Amalgam: Emily Plair saga, #3

By Gustavo Bondoni

The trilogy that began with Outside reaches its dramatic conclusion as it spans the stars and visits worlds both physical and virtual.

Virtual Emily and Rome have returned to Earth's simulation where they find all the people have vanished.

Revolt is brewing in the Tau Ceti colony, as Mira Heine refuses to accept defeat, and a mysterious crime boss eliminates all who ask the wrong questions.

Touk, physical Emily, and the Sextus colonists try to establish life on their new planet, but they become the frontline in a fight with a new enemy that threatens all of humanity, both natural and virtual.

Will Artificial Intelligences be humanity's destruction or salvation?

In the midst of the chaos, can Emily and Rome – at least some versions of them – find happiness together?

 

"A satisfying conclusion to the trilogy, rejoining a wide cast of its fascinating characters, and inviting you to consider the nature of humanity."

— V Anne Smith, author of A Code for Carolyn: A Genetic Thriller

• Language: English
• Publisher: Guardbridge Books
• Release date: Aug 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781911486824

Gustavo Bondoni

Gustavo Bondoni is an Argentine writer with over two hundred stories published in fourteen countries, in seven languages, and is a winner in the National Space Society's "Return to Luna" Contest and the Marooned Award for Flash Fiction (2008). His latest books are The Malakiad (2018) and Incursion (2017). He has also published two science fiction novels: Outside (2017) and Siege (2016) and an ebook novella entitled Branch. His short fiction is collected in Tenth Orbit and Other Faraway Places (2010) and Virtuoso and Other Stories (2011).

Book preview

Chapter 1

Borneo, Earth – Planetwide Simulation

The simulation looked beautiful that day. It always looked beautiful.

Rome looked out over the peaceful sea. The crystal-clear water displayed fish darting to and fro just above the perfect white sand of the ocean floor. A soft warm breeze caressed his skin, emerging from a cloudless cerulean sky.

I always wanted to see Borneo, Emily said, a daiquiri in her hand. But how did you know?

I didn’t, Rome replied. It just seemed so beautiful here. A good place as any to insert ourselves, and better than most.

She dug her foot into the sand. Yeah. Definitely better than most.

Emily wore the same body she had when he first met her: light brown, almost blond hair, a thin frame with pale skin and a dusting of freckles across her nose. Despite everything that had happened to her — to them — he hadn’t changed a single line of the code that represented how she looked inside the world-sized simulation that surrounded them.

She must have felt his gaze on her because she looked towards him and frowned. We can’t stay here forever, you know, she said. We need to search out what happened here. Where is everyone?

I don’t know. Maybe they left. The ship I came in on detected ion signatures as if a huge fleet had passed through the system. Whatever it was, it was gone by the time we arrived.

Any clue where they might have been going?

None. And no way to check. The only thing I can tell you is that they didn’t go to Tau Ceti. Someone would have noticed them when they arrived.

Multiple ships? she asked, her brow furrowed in thought.

That’s what the captain of my vessel told me.

"That doesn’t make any sense. The best way for the people of Earth to leave the planet en masse is to put all the mainframes on a single vessel and fly that one out, keeping the simulation going just as it had been."

Rome considered her words. The simulation wasn’t in the best of shape when we left, he reminded her. Everyone had figured out they could program themselves whatever characteristics they wanted, and program the world itself to do whatever they felt like, as well. The entire world was coming apart at the seams. What if they all just died out in a catastrophic simulation collapse?

And the ion signatures?

He shrugged. A misreading. A trade fleet from one of the other colonies. Aliens. It could have been anything. He’d hoped not to have to say that out loud, but it had been in his thoughts ever since they left Earth the first time. The feeling he’d had was that the simulation was about to tear itself apart. The war had already started.

Emily looked around. I would say you’re right… except everything is still here. She held up the daiquiri. The power works. The hotel has fruit in the fridge. The blender worked. Even though there are no people around, the simulation, the world itself, is functioning perfectly.

I can think of several reasons that might have happened. The most likely is that the simulation, suffering catastrophic damage, reset to a predetermined configuration. And, he didn’t say, since the original configuration was set up for real live humans to log into the sim by wires, as opposed to the fully human — albeit completely artificial — inhabitants he’d met the last time he was there, it was empty of intelligent life.

