Simulation

by Joshua Allen

Peck calculated coefficients such as the angle of

intersection of their independent trajectories, the velocity of

the bullet, and the reaction time of people nearby, tucked into

places of business and the homes that sat atop them, as was the

way of the city. None of these coefficients were needed in any

kind of calculation. The moment had already happened, on paper,

in a computer simulation on his computer in his one-room

apartment. Peck had sketched it (wouldn't the police like to

reconstruct that bit of ash and chemical signatures still

clinging to the walls of his oven?) and dreamed it and lived it.

He'd rehearsed it. He'd made a dry run on a similar, unknown

target. The equation had already been solved. What was happening

now was merely a reenactment. But it helped Peck to figure these

coefficients. The soft bath of hot mathematical juices sluicing

around in his skull abated the panic that he was going to be

caught this time. This time. It reassured him that no, he would

not be caught. What was happening now, like everything in his

life, was simulation.

 Peck, of course, knew his target intimately. Such knowledge

was required for the job. The last thing he needed was a target

unexpectedly ducking out of a crowd and into a deli to fulfill a

soda addiction without Peck being able to anticipate and adjust.

One thing Peck knew about this target but didn't entirely

understand, was the man's research. He knew the target, Samarth

Nadaranjan, was a computer guy. He knew pertinent bullet points

about the research--though in truth that aspect of Samarth's

personality seemed as though it would play little to no role in

what Peck had to do. Peck would be aware that Samarth could

possibly be captivated by a computer display between the

university and home. Even that seemed unlikely, given that one

bullet point of Samarth's research was that he was using the

most advanced computer yet invented--a supercooled laser-powered

do-whacky Peck wouldn't have trade two shits for.

The only thing that stuck out in Peck's mind regarding

Samarth's life was the word simulation. Peck has smiled reading

that word on Samarth's dossier. Yes, simulation indeed. A word

he knew well. One that he used to describe his own life. One

that popped into his head while doing anything from fucking to

ripping a dog's leg off with his bare hands.

Simulation.

Ed Peck's lips curled into a smile. The word was in bold on

the dossier, as it should be. As it should always be. It was a

bold word. A word so blatant it became something of a secret.

This world everything around them was a simulation. The fact

that Samarth knew this and studied it and devoted his life to it

was impressive. That he had a Doctor of Philosophy degree in it,

which Peck had gathered was an impressive accomplishment, made

them something like brothers, even though Peck's own

relationship with the academic world was more or less limited to

a college professor uncle who had fumbled with his genitalia in

the dark one night while mumbling about Peck being a little

schoolgirl.

The point was he liked Samarth Nadaranjan and thought it a

shame he had to die. But Peck had been paid through the usual

channels via his contact (who called himself Jericho), and

didn't much care anyway. The world was full of interesting

people, all of whom would die at some point.

He followed Samarth, whose friends called him "Sam"--a

tidbit that could come in handy if he needed to divert "Sam's"

attention for any reason, or kill him face to face in order to

hide the act from a crowd better. From the second Samarth

stepped out of the tall school building, he was dead.

Samarth lit a cigarette. He had strangely light skin, a

product of having an Indian father and a white mother, an all-

too-common miscegenation among academics and the one attribute

Peck had decided to cling to. Difference was the key in the
simulations he had worked out. Start looking too close at

similarities and you started mixing yourself into those

equations. You became a ghost in the machine, a hidden factor in

the algorithm and the end result was that you would screw up and

get caught.

Why? Because you had just killed someone you liked. You

just killed someone you identified with. You just killed

yourself, except you did it back in your house when you were

planning. And so when you run the simulation you mess up because

you want the guy who killed you to get caught. It was a

universal truth.

Samarth's light brown skin and dark reddish hair stood in

stark contrast to his Indian cheeks and lips. He was a handsome

man, despite this improbable mixture. He was exotic, not to

mention something of a charmer. Peck had seen Samarth in action.

Peck had followed Samarth during a mixer and had seen--and

admired--every level of Samarth's game. From identification of

subject, to casual, almost accidental-seeming introduction, to

red-hot fucking in the broom closet later with Peck nearby,

sitting on the edge of the couch just outside the door. He knew

what was going on. The other people in the party probably did

too, but none of them was uncouth enough to stare. Peck had

pulled himself away, impressed. Samarth was a master at

interpersonal relations. He had confidence and energy. He was a

god.

