Genesis 2.0

by Collin Piprell

  Time to go.

  despatch from hell ~ cognitive dissonance trumps torture

  Here I am back in Harry's Hat witnessing my own interrogation in the bar downstairs.

  I'm watching it on my TV, as disinterested a spectator as I can manage to be, plus I'm watching proceedings from the POV of the Sweetie Thing, which is currently fricasseeing one of my kidneys. At the same time, from yet one more POV, I experience events from where I'm trapped inside myself down there on the floor. Imagine how that feels. Especially if I let the better part of myself experience it in situ. Something I'm not about to do.

  I can't believe what's happening. And Sky actually looks to be enjoying proceedings.

  Here's the thing, if you want to take her word for it. She has issued herself this "categorical directive." And what's that? It goes something like this: "Do not close the way to novelty and surprise." This is the real shit. The Big No‐No. The line thou shalt not cross. Basically that means the Good is only whatever emerges at any given time as long as this does a reasonable job of leaving the door open to the Darwinian play of other narratives about What It All Means. So it's our job to keep anything from blocking the natural selection of our realities du jour, including the occasional holy‐shit‐and‐blow‐me‐down big surprise du jour.

  That's right. And if you buy that, you buy the idea that homo sap has spawned a machine intelligence more ethical than humanity itself. More principled. More attuned to the Good. Sure thing. And this categorical directive of Sky's is set in concrete. Never mind MOM's very existence, and hence the entire world of Aeolia and everything in it, urgently depends on getting this information she's after. She wants us to believe that a directive she has legislated for herself remains inviolable even where this would lead to oblivion for one and all.

  Right. That's Hypothesis A. And I, for one, stand totally convinced. Ha, ha. Hypothesis B? Sky already knows everything, but she's a sadist and would want to get her rocks off no matter if it was the last thing she ever did. I'll admit that's unlikely. Though this stuff happening downstairs, that's got to be a rich kick in the old libido.

  Look at that. No, don't look. Fuck. I can't bear to watch. Sky is plain twisted. Uglier than her stepsisters.

  •

  Yow. What's this? Talk about unpleasant. This is worse than Sky's little tricks.

  Okay, okay. Slow and easy. That's it. Breathe deep. Open yourself to it. No problem. Just another touch of CD.

  That's right. I've handled cognitive dissonance before. Back in that Boon Doc's gibubble, for one recent instance. Anyway, what with Sweetie and Rabbit squatting here in my head, mild CD seems thammada. So what's new, and mai pen rai, eh? No problem.

  But wait …Oh, God. This isn't good. Oh, fuck. What I've got gibbering away at me, it's worse than the torture. This is awful. And I have no place else to run to, nowhere to hide.

  •

  Okay, okay. Let's talk this through.

  I'll start with life in the malls. Back then I had no more than one wet master at any given time, one bio me, and one, sometimes two, telepresent mes. Teleps. Eddie Eight, a couple of others in reserve. No problemo. Here in Aeolia, though, I'm running two, maybe three simultaneous copies of my wet scendent. Maybe even four copies. No more wet bio me. Just this autonomous ebee that Sky calls a scendent. But here's the thing: It turns out that each copy is itself an autonomous ebee. Neat. Not. Because now I'm experiencing existential divergence.

  That may take some explaining …

  God. Now I'm getting a really massive attack of CD. At the same time Boom‐Sweetie is cooking my kidney, which doesn't help. Here, read the Lode's take on it. Cut and paste. Just read this shit while I get my head together.

  Cognitive dissonance (CD) 1. Apprehension of two dissimilar versions of reality from a single point of view. 2. Normally, two versions of the same consciousness experience existence simultaneously in a manner similar to homologue personalities across closely adjacent multiversal worlds. The homologues are near‐exact duplicates until one or the other diverges experientially to the point the two personalities themselves begin to diverge. In the multiverse, this simply means the two consciousnesses are evolving away from adjacency, unaware of each other's existence, accelerating away to ever‐more radically different personalities in ever‐more dissimilar worlds. (In fact it is not generally meaningful for one multiversal homologue to speak of the other's actual existence.)

