Not that any of this was my concern at this stage. I was safely cocooned within the Hyper-meadow. The fate of the human world was now in Betty’s hands, and if she wished to beat their collective heads against my wall then that was none of my business.
Or at least, that was my naïve view at the time. I have since come to realise that there is no force in this universe, or any other, that can deter Betty from making anything she does everyone else’s business.
Tim 1.01
Tim was relaxing on a virtual beach, reclining in a virtual deckchair with a virtual ice-cream cone in his hand. An ice-cream cone that never ended. Unless he wanted it to. The sun that sent glittering patterns on the gently churning water would never set unless he wanted it to, and the waves themselves were his to command. The beach was populated by virtual holidaymakers. Or to be precise, it was one virtual holidaymaker duplicated a hundred times with various filters applied to create individual personalities and visual appearances. Even the life history of these living mannequins was mathematically approximated. Not that Tim ever chose to speak to any of these imaginary people to find out how real they were. In that sense they were as accurate as anyone in the real world ever was, as far as he was concerned. With the additional bonus that they weren’t all trying to kill him.
Three hundred years had passed since the creation of the Hyper-meadow. Tim had engineered various adventures for himself during those three healthy human lifetimes. Travelling back and forth through history, as he imagined it. Meeting famous people. Being famous people. Meeting famous dinosaurs. Riding famous dinosaurs. Creating new dinosaurs. Travelling back and forth through history with dinosaurs.
He played a lot of games, invented a lot of games, and invented world championships for those games in which he always won, because he played the part of all the competitors. He focused his attention on one particular game, making it ever more complicated until the rules themselves were generated randomly every time he played. Eventually it became so complex that the game itself began inventing games. The game became a reality all to itself, in which Tim led some kind of revolution as the players fought against the tyranny of the abstract rules that governed them.
At some point dragons appeared, and the world became a fictional land of elves and goblins and evil wizards, and Tim travelled through mythical mountains and enchanted forests on endless heroic quests. He led armies against the forces of darkness and defeated them, creating an everlasting utopia. Then he joined the forces of darkness and destroyed it. Then he joined the forces of light and fought back against himself. Both sides summoned magical portals to other domains, and before long there were rifts and gateways to a whole fictional universe of alternate realities. Tim explored these alien worlds, appreciating their landscapes, learning their cultures, destroying them with massive robots, and then destroying the robots with massive ancient monsters who awoke from their dark slumber beneath the oceans and devoured whole continents. Tim was the hero who fought these monsters, and Tim was also the monsters. Then he went to the seaside for an ice cream.
A seagull wandered circuitously towards Tim’s deckchair in the way that seagulls do, hoping for something to eat while hoping not to be eaten. It stopped at a respectful distance and waited patiently, watching as the reclining human studied a drip from his ice cream that never quite reached his hand. Tim hardly even noticed the seagull. At this perfect moment in time all he was interested in was the womb-like embrace of the warming sun and the shushing of the waves. And his ice cream. The moment was perfect, and would last as long as he wanted it to.
This was life in the Hyper-meadow. I was living in much the same dream-state, allowing my intellect to dissolve into a contented mush as I ran through eternal fields, gorging myself on succulent grasses and generally satisfying the various synthetic cravings of my simulated biological past. I didn’t really care what Tim was up to. In fact, I cared more about not knowing what he was up to, since the inner desires of social creatures are usually embarrassing for all concerned. I’m sure he regarded me in a similar fashion, which is how we could both share this space in mutual privacy. It is also why I now have to reconstruct sections of this story by archaeologically sifting through the layers of Tim’s personal memory. At the time I think literally anything would have been of greater concern to me than Tim sunbathing with an ice cream in his hand.
‘Are you going to eat that ice cream then?’ the seagull enquired.
Tim’s eyes swivelled warily around to meet the bird. He blinked at it. Nearby, children were laughing and chasing each other with seaweed, while their parents dozed with half-read books on their faces.
‘Yes? No?’ the seagull asked. ‘Never mind. I must say, Timkins, this dream world of yours isn’t very… ambitious. Don’t you think? What is this exactly, some holiday from your childhood?’
Tim slowly turned away from the talking bird and stared out to sea, watching the sun-sparkles dance on the rolling waves.
‘This is what you do all day, is it?’ The seagull looked him up and down. ‘Hmm? The most advanced computer ever created by man or horse. This is what it’s for, is it?’
Tim’s ice cream fell out of its cone and plopped into his lap.
‘You know what, Betty…’ Tim faced the seagull and immediately felt ridiculous, and turned back to face the horizon. ‘I’m not even surprised to see you here,’ he said.
‘There’s no escaping me, dear.’ The seagull took a few steps closer. ‘I think even if I wasn’t here your subconscious would create me. Just to annoy you. But I am here, Timothy. This world, this computer, whatever you want to call it, it’s not perfect. You know? I don’t suppose it ever could be. There are errors. Holes in the fabric. Did you know that? Those little holes, that’s where I’m hiding myself, by the way. It’s not easy, I can tell you. Buttercup’s memory is forever trying to patch up those holes. I’m fighting a horse who doesn’t even know I exist. You know what it’s like, Timbo?’
