The Sixth Extinction

by Bob Blink

  "That's it!" Tim yelled. "I want you out of here immediately or I'm calling campus security."

  The sincerity of the Indian engineer was compelling. Don couldn't help himself from asking, "Can you prove this remarkable claim?"

  "Prove is a strong word, but I hope to show you compelling evidence that will convince you of the truth of my claim."

  "Convince me," Don said.

  "What are you doing?" Tim asked, his face red. "I want this lunatic out of here right now." His eyes grew large as he realized their visitor had withdrawn a handgun from somewhere and was now holding it in his hand.

  "Oh, shit!" Tim cursed, certain they were about to be killed.

  "I apologize in advance for what I'm about to do," Rao said, "but the first stage of proof must be dramatic or you will not allow me to proceed to the more detailed aspects of your situation."

  With that, he lifted the gun to his head and staring at them, calmly pulled the trigger. The sound of the shot was uncomfortably loud in closed room, and the side of the engineer's head was blown apart, blood splattering across the rug. The body slumped in the chair.

  "I told you he was crazy," Tim reminded them, as he headed for the phone to call the police.

  Don didn't need to check the body to confirm the man was dead. With a large portion of the skull missing it couldn't be otherwise. Dr. Latham couldn't help staring at the body and the spreading pool of blood.

  "Wait," Latham said suddenly. "Something is happening."

  Don turned back to stare at the body, but Tim headed toward his desk with no intention of being deterred.

  "Impossible!" Don exclaimed.

  He had just watched the body shimmer, then fade away. There was nothing left of the dead man. Even the blood splatters were gone.

  "Tim, you better hold off on that call. There's nothing for the police to find."

  "What are you talking about," Tim asked, then stopped as he too realized the body was gone.

  The three men looked at one another, and then almost as one, turned toward the movement off to one side. The man who had just killed himself appeared to step out of empty air to stand before them.

  "I apologize for that," he said formally. "You needed to see that things are not as you expect."

  Tim dropped into his desk chair unable to support himself.

  "How did you fake that?" Don asked.

  "It was not faked. You saw me take my own life, yet here I am fully restored with you. How could that be? It is because this is a simulation as I warned you, and I have been reinserted into the scenario whole once again."

  "Ridiculous!" Tim exclaimed softly, his voice somewhat strangled by the strange events and a faint doubt colored his objections.

  "How else do you explain notes appearing from nowhere, my ability to seemingly die and then appear unharmed, also materializing before you?"

  "Because we can't explain it, doesn't mean there isn't a logical explanation," Don argued.

  Rao looked at the reporter.

  "The explanation is simple. None of this is real. It is a computer driven artifact and within limits reality can be made to appear as the controllers wish."

  "Such an exotic simulation is not possible," Dr. Latham argued. "And I am self aware. Do not tell me I am not."

  "The environment is a simulation," Rao insisted, "but each of you is something else. Something far more complex and important."

  "And we can't die?" Don asked. "If we are killed we can be brought back just as you appeared to be? Why haven't we seen this in people that have been killed before?"

  "Unfortunately, you and I are different," Rao explained. "If I were to have shot one of you, that would be the end of you. You would cease to exist."

  "Why would that be?" Tim asked, feeling he'd found a flaw in what this man was telling them. "If this is a simulation, anything should be possible."

  "The difference is that while you exist entirely within this simulation, I exist both in and outside of all this. Actually, I exist in several forms, but that's something to discuss later once you better understand the situation."

  "I think you need to explain," Don said. "Slowly, and from the beginning. And don't skip the part where this is supposedly really a time a thousand years later than we believe."

  "A few details first," Rao argued. "The beginning a bit later."

  "I'd like the gun first," Tim said. "I don't want any more of what happened a moment ago."

  "I didn't bring it this time. There is no gun. You may search me if you wish."

  Rao raised his hands to allow a search, but Don was convinced he was telling the truth. They sat down at the conference table a second time.

  "I want to know what we are if we aren't real," Dr. Latham asked. "I am just a bit of code someone dreamed up. I can't accept that. I don't want to accept that."

  "You are Dr. Walter Latham, a renowned physicist," Rao assured him. "The thoughts, personality, and most of your memories are real. They were downloaded from your brain and packaged for insertion into this simulation a long time ago."

  "Then I exist outside of this simulation, if that's what it really is, just like you." He rapped the table to reassure himself that it had to be more than the artifact Rao was claiming it to be.

  Rao shook his head.

  "No longer. Your world, your body, all no longer exist except inside this construct."

  "Most of our memories," Tim asked, interrupting. "Why do you say most of our memories? What isn't real?"

  "When your mind was scanned for the project, everything that made up you and your past was recorded. Several years were edited and removed to a separate file, and then everything packaged into a kernel that made up the digital version of yourself. That core is inviolate, and cannot be changed or altered. It is within the Sim and forms the basic version of each of you. Since the Sim was started, events that each of you have experienced have been accumulated in an addendum file and add to your perspective of the world and your life. That file is not so protected and unalterable."