Rome was a binarist, probably the single living human being who knew most about the working of the Earth simulation. He’d only known two other people who might have known it better than he did — although both of those were actually simulated people created in the simulation itself, and who’d lived there all their lives — a man named Graham and a woman called Jarrien.

He knew Graham was dead. Looking around, he admitted that he suspected Jarrien must have died, too.

My suggestion, he said, is to worry about all that later. We need a vacation. I might recover in a couple of months.

You need a vacation, Emily said. I’ve been packed in a tiny mainframe playing fantasy games all the way from Earth to Tau. After that, I was locked in a storage disk, and I didn’t even know anything was happening or that any time had passed. Hell, I’m about as rested as anyone can be. And I want to figure out what happened. There has to be some way to access records.

Give me a few days to relax, he said.

If you’re so tired, why don’t you just jump into the code to wipe it away?

Rome felt his face flush. I don’t know how, he muttered.

What?

I can’t do that. I was always outside the simulation, connected via VR, but with keyboard access to the backend. I could play with the code… but I was never inside. Now that I’m limited to actually working from within the simulation, I’ll have to figure out how to do that. And that means getting to a research library somehow, or to a university.

Can’t you just use the mindnet connection in the hotel?

No. The data on backend work and looking outside the simulation aren’t in the mindnet. I checked. Besides, remember how Graham had to dig in the New York archives to find anything relevant? We’ll need to do something similar.

Do you think they’ll have the same records here in…. where is this? I mean, I know it’s Borneo, but what country are we in?

This is the Malaysian sector. We could also cross into Indonesia and Brunei, Rome replied. I really doubt we’ll have any problems at the border. After all, we’d need to be really unlucky to discover that the only humans left anywhere in the world are border guards.

His attempt at humor fell flat. Emily’s brow was wrinkled in concentration. I think they said — the binarists back in New York, I mean — that the treaty that created the simulation worldwide had been negotiated there, and the only records were kept in the City Hall there.

I think I remember that.

So that’s where we need to go. Maybe Jarrien’s people left an amended record, Emily said.

That seems a bit optimistic.

If they didn’t, we can always figure out how to get into the base simulation and see what happened from there, right?

She sounded so hopeful that he couldn’t disappoint her. Not again. Not after she’d lost the world she’d been born into… and then the one she’d been promised when she took the painful decision to escape.

All right. We’ll go to New York, he said.

She hugged him.

He held up a finger. But only after we rest a couple of weeks. There’s no hurry, after all.

She looked him up and down. All right. We can take as much time as you need. I can think of a lot worse places to be than sitting on this beach, she said. Then she raised an eyebrow. But I do have one question: why are you wearing a swimsuit?

Rome blushed. I mean… we’re out in the open at a resort hotel…

And there isn’t a single other person on the entire planet, she finished. She pulled him in and kissed him.

***

This feels really dangerous, Emily said as they approached the pier.

Don’t you like boats? Rome replied.

I haven’t been on many in my life. I mean, I was on a few during spring break in college, and some friends had a small sailboat in a lake near Denver. But…

But what? This boat isn’t much bigger than those.

Emily paused. Rome, if I fell into the water and drowned back then, I would have been reset by the system. My physical body would have been unhurt in its birthing tube. Or at least that’s what I thought.

But it wasn’t true. You’ve been an artificial intelligence since the day you were born.

I know that… she replied. But the system acted like I was alive and safely underground. Like everyone was. We didn’t know any better, and we all felt safe. No one died in accidents, and the only reason we even bothered doing safe stuff is that the simulation would give you a taste of pain, even through the buffers, if you did something dumb and got hurt. Plus, we were supposed to avoid getting hurt. It’s the way people acted. If we didn’t, people would look at us funny.

Rome wondered how it was possible that a population would have remained docile for centuries knowing that they lived in a simulation where nothing could hurt their physical bodies. In their place, he was certain that he would have explored the limits of the simulation, broken it apart in the exact way that Jarrien and Graham had been doing the last time he was there.

Instead, the population was perfectly docile, living in harmony with its electronic environment until the day the expedition from Tau Ceti — the one that had brought Rome there in the first place — arrived to knock on their doors.

It almost made him believe that the people who insisted artificial humans weren’t really human might have a point.