Peck was not so smooth. He had tried. He had followed the

girl home. He had said to her the same things he'd heard Sam

say. She'd screamed, tried to break the bonds. He'd had to cut

her to shut her up. Sam had not needed to do this.

Peck had found the sex act distasteful, even if there was

something appealing about women. The act brought thoughts to his

mind. That single dark night (many nights--many, many nights) in

his childhood bed and that professor unc(father)le forcing on

thick, dry, cracked finger into Edmund's--

Enough. He focused. Sam was on the move. Kids were

everywhere. Kids carrying books and speaking of deep things.

This was not the place. Kids had sharp eyes and high energy and

emotions. Kids would remember Peck because he didn't look as

though he belonged. In fact, they might remember him anyway.

This is it, Peck told himself. This is the time you get

caught. He hunkered down and pulled the stocking cap down over

his untamed, bushy eyebrows. Like the moustache and beard on his

face they were real, but temporary. His hair color was fake and

temporary. Peck lived this temporary existence, never letting

himself be pinned down to one specific face or hair style for

too long.
 He tried to make himself seem even smaller than he was,

almost juvenile. He put on the face of an eccentric student he'd

once killed. That kid had a certain determination which Peck now

mimicked. He'd liked that kid, too. Two academics in as many

years. It was a shame, the best and brightest kept pissing off

the wrong people.

He only needed to fuzz the details of his physical self. To

distort the truth of himself so that later the students, when

asked if anyone had been following Dr. Nadaranjan, they would

not be able to come up with a single meaningful trait because

God damn it you just weren't paying attention and now poor

Professor Nadaranjan was dead, and it was your fault.

Peck followed Sam discreetly through the quadrangle. He

circled the center building when Sam cut through and picked his

man up on the other side, boarding a bus. Peck took the bus

directly behind it, thankful that rush hour had a string of

Number 35s backed up bumper to bumper.

He got off in the neighborhood Sam got off and hurried down

the block toward his quarry. The street was quieter than it had

been on his dry run. This would be too easy.

"Professor Nadaranjan. Professor Nadaranjan!" he called.

Sam stopped. Turned. A smile touched his lips at the figure

with his arm raised, green army trench coat flapping behind him
as he ran to catch up. Peck saw the mental calculation cross

Samarth's face. It was a look he'd seen many times. It was the

look of someone solving the equation who is this person? where

do we know each other from?

Peck reached into his pocket. Sam's eyes traced the line of

his arm, but the wrong one. His attention flicked up the raised

arm. The arm that beckoned. He was looking at entirely the wrong

arm of course. The gun was in the other hand, in his pocket.

The woman appeared behind Samarth at the critical moment,

the moment the gun came out of Peck's pocket. Sam caught the

movement of the live hand now. Sam realized his mistake. His

mind was now calculating another equation, the one that was

telling him how easy it had been to fool him, to spring a trap

on him and kill him.

"Sam, I--" The woman said before she saw the gun.

She looked at Peck, looked him dead in the eye. He didn't

know her. Unknown variable. Coefficients went all askew.

Equations melted into panic. The gun roared next to Sam's ear,

missing the mark, kicking a hole in the wood between the known

and the unknown. Sam flinched violently one way, the woman the

other.

Peck had paid dearly for that gun. His cash whistled down

the drain. One shot was all he got, all he'd ever needed. Who
was this woman? That Peck didn't know terrified him. Who was

she?

Innocent bystander (Sam, I--) he told himself.

Sam groaned. Peck--Ed--went for his knife. Felt the rough

cut of the handle, but then a siren erupted, and voices. Ed

pointed the knife at Sam. Sam was panicking. A splinter had

lodged in his neck, blood went down his back. It was a minor

wound, but Sam must have thought it was over. He reached a hand

toward the woman in agony and love. The woman screamed.

Ed ran.

* * *

"Wake up, Edmund. Time to wake up."

The voice was his own, but it wasn't real. It was a

recording he'd made years ago and burned onto a CD. He'd

programmed his radio to play this track on a loop every morning

to wake him up.

He sat up and stood, his gun at the ready.

There was no one in the room. His bed was a frame with two

palettes end-to-end instead of a mattress. A sheet covered the

boards. He needed no comfort. This was a simulation.

