The Sixth Extinction

by Bob Blink

  "So their kernels are now somehow in LA?" Latham asked.

  "No, just their simulated bodies. Otherwise they are in their home node."

  "Just for the sake of argument, what happens to them if they are killed in Los Angeles?" Lt. Rodriguez asked.

  "They would die and be erased from the Simulation just like if they had been in Chicago. As I explained, the Sims are linked. There is one instance where it becomes more complicated," Rao explained.

  "What's that?" Don asked.

  "Suppose the Chicago node had a massive failure while Sgt. Morrison was visiting here in Los Angeles. Everyone in Chicago would be irretrievably lost. Once a node goes down, there is no way to restart it and recover the individuals residing in that simulation."

  "And what about me?" Morrison asked uncomfortably.

  "You would continue to live and thrive in Los Angeles, just as in real life if you had been away from home when a disaster struck. With one caveat," Rao added.

  "I knew there would be something," Morrison groused. "What is the condition?"

  "Your simulated self would continue to function within the program, but your kernel would have been lost. Someday, when everyone is extracted and cloned into their replacement bodies, you wouldn't be retrievable. The carefully nurtured kernel is necessary for that process to work, and yours would have been lost with Chicago."

  "But I'd live in the Simulation?" he asked.

  "Until the day came that it was shut down, yes," Rao agreed.

  Morrison looked decidedly uncomfortable with the discussion, but Don dragged the conversation in a slightly different direction.

  "I don't get how these memory kernels work. How are they accessed by those on the outside. And why isn't there one for everyone who was alive before this catastrophe?"

  "The hope when the project was started was that a far greater percentage of the population would be saved. In fact, nearly everyone was scanned originally, but the realization came early that the time available and the physical limitations of the hardware wouldn't permit that lofty goal. Two million per node was about all that was possible. I have no idea how the choice was made as to who to keep. It must have been very difficult for someone."

  "As for the extraction of the memory kernels, that is simple. The system was designed to allow the outside world access to what is stored in the memory lattices. That, after all, is key to what the primary goal is. Inserting into the lattice was designed out of the system, but extraction is used frequently. All of the Caretakers are refreshed each generation by tapping their memory kernel and placing it, along with selected other memories into their replacement clone."

  "So you are the result of tapping your own kernel and somehow putting it back into the Simulation?" Dr. Russell asked.

  "Not exactly," Rao replied.

  "Do you exist somewhere else in the Simulation?" Don asked, sensing this was what Rao had meant that first day when he said he was something very different.

  Rao nodded. "It is so," he agreed. "My home is in San Francisco. I exist in that memory lattice."

  "Another of the ten nodes," Dr. Russell noted.

  "Just so. In that city, the version of myself is just like the rest of you. You could go there and look me up. I know nothing of this being a simulation, nor anything of the outside real world situation. My memories of the last few years have been extracted and stored separately, to be used or not in the future when the world is ready to be repopulated. I know nothing of the version of myself that you are familiar with."

  "What about San Diego?" Sgt. Donaldson asked.

  Rao shook his head.

  "San Diego isn't one of the nodes."

  "But I visited family there a couple of months ago," Sammi protested.

  "You only believe you did," Rao explained. "The computer uses old memories, expectations, the artificial people it controls to create a memory of what you went there for. None of it actually happened. There are volumes of code designed to deal with such situations. Like the rest of your 'experiences', it is all manufactured but in a way it appears completely real to you."

  "What if I called there right now?" Sammi asked.

  "No one would answer. You'd plan on calling again, but somehow you'd forget and the desire to do so would be overcome by events. By tomorrow you'd either forget entirely, or would 'remember' having made the call and talked to whoever you wished to speak with."

  "I don't get this memory editing," Dr. Latham said.

  "One thing at a time," Rodriguez complained, feeling the conversation was starting to diverge. "Let him finish with his explanation of how he came to be here."

  Rao nodded.

  "Director Walker wanted a modification that those present at the Facility that controls all this wouldn't, or couldn't do for him. There is some evidence he eliminated one of the programmers who was there before I arrived. He searched the records of the accessible people in the Simulation for individuals skilled in programming. I'm not aware of what criteria he used, but he chose two of us."

  "Two?" Don asked.

  "I have a friend outside who worked with me. His name is Dale Nesbitt. Once we were selected, the Director had a clone grown for each of us using our DNA stored in a vast warehouse that exists at the Facility waiting for the time to repopulate the Earth. Once the clone was prepared and ready, his people extracted a copy of my San Francisco kernel, along with the edited memories of the years when the Earth was starting to be affected. These were combined to create the full set of what was inserted into my clone, and I was effectively 'reborn' in a twenty-two year old body with, in my case, my twenty-eight years of memories. Almost everything from before my old body perished on the frozen surface."

  "Almost everything?" Rodriguez asked?

