Needless to say, changing everything about how the afterlife simulation
works by going back in time and rescuing the exceptions isn’t actually my
first act as keeper. A lot that happens in this place is automated, and
these people are pretty self-sufficient, but they don’t do everything. The
job demands I spend a pretty significant amount of time managing the higher
level residents. They ask a lot of the program, and while it’s not my
responsibility to approve—or even acknowledge—every alteration to the code,
I do have to make sure it doesn’t get too crazy. Technically, the Level Tens
are Unrestricted, and can do whatever they want, but not all of them can be
trusted. Back on Earth, there is and was a group of special choosing ones
called the Springfield Nine. Or maybe they’re chosen ones; the truth is
unclear. A man by the name of Rothko Ladhiffe was dangerous when he was
alive, and he’s dangerous now. He wields far too much power than he
deserves, and he’s constantly trying to tear down the establishment. The
problem is that he’s capable of realizing his dreams, so I have to combat
him at every turn. I’m apparently not allowed to demote him, but I’m
seriously considering breaking that rule. They’re my rules now, and though
I’ve not changed anything yet, I reserve that right.
The residents accept me as their new leader with no fuss. They’re not
particularly ecstatic about it either. I kind of thought they would become
joyful—and maybe even start singing—as people did when Dorothy killed the
two witches. They don’t seem to be giving it much thought. Like I said, the
place pretty much runs itself. As far as I know, it’s the longest-running
civilization in history, outlasting all others by an order of magnitude. So
it’s no surprise they have it fairly well figured out.
The code automatically has me wearing rainbow-colored clothes. I can change
the design and accessories all I want, but I can’t wear fewer than six
colors at a time. People want to know who you are, and what you can do. It’s
as much for safety as it is for status. Many avoid interacting too much with
anyone they see wearing violet, since the Unrestricteds are the only ones
capable of killing someone permanently. They don’t want to piss them off,
and any experience can take a turn, even if it starts out innocuous or
pleasant. For this reason, the Violets are powerful, but generally alone,
which probably diminishes the fun of being a Violet in the first place.
Lowell is the only one wearing white, as he is the only person who was
resurrected, but has since returned, except for me. Unlike their regard for
me, which lacks excitement, they are in such awe of him. They treat him like
a king, who can help them, and change their lot in life. He could give them
anything. He could upgrade them. Of course Unrestricted people could help
them too, but people assume Lowell is better at it. Nothing could be further
from the truth. Manipulating the code doesn’t require an advanced computer
science degree, but it does demand a level of understanding of how computers
work. As a nomadic serial killer in life, who chose his victims by literally
looking at them, he never needed a computer. He only ever had a flip phone,
and in fact, never figured out how to turn it off. He could never keep track
of the charger either, so whenever one died, he would just take another one
out of his trunk. They were all burners, so he bought them in bulk, and only
used them to order delivery.
Today, he tried to upgrade someone from Yellow to Green, so she could have
her own place to live, but he accidentally downgraded her to Orange. It’s
taken an executive order from me to get her out of Hock. “Again, please
accept my deepest apologies for what you’ve endured.”
“It’s fine,” the victim, Paisley assures me.
“Still, in recompense for your troubles, please allow me to convert you to
Level Seven, Elite. I promise you, nothing will go wrong this time. Since
I’m new here, I’ll conscript an Unrestricted to do it for me, just to make
sure it works.”
“No, really,” Paisley continues. “I can just go back to Limited. It’s fine.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” I say. “It would reflect too poorly on me. I
have to do something to remedy this error, so people don’t lose faith in
me.”
She smiles kindly. “Okay.”
I look over my shoulder. “Gilbert.”