Ed washed himself in the tub at the far end of the room. He

clothed himself donning clothes he had never seen before from a

pile in the center of the room. The socks cut the chill of the

bare wood floor. He must have programmed these clothes as his

selection before entering the simulation. The real him, that is.

Whoever that was, and wherever.

He sat down at his computer on the desk, which was little

more than a board across two stacks of cinderblock he had pulled

from the wall. He opened the news wires and scanned for the

story. It hadn't been front page news. His jobs rarely were. A

dead academic meant nothing in a city torn apart as this one had

been by crime and poverty.

He checked the local news. He checked the university paper.

He checked breaking news.

Nothing.

Ed checked himself in the mirror. He was a different person

from last night. His facial hair was gone. His eyebrows were

trim and neat. His hair was three shades lighter, the dye washed

out. He wore it slicked back now, accentuating the sharp angles

of his chin. He spoke several phrases into the mirror, repeating

them in a natural tone until he was satisfied with the voice

that was not his and yet still natural.

He called.

"Computer science department."

"Yes, Dr. Nadaranjan did not answer his phone this morning,

I was wondering if anyone had seen him this morning."

"One second," the department secretary whose name was

Margaret said.
 He waited for the inevitable, running through his potential

responses. He would need to affect concern and yet be reasonable

in his request when he heard the news that Dr. Nadaranjan was

dead. Simulation complete. And he would blink out, awaken into

whatever reality really was and smile to himself for a mission

accomplished.

"May I ask who is calling?"

"I'm a student of his."

"Name, please?"

"Edmund Tr-Trellis." The name spilled from his mouth before

he could stop it. He cursed himself for giving up his first

name. Stupid. He'd not been expecting this.

"One moment."

A moment passed. "Yes?" it was Sam's voice.

"Dr. Nadaranjan." A statement. Stunned. His quarry was

still alive. Recollection came flooding back. The simulation. No

that wasn't the real one, was it? That was a worse case--and

yes, he'd not reacted well, but the real simulation, the live

run--

"Who is this?"

Ed didn't know what to say. "I--" he stammered. "I was

worried is all."
 Another pause, time in which Ed realized he had dropped his

fake voice. Panic set in. "Are you the one who attacked me? I

have called the police you son of a bitch, I will not be--"

Ed threw his cell phone out the window. It swirled as it

dropped to the busy city street below and smacked off the top of

cab and deflected into a crowd. The brake lights of the cab

flared to life. Ed was out the door and down the stairs. He

ejected out into the alley with purpose. No more fucking around.

He had a job to do. The simulation had been run. Dr.

Nadaranjan was dead. It was real time now. Yes, last night's

simulation had gone wrong. A variable had been introduced he

hadn't suspected, but he had already ruled out such a variable.

He had research and researched. The coefficients were known. One

bad simulation didn't doom the entire operation. He was making

it more complicated than he had to. Why? All he had to do was

walk up to Sam, put a bullet under his chin and disappear before

the brain matter had a chance to hit concrete.

* * *

Through the checkpoint from Chicago-East to Chicago-West

was a hassle. After an hour of standing in line and moving only

halfway from the doors to the row of metal detectors Ed felt his

confidence and his resolve dwindling. Waiting was what the mass

did. It wasn't what he did, usually. Now he knew why. It drained

your energy and your passion.

 By the time he finally got to the checkpoint, the cops in

their black leather fetishist outfits and sleek, featureless

black helmets with smooth visors locked down, reflecting the

mass that passed them, were ushering the remaining people

through en masse, no longer spot-checking suspicious targets. He

kept his head down, hung in tiredness and frustration rather

than in any attempt to conceal himself. He was actually tired

and worn and ready to go home. Home would, of course, mean two

more hours going through the reverse checkpoint.

Ed got to the university right at noon. He circled the

science office building, but didn't go in. There was something

different today. Namely, cops holding autogauss rifles. Ed

waited for a crowd of students. He hunched slightly and slipped

in line behind them, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. No

gun there--couldn't get it through the checkpoint, it had taken

a minor miracle of logistics last time, not to mention a

boatload of cash.

He slipped right past two cops guarding the entrance. They

were staring in opposite directions, as though looking at

students entering the building they were supposed to be guarding

(from him?) was a violation of privacy. It was a stroke of luck.

Not that they would have recognized him anyway.

 Ed followed the crowd onto the elevator and up. He got off

with a half-dozen other students on the fifteenth floor, went

casually for the stairs and up two more flights to Sam's level.

