The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 20, 2502

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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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Microstory 1754: Under the Microscope

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I slam the microscope down against his head. He doesn’t even apologize now, but smiles at me, and tells me that she belongs to him, and he’ll never let her go. I hold it over him, waiting for him to give me a reason to set it back down carefully. I pick it up. I look around the room for anything to use as a weapon, but only find a microscope. Now that I have the upperhand, I take my opportunity to place my heel against his, and force him to the ground by the chest. He gets one more good shot in, but it seems to wear him out, at least for a moment. We struggle with each other, neither one strong enough to gain some kind of advantage. He thinks that will be the end of it, but he just sent me into fight or flight mode, and I always choose fight. Deciding that he would rather make the first move, he punches me in the stomach with both fists, knocking the wind out of me. Both of us realize that this argument is going nowhere, and that it’s about to get violent. We continue to argue. He doesn’t care. He won’t even admit that what he did was wrong. He won’t apologize for what he’s done. We begin to argue. I accuse him of sexual assault, and he doesn’t seem concerned. I approach him with obvious aggression, but he just sits there calmly, confident that all will turn out okay. I walk up to his lab, and open the door without asking, glad that it’s Saturday and the place is empty except for him. I step out, and try to remember why I’m here, what I’m hoping to accomplish, and how I can avoid this all getting out of hand. I stay in the car for a few minutes, afraid to actually go up there, but knowing that it’s unavoidable. I arrive at the science building.

I know that if I don’t, no one else will. I take the scenic route back, because I’m still not sure that I want to do this. Not really, but it feels like I could. I almost tear the car door off its hinges, I’m so mad. I walk out of the police station, having just been proven that justice isn’t simply blind, but actively hides from the truth. That would be ironic. I turn away in a huff, worried that I’ll be the one behind bars if I say what I really want to say to them. They say that can’t compel her. They keep their voices low, explaining that she’s old enough to answer for herself. I’m nearly at a scream now, begging them to see that she’s too young to make her own decisions. They tell me they’ll look into it if anything changes, but until then, this is how it has to be. They ignore the conjecture, and tell me that there’s nothing they can do. I tell them it shouldn’t matter; that she’s obviously just too scared of him. They tell me she’s changed her statement, and that she had every right to do so. I relay what she said to me, but they’ve already heard it. I walk in and ask to speak to someone important. I walk out of the dorm, and drive to the police station, feeling useless to do anything else. I respect her wishes, and leave her room. She asks me to leave, and I realize it’s because I’m a man, and she doesn’t need that kind of energy right now. I assure her it is, and she did the right thing. She says she wasn’t even going to tell anybody, because she isn’t certain it’s illegal. She says he didn’t touch her once. She says it was over quickly. She says she didn’t feel safe trying to get away. She says he made her watch. She says he touched himself. She says her much older ex-boyfriend came by yesterday, and locked the door behind him. She breaks down crying, not wanting to tell me, but needing to unburden herself. She doesn’t seem okay. She says she’s okay. I ask her if she’s okay. Something seems off. I drive out to visit my seventeen-year-old cousin, who is at a weeklong music camp at the college.

Microstory 607: Trap the Dam of Cerelune

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In order to travel to other star systems within any practical period of time, you have to use the simplex dimensions. These are filled with energy, matter, and compressed space. They allow faster-than-light travel, while normal three-dimensional space will not. They are natural, conquered, but still mysterious. We do not yet know where all of their energy comes from, for the origins of the universe do not adequately account for it. But we accept it, because these dimensions are useful. You can even accelerate the speed of travel by dematerializing passengers and cargo with machines known as Nexa. No one knows exactly where these machines first came from, but they have been found in every galaxy thus far, and replication is fairly straightforward. And they still use simplex dimensions, for they are the only things capable of interstellar travel...except for one other thing. Spacetime phenomena known as wormholes can do the same thing. Unfortunately, wormholes are microscopic at best, flash and burn out in seconds at most, and are always unstable. The only practical use for them took place thousands of years ago. When man was first trying to seek out life on other planets, data bursts were sent through wormholes, which would open randomly on the other end, hopefully near another civilization. This actually worked a couple of times before galactic mapping became a more realistic means of outreach. Still, no one has managed to find a way to enlarge, stabilize, and maintain a wormhole long enough to transport matter. The endeavor has been largely abandoned. Yet, even through these limitations, life finds a way. It has been hypothesized that the Dam of Cerelune’s species somehow evolved the ability to make use of wormholes to escape massive numbers of predators. She seems to be the last of her kind, and all attempts at capture have been futile, until now. While recovering from her impregnation, Sacred Mother of Light, Marilesse Lyons was sitting by the Yulven Ice Fields when the Dam of Cerelune suddenly appeared from a wormhole. With one touch, Marilesse managed to break the dam’s ability to escape. She remains on Lyon’s home planet of Yrosfulh today, as a family pet, ready to welcome the arrival of the child of Sacred Savior.