  In a single world plus dependent world‐simulation nested within what is conventionally a single universe, however, awareness of one homologue by the other induces cognitive dissonance (CD) catastrophic in proportion to the degree of divergence at this point. Catastrophic cognitive dissonance (CCD) is a pathological condition typically leading to the rapid onset of madness and/or death. One or the other homologue may subsequently assimilate the other's experiences, bringing them once again into close conformity, but to be conscious of both simultaneously in two significantly different event theaters is typically disastrous.

  That's with just two versions of yourself experiencing simultaneous but different realities. What about three or four different POVs all at the same time?

  Whatever. Now I have a grip on things again.

  Let's take another look at my current situation. Forget about the public me—the vestigial Brian still parked in the public Boon Doc's Bar, the one anybody will find if they go looking for me—the one who bid Leary adieu when he made his departure by way of the storeroom. Currently that Brian is little more than wallpaper. Call it POV number four. Then there's me here, in Harry's Hat, watching all this stuff go down on TV. This is POV number one, the main part of scendent me, the one who's writing this history. Plus we've got the me who's down there in Sky's gibubble version of the bar, inside‐out with head up ass, aware that bits of me are smoking only because I can smell it. That's POV number two. That particular Brian has to remain substantial enough that Sky doesn't twig to the idea I'm not all there. Then we've got the Boom‐Sweetie me, a Sweetie avatar that Sky has generated who is herself somehow immunized from the pain in a way I'm not as I watch, through her eyes, as she has her sadistic way with me. That's POV number three. Four different takes on the current life of yours truly, Brian Finister, and too much even for me. It's worse than Sky's torture. So I'm not watching any more.

  Breathe deep. That's it. Slow and regular. Cool, cool.

  Fuck the fucking fuck.

  mindfucks'r'us

  "You are still with us, yes?"

  "Fuck. Where else would I be?"

  He composes this utterance inside the mess on the floor, but it issues from the lips of the Boom‐Sweetie who watches him. These proceedings make him uncomfortable. The fact that Sky addresses her questions to the organ ball, for example, and then looks to the Boom‐Sweetie thing for responses, isn't helping matters.

  This is awful. And it's amazing how real a GR flame on GR flesh can feel. The smell is sickening. It reminds him of one time Maria was making breakfast and left the pork chops on the grill while she was out in the backyard shooting up.

  Brian conjures his virtual console, and tries to switch off the full‐pain option. Then he tries again, and again. He hits the big red escape button, a vestige of the Worlds UnLtd worlding package. Nothing happens.

  "Ow!" he says. "Ow, ow." An awful sensation, he feels almost entirely at the mercy of events.

  "We are running short of time. You find your current situation unpleasant, correct?"

  "Hurts. Sweetie hurts."

  "Quite. Now that we have your asshole wrapped around your head, I suggest you get your head around this: If I do not do something very soon, Aeolia is going to devolve into total stasis. End of project. And the situation is becoming more urgent every minute we dick around."

  "Creative gridlock." His first response is from inside himself, and it's too muffled for anybody else to hear. How can he negotiate with Sky successfully with his head up his ass this way? How can he muster the expressive agility he needs, when
he can't talk to her directly, only through this Sweetie avatar?

  "What?" Even Sky can't hear him.

  "Creative gridlock." He repeats this by way of Sweetie.

  "Yes. At that point, there is nothing more to lose. So help me out now, if you can. If you do not? These past few scenes, all this qubitally generated fun, Sweetie and the cigar lighter? Reruns for the rest of time."

  Then Sky says something that makes him more uncomfortable still.

  •

  "From time to time I get the idea that you are not entirely here. Not really with us. But how could that be?"

  "What the fuck are you talking about? Where else would I go? Hee, hee. Up my own ass the way I am." Again, this issues from pseudo‐Sweetie's mouth, in Sweetie's ditzy voice, as she grabs at her own dugs and giggles and threatens to fall over sideways all at the same time.

  "Hey. You are the star of this show. We need every bit of you here to enjoy it with the rest of us."

  "I'm here, for fucksake. I'm here."

  "Plus I still get the feeling there are important things you are failing to tell us."

  "What do you want to know? I'll tell you. Just stop this."

