Hugh Howey - Machine Learning

He felt vaguely dead as he stumbled out the building and into the freshly fallen snow. Adam should have gone home. Distantly, he knew that. He hadn’t slept in two nights. He went to the cafeteria instead and drank coffee. The taste and the heat of it felt far removed from him. He listened to the clamor from the kitchen, the rattle of plastic trays and clang of silverware and chatter from the night crew. He watched the cashier flip slowly through her romance novel, scratching her head through her hairnet now and then. Through frosted glass, he could see a veil of snow begin to descend on campus. He wondered if there would be enough to cancel his morning class. Somehow, he knew he wouldn’t be teaching that day even if they didn’t call it off. He was going to be sick. He already was sick.

He nursed his coffee until the last sip was cold, went to grab his backpack, and realized he’d left it in the lab. He’d left his gloves in there as well. He had his jacket but couldn’t remember putting it on. The analog clock on the wall let him know he’d been spacing out for hours. A group in lab coats sat in a booth across from him, gesturing excitedly for the late hour. Adam didn’t remember them coming in. He wondered if he’d slept. It would be nice if he had.

He went back out into the cold. The snow was the wet kind, sticking to his hair. Adam pulled his hood up and thought briefly about heading back to the lab, then realized he didn’t care about the backpack. He trudged up the walk toward the library—another of the sleepless buildings on campus. He knew all the sleepless buildings well.

The policeman behind the night desk waved in recognition. Adam dipped his head. He sank into a chair by the periodicals and tried to sleep. He gave up as the sun eventually peeked over the mountains and the students began to emerge from their dorm caves.

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 MIT 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.”