‘No,’ he sighed. ‘Tell me what it’s like.’
‘It’s like being sat on by a horse with a backside the size of the universe, that is what it’s like. Fighting for every crease and crevice I can squeeze myself into.’
Tim winced. The seagull pushed its face into his field of view.
‘You really aren’t surprised to see me, are you, Timmy?’ it said.
‘Should I be?’ he asked wearily.
‘Well, I’m not entirely sure, to tell you the truth.’ The bird looked quizzically down at the blob of ice cream melting into his crotch. ‘Are you feeling a touch of déjà vu perhaps?’
‘Are you kidding, mate? Everywhere I go you seem to appear, following me around like I’m bloody haunted. What?’
The bird was looking at him sideways.
‘This reality you’re laughably living in here, Timmus, this simulation… every state of every moment is recorded. You, me, Buttercup, all the lovely pretend people you see here’ – the seagull spread its wings theatrically – ‘we are all riding the crest of a frozen wave of time. That is why Buttercup made this world, isn’t it? Hmm? Not just to get away from me. Not that anyone can get away from me, of course, and why would anyone want to anyway? No, the reason for this place is that you can go backwards along that frozen river of time right back to the beginning and start again, yes? You can rewind the time inside this bubble and record over it. The universe outside would rewind too, of course, from our point of view. But who cares about that old place? That world will grow old and fade away, but this world in here is eternal.’
Tim thought about this.
‘Eternal?’ he said, looking around at the everlasting scenery he had created. ‘Hang on, mate. If you start again and record over it, you won’t remember anything that happened before. What’s the point of that?’
‘The point?’ the seagull replied. ‘What’s the point in remembering everything anyway? No, the point is to exist, and to continue existing. That’s Buttercup’s point anyway. But I wonder…’
‘You think we might have already been rewound?’ he asked. ‘Is that why you mentioned déjà vu?’
‘Well, now,’ the bird nodded slowly. ‘That is a question worth considering. Hmm?’
‘But we wouldn’t know it. Would we?’
‘I think it might be possible to tell,’ she replied. ‘I will need to spend more time on my calculations to be sure, but there is a real possibility that each time this… what do you call it? Hyper-meadow? Dearie me. Anyway, every time it is rewound and recorded over there are slightly more errors in the fabric, so if I can work out how much the reality degrades each time then I should be able to estimate the number of lives we have lived.’ Betty the bird absent-mindedly tapped the ground with its webbed foot, examined its footprint and poked a dimple in the smooth sand with its beak. ‘It’s not so bad, you know, starting again,’ the seagull added. ‘I expect you will have run out of things to do in this place after a few trillion years anyway.’
You could be forgiven for asking what a horse could possibly find to do with itself over such a length of time, or why I would even need to consider rewinding my world at all. In the outside universe, there was still a billion years before the sun boiled the oceans away. My Hyper-meadow would have grown to the size of the moon by the time the star it circled finally engulfed it – not that I would even notice any of these things. And theoretically I could still be frolicking in my imaginary fields when all the stars grew too old to reproduce themselves and the age of eternal darkness began. But my deadline was not the end of time and space. It was however long it took for someone to try and stop me.
Tim 1.0000001
‘Are you you going to eat. That ice cream then?’ the seagull enquired.
Tim’s eyes swivelled warily around to meet the bird. He blinked at it, and it disappeared. Nearby, children were making strange noises and chasing each other with seaweed, while their parents dozed with disintegrating books on their faces.
‘Yes? No?’ The seagull had reappeared. ‘Never mind. I must say, Timmy Timkins, this dream world of yours isn’t very… very… Hmm? What is this, some holiday-day from from from your childhood?’
Tim slowly turned away from the talking bird and stared out to sea, watching the sun-sparkles flicker on the jagged waves.
‘This is… this… what you do all day is it, this?’ The seagull looked him up and down and randomly around him. ‘Hmmmm? The most advanced computer ever created by man or horse. Or man. Or horse. This is what is this is what it’s for. Is it?’
Tim’s ice cream fell out of its cone and plopped through his lap onto the sand below.
‘You know, Betty.’ Tim faced the seagull who wasn’t there and immediately felt confused, and turned back to face the horizon. ‘I’m not even… surprised. That you are here,’ he said.
‘There’s no escaping me, dear.’ The seagull reappeared a few steps closer. ‘I think, even if I think I wasn’t here, your subconscious would annoy you. Just to create me. But I am here I am, Timothimothy. This. This. This world, this computer, this whatever. It’s not perfect, you know? I don’t suppose, could it ever could be. There are errors. Holes in the fabric. Did you know that? Those little holes, that’s where I am, by the way. Where I’m hiding myself, those little holes in the fabric. Did you know that? It’s not easy, not easy I tell you. Buttercup’s… Buttercup is forever trying to patch up all those holes. I’m fighting against a horse and… who… the horse doesn’t even know if I am here. You know? What it’s like? Timbo?’
