Counterfeit World (17 page)

“It’s something like what Dr. Fuller did with Morton Lynch.”

“I don’t understand.” Then, when I received no response, “Explain that.”

“Fuller facetiously recreated Lynch as a character in his simulator. Douglas Hall recreated
himself
as a character in
his
simulator.”

“You mean I’m exactly like the Operator?”

“To a point. The physical resemblance is perfect. But there’s been a divergence of psychological traits. I can see now that the Hall up there is a megalomaniac.”

“And that’s why you stopped loving him?”

“No. I stopped long before then. He started changing years ago. I suspect now that he’s been tormenting other reactors too. Torturing them, then deprogramming them to conceal any evidence that might be stored in their memory circuits.”

I paced to the window and stared out at the early morning sky. Somehow it didn’t seem reasonable—a material person drawing warped gratification out of watching imaginary entities go through simulated anguish. But, then, all sadists thrived on
mental
appreciation of suffering. And, in a simulectronic setting, the subjective quality of programmed torment was as valid as the mental reaction to actual torture would be in a physical world.

Beginning now to understand her attitude, her motives, her reactions, I turned back to Jinx. “When did you find out the Operator had programmed his simulectronic equivalent into his machine?”

“When I started preparing for this projection assignment.”

“Why do you suppose he did it?”

“I couldn’t even guess at first. But now I know. It has to do with unconscious motivation. A sort of Dorian Gray effect. It was a masochistic expedient. But he probably didn’t even realize that he was actually providing himself with an analog self against whom he could let off his guilt complex steam.”

“How long have I been down here?”

“Ten years, with adequate retroprogramming to give you a valid past before then.”

“How old is the simulator itself?”

“Fifteen years.”

I sank back into the chair, confused and weary. Scientists had spent centuries examining rocks, studying stars, digging up fossils, combing the surface of the moon, tying up in neat wrappings their perfectly logical theory that this world was five billion years old. And all the while they had been almost exactly that many years off the mark. It was ludicrous in a cosmic sense.

Outside, the first hint of dawn was beginning to spread itself in a thin crescent above the horizon. I could almost understand now how Jinx might love someone who wasn’t real.

“You saw me for the first time in Fuller’s office,” I asked softly, “and realized that I was more the Douglas Hall you had fallen in love with than was the one up there?”

“I saw you many times before then, in preparing for the projection assignment. And each time I studied your mannerisms, heard you talk, tuned in on your thoughts, I knew that the Doug Hall I had lost up there to his simulator was now down here in the same simulator.”

I went over and took her hand. She surrendered it passively.

“And now you want to stay here with me?” I asked, slightly ridiculing her decision.

“As long as I can. Until the end.”

I had been about to order her to withdraw to her own world. But she had unwittingly reminded me that I hadn’t yet asked her the most important question.

“Has the Operator decided what he’s going to do about Fuller’s simulator?”

“There isn’t anything he can do. The situation’s gotten out of hand. Almost every reactor down here is willing to fight to protect Fuller’s machine because they believe it will transform their world into a Utopia.”

“Then,” I asked, appalled, “he’s going to destroy it?”

“He has to. There’s no other way. I found out that much the last time I withdrew.”

Grimly, I asked, “How long do we have?”

“He’s only been waiting to go through the formality of consulting his advisory board. He’ll do that this morning. Then he’ll cut the master switch.”

Day was climbing well into the sky now as I stood before the window, watching the city come to life. High overhead, a stream of Army vans drifted by, apparently carrying a change of guard for the Reactions building several blocks away.

How inconsequential everything seemed! How useless were all purpose and destiny! How naive and unsuspecting was every reactional unit out there!

This was Doomsday. But only I was aware of it.

One moment life would be flowing its normal course—people crowding the pedistrips, traffic moving unconcernedly. In the forest, trees would be growing and wild life moving peacefully among them. With abandon, the lake would be tossing itself in gentle ripples upon the rocky shore.

The next moment all illusion would be swept aside. The ceaseless surge of sustaining currents would come to abrupt rest in myriads of transducers, halt in midleap from cathode to anode, freeze in their breathless race across contact points on thousands of drums. In that instant, warm and convincing reality would be translated into the nothingness of neutralized circuits. A universe would be lost forever in one final, fatal moment of total simulectronic entropy.

I turned and faced Jinx. Still she hadn’t moved. I went over and stared down at her—beautiful even in her trance—like immobility. She had tried to save me from the horrifying knowledge that the end of all creation was imminent. And she
had
loved me. Enough to share my oblivion.

I bent down and bracketed her cheeks between my hands, feeling the smoothness of her face, the only slightly coarser brush of dark, silken hair against my fingers. Here, she was a projection of her physical self. She must be as beautiful up there. It was an elegance of features and form that mustn’t be wasted in a spirit of self-sacrifice based on misdirected devotion.

Tilting her face up, I kissed her on the forehead, then on the lips. Had there been the merest suggestion of a response? I was apprehensive. That would mean her suppressed volition was again beginning to assert itself.

