Koji Suzuki - Loop

In between sips, Amano began to relate the history of the virtual world.

He spoke like an old man telling him storybook stories: relating the simulation in the form of a story was probably the most primal, direct way to go about it. In any case, it didn't strike Kaoru as inappropriate. Simulation it may have been, but it was also life, and it was natural for its history to contain story like elements.

Perhaps that was why Kaoru was able to become comfortably absorbed in Amano's tale. It was fun to re-experience the history of the world. But only until just before the end.

"… But even after we implanted RNA, which meant the ability to self-replicate, for a while it remained a normal, chaotic world. It put some of the staff in a bad mood-they were afraid it would change nothing at all.

"But there were a few who had a more upbeat outlook. After all, real life had developed along much the same lines. Primitive life began, single-celled organisms, and then just stayed like that for three billion years with very little change, no signs of evolving.

"One day, just as we'd expected, complex life forms began to appear-just as the Cambrian Explosion came along in real life. We have no logical explanation for why varied life forms appeared at just that moment. Extremely simple life forms, similar to single-celled organisms, begat many-celled organisms, through a mechanism that was identical to how it happened on earth, they say.

"The life that emerged then became the prototype for the natural world that would later develop. Some life retained the same form and became naturally extinct, while some life began to evolve into more complex forms. The family tree branched out, the phenomena of parasitism and symbiosis appeared, life emerged that moved in fascinating ways. Things that moved like worms burrowing their way through the earth. Things that moved swiftly through the seas. Things that soared through the air like birds. And things that stagnated, giving up on evolution and remaining single cells forever. These can probably be likened to bacteria and viruses. There were things whose pictorial representation was large but which didn't move: these took forms like those of trees on earth.

"Of course each living thing had information that corresponded to genes, and every time they reproduced, a certain percentage of errors crept in, mutations that resulted in evolution in a positive direction, stagnation, or extinction. We'd done a good job of incorporating natural selection, the competition to survive.

"Observing this process, we were astonished to see something emerge that could only be gender. In the natural world, too, it's considered a mystery why species branched into male and female. In our world, too, a bifurcation occurred that clearly couldn't be explained except through reference to male and female.

"Some simple life forms were still able to reproduce without coupling with another of their species, but complex life forms now had to mate within their species in order to self-replicate. Just as we'd predicted, once the gender distinction arose, genetic information came to be combined in more dynamic ways as it was passed down to the next generation: this made for diversity, and evolution picked up speed.

"Please don't misunderstand. I didn't actually witness this myself-I heard some older colleagues talking about it. But it's pretty exciting, don't you think? The idea of artificial life forms inside a computer having sex is pretty interesting, is it not?

"With the Cambrian Explosion as a jumping-off point, life changed into complicated patterns with wondrous speed. One minute huge life forms that resembled dinosaurs appeared, and the next minute they were extinct.

"What came next was life forms that incubated the next generation's information inside the parent generation until it had achieved a certain degree of maturity, and only then divided. I'm sure you recognize what I'm talking about: mammals.

"Things went on like this for some time, until the appearance of what seemed to be the ancestors of the human race. I've pulled that scene up and watched it myself. Imagine it, if you can. At first they moved like orangutans. Then, through a long period of trial and error, their walking became smooth, free of the awkwardness it displayed at first.

"At this point the amount of genetic information was extraordinary, and soon thereafter there emerged a life form that we guessed must be humanity. It was obvious that this life form was aware of itself, that it possessed intelligence. Obvious, because these life forms were actually observed making what seemed to be signals to one another.

"By exchanging digital signals, zeros and ones, these life forms were able to manipulate more and more information. As a result, their survival rate went up. It was unmistakable: they'd acquired language.

"By analyzing the clusters of zeros and ones they exchanged, we were able to translate their exchanges of information as language. Of course, the beings within the Loop didn't consider themselves to be interacting in binary code. As far as their awareness went, they were utilizing complex language the same as you and me.

"Once we'd analyzed their language so that we could interpret it using machine translation, it became a much more interesting world, they say. You could call up any scene on the display as a three-dimensional image, and it was just like you were a character in a movie.

"These artificial life forms began making their own history. Similar individuals came together in groups, states fought wars and engaged in political machinations. They advanced their civilization and designed their own world as if it was their own. It's said that watching it was like watching human history itself.

"The price was that as their history advanced the level of information being generated rose, and time began to move more slowly. The computers had a limit to their processing ability.

"The first three billion years from the creation of the earth had only taken a half a year on the computer. But the speed began to slow as life began to emerge, and especially after it evolved into intelligent forms on a level with human beings. At the end it took the computers two or three years to advance the Loop a few centuries.

"The Loop, as a virtual world, was recognizable and knowable to the staff of the research centre. But it was utterly impossible for the sentient beings within the Loop to know us, their creators. To them, I imagine we were God Himself. As long as they were within the Loop, they were unable to comprehend how their world worked. The only thing that would have enabled comprehension was for them to get outside of their world.

"The progress of their civilization was marvellous. Their cities contained entertainment districts with flashing neon signs; they overflowed with sound and colour. All manner of media sprang up, dramatically broadening the reach of information, and people lived lives filled with the pleasures of the musical and verbal arts. Their lives were no different from ours by this point. They had artists just like Mozart or da Vinci, who played the same historical role as in reality, adding vibrancy to their culture. Their world was beautiful, but at the same time it began to have an air of decadence. Some of our staff members were enraptured, while others began to whisper forebodings of doom. There were signs all over the place that something unpredicted was about to happen.

"And the premonitions were right on target. The Loop, the entire living world, began to turn cancerous…"

Amano paused there for a breath, and to bring his coffee cup to his lips. It was empty and he knew it; the gesture was simply something to do with his hands. Had he been a smoker, he would have lit a cigarette at this point.