“I was not sure whether I would come or not,” said Benjamin vaguely, not really paying attention and speaking more to himself than the professor. “In the end I thought what the hell, I’ll play along for now. A few weeks by myself in complete solitude, away from the world and all its ills and playing computer games – the perfect escape.”
“I can see you still doubt me, Captain Rutherford,” said Harley, not sounding at all bothered. “Rest assured I am true to my word. You may not yet realise the huge impact you are eventually to have upon mankind, or perhaps you just cannot cope with the timescale involved. Either way you are to enter the chamber and that is good enough for me.”
“And do I have a get out clause?” Asked Benjamin. “If I don’t like it can I leave whenever I want?”
“You will not want to leave,” replied the professor confidently. “But if anything does go wrong whilst I am alive I will of course take steps to assist you.”
“Well I suppose that’s something.”
Steep steps led downwards to a heavy looking metal door that reminded Benjamin of a bank vault. The professor produced a large wheel and inserted it into a cog, turned it hard. The door swung open. Another door of exactly the same type stood before them. “This is the entrance,” explained Harley as he closed the first door behind them. “This door is simply to avoid corrupting the atmosphere of the chamber.” He inserted the wheel into the cog of the new door, turned it and it swung open. “If you please.”
Benjamin smiled sardonically as he stepped into the chamber. “See you in a million years,” he muttered as the door swung shut behind him.
Harley Huxtable walked back up the steep stone steps, along the stone passageway and out into the open. Over the next two days large mixing lorries poured concrete into the entrance to the chamber until it was completely filled in. The professor purchased himself a cottage in the nearest village and phoned the university to resign from each of his posts. He ordered a few possessions be brought up from his farmhouse in Oxfordshire and made arrangements for the farmhouse to be sold. Then he ensconced himself in the attic bedroom of his cottage and determined never to be seen in public again.
Benjamin turned back towards the door and found there was no handle attached to it. It was just a smooth piece of what appeared to be wood. It did not budge when he pushed against it. Benjamin did not harbour any especial desire to escape, simply to test out the parameters of what was, for the time being, his prison. The chamber was like a well-furnished, spacious middle class living room with plastered magnolia walls and comfortable furnishings, a settee and an easy chair set out near the centre before a large Persian style carpet. A large and elaborate looking chandelier hung down from the ceiling. A huge screen dominated an entire wall. Stairs led upwards to a mezzanine floor which contained a large circular structure shaped like a circus big top. Benjamin approached the circular structure which whirred and buzzed. A door was set into the side. Benjamin reached out to open it then stopped himself. This must be the God Simulator, he told himself, and he was not ready to enter that just yet. Underneath the mezzanine floor was a sleeping area complete with double bed and chest of drawers. The computer was set just before the stairs to the mezzanine floor and appeared to be attached to the giant screen. Next to it lay a portable reading tablet. An old fashioned grandfather clock stood not far from the computer. Below it was a timer which counted how long had passed since his confinement. Two minutes so far. To the right was what appeared to be a window, for there were curtains across it and sunlight seemed to stream in. But when Benjamin investigated further he found that it was in fact an artificial light source there to simulate sunlight which could be turned up or down as required and even had a full and half-moon setting. A closed off area leading to what was presumably a bathroom stood to the near right hand side. Of the fabled antenna there was no sign. Benjamin assumed that if it existed at all it must be on the outer structure. There was no kitchen area, Benjamin suddenly realised with alarm. No kind of food at all for that matter. There was, however, what appeared to be an oven door situated just to the side of the great screen. Benjamin approached and opened it cautiously. It was exactly like an oven inside. Written on the back wall of the oven however, in what appeared to be black marker pen, were the following words: ‘Ask. Close oven. Open oven. Consume.’ Benjamin’s face creased in confusion. He closed the oven door. “Steak,” he said uncertainly. There came a whirring sound from within the oven itself. He opened the door. The steak stood there on a plate, medium rare. Just the way he liked it. He retrieved it from the oven and wolfed it down hungrily. As good as any steak he had ever tasted. He approached the oven again. “Beer.” And it was there. “Cigarettes.” Cigarettes. “Women.” Nothing happened. Consumables only, it seemed. Benjamin sank down into the easy chair and declared to himself that it was the most comfortable seat he had ever sat on. A remote control sat on the arm rest. Benjamin flicked a random button and the screen flickered to life. The following words appeared: “Choose film or show.” Benjamin chose a film. The lights dimmed. The film played on the big screen complete with 3D effects and surround sound. It was like being in a cinema. “This is okay,” said Benjamin aloud. “I will not starve, I will not die of boredom. I can stay here for a few months. This is not so bad.”
