by Jerry
And thirteen weeks is not so very long. How many times have we performed this work before? How many spans of thirteen weeks in our forty-three years, for that matter?
“Fifty percent opacity,” I tell Diane. The light dims as she blanks the southern wall. In the upper-left corner of the central glass pane, the counter has begun. It reads: Day 01, 00:12.
I move through the clutter of papers on the living room floor, skirt around the table with its various hardware and blinking lights, and into the kitchen. The coffee machine is an antique drip with timer, and it delivers five shrill tones to announce a full carafe. I choose from a collection of unwashed mugs in the sink, rinse one briefly, and pour. The temperature is perfectly controlled to a steaming but potable 90 degrees Celsius.
Ninety degrees. That’s almost as many degrees as there are days in thirteen weeks. If you look carefully you can find those little connections everywhere. It’s a good number, thirteen. What’s more, it’s a strong number, lucky. Thirteen is the seventh number in the Fibonacci sequence, and seven—that’s another lucky one. Thirteen is also a prime, and there’s something undeniably beautiful about a number that can only be divided by one and itself. You might say that we’re like the prime number. Divisible only by ourselves. Who better to carve up the various pieces of our lives, to analyze them moment by moment, year by year?
For centuries, thirteen was considered taboo, but this only emboldens me. It makes no sense for numbers to be malicious, cursed, unlucky. Numbers are what hold the universe together. What make all of this possible.
I wave my arm slowly in the direction of the living room, taking care not to spill the coffee in hand, as if to emphasize the point. But the sleep debt I’ve accrued makes my thoughts disjointed and my intent hazy. Is it your simulation you speak of, or perhaps the world beyond, the endless blanket of fog that spreads to envelop everything?
“You tell me, Diane,” I respond. But we haven’t been talking and the dashboard has learned to ignore this phrase. I place my hand against the counter and lean back until my hips make contact. Raise the coffee mug and sip slowly, eyes on the dim blankness through the windows, and in the foreground, the simulation tank whirring and flashing its green indicator light in time with my heartbeat, the buzzing metronome echoing in my head, the pulsing on my skin and in my bones.
Thirteen weeks remaining.
§
The first run was a good one, but fundamentally flawed. It started out like all that would follow: gestation was smooth and finished without incident. The simulant was a healthy boy, born of the best environmental conditions: all the necessary nutrients were supplied, no sudden movements or impacts, cortisol levels low. A soothing white noise and the gentle thumping of mother’s heartbeat to lull him through those forty prenatal weeks. At automation speed this takes the computer twelve hours to simulate.
The household was built with exacting parameters: a two-story home on the coast, surrounded by trees packed tightly like neatly-trimmed code. An older brother, of course: Jeong. He was almost two when the simulant was born, and he cared for the baby, both as family to be protected and plaything for amusement. Playtime was limited to maintain optimal conditions: no throttling the newborn, hands wrapped tightly about the neck, Jeong beaming a beautiful smile, his loving intent unclear beneath the marks he always left. No, this Jeong was more careful, more doting. He loved the simulant as a parent would. He taught his younger brother the most important elements of living well: how to read, where mom hid the sugary snacks, how to swipe into the video account on the handheld for Disney cartoons.
He did not teach the toddler to turn on the stovetop glass. He did not teach him to place both hands on the surface, “like you’re playing the drums!” He did not laugh and hoot at the sounds of his brother’s screaming.
There is nuance to this, of course. It became apparent in the first dozen runs that the head injury at two years old could not be avoided. Painful though it was to watch the tiny simulant with blood pouring from his scalp and into his eyes, this would be a necessary event. It would never be clear why Jeong pushed his brother from the staircase, but the computer code requires no motivation. Removing that moment from the environmental context code would render the simulant too soft, too fragile.
Eleven days into the simulation, running at review and response speed, the first simulant was pummeled in the elementary school bathroom, a weak kindergartner taking blows from a monstrous second-grader. He had not been alert to the footsteps echoing down the hallway, ears ever pricked up for the slightest of movement. He had not been prepared when the door swung open and slammed against the bathroom wall. It did not matter that I had written the code, that I had programmed this very incident. The simulant’s response was organic; it could only be directed, not programmed.
This one was not directed carefully enough. Some preparation was lacking, some vital caution that the original Jeong had driven into his younger brother. It would have to be harnessed while leaving the fewest scars possible. Without it, there were too many hazards lying in wait to prey upon his innocence. This simulation was all downhill after kindergarten. It was scrapped in the fourth week after a suicide attempt at age fourteen.
§
There would be many like the original sim, the first branch on this sprawling, bifurcating tree. I thought of these as the first-gens, although really, they were just the first chapter: they were all about preparing for the ultimate childhood showdown. There was a balance to be struck between the relationship with Jeong and the inevitability of the bathroom incident at age five. Almost all followed a similar timeline, with occasional random deviations. The simulant often hid during the bathroom encounter in kindergarten, safe for another day, a showdown with no climax, itself a type of resolution: refusing to choose action is, in itself, a choice.