“Yes, madam, I’m ready.” Gilbert Boyce was a spawn before death, which means
he wasn’t born with time powers, but was accidentally transformed by his
enemy when that enemy tried to kill him the first time. That moment was so
powerful that it actually rewrote Gilbert’s neurology, and turned him into
the rarest kind of temporal manipulator. Pryce felt this entitled Gilbert to
be an Unrestricted without earning it. The irony is that Gilbert used his
power to operate against Pryce by coding a special section of the simulation
where Pryce couldn’t detect him. My friends and I used this to formulate our
escape plan. Well, they mostly used it. It was my job at the time to stay in
the main simulation so I could spoof their respective individual codes, and
prevent Pryce from getting suspicious.
“As you wish,” Paisley says respectfully.
Gilbert approaches her, and opens up the virtual toolbox. From there, he
simply has to move a slider up or down. He could send her down to Black if
he wanted, or even all the way up to his own level. He can’t resurrect her,
which is one of the few restrictions that people like him have. He’s only
supposed to make her Pink, but instead makes her Level Nine, World-Builder,
which is only one level below him. “Whoopsie-doodles,” he says before
closing the toolbox, and stepping back. “That can’t be undone.”
Paisley’s clothes turn from orange to gray.
“Yes, it can,” I contend.
“Oh, it can?” He asks, pretending not to know. “Hmm...weird.” He looks over
into the aether. “What was that? Yes, I’ll be there right away. Sorry, gotta
go. Sorry for my mistake.” He teleports away.
It was absolutely not a mistake, but I feel like it would be even shittier
for me to downgrade her yet again, even though Elite is a perfectly
acceptable level. Plenty of people here have been living as Elites for
thousands of years with no complaints. Not everyone wants to alter the code,
and build their own things. I’m not sure whether Paisley is one of these
people, or if she’s more like Gilbert, who enjoys having the control.
Paisley looks nervous. “Okay, go ahead, put me right.”
“No,” I determine. “This is what’s happened, and this is how we’ll keep it.
You are a world-builder now. I pull up a fake holographic tablet. “Here are
the directions to Siva University, where experts will teach you how to code
new simulations.”
“I don’t know if I want this.”
“Yes you do.” Lowell steps forward. “I’m good at reading people. You’re
thrilled. It’s okay, you don’t have to feel bad about your ambition. I
screwed up, and this is for your pain and suffering. Now, go to school so
you can do something good with it.”
“Okay,” Paisley says. “Thank you.” She teleports away.
Lowell chuckles. “I can’t wait.”
“For what? To see what worlds she designs?”
“No, for the consequences. When people find out they can be upgraded just
for being wrongfully downgraded, they’re gonna start looking for ways to be
wrongfully downgraded.”
“Oh shit, I didn’t think of that.” I release a virtual sigh, and massage my
virtual forehead. “Call a meeting. Mandatory. I need to speak with all the
Unrestricteds. We have to make sure this doesn’t get out of control.”
“Let’s set up the meeting for later today,” Lowell counters. “There’s
someone you should speak to first. I think you know who.”
Yes, I do.
I walk into the prison alone. The guards nod cordially as I pass through the
barriers like they aren’t even there. I don’t even have to ask for
visitation, because they know who I’m here to see. I just walk into the
room, and find him waiting there with his personal security detail. “Here so
soon?” he asks. “You must be desperate.”
“I just need some advice,” I tell him. “Nothing’s wrong yet, but I’m
worried.”
“What have you done?”
“First, how are you doing?”
Pryce leans his head back, but not the rest of his body. “Well, it’s a whole
lot less fun in here. Boring, I would say. I’m surviving, though.”
“I can give you pain patches,” I promise, “if you would just accept them.”
“You could also just turn on the violence inhibitors,” he argues.
“I can’t make too many changes too fast. You know this. It would cause
psychological problems, even if the changes are objectively superior.”
“I like the pain,” he says. “And I kind of like being in here. Ya know, I
spent decades in a real prison before I became the foremost expert in mind
transference. It feels a little like home.”