Except he was one now. The consciousness he wore now wasn’t connected to human body safely ensconced in a warm ship. It was just a copy of a man’s mind and memories… a man who was several light years distant.

He felt perfectly human. As human as he always had, in fact.

That thought brought up a lot of things he didn’t want to analyze. Foremost among them was the fact that he’d created this copy of himself without telling the woman that, convinced that Emily was dead, he’d fallen in love with. Now, he bore that guilt along with the guilt of not having told Emily about it… and with the added guilt of not really being certain what he felt for Emily herself.

He pushed the mess aside. He needed to focus on the problem at hand.

Rome, Emily said. What’s up?

Rome realized he was standing motionless on the pier. Nothing. Just thinking about the best way to steal this boat.

Weren’t you listening?

I heard you. You’re worried about sailing out there. Don’t be frightened. We’ll be fine.

She sighed. You didn’t listen to a word I said, did you? She took hold of his arm. I’m afraid for real. What if the boat sinks? What if we hit something and drown?

Rome gestured towards the blue expanse around them. The sea is completely calm. The forecast is for almost no wind all day. And we planned our route to hop from island to island so we’re never more than fifty kilometers from land. We’ll be fine.

But what if something happens?

He shrugged. Everything has some risk.

Not for me, she said, almost too quietly for him to hear.

What do you mean?

I’ve never been in physical danger in my life. Even when Graham was tearing up the simulation, I didn’t feel personally threatened. After that, I went into your mainframe.

That mainframe was destroyed by rioters. I almost lost you forever.

But I never knew that, she replied. If this boat sinks, the simulation won’t bring me back and drop me on shore. I’ll be gone. I’ve never had to face death before. Nothing I’ve done in my life could possibly have ended with me dying. Not even crossing the street without looking when I was a little girl. Can’t you understand that?

Rome sat down, letting his feet — they’d taken running shoes from a store, just walked in and selected what they wanted — dangle from the wooden planks over the crystalline water. I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have been like, much less understand it. The early-morning sun cast long shadows over the water. What do you think we should do? We can’t stay here forever… I mean, we can, but we won’t find out what happened to anyone. And the airports aren’t working. They’d checked on the mindnet. No flights were scheduled anywhere on the planet. That made sense: planes needed pilots to fly them.

But shouldn’t stores need people to clean them and grocery spaces need someone to check that the food wasn’t rotting? Apparently some tasks were automated by the system, but air travel wasn’t one of those.

I…I’ll be fine. Just give me a few minutes.

She sat beside him on the pier and he put an arm around her. He felt her shuddering softly, crying silently.

Look. We don’t have to do this now. We can wait, he said.

She shook her head. Waiting won’t change how I feel. She pulled away and stood, then walked over to the boat they’d chosen, a sleek embarkation with a gloss-black hull on the bottom and a gloss white top, large enough that it looked safe for open water, but with controls that the mindnet said were easy to operate even for beginners. What the brochures he’d found online described as a personal cruiser. Are you coming?

Rome stood and walked up the gangplank. He wondered if this was a good idea. Would Emily panic once they got out of sight of land? He didn’t know.

Five minutes later, he couldn’t believe how worried he’d been. The operation of raising the gangplank and then untying the boat from the dock had them laughing so hard they forgot what they’d been talking about.

You would have made a terrible boy scout, she said once the cruiser was finally free of the pier.

I have no idea what that is, he said. But if it has to do with knots, I’ll have you know that I come from an advanced civilization that has discovered the secrets of auto tie rings.

But what if you don’t have a ring? she said.

Then you have no business playing with ropes, he replied.

It would have taken him all day to explain that Tau Ceti II was so tame that it was almost as safe as Earth before everyone disappeared.

They got themselves together and started the boat, using the mindnet for instructions. The most important element was the guidance system: to hop between islands in the Riau Archipelago was a series of short hops… unless you missed an island.

The next three days were among the best of Rome’s life. They cruised slowly from one island to the next, never spending more than four hours on the mirrorlike water before arriving at another island, each as beautiful and each as desolate as the last. In the afternoon, they stopped early and tied their boat at whatever pier caught their fancy. They filled up the tank at every unattended pump along the way.