There was one unusual first-gen sim who actually stood his ground during the bathroom incident. Pretended to be washing his hands while his attacker approached from behind for the headlock. But as he reached forward, the sim grabbed him by the arm and pulled him full-force into the mirror. Shattered it to pieces and broke the boy’s nose. It was a triumph of childhood. This sim was well-indoctrinated by Jeong, but perhaps too well. At ten years old, he shone with joy as his parents brought home their very first puppy. The simulant later took it out back and opened it up from neck to groin, “out of curiosity.” The simulation was terminated in the third week.
It does not take long for the latest newborn to move through his first chapter. I watch with mild interest as he is born and goes through the first years of his life, at home in mid-coast Maine. Review and response is unnecessary at this age: the environmental code has been reworked and refined dozens of times. Mom and Dad remain invested, only a bit more than the first go-round. Too much doting has proven to fundamentally change the path of the simulant. They make sure he is cared for, Jeong beats a toughness into him that falls just on this side of abuse. He hears the second grader coming down the hall and exits the bathroom early, just in time to meet him at the doorway.
I adjust the tank speed to a crawl and scan the sim’s face, displayed in towering two-dimensions on the dashboard glass. The exact conditions of this encounter are new. With the door thrown open, he runs directly into the boy, surprising them both. The momentary loss of poise can be seen in the code of each boy, scrolling lines of text in the corner of the glass. And perhaps it’s enough to throw the attacker off his game. He pushes the sim and grimaces with anger. The sim pushes back. There’s a defiance on his face that gives the attacker pause. And then the encounter is over.
Nicely done, I muse. I blank the dashboard glass and all that remains is the counter in a soft white font against the grey haze of the world beyond. Day 11, 08:36.
§
The days that follow are the blur of the coastal fog that rests upon everything like a final, damning edict. I hover between the coffee machine and the simulation tank, amped up until the tremors are smooth and the mind blank
, a zen-like present tense that feels of nothing. I toggle the dashboard, alternating between the endless lines of code and the flat, two-dimensional rendering of events in fast-forward. The moments between kindergarten and sixth grade are fairly constant lately, but there’s no telling how this new calm determination might play for the simulant. I keep the pace just above review-and-response, the editing speed that allows me to catch pitfalls in environmental code and adjust accordingly, lest the social context of the simulant’s world affect an undesirable change. The tank continues to hum and whir, the green light blinking in pace with the speed of simulation.
The tank itself is nothing more than a Rorcan-Platinum processor chip with an NVIDIA graphics card and 2 TB of RAM in titanium housing, the whole assembly submerged in distilled water to prevent burn-out. Early models were either too slow to accurately simulate events or ended explosively. The workbench bears the unfortunate results of these missteps in patches of dark, like oil on the surface of water.
Beyond the glass, the tide is out and clam diggers high-step through the mud flats, waders to their knees or torsos. The mist envelops them in turns, ghosts moving carefully across the empty plain of dark, emerging from and disappearing into nothingness. Once, in some unlikely past, there were gates at the top of the hill, metal placards warning off these hopeful entrepreneurs, nothing more than downtrodden locals with kitchens bare and no work for miles. When the plant went critical, there were two thousand residents in the five-mile fallout radius. Something like five joules of radiation took out the first half. The second would fall to unemployment and the dehydrating heat to come.
The solar array here still pumps excess back into the grid, not that anyone is drawing power anymore. The batteries are sodium-ion banks that can only store so much. There’s nothing to be done with the rest.
With my hands on the coffee pot again—cold for how many hours now?—my eyes slip briefly to the industrial food printing unit. I consider for a moment, imagine biting into something solid, the energy of chewing, of swallowing. Would it dull the stinging pain in my stomach or only add to it?
§
The awkward fumbling chapter of middle school is where we find our simulant at his most vulnerable. It is the first moment he truly knows love on a visceral, heart-crushing level. He can see now how empty and meaningless the phrase his mother always bandied about, absently chanting those three simple words with eyes glued to the dashboard glass, her media accounts churning out the pristine lives of urban mothers in their high-rise castles, all gloss and glimmer. He responded in kind, but he realizes now the crucial element that was always missing: to look in the eyes of another, direct contact with the soul, instant uplink like a satellite feed.
The simulant holds hands with the boy in the falling light of a summer evening, sun just starting to dip into the sea even at eight o’clock. I slow the simulation speed to watch as he locks eyes with the fair-haired classmate, the close friend with whom he’s spent endless hours in VR, storming enemy bases on some far-off planet. Or stolen knowing glances from across the room in detention, each boy writing out his half-hearted apology for the playful impulses of adolescence.
It lasts only a moment, but it’s the only moment that seems to matter. I relish the fourth week for this brief encounter. What does he know in this moment, his clammy hands but lines of code gripping fiercely the code of the simulation? I bump the rendering to VR and slip the goggles over my eyes, jack into the tank port, and shift vantage point to that of the fair-haired boy. Gaze deeply into the eyes of the simulant at quarter-speed, search that twelve-year-old face for some indication of the thoughts within. What does he think in this moment, what does it make him feel? Is his stomach turning over, are his arms and legs electrified, does his head spin with the giddy solution to a puzzle long elusive?