I look over at his guard. Like Gilbert, Nerakali Preston was also a time
traveler who was immediately assigned Unrestricted privileges upon her
death. Her road to redemption was a long one, and she’s improved so much
that she wants to complete some penance to make up for some of the things
that she did while she was alive. This is her way of accomplishing that. She
shares the cell with Pryce, and can’t leave unless she asks to be released
permanently. Until then, she does wear pain patches so she can’t be harmed,
and she keeps a close eye on Pryce for me. He’s obviously here for a reason,
and I need to know what that reason is before it’s too late. “Report.”
“He doesn’t need pain patches either way,” she explains. “Nobody would dare
hurt him. They think this is just some kind of publicity stunt, and that he
can walk out of here just as easily as you walked in. They call him Hancock
now, like that superhero-angel movie where the titular character does the
same thing.”
“Is this true?” I ask him. “Are you Hancocking us?”
“As I recall, he didn’t get out until they let him out. But regardless, no.”
He snaps the chest of his shirt. “These are real.” He pounds his fist on the
table twice, demonstratively, and not violently. “And I can’t walk through
walls.”
I don’t entirely believe him, but I move on. “Did you hear about the woman
who was accidentally oranged?”
“Yeah, I saw her. She was only in here for, like, an hour.”
“It was thirty minutes at most,” I correct. “Anyway, I obviously had to fix
it, so I called in a favor.”
“Lemme guess...Gilbert Boyce.”
He’s too smart. He’s literally too smart, I wish he were dumber. “Yes. He
slid her all the way up to World-Builder.”
“And you’re worried that this is gonna start some trend, where people will
find ways to game the system.” Yeah, way too smart.
“Yes, I’m meeting with the Unrestricted people to warn and prepare them for
it.”
“Yeah, don’t do that.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“People don’t like to be told what to do, especially people with the power
to reject the advice. You’re only gonna remind them just how powerful they
are. The entire population is in the hands of a few hundred people. A few
hundred people that you can’t control. Do you really want to talk to them
about their power? Most are content just making goats that walk upside down
midair, and undenary star systems. Don’t be putting ideas in their heads.
When Alexander the Great reached Level Ten 700 years ago, I made an
off-handed comment about how he could once more destroy civilizations.
Asshole went to war, and took down four simulations before MacBeth managed
to kill him with Alexander’s own zeroblade. That wasn’t even the worst thing
that an Unrestricted has done.”
“What would you do? What would you do with another Alexander the Great if
you didn’t have another MacBeth?”
Pryce narrows his eyes. “I told MacBeth how to steal the zeroblade. I had
Alexander killed, to protect everyone else from him...and I had someone else
do it to protect the system from the inevitable chaos that would result from
me doing it myself.”
What he said before was right. Rules are necessary, even when they seem
cruel or wrong. I don’t think I misjudged his character, but I’m already
starting to see the reasoning behind some of his decisions. The crown is on
my head now...and it’s heavy. Maybe I shouldn’t go back in time and save the
exceptions. Maybe the consequences are worse than I can fathom now. “I’ve
already called the meeting. It would be more suspicious if I cancelled it
now.”
Pryce shrugs. “Hold the meeting then. Just say you wanted to acknowledge
their status, and assure them that nothing will change. Or promise that the
only changes will be better, I guess, I dunno. You can let them ask
questions, but steer the conversation away from the incident, if you can. Be
careful, though. Some of them are real smart.”
“Are you helping me?” I don’t ask him why are you helping me?, because I
don’t know if that’s the case. What I do know is that he’s up to something.”
“I am,” Pryce says. “I want this place to succeed. I want you to succeed. I
also want to be part of it, and if that means I have to spend a few
centuries in here, I think it’s worth it.”
I leave him to be happy with being in prison, and head towards a special
simulation that was designed specifically for Level Tens. No one else can
access it, and it’s a cleanroom, where they can’t make alterations to the
code. I stop at the entrance, and check my watch. There’s still time, which
I should be using to come up with a good opening speech. No, instead of
coming up with my own speech, how about I just have Abraham Lincoln write it
for me?
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