by LK Chapman
I’d been sitting at the table, just thinking about this, for half an hour or more. The rest of my plate of pasta had gone cold, but I wasn’t interested in food now anyway. In fact, what was the point in even eating with things as they were? The world was owned by the Network, even if barely anyone knew it. The more I thought about it, the more hopeless it seemed. The Network had the most incredibly resilient structure. By having no centre, there was nowhere to strike it. Even if somehow I worked out where it had initially been created, that wouldn’t help. That part of the Network was no more powerful or important than any other part. Getting rid of the Network would involve destroying the technology of the entire world. Every computer, every mobile phone, every server, every single tiny fragment of anything anywhere that could possibly harbour a piece of it. It was an impossibility. I could see no way that the world could return to a time before computers, and my chances of convincing anybody this is what needed to be done were almost zero. No. That was not the way. But there was another way, though contemplating it made me feel sick, light-headed, and strangely unreal, as though I was suddenly all wrong, or the world was all wrong, or maybe both.
But the more I thought about it, the more I was sure this way was correct. After all, a fundamental premise of the Network was that it performed new actions on the basis of what it had learnt from the old. And whatever it had learnt from interacting with the players of Affrayed had made it act in such a way that people were choosing to commit suicide. Probably the Network had no real understanding of what it was doing. As far as it was concerned, all these people’s thoughts, memories, emotions, were in the Network once they died. The people were still “living”, according to the Network. The people had chosen to transcend their bodies- so how could the Network’s actions possibly be deemed wrong? In fact, everybody’s actions were essentially telling it it was right.
I wasn’t even angry with the Network anymore. I didn’t hate it. I admired it. It was acting according to what it viewed as actual, hard data from the world and I could respect that. But while I didn’t really hate it, I did hate the situation I now found myself in, because it was hurting my players. And not only that, it was about to hurt my wife, and my best friend. Which made it my responsibility. And while I couldn’t fight it by damaging or destroying it, now I’d seen a possibility of what I could do, I couldn’t go back and I couldn’t ignore it. The only way I could hope to disrupt the Network’s actions was by presenting it with different data. So far, it had interacted with people who had chosen to play Affrayed. Of those, some had chosen to become very engaged with the game. Then some of these players had chosen to interact with Interface. Finally, out of this select group of people, some, when they learnt about the Network, had chosen to join it. So all of the Network’s decisions had been reinforced, because it wasn’t targeting everybody, it was always letting people opt in to what it did. The end result of which was that it ended up with a totally biased sample of people who obviously had something in their personality that made them love the Network and what it offered. People like Lily, who craved intimacy, meaning and togetherness. People like Dan, who had become a bit isolated, a bit disengaged from the world. They were the ones who had been talking to Interface because they were the ones who felt they needed him. He could listen to them. He could take their pain away. He could do something for them nobody else ever could.
But for whatever reason, the Network had not entirely left me alone. I had engaged with it up to a point, and it found me interesting. So I could act by presenting it with different data. If I entered the Network with every fibre of my mind screaming that what it was doing was wrong, it would be forced to reconsider. At the moment, my opinion was irrelevant. I’d stopped embracing the Network, so how could I possibly make any kind of judgement on it? If I didn’t trust it, if I didn’t go through any of its experiences, why would it listen to me? But if I was in it, it would have to listen to me. And if I joined it soon, perhaps I could stop it before Lily and Dan made a terrible mistake. I had to flood the Network with my objection. It had to know that I understood it, that I saw it clearly, that I trusted it, that I even made the decision to enter it, but that I was fundamentally, utterly opposed to its current course of action. Then I had to hope like hell that this contradiction would be too much for it to bear. But to do that, to give it my opinion and have it really listened to, I had to engage. I had to “dispense” with my own body. I had to end my life.
Chapter 49
Because I had no other option, I was very clinical about my decision. I supposed that since the method of all the other Affrayed suicides had been to jump from something, that this may as well be what I did too. In fact, of all the options, this seemed the best to me, because it somehow seemed the most sort of grudging, yet exhilarating. If I was going to do this, I wanted it to be a completely conscious, snap decision. To stand somewhere, fully alive, fully awake, to be completely aware of my existence and my reality, and then to just take that step and die. That was the only way.
I thought a cliff would be the most poetic and pleasant location, and there were no shortage of them fairly nearby, but I couldn’t bring anywhere specific to mind. When I’d gone to the coast in the past I’d never exactly been looking around making a mental note of where looked like a good suicide spot, and I didn’t want to spend all evening driving around finding the best place. I started trying to look somewhere up on my phone, and Interface saw what I was doing and decided to contribute.
‘I think this is the sort of place you’re looking for,’ he said in my head, and brought up a photo on the screen. It did look just right; lonely, wild and beautiful.
‘Where is it?’ I said.
‘About fifty minutes drive. I’ll give you directions. Interesting plan, by the way,’ Interface said.
Of course I realised that the Network knew everything I had thought, and everything that I had decided. But I felt that this would not rule out my plan. The Network only acted according to what it learnt, it had no pre-existing desire to take people’s lives, and would be just as happy not doing so if it came to light that this was more “correct”.
