Whenever he began to feel like this, this dread rising up in him, the knowledge of what it was he knew he was going to have to do, the guilt, Adlai found it best to head off on his own and take a long walk.
The Boulevard was perfect for it. One long strip, you could keep your head down and stare at your feet as the thoughts raced through you, and when they became too much you could look up at any time, at any one of the endless fascinations lining the street, ready to distract you.
And the users themselves, wandering around with their heads in the air, new ones every day, lost among the endless possibility, they could help cheer him up. He knew why he was going to do it, he knew who for. And besides, company always helped.
He used to scrawl graffiti on the walls, simple messages to guide those with the curiosity to make the most of this world by themselves. This though, this would be much more direct.
The first step is always the most difficult. For Adlai this had been especially true. In order to build a universe you need to make basic decisions. All of them. Not making a decision is itself a decision, and affects all the others just as strongly. Everything needed to be defined, understood, and only then coded in.
He wasn’t sure how he’d ended up in charge. He wasn’t the brightest or best of them, perhaps just the most driven. He enjoyed exploring the consequences. Take the speed of light – was this still the upper limit here? The universe’s traffic cop? If not, what other rules of physics would need to be tweaked? It wasn’t easy.
In the end he made the only decision he could have – he kept things as close to reality as possible. Break too many laws, make your playground too different from the reality it’s supposed to replace and you lose the entire point of VR. And then when other users come on board, make sure they follow the same rules, no matter what they want to try.
But what about later, when the tools themselves become the problem? When the power and skills of the users become too great to limit, what then? Is there a limit to computational power, or will they just get faster and faster? Can you have processors running faster than the human brain, faster than the user will ever be able to appreciate? Computers that evolve beyond the understanding of humans, let alone the control? The Grid made the answer to that question pretty clear.
So what were the consequences? The ultimate in VR was always directly inside the users head, whether they were ported in or sleeping in a field. It altered their thoughts directly, creating in essence a different person altogether. So when the power became too great, could it run completely out of control?
Descartes had put that idea forward centuries before. There was a demon in our heads, manipulating our senses to trick us into believing the reality that surrounds us.
It was too easy to paint the Grid with that brush. Everyone needs a bad guy. Maybe that was its entire reason for being. A faceless evil, something to struggle against. Even God needs the Devil.
Adlai raised his head and looked up towards the towers, only to stop when he saw a lone female standing directly in front of him, the hunger of curiosity positively burning out of her. This was why he had to do it. This existence, this possibility could only take off when they stopped meddling in its universe, when all of them were free.
He knew exactly what she was looking for, it was the same thing he’d felt tugging at him from the beginning of all of this. He pointed down the centre of the Boulevard and whispered in her ear.
Adlai no longer remembered what it was he’d said, but he remembered the surprise on her face. He still saw them sometimes, those beautiful eyes glinting back at him from the bottom of his glass.
