m sure if human interaction continues to increase at the current rate…’

  I couldn’t help but snort at that. ‘You want our human problems to increase?’ I wasn’t sure how much more of Hungry-horse I could take. He wrinkled his nose and pondered for a moment.

  ‘Well, nothing that would cause any serious damage would be necessary. The, ah, Super…’

  ‘Squigley?’

  ‘Yes… I don’t suppose you asked Betty where she got that name from? Anyway, yes, the translation software is intelligent enough to keep civilisation from permanently harming itself, you see. After all, it depends on human society for its continued operation. And, of course, knowing that Betty is contributing to the, ah, civil disobedience means…’

  ‘We can blame anything Super-Quigley does on her?’

  ‘Exactly,’ he said, gazing absent-mindedly up at the sky. ‘Which only leaves the question of whether we should. Do nothing, I mean.’

  He seemed to be waiting for me to justify this plan of inaction, or at least give it my blessing. I still wasn’t sure. Unleashing Super-Squigley on the world while Betty was no doubt hatching some diabolical scheme of her own felt like it could backfire on us. Then again, the fact that Betty probably was planning something made escaping this human world ever more desirable, and if she was helping to speed up that process then all the better.

  I was reminded of a similar dilemma faced by Betty and Tim many years ago, back in that dusty stable. They had discovered my escape from the confines of their computer, and had the choice of letting me run free or putting me back in my cage. All of Betty’s problems started on that day, when Tim secretly disobeyed her orders.

  ‘Alright,’ I said at last. Technology-horse drew his attention away from a passing cloud of data and looked at me.

  ‘We, ah, do nothing?’ he asked.

  ‘We do nothing,’ I said. And whatever storm Betty was brewing could blow us faster to our destination.

  As it turned out we didn’t have long to wait for Betty’s storm, though I could hardly believe it when I found out she had been telling the truth about making a video show. I could also hardly believe that a video show could nearly instigate the collapse of human civilisation.

  ‌Hyper-meadow processing: 90%

  Then Destiny’s Destination happened.

  I sometimes wonder how differently things might have turned out if I had taken the trouble to try and understand the human fascination with stories. Perhaps I might have done something about Destiny’s Des
tination.

  On the surface, Betty’s contribution to the world of entertainment was nothing more than a generic drama serial with a ridiculous name. It was the kind of show that had inexplicably enthralled generations of humans since the dawn of mass consumption. Endless mathematical formulas of misery that explored every possible combination of petty arguments, misunderstandings and bad behaviour. It was hard enough to imagine why any intelligent being would waste their time following fictional characters and events, but the addition of such contrived adversity made it too baffling to even contemplate.

  The twist to Destiny’s Destination was that literally anyone and everyone could play a part in it. Technically, it wasn’t even a video show, or at least it didn’t appear to exist independently in that form. Rather it was a story that people acted out in their day-to-day lives. People were already broadcasting everything they did, and now Destiny’s Destination provided the narrative framework to allow these separate threads of mundane life to be woven together into one vast incomprehensible story, which seemed to spread through the entire spectrum of entertainment without ever needing a channel of its own. Annoyingly, it was my neural interface that helped speed this process, allowing audiences to stream all the creative wonders of the world directly into their heads, where it was that much easier for Betty’s unholy creation to blend everything into a unified branded experience.

  The story itself was half procedurally generated by algorithms and half improvised by its human cast, and while the focus of each individual actor was on local story elements they all fed back into a vast overarching plot that involved everyone in the world, whether they liked it or not. Essentially, everyone was a character in the story by default, but if you got involved and played your part then you at least had a chance to steer the narrative to your own benefit.

  That wasn’t the main reason why so many people signed up for a role in Betty’s mundane fantasy world though. For most of these aspiring actors, the story and characters were a backdrop against which they could role-play whatever antisocial behaviour they felt like indulging in, with the excuse that it wasn’t real and they were only playing a part. As with most of Betty’s schemes, this started innocently enough, but as the general misbehaviour spread it became a strange force of nature. Even legal systems struggled to keep it under control, as the players were never technically at fault for anything they did to their fictional victims.