  "The Director and his cloning staff missed something," Rao explained. "One of their minor, but important mistakes. They couldn't have known, because this information was carefully hidden away, that I was one of the key programmers involved in the project as it was being constructed. That information was edited from my kernel before insertion into the San Francisco memory lattice and stored elsewhere. My new clone didn't know it, but after being directed by Walker as to what I was there to do, I discovered my previous involvement. I'll explain in a bit why that is extremely important."

  "What did this Walker fellow want done?" Don asked.

  "He wished a way to inject himself and some of his friends into the Simulation in order to interact with the people inside, something the builders had carefully designed out of the system."

  "Didn't you know they didn't want that?" Dr. Latham asked.

  "Not at first. Recall those memories had not been included in my new clone's memories. Even if they had been there, I was in an awkward position, and probably would have assumed the Director had good reasons for wishing the capability. Since it had been over a thousand years and he hadn't needed the ability, and now that indications the freeze was abating were appearing, I assumed he wanted the capability to assist in the next phase of things. In any event, Dale and I worked to find a way in."

  "And succeeded," Rossetti noted.

  "We used a gamer's approach for entering a simulation, finding a way to link the facilities at the Resort to tie into the main Simulation."

  "Excuse me, the Resort?" Lt. Rodriguez asked.

  "A diversionary system designed to provide a sense of escaping the drab Facility for those who spend their lives there. Intended to be entirely isolated from this Simulation, it allows one to be 'inserted' in a unique way to experience vacation sites for a few weeks. In this mode the person joins the simulation, but directs his own actions and recalls the memories of those events afterwards. We were able to use that to allow Facility people to join this Simulation."

  "But they are somehow different than those of us who are based on our roots being in the memory lattice you spoke of," Don said.

  "Correct," Rao agreed. "And one way that shows up is what happens when they are 'killed'. Instead of appearing as a
corpse like those meant to be part of the Sim, the software realizes they are no longer a viable part of the simulation, and simply erases them. The real people back on the Facility's support couches are not really hurt, wake up recalling all that happened, and could be reinserted almost any time. Perhaps a couple hours delay to re-setup up their time and place of arrival."

  "That is why Sal saw the men he killed simply vanish," Rossetti said.

  "That's a little frightening," Don noted.

  "But you aren't here in that same way?" Dr. Latham asked. "You have been here some time."

  "Actually, the intruders could remain in the simulation for a month or more assuming nothing happened to them, but you are right. My arrival is different."

  "I thought you said there was no other way to join this simulation?" Lt. Rodriguez asked.

  "You are thinking right," Rao replied. "After the Type I gaming method was demonstrated to Director Walker, Dale and I were given another assignment, and taken off the original effort. I am cursed with a big nose, and I wanted to know what was being done with our discovery and learn why we were no longer a part of that effort. By this time I had discovered my former involvement in the project, and while I lacked my memories of what I had done before, I knew myself and how I think and realized I would have created a backdoor into the program to allow me to do things during the development not normally intended. Realizing this access path must exist, it didn't take me long to find what I had done. With access to this alternate channel, many things became possible that were not open to normal users of the system. You see why I said the Director made a mistake in selecting me?"

  "So how did you get here?" Dr. Latham asked.

  "Dale and I continued to monitor what the Director was doing, and realized he was placing the entire simulation in grave danger, not to mention effectively killing people. We lacked the ability to stop him in the real world, and decided it was necessary to gain allies. That is you. To do so would require more than a couple of magically appearing messages such as the ones I sent to Drs. Russell and Latham. Belief and cooperation would require someone inside. We were still considering the best way to manage this when we learned of the attempt on Mr. Rossetti. His was not the first, but we weren't ready earlier. That is when I decided to send a version of myself here."

  "But how?" Latham asked.

  "A proper set of memories were required. Like the Director, those could be tapped as a copy of myself from the San Francisco Simulation, but that set wouldn't have any recall of the current events. That is where the Director had made a second mistake. He knew that a person's memories could be edited. All of ours had been, obviously. Part of what he plans requires this capability, so he had assigned Dale and me to find out how. Although we have not informed him of our progress, we know both how to remove memories, and actually add information to the separately stored memory files that each of you have running in the Simulation. The additions are crude, not at all like experiencing the events documented, but the essential information is there. My memory file, the same one that held my memories of the freezing Earth, was edited. Everything that had happened since arriving at the Facility was added to it. From this, my kernel was modified, and the result injected into this Simulation via the backdoor I mentioned. By doing so, I was able to actually insert myself into one of the few remaining slots in the memory lattice, and now I am here with you."

  "And you are linked to the version of yourself outside?" Rodriguez asked.

  "No, that is not what has happened," Rao disagreed. "Once I was inserted, I have become an independent entity. I do not know what is happening to the living version of myself in the Facility, and other than monitoring me or reading my growing memory file, that version of me doesn't share my experiences here."

  "He can monitor you?" Don asked.

