Hugh Howey - The Plagiarist

The snow had ceased; it wasn’t enough to close campus. Adam knew he needed to call the department secretary, let her know he wouldn’t be coming to class, but even that required some semblance of motivation. He needed an excuse to not call in sick. He wasn’t well enough for even that.

The long walk to his apartment was chewed up one lumbering step at a time. Up several walkways, around the education building, up, up, up more steps. He pushed down on his knees to force them to work. The snow to either side seemed inviting. Adam imagined spreading out on the wide blanket of it, letting the cold erode away the last of sensation. He would sleep forever and never wake, never feel. He willed himself to do it, could feel his insides moving that way, but the shell of him kept staggering forward and up the steps, taking the rest of him home with it.

He could barely feel the keys in his numb fingers. He couldn’t tell the door was already unlocked as he worked it open. Adam was too far gone to notice the puddles on the linoleum as he crossed the foyer and into his living room. It was several moments, even, before he realized someone was sitting at his computer.

“Hello?”

A woman spun around, a worried frown breaking into a brief smile, then back to the worried frown.

“Hello, Adam.”

He didn’t know this woman. Was this his landlord’s wife? He tried to think who would have a key, or a reason to be here. Why would she be on his computer? Adam needed sleep.

“I’m Amanda.”

The woman rose from the chair and took a step toward him. Adam was too tired to recoil. If she hadn’t been standing by his computer, the name wouldn’t have registered as one he knew. With the computer in the background, though, it made sense.

“Amanda?”

This was his girlfriend, the one he chatted nightly with, his virtual girlfriend. She nodded.

“Are you okay?” She touched her own face while gazing at Adam’s. She looked worried. Everyone gave him that worried look of late.

“I haven’t slept,” Adam said. “What are you doing here?” He was simply curious. He strangely didn’t care, couldn’t quite manage it.

Amanda looked around the apartment. Adam saw the clutter through her eyes. He noticed the tall piles of debris had been raked flat, like fall leaves pushed back to their former state. A dim awareness told him Amanda had been going through his things. He almost cared.

“I thought you had an early class,” she said.

“But why?” He shook his head, clearing the cobwebs. “You’ve been here before? How do you even know where I live?”

“I’m sorry about this.” She waved her hands at the room. “But I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t.”

Adam held up his hands. “I need sleep,” he said. “I can’t handle this right now. I can’t even begin to think about it. I’ve been up three days straight.”

He staggered toward the bedroom. He didn’t care that his online girlfriend was in his house. It almost felt natural. Inevitable . Some part of him processed that she was prettier than he’d imagined she’d be, but even that couldn’t douse the growing surety that he no longer wanted her as a part of his life.

Amanda followed after him. “Adam, I need your writings.”

“My what?” He mumbled it to himself as he reached the bedroom door.

“Your writings. All of them. I need them now.”

Adam leaned on the knob. His head was throbbing. He shook it, and the entire planet seemed to wobble around him. “You need them now.”

“Right now. I’m sorry to have to ask, but I can’t find them.”

Adam turned away from the door and scanned the room. He glanced at the old computer. “They’re not there.” He waved at his head. “They’re in here.”

Amanda visibly wilted. She looked at her watch. “How many haiku haven’t I heard?”

“I can’t do this,” Adam said. “I need you to leave. You shouldn’t have come here.”

She didn’t look all that upset to hear this. She took a step toward him.

“Did you hear about Virginia Tech?” she asked him.

He remembered something about Virginia Tech. He couldn’t quite place it.

“Their servers,” Amanda said.

Adam nodded. “Yeah,” he said. He remembered Samualson saying something. None of this made sense. He just wanted to sleep.

“Tech has already duped the data from M.I.T. to their own servers. They have a dozen worlds already up and running this morning. Dozens more are coming online at universities all over the world.” Amanda frowned. “Did you know your South Korea went online with their own virtual world last week?”

“ My South Korea?” Adam fell sideways against the doorjamb and remained propped there. He was going to fall asleep standing up.

“I can’t keep taking them down, Adam.” Amanda looked grave. “It takes too much time. More are going up faster than I can take them down. My boss won’t have any more of it, not for the trickle coming out of this planet.” She waved her hands around her.

Adam pressed his palms to his sore temples. One girlfriend was deleted, the other was crazy. He slid down the wall until his ass hit the carpet. His head rested in his hands.

“I need anything you can give me,” Amanda said. He heard her cross the room, could feel her standing above him. “Three or four haiku. Anything. Please, I wish we had more time.”

“Tomorrow,” Adam said. “Please leave me alone.”

A hand clamped down on his wrist. “There is no tomorrow,” Amanda hissed. He looked up at her. “Are you listening to me? I know what you do, who you are. I’m a plagiarist too, Adam. You know how this works; I don’t have time to explain it to you.” Amanda pointed toward his window. “You’ve got hours left. Your legacy is all that matters. Don’t you understand?” She shook her head. “Of course you don’t. You have no idea what you mean on my world. You don’t know what I’ve discovered in you.”

Amanda stepped away from him. Adam felt bile rise up in his throat. Her words were settling like snow upon his consciousness, forming something like understanding.

“What are you saying?” Adam asked. He looked at his palms, flexed his fingers.

“Please,” she said. She backed away from him and looked out the window. The blinds were up. Adam never had the blinds up. “A few haiku. You have to say them to me. I can’t copy it straight out of your mind. You know how it works.”

“This is real ,” Adam told himself. What she was saying seemed so familiar. He rubbed his fingers together. It felt as real as the sims.

It felt as real as the sims.

“I’m sorry,” Amanda said, not for the first time. “I really am. I like you. I— I feel maybe more than I should for you.” She bit her lip and looked away. “This isn’t easy for me—”

“This is real ,” Adam repeated. He stood up and took a step toward Amanda. Outside, the sun was peeking over the mountains, the clear sky dazzling against the fresh snow. The brightness of it lanced into Adam’s brain.

“Say whatever comes to mind,” Amanda said. “You’ll be remembered for it.”

“I’ll be remembered,” he whispered.

“Yes.”

But Belatrix won’t be , he realized. It was what he’d wanted to tell her, but couldn’t find the words. She was real as long as he’d known her, and would remain real as long as he could recall her. Belatrix was as real as anyone he’d known who was now lost. As real as anyone who had become ash, leaving just memories behind with the living. She was as real as his father had been to him. Had his father been real? Was Adam real? Was this some kind of trick? If he was deleted, and the memory of Belatrix was deleted with him, then she was lost for good. His mind spun with the layers and layers and layers: Hammond had started simming their own worlds, placing a strain on the campus computers, so it had to be deleted. What about all those simmed worlds on Hammond when that happened? Adam had considered the loss of Belatrix, of the world and people she knew, but what about the billions of others residing on computers another layer deep? Those people thought they were real. What had they been doing when they were deleted? How few were told in advance?