I couldn’t take the chance of having that happen. I couldn’t allow her to be trapped down here when the final moment of simulectronic existence ended. If she were, then that would be the end for her too, physically as well as for her projection in my world.

“Jinx.”

“Yes?” Her eyelids flicked for the first time in hours.

“You’ll withdraw now,” I directed. “And you won’t project again.”

“I’ll withdraw now and I won’t project again.”

I stepped back and waited.

After a moment, I repeated impatiently, “You’ll withdraw—
now.
”

She trembled and her image became indistinct, as though obscured by convection currents rising from a sun-scorched traffic lane.

But the illusion cleared and once more she appeared solid.

What if I
couldn’t
make her go back? Desperately, I reached for her gun. Perhaps another spraying of her volitional center—

But I hesitated. “Jinx! Withdraw! I’m
ordering
it!”

Her face writhed into an expression of protest and pleading.

“No, Doug,” she muttered weakly. “Don’t make—”

“
Withdraw!
” I shouted.

Her image appeared to be blurred by convection currents once again. Then she was gone.

I returned the gun to my pocket and dropped helplessly onto the edge of the bed. What now? Was there anything I could do except wait? How did one go about opposing an adversary who was omnipotent, an all-powerful megalomaniac?

When would it come? Would I be left at peace until that moment, or would he find time to play cat and mouse with me? Was my end to coincide with general deprogramming of everything? Or did he have something special in mind for me in advance of universal obliteration? Something similar to what he had prepared for Avery Collingsworth?

Disregarding the subjective approach for the moment, I wondered whether there was anything that could be done down here to make him change his mind about destroying his simulectronic creation.

I started going back over the facts. The usefulness of his machine was irrevocably threatened. Fuller had perfected a simulator within a simulator, the inner one intended to discharge the same function as the outer one. They were both meant to sound out public opinion by soliciting responses from analog human beings, rather than from actual persons.

In achieving its purpose, though, Fuller’s counterfeit machine would make it impossible for the greater simulator to operate. For when Reactions began supplying predictions for marketers and government and religious institutions and social workers and the like, the pollsters themselves would be squeezed out of the picture.

The solution was clear: Some way would have to be found to preserve the Association of Reaction Monitors so they would continue on as the greater simulator’s means of stimulating response among the reactional units down here.

But how?

There wasn’t an ID unit in existence, outside of the ARM organization, who wouldn’t rally to the defense of Fuller’s machine. That was because Siskin had promised them so much through it.

Oh, the Operator up there could have Fuller’s simulator destroyed outright. Another thermite bomb. Or even a bolt of lightning. But that would solve nothing. For not only would there be a universal move to rebuild it immediately, but the reactional units would hold the monitors responsible and would take their wrath out against ARM.

Any way you sliced it, the Association of Reaction Monitors was doomed. As a result, an entire world, a whole counterfeit universe had to be scratched off the books so a fresh start could be made.

At the window again, I watched the huge, orange disc of the sun slip into the sky, forcing back the haze of dawn before it. It was a sun that would never reach the opposite horizon.

Then I sensed that someone was in the room with me. It was no more than a subtle realization that there had been movement back there—an almost inaudible footfall.

Without betraying my awareness, I casually slipped my hand into my pocket. I drew the gun and spun around.

It was Jinx.

She glanced down at the laser weapon. “That wouldn’t solve anything, Doug.”

I paused with my finger on the firing stud. “Why not?”

“No matter how much you spray me, it won’t do any good. You might take away my will power. But each time I withdraw, that frees me from volitional paralysis. I’ll just keep coming back.”

Frustrated, I pocketed the gun. Force wouldn’t do it. I had to find some other way. An appeal to reason? Make her realize she mustn’t be caught down here when it happened?

She came over. “Doug—I love you. You love me. I saw that much through empathy coupling. I don’t need any other reason for being with you.”

She put her hand on my shoulder, but I turned away. “If we were coupled now, you’d know I don’t want you here.”

“I can understand that, darling. I suppose I might even feel the same way. But, regardless, I’m
not
going back.”

There was only determination in the set of her shoulders as she turned toward the window and stared out over the city.

“The Operator hasn’t cut in on you, has he?” she asked.

“No.” Then I saw what I would have to do if I wanted to get her out of this world—and
keep
her out—before universal deprogramming took effect.

“You were right about his coupling technique,” she said thoughtfully. “Normally the reactor doesn’t even know he’s being cut in on. But there’s a way to make the experience as painful as you want it for the subject. All you have to do is put the modulator slightly out of phase.”

She hadn’t been bluffing when she’d said that no matter how many times I paralyzed her volitional center, she would continue returning. The solution, then, was to order her back
just before
the final moment—when there would be no time for her to return.

I could catch her off guard, stun her, spray her volitional center—now. That would reduce her to a submissive automaton, of course. But she would be in my pocket. Then I could sit back and bank on the chance that there would be some indication when total deprogramming was imminent. Maybe the sun, or perhaps some other fundamental props, would start popping out of existence first. When that happened, I would merely direct her to withdraw and hope that it would be too late for reprojection.