No cops.

So either they weren't here about him, or they hadn't

bothered to post a sentry at Sam's door, thinking he would be

deterred by their masks and guns.

Ed knocked on the door. No answer.

He tried the handle. It was locked. Making an office key

had been one of the first things Ed had done when he began

pursuing Dr. Nadaranjan. It was easy. He'd just faked being a

building inspector and had taken a discreet digital camera shot

of the key from the end of the hall. At home, he'd blown the

profile of the key up to size and carved his fake from wood,

taken the blank to a locksmith he knew that didn't ask

questions. The key flashed into his hand and slipped inside

perfectly, turning the lock with just a slight jiggle.

Inside he went.

The room was ice cold. He shut the door behind him with a

quiet click. The plan was this: get inside, get something that

could be used as a weapon, ambush Dr. Nadaranjan, kill him

before he could even make a noise, leave the way he'd come in.

But what he saw in the room stopped him. He'd never

actually needed to use the key he'd made until this moment. What
did it matter what Dr. Nadaranjan did in his office? Ed wouldn't

have understood anyway.

The first thing he noticed was that the windows were

frosted over from the cold. The second thing he noticed was the

equipment. He had no other nouns to describe what he was seeing.

The entire wall was lined with a network of wires, was lined

with computer equipment the likes of which he'd never seen.

Tubes of what looked like glowing blue ice coiled around

everything. No lights flickered. A large glass column of a

pinkish fluid sat in the middle of the equipment. A billow at

the top of the column pulsed up and down, compressing and

decompressing the fluid like a giant, alien lung. He touched the

tank. He saw tubes coming out the back, connecting to the

equipment. It was computer blood, he realized with a jolt.

He pulled his hand away. Computer that ran on blood. A

chill went down his spine.

It didn't matter. He needed to find a weapon and quick. On

the desk near him was a more familiar sight. A giant monitor bank

consisting of three triple wide monitors stacked in terraces and

angled to create a cockpit of sorts hung over the desk. Black

wires poured out the back of the contraption, kept bundled by

thick cable and disappeared into the metal rack holding the

computer equipment. The angle of the monitors made it difficult

to see what was on them from his position. The displays all

disappeared at this angle.

Ed sat down at the desk, meaning only to continue his

search for an implement that could cut, stab, tear or bludgeon.

The desk held not so much as a keyboard. He looked at the

screen. Math equations scrolled across one section of the screen

bank in an endless stream. Another section was pitch black.

The other screens, however, captivated him.

He got up quickly, like a guilty schoolboy who'd just

discovered the wonders of internet porn and was worried his mom

would catch him. He put his ear to the door. He heard nothing.

Nadaranjan had not returned. No stray faculty were standing

outside the door discussing things he couldn't hope to

understand. Ed locked the door, pressing the button slowly until

it just clicked, to minimize the sound it would make.

He returned to his place at the desk. There were four

worlds visible on screens. It took him a minute of playing to

figure out that he could manipulate the worlds with nothing more

than his hands. Waving his hand in front of the monitor spun the

world. It was a game. But what sort of game? This is not what

he'd imagined when he'd read simulation on Dr. Nadaranajan's

dossier. After a few minutes of experimentation, Ed found that

by pulling the world, the display zoomed in, seemed to bring it

closer to him, so that a single world filled the entire display

bank. What he found when he zoomed even closer was that the

worlds were populated with creatures like nothing he'd ever seen

before.

They were strange and wonderful. Indescribable, mostly.

Some sent shivers down his spine. Seeing them was like seeing a

bug you couldn't identify crawling across your breakfast, all

legs and antenna too long and moving so god damn fast. Except

that instead of legs, these creatures had limbs he couldn't name.

He tried zooming in closer on one world, and on the skins

and in between the bigger creatures he could see smaller and

smaller creatures. There were entire ecosystems here. There were

parasites and microbes and viruses. There were smaller things he

had no names for.

There were huge things, too. Big animals--if "animal" was

even the word for them.

Simulation.

Ed had expected trajectories, behavior patterns of people.

A simulation of the interactions between skin and blade in close

combat fighting in battlefield situations. Not this. He saw no

people on these maps, but after a time, he did see

civilizations.

