| Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3 |
Everyone was home now, and they were having a meeting. Even Boyd was here,
because while he felt like a separate unit, it also seemed like he was
somehow part of this. He and Romana exchanged awkward glances, which were
annoying to Mateo, but he didn’t want to overshadow the purpose of this
gathering. Marie had the floor right now, because she studied this in school
in multiple classes. “Simulation hypothesis,” she began. “It’s a modern
flavor of one of the oldest philosophical conundrums in history. Since the
dawn of man, we have been asking ourselves what reality is. Is it subjective
or objective? Do we all share the same reality? Are you real, or just a
figment of my imagination? I think, therefore I am, so I know that I’m real
in some sense, but I can’t say the same thing about you. Or this couch. Or
anything in the world. Maybe I’m dreaming...remembering. Or maybe we
are all real, but everything else is some kind of construct. What
we’re concerned with today is specifically whether we are in a computer
simulation, and it’s not necessarily full sim hypothesis. Perhaps, it’s all
about us. Everyone in this room feels connected. Olimpia, you don’t remember
applying for the role of Mateo’s assistant, you just know that you did.”
“I...I must have,” Olimpia decided.
“Must you have?” Marie asked rhetorically. “We all have weird
memories, and we all look at each other with this familiarity that shouldn’t
be there. Mister Maestri, you and I only met today, yet I feel like I’ve
known you for a while.”
“Is that a good thing?” Boyd asked.
She cocked her head to the side, and regarded him. “No. I don’t like you.
Anyone else feel the same way?”
People grimaced, or they looked away. Everyone was uncomfortable.
“Well, I feel like I like all of you,” Boyd defended. He crossed his arms,
and started to pout. “But whatever.”
“Yeah, and...I get that,” Marie went on. “You don’t feel the same way about
us that we feel about you. But...those kinds of feelings should come from
history, not first impressions. I don’t know anything about you. That’s why
I think that it’s not really simulation hypothesis. That’s why I
think...we’re stuck in a virtual environment. Just us, and everyone else is
an NPC.”
“NPC?” Romana questioned.
“Non-player character,” Leona answered. “Just a program, coded to act like
an independent entity, but ultimately only an extension of the system.”
“We’re all part of the system,” Ramses argued. “If we are in a virtual
reality, and our minds have been messed with, it means that we can’t even
trust our own thoughts. I may not have a choice in saying what I’m saying
right now. The programmers could be feeding this into the program, and
forcing me to say it. While Marie is right, we all feel real, and we
feel like everyone else here is real, in contrast to everyone else, we’re
just as vulnerable to the code. We’re just as hopeless.”
Marie was loudly quiet.
“Marie?” Angela prompted.
She looked at her sister with a smile. “It’s true, what he says. That’s why
I studied these concepts in my philosophy courses, not computer science.
It’s unverifiable. Any evidence we find one way or another could merely be
what the overlord wants us to see. I use that word, because maybe
it’s not computer programmers. Maybe it’s an evil demon. Maybe it’s God.”
She chuckled. “Maybe it’s me.”
“So, what do we do?” Boyd asked, trying to be involved, and maybe get on
people’s good side. “Is there anything we can try?”
“We can certainly try,” Marie encouraged. “You can always try.” She took a
breath. “Simulations are expensive, there’s no way around that. Coding an
entire reality is a lot of work. Even if you ask an AI to do it, you’re just
shifting that work to the AI. It still has to get done, and it’s not really
easier for that AI, it’s just theoretically better equipped to handle
the workload.” She carefully pulled a red hair from the arm of her chair.
Leona’s. “I can put this under a microscope, and see all the fine details. I
can put it under a stronger microscope, and see even finer details. I
can put it under the strongest microscope in existence, and resolve atoms.
