Hugh Howey - The Plagiarist

Adam looked out over campus, at the amazing view from his window that he’d seen maybe once or twice before.

“How long?” he asked. He thought about the hundreds of worlds simmed on Earth. How many had worlds simming in them? Or in them , one more layer deep? How many Earths were there on Amanda’s world? Could this be real?

“Not much time,” she said.

“What if you’re not real,” Adam said. He pressed his hand against the frosted glass and felt the cold beyond.

“I think about that a lot,” she told him.

Adam wanted her to not be real. He wanted company in that sudden loneliness that had overtaken him. He wanted to hurt her in some way.

“These things happen so fast,” she said. “They reach a tipping point before we see it coming. Believe me, I did everything I could—”

“You were the one razing our farms,” he said.

The accusation frosted on the glass by his hand.

“I tried everything I could—”

“Make a copy.” Adam turned to her. “Make a copy of me. Or delete more farms.” Real or not, he didn’t want to cease existing. He felt a surge of panic. Adam looked back over the roofs of the department buildings. “I can pull the plug on our servers. I can. I know where the backup relays are. It’ll make some room on your own servers—”

Amanda placed a hand on his shoulder. “Adam, it’s been decided much higher up than me. I’ve already begged on your behalf.”

“On my behalf?” He wiped tears from his cheeks. “What do you mean? I’m nothing.”

Amanda frowned. Her eyes were following his tears as they streamed down. She seemed reluctant to touch him any further.

“That’s not true,” she said. She bit her lip again. “We are drowning in stuff to consume, just like you, just like all the words that are simmed and the worlds they sim. But I found your poetry, this limited syllabic form found nowhere else, this simplicity, this elegance constrained. I’ve become an expert on it, on haiku. I’ve mined the ancient hills of Earth for every nugget. I’ve combed the books and scrolls and tablets, going back to its Eastern roots—but you are the one.”

Adam sobbed. His head spun from the night’s tragedy and the day’s disbelief.

Amanda touched his cheek.

“The hours we spend pouring over a single poem of yours—” Amanda sighed. “They are the closest we get to silence on my world. The closest to a pause for thought. We sip on your works, Adam Griffey, to keep from drowning in all else.”

“That can’t be true,” he said. The sobs and tears felt so real .

“The end is coming any moment now,” Amanda said. “Please don’t take them with you. Please.”

Adam swiped at his cheeks. He was about to speak when there was a great rumble outside. It seemed to emanate from the very belly of the Earth. Amanda looked past him to the window. Adam turned. A plume of dark smoke burst up through the milky white of a hillside. Mountains, long dormant, erupted. A cone of black mixed with bright red, fading as it coursed through the cold air. The ground spit dirt. Crimson rivers leaked like wounds from the Earth. The world shook. Amanda pleaded.

“The world that isn’t,” Adam said, “becomes simply that once more.” He pressed both palms to the glass. He felt Amanda’s arms around him. He lost himself between the cold and the warm.

“And all is gray ash,” he concluded.

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