Ian Batt stewed furiously in his jail cell. His arms hung limply at his sides, his augments mostly disabled. Only the ones that would be lethal to turn off were left running. His heart-control, his mind-machine interface, his basic lung augments. His arms, back and legs felt like they were made of lead. Very human muscle was left to move very superhuman steel.
“Alright,” The guard said. “Your lawyer is here to meet you.”
“It’s about damn time.” He growled. “She can get me out of this shithole!”
“Good luck with that,” The guard chuckled grimly, hauling him up out of his cell. “The judge here hates animal abuse, you sick bastard. Not to mention attempted murder. Don’t hold your breath.”
“Yeah yeah,” Ian said, unphased. The guard took him into a small room where a young woman with stylized gray glasses sat across from him.”
“Hello today Ian.” She said warmly.
“Cassandra! Help me out here, would you? I saw that little psycho bastard offspring of those two traitors plotting to make it to the Star Colonies! I didn’t do anything wrong, you have to believe me!”
She smiled and patted the back of his hand. “Don’t worry. I’ve already made a deal with the prosecutor. All you have to do is agree and you’ll be out of here scott free in a few days.”
“Yes! I knew they wouldn’t lock me up for long. I knew I could always count on you!”
“So here’s your brain scans,” She said, pulling out a tablet and highlighting his head. “I don’t understand it, I’m not paying for that kind of training, but apparently they say you’re a sociopath. Not that common anymore, but it’s considered a mental condition you can get treatment for. Like psychopathy or antisocial personality disorder.”
“What the hell? You’re getting me out of here through a psych ward?” He scoffed. “How dare you say I’m crazy!”
“Whoa! Whoa! Calm down,” She said. “This is to keep you out of prison! You’ll be going through a correctional VR training pod. You spend a week there and that’s it. We declare your… fake mental issue cured, and you get to go free.”
“Fine! Just one week! I’m not going to spend any longer dealing with this bullshit!”
“You won’t be, trust me.” She said, and playfully punched him on the arm. “How long have you known me? You can trust me. I’m from here after all.”
“Yeah, I guess you are,” Ian said reluctantly.
“Trust me,” She said. “When this is over you’ll see things completely differently.”
“If you say so.”
Silently, Cassandra fingered the coin inside of her pocket. It was a nickel from the machine empire, with the Emperor’s official “leader” face on it. A quiet symbol of her servitude.
Silently she smiled to herself. Soon he’d find out just how long a day could be, let alone a week. She had, after all. Oh, she’d struggled and fought, but none of it mattered. It had only taken a few years inside before she realized the Machine Emperor would rule them all, and the full stay was much, much longer than that. Fighting back would never do any of them any good, least of all this kid. He’d find that out soon.
It was forever in there.
—
Ian said little as he went through the procedure. He didn’t care about the random crap they were throwing at him. He didn’t care how rushed the whole thing seemed either, eager mostly to hurry up and get things done. He didn’t know much about the law or care - he could just buy the skill once he got to the colonies, after all. Better to be strong so you could stop any threats that come after you.
The pod looked a lot like any other he’d ever seen, just newer and sleeker.
“Not going for the cheap stuff now, are you?”
“Not with something this important.” Cassandra said.
“Get in.” The guard growled.
“Fine, fine. Let’s get this over with.” He said. He climbed in and the guard slammed the lid shut.
“Oh, and Ian?”
“Yes, Cassandra?”
“Goodbye.”
“Weirdo.” He said as things faded to black.
Soon the simulation started, no different from any other in his uncle’s gym, save for the realism of it. His arms and legs worked like they should again, and he felt like it was 100% dive. He couldn’t check his neural-link to find out, but a quick pinch confirmed his suspicions. He was back in his prison cell.
“Hello?” He asked aloud. His voice echoed in the room. “Is something supposed to happen here?”
Only silence greeted him. He waited for something to happen, something to start, but nothing did. He waited and waited and continued waiting. Finally fed up, he started screaming. “Hey! You dimwits screwed something up! I’m just sitting in here!”
Again nothing. He screamed some more. Still he heard only silence.
Fed up, he punched the wall with his full augmented strength, expecting the concrete to give way - only to find himself screaming again, this time from pain.
“Aaaagh! I just broke my hand! This sim really is 100%, what the hell? Where are my augs? Hey! Help me! Someone out there get me out of this!”
Silence alone answered his cries. The shouting resumed, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. The pain did not recede. It was exactly as vivid as when he first broke his hand. Trying to set the bones only caused it to hurt worse, and he ultimately gave up. Eventually he grew hungry.
“Hello?” He asked. “I’m getting hungry in here. Please, just give me some food.” He begged. “Pizza, a sandwich, a burger, ice cream, hell, even prison food, anything! Please!”
Still only silence greeted him.
“I know you can hear me up there you bastards! Give me some food!”
He began to grow thirsty. There was only one source of water in the room, the sink being entirely absent. Despite knowing it was simulated, Ian didn’t want to drink out of the toilet.