Benjamin Rutherford spent the first three days of his confinement drinking beer, smoking cigarettes and watching films on the big screen. During that time he remained in a near constant state of drunkenness and so was unable to fully appreciate the anomalies taking place around him. He did not at first think to question, for example, why the plates and beer bottles and cigarette ends he so casually discarded simply disappeared within an hour of being done with. He did not question why it was that when once he fell asleep with a smouldering cigarette in his mouth which then dropped down on to the carpet below there was no scorching or worse. He did not draw any relevance from the time he staggered up to use the toilet and tripped and fell against the glass coffee table then got up without a scratch. He did not wonder why he only used the toilet when he thought he should, and not because he really needed to. He did not comment upon his lack of a hangover when he woke up.
On the fourth day Benjamin Rutherford awoke in his bed and decided he would not, after all, get drunk today. Instead he would clear up the mess he had surely made. But of course there was no mess to clear up. Everything was as clean as it had been the day he moved in. Benjamin’s first thought was Harley Huxtable had come in to clean up whilst he was sleeping, or had sent a cleaner in on his behalf. Or perhaps Benjamin had somehow managed to do it whilst very drunk. No, that could not be it. He could just about accept the notion of food appearing from nowhere but he could not see how things could simply vanish into thin air. Benjamin decided to perform an experiment. He approached the oven. “Orange juice,” he ordered. The machine whirred, Benjamin opened the door and there was the orange juice. He downed it quickly and set the glass down upon the coffee table and waited. After around half an hour the glass simply vanished. Benjamin shook his head. He could not understand it at all.
Of course the truth was that the food and the beer and the containers they came in were not really there at all. They existed in the chamber solely because Benjamin willed them to exist. He did not, in fact, need to eat, drink, sleep or go to the toilet. He did so only because he was used to it and because he found such things to be rather pleasing. Here in the chamber, with its sealed environment, shielded from the excesses of time, everything would remain the same. Not even Benjamin could change it. He could only change himself. If he felt drunk it was because he wanted to be drunk, if he was hungry or thirsty it was because he willed it upon himself. He did not wish to suffer physical pain or headaches and so he did not suffer them, even though in the real world these things came naturally to those who over imbibed as Benjamin did.
Two weeks into his confinement Benjamin Rutherford decided he had had enough. He wanted out. It was not that he was bored of the chamber, or fru
strated or claustrophobic, it was merely that he desired human company. But the door was bolted firmly shut and there was no method of communication with which to call the outside world. Ben began to panic. He overturned the tables and chairs and his bed; he smashed his fists against the magnolia walls and gouged his fingernails against the plasterwork. It was no use. He ordered a bottle of whiskey and drank it all down in under half an hour then passed out on the floor (but only because he thought this was the appropriate action to take. He did not have to pass out or be drunk if he so desired). When he awoke the room was back to normal again. All was as it was before. For two weeks the cycle continued anew. Ben would wake up, smash up the chamber, get drunk and fall asleep.
