Tony Ballantyne - Recursion

It all seemed so real, so convincing. If it weren’t for the fact that the building itself was floating several hundred meters above the ground, he wouldn’t have believed Jay’s words.

“When did this happen?”

Jay shrugged again.

“We don’t know. We are hoping to figure it out with your help. Have you noticed anything odd recently?”

Constantine gave a bitter laugh. “I’ve been seeing gaps beneath the sky. I see holes in alleyways and office blocks full of people staring at each other. Strangers introduce themselves to me and take me for midnight walks through the city. People seem to freeze in mid action while a second body around them carries on moving. Now I am speaking to a young woman standing on the balcony of a floating building. Yes. I guess you could say that things have been odd recently.”

He shook his head and tilted his head in thought.

“Okay. Things really started acting odd about three weeks ago. Do you think that’s when they got me?”

“Possibly. It’s something to work on.”

Constantine suddenly felt very cold. He remembered that he was naked in the middle of the freezing night.

“Can we go back inside?” he asked.

“No!” Jay held out her hand. “Stay close to me. They don’t know I’m here. We can only speak safely if you’re close to this balcony.”

Constantine was suddenly suspicious. “How? That’s a good point. If I’m a computer simulation, how can you speak to me at all? Surely they will know you’re here. Why should I listen to what you say?”

Jay rolled her eyes in frustration. “Listen, get this into your head. I’m the only person in here who’s on your side. Now, I’ve got a message for one of your personalities. Are they listening?”

“They’re asleep.”

– I’m awake, said White.

Constantine made no response. White never really slept. Savant personalities were a little different, he knew. Maybe it would do him good to keep this a secret for the moment.

“What about Grey? Is he there?” asked Jay.

“I see you’ve been fully briefed. In that case, you’ll realize that I never know anything about what Grey is up to.”

“Fine. Listen, this is a message from the real Constantine. I saw him just a few hours ago before I got in here. He said ‘GHX LPN SSD SAS EFF LKF.’”

– Probably an authentication code, said White.

“What? Can I have that again?”

“No need. Grey will have picked it up. It’ll vouch for my credentials.”

Constantine paused, but Grey maintained its habitual silence. Constantine tentatively took this to be a positive sign and withheld further judgment for the moment.

“So, how did you get in here, then? How come you haven’t been detected?”

Jay gave a little smile and looked down at her feet. She wriggled her tanned brown toes on the cool marble of the balcony and then allowed her gaze to travel up the long dark side of the tower above her. She finally spoke.

“The program that runs this simulation is full of bugs. Not surprising when we’re talking about something so complex. All programs contain memory leaks: objects get created but not destroyed. Like when you get a bit of a picture left behind on a computer display after you move things around?”

Constantine nodded. “I know what you mean.”

“Good,” said Jay. “That’s why you sometimes see two of things, or why the scenery doesn’t always hang together like it should.”

She jerked her head in the direction of the tower behind her.

“This is an object that didn’t get destroyed. The program doesn’t even know it’s here. There are no pointers to it; only termination of the program itself will lead to its resources being returned to the heap. A DIANA tempest device managed to locate the object and then effect a transference of my personality construct into it. Basically, this is my little island of friendly consciousness in a sea of hostility.”

“Oh,” Constantine said. He had temporarily forgotten the cold. Jay’s words washed over him. Something she had mentioned earlier was just beginning to sink into his awareness. He licked his lips and whispered hoarsely.

“Something you said. You said the real Constantine passed on a message to give to me.”

Jay said nothing. She simply fixed her dark gaze on Constantine and waited for him to work it out for himself.

Constantine looked back at her. She was very thin, he suddenly realized. Big, dark eyes with a slightly desperate “love me” expression. Maybe the cool, irreverent talk he had heard yesterday in the meeting was just an act. Or maybe the computer simulation hadn’t got her quite right. He was evading the subject at hand and knew it. If what Jay had told him was true, he wasn’t the real Constantine. The real Constantine was out there somewhere, sleeping in the real Stonebreak, visiting the real DIANA Arcology. What had happened at the real meeting yesterday? Had they discussed the project there? Maybe even come to some conclusion?

Would he see his wife again?

“What’s going to happen to me?”

Jay shook her head slowly. “We don’t know. We’re working on a way to get you out of here, but it will take time. The best thing you can do, to be honest, is to act normally. The resources required to generate this virtual world are significant. If they think that you’ve caught on, well…”

Constantine was suddenly incredibly cold again.

“I need to go inside,” he said.

“It’s probably just as well that you do. If we stay talking too long, it will arouse suspicion.”

“Aren’t they suspicious at the moment? Can’t they see me?”

“Not when you’re within range of this tower. There is a ghost signal emanating from here, making it look as if you’re just standing on the balcony.”

“I don’t really understand any of that. Are you coming back?”

“I will.”

Constantine nodded again. Something suddenly occurred to him. “You’re just as much a prisoner in here as I am, aren’t you?”

“I’ll see you when I can,” Jay said.

The tower was already slowly spinning, taking her back out of his virtual life. Constantine gazed after her, lost and alone.

He awoke to find a yellow stripe of sunlight streaking his body, looking like an exclamation mark. His room was fresh and clean and smelled of hot coffee and freshly baked croissants. He felt surprisingly healthy and positive, ready to take on anything. That was when the memory of the previous night settled upon him. Blue was already awake.

– Fresh coffee? Good idea.

Constantine rolled out of bed and began to pour coffee into a curiously shaped cup.

“Where were you last night?” he muttered.

– Sleeping, said Red.

– White has filled us in with all the details, said Blue.

Constantine sipped his coffee. It was a little too bitter this morning, the grounds seeming to settle on his tongue. If this was a computer simulation, it was an extremely good one. The attention to detail was incredible.

Red spoke up.

– We don’t think it would be a good idea for you to speak to us about last night. If what Jay said was true, they’ll be able to monitor you subvocalizing. You can’t afford to let them know you suspect. If you agree with us, scratch your leg.

“Spare me your spy games, Red. It’s too early.”

There was a pause. Constantine took a croissant and started to butter it. He knew that Red would be examining his last sentence to see if he had given anything away.

– Okay, said Red.-Maybe we are being too mysterious, but we can’t afford to take any chances.

“Do you think it’s true?” asked Constantine.

– Will you stop it? Okay. We think it is. Grey is saying nothing, as usual. We are assuming that he is hovering around in the background somewhere. White keeps announcing the authentication code, just in case he didn’t hear it. We’re guessing that if there were something wrong, he’d say so. As he hasn’t, we’ll carry on as normal.