In Beta

by Prescott Harvey

  Liz rested her back against the glass wall, patient. “Have you ever left Bickleton?”

  “Sure. Hiking, fishing.”

  “Ever been more than thirty minutes away? Ever been to a city? Another town?”

  Jay thought back to all the times he’d begged to go to Portland.

  “Has anyone left?” Liz continued. “Anyone ever visit DC? Disneyland? The Grand Canyon?”

  Jay racked his brain. Hadn’t Colin and his parents visited Seattle? They had pictures of Pike Place Market and the Space Needle, in their living room. But now that he thought about it, he didn’t remember them ever actually leaving. Didn’t Stevie go to science camp? She certainly talked about it. He realized he couldn’t recall seeing a single person actually leave Bickleton.

  “Just because people don’t leave, doesn’t mean they can’t. I just did a report on Nigerian exports.”

  “Yes, the details are amazing. It feels very real. When I first got here, I couldn’t believe it. But it’s the little things.”

  Liz walked over to the glass wall and shone her flashlight on the People magazines lying on the end table.

  “Like the New Kids on the Block didn’t die in a plane crash.”

  Jay shrugged. “How did they die, then?”

  “They didn’t. They’re alive and in their sixties! They went on tour again a few years ago—it was depressing. Also, there are ten seasons of Beverly Hills, 90210, not the ten episodes that seem to play over and over here. And while we’re on it, I’m pretty sure Heather Graham wasn’t a Playboy centerfold. And Pee-wee Herman didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize for comedy.”

  “Who did, then?”

  “There is no Nobel Prize for comedy, Jay.”

  “Next are you going to tell me Michael Jackson doesn’t sleep in an oxygen chamber? Let me tell you what doesn’t make sense: you! You claim to be from somewhere else, from this ‘real world.’ But I’ve known you since we were born. You’ve always been in Bickleton, Liz.”

  Liz sighed. “Yes, there has always been a Liz Knight here. I never met her, of course. But the moment I entered this program, I replaced her.”

  “What do you mean, you ‘replaced’ her?”

  “The people in this program, they’re not real. They’re simulated intelligence. Designed to look and act like people—with a few limitations—but controlled by the computer.”

  “You mean non-player characters? NPCs? Do you mean to tell me that everyone in Bickleton . . . except you . . . is an NPC?”

  Liz nodded. “The Liz who asked you to prom was a different Liz. An algorithm based on the real me.”

  “And what about me? You mean to say that I’m also an NPC?”

  She nodded again. Jay laughed. “That’s completely insane.”

  “Look, I don’t care if you believe me. I’m not here to win you over. I came because I need your help. You’ve found a way to hack this world. I need to know how you do it. How did you make that tornado happen? Can you get me out?”

  “Just go back the way you came.” He motioned to the room behind the glass. “Through your staging ground or whatever.”

  “I would if I could,” Liz responded, through gritted teeth.

  “We had an agreement. I tell you everything I know, even the stuff that doesn’t make sense, and you do the same.”

  “That’s what I’ve been doing!”

  “We live in a computer game?! Everyone’s an artificial intelligence, except you? Sheriff Jenkins was right: you’ve gone mental.”

  He turned back to the wall.

  “Jay, wait! How can I convince you it’s true? What else can I show you?”

  “You know what? I’m good. I never should have listened to you in the first place.”

  He felt his way along the back wall until his hands disappeared into space. He ducked his head down, the marble glowed blue, and then the roar of the falls surrounded him, hitting him with spray. He fell, tucking his torso into a front flip, and landed feetfirst on the rocky ledge below.

  He ran. The sky was lightening, and he could make out the lonesome treetops above as the forest turned to dim blue. Anger surged through his body. Every time he used the disk, he’d convinced himself he was doing God’s will. The idea that his life and everyone in it were just stupid preprogrammed blocks of code flew in the face of everything he knew and believed. He had to prove that Liz was wrong. He had to show her there was a world outside Bickleton.