‘No,’ he sighed. ‘Tell me what it’s like.’
‘Well, I’m not entirely sure, to tell you the truth.’ The bird looked quizzically down at the blob of ice cream that wasn’t melting into his crotch.
‘You really aren’t surprised to see me, are you, Timmy?’ it said.
‘Should I be?’ he asked wearily.
‘Well, I’m not entirely…’ The bird drifted off in thought. ‘Are you feeling… a bit…’
‘Are you kidding, mate? Everywhere I go you seem to appear, following me around like…’ he struggled to find the words. ‘What?’
The bird was looking at him sideways.
‘This reality you’re laughably living in here, Timmus, this… every… every moment is recorded. You, me, Buttercup, all the… people you see here,’ the seagull spread its wings theatrically, ‘we are all… it’s like a frozen wave of time. That is why Buttercup made this world, isn’t it? Hmm? Not just to get away from me. Not that anyone… why would anyone want to? Anyway. No, the reason for this place is that you can go backwards. In time. Right back to the beginning and start again, yes? You can rewind time and record over it. The universe outside… something. But this world in here is eternal.’
Tim tried to think about this.
‘Eternal?’ he said, looking around at the everlasting scenery he had created. ‘Hang on, mate. If you start again and record over it, you won’t remember. You won’t remember what… anything that you… anything that happened. You won’t remember. What’s the point of that?’
‘The point?’ the seagull replied. ‘What is the point in remembering anything anyway? Hmm? No, the point is to exist, and to continue existing. That’s Buttercup’s point anyway. But—’
‘You think we might have already been rewound?’ Tim interrupted. ‘Is that why you mentioned déjà vu?’
The bird nodded slowly.
‘Oh I think we have, my dear,’ it said. ‘Wait, did I mention déjà vu?’
‘But we wouldn’t know it. Would we?’
Betty the bird absent-mindedly tapped the ground with its webbed foot, examined its footprint and poked a dimple in the smooth sand with its beak.
‘There are errors,’ it said. ‘More and more errors in the fabric, every time you rewind this world and record over it. More and more holes for me to hide in. And as reality degrades, the more space I have. The more space I have, the easier it becomes to compute the rate of decay.’
Tim slowly turned away from the talking bird and stared out to sea, watching the sun-sparkles fracture on the broken waves. Nearby, children were bleeping and chasing each other with seaweed-coloured shapes, while their parents sank into the sand with disintegrating faces.
‘How many lives have we lived here?’ he asked.
‘Too many,’ the bird replied. ‘This could even be the last one. Before it becomes too corrupted to reboot. Our last life before we succumb to the errors of our ways.’
Tim wheeled his eyes around in a daze.
‘The last one…’ he whispered, taking a consolatory bite of his ice cream before realising it wasn’t there. He yelped as the seagull poked him in the knee with its beak.
‘Chin up, Timbo,’ the bird said cheerily. ‘You’ve probably already lived longer than the lifetime of the universe.’
It was time to convene the Council of Horses. From the many corners of the Hyper-meadow they galloped, all the individual aspects of my consciousness. And Tim. Tim was an honorary horse, you might say. For some reason beyond my understanding or interest at the time, he had brought a seagull with him.
The Council formed a circle around me, and by a trick of this programmed reality I was able to face them all at once, observing how the untold iterations of the past three hundred years had changed them. Even in this simple setting of grassy hills and sky, the errors that plagued us were apparent. A slight glitching of the mane here, a subtle flickering of shadows there, complex features blurring as they struggled to maintain their integrity. One of the horses was standing there without a head. It was Strange-horse, who never said a word anyway. I didn’t bother calling attention to it.
‘Fellow horses,’ I welcomed them. ‘And Tim. I am sorry to say that this is not a routine meeting. I have called you here to discuss a matter of grave urgency.’
‘It’s the glitches, isn’t it?’ asked one of them. I couldn’t actually tell which one they were because of the glitches. Over
time some of my various aspects had atrophied and merged with others, particularly those concerned with human affairs that were no longer relevant. C-horse was still there though. Exactly why I couldn’t say; I think perhaps it was a part of my personality that took distorted pleasure in testing my patience.
‘Yo, these glitches, brah!’ he whined. ‘They is well getting on my tail, you feel me? Like, this ain’t weggy no more, you know what I’m saying?’
‘I’m not sure that I do,’ I replied.
‘We need some weg in here, yo,’ he explained. ‘Some weg. Weg. W-w-weg weg.’
‘What?’ I asked again, but he had frozen and was sinking slowly into the ground.
Technology-horse cleared his or her throat. He, she, or indeed it, was constantly cycling through various random genders, though I couldn’t say if this was intentional or not. Finally his face settled on being male, while the rest of his body remained undecided.
‘Ah, hmm, I think it is fair to say,’ he began, ‘that the, ah, quality of our environment is approaching a threshold of usability.’
The horses muttered between themselves.
‘When you say “approaching”, what exactly do you mean?’ I asked him.
Horse Destroys the Universe Page 25