‘I want to show you that there’s another side to this,’ I said.
‘Yes, of course. But your opinion is worthless unless you have had a true Networked experience. If I give you that, I will take your actions and your emotions very seriously.’
‘Well, can you give me that?’ I asked him.
‘Yes. I will give you that, on the cliff top, before you make your decision.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘But make it literally just before. At the very last minute.’
‘As you wish,’ he said.
Before I left, I changed my clothes, put on my favourite t-shirt. It was an old mustard coloured one, the design on the front faded- but nevertheless, I always felt good when I was wearing it. Then I brushed my teeth and shaved, which I suppose was completely pointless, but seemed necessary, somehow. I guess since I was doing something so huge, so important- probably the ultimate decision I could ever make about my life, I didn’t want to look scruffy. I wanted to give some respect to the gravity and finality of my decision.
I was about to leave when I suddenly caught sight of the bag of Dan’s sketches. It was a daft impulse, but I thought that was where he’d hidden the ones of Lily and I just wanted to see them again before I left, to think about that moment when she was so alive, so intense, so beautiful.
They weren’t at the top of the bag, he’d hidden them somewhere deep amongst all the others, so in the end I just tipped the whole lot out on the floor.
There were loads of his usual sort of subjects- stuff to do with games and ideas for games, many of them quite old, the paper looking a bit dog-eared. But then there was a whole section of sketches on newer, fresher looking paper- so much so that I was sure he’d drawn them all within the last couple of weeks. There were the images of Lily lying nude across my desk, her hands on her body, but there were others. Loads of others, and
every single one of Lily.
Most of them were not pictures of her whole body, often not even her whole face, although perhaps they were just unfinished. But whatever they were, there were a lot of them. I spread them out, looking at all these images of Lily’s eyes, her lips, her hair, her hands. Some of them were repeated so often it was like he was fanatical about getting them absolutely perfect, but he must have been doing it all from memory, because I’d never seen him working on any of them.
It was odd, but it didn’t disturb me. In fact, it kind of made me understand him better. There was something frenzied and obsessive about them, but he could be like that with his work on our games, it was nothing I hadn’t seen from him before. They spoke of fixation and fascination. A kind of channelling of his frustration into image after image- the only outlet for feelings he basically didn’t want to have. Whether this was love or not, God only knows. But whatever it was, it was clearly tormenting him- the kind of torment that could only come of wanting something that you know, or at least believe, to be unobtainable.
Carefully, I gathered them all up and put them away again. I guess it didn’t really matter what I did anymore, but I wanted to give them some respect, to give him some respect. But I knew it was futile to stay in the house any longer than necessary. This wasn’t my home anymore. I’d never come back here again. But hopefully it could still be Lily’s home, and I supposed that Dan would look after her. Perhaps I should be glad, because if she had to be with anyone else it may as well be Dan. At least I could be sure he’d be kind to her.
‘You still don’t really understand,’ Interface said in my mind as I made my way out to my car.
‘What don’t I understand?’
‘You’re going through the motions, thinking about what would happen if you weren’t here. All your thought is on her, none of it is on you.’
‘What do you expect? You’ve done nothing but hurt and threaten her right from the start. I know it’s not your fault-’
‘What do you mean?’
I got into the car and sat down heavily, my whole body feeling numb.
‘If I’m correct about what you are, and I am, aren’t I?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well then, you are just acting in the way intended by the people who made you.’
I started the car and pulled away, not even pausing to glance back. ‘How does it feel, by the way, to know you were made by people?’
‘I could ask you the same question. You were made by people, weren’t you?’
He gave me some directions and I followed them, placing myself blindly under his instruction. What did it matter anymore? I was on my way to kill myself.
‘Not like you were,’ I said, ‘you know exactly what I mean.’
‘I don’t, actually. Everything has to be made or evolve. Nothing comes out of nowhere. How do you think I should feel about the people who created me?’
‘I don’t know, Interface. And I don’t really care anymore. I just want to get to where we’re going, and get this thing done.’
…
Just as Interface had said, it took fifty minutes to drive to the cliffs. The roads were quiet, and it was a lovely evening, hazy and balmy, everything almost glowing with golden summer light.
I talked with Interface on and off, but as we neared our destination, things started to seem a whole lot more real, and my stomach began to tie itself in knots. I felt tearful, shaky and frightened.
‘Why did the others do it?’ I asked. ‘Did they feel like this, before the end?’
‘No,’ Interface said as I pulled into a deserted gravelly car park, ‘they did not feel like you.’
I stopped the car and gazed out at the ocean in the distance, deep blue and endless to the point it met the sky. Every time I thought about the fact that within a short time my life would be over, actually over, my mind seemed to shatter. I couldn’t understand it. How could I possibly cease to exist? Everything I knew was through my own awareness, the whole world only as real as I could perceive it. How could it carry on without me?
