Microstory 2631: The Truth is That Even the Undigitized Are Digitized Because True Death is Dumb

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Datetime format not recognized. Cecelia Massey has been doing this job for less than twenty years. Her boss, Keilix has been doing it for centuries, but Cece doesn’t think even Keilix has seen anything like this before. “Uhh, K.O.? K.O.? K.O.? Keilix!”

The dead don’t need to sleep, but it’s a pleasurable experience, so people still do it all the time. Keilix finally wakes up. “What is it?”

“There—I think there’s something broken.”

Keilix gets out of bed, and walks over to the workstation. Her eyes widen in shock and fear when she sees it. “No, that can’t be right. This is thousands of people.”

“The numbers are still rising,” Cecelia states the obvious.

“Something huge must have happened, like a ship blew up, or something. Where are they coming from?”

Cecelia opens a new screen. “A place called Proxima Doma, Proxima Centauri. It looks like there was a delay in processing, but their local buffer filled up, so it sent a databurst to us. Why would it do that? We can’t handle this kind of volume.”

Keilix looks at a different screen. “The original programming was never altered. These are the same protocols that the original simulation had. It doesn’t know that there are only two of us now. It’s just dropping people off, and assuming that there will be counselors available to facilitate orientation.”

“I’m looking at the COD list. We have falls, asphyxiation, implosion...lava? I’m seeing a lot of lava here.”

Keilix looks over Cece’s shoulder. “This is an apocalyptic event. Let me look at something.” She takes out her handheld device. It’s not any more physical than anything else in this virtual world, but it’s the manifestation of the only thing that grants her access to some current knowledge out of base reality. It allows them to keep up with what’s going on, to a degree. They try not to use it too much. “There’s nothing in the news about it, but the link hasn’t updated in a while. What I can tell you is that the population of Proxima Doma, at last count, was roughly 1.21 billion people.”

“Are they all coming here?” Cece presses.

“If the whole world was destroyed by something almost all at once, then maybe. But...some of them should be digitized. Their consciousnesses should be routed to local simulations and backup substrates. They shouldn’t actually die.” She looks back at her device, reads a little more, and shakes her head. “But apparently, this one planet boasts the greatest undigitized population in the galaxy right now. I get the sense that they’re proud of that. Some of them are entirely unenhanced humans, just like I was when I died at the turn of the 22nd century. I didn’t have as much choice, though.”

“Well, I did, I still ended up here too.” Cece has pulled up the arrival history. “Yeah, I’m just scanning our logs now. Proxima Doma, Proxima Doma, Proxima Doma. I guess I never noticed that when people do die, they tend to come from there above all else. Almost no one from Earth these days.”

“We don’t usually ask them where they’re from, we don’t care.”

“So, what do we do? Can we...make them all go dormant maybe?”

Keilix sighs, and scratches the back of her head to relieve the tension. “I don’t know how to do that. We need help. Either way, we can’t do this ourselves.”

“Who do we call? Gilbert?” Cece suggests.

“No, he’s not great with people. Neither is Nerakali. They’re not bad, but they won’t know what to do either.” She looks over at the small red button on the wall.

“This is an emergency,” Cece seems to agree.

“The problem is, I don’t know who we’re gonna get. Hades...or Persephone.”

“Which one are we hoping for?”

“Hell if I know, I’ve never met either of them. I don’t even know what their real names are. I just know that they’re both bad, and that’s why we don’t push that button.”

“I think we have to,” Cece decides. “Unprecedented is an understatement. We are not equipped for this. Honestly, I wouldn’t have taken this job if I had died back around when you did. It’s too much pressure. I wanted to help people...but only a few at a time.”

“Okay.” Keilix takes a deep breath and walks over to the button.

Cece stands. “We’ll press it together.”

“No, I got it.” She presses it.

Ding-dong, goes the doorbell.

A door materializes on the wall, then after a few seconds pass, it opens. A young woman in her pajamas is on the other side. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah, it’s uhh, uhh...Armageddon? There could be as many as over a billion people dying at once. We were told to push this button if we ever needed help.”

The woman looks over at the button. “Oh. No one told me. So, I’m assuming that this is the afterlife simulation?”

“Yeah.”

“What year is it?”

“I forget,” Keilix admits. “The 2520s.”

“Well.” The woman steps into the room. “I don’t know what to do in this situation, but I will help in any way I can.” She offers her hand. “I’m Ellie Underhill.”

“So, you’re Persephone?” Cece guesses.

The woman winces. “No. I’m Ellie Underhill,” she repeats.

“Persephone is a code name. We don’t know who she would really be,” Keilix explains. “That’s why we’ve never pressed it before.”

“Hmm,” Ellie begins. “Well, you don’t have to be afraid of me. I’m not a weirdo with a Greek god complex. I didn’t actually build the simulation, I just came up with it. A guy stole it from me, but interestingly enough, he was not entirely without honor, so when I finally showed up after thousands of years, he gave it back. I didn’t realize it was still running after I moved all of the dead people to a new universe.”

Keilix’s eyes widened again. “That was you? Should I bow?”

Ellie laughs. “No. Let’s just get to work. Show me what we’re dealing with here.”

And so the trio look through the operator’s manuals, and start learning how to deal with this issue. As it turns out, while this planetwide catastrophe is absolutely unprecedented, the “Hades” founder still considered it a possibility, and still planned for it. They find a way to slow down the ingress, and bring in a little extra help. After a few days, the deaths taper off, ultimately numbering in the low millions. They slowly get them through orientation. Some are disappointed that this isn’t the real heaven, but many are relieved, and regret not doing more to protect themselves intentionally. But they will all be okay. The afterlife simulation is fully operational once more.