Can you imagine how much work it would take to program a simulation so
detailed that it can be broken down into all the atoms in the universe? Some
theories say that that’s not really what’s happening. The simulation renders
basic visible objects most of the time, and only generates smaller bits when
they become necessary. If I were to actually procure that transmission
electron microscope, only then would the program say,
okay, let’s code a few billion atoms. Well, perhaps there’s something
there. If we want to test the boundaries, we could start pulling random
things, breaking them down, and testing how detailed they look. If we do it
fast enough, maybe the servers that the construct is running on don’t have
enough bandwidth to keep up, and we’ll start seeing low-res results.”
“Should we be talking about this out loud?” Romana asked. “Could someone be
listening right now?”
Ramses laughed. “If they are, it doesn’t matter what we do. Again, we’re
helpless.”
“You said hopeless before,” Olimpia reminded him.
“It’s both,” Ramses agreed.
“All we can do is try,” Leona said. “We might as well run whatever tests we
can think of.”
“Sis, what were you talking about last night?” Angela asked.
“Geo—geometric—”
“Geometry instancing,” Marie helped. “That’s another thing; related.” She
gently kicked the end table. “When you went to the store to buy this, you
might have seen multiple copies of the same model. In the real world, you
would have to manufacture each one separately. You might use machines—I
doubt it’s handcrafted—but you can’t just copy and paste like you can data
in a computer. But if we’re in a computer, then you can! So all the
other end tables that are just like this one were probably only coded once,
and literally re-rendered whenever it was necessary. Because, why
wouldn’t you do it like that? Why bother wasting your time writing
the same code over and over again? Even if two things aren’t exactly alike,
but very closely similar, copying and pasting will help you get the work
done faster before you tweak the modifications. Imagine doing this with the
houses on this block, or the trees.”
“Or blades of grass,” Romana offered.
“Yeah, grass is perfect,” Marie confirmed. “People don’t pay attention to
grass. It all just looks the same. A programmer, trying to save time and
resources, might only come up with a dozen or so grass blade models, and
just reuse them repeatedly. That’s how I would do it.”
Mateo had been very quiet throughout this whole thing. It wasn’t only that
he was listening, but if they were truly at risk of being overheard—by a
simulation developer, or a scientist with a bunch of vats full of
brains—then someone should be staying quiet, and not give anything
away. If they could read his mind, it wouldn’t matter, but on the off-chance
that the overlords were limited to audible speech, he was gonna play it
close to the chest. He looked over at Leona now. She turned to meet his
gaze. Still, he didn’t say anything. He just stared at her. He didn’t know
what he was trying to tell her, just...maybe only that he couldn’t
tell her anything. She would have to come to her own conclusions, and
do it totally with his help.
Leona’s eyes suddenly widened. “Marie, Angela, go get a microscope. Start
breaking things down. Olimpia and Boyd, you’re with me. We’re gonna touch
grass.”
“What about me?” Romana asked.
“You have a final exam to study for,” Leona reminded her daughter.
“If we’re in a computer simulation, then I don’t,” Romana reasoned.
“If we’re not, then you do. Why are we arguing about this? The whole point
of running these tests because we don’t know the truth. Go study.”
“Fine,” she huffed.
“And me?” Ramses asked.
“I thought you said we were hopeless and helpless,” Leona said to him.
Mateo deliberately stared at his wife again.
“Keep my husband company,” Leona decided. “He doesn’t have a job either.”
Mateo stood up, and finally said one word, and it was to Boyd. “Keys.”
Boyd was confused, but Mateo was his boss, so he handed him the keys
to his car.
Mateo went outside without saying anything else.
Ramses followed, and then got in the passenger seat. “Where are we going?”
Mateo still didn’t speak.
“Gotchya.” Ramses didn’t know what was happening, but Mateo was
his boss too, so he chose to trust him.
Mateo just started driving, going the speed limit, and following all traffic
signs. After about ten minutes, he realized how much danger he was putting
Ramses in, as well as his family. If they turned out to be wrong, their
lives would be ruined. “How confident are you that none of this is real?”
Ramses did nothing for a moment. Then he placed a hand on the door handle.
