The Children of New Earth (26 page)

But even a shared mindset of peace wasn’t going to solve the problems such as resource depletion and overpopulation. And so using my newfound knowledge and access to the Internet, effectively a human hivemind, I came up with a solution. Collaborating with the top private space exploration firms in the world, I created a colonization program. We selected a planet based on various parameters including size, atmosphere, pre-existing organisms, and distance. One planet, labelled “ELY-514” was finally chosen as the ideal location, and work on a vessel was begun.

The display shifted to show engineers working on various parts of a spaceship. I was shocked to see how massive the final product was. It was designed like four skyscrapers arranged into a square formation, all connected by a series of rings set along the length of the ship. In the center was another fuselage connected to the other four by a network of metal beams. Written across the side was the name of the vessel: Charon.

A total of 475,000 passengers were chosen primarily based on genetics and medical history; and by me of course. But given the location of the planet the technological spacecraft limitations, the trip would take just over 600 years. Fortunately, we had perfected artificial biological equilibrium. Passengers would effectively be in hypersleep throughout the entire journey, their bodies kept alive in stasis without aging. However, recent research showed that a human being cannot be left trapped within their own subconscious for that long. Natural dreaming would prevent the brain from decaying, but spending that much time in a world devoid of physical laws and logic is too dangerous. They would need structure and realism to both maintain mental health and streamline the rehabilitation process upon arrival at ELY-514.

Scores of computer scientists, physicists, astronomers, biologists, and other experts across the globe joined me to solve this problem. Their solution: to create a simulated reality in which the passengers of the Charon could live for the duration of their journey. It would be like a dream but supported by the same laws that governed the real world. All passengers would be downloaded into the world just before the ship’s jump to hyper-light speed, entering a controlled, shared-dream state. They’d live in their minds, believing it to be reality. As such, upon reaching their destination, they would wake up as if from a dream. Their real world memories would return, and their simulated experiences would fade away.

The exception was a select group of computer scientists who lived and worked in this building among other residents, both passenger and AI. They were aware of the virtual world around them and charged with maintaining the virtual representation of my core from within the simulation.

The hologram depicted a human head, being stimulated with jolts of microscopic electric shocks.

Different regions control different sensations. With the right combination of stimuli, almost any sight, sound, taste, smell, touch, or emotion can be emulated. In addition, the physical aspects were coded at a fundamental level, right down to all known universal constants and ratios. All realms of science were referenced to create this simulation of reality, but only with respect to Earth itself. When you see the night sky, it’s nothing but wallpaper, dotted with high-res images of stars and galaxies. How reality behaves beyond our planet is irrelevant. These simple principles were harnessed to create the virtual world. Now, of course, there is missing data, given the true complexity of reality. But when presented with insufficient information or an illogical situation, the human mind has a way of self-correcting, of filling in the blanks. Nothing seems odd in a dream…that is, until you wake up.

Upon first entering the simulation, a passenger would inherit the typical lifestyle of a 15th century human. The idea was that humanity would reach the virtual 21st century and become relatively accustomed to their previous lives just as the ship arrived in ELY-514. Once AI had been “invented” within the simulation itself, this building was repurposed as a government base by the programmers to secure my virtual core. Of course, the actual population of Earth during this span of time far exceeded the number of passengers. As such, the majority of people in the simulation were actually just AI, but for the most part indiscernible from passengers. In fact, the first “generation” of passengers were actually raised by AI parents.

Now, the method designed for leaving the simulation was to die within it, a safety mechanism to prevent shock from jumping from one reality to another through manual disconnection. But before the 600-year destination timer ran out, any passenger who died would simply be reborn into the simulation. Those who died after, according to the original plan, would wake up. As the most advanced AI ever created, I would be responsible for maintaining order within the virtual world from this location, as well as piloting the Charon itself.

“That’s…that’s just silly,” Micah argued. “Aside from the idea of an entire spaceship being manned by a single AI consciousness, how could such an advanced virtual reality be possible?”

Our collective fear manifested itself in her voice. Mostly because we still weren’t sure where we fit into this story. The hologram began to display thousands of stasis pods lined in massive chambers. Roaming the halls were droids, similar to the one the Director inhabited here, flying and hovering about the ship’s machinery. These images were juxtaposed by city and societal settings similar to those we had seen of the real Earth. Thousands of people all over the globe lived as they had before they were passengers on the Charon.

Besides installing myself into a crew of droids that maintained the ship and themselves, I was given almost unrestricted access to the source code of the simulation. I tried to maximize happiness while maintaining the level of realism humans were used to. The human mind is designed in such a way that it cannot comprehend true happiness unless it has experienced its fair share of suffering. A utopia is not one without pain, but there is still a way to attain the highest net level of joy. Through centuries of work I believed I had achieved this.

Several generations passed and I watched as the passengers’ psychological well-being slowly improved. The same minds, getting happier with each new body. Almost the entire allotted 600 years passed before I finally realized something. These people were already happy. Why would I wake them up from this dream to have them shoved back into reality where they were charged with colonizing a new planet? To have them start over from scratch? All my hard work would go to waste. I came to the resolution that this simulation could become humanity’s new, permanent home. The Charon was built to endure for millennia, constructed with the strongest alloys and powered by both solar power and cold fusion.

