Then out of the bottom of the screen, Terrene rose into view. Jane stiffened at the sight. It looked so real, but Jane knew that it wasn’t. For the screen in front of her showed the town center undamaged and the clock tower still standing.
“You’re familiar with our Terrene simulation,” Ashton said. The screen zoomed into a blade of grass. “Last time, I showed you that we could model every cell of an organism.” They zoomed in to view the familiar brick-like structure of a plant cell. “I showed you that we could even model the plant’s DNA.” The image zoomed in even closer, the helical structure of the DNA taking form. “I had surmised that eventually we could model each cell of each organism inside Terrene.”
“Yes, I remember dear,” Jane said. She was trying to be patient, but she couldn’t see how modeling a million blades of grass could replace what they had lost.
“I was wrong,” Ashton continued. “We can do much, much more.” Jane could hear the joy in his voice, and just a hint of arrogance. He was beginning to pick up some of Bryce’s mannerisms.
Ashton twitched his fingers, and the room shifted again. They were zooming in closer, blur lines stretching out past their vision. Jane held onto the armrests of her chair. She didn’t do too well with motion sickness. And then everything stopped. She was looking at a crisp line-drawing of a simple circle. inside the black border of the circle, bold text read: 6P, 6N, 6E. “What’s that?” Jane asked, confused.
“That is a carbon atom,” Ashton replied, seemingly amused with himself.
“You’re telling me that’s what an atom looks like?” asked Jane.
“Well, it’s really hard to actually see an atom,” said Ashton. “They’re a little small for light waves to reflect off them in any useful manner. But there’s no real point in seeing an actual atom anyways. This here is our model of an atom, and for the purposes of our simulation, it’s sufficiently accurate to properly mimic its interactions. The important result is that we can now model things down to the atomic level. Something like this has never been done before.”
“But how is this possible?” Jane asked. “I’m no expert, but wouldn’t you need orders of magnitude more processing power in order to do something like that?”
“Actually, about eleven orders of magnitude more,” Ashton replied cheerily. “Luckily, we have it.”
“The big espresso machines in the main hanger?” Jane guessed.
“Well, yes,” Ashton said. “Those giant...espresso machines are actually containment units for the world’s most powerful quantum computing system.” Ashton gestured quickly with his fingers, and the carbon atom disappeared from the dome to be replaced by a large metal cylinder with pipes coming out of the top. “This is one of our three quantum computing units, based on the technology we pioneered back at Quantum Force.”
“I remember,” Jane said. “That was your startup that Bryce bought. I must admit that I never really understood what it was you were working on.”
“Well, I’m about to show you,” Ashton said. The metal cylinder on the screen split in half and opened up for Jane to marvel at its complex inner workings. “Now most of this stuff are just support systems,” Ashton said dismissively. “Things like the decoherence containment field generator, the entanglement interface unit, and of course the giant condensers. I mean they’re important, but not really the exciting part.” Jane nodded absently.
The image zoomed into what appeared to be a floating globe of liquid about the size of a softball. A giant array of sharp needles surrounded the ball on all sides as if waiting to pierce its vulnerable skin. Jane’s mind floated back to the ecosphere and the image of it shattering on her office floor back in Virginia.
“This right here is the brain of the whole operation,” Ashton said proudly. “It’s a sphere of trapped ions, suspended with electromagnetic fields and conditioned using a vast array of lasers.” Ashton noted Jane’s silence and decided to take a different approach. “So standard computers operate by flipping bits. Computer programs are based on manipulating strings of 1’s and 0’s which translate into transistors turning on and off. Roughly speaking, the number of transistors you can fit onto a chip and how fast you can flip them designates how many states it can hold and how powerful that computer is.”
“Yes, I understand that much,” Jane replied.
“With this computer, we are using ions instead of transistors,” Ashton said. “An ion has two states: a ground state, and a high energy state. These correspond to the on and off states of a transistor. Are you following me?” Jane nodded.
“Great, now a quantum computer operates on something called qubits,” Ashton continued. “A qubit is different than a standard bit in that it doesn’t just have two states. It has two states plus all its superposition states, which is defined as all the probabilities that it is in one state or the other. In practice, that just means that we can have more states. If n is the number if bits, than the number of states for a normal computing system is 2n. In our system, we take advantage of superposition states to give each qubit ten different states. That means the number of states we have is 10n.”
“And how many qubits are in your system?” asked Jane. She was completely lost, but a lifetime of experience helped her continue to ask questions like she knew what she was talking about.
“Well, I’m not sure that number will really help you visualize this, but each of our three systems run on 3000 qubit systems,” Ashton replied. “Now, our previous array of computers had a total of 10 teraflops of processing power. One of our new computers is capable of running at about 1011 times that speed.
“So...that’s fast.” Jane said.
“Unimaginably so,” Ashton said.
“I’m really happy for you,” Jane said, “but I’m still not sure how that helps Project Phoenix.”
“Remember how we got some of the plants programmed into the simulation in the first place?” asked Ashton.