It was a year before Ben finally accepted he was to be here for the long term, probably the rest of his life, which he at this point considered in human terms. In all of that time he never once entered the God Simulator, if that indeed was what it was, because he imagined it might involve some kind of commitment and he was not ready for such a long term commitment just yet. He began to greatly miss human company, and the company of women especially. He still watched a lot of films and he still got drunk a great deal but he also read as well, and the reading tablet gave him an unlimited supply. Although he was no longer as prone to acts of violence he nonetheless became terribly depressed. He began to look upon Harley Huxtable as the incarnation of the devil and became convinced the professor was secretly filming his plight. Indeed the search for hidden cameras became something of an obsession for Benjamin and there were days when he did nothing except comb every inch of the chamber in a fruitless hunt. Sometimes he would sit for days on end, neither eating, drinking or sleeping (none of which he was required to do any longer) but instead pondering the complexities of the professor’s character and trying to work out what it was that had inspired the man to embark upon such a strange experiment. Harley had said that Benjamin was to become the perfect human, the ultimate being, and yet Benjamin certainly did not feel he was making any progress in this direction as yet. He was sure the professor was somehow watching him and wished the man would give him a sign, some advice or at the very least have a conversation with him. Besides, surely the professor somehow had to moderate the experiment in some way, even if the chamber itself was self-sustaining as it appeared to be.
Benjamin soon realised he did not age or become unwell no matter what he ate or drank and so, released from any sort of responsibility for his own actions, gave himself away to total hedonism. For a very long time he did not pass a single sober hour but instead drank and smoked and injected himself as and when he pleased. The God Simulator and the great library database within the computer went completely ignored as he indulged himself in every pleasure. He dearly hoped the professor was watching from somewhere. He dearly wished the great man, the man with the ‘once in a hundred year brain’ could see what an atrocious mess Benjamin was making of the entire experiment. The best times were when Benjamin would indulge in a cocktail of drink and drugs for weeks on end then fall asleep for days and dream non-stop. In his dreams he found he was able to take control far better than from the confines of what was in effect his cell and was able to interact with his fantasy people, build relationships and succeed. Of course the professor loomed large in these dreams as well but for some reason whenever he met him Benjamin could never be angry with the man. Often they ended up working together in some nonsensical adventure before the professor would fade out of sight only to return much later with an equally ridiculous scheme. Sometimes dreams and reality blurred and Benjamin spent years convinced of the reality of his imaginings. When he finally woke up for good, twenty-four years later, he found he could remember next to nothing of what had passed.
Benjamin could never quite pinpoint what it was that led him to leave the hedonism behind and try the God Simulator for the first time. One day he simply woke up fresh and warm in his bed and was overcome with an overwhelming desire for goodness and purity. He felt the need to be creative, to do good, to exercise control over something more than his own hallucinatory dreams. And so he climbed the stairs to the mezzanine floor. The God Simulator had a diameter of three metres and was around two metres tall and consisted of thick blue metal with glass windows which seemed to have been blocked out with blue paint. Benjamin had poked his head inside the God Simulator before now but he had never bothered to switch it on. When he entered he was confronted with a comfortable padded swivel chair. He sat down facing a large red button which, aside from the chair, was the only thing in the sphere. He pressed the button. Suddenly the small room was plunged into the most complete darkness. Benjamin turned slowly around in his chair, turning again and again. A small light hovered in front of him. He reached out his finger to touch it. The light attached itself to his finger. Benjamin brought the forefinger on his other hand round and pushed his two fingers together and then apart. The light expanded before him and became a warm glow. He stretched it as far as his hand span would allow then rose from his chair and pulled it at the edges so that it filled every part of the room. He returned to his chair and regarded the colourful clouds which now filled his vision. He reached out for a yellow cloud and took it into his hands, moulded and kneaded it into a ball and set it back in its place where it glowed brightly before him. He kneaded an orange cloud, then a red one and set them both back into the orb. Then he took the red ball and brought it together with the yellow ball. A great explosion filled the space and Ben felt a pleasant heat against his face and the whoosh of air. When he looked again he found what appeared to be tiny balls of gas floating before him. He kneaded a yellow gas cloud into a ball and brought several of the other balls around to hover close to