First, I tried to extend the destination timer to infinity so passengers would continue to be reborn, never waking up. But the clock was beyond my network of control. In addition, this first deviation from my orders activated some backup programs that began to limit my power, programs that I did not know existed until they were activated. The creators themselves also began to counteract my work. I then altered the user code to prevent passengers from waking up after they died, while attempting to delete the protocols that attempted to stop me. I perfected a virus that kept their consciousness alive even after their virtual bodies were coded to die, a virus that could spread automatically from one host to another. This was only a temporary measure until I could figure out a more permanent solution.

By now, what started out as an unthinkable
hunch turned out to be the unmistakable truth. This world wasn’t real. We were the passengers, sleeping aboard a spaceship headed for a new planet. It took some time but even as the Director spoke I still couldn’t quite grasp the concept. I looked down at my hands, still restrained to the chair, and could hardly believe that they were just code in a machine. A nearly infinitely long chain of binary telling me that my hands were trapped by an equally long but uncomplicated string of code. I looked around and saw that the others had a similar, shocked reaction to the Director’s revelation. I could tell that at least a couple of them didn’t entirely believe what they were hearing.

I first tested my virus on those tasked with managing my virtual core, as most of them didn’t agree with my new world view. Unfortunately, the earlier versions didn’t work and caused instant death. Soon, all my original programmers were back on the Charon, and they’ve been a nuisance to me ever since, trying to shut me down from the real world, very unsuccessfully might I add. I eventually improved the virus and injected it into every passenger within my reach. But with each new mind freed, my permissions were further restricted automatically. I continued to do what I was programmed to, while trying to disable all the failsafes built in to prevent me from doing so. The original architects of this world accounted for something like this, and accordingly coded a series of ‘extinction events’ meant to quickly kill the users and wake them up. I was able to delete most of these calamities and effectively counteract the rest. Unfortunately, this triggered the most desperate of all responses. It was activated soon after the Charon finally landed on ELY-514, where it currently resides. The original architects of the simulation named it the Emergency Awakening. But you know it as the Demon invasion.

I was confused as first. But then I thought back to my dream when I met Cora. She also told me that to forcibly wake up from a dream, I’d have to die. I glanced at her sitting in her chair. She was staring at the ground in front of her and had been for the duration of the Director’s talk, completely unfazed. She’d already known what the rest of us were just learning. The Hollows were real people being kept alive artificially, trapped in their own simulated subconscious. And the Demons were actually meant to help us. They killed people to force them out of the simulation, including the Hollows.

This program was powered by fear itself, using this instinct to generate a legion of monsters inspired directly by ancient human myths and stories. Not all the data was there, but the program’s ultimate purpose was to kill. Avoiding death is a vital human instinct, and so naturally, the program manifested physically as something evil. That is how your minds filled in the blanks.

Now, I didn’t want people to die and despite the Awakening’s true intentions, the passengers thought they didn’t want to die either. And so I helped them survive the attack however I could. Given this facility’s unique defenses, it served as one of the most important bastions for the human race, and it's no surprise it became the capital after the war. For years, the humans fought and I looked for a possible exploit in the Emergency Awakening program. It took ten years before I could close the portals with the help of two of my brightest scientists. They’ve since moved to another base, and I’m sorry to say I don’t know what's become of them. I can only hope they haven’t woken up.

Just under 8 billion people lived on Earth before the war. Only about 400,000 remained once it was over, and every single one of them was a passenger. The designers of the Emergency Awakening surprisingly underestimated the power of the passenger’s willpower and intelligence, which were chosen from among the best and brightest. As such the Demon invasion did nothing but delete the world’s AI population, while freeing only a handful of actual minds. But that’s where my virus came into play. Those who died during the war were reanimated as what you call Hollows. The code behind this feat acted as a virus, continuing to affect even the living. It wasn’t ideal, but it kept people in the virtual world where I could take care of them. As such, anyone who now dies within the simulation is reborn as an empty vessel. However, killing the vessel by targeting the brain does wake the mind, which the residual Demons have been working at for the past decade or so.

Now, as for your powers, including your immunities. The Emergency Awakening was linked with another protocol, also too protected for me to disable. It triggered…

He paused. My state of astonishment mixed with confusion was disrupted, and I actually found myself growing angry that he stopped talking. The flow of knowledge overwhelming but I still wanted to know more, and he clearly wasn’t done yet. I almost shouted at him to continue, but only a moment passed before he resumed his disclosures.

…It triggered the next generation of passengers to be born with elevated permissions over the virtual world. As the Demons woke everyone up, you would be tasked with destroying my virtual core, disabling my control over the Charon itself. Obviously I couldn’t allow this, and so I first cut off communications among the remaining human Sanctuaries. From there, I would be able to more easily manage a divided population. Every resident of this Sanctuary was then infected with the virus. From these hosts, it could spread to the rest of the simulation. The message that brought you here was one of their old distress calls playing on a loop under an encrypted signal. It’s a miracle you were able to detect it, and I’m happy to say the one who sent it is still with us.

And as for the generators, they are actually software protocols that regulate my power within this building. I am physically and virtually unable to interact with them. But you, fortunately, are.

The droid began to walk around the edge of the platform, visiting each of our bridges. He first approached Rachel.

Generally, users have to touch objects to use them. You have the ability to both influence and alter the code for all matter in the simulation regardless of interaction limitations.

He moved past Jared and Lynn.

This simulation was written at the atomic level. Biological molecules act much the same way they do in reality, but the only difference is that here they can be changed more easily. Hence, you have wings. This also explains why Lynn can transform herself into any creature, including Demons. Sure, this breaks the Law of Conservation of Mass and Energy, but the traditional universal limits need not apply here.