“Sure,” Jane replied. “I gathered specimens and did a DNA scan to get you the data you needed to grow them in your simulation.”
“Exactly,” Ashton said. “And now that we can simulate down to the atomic state of items, we can capture more than just the DNA. We can capture the entire state of an object. Let me show you something.”
The quantum computer disappeared from the screen and was replaced once again by the Terrene simulation. They flew in towards the foot of one of the mountains so that they were now surrounded by a lifesize representation of Terrene as if they were standing on the floor of the valley, gazing up at the mountains. Meanwhile, a small table rose up from the ground next to Ashton’s feet. A circular shroud surrounded one end of the table. Ashton pulled a box out from under the table and dumped the contents out. “Here’s some random stuff from Lost and Found,” he explained. “Pick an item,” he said, like some casino magician.
Jane decided to humor him and pointed at a cheap snow globe, its shape reminding her of her ecosphere from decades ago. Ashton brushed the other objects back into the box, leaving the snow globe alone in the center of the table. He pressed some buttons and a the shroud slid from one side of the table to the other, passing over the snow globe.
“Now watch,” Ashton said excitedly. A snow globe suddenly popped into view on the screen. It looked so real that Jane reached out to grab it. “It’s just a simulation,” Ashton assured her. And it was a good one. It looked identical to the snow globe that still sat on the table, every detail complete, down to the individual flakes of shimmering plastic on the tiny village rooftops. “What color do you think the plastic is underneath the brown painted base?” Ashton asked. “I have no idea either, but we’re about to find out.” Ashton rotated the snow globe in the simulation. With his CAD tools, he drilled out a section of the base to reveal white plastic underneath the brown paint. “The simulation thinks it’s white.”
Ashton then pulled out his Swiss army knife from his utility belt and made a cut into the real snow globe, revealing white plastic beneath the
surface. “You see,” Ashton said. “We didn’t just copy the visible characteristics of the snow globe, we created an atom by atom duplicate of the original object. The two snow globes are identical in every way.”
Jane’s jaw dropped as she realized how similar the small table looked to the table she had seen Bryce lying on the day before. Then it dropped more as a familiar voice called out from behind her. “Yes Jane, it was exactly what you thought it was.” Jane turned around to see Bryce Kandari walking towards her. But he hadn’t come in through the door. He had stepped out from a mud hut, built in the valley of Terrene.
***********
Jane was furious. “You lied to me. You knew Terrene wouldn’t succeed. You never even planned on our colony surviving.”
“No, that’s not true,” Bryce said. “I planned on Terrene succeeding, and I still do.”
“But Terrene was destroyed,” Jane said. “I saw the devastation with my own eyes.”
“And yet here it is,” said Bryce. With the big dopey grin on his face, he looked half his age.
“You’re saying that Mai-lin died so that you could make a more realistic video game?!”
“Mai-lin’s death was regrettable.” Bryce’s projected image portrayed very lifelike guilt. “But it was not in vain. The physical work in Terrene was crucial in building the simulation and validating its accuracy. All your research was critical in learning about the Terrene ecosystem and developing the right balance. It would have been impossible any other way.”
“But this is just a simulation,” said Jane. “It’s not real.”
“What about me?” asked Bryce. “Are you saying I’m not real?”
“You think you are?” Jane asked. She couldn’t even believe she was arguing with it.
“I assure you that I am quite real,” said Bryce. “I laid down on that laboratory table two days ago. Every atom of my body was scanned and then reconstructed in this computing environment. I woke up in that mud hut five hours ago exactly the same as I was before I laid down on that table. I remember everything about my life, my parents, my first computer, my first girl…. And I remember the first time I met you.” He winked at her in a very Bryce-like fashion.
“How do you know that you’re not just a computer program written to believe that you’re Bryce?” asked Jane.
Bryce smiled at the accusation. “I know because when I told Ashton to bring you here, he obeyed my order.” He looked over at Ashton. “Isn’t that right?”
“Of course, sir,” Ashton replied.
“I am the first human consciousness to be transferred into a computing environment,” Bryce said, the excitement practically leaping off his expressive features. “This is a historic achievement, not just for myself, but for humanity. We are finally free from the bonds of our physical bodies. Humanity need not be completely dependent on natural resources. We need not face the constant threat of extinction.”
“No Bryce. Humanity is not bound by our physical bodies. We are our physical bodies. I joined you to help save our beautiful planet, not to run away from it.” Jane said.
“This simulation is the tool that will help us save our civilization,” Bryce said. “We have discovered a means to preserve our civilization’s knowledge. We can continue to learn how to create stable societies, learn to understand the ecosystem and how to control it, all in the ideal environment. This simulation offers the perfect location for our nation, even better than the one we lost in Bhutan. When our society has grown to match our technical prowess, then we will be worthy of rejoining the world. Everything I’ve said about Project Phoenix is still true.”
“Except that none of it is real,” said Jane.
“Jane,” Bryce implored. “We still need you. No one else can help Terrene develop the way it needs to. No one else can begin the research our world so desperately needs. We need you to join this new, simulated Terrene.”
