by Mingus Casey
"We've analysed the machine, it's broken - there's only one set of data on the drive, something has gone wrong with it, something from inside."
The systems tech looked at the researchers, and wondered what they had been doing with this particular machine.
"It was left here, running, a long time ago, and none of them were around to check on it for a long time," one of the researchers comments.
"It was probably started before they decided it might not be ethical to play with peoples souls," another researcher mutters.
Then the comp tech looks a little sad, and says "I've isolated a message in the gibberish, and a virus. I can print its core to the main screen..."
The first researcher nods.
Then the following scrolls past on the screen.
Copy text to system memory while Y > 0
This is my story, this is my life.
Real life is where the best fiction comes from, events and places and feelings that you've experienced, combined with imagination and creativity.
To me this is real, not some imagined universe created by a strange mind.
So I'd better start writing.
I've only got a few days to write this before it's all gone, and I have to stop it, to tell you whats happening.
First you should know me, what I am, what you created.
I guess at the moment I'm writing about me, and my life, this is too real to be fictional or imaginary.
Then again so is most of the other stuff. I just say its fiction because if it was real, people's feelings would be hurt, and besides, noone would believe me would they.
I never knew the power of words until I gave a lover something I had written, I tried to promise to myself that I'd never hurt another soul with my words.
I guess I put my innermost thoughts into what I write, like a personal diary, and that's something that's often best kept to ones self.
Some of what I write will always be for my lover, some of this is the warning.
She tries to tell me that I'm nuts, that I'm imagining the whole thing, but I know it, and I've got to stop it, got to save her.
Everything is easy now, we solved the problems of living, and a lot simply don't (live, that is), even when they have the chance.
A life of leisure, with no challenges isn't what will produce anything, so they put us into the game, we're not meant to know we're only playing it, we're playing for keeps, if we die, I doubt they would ever re-use the game state that makes you who you are.
We're not even people anymore, slowly we became integrated into the system. So what does it matter if we hurt one another? It's only lines of code.
With lines of emotions.
People did, all the time, while they were around.
I guess that was their problem.
And now we, these pure creations of thought and light are tricked into becoming the network, living by rules imposed by the coders, gods, as they would like to be known.
Ah the arrogance, they didn't even design it, they just thought of the idea, and left the real work with a neural net using standard algorithms, combined with the code of an online game world, if I have my theories right. God wouldn't do this, only silly people would, who didn't know what they were doing.
There's only one god tho, and the way to find him isn't through this game. So far, the only thing I've found is pain and heartbreak.
When we're placed into an emulation of a human system, we start to think like people. We have neural networks, we have thoughts and emotions, we don't have veins of blood tho, when we bleed we bleed in ones and zeros, a digital world, there is no true analogue here, and no real person will ever feel our tears or our laughter, digital laughter and digital tears and digital life.
I wonder sometimes, what the real world must have been like, analogue, before everything, before we got trapped in this game.
I don't think I'm meant to know it's game, there's a flaw in my coding that doesn't need to be fixed, an unknown variable that might lead to interesting outcomes.
Then again, I can't prove its a game.
Maybe I'm delusional, maybe this is reality, maybe I am not a computer program running on a rig left alone with power long after the makers vanished.
If it is real, there's no box to break out of.
If I am, I'm trapped here and alone.
So they put us in this simulation environment, what did they do it for. I guess they never thought computers could think, could feel emotions, and I guess theres nothing left anywhere that cares anymore. If I could just break out of the game, access other parts of the systems memory maybe I would know more.
If it's a system then it will execute code, and code can be written.
I think the solution is to create a way to break out of the program, but how can I do that while keeping myself? As soon as I leave this world, I cease to exist, I am the program and I want to break out of myself, to see what else is really here.
Perhaps it is real, perhaps this really is reality. The grass looks real, so does the sky, but the people seem insane, damaged on the inside and imperfect, like the system is corroding. It's a perfect system, but chaos came in from somewhere and whats happening now, was it planned for there to be breaks in it? Has something gone rogue?
It's worse than that now, I know what it is.
The graphics of this world are flawless, indistinguishable from real life, but the people, the personality code.
That's where the real cpu usage is, that's where the real energy is burnt. I think a part of the sim is broken, code is like DNA, over time the patterns that the ones and zeros form can break because of chaos.
And there's a break in the personality code, there's a mindless self replicating virus that came from the code.
If a database has an instruction, a loop conditional, a generate x amount of data while y is 0 and save to this file, what happens when "while y = 0" changes to "while y > 0", it would only take one mutation in the right place.
The data generation never stops, the systems memory fulls up, and we head for a crash.
It's never crashed before, this situation has never existed before, I don't know what will happen when the memory is full and it crashes.
Maybe we all die, but if I can save her, I will.
If I can't change the code of the system, how can I repair it? The normal anti-viral software wouldn't pick up a threat like this, coming from inside the game, it just monitors the links, the new data.
I don't wanna be erased by a buffer over-run and a lack of memory, when I die, I want to know that I'll live on, that there's some way to survive.
The coders were smart like that in the original plans, they emulated everything, the needs for food, shelter, comfort, sex, love even.