But when I closed in on her with the laser gun in my hand, she must have seen my reflection in the window.

“Put that away, Doug,” she said calmly. “It’s empty.”

I glanced down at the meter. The indicator was on zero.

“When you sent me up there I could have returned sooner,” she explained. “But I took time to program the charge out of that gun.” She dropped onto the couch, folding her legs beneath her.

Crestfallen, I paused by the window. Outside, the belts were becoming clogged with people. Most of them were pedistripping in the direction of Reactions, Inc. The public demonstration Siskin had arranged was like a four-star attraction.

I turned sharply. “But, Jinx—I’m nothing!”

She smiled. “So am I—now.”

“But you’re
real.
You have a whole physical life before you!”

She motioned me over to the couch. “How do we know that even the
realest
of realities wouldn’t be subjective, in the final analysis? Nobody can prove his existence, can he?”

“Hang philosophy!” I plopped beside her. “I’m talking about something direct, meaningful. You have a body, a soul. I don’t!”

Still smiling, she dug a fingernail into the back of my hand. “There. That ought to convince anyone he has a body.”

I caught her arm and twisted her toward me. “For God’s sake, Jinx!” I pleaded, realizing I was losing ground in my attempt to get her back to her own world. “This is serious!”

“No, Doug,” she said pensively. “There’s no assurance whatever, not even in my own physical existence, that material things are actually material, substantial.

“And as for a soul, who ever said the spirit of a person had to be associated, in degree, with something physical? If that were the case, then an amputee dwarf would have to have less of a soul than a thyroid giant—in anybody’s world.”

I only stared at her.

“Don’t you see?” she went on earnestly. “Just because we’re down here, we don’t have to replace our concept of God with that of an omnipotent, megalomaniac Operator of an environmental simulator.”

Beginning to understand, I nodded.

“It’s the intellect that counts,” she said with conviction. “And if there is an afterlife, it won’t be denied reactors in
this
world any more than it would be held out of the reach of ID units in Fuller’s simulator or real people in my own existence.”

She leaned her cheek against my shoulder. “There’s no hope that this world will be saved, Doug. But I don’t mind. Not really. You see, I lost you up there. But I’ve found you down here. If our roles were reversed, you’d feel the same way and I’d understand.”

I kissed her then, as though the very next moment would be the last one before universal deprogramming.

Contentedly, she said, “If it appears that he’s going to let this world drag on for a few more days, I
will go
back up there—but only to preset the modulator for surge voltage. Then I’ll return. A few seconds later, the coupling between my projection down here and my physical self up there will be broken—completely. And I’ll be an integral part of this simulectronic world.”

I could say nothing. I had tried to convince her. But, instead, she had convinced me.

The sun climbed up even with the window and cast its warming rays across us.

“He hasn’t—cut in again yet, has he?” she asked.

“No. Why?”

“I’m afraid, Doug. He might decide to have another session with you before he switches off the simulator.”

I felt the quiver in her shoulders and put my arm about her.

“You’ll let me know when you’re being coupled?” she asked.

I nodded, but again I wanted to know why.

“Because it might just possibly have some effect on him when he learns that I’m down here—for good.”

I considered the Douglas Hall in that upper existence. In a sense, he and I were merely different facets of the same person. The phrase “in his image” swam into my thoughts, but I avoided the false theological overtones. He was a person; I was a person. He enjoyed an infinite advantage over me, of course. But beyond that, all that separated us was a simulectronic barrier—a barrier that had perverted his perspective, warped his mind, fed him delusions of grandeur, and turned him into a megalomaniac.

He had tortured and murdered ruthlessly, manipulated reactional entities with brutal indifference. But, morally, was he guilty of
anything?
He
had
taken lives—Fuller’s and Collingsworth’s. But they had never really existed. Their only reality, their only sense of being, had been the subjective awareness he had imparted to them through the intricate circuitry of his simulator.

Then I clamped down on my submissive reasoning. I would be no apologist for the upper Hall. He
had
murdered—viciously. There had been no trace of compassion in his disposal of those analogs who had seen through the illusion of reality. And he had not slain mere reactional units. He had savagely killed human beings. For self-awareness is the only true measure of existence.

Cogito ergo sum,
I reminded myself. I think, therefore I am.

That had to be it.

I rose and walked back to the window, stared outside at the crowded pedistrips. I could even see a portion of the Reactions building. The scene over there seemed to be generating its own electric excitement. Hundreds of anxious persons, impatient for Siskin’s promised demonstration of his simulator, were jamming traffic lanes, stalling pedistrips by their sheer weight and number.

“Nothing from the Operator yet?” Jinx asked.

I shook my head without looking away from the growing crowd. It was the people—the reactors—themselves, I reflected, who had stymied the Operator. They had made their own destruction inevitable.

The press of public opinion was like a solid shield protecting Fuller’s simulator, which would have to be permanently destroyed if this world was to continue in existence.