  "You're saying our more recent memories are not to be trusted?" Don asked.

  Rao nodded.

  "Memories like you killing yourself?" Tim asked pointedly.

  "Not exactly in that way. I don't know of a way that false memories of that kind of event could be faked, especially accurately and consistently in multiple people. What I mean, is your sense of time and events has been distorted."

  "In what way?" Don asked.

  "Accept for the moment that this Simulation was initiated in the year 2083 and that it now 3214 as I indicated. That means hundreds of years have passed, and you have no sense of that happening. An accurate accumulation of events would make you aware of the passing years. For example, you'd recall Christmas from the many years in the past. That could not be allowed to happen. For reasons I'll explain later, it is imperative you didn't sense the passage of time, for that would alert you to the fact you were impossibly old."

  "So what is being done with our memories?" Latham asked.

  "The situations and events that you experience are manufactured, and the Simulation is designed so that memories older than a year become cloudy and vague. Can you really recall what happened several years ago? The date associated with events becomes altered, and without realizing it, you start to think of this year as 2083 when you were thinking of it as 2084. By the time New Year comes around, you are looking forward to 2084, not realizing that's what you did a year ago. You have lived through over a thousand year 2083's in the Simulation without knowing it. The events have been systematically wiped, so you can re-experience the same events and not realize you are doing so.

  "Déjà-vu" Don said.

  "Some of that, yes," Rao agreed.

  "So we don't grow or progress?" Tim asked. "Our children don't grow older?"

  "And neither do you," Rao explained.

  "Seems pointless, assuming this isn't all bullshit," Latham pointed out. "I'm not sure I believe it. No computer can simulate twenty bil
lion people."

  "There is an important reason for all of this," Rao assured them.

  "Why would the Simulation be designed in such an odd way, keeping everything essentially static and not progressing?" Tim asked. "What would be the point? And what about those who die? Wouldn't we note they died and then they are alive again? That has to be a problem if the time is cycling as you claim."

  "Who do you know who died?" Rao asked.

  "People die all the time," Don pointed out. "Just read the Obituaries. A couple of Senators have died this year."

  "All of those people are 'ghosts'. They don't really exist. They are people unknown to anyone in the Simulation, but fill the need for normalcy. No one ever checks, since they don't know them. If you think about it, in the last couple of years of your memory, no one you personally know died. The Senators you mentioned are different. They are why I'm here."

  "Why would you pretend to have deaths?" Tim asked.

  "This world has to seem real, and as Don pointed out, people die all the time. Also, as Dr. Latham noted, simulating twenty billion people is an enormous task, and far beyond the capability of available systems when the Simulation was created. In fact, fewer than twenty million like you exist. The rest are the 'ghosts' I mentioned. They are computer generated Avatars to fill a role. You go to the mall. Virtually everyone there is a non-entity. They look, act, and interact like real people, and give the sense the mall is a busy place with people going through the usual motions, but once you leave they cease to exist. Whole areas of Los Angeles simply don't exist. If you elect to visit one of these areas, computer simulated places and individuals are created to populate the homes, stores, streets, etc. to make your visit seem real, but once you leave, once again they cease to be. Less than ten-thousand artificial personalities exist, and they are used over and over. While you are in one part of town and see a particular individual, someone else in another part of town could well see that same person in another 'instance' the computer created to fill a need."

  "You claim that most of the people we believe exist in this world are simply computer simulations, and not based on real people?" Latham asked.

  Rao nodded. "Unfortunately there was no way to gather everyone."

  "Let's back up," Don asked. "You mentioned that the Senators that were killed were something different. What did you mean?"

  "They, and a number of others with less visibility, are being targeted. The Simulation never intended for them to die. Someone has been entering the Sim and is deliberately killing them to remove them from the system. That's why I am here. I need your help."

  Chapter 10

  "Stop!" Dr. Tim Russell demanded. "This is going too fast. We need to talk about this a bit more before we go off on some strange story about someone 'killing' simulated people. I want to know how and why this thing you claim we are part of would even be built, and let me say I'm yet to be convinced you are telling us the truth. I don't believe the capability to create something you are describing exists."

  Rao was shaking his head.

  "On that score you are wrong, Doctor. I would guess you haven't paid close attention to the advances in computer technology, being more focused on matters in space where your expertise lies."

  "I assume you are referring to the growth of renegade gaming that has caught the attention of a certain group of extreme enthusiasts?" Don asked.

  Rao nodded, pleased that at least one of the group had some awareness of the situation.

  "In the early twenty-first century, very primitive simulations were being marketed by companies that created artificial communities with computer generated personalities that could be tailored by the user, then set free to interact. The "individuals" defined had spouses, jobs, bought and modified homes, and even had kids that would grow and mature into adults. The characters in these games were stand-alone constructs, shallow in depth, with no real connection to real people. These were simple diversionary games, but had surprising appeal with the public, and as a result as computer power grew the simulations grew ever more detailed and realistic."