Microstory 171: Leary Novak

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Leary Novak and his sister, Mindy grew up on a farm in Nebraska, not all that far from Bellevue. Their parents had Leary when they were rather old, and adopted Mindy when they were even older, so they passed on when the children were relatively young. The two of them continued to keep the farm in working order, and felt no need to do anything else with their lives. Leary was on The Keystone’s anomaly shortlist, and was contacted during Stage Two of recruitment. His skin is extremely elastic, and allows him to temporary store and release large amounts of energy. Any strike against him is either deflected by a sort of force field, or absorbed and converted into energy that he can use at his discretion. A bullet will not be able to get within a centimeter or so of his body. If he falls from a great height, he will bounce back up and land safely on the ground. Any punch will be absorbed and stored, and will serve only to make him stronger, but this boost will eventually dissipate. Because of this, he has superhuman strength, and only only ever needed to sleep about a half hour to function throughout the day. The force fields he creates allow him to basically turn any surface into a trampoline. When they were young, he and his sister would jump in the pastures for fun, with the force fields sending them high into the air. They referred to this as the “hopping ground”. After Reactivation, and some training from Bellevue, Leary discovers that he can convert other forms of energy. His skin develops the ability to absorb solar power, wind energy, and even electrical shocks, decreasing his sleep threshold to only about thirty minutes, or even lower. Although he learned what he could about his own abilities, and trained to know how to use them properly and effectively, Leary chose to pursue a simple life. He and Mindy sold the family farmland and moved down to Bellevue where they handled the organization’s agricultural needs, with the help of Hester Khan and Flora Canto, when she wasn’t busy with administration. They never made waves, and stayed out of most of the drama.

Microstory 170: Cleveland Montana

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Each anomaly grew up in a different scenario. Some parents knew of their children’s abilities, and feared or hated them for it. Others were completely clueless. But there were some anomalies who experienced happy childhoods and the full support of their family. One such family was that of Cleveland Montana. His were loving and devoted parents who made sure their one son had everything he needed.  They once asked him to clean his room. After he was finished, he asked for more things to clean, and so his parents continued to give him tasks. He would run back in a matter of seconds after each assignment, and so they assumed he was playing some kind of game with them. When he didn’t return from his latest project, they went upstairs and found him in the hall, playing with dolls he had found in a box in the attic. Wanting to know what other family heirlooms had been left there, the two of them climbed up and found the attic to be spotless. There was no sign of cleaning; just of being clean. When they asked him how that had happened, he shrugged his shoulders and said that he just used his purple mist. They pressed the subject, and so he demonstrated for them. A purplish-blue mist came out of his fingertips and spread throughout the hallway. The mist disappeared in a flash, leaving the baseboards and table completely dust free. Mr. Montana and Mrs. Thompsett simply smiled and embraced their child. They encouraged him to practice and learn about his ability, but to take care with it, and not reveal his secret to anyone he didn’t trust. They also helped foster a sense of pride in his community, and a desire to make the world a better place. Years later, he contact the man from his region who had run for president in 1980 but failed. Cleveland became one of Senator Carlton’s most precious confidant, along with the senator’s private physician. The three of them formulated plans for him to run again in the 1995 race. When it was the right time, Cleveland finally joined Bellevue, and later acted as the logical liaison between the organization and the Usonian government. Without his cool head, likable personality, and eloquence, Bellevue probably would have fallen quickly after revealing itself to the world.

Microstory 169: Valary Sela

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Many of Valary Sela’s anomaly abilities were easily explained. Yes, she did have superhuman vision, but once it’s accepted that she lives in a world where such a thing is possible, it’s easier to understand how most of her abilities work. It’s unclear what her limits and ranges are, but she is capable of seeing objects at a great distance, objects on the microscopic scale, and she can even see X-rays. She not only has night vision, but also this thing called bright vision, where her eyes adjust to light shining in her eyes so that her vision is not overwhelmed and impaired. Those were all believable, and within the realm of possibility for other humans, assuming a great deal of technological progress. But there were two other visual enhancements that no one could explain except of Adam Nicks, who refused to divulge that explanation. The first aspect was selective vision in that she could see an object even when it was blocked by another object. For instance, she could see what was happening on the other side of a door, as if the door were open. Following Reactivation, and as her power grew, Valary was able to see objects remotely anywhere on the planet, as long as there were other people around. Even though she wasn’t necessarily seeing remotely from the perspective of other people, they needed to be present for this part of her ability to work. This same rule applied to the second inexplicable ability. She could see into people’s pasts. Though she could not hear, she could witness past events, again from a third person perspective. This ability put a strain on her eyes and head, and so she used it sparingly, but it did prove useful on a number of occasions during Bellevue’s growing pains. There was only one event that she was unable to see. When she was young, her parents went missing with no evidence as to where they had gone. The authorities were unable to determine what had happened to them. Due to a clerical error, Valary spent almost a year taking care of herself before Spyridon Colonomos discovered her and adopted her as his own. Later on, they also adopted Hosanna Katz. She and Don helped Hosanna get a handle on his emotions, and he helped Valary break down her own psychological barriers so that she could finally look back in time and find out what had happened to her parents. After that problem was resolved, the three of them joined Bellevue, and Valary became second in command to its leader. However, an argument could be made that she was actually the leader since she was the organization’s true visionary.