  O Horizon

  The sunlight lifted over the land like a curtain while Jay drove. Cold light, delivered by a distant star. Jay stuck his elbow out of his window, hoping to feel some of the warmth on his skin. The fury still beat inside his chest. He found himself thinking of Nigeria. Two months ago, he’d done that report. It was double the size of California. Exported oil. Had a blossoming film industry called Nollywood. He was Cascadia’s foremost expert on all things Nigeria. And Liz was telling him it didn’t exist.

  It couldn’t be true.

  He’d been driving for over an hour, under dark treetops, as the morning sky turned to orange. The Cranberries Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? CD played the second time through on the car sound system. Jay was starving. It was nearly breakfast time, and his stomach gurgled.

  Soon, he told himself. Soon, Highway 24 would bring him to Cougar, the next town over. He’d seen Cougar on maps. It was supposedly their rival high school. At baseball scrimmages, kids would hold up signs “Kill the Kitties” and “Cut Up the Cougs.” It was supposed to be smaller than Bickleton, with a gas station that didn’t card for beer or Playboys.

  Soon, the woods would part, and he’d see that gas station. Soon, he’d catch his first glimpse ever of a town outside Bickleton. Why hadn’t he done this before? Because he had never been so desperate to prove someone wrong.

  The road weaved, skirting the dark waters of the Skookullom River and passing back into the shadow of the trees. He passed a large cedar sign for the Cartwright National Forest. The road left the water and ran deeper into the old growth. There were no other cars on the road, no sounds competing with the dull roar of his Miata. The car seemed to be working again after his run-in with Liz, though the wheel well still scraped horrifically against the tire. He hoped it didn’t pop it. And if it did, he hoped he had a spare.

  A few hundred feet ahead, he saw a stop sign. Good, he thought, this must be Cougar. He slowed, then stopped. There was no intersection, no roads, no signs of other cars or buildings. The road simply continued on another two hundred yards, then dead-ended into forest.

  Jay pulled off the side of the road and shut off his engine. The forest felt oppressively quiet. The only sound was the roar of the Skookullom through the trees. Huge cedars loomed over the road, tapering down into groves of willows and maples. The lone stop sign felt horribly out of place, a lone reminder of civilization. Jay walked to the edge of the asphalt, where the road abruptly stopped, and stared at the thick wall of trees.

  “What the heck?”

  This wasn’t on the map. On the map, Highway 24 continued, he was certain. Jay grabbed his backpack from the passenger seat and wrapped it around his shoulders. His bag was light and wobbly. He’d packed haphazardly: a pair of clothes, a couple Capri Suns, $25,000 in cash.

  He trudged into the woods, enveloped completely in silence. The hum of insects and the occasional chitter of nuthatches were the only sounds. In the distance, the river rumbled. Light fell through the branches, revealing the faint outline of a game trail. He pushed his way through ferns, following the trail.

  Had there been a mistake? Had he missed an exit? He’d passed no other roads; this had to be it. Then why did the map show Highway 24 continuing? Since he’d left Rock Ridge, he hadn’t allowed his mind to return to his conversation with Liz. The sinking feeling he’d been feeling for the last few hours was growing.

  He scramble
d over fallen trees and leapt over a boulder. It was odd that he’d never been this far out before. Maybe the road just stopped for a stretch. Maybe he’d find it again on the other side of these trees. He strained, listening for the sound of rushing cars. If he could flag one down, it could take him into Cougar. He moved faster now, searching the trees ahead for any break. And then, sure enough, the trees up ahead lightened. There was a clearing. And Jay heard a rumble that sounded a lot like traffic. He broke into a run, crashing forward.

  The foliage around him thinned, thick cedars vanishing, the ferns turning into scraggly cottonwood. Jay held out a hand and shut his eyes, plunging through branches that scratched his face. Then the branches fell away, and Jay ran into something hard.

  “Ouch!”

  He fell backward, landing on his back, seeing stars.

  When he looked up, he saw that the trees were gone, and so was the ground. He was standing at the edge of a rocky cliff. The earth plummeted hundreds of feet down into a wide, green valley that seemed to stretch on forever in alarming uniformity. To his right, the waters of the Skookullom crashed down over the cliff edge, dropping out of sight. Here was the source of the sound he’d heard. He stared. Never in his life had he seen anything like it. Living in the Cascade Range, you were always surrounded by mountains. The dull flatness in front of him was completely foreign. It felt like a mistake.