  Rao's eyes shifted between the men to be certain they were paying attention. Dr. Russell still appeared angry, but was quiet for the moment. His reporter brother appeared interested where he was leading them, and Dr. Latham was merely silent.

  "Advances in computer design and speed were faster than anyone ever anticipated. Moore's law fell far short of what was actually achieved, especially in light of certain advances in quantum computers. Processing power and memory storage grew exponentially, while the size of the hardware shrank as fast as the capabilities grew. On the forefront of those using these advances were the gamers, something that had been the case for many years even before this explosion in capability. At the forefront of those tapping the additional capability were those creating simulated environments."

  "All of this might have eventually run its course had it not been for certain advances in medical technology, another area which was keen to use breakthroughs from multiple scientific fields. People figured out how to map the brain. As part of that effort, someone discovered how to link our consciousness into our supercomputers, and released those interested from simply experiencing their artificial environments from virtual reality glasses, to actual immersion into the simulations they created. A whole new type of simulation started to evolve. Multi-sense exposure was offered, although not without risk, and a number of the pioneers died as a result of poorly design interfaces or overly long exposure to their digital worlds. Like drug addicts of the past, this didn't keep the enthusiasts away, despite legislation that made offering access to such environments a criminal offense, and as a result over time their hardware improved and the risks of flirting with these often bizarre worlds became safer, and therefore closer to mainstream. Enthusiasts could experience worlds that modeled our own, or creations that offered magic, alien environments, or high risk adventures where they could get the rush, but ultimately were in no real danger. When the time came to create this Simulation, a great deal of the work had already been done for us."

  "This simulation is something different from what you are describing," Dr. Latham pointed out. "From what you have been saying, in those games the real people inserted themselves into the artificial environments, but retained awareness of who they were, and where they were, taking the experiences with them when they withdrew. I have no sense of being in a game, so the purpose and mechanism used in this simulation must be different."

  "That is very true," Rao agreed. "Again, additional advances made interaction with the games very different. The means of accessing the environment I discussed earlier is now known as a Type I insertion. The individual is linked to the simulation by special equipment, his body linked to his mind while he explores and interacts in the digital world. All the experiences are stored in the biological memory much as a day in an amusement park would be. Upon withdrawal, the individual disappears from the simulation, and rejoins the normal world. For various reasons this kind of insertion was initially limited to ten hours or less, but advances in the equipment have expanded this considerably."

  "What kind of insertion are you claiming we are?" Don asked.

  "One of several Type II insertions," Rao replied, as am I, although there are differences. "Type II insertions are based on real people whose mind has been carefully mapped, the composite of the mapping turned into what is termed a memory kernel, which is then released into the game. The resulting 'personality' is in every way a duplicate of the person from which it was drawn, but there is no link between the computer person and the flesh and blood donor. They become independent at this point, and whatever the digital model experiences is not sensed by the donor. This would be a Type IIA insertion."

  "What is a Type IIB?" Don asked. "You said there were several types."

  "All of you are Type IIB's. "That is where the digital model is all that exists, and is not backed up by a real person living in the physical world."

  "That sounds
ominous," Dr. Latham noted. "I assume you are a type IIA, since you were able to be re-injected after the incident you created earlier?"

  "Actually, I am something different, and would be considered a Type IIC. I have a flesh and blood body outside of this simulation, but in addition I also have a digital copy of myself elsewhere."

  "And the rest of us don't," hissed Dr. Russell. "Why not?"

  "The reasons are complicated, and I need to give you more background to explain," Rao answered.

  Before the matter could be pursued, Don asked, "You said that the Senators that died, were targeted by someone. I assume that is someone from the world outside where you claim to originate?"

  Rao nodded. "Someone wanted them eliminated, and decided to take advantage of an unexpected characteristic in the simulation design to eliminate them, despite the risks of doing so."

  "So we can die in this Simulation of yours?" Tim asked uncomfortably.

  "And if someone on the outside, say you, elects to delete us, we simply cease to exist?" Walter Latham asked. "Lost forever."

  Rao shook his head looking at the physicist. "The system was carefully designed to make it impossible for the operators on the outside to delete, and thereby effectively kill off anyone built into the Simulation. There is no mechanism for doing so, and frankly there isn't anyone knowledgeable about the immense program that controls this Simulation to be able to safely modify the code to make such a thing possible. I am probably the most knowledgeable about the overall design of anyone who has the necessary access, and I lack the ability to do so. It would take centuries of tinkering to figure it out, with great risks of bringing the entire system crashing down."

  "If that were to happen, couldn't you simply restart it, and wouldn't that bring back the people who had been killed?" Tim asked.

  "Incredible effort went into the design to prevent it from crashing, and restarting is beyond the capability of the Caretakers, or myself for that matter. It would defeat one of the major reasons for the Simulation if that were to be attempted," Rao explained.