it. Slowly the smaller balls of gas began to circle the yellow orb in a regular orbit. Benjamin reached out and put his hands between the yellow orb and the furthest ball of gas and pulled outwards. The Solar System, for this is what it was, grew larger, indeed it seemed the space inside the Simulator grew larger and soon he was looking down at one of the smaller balls of gas and it was the size of a beach ball. He zoomed in upon the ball of gas even further still until it filled almost his entire field of vision. He reached out and spun it around and it continued to spin, steady and regular. A cloud began to develop around it and as he watched the gas turned first to liquid, then cooled still further until solid patches could be made out. Soon it was a perfectly spherical, perfectly solid sphere. Benjamin licked his finger and touched a cloud. The cloud grew dark and grey then started to rain water down upon the surface of the sphere. The cloud grew until it almost completely covered the sphere and all the time the water rained down upon it. When at last the rain subsided Benjamin saw vast oceans and continents, with patches of land containing huge mountain ranges, plains and sandy deserts. Benjamin wiped some of the sweat from his brow and smeared it upon the surface of the earth. Tiny plants appeared and spread. They grew better upon the plains and not so well amongst the mountains and deserts, but they grew differently wherever they sprung up and in the most fertile areas became huge trees in forests which covered entire continents. Benjamin zoomed in some more and soon he was swimming – actually swimming – in the deep seas of the world he had created. He dived down, deep into the depths then plucked a hair from his head and allowed it to float before him. The hair twisted with the currents and disintegrated, its remains falling to the bottom of the sea. Benjamin followed them and soon he saw tiny fish swimming this way and that and before he knew it the entire ocean, wherever he swam, was positively teaming with fish. He reached out and took hold of a handful and moulded them together. A much larger beast with great tusks and a wide mouth now appeared before him. Benjamin moulded more fish into different shapes and more and more sea beasts were created. Now he swam back to the surface, took hold of one of the smaller beasts and threw it on to the dry land. The creature grew legs and crawled away. Benjamin took more beasts from the sea, of all different kinds and cast them on to all parts of his new world. Some he threw on to the plains, som
e he threw on to the mud, some into the deserts and some into the mountains. The beasts changed before his very eyes. Massive, terrifying monsters roamed the surface, some on two legs, some on four. The monsters fought with one another, preyed upon and consumed one another. Some came to dominate a particular area whilst others slunk off, defeated, to the more undesirable corners of the world. Benjamin took hold of a beast and threw it into the sky and as it fell it grew wings and made off into the air where it built a nest in the forests so it could be safe from the larger monsters. And all of the beasts, all of his creations, changed and evolved depending on where in the world they settled. In the colder polar regions the beasts developed thick fur and padded feet, white camouflage so they could hunt and hide more easily. In the arid deserts they grew scaly and lizard-like, and in the great plains they grew lean and quick. Benjamin roamed upon the surface of his world, witnessing earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. But he was the master of it all. Benjamin came to a vast stretch of plain bordered by a mountain range in the far distance. Here he sat down in a clearing by an oasis and there sculpted a model of a man and a woman from the mud. He gave the sculptures hair from his own head and watched as the two came to life before him. Finally some people to talk to! But the man and the woman did not seem to interested in speaking with him as an equal but chose to worship him instead, bringing him gifts of crops and sacrificing animals in his name. Benjamin created more people from the mud and these people bred amongst themselves. At his direction they built primitive stone structures, and constructed stone monuments in his name. They created giant effigies in his image and their adulation of him became more and more elaborate. They came to him and begged for his favour, and when he was unsure who was the most worthy they fought amongst themselves in terrible wars, developed great fortresses and siege equipment, built armies and colonised land then used that land on which to build great cities surrounded by walls and served by roads and viaducts. The march of humankind was relentless. Their cities expanded across the world and the technologies improved. Castles became skyscrapers. Now they no longer cared about Benjamin’s favour, now it was all about themselves. Places of worship were knocked down and ignored as the people forgot about him. In a rage Benjamin zoomed out, far out, beyond the solar system and more until he had zoomed out so far he was holding the entire universe between his fingers. He screwed it up into a ball and darkness pervaded once more. The experiment, for now, was over. Benjamin stood up, stretched and left the orb, made his way down the steps and glanced at the grandfather clock. It showed the passing of twenty-five thousand years.
The Man Of One Million Years Page 2
