Tyro Vogel - Tyro Vogel's Extatica

I am a kunoichi of the Iga clan and I am not afraid.

She woke in a cold sweat. Morning light seeped into the room through the closed curtains, and Irina got up, the dream cemented in her mind. He can alter your memories, make you into somebody else, Mark had said . Was she being turned into someone else? Would she even be able to tell? She couldn’t worry about that now. She had a plan, and that plan had to work.

Irina took a shower, had toast for breakfast (Linda was nowhere in sight), fired up the 3D model of Budapest on her laptop, and dialed Victor’s number.

“Irina? Arrgh… What time is it?”

“You sound like a pirate. It’s seven. Rise and shine, lover boy.”

“Is everything all right? I called you yesterday, but you didn’t pick up.”

“What did you want to say?”

“Just wanted to make sure you’re all right. You seemed a bit shaken up.”

“Yeah, about that. I was busy talking with Mark.” Please don’t ask about the details , she thought.

“Mark? Whoa! You want to tell me the details?”

“He said you want to kill me.”

“What? No! Look, that’s the crazy talking. He’ll be all right in a few days. Come on. Why’d he even say something like that?”

“He said you want to turn me into a superhuman internet bot with a soul.”

“For all his smarts, he can be pretty goddamned stupid. There’s… there’s something I’m working on, sure, but I don’t want to go into it over the phone.”

“Oh? Afraid of spies? Does your plan involve me becoming… does it involve me being reborn as a computer program?”

“Not a computer program. This thing we’re tapping into, whatever it is, it’s not a computer. Not how you’d imagine a human computer, at any rate.”

“But that’s basically what you want to do to me?”

“It’s not that simple.…”

“Does it involve me dying?”

“No! Not at all! I don’t know where he got that from!”

“So, can you do it?”

“Again, it’s… It’s not that simple. I’m just the tech guy, remember? Even if it was possible, we’d need Mark’s help. I can’t do it without him.”

“He said you wanted to get his UF203 patents. He said that if I’ll help you, you won’t need them anymore. He said people are going to become addicted if you start mass-producing this thing.…”

“It’s completely harmless! And it’s not addictive! And anyway, I’d never be able to do this without Mark, and he’s being a paranoid fool. He thinks if everybody starts creating their own World-Spaces straight from the source, reality might collapse in on itself!”

“Something about blurring the line…”

“Rubbish! Reality isn’t some sort of a card-house that falls apart if you blow on it hard enough. It’s a mathematical construct. All we did is follow the math.”

“How do you mean?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Try me.”

“Hmm… okay. Ever heard of the Fibonacci numbers?”

“Yeah, something about a mathematical sequence occurring in nature, in seashells and whatnot.”

“Not just in seashells — everywhere! For example, the bones in your body are proportioned based on this sequence. It arranges leaves on tree stems, seeds in sunflowers, that sort of thing. It’s the keycode to our mathematical universe and what Mark based his UF203 work on. Reality is hard math, and math doesn’t simply disappear when too many people start using it. This world isn’t going anywhere.”

“Okay, I want in. I want to do this. I agree, I sign my consent, whatever. Upload me.”

He chuckled into his mouthpiece. “Upload you? You think you say ‘Beam Me Up, Scotty,’ I snap my fingers, and you’re be reborn as pure information, with every little part of you still in the places they’re supposed to be?”

“Can you do it or not?”

Victor sighed. “No. Not without Mark. I could try, but it’d be better if I didn’t.”

“And my body? What would happen to my body?”

“Nothing. You’ll still be here, you’ll still be you. The other you, however, the other you will have a different fate.”

“Let’s do it.”

“Like I said, it’s not that easy.”

“I think I know a way.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. A contest. I propose a contest.”

“What are you talking about?”

“A contest,” she said. “If you win, Mark gives you his UF203 patents and helps you copy me into this… information stream. If he wins, you forget about making your invention public. If I I win… well, if I win, then Mark helps you copy me as well, and I’ll help you however I can.”

“What? This isn’t a game!”

“It sure felt like one the last time I tried.”

“Well, it’s not. And besides, Mark’ll never agree to such terms. I win, he loses, you win, he loses, he’d be a fool to play.”

“I think he’d see it as a chance to prove that he knows better.”

The phone went silent for a few seconds, then: “You might be right. You might be right. This might actually work. What kind of contest do you have in mind?”

“First, I want you to hire me.”

“We only met yesterday, and I like you already. Did I hear you right? You want me to hire you?”

“Yeah.”

“What in the hell for?”

Irina switched to a bird’s-eye view of the city on her monitor. It was an impressive piece of work. Sometimes, she amazed even herself. “To build worlds for you,” she said.

“What makes you think I can’t manage on my own?”

“Please. That World-Space you showed me when Mark jumped us was nothing but a courtyard, one-room big. You say what we see in a World-Space is based on what your click-making sound file plays, right?”

“I guess you could put it that way.”

“I’m a 3D modeler, Victor. I can build you a map. You’ll convert it to sound, we’ll take the pills, put the clicking on, and voilà, we’re practically partners. Besides, if you win, I’ll be working for you anyway. Wouldn’t be right if we don’t put a contract in place.”

“You want me to hire you?”

“Yes.”

“To build worlds for me?”

“Yes.”

“And you think this thing with Mark, with the patents on UF203… you think it’ll really work?”

“Unless he wins, yes!”

“He won’t. Can I pick you up in an hour? It’s best we talk here.”

“I’ll be at my place,” she said, and hung up.

Irina knew only one way to immortality: art. If her plan worked, a copy of her would live on in a different world. It wouldn’t be her, but it would be the next best thing.

It would be the best model she’d ever make.

And if she had to die in this world, then so be it.

Everybody dies.

Irina copied her Budapest project to a memory stick. Her mother had taught her to do the best she could, no matter what the circumstances, and she’d taught her well. A twenty-three year old nobody, given a chance at an immortal legacy the likes of which the world had never seen? Irina shuddered. She’d give birth to a new species: a transhuman, the first of its kind. Irina took out an old lace from her bottom drawer. Her mom had once called it “her lucky lace,” and she’d kept it ever since. She threaded the lace through the memory stick’s loop, then tied it around her neck.

Victor climbed up the fireman’s pole, offered Irina his hand, and pulled her up. The observatory’s dome was open, and summer winds blew in from the direction of the Danube River. Irina walked to where the dome parted, taking in the morning sun. This had better work.

“I called Mark,” Victor said. “He won’t do it.”