It had a small table, a hay bed with a sheet on it, and nothing else. I focused on the bed, hoping it would ask me how long I wanted to sleep. Nothing. Am I going to actually need to sleep on this thing?
A single worn book with symbols I didn’t recognize sat on the table. It could be a language. And I’d had enough for today, so I layed down on my less-than-comfortable bed, and was immediately greeted with a prompt:
[Sleep?]
Yes/No
Great! I figured out how to sleep. But it isn’t asking me for how long…
Yes
And there I was, one finger pressing down on the big red button back in my uncle's laboratory. Nothing indicated I was going back, or how I got back. Or that I had left at all, for that matter. Have I been standing here pressing a button for eight hours?
Maybe the game autosaves and exits on sleep? Save on sleep is not unusual for a game on survival difficulty. And it was a game, right? My fear of waking up drooling on the basement floor, having been exposed to some psychedelic chemical, didn’t come true.
I carefully lowered the plastic protector until it gave a satisfying click as it latched, and put the key in my pocket. I picked up the small pedestal that held the button and its lid to confirm that it wasn’t actually attached to anything. It had only held firmly in place by rubber grommets and its own weight. It was a bit heavy for its size.
Flipping it over, there was a panel held on by four phillips screws. I grabbed a screwdriver off my uncle’s workbench. Inside was a Raspberry Pi, and a couple of cell phone batteries. I put it back together, and carefully set it back where I found it.
I need to get some perspective. I walked upstairs, and directly out the side door. The sun was shining, and some kid was riding up and down the block on a bicycle with training wheels. Across the street a man was failing to get a lawn mower started, but the smell of cut grass and the sound of a mower told me someone else nearby was having a better time of it.
It sure looked like a normal Saturday morning. It was a little after 10 AM, according to my cell. Wasn’t that about the time I pressed the button? I thought about messaging a gamer friend, but I really needed to confirm my sanity before involving anyone else.
I headed back to the basement to check my uncle’s journal to try to make sense of this. What was his password? Memento…? But I didn’t need to unlock it. It was still unlocked.
I checked the screen saver, and it was set to lock after ten minutes. Everything I went through happened in less than ten minutes? I sure hope Uncle Al has some answers, because I’m fresh out.
I went back a year, and found exactly the kind notes I’d expect to find in a work journal of a quantum physicist. Most of it made as much sense as ancient Greek. I started flipping ahead hoping to find something a little clearer. Finally about three months ago there was a dramatic change in the types of entries:
There are aspects of quantum physics that seem to defy conventional wisdom, but I cannot bring myself to believe this particular aspect...
His use of first person is what had jumped out at me. The next entry went back to crazy physics talk for a month or so before:
The more I study the phenomenon, the more I am convinced. This just does not make sense as a part of nature. It is like someone forgot to finish this part or reality. Almost like a glitch in the matrix.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
A glitch in the matrix? I’ve never once heard Uncle Al make a pop culture reference, and his work notes seem like a weird place to start. Was he talking about simulation theory? I started skimming:
A glitch in the matrix. I can’t get it out of my head. It haunts me when I close my eyes at night. Is this really the only explanation?
And later the same day:
It’s true. I stayed up for three days, and now have a working demonstration. I have exploited the nature of the quantum phenomenon, my glitch in the matrix, and gained access to some sort of computer that is simulating reality. Life itself is all some kind of joke; some kind of game. I cannot think anymore. I need sleep.
He can't be serious. I looked over at the button again. Actually, I guess I’m ready to believe just about anything at this point. Was this why he… why he jumped?
I just left my bed for the first time in two days. I spent those days staring at the ceiling, imagining shapes in the stucco. Deciding if I want to end this joke of an existence for myself, or to share that gift with the rest of the… simulants. Will it be as easy as flipping a switch?
Destroy… the world? I’m as shocked as he was, but… woah. Does it really matter if the world is ones and zeros instead of quarks and neutrons?
I have reached my limit with this interface. I determined that I can see a bit of information about the computer running our simulation, but my options to change anything are almost zero. Almost zero, but not quite zero.
There are only two programs. One that is running, and a second that is not. The one running must be our simulation. The program not running has the same name, but a smaller number at the end. An earlier version of the same program, perhaps.
When I attempt to start this other program, I am met with a warning. I don’t understand the language, but can see the warning uses the same word that denotes processing power in two other places. I am confident the message is warning me that if I start this program without stopping ours first, the computer will crash due to overloading the processor. The processor is already near maximum capacity, that I know.
A momentary bolt of fear ran through me. If any mad scientist could destroy the world, it was Al. But he‘s dead, and the world is not. And… is this other program the other world? The one that I just experienced?
I was worried I had too many questions to be answered by the final two entries.
It is done. I made a small device with parts from the surplus store, with a big red button for drama. When pressed it will activate this other program, and continue past the warning prompt, thereby crashing our pretend existence. I have been staring at it for an hour.
Do I press it? Seems like it needs more flair or something. Someone let me spend sixty-seven years believing that I was peeling away at the mysteries of reality when I was merely a rodent scratching at the walls of my cage. I want to go out with a bang.
Uncle Al made a doomsday button, and I wandered in and pressed it like a goob. I spent a moment taking that in. At least it didn’t work. Right?
Right, Al’s guess was wrong. It did start the other world, but it didn’t crash all of reality. I guess the warning he saw really meant something like, ‘if you start this other program, it will pause your current program, because the system has only enough processing power for one?’ Does this mean Uncle Al decided to kill himself, and spare the rest of humanity. I want to believe he’s a good man.
There was only one entry left:
I made a second device; this one out of a $10,000 smart watch. It’s a mechanical looking thing with a button on the side that makes a satisfying click. It no longer does 99% of the things the watch used to do, but it still tells time, and it does end the world with a satisfying click. Tomorrow I will go watch the fireworks, then make some of my own.
I just stared at the page of text, not knowing what to think. When the screen timed out, it brought me back to reality. He created a second device intending to destroy the world with it. Did he press the button while falling, experience a day in the other world, then go to sleep in that world, only to find himself falling to his death in this world?
Maybe experiencing a whole new life made him regret that decision. Or maybe he never brought himself to press it. I’d like to believe that. I’d like to believe in him. He was the only person who believed in me.
No one else in my family ever respected me as a professional gamer. Al considered any game a waste of time, and he told me so. Then followed that up with, “But they’re important to you. I can see the fire in your eyes when you talk about them.
“The rest of the world is going through the motions. They will never understand the fire that burns within us. Never let someone else put that fire out.”
In the end, I’ll never know what was going through his head. So, I choose to believe the best of him. He was a cold man, dedicated like no one else. I saw a lot of him in me. He saw a lot of me in him. And that's how I’ll remember him.
What do you think of the cover? I hope to replace it with something from a human artist, and wonder what direction I should take it.