It took him a long time to recognize them, though. He

looked at the same area a hundred times before the pattern

finally jumped out at him. The first civilization he found was

not organized like any city on any map he'd ever seen, not the

ones on Earth or the colonies on Mars or Luna. These were

something completely different. These were networks, like a

cluster of neurons in the brain, which only after close

examination became obviously dwellings. What's more, these

dwellings were alive.

More than alive, they were a part of the creatures that

lived inside them. They were not like snails carrying shells.

They were more complex, asymmetrical. They moved quickly with

chittering movements. They were constantly joining and breaking

away from the network, so it shifted and changed by the minute.

That's why it had taken him so long to see it. The creatures

approached the structure and parts of their body separated,

becoming part of the collection, which they then lived in.

It was as though they were removing their torsos and then

their arms and legs became living organisms that inhabited the

bodies. But he could label the parts limbs and torso by analogy

only. His mind reeled at what he was seeing if he tried to pin

it down more precisely.

According to a scale on the side of that screen, these

beasts were about twice the size of a man individually, making

this network of homes as large and complex as any subdivision.

He moved to view the inside. The burrows were much like ant

homes. He pulled himself in further to the network and saw the

smaller creatures binding the network together in a kind of glue

that was simply their numbers. He understood that these smaller

beasties not only held the city together, but also fed off it,

but in such minute quantities that their good outweighed their

bad.

It was much later that he discovered the queen. At least,

that's what his mind insisted the enormous thing in the heart of

the network was. It was a huge and horrible thing with many

segments, but the only part he recognized for sure was the huge

pink slit that was pink around the edges and swollen with what

he could only assume was an egg or baby.

He pulled out of the burrow and zoomed out to the world

view. He was panting in fear. When he'd settled enough, he tried

another planet, looking for civilizations, as intrigued to see

more as he might have if he'd discovered a tarantula trapped

between a window and a screen. It was terrifying, but it also

couldn't hurt him.

He found one beneath the sea, one cloistered in cliff walls

sealed up with some kind of green glass. But these civilizations

were few and far between, broken up by millions of life forms

which had no apparent social structure, no apparent order to

their--

"Dr. Nadaranjan?"
 The voice was followed by three booming taps on the door.

Ed stiffened, and collected his thoughts.

"Dr. Nadaranjan? I thought you went home. Sir?"

Ed glanced at the clock on lower right corner of his

display bank. It was past midnight. Well past midnight, meaning

he had spent the rest of the day exploring this game. And that

he was stuck in Chiwest for the night.

"Yes," Ed said in a choked Indian accent. "Sorry," he

coughed. "Time got away from me," he said, doing a passable

imitation of Sam's accent, thankful for the hours he'd spent

listening to the man's lectures in preparation for killing him.

"Yes, sir." The door handle rattled. Then rattled again.

"Just wanted to make sure everything was okay, then. I was told

to check the computer equipment visually."

Ed looked for a weapon, a pen, anything. There was nothing

within reach short of manhandling one of the monitors off the

bank and smashing it over the man's head.

"Can you give me one moment, please? Just one moment."

The guard chuckled knowingly. "I guess I caught you with

your pants down, huh. I thought you smart types were above all

that."

Ed laughed and opened the drawer. Scissors. They were

rounded on the main blade, but sharp on the other. He would most

likely have to slice his own hand open to get the job done.
 "I'll give you a minute. I gotta drop a shit, you know?

Give you just a minute."

"Thank you very much, sir. Sorry for the confusion."

"No, no problem, sir. Your office."

The man chuckled as he left. Ed eased the door open and saw

the guard, dressed entirely in black, but with no helmet,

rounding the corner down the hall. He closed the door quickly,

certain he'd been spotted, but he hadn't. He closed the door and

cleared out the searches he'd done on these simulations.

Videogames. That's what this amounted to, in the end. Yes,

perhaps this was the most fascinating videogame he'd ever seen,

but it was a toy nonetheless. This man he'd held in such esteem,

using the most powerful computer in the world, had done nothing

more than make a really engrossing child's game.

Peck hurried out the door. The guard had thought that Sam

went home, which means that the real Sam had, unless he was at

another mixer, fucking another woman (Sam, I--) in another broom

closet. Peck put the scissors in his pocket and hurried down the

stairs, taking them four at a time until he was safely out on

the quad, just another student out late. He gripped the blade of

the scissors until he bled.