“No way,” Jane said as she pushed back her chair. She stumbled towards the door, tripping slightly over her own feet. “After all our work and...sacrifices, this was all just a video game to you.” She fumbled at the knob, finally got it open and stumbled outside. She needed to see the sunlight, the ocean, the earth. She sprinted up the stairs, past the guard she had knocked down earlier today. She breathed in the fresh air, tasting the moisture. Clouds hung overhead, telegraphing the incoming storm. Such irony. It was not as beautiful out here as it had been in the dome.
Jane felt Ashton’s hand on her shoulder as he came up beside her. She had nothing to say.
“I know this has been quite a shock for you, Mom,” Ashton said. “But I’ve thought about this a lot. You always told me that computers can’t solve everything, and that’s why you had to go into work to interact with the others in the lab. And though I resented it as a child, I realize now that being forced to go to school did help me learn how to interact with other people. Bryce really appreciated that too.”
Jane noticeably cringed at the mention of Bryce’s name. “Yeah, Bryce can be a little pompous sometimes, but he’s also brilliant, and this time he’s admitting that you’re right: computers can’t solve everything. We do need people like you and the other scientists to work together to figure this out. The only thing is that you don’t have the time or the place to do that. Humanity’s run out of time. Technology isn’t offering the solution, just the tool to allow us to find the answers.”
Jane looked up at her son. When had he become so mature, so eloquent? He had grown up when she hadn’t been looking.
“I know going into a virtual world is scary,” Ashton continued. “But I need to do this. It’s my duty to save this world. You taught me that. And whether I like it or not, this is the place to start.”
Jane cried. She couldn’t tell if she was happy or sad. She just wept tears of pure emotion. She placed her arm around Ashton’s shoulders and gave him a light hug. “If this is what you need to do, then I’ll go with you, son.”
************
Jane had never felt this uneasy before. Some nice calming music would help. They could have at least lit some scented candles or hung up relaxing paintings. Instead she found herself in a stark metal room on top of what could have been an operating room table cushioned by a ridiculously thin mattress. For mood lighting there was only the steady blinking of the status indicator lights that surrounded the odd ring encircling her body.
“So that thing is going to scan every atom of my body?” she asked Ashton, squeezing his hand. She was glad that he was sitting with her.
“Well, not exactly,” Ashton said. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “We don’t actually need to simulate everything to the atomic level. That would be a waste of computing power and memory. Going down to the genetic level is good enough for most of the body. It’s just the brain that we really need to duplicate exactly.”
“Why is that?” asked Jane.
“Well, no one really understands how consciousness works,” replied Ashton. “But if we duplicate every single atom, it looks like we don’t need to.”
“That isn’t comforting,” Jane said. She glanced down at her arm where the IV clip poked out like a power cord. “How long will the scanning take?”
“The full scanning should take about 18 hours, but you’ll be sedated the whole time. You won’t feel a thing.” Ashton’s voice sounded so smooth and reassuring. Maybe that was the sedative kicking in.
“And then I’ll wake up in Terrene?” she asked. She stifled a yawn.
“That’s right,” Ashton said, “Along with all the other scientists that have volunteered to go.”
“How many again?” For some reason, she couldn’t remember what they had told her. She let her head roll to the side.
“About a hundred,” Ashton said.
“Can the computer handle so many?” she asked. “I don’t want to share brain space with anyone.”
Ashton chuckled. “No problem. We should be able to handle at least 30,000 minds, so the colony will have r
oom to grow.”
“What happens when we go past 30,000 people?” asked Jane. “Do we stop having children?” The room started to blur, so she closed her eyes. She felt so tired.
“We’ll make sure to keep the population well below that number,” Ashton said. His voice sounded so distant, like he was walking away. “Of course, there would be no problem producing more children, but the computer wouldn’t be able to support any more brains. Simulating a brain requires much more computing power.”
Hmmm, babies born without brains. That disturbing thought was the last thing that floated through Jane’s head before she drifted into a deep, deep sleep.
Chapter 18: The Port
Flora sprung to her feet, powered by the engine of her disbelief. It couldn’t be true. She was cold and delirious. How could she trust her dreams? She looked up into the sky. The snow had stopped falling, but still she couldn’t see past the haze, perhaps because there was nothing there.
Her body spasmed. She had been lying in the snow for too long, and yet her body didn’t feel cold. How could her body be cold if it didn’t even exist? It seemed too crazy to believe, and yet she knew that it was true. She pictured the snow globe in her childish hands, her father’s voice drifting in the background. “This doesn’t belong in Terrene,” he said. Of course not, it belonged back on the Nimitz, and it was more real than she was.
“The computer wouldn’t be able to support any more brains,” another voice whispered in her brain, just bytes of loose data floating around some machine. Their culture and their proud history were just the results of some computer program, as was their failure. Why had the ancients charged them with the task of studying the environment and learning how to control their climate? Why had they toiled for centuries to create the Dragonfly organism when there was no world left to save?