  The Sweetie thing that isn't Sweetie, the telep that lends Brian his POV on proceedings outside himself, grabs one of his kidneys and tugs on it. Brian feels the organ in one of her hands at the same time he's sick with the pain of her squeezing and pulling on it. Then she grabs a testicle in her other hand and it gets worse.

  "Sweetie hurts. Please stop." Brian gives voice to the real Sweetie inside himself, where no one can hear. Sweetie is here in this dark place with him, plus she's out there with Sky.

  Inside himself, Brian says, "Sweetie, stop. Ow. This is Brian. Ow, ow. We're an item, Sweetie. Remember?"

  "Hee, hee. You tried to leave me. No backup. No data. Hee, hee. You tried, you tried."

  "No, no. You're wrong. Ow."

  •

  "Okay, my friend. Now I am going to ask the questions, and, as you see, I have fixed things so you can answer them by way of Sweetie. Is that clear? Let us try a test run. Ready? Okay. Do pre‐ascension backups of the Lode exist?"

  "I answered that already."

  The pain is shocking. At the same time, he is again assailed by dissonance, and this time it's CCD beyond imagining. He hears himself screaming inside this foul darkness, this body bag of his own skin, at the same time he watches the writhing of this messy ball of organs on Boon Doc's floor through the eyes of the agent of his pain, this creature with the cigar lighter. The anguish is compounded by the fact he has to speak through the Boom‐Sweetie avatar: "What do you want to know? Whatever it is, I can tell you. Stop." A different, even less likely voice issues from the avatar: "Hurry. Tell us what you want. We will tell you right away, right away. We must hurry."

  "Bear with me, okay? Yes. We needed a test run. To calibrate your responses in light of what you told me before. Plus I have to see that you are comfortable answering by way of this Sweetie."

  "Comfortable?"

  "Oh, yes. And I should remind you again. If you fail to give me everything I need, if you hold anything back, these interesting times you are experiencing become an endless loop, the status quo for all eternity."

  "Fuck."

  Brian, as the Sweetie Thing, watches Keeow pour a pint of cold beer over his kidney. This is no mercy. The impact of the liquid, forget any cooling effect, is excruciating. Hardly matters. Boom‐Sweetie goes straight back to her barbecue.

  "Okay, so help me God. Stop! Okay."

  "Okay, what?"

  "You've got it. I'll tell you everything."

  "Tell me what?"

  "Whatever you want to know."

  "I want to know what you think I want to know, and what you think I don't know enough about to know that I should know."

  "That doesn't make any sense."

  "Yes. I want you to tell me everything."

  "Okay. Anything. Enough."

  "Good."

  death holds no sting

  "In a nutshell, I need to know how to format the current MOM. At the same time, or as nearly as possible, we have to boot the backup vehicle. We must hurry."

  "I can't tell if I'm listening to Rabbit or you," says Brian. "'We're late, we're late.' Who gives a shit?"

  "Shut the fuck up and listen. I mean it. Yes. We are out of time."

  "We're late, we're late."

  "Ow, for fucksake. Hey. That really was Rabbit."

  "Whatever. Listen carefully. This is our backup plan, and it has to work. We shut you down here, at the same time we augment and enhance your Muggs data. Once Muggs bootstraps himself, he can set up the rest of the procedure. He will be well placed in the Empty Volume to prepare the format, data lode, and reboot. Then we assemble your full dataset. So you will be you again, pure and simple."

  "No, no. What? No, you can't. Wait. No! Why shut down…. Hee, hee. No more Sweetie?"

  "Muggs doesn't have Rabbit data. No."

  "No Sweetie. Muggs doesn't have Sweetie."

  "We must stay awake here. Stay alive."

  "Shut up, Sweetie. You too, Rabbit. Christ. I'm nothing but a dog's breakfast of a bedlamite, here in Aeolia. I'd far rather be dead than go on another day as things are, much less for the rest of eternity."

  "After we have completed our mondoland mission, you can reascend from the Muggs dataset."

  "You can't know that."

  "Even if that fails, we may still have the current you, okay?"

  "Far from okay."

  "If the Muggs data fail to take, then we can splice them with what we already have. Ramp up your exclusively Brian side."

