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obliterating me.
"You're awake, aren't you?" Her clear words cut into the room's
subdued light.
I turned over and sat up.
She rose, raised her hand into the capacitance-sensing range of
the ceiling switch and the lights came on. She waved them to a
soft intensity, then came over to the bed.
"Feel better now?"
I said nothing.
"I know how bewildered and frightened you must be." She sat
beside me. "I am too. That's why we shouldn't be working
against each other."
Simulacron Three 148
I scanned the room.
"The laser gun's over there." She indicated the arm of the chair.
Then, as though to demonstrate her sincerity, she reached over
and offered it to me.
Perhaps, after sleeping off my exhaustion, I was more inclined to
trust her. But I could do that as well with the gun in my pocket as
with it in her possession. I took it from her outstretched hand.
She walked over to the window and stared into the artificially
illuminated night. "He'll let you alone until morning."
Standing uncertainly, I tested my legs. No numbness. There was
no trace of the spraying, not even the dull headache that
sometimes follows.
She turned toward me. "Hungry?"
I nodded.
She went over to the delivery slot and studded the door open.
She brought the self-heating tray over and set it on a chair
beside the bed.
I tried a few mouthfuls, then said, "Evidently you want me to
believe you're helping me."
She closed her eyes hopelessly. "Yes. But there really isn't much
I can do."
"Who are you?"
"Jinx. No, not Jinx Fuller. Another one. It doesn't matter. Names
aren't important."
"What happened to Jinx Fuller?"
"She never existed. Not until a few weeks ago." She nodded
cognizantly before I could protest. "Sure you've known her for
years. But that knowledge is just the effects of
retro-programming. You see, two things happened at the same
time. Dr. Fuller reasoned out the true nature of his world. And, up
there, we recognized Fuller's simulator as a complication that
must be eliminated. So we decided to plant an observer down
here to keep close watch on developments."
"We? Meaning who?"
She elevated her eyes briefly. "The simulectronic engineers. I
was selected as the observer. Through retroprograming, we
created the further illusion that Fuller had had a daughter."
Simulacron Three 149
"But I remember her as a child!"
"Everybody every relevant reactor remembers her as a child.
That was the only way we could justify my presence down here."
I took some more food.
She glanced out the window. "It won't be morning for a few hours
yet. We'll be safe until then."
"Why?"
"Even the Operator can't stay at it twenty-four hours a day. This
world is on a time-equivalent basis with the real one."
No matter how I reasoned it out, she had to be here for one of
two purposes: to help the Operator destroy Fuller's simulator, or
to effect my own elimination. There was no other possibility. For I
could imagine myself in an analogous capacity descending into
the counterfeit world of Fuller's simulator. Down there, I would
consider myself a projection of a real person, in contrast to the
purely analog characters around me. And it would be impossible
for me to become concerned with the insignificant affairs of any
of those lower ID units.
"What is your purpose here?" I asked frankly.
"I want to be with you, darling."
Darling? How naive did she think I was? Was I supposed to
believe a real person might actually be in love with a reactional
unit a simulectronic shadow?
Apparently distraught, she placed tense fingers before her
mouth. "Oh, Doug you don't know how savage the Operator is!"
"Yes I do," I said bitterly.
"I didn't realize what he was doing until I coupled myself with you
yesterday. Then I saw what he had been up to. You see, he has
absolute authority over his simulator, over this world. It's sort of
like being a god, I suppose. At least, he must have eventually
begun looking at it that way."
She paused and stared at the floor. "I guess he was sincere at
first in trying to program the destruction of Fuller's simulator. He
had to be, because if Fuller's machine succeeded, there wouldn't
be any room down here for our response-seeking system the
reaction monitors. He was also sincere, I imagine, about
Simulacron Three 150
humanely doing away with any reactor who became aware of his
simulectronic nature.
"When you stepped out of line, he tried to kill you quickly,
clinically. But something happened. I suppose he realized how
much pleasure he was getting from putting you through your
paces. And suddenly he didn't want to do away with you not
too quickly, anyway." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]