“Keep driving. Don’t stop.” He opened his door, and let his right arm hang
over the edge, scraping against the asphalt below. After fifteen seconds, he
pulled his arm back in, and closed the door. He sighed as he examined his
bloodied hand, front and back. “Pretty confident.”
“Doesn’t hurt?”
“Not really,” Ramses replied. “I can already feel myself healing. It looks
worse than it is.”
Mateo nodded. “Good enough for me.” He slammed on the accelerator, and while
this wasn’t the fastest car in the world, he was going over a hundred miles
per hour before too long. Cars were honking at them as they were whizzing
past. He was an administrator at work now, but he still knew how to drive.
He didn’t even put two hands on the steering wheel. He was as cool as ever,
fully in control. Even at these speeds, they were in no danger of crashing.
If that was going to happen, he would have to do it on purpose. He just
couldn’t put anyone else in danger. Just because they thought only their
small group was real, and everyone else was an NPC, didn’t mean it was true.
It was still possible for them to be in a simulation, and these other people
were just as real, and just as oblivious. Their connection to each other
could be something else, or just because they happened to be the ones who
were sensing the inconsistencies. Mateo thought they made a movie about that
once, but he couldn’t remember it. Maybe that was in a different world
altogether.
He was about to hit traffic, so Mateo jumped up onto the median, and started
driving on that instead. Cars continued to honk, but after he drove past,
everything just looked kind of normal. They went back to their daily lives,
now that the game players were no longer triggering their preprogrammed
responses. The traffic jam ended, so Mateo got back on the road, but not
before running over a couple of small trees, and an orange sign warning
drivers of an upcoming construction zone. Perfect. He saw what it was
talking about. They were building a new high rise on the corner, and having
to close down one of the lanes next to it, probably to work on the sewage
line. For a few seconds, they were Tokyo drifting when Mateo made a sharp
turn, and then blew through the fence. The closest call was when he nearly
ran into another car who was probably coming in to work here. Construction
workers waved their hands in dismay, but again, just went back to what they
were doing before he showed up. Man, if this wasn’t a program,
something had to be going on.
Mateo continued to drive on the rough dirt non-road, splashing in the mud,
and sideswiping some kind of big white and yellow machine. It slew him down,
but he didn’t stop. There was a dirt ramp up ahead. He smirked. “I’ve always
wanted to try this.”
“It might be the last thing you do.”
“Hashtag-worth it!”
“What’s a hashtag?” Ramses questioned.
They drove right onto the dirt pile, and jumped over the far side of it. It
was short, and low to the ground, so they didn’t land on the moon, but it
was still pretty fun while it lasted. And luckily, it wasn’t enough to stop
them in their tracks. Mateo kept driving, but had to swerve to avoid a small
group of workers on their lunch break. They didn’t even seem to notice,
reinforcing this hypothesis of theirs. “You wearing your seatbelt?”
“Nope,” Ramses answered.
Mateo pulled the bar under his seat, and pushed the seat as far back as it
would go. “Ready to eject.”
“Ready,” Ramses confirmed.
The concrete traffic barriers were coming up fast, but he never wavered. He
did grip the wheel with two hands now, though, in anticipation. At the very
last second, he remembered something from his past that he didn’t think he
was meant to. The truth. A look of horror fell upon his face. “I don’t think
we’re in a computer!” Crash.
The car stopped suddenly. Both Mateo and Ramses did not. They flew up, and
through the windshield. There was a reason those concrete blocks were there.
They were trying to prevent people from going over the edge of a ravine. The
two of them arched over the barriers, and down that ravine, onto the dirt
and rocks below. They lay there, bloody and mangled, for a couple of
minutes. Then they stood up, and instinctively began to reset their own
bones. Mateo noticed that Ramses’ leg was twisted the wrong way, so he
stepped on his foot, and twisted Ramses at the hips to get it back in place.
They looked up at the top of the ravine.
“We’re in trouble,” Ramses mused.
“We’re a distraction,” Mateo said. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
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