* * *

Sam's home was monitored, loosely. Every few minutes, a cop

car swung around the block and cruised slowly by, then rounded
the block and cleared. They never even shined their lights

toward the new construction on the other side of the street from

Dr. Nadaranjan, the building where Peck was hiding behind a

large plastic sheet that has been put up over the face until the

facade was ready to be put on.

Peck could have driven a train through patrol. It was clear

the cops thought that Sam was being paranoid. No one's out to

kill you, Dr. Nadaranjan, he could hear them saying. It was just

a mugging gone wrong.

But he had a gun, Sam would protest. In Chieast I could see

this, but not Chiwest, not my neighborhood.

Common thug. Street criminal, they would insist. Stole the

gun. We seen it a million times. --But we'll put an officer on

it if you insist. And he would insist. He did insist. And the

woman he was with (Sam, I--) would insist even more strongly.

The cop rounded the corner, passing out of Peck's view. He

scrambled out from under the plastic sheet that covered the face

of the building he was hiding in. He sprinted across the

overturned-dirt-and-rock lawn and cleared the fence with a

single vault. He trotted across the street, knowing he had time

now. He reached the door. The bullet hole he had put in the

frame was a nasty scar in the wood, not yet dealt with.

As politely as could be, he tapped the door with a bare

knuckle.
 He heard a Sam's voice on the other side of the door fade

into audibility, "Yes, I'm sure. Honey, they're just checking in

like they're supposed to."

Sam opened the door full, without security chain, expecting

a cop, not Edmund Peck. Confusion. His mind was doing that

calculation again. I know you, his face conveyed.

Yes you do, Edmund thought, I'm your angel of death.

An instant later, Ed was in, the door closed behind him,

and Sam was on the ground, nose red with blood. Bitch tried to

scream, but Ed was on her, ramming her face first the edge of

the entrance from the atrium to the living room. She let out a

grunt, almost like she was saying "huh?" and dropped to the

floor.

Sam was struggling to his feet. Peck drove a knee into the

woman's back, and pulled her head off the ground by her hair.

She was only semiconscious. Peck put the knife edge of the

scissors to the woman's throat.

"Stay on the ground, Dr. Nadaranjan."

Sam stayed down. Horror filled his eyes.

"Close the door with your foot. Quickly now."

The door slammed shut.

Dr. Nadaranjan shook his head. "Ed, what are you doing? Why

are you doing this?"

 Peck dug scissors into the woman's throat just enough to

slip into the dermal layer. Blood leaked out in a line. She made

a thick noise, like a patient with a bad cold and struggle a

little until Peck dug his knee deeper into her spine. He noticed

that Sam was wearing a bandage over the splinted wound from the

previous night and smiled.

"Who the fuck are you, Dr. Nadaranjan? How do you know my

name?"

"But I--I--"

"Out with it!" Peck drew the scissors across the woman's

throat, slowly, slicing in small degrees, increasing the blood

flow. She struggled, but he held her fast.

"Your name is Edmund Trellis!" Sam screamed. "Your name is

Edmund Trellis and you are my graduate student. Or you were

until about six months ago. When you vanished. Now you are back.

I'm relieved. We were all worried about you. Whatever has

happened, Edmund, we can work it out. We can get you help."

Edmund squeezed his free hand. The fingers hurt. He shook

the woman's head. "Who is this, Sam? She wasn't in any of the

simulations."

"Please, please don't hurt her anymore, Ed. This is

Melissa. She is my girlfriend. I met her about three months ago.

I swear to you, she will not hurt you or try to run or anything.

Just let her up. Please. Don't hurt her."

 "She's not in the equation, Sam." He pointed the scissors

at Dr. Nadaranjan. "I have been following you, watching you. I

have never seen her. They didn't hire me to kill a woman, just

you. You brought this on her."

"Who, Ed? Who wanted to kill me?"

"You ought to know better than me," Peck sneered.

Sam could only shake his head.

Peck laughed. "All over some videogames."

Sam shook his head, not comprehending. "What videogames,

Edmund? What videogames? Are you talking about our work?"

"Your work," Peck said, still pointing with his scissors.

"And yours. You were the one that had the breakthrough. It

was your inspiration. I overheard you on the phone. You were

talking to someone. You said, What if it's all simulation. Do

you remember saying that? You gave me the idea. I never got to

thank you."

Ed shook his head. "Liar!" But his voice was unconvincing.