  "Of course. Knowing how he identified me as he inserted me, he can easily search me out and see what I am doing. The system has extensive tools to produce full video of what any Sim inhabitant is doing."

  "We are being watched?" Rodriguez asked uncomfortably, looking for signs of monitoring devices.

  "You will find no cameras," Rao warned. "It doesn't work that way. All of this we are experiencing is simply data, open to the knowledgeable programmer on the outside. There is just so much, one has to know exactly where to look. Also, I cannot know when or if my real-world counterpart is watching from out there. Access can be checked, and I suspect my other self must be careful that the Director does not discover an interest in the events within the Simulation."

  "So you can't expect help from the outside?" Don asked.

  "Help yes, but not immediate and exactly when I might wish."

  "Could this Director Walker use some of his other people to monitor you?" Don asked.

  "If he knew I was here, and knew where to look, of course. That is a danger we hope to avoid. If he even suspected that I might be in here, which I don't think he can, hopefully he would believe I was within the Chicago Simulation where his actions went very wrong."

  "If I understand all of this, then you are here with the rest of us, and cannot simply rejoin your outside self," Dr. Russell observed.

  "That is so," Rao agreed. "At the moment there are three of me, and all of us are independent."

  "What if you were to go to San Francisco and visit yourself there?" Don asked.

  "That cannot be done," Rao explained. "The Simulation will not allow two versions of myself, however different, to exist in the same node simultaneously. I cannot go to San Francisco, and if for some reason that version wanted to come here, he would find it impossible to do so."

  "Look, it's two-thirty in the afternoon," Rodriguez said. "This might all be a simulation as you say, but this simulated cop is really hungry. How about we go downstairs and eat, and also take some time to absorb what you have explained, and then come back and figure out what all this means to us?"

  Chapter 15

  Los Angeles

  Lt. Rodriguez was the first to speak when they reassembled in the conference room.

  "I was thinking during lunch. If all of what we are being told is really true, and frankly I'm a long way from being a believer, if this Director fellow were to realize what you are doing, you and all versions of yourself could be at risk. I hope you have considered the possibility."

  Sgt. Sammi Donaldson snorted. She hadn't joined the others for lunch, and had used the time to do a bit of investigating while the others were filling their bellies. She had contacted the Washington PD, and after a bit of annoying delay, had finally been connected to a Detective Lee. Lee was evasive at first, but after considerable pushing on her part, and revealing the claim that the attackers in a Chicago case had vanished in front of the eyes of multiple witnesses, she'd managed to get him to admit that the men who had killed the Senator had also vanished. No one had actually seen them disappear as Rossetti claimed his men had, but the bodies and one still living shooter had mysteriously vanished. Promising to get back to the detective, Sammi had returned to the meeting room, still a doubter, but disturbed by the fact others, in this case cops just like her, had apparently witnessed something akin to what they were being told happened in Chicago. She wasn't ready to reveal what she had learned just yet. Experience had told her that being a doubter often yielded answers to questions.

  "I am assuming my alternate self in the Facility is very aware of the risks," Rao replied. "I am hoping he is taking all the necessary care, for he is the only contact we have to the real world, unless he has elected to confide in the programmer named Dale he is working with. I have nothing to tell me one way or another. As for myself, I cannot imagine that the Director suspects I exist, for there is no way he could see how that could happen, let alone my being implanted into the Simulation as I have. If by some unknown means he were to learn, he could only send his men after me, something difficult given I am surrounded by police."

  "What about the San Francisco version of yourself?" Don asked.

  "He coul
d easily send someone to eliminate that version, but to what gain?" Rao asked. "That version is unaware of the reality of his situation, and poses no danger to the Director or his plans."

  "Spite," John Morrison said. "This guy seems the type. If you double crossed him, he could well wish to eliminate you completely just as he appears to be doing with others."

  Rao was silent as he considered the possibility. "You are right. I think he is like that. I do not wish to alarm anyone, but if he were to learn of my presence here, and who I have communicated with, he might also consider each of you a potential risk to his ultimate plans. You could each become targets, unless he was confident enough that your memories of these events would fade with time. I don't see him willing to risk that."

  "So we spread the word around," Sammi suggested. "Once too many know, he can't kill us all."

  "I thought you didn't buy all this?" Sgt. Morrison asked.

  "I'm just showing there is an easy solution to the problem," she replied.

  Rao shook his head.

  "I am believing it is best to keep the number who know small. There are potential risks outside of the Director of knowing the truth, but that aside, he could easily contain the contamination by arranging a massive failure of the Los Angeles Simulation. The loss of the node, would eliminate awareness of the situation."

  "Do you believe he would do that?" Don asked, clearly stunned by the suggestion.

  "I do not know. I just warn you the potential exists for something like that."

  "Who else is on this guy's target list?" Lt. Rodriguez asked.

  "I don't know," Rao admitted. "Hopefully my other self is trying to determine this, and will update me once the information becomes known."