  The sun was rising behind him, bleaching the last patches of night into beautiful pink and orange. Before him, there were no mountains, no sign of a path, a highway, a town, a meadow. Even the Skookullom River seemed to vanish under the canopy of green.

  Jay stood and stepped forward to get a better look over the cliff.

  BAM! He hit something and stumbled back again, holding his forehead.

  When he looked up, nothing seemed to be blocking his way. He took a hesitant step forward with his hand outstretched. His palm flattened. There was something smooth and hard. As his hand touched it, he felt the faint crackle of static and the hair on his fingers rose. It felt like touching the face of a TV screen.

  “No . . .” he whispered.

  He pushed on the invisible wall. It was solid. He threw his body against it. Nothing. Jay looked left and right. The cliff extended in both directions as far as he could see.

  “No!”

  He hurled another fist against the wall. On the other side, the trees bent in uniformity, as if blown by an invisible wind. Jay waited for the gust to touch his face, but it never did. It was an animation, like the trees in The Build. Jay collapsed against the wall, listening to the noise of the river loop mechanically.

  He screamed. It. Meant. Nothing. His mind flashed back to last year, when they’d studied nihilism in Tutorial.

  “You don’t know the meaning, Miss Rotchkey!” Jay screamed at the cliff. “You don’t know the meaning.”

  He picked up a rock and threw it at the wall. It bounced back. He fell onto the flat rock and lay there, dazed, staring out at the vast expanse. How was this possible?

  Simulated Intelligence

  Jay wasn’t certain how long he lay on the cliff side. He tried to concentrate, but his mind was spinning in circles. Every time he thought back to his conversation with Liz, and what it meant for him and his reality, his mind went blank. There was no longer a reason to return to Bickleton, so he just lay there, mesmerized by the vast expanse before him.

  Eventually, he realized he was shivering. Looking down at his legs, he saw they were covered in goose bumps. He wore a light windbreaker and shorts, and he’d been warm enough when he’d been moving. But lying still on that cold rock, he felt completely drained of heat. Shaking, he forced his body up and trudged back down the game trail, feeling deeply resentful of his own physical needs.

  Still, his mind seemed unable to weigh the implications of his discovery.

  It wasn’t until he was back in his Miata, with the top up and the heat on, did some normalcy return. He realized he was hungrier than ever, and that helped. The need for warmth and food at least gave him a reason to reacquaint with reality. He drove back slowly, in a state of shock. There was no longer a need to hurry. He would never have to hurry again.

  He passed the city limits. A sign read “Welcome to Bickleton.” Behind it was a small marquee that read “Mary Jo has won the raffle!” Its letters were faded and covered in green. That had been its message as long as Jay could remember.

  He wound slowly through lower Bickleton. To his left, a green Northern Burlington caboose sat rusting on ancient train tracks, covered in graffiti. The mobile homes had satellite dishes on their roofs, sometimes two or three. Jay stared at them. How had he never noticed that before? There were only three channels in Bickleton, no matter how many satellite dishes your house had. Three channels, two radio stations. How had he never noticed how odd that was? He felt sickening claustrophobia as he drove slowly up to the heights.

  He didn’t even know where he was going. There was nowhere to go. It didn’t matter if he returned to school and apologized, or if he stole Tutorial’s computer to build a mansion and live his life like a billionaire. There was no leaving Bickleton. He stared down at his hands on the steering wheel. They were streams of data, he thought numbly. All just streams of data.

  The kindest thing he could do, he realized, was kill himself. If he slammed his foot on the gas and drove off the road that second, he could end it. He doubted very much if a strength and dexterity score of 10 would allow him to survive an eighty-mile-per-hour crash. His mom would be sad, and Colin, too. But the rest of Bickleton? Everything would go back to normal. Three TV stations, two radio stations. The Johns could play baseball against themselves again. And the knowledge he had, the knowledge that their town—their lives—were just nothing? That would die with him. Nobody else in Bickleton would ever face the horror of their own existence.