That did sound kind of like something he would say. How had Dr.

Nadaranjan overheard him? "Who," Ed asked, "Who was I talking to

on the phone?"

"Ed, I don't reme--Peck! Yes, I am sure that was the name

you--"

Peck wasn't listening to Dr. Nadaranjan's rambling. The

world was, after all a simulation. Everything. The blood he felt

soaking into the knees of his jeans, the heat of the woman

tucked under him, in his crotch. Everything.

"We cracked the code for DNA," Nadaranjan said, though Peck

was lost in his own world, his own simulation. "Not just our

DNA, but all DNA. We cracked the fundamental workings of the

gene. We determined the origin of life. You helped with that,

but a lot of that was my work before we met."

Nadaranjan was on his hands and knees now, reaching out to

Ed from across the atrium, as though he might actually touch him

and change him back to the person he'd once known.

"I wanted to turn that knowledge into life. We could run

simulations on DNA combinations, figure out new things that

worked, see what DNA was capable of. Could we produce humans

capable of radio communication? Or with intrinsic abilities to

resist radiation poisoning? Or able to reproduce asexually? We

would find out. But I wanted to do it for real. No one would

fund it of course. That's when you said it was all a simulation.

Of course, you were right. The computer was capable of

everything but the actual organic reality. It could build the

creature from DNA up, and then use that to show us the behavior,

the consequences with no actions. So I ran the simulation. Of

course. Simulated life," he babbled, "and we found life forms

that work, created planets for them to inhabit. When people see

what is possible, in simulation, they will give us the money we

needed to turn the simulations into reality. We invented

millions of viable combinations with DNA, amazing things. With

these ideas, we will revolutionize life. Human 2.0. Everything

changes, Ed. Our lives begin anew."

Dr. Nadaranjan stopped.

"But somewhere along the way, you disappeared. I . . . I am

sorry I didn't notice at first, Ed. You have to forgive me."

He smiled warmly at Peck. Smiled like an uncle standing

over his bed, belt unbuckled, each end hanging like twin flaccid

(--thermometers just taking your temperature little gi--) breath

smelling like grain alcohol, telling Peck to roll over. Roll

over and it wouldn't hurt hardly at all. "Edmund Trellis was a

name I made up. Your fucking mind games won't work on me,

Doctor."

With that, Peck pulled the scissor blade hard across the

woman's throat. Her head hit the floor with a hollow thud. A low

moan escaped Sam's lips. He scrambled toward her. Peck straddled

Sam as he had the bitch, who he was sure--positive--hadn't

existed two days ago. None of the simulations included her. It

was he. He and Sam. Those were the variables. Peck squatted down

and put the scissors to Sam's throat. The other man was sobbing,

not even trying to fight him off.

 "You wake up in reality now, Dr. Nadaranjan." Then he said

something he didn't entirely understand, whispered it right in

Sam's ear: "They don't want to be born."

If Sam had an answer, Peck didn't hear it. He heard a

noise, a whimper. Then he cut Sam's throat.

Ed looked at the scissors, thick with blood. He looked at

his hands, opened and closed them. They made a sound like wet

paint. He took a seat on the steps just inside the entryway. He

kept the scissors in his hand.

Coefficients began to cycle into his brain again. Good

ones, too. Not the dirty ones like he sometimes got, the sick

ones like spiders in his mind that left him screaming into his

pillow long after he should have been asleep. Not like the ones

that always preceded the phone calls from his contact Jericho

telling him to kill. He had the good coefficients now. The

simulation rolled in his mind.

The cops would come to the door, as part of their routine.

He would charge them. He would stab with his scissors. He would

get one, but catch him high on the shoulder, so not to kill him.

Both cops would draw their guns, fire three shots into him point

blank. He knew this to be the case, because he had already run

this simulation in his mind a dozen times before now. A hundred

times. One bullet would hit his brain, this fake brain of his,

the simulated brain, and that would cut this exercise short.
 He would wake up in the world then, mission accomplished.

His body would be his home. He would detach his limbs from Peck,

join that body to the network of reality and settle into his

home, secure and happy, letting the vibrations of the queen lull

him into hibernation. Simulation complete. He would continue on

as his normal self. Normal old Edmund Trellis. This was

different than the other simulations. He should have seen it

from the start and not fought so hard against the feeling. This

was new.

This was the time he got caught.