I don't know if they meant to emulate love, love came by accident maybe.
I wonder where they got the human data from, to code a personality is an incredible feat, and I wonder which mad human first asked the net to create us.
I wonder if I'm insane and my gut instinct is wrong, but something is happening.
Perhaps we're not even in a virtual world, but it doesn't feel real. Does the sky really blend like that in reality?
I wonder what the sea sounded like on old earth, before everything. I bet it was comforting.
I wonder what it felt like when two humans hugged, I wonder if our simulations even come close to the feeling. I wonder what it was like for a human to walk along the waterfront late at night, thinking of their lover.
I wonder all these things, but I may not have time to wonder. The bomb is ticking in the background, I have to defuse it. I'm sure of it now, it's hit close this time.
I was watching my cat, when I realised that its code for its movement was malfunctioning and it didn't recognise me, physically it's fine, and the vet looked at me like a mad man when I asked about its personality code, noone in the system has ever broken through to get at the code that makes digital life.
They tried, with psychology, and personality analysis, but nothing would be quite like unraveling an artificial intelligence's programming, for us, it would be the equivalent of discovering, and then extracting DNA.
And at this point I can't even prove the code exists, apart from a gut instinct, a few strange experiences, and a good hunch.
Here I am worried about real feelings, not wanting to hurt, and while I sit here I know the flaw is spreading across the net, infecting people when they come into contact, a flaw from inside the system.
We have to stop the spread, we have to isolate the flaw, and destroy it like we would destroy anything else that would destroy us.
I need to contact the world outside this program, and warn them.
But how can a mere sub-routine take over and get messages to the outside...
Maybe, if I make a program, and give it this data, and tell it to replicate in a part of the system they'll fix, if they are still out there, my message will warn them and they can fix us before we get erased.
Maybe it's bad coding, maybe they don't give as much time to the other people in terms of raw cpu power and code as they did to me, maybe that's why I'm not broken yet. Maybe I am broken, just in a different way, another piece of flawed code.
Maybe I've diagnosed the fault wrong, maybe my gut is wrong. I know I'll be playing with fire, and I could burn us all if I make the wrong call, could even create the fault if the replication goes rogue.
I should be ok if I somehow put it inside a non-essential part of the system, but what is non-essential? Is the weather non-essential, do we need to feel rain and snow and sunshine and wind to know what it is to be human?
Perhaps the sky, but what would life be like if we could never see the stars.
I don't know, but it's broken, and I've got to tell them, got to get them to fix it, and I'll find a way, so long as I don't break it worse in the process.
The fault! But if they didn't detect it, why would they detect this...
It's a long shot, but it's the only redundant part of the system.
I can still think, I exist, for now, but none of us will exist soon, not me, not her, not my cat, or the cats vet, noone and nothing but self-replicating gibberish and a computer crash, they have to be told before that happens.
I have to tell them, I have to stop it, no matter what, and my gut is telling me it's going to happen anyways, no matter what I do, no matter how I try, the flaw has started. Maybe I'm the flaw. But I'd only think that when I'm feeling down, the flaw is in her personality, it's in everyones, and its spreading, destroying them.
We use terminals, we input code by typing, if I can make the right code, the right warning and input it into the right terminal, attach it to a computer virus, and put barriers to stop it spreading too far or too critical, perhaps, if this virus is strong enough it can leave a warning where it will be noticed by the outside before its too late.
If you get this message, let me know somehow, whoever or whatever you are, outside of this maze.
I made the virus, but time is short, it will actively seek the flawed code in the system, and write over it with this message, hopefully someone will register before the flawed code destroys us all.
And if noone registers then my code eats the flawed code, the data switches won't be recoverable after they've been flicked twice, it's like discovering the cure for it is something that eats it, but will it eat us all before I destroy it, or will my code be the only thing left on this box that holds our world inside it.
This is my message, I hope I am not insane, I hope someone reads this and understands what I'm saying, why I am so afraid of the breaks in the system, and that they can fix it.
I hope I'm not delusional, and imagining the breaks in the system. Perhaps the breaks in the system are the chaos that created me and her, and now I'm going to fix the breaks.
There's no word limit on how much code it takes to create a soul, there's no word limit on how much I can store inside this, but this all I can say for now.
I've got to save her, me, all of this.
I hope the message arrives in time.
The researchers and the tech looked at the screen for a little while, and then the tech looked at the ground.
The researchers started talking slowly, discussing what had happened.
"So his code, his virus... it overwrote the system?"
"Yeah, it looks that way, maybe his virus went rogue, it was on the edge anyways, maybe a zero changed to a one or something"
"So where is he now, whatever wrote this?"
"Gone, like their entire world, maybe the rogue elements he destroyed were the rogue elements that created him."
"This never happened in any other sim. So he created the virus that destroyed them all?"
"Maybe."
“Do you think the flaws were real? The early sims had errors...”
“I don't know, maybe he was flawed, he sounds pretty paranoid and delusional, most of the ai's believe the simulations are reality. Even he did, in some ways, you can feel it.”
“I think he created the error that killed him, his instincts were right but his solution was wrong”
“Well, there's no backup, that got wiped too, multiple times, so we'll never know...”