  Jay was so deep in his thoughts, he didn’t even realize where he had been driving to. But now, suddenly, he saw he was outside Liz Knight’s house.

  In his eighteen years in Bickleton, he’d never been inside the Knights’ house. His mom had. She went to United Methodist Church, same as the Knights, and she felt that Liz’s parents were thoroughly good people.

  The Knights didn’t live on the bluff, alongside the most expensive mansions. This had always secretly been part of Liz’s appeal. Despite her looks and A-Court fame, she was still one of the little people. Her parents had a modest home in the center of Bickleton, two blocks from La Dulce Vita trailer park. The house itself was a small two-story, built partially over a garage, with cedar hedges on either side, and a chain-link fence that hemmed in two barking golden retrievers. It felt newer than many of the homes in Bickleton, and Jay noticed the mauve paint and white trim looked fresh, and that the front lawn was freshly mowed.

  Liz’s Cherokee was parked in front of her garage. Parked along the street in front of her house was a barricade of trucks. Chevys mostly, some Fords. They were parked at odd angles, like they’d descended in a hurry. Johns were scattered across her lawn, and the front door was ajar. Jeremy stood on the cement steps of her house. Liz stood in the doorway, framed by her mom and dad. Jay slowed his Miata, and every single John turned at his arrival.

  Jay found Liz’s eyes. She shook her head slightly and mouthed the word “No.” Jay stared, trying to decipher what she meant, when something slammed the hood of his Miata. Three Johns stood in front of Jay’s car, leering. For a moment, Jay considered just running them over. But he felt tired. He turned off his ignition, leaving his car dead in the middle of the street.

  Jeremy turned slowly and descended the steps of Liz’s house. His face was neutral, as if he’d been expecting Jay. Liz took a step down the stoop of her house, and her dad followed her, placing a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. Liz shrugged it off, uncomfortable.

  As Jeremy approached the Miata, Jay stepped out. The Johns circled him, closing in. They
formed their usual wall, but Jay noticed they kept their distance this time, shooting nervous glances toward Jeremy. Jeremy didn’t have his usual sneer. He considered Jay carefully. Jay saw a purple welt under Jeremy’s cheekbone. The slightest bit of color rose in Jeremy’s cheeks.

  “It wasn’t fair.”

  Jay burst out laughing. Above everything else, Jeremy talking about what was “fair” was too much.

  “I need to talk to Liz, Jeremy.”

  “Tell me how you did it.”

  “I can’t,” Jay said truthfully.

  The Johns took a step closer. To his amazement, Jay found he wasn’t afraid. He looked at all the Johns leaning in, and realized he didn’t even know their last names. In fact, he was pretty sure they didn’t have last names. He snorted in laughter again. The idea that he’d lived in Bickleton for eighteen years and never even noticed a detail like that was so absurd, he didn’t even know what to make of it.

  “Something funny?” Jeremy sneered.

  “God has a sense of humor.” Jay smiled.

  From over the Johns’ heads, Jay heard Liz’s dad shout.

  “I called the sheriff!”

  Jeremy jerked his head at Jay. The Johns breathed a collective intake, and there was a rush of footsteps toward Jay.

  They hit him from all directions. They were on top of him, blinding him. He could feel their weight dragging him down as they leapt on his shoulders, grabbed at his arms. His muscles strained against their collective mass, and then he was down. He grimaced as gravel drove into his stomach. He felt more bodies pile on. He choked, suffocating. Shoes dug into his back, and the air squeezed from his lungs.

  Jay clenched his muscles, stretching his back. The bodies on top of him lifted. Jay grunted and heaved again. Bodies fell away, bucking. He pushed with all his might, and then he burst out of the Johns, sending their bodies tumbling across the gravel. He spun around, grabbing John C, and flung him over the lawn. John H was behind him. Jay kicked him in the stomach and heard a groan. His hand shot out, grabbing John B, and he flipped him into the hood of an F-150, denting it.