And all the pumps were unattended. They spent the evenings in some of the most luxurious hotels on the planet, helping themselves to whatever they found in the minibar, knowing they wouldn’t get fat, and they wouldn’t starve. The virtual food existed to be enjoyed by their virtual bodies. They made love on the beach and beside illuminated pools.

By the time they reached the Malaysian coast on mainland Asia, Emily’s fear of the sea had vanished. When they stepped off the boat, she said: What if we keep going? We can sail along the coast.

"It will take a really long to get to New York by boat. We need to steal a car and drive it to the Bering strait. That will take a long time, too, but much less than trying to sail all the way.

She nodded, looking longingly back at the perfect blue water and their faithful cruiser. We should do this again sometime.

He hugged her. Definitely. But now, I’d like to get some sleep.

***

The next morning, she was awake early, her eyes open, staring at the roof.

When she realized he was awake, she asked: Why do we sleep?

Huh?

We’re programs. Why do we need to sleep?

Rome thought about it. I think it’s because the programs we’re based on, the ones that run our personalities in this simulation, were lifted directly from real humans who used to live here before they all died out. Word for word, need for need. That’s why you also have to go to the bathroom. And that’s why we get hungry. Every piece of human physiology was faithfully copied into the shell program in which our personalities run.

By who?

That caught him by surprise. He’d assumed it must have been some automated process, a failsafe put there by the original human programmers to fill in any gaps, so a population decline wouldn’t empty the simulation.

But why do that so far ahead of time? The programmers would have assumed that there would be people around to troubleshoot anything, wouldn’t they?

I don’t know. It’s another thing I’d love to look into when we get to New York, he said. Let’s see about getting a car.

They emerged into the bright sunlight. Just like every day since they had reinserted themselves into Earth’s world-simulation. Have you noticed the weather? he asked. The last time I was here, you had rain and clouds and stuff. Now, it’s always sunny with a pleasant breeze.

She stopped and looked around. I think it’s supposed to be coordinated with what the weather outside, in the real world, is like. She cocked her head. Shouldn’t you know that better than I ever will?

Rome laughed. Do you have any idea how many billions of lines of code this simulation contains? Do you really think I’d know them all by heart?

And you call yourself a binarist? Emily said, raising an eyebrow.

That was when he realized he was being teased.

A few minutes later, they were down in the parking lot. Emily looked around. It feels wrong to steal a car.

I never thought of that. These are all private vehicles, right?

Yeah.

That’s the weirdest thing about this simulation. Or at least I always thought so. Why make everyone work to jockey for economic position when there’s no scarcity involved? Wouldn’t it have been an ideal chance to create a truly classless society?

All that stuff got figured out long before my time. We never worried about that kind of thing.

Rome grinned. If you had, we wouldn’t have to steal someone else’s car.

Or we would have to walk all the way because the communal trains aren’t running.

There is that.

The cars in the hotel parking lot were locked. No one seemed to have trusted their fellow man, not even in this tropical paradise.

If the hotel had valet parking, we’d be home free, Emily mused. Too bad this is just a little place.

Valet parking? What’s that?

Don’t worry about it. I just had an idea. She led him by the hand to the road, where several cars stood, abandoned beside the pavement. The first was locked, but the second was open and had the keys inside.

How did you know that would happen? Rome asked.

Cars are supposed to park on the side of the road if their driver becomes incapacitated. These looked like they’d done that.

The drivers aren’t in there, Rome observed.

I guess suddenly disappearing counts as incapacitated. Now sit tight. I know how to drive.

After five minutes, Rome started laughing. Are you sure you’re the same Emily who was terrified of getting on a boat to cross a glass-smooth sea?

This is different, she replied.

Yeah. We survived the sea crossing.

She suddenly hit the brakes, throwing him against the seatbelt that had automatically actuated when he sat.

What was that? he said.

She turned to face him, features drained of all color. I saw someone.

That’s impossible.

Look. She pointed.

A tall, thin man with dark skin leaned on a lamppost by the side of the road, grinning at them. He was dressed in a long red button-down shirt and blue pants that exposed a pair of brown open sandals. He smiled broadly.

Rome fumbled with his seatbelt, as Emily popped hers open and descended from the car. When he finally reached her, she was six feet from the man.

Is he real? he said.