I toggle to code and try to read these things in the lines of text. The simulant seed is nothing more than DNA, the combination of his parents’ chromosomes, a digital zygote with an infinite chain of possibilities branching out from the single choice made at each fork in the road to follow. And as events in the tank change his operating protocols, the code is rewritten, future branches highlighted or invalidated.
He’s never before considered that his first love would be this boy, that he could love a boy, that such a thing might be part of his universe. You can’t read it in the lines of code, but it’s something I already know.
In the countless runs that have come before, this event has remained unchanged. On the day that he plans to ask Sophie Wright to the sixth-grade graduation dance, he sits on the rocky shore, past the woods beyond his house, pushing playfully at the boy until their hands connect and fingers interlock. He looks into Jacob’s eyes and a jolt passes through them both, unexpected fireworks within.
Through Jacob’s eyes in the VR render, I watch as the simulant’s pupils dilate and his breath catches in his throat. That’s the moment he falls in love and everything changes.
§
Could he know then the dangers of this unconditional connection, how fragile the soul when exposed to another? Did he start building the wall in this moment, or were the first bricks laid even years previously, inspired by the tortures of his older brother? It would be hard to find in the simulant’s code. The intricacies of the individual mind are not so simplistic as the AIs of the simulation tank. Programming the darker predilections of Jeong didn’t require a PhD in psychology. I don’t need to know what’s inside his head to program the actions that result.
They say our identities are a consequence of the free choices that we make. But which is more responsible for our individual choices: the response styles pre-programmed into our DNA, or the situational context in which we find ourselves?
They used to think we would find an indicator in the genome for these behavioral responses. Like computer code, expertly organized to direct each movement and desire. Or that we wouldn’t. That we could put the nature or nurture argument to rest. But as with all forks in the road, it became quickly obvious the importance of both elements. The DNA that seeds our individual experiences is only the starter pack. From the moment we’re born, the environmental context begins to reshape our decks, adds to and subtracts from the cards we’re able to play.
I adjust the environmental context code as necessary after setting the simulant’s world into motion. With each failed run, some new detail shows itself in full color, rears its head to be removed or enhanced as necessary. There is nuance, though, as I’ve said. Like a surgeon with his scalpel, the incisions must be careful, delicate. Intentional. Even the slightest error can have disastrous results. Not that the simulant would notice any of this.
For him, the events and residents of the simulation tank are the only reality he’s ever known. A total re-scripting of a friend or family member would be too much, too bizarre. It would seem like a mental break. So, the shifts happen infrequently. By degrees. And always to keep the sim on the desired path.
I watch as he moves through adolescence, adding to the bank of memories and myriad emotions experienced. The joy that Jacob brought through two years of adventure, in and out of school, along the rocky shore in their backyards, in the treehouse they built deep in the woods of Lincoln County. The heartache of Jacob’s departure when his family moved to Texas, of all places. The many other boys and girls that the sim would become infatuated with, the short but fiery relationships wherein he poured his soul out and into his partners, exacting the promises of an endless eternity.
He is a child through it all, but the trend continues into college.
The sim has a genetic makeup that marks him for topline intellectual acuity in 100% of runs, so we must assume that it is a constant in the seed code. The only way to account for this is the DNA gifted him by his parents. The drive of his mother, frenetic and focused on all the wrong things but focused nonetheless. Add to this the genius of his father, first a neurosurgeon, then an upload operator. Once human consciousness had been mapped by his Caltec
h team of doctors and computer scientists, neurosurgery became a thing of the past. It was just so much easier to upload the mind into a fresh body, cloned from the cells of the original. In the metro districts that still have power, I imagine the elite continue to upload with every aging body, approaching some strangely science-fictive immortality.
His father was just this type of intellectual giant who provided half of the simulant’s genetic code. It was no wonder the sim, born of this genome, would reach such heights of academic ability, of motivation. Would become such an obsessive scientist himself, reach such staggering depths of workaholism. Although perhaps you might call it devotion.
It’s the devotion he is not able to offer his partners. In the eighth week of the simulation, I watch at response speed to pick up the common tell-tales. There’s an aloofness after the first few dates, a detachment that begins too early. He abandons social events for the quiet study carrels of the university library. Hours stretch into days of work in the organic chemistry lab where he clones his first lizard, then guinea pig, then human embryo.
I rewrite his artificial partners. Perhaps a steadier hand, more encouragement, a maturity that the sim has yet to attain as doctoral student in his twenty-eighth year. They could teach him this openness, demonstrate this connection. Help to allay the deep-seated fear, to carry that load, to remove the bricks one by one. Somewhere within the actions and words of his partners, friends, and family is the key that will unlock what was once trepidation, anxiety. Has ballooned into full-blown paralysis.
This key arrives finally in his penultimate year of schooling, as he embarks on his fieldwork at Rorcan Industries, in the form of a wiry lab technician, freckled and bespectacled and a mess of red curls atop his head.