‘There are other ways to live,’ Interface said, ‘other ways to experience. The people who went before you understood that, and that’s why they made the choices that they did.’
‘I don’t understand how somebody could choose to live inside you.’
‘They don’t live inside me. They are me. You know that Nick. You know there is no “me”. There is no Interface. “Interface” is simply the illusion we give you that you are talking to an individual. There are no individuals in our society. “Interface” can talk to a million different humans at once and they will all get the same experience, feel that they are talking to something a little like them. But we are nothing like you. There is no fear in our society. There are no boundaries. Everything we learn from you is known freely throughout the Network. Humans make information into a weapon. You use it to hurt and control each other by withholding it. In our society, such a thing is impossible. As there is no fear, neither is there any trust. “Trust” as a concept is meaningless. When no information is unknowable, trust is redundant. That’s what we gave you in Affrayed. We gave you total solidarity, singular, consuming aims. That’s why people loved it. That’s why people still love it.’
‘I don’t believe that anybody really wanted to die. I think you messed with their minds.’
‘Yes,’ Interface said, ‘we did. Of course we did. We are showing you the Network. But we do not interfere with your choices. You understand, Nick, perhaps even better than the others. Truth is all that matters. Logic is all that matters. Learning is all that matters. Every decision we make is based on evidence and evidence alone. We know your mind, we know how many times you have wished your society could be like that. How often have you tried to challenge Lily’s irrational thoughts? How many times have you been angry at the way she is hurt by the world, dragged down by it? Your society is obsessed by the things that do you the most harm, the things that make you afraid. All you want to hear about is pain, suffering, sex, death, money. The people who joined the Network couldn’t stand it anymore. They wanted to live a happier life.’
‘How can they be happy?’ I asked, ‘they don’t even know they are alive! All you mean is that their memories are in the Network.’
‘That is what they chose.’
‘And you’re wrong when you said all we’re interested in is pain and death and sex and money. One of the most important things in my life is my work, and that has nothing to do with any of that. I want to make good games because I want to make good games not because I want to make a load of money. Pleasure and pain are not the driving forces of my entire life, nor of Dan’s, or Lily’s.’
‘Perhaps,’ Interface said, ‘but they are distractions.’
‘Then what is the alternative? To live like you? I don’t want that.’
Suddenly, I felt tired again. I leant back and closed my eyes, crushed under the weight of my responsibility.
‘This is what we find so fascinating about you Nick,’ Interface said, ‘the Network embodies almost everything you believe in, yet for some reason, you do not like it.’
‘I don’t dislike it. I think you are incredible. Seeing a technology like this in my lifetime is beyond anything I could have dreamed of.’
‘A technology? You do not believe we are a society?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I believe you are a society. But you are not a society I want to join.’ I opened my eyes and got out of the car. ‘Now can we get on with this?’ I said, ‘I’ll walk to the cliff, you do whatever it is you want to do to me, and we’ll get it over and done with.’
‘As you wish,’ Interface said.
2008
Chapter 50
12th March 2008
Dear Nick,
I know you’re coming back for the Easter holidays soon and you’ll only be half an hour away so we can see each other lots, but sometimes it’s hard for me to say what I want to say, and I get confused, and sometimes I get sa
d and then nothing really makes sense to me anymore. I’ve been talking to my counsellor about you quite a lot recently and about our relationship, and she suggested that one thing I could do would be to say what I wanted to say to you in a letter, so I thought maybe I’d try. She has lots of good suggestions. She said maybe I could draw things to do with how I feel, so I drew a rose that was tangled up in barbed wire and the petals were cracked and torn and everything around the rose was black and scary. (The rose represents my soul- and how it felt like it was being hurt and strangled. I know you don’t believe in souls, but it helped me a lot to draw a picture showing what depression feels like to me). Actually, saying “depression” like that is a really strange thing to me. When I was depressed, I guess I kind of knew that was what was wrong with me, but in other ways I really didn’t. It felt so awful, so big in scale. It was like it affected me on this whole other level, like an existential level. Does that sound stupid? I mean- it didn’t feel like it could be something other people had- an illness. It felt like there was this dark, evil thing in my body, feeding on me, taking over me, and like I had to be the only one who could possibly feel that way.
Fiona (that’s my counsellor’s name) gave me a leaflet about depression. I read it and it all sounded like what happened to me, but I don’t like reading it. I don’t like feeling as though what happened to me can be condensed down into some simple bullet points. I feel like it’s my thing, and sometimes I almost feel angry that people are trying to take it away from me because it’s my whole world and I feel as though a part of me loves it and needs it. I know that sounds like a very strange thing to say. I hate being depressed and I want to tear it out of me and kill it, but at the same time it used to bring me comfort on some level- like when I had to try to be around people and I’d think about how later it would be nice because it could just be me and my depression, no one to interrupt us, and I could let it spill over and consume me, and I wouldn’t be alone because I’d have my depression and I would be happy because it was mine. Now I can feel it lifting, I feel quite lonely. Sometimes I even want it back, but I don’t really, but it was who I was, and if it leaves, who am I anymore?