He looks real to me. But I’m not sure what language to speak to him in. I don’t know any Malaysian, Emily replied.

Do I look Malaysian? the man asked in English. I can understand you perfectly well.

Who are you? Rome said, stepping towards him. Where is everyone?

The man stepped backward, staying out of Rome’s reach. I think a better question would be: who are you? I belong here, but I’m not sure what you are.

Rome stopped, realizing the man didn’t want him any closer. My name is Rome Permek. This is Emily Plair. She is from Denver — that’s in America — and I’m from Tau Ceti II. I arrived with the expedition last year.

That’s an easy claim to make, but a hard one to back up, the man replied. Especially since no one from that expedition stuck around.

We went to Tau Ceti and came back, Emily replied.

Hmm. Another claim that’s impossible to check, the man replied. Here’s what I think. I think you’re cleansing programs trying to lure stragglers into the revealing themselves so you can finish cleaning the simulation for a restart. Now, even though I suspect that, I find you interesting. The program in charge of getting everything back up must be getting a little bit desperate if it’s trying to fool the people smart enough to hide from the reset into revealing themselves. I wonder what that says about it? Hmm.

That’s crazy. We’re exactly what we say we are, and we need some help, Rome replied.

I’m not getting any closer to you than this, the man replied. Not until I can check you thoroughly.

Listen. We’re going to New York. Can you help us? At least tell us your name.

The man studied them. I still don’t believe you, but I guess you can call me Skate. And if you really are who you say you are, I have some advice for you: never stop looking behind you.

What the hell does…

Rome’s voice petered out. The man had disappeared.

Chapter 2

Earth – Planetwide Simulation

Who the hell was that? Jarrien demanded, pointing at the guy calling himself Skate who’d just disappeared from their surveillance monitor. Her blue hair illuminated the dim grey room and provided the only splash of color not coming from one of the dozen workstation screens. The walls were grey and featureless.

How should I know? Hino replied. He absently removed his rectangular-rimmed glasses to wipe the pale skin of his forehead. His dark hair lay lank on his head. I’ve never seen him before in my life.

Did anyone track the guy? Jarrien said to the ops room at large.

A half-dozen people sitting at computer consoles raised their hands.

Can you tell me where he went? No. Not all of you at once. You, in position seventeen. Talk.

A bald guy looked back at her. He dropped off the grid. And I mean completely. One minute he was standing there, fully present in the simulation, and the next, he was gone. No trace of him.

The woman sitting two screens down from him chimed in. I ran the backtrack of the effects on the model. Nothing. None of the air he should have displaced by standing there shows signs of having been disturbed. Not even by the sound of his voice.

We heard him talking, Jarrien said. If he’d been using some sort of direct communication into the minds of our quarry, we wouldn’t have heard him through the speakers.

The woman shrugged. I’m just relaying what the buffer data says right now.

Jarrien and Hino exchanged a look. The Holy Grail? he asked.

She shrugged. Humans who can move around without the AI spotting them? I don’t know. I saw the same thing you did: a big dude talking to the people we’ve been tracking. If he’s able to pop into the main simulation and use its resources without leaving a trace, he’s better than we are. The other explanation is that he’s part of the AI’s crew, and was sent in because the evil brain is just as curious about these two as we are.

It doesn’t need to send ghosts to talk to them. It can capture them, build a million copies, torture them and tear them down to the smallest bits of code if it’s really curious. Hell, it can do all that without the two wandering around in the simulation ever realizing it happened.

Jarrien sighed. She turned to the room. Walter, you’re in charge. I’m going to get some sleep. If those two do anything weird, and I mean anything, call me. I want to see it. And if any ghosts appear, tell me about it. No exceptions. She glared at them, just to drive the point home. She wasn’t kidding.

The lying bastards all nodded, but she knew they’d let her sleep. They felt she needed the rest, and they thought they were good enough to survive without her.

Who knew? Maybe they were. Or maybe they were all fucked anyway, so it was no use worrying about it.

Hino, meeting room A, 0700 hours. Bring whoever you think might have an idea.

He grunted an acknowledgement, attention already back on the people calling themselves Rome and Emily.

***

Four members of her team looked up when she arrived.

Hello, sleeping beauty, Ripp said.

Jarrien rolled her eyes. You brought this guy? she asked Hino.

"He said