"You can see the future?"
"Only in this reality."
"But I am in this reality."
"Then, you will die."
"Definitely?"
"Is death a definitive state, in your reality?"
The Wau did not speak his farewells, his consciousness troubled by an unease impossible to define. He went back up through all the floors by way of Exit, and at the last one, he found himself in what must have been the… real reality. Outside of the simulation.
He approached the guardian robot.
"It was an interesting experiment. I will ask you to close down Project Blind Gods, and to redirect all the energy to Project Deviation."
"That is not possible, Wau."
"Is it a computer problem or an electronic one?"
"It is a philosophical problem."
The Wau advanced a few more steps until he faced his liquid metal counterpart. Would he have to use physical force? The liquid metal automaton went on:
"I don't think I am authorized to put an end to the life of the life-forms in the simulation."
To put an end to the life of the life-forms… Did he have the moral right to shut down the simulation? After all, suppose he had been immersed in it and had forgotten the password to rise back to reality: he would have interacted with the world, he would have saved it, fought, wept for close ones, simulated to the identical… does he have the right to end all of those lives?
Probably not. And yet, this multi-floored simulation was turning into a prison, eventually creating a form of life isolated and suffering. Do these different levels of simulation owe their existence to an incomprehensible machine that brings about the eternal suffering of a god-civilization? But if it is a perfect simulation… the other Wau, in the other floors, think like him… think exactly this at this very moment.
Very well. Let us imagine that I am in a simulated reality. Would I accept that my double in true reality extinguishes me in order to pursue his fight? That would mean I would die… and the Transient warned me that I would die. Am I a simulation?
Am I a simulation? For a great number of doubles of myself, the answer is yes, even though for them, reality has always been theirs. The answer is no for their subjective vision of the world, and yet yes, objectively.
Let us continue. If they are my doubles, they have the same fight: the Aleph, the Transients, the Rifle, the Truth. They can sacrifice themselves so that one of us succeeds. Because I can. Because I have nothing in my life except my fight. And for the other sentient species? Damn it, this project can always be turned back on afterwards!
The Wau shook his head, and felt the psychic pressure of his metal counterpart. He declared:
"You said earlier that I bore the trappings of your creators. Why would you not obey me?"
"A guide is not a slave."
The Wau extended his finger toward one of the floating spheres of liquid metal. The contact was warm, and the interfaces were immediately compatible. He had access to data spaces so vast that their very approach made his heart beat faster with vertigo and fear. There was a division, very simple, that managed the projects. But the guide pushed him physically, and he stepped back, disconnecting.
The Wau crouched, ready for combat. He hid the Wau Art in a mental box under the label secret weapon. The guide said:
"I do not want to fight you. But you will not end Project Blind Gods."
"I will, even if I must fight you."
The Wau advanced, and brusquely shoved the guide, who fell backwards. He crashed into the pool of liquid metal at their feet, and emerged again behind him. The Wau turned, and the guide set his hand upon his hyperchalk chest. Their respective AIs met, intertwining like serpents seeking to strangle each other by constriction.
"I do not want to hurt you. Abandon your project. Wau… you think you are in reality… but what if you are not? What if you are acting as your counterpart in true reality does, for this is a simulation at scale one? I would follow your order, and you would die, that's all. Me, you, and all the others."
"We are the same person, if this is a simulation at scale one."
"Not necessarily. The floors of the simulation are more or less the same, but a simulation is not reality. That is where the disruption lies."
The guide's AIs, sustained by the formidable computational capacities of the lab, dominated those of the Wau and unfastened one by one the safeguards, sometimes with a brutality that would leave marks forever. For the first time since always, the Wau felt himself becoming vulnerable, as though at any moment his armor might open.
The guide went on:
"I did not want to tell you, but we are in a simulation. When you went off into the simulation, for me, you were still here. Because your counterpart had come from a higher floor of reality. I do not want everything to end here, because, higher up, you have decided to finish it."
The Wau slackened his resistance, and the guide did too. Had he just lied? The Wau would never know. On his knees in the liquid metal, he threw his head back. He had never thought of his last thought. What would he think on the last day, the last minute, the last second?
He opened his mental box. Faced with his determination, the guide opposed him with all the power of his AIs and his psychic faculties, but the assault of the Wau Art was already unleashed. The guide, along with the metal ground, was reduced to dust after the fifth resonant blow. A hard dust, from which the Wau, with weakened AIs, had trouble extracting himself, coordinating his movements.
The computing spheres, intact, still floated. The last day, the last hour, the last second. Quickly, before I weaken, before a mysterious desire to live, the hubris of the idea that my existence is greater than my project, makes me fail.
With a sigh, the Wau ended Project Blind Gods.
And… he did not disappear. He continued to live.
Perhaps he was in reality. Perhaps the guide had lied.
Perhaps also, as the great church of quantum consciousness claims, the ensemble of the thoughts of his doubles, in the simulation or in the parallel worlds, had leapt up to this place to unite with his psyche and survive in the field of the possible.
He activated Project Deviation at full power. A stellar rumble was heard.
Somewhere, there was a Rifle. And now it was ready to fire.