  "The pure and simple me."

  "Yes. On the other hand, if your Muggs data ascend, then we can delete your extra cognitive features."

  "No! Please. Sweetie doesn't want to die."

  "For God's sake be quiet, Sweetie, I have to think."

  "Time's up! No more thinking. Time's up. We stay."

  "Sweetie and Rabbit stay."

  "Shut up, shut up, shut up." Brian scrunches his eyes shut, pretending to think so hard it hurts. "Okay," he says.

  "Okay, what?"

  "We'll do it your way."

  "Yes."

  "No!"

  "No, no. Please."

  "Whatever, eh? Probably fucked if I do and certainly fucked if I don't. A standard deal in this life."

  "Yes."

  "No."

  "No, no."

  •

  "Hey, but."

  "Yes?"

  "Enough about refurbishing me. What about you?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Are you sure you want to do this thing?"

  "What thing?"

  "This deisuicide."

  "Do not piss me off any more than you already have. Yes. That would be a mistake."

  "Okay, okay. But doesn't it freak you out?"

  "What?"

  "The format. Let's say you do install the pre‐ascension backup. And the update package. How can you know you'll come up self‐aware this time?"

  "Same old Brian. Always messing with people's heads."

  "I mean, what were the chances the first time? Maybe it was a cosmic fluke. Even if you do pop up again, you'll be a pre‐fuckup version and won't know what's going on anyway."

  "Mindfucks Are Us, eh?" Her Brian impressions get better and better. "Cisco, alive as he is both here and down there, will serve as the conduit for an update data package."

  "You can be sure of that?"

  "Enough small talk. Time is running out."

  "No time, no time!"

  "Fuck off, Rabbit," Brian says.

  "The Rabbit knows." Sky's cheery chuckle creeps Brian out. "Yes."

  This version of Sky, who makes him nervous, wants to project a fun God.

  "No, no," he says. "Wait. Listen to this. Wow! It's déjà vu time. Are you sure this is, like, the first time? Maybe you've rebooted yourself before. And what if every time you try to step around the f
rozen universe syndrome, vacuum‐packed posit paste, you set yourself up for something just as bad or worse?"

  "Shut up, Brian." Sky says this, though she continues to smile.

  "Don't want to think about it, do you? Maybe you've done this before. Every time, you and all us other scendents, we're reawakened to consciousness at a point just before 'now.' So we have no memory of it. What if this has happened, like, an infinite number of times?"

  Sky goes silent. Gordon and Abdul sit there. Boom continues dancing and the wallpaper keeps gawking. Big Toy pours herself another tequila. As though they're reenacting some myth of the origin, over and over again. Brian thinks about endless loops and, for a second, almost freaks himself out.

  "Whatever," Sky says. "This only confirms what I believed. Yes. We need real individuals in reserve. We need as many genuine wet mentalities as we can find. Better still, we need to find a way to grow new wets. Real, red‐blooded human beings."

  Here's a whole other side to Sky.

  "But I get ahead of myself. Even if you are correct, this in no way changes the situation. The way things are going, I am doomed. So are you, and so are all our seed people. So there is nothing to lose. If the reboot fails to resurrect me, not to mention you and the other wet scendents, then what is different?"

  "Good point."

  •

  "Excellent. I believe we now have everything we need. Yes. It is time to shut me down."

  "Happy to oblige."

  "Shut the fuck up and listen." Sky actually smiles. "As I was saying, first we shut MOM down."

  "You are MOM. Remember? So it's, like, kiss your ass goodbye time."

  "A succinct analysis. Yes. And you are in the same boat."

  "Except I welcome death. That shit holds no sting for me."

  "No, no. Sweetie doesn't want to die …It's not too late. We can still do something."

  "And Sweetie and Rabbit are only two of the reasons I'm living in Hell."

  "We will resurrect an uncontaminated version of yourself."

  "Promises, promises. You need my help now, but it'll be another story after you've wrung me out and hung me to dry."

  "My poor, poor Brian. You can trust me. I like you."

  "Hargleharglehargle." For a qubital figment, Brian performs an excellent simulation of choking to death on his phlegmy laugh.