Chapter 70: The Ultimate Floor

“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?”