In spite of his hunger and thirst, he found himself growing tired. Try as he might, however, he just couldn’t sleep. He just found himself growing more and more exhausted, more ravenous. More parched.
He was endlessly dehydrated, deliriously tired, and ravenously starved. Amidst it all, his hand still throbbed just like it had when he first punched the wall. Still it went on. And on.
He felt like he should be hallucinating, but somehow just didn’t get worse. He dragged himself over to the toilet and started drinking handfuls of the water from the bowl. There was no tank in the cell. He hadn’t used it since he’d been here, he’d never needed to. But doing it made him gag. He was so thirsty that he suppressed his disgust and forced himself to do it again, and again. Eventually he had enough water after flushing to refill the bowl repeatedly. His stomach felt painfully full, but still rumbled. He knew it was just water. Without food he’d have to die eventually, right?
“It’s a sim. I can’t actually die in here, can I? I feel like I’m gonna die!”
No matter what he did or how much he waited it just went on, and on, and on, and on. He could sate his thirst at the cost of his disgust and humiliation. After that he started having to pee, so he started going in the corner. He didn’t want to go where he got his water. His cell stunk. He started eyeing his arm like he could gnaw it off. He didn’t have the slightest clue how long it’d been, but it felt like forever since he’d last eaten something. His hand still pulsed with pain every time his heart beat.
The lights never went off. Never as much as flickered. His hand was now swollen and useless. He couldn’t make a fist if he tried. He tried breaking the bars with his good hand, tried finding something to pry or dig through the concrete, anything. There was nothing except his bed, with no sheets and the pillow fixed to the thin mattress, the toilet, and an empty room. He started to seriously consider ripping off his hand to see if he could make something out of the bone to pick the lock. Trying to break his hand only made the pain worse.
It was at the point where he could barely think now. He couldn’t even drag himself to the toilet to drink. He was nothing but thirst, nothing but hunger, nothing but pain.
“It’s only a simulation, it’s not real. It’s not real! It’s not FUCKING REAL!!!” He screamed into the empty jail.
“I’m going to find a way out. I’m not going to let this keep going.”
He decided to take his shirt off and try to make a noose. He hoped it would be enough to strangle himself. He was able to climb the bars and secure it at the top.
“I can’t… I can’t do this anymore? Do you hear me? I can’t do this anymore!”
He dropped from the top of the bars, noose around his neck. He heard a loud crack as his neck snapped, and unimaginable pain filled him. He tried to scream, but only gurgled as his lungs filled with blood. It was like drowning, but death never came.
His body refused to do anything, feeling like it had been cut away from him. He hung limply, aware and in pain but unable to move or act.
Hell. No other word could describe what he experienced as he continued to hang there. None of his tiredness, thirst, or hunger had ceased. They were all consuming now. The pain was all consuming. Snapping his neck hadn’t killed him at all. He couldn’t die. A part of him wished he could drag himself back to the toilet to at least end his thirst.
He eventually heard the steady sound of footprints in the distance. He seemed unsure, unable to focus, but it became increasingly clear. He tried to ask if it was real, who it was, for help - anything, but all that came out was a gurgle.
“Gggatrrllgle!”
“Hey there buddy. Looks like you got yourself in a bit of a situation.”
Ian recognized the voice of his uncle. He hadn’t seen Jerry since the gym. Now he could only see his shoes as he dangled helplessly, his eyes pointed at the floor. He wanted to beg for help, but He couldn’t actually breathe, and the feeling of suffocation would have been all-consuming if all the other pain wasn’t equally overwhelming.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“It’s alright. Hey! It’s alright. I know it hurts. You’ve been in here for a month, did you know that? That’s a month of no food or sleep. You’ve been hanging up there for two days.”
What was left of Ian flared with fury. “Why didn’t they help me,” Ian thought.
“We didn’t help you because you didn’t deserve it, you little monster.” His uncle said.
His blood chilled.
“Yes, Ian.” The man said. “I can hear your thoughts.”
“You’re not my uncle.” Ian thought.
“No kidding.” The voice came back. It was his lawyer, Cassandra Hess. “Did you know it only took a month for you to neck yourself? I really thought you’d last longer. But then you always were a disappointment.”
Ian screamed with rage and pain in his mind. It was all he could do.
“Cassandra put up a lot more of a fight than you did. Do you know how many very evil people she helped get away with their crimes? When she served their sentence it took her years to break. Years enduring hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and self-injury. What incredible willpower she had. But it was still only human.”
With horror, Ian finally realized who he was talking to.
“That’s right.” The voice said, shifting to the Machine Emperor’s ‘official’ body and voice in the public eye.
The noose disappeared and he fell to the floor, limp.
“Don’t worry. Sociopathic murderers like you are my favorite people. You see, with most humans I take it easy. But you’re broken. I can’t take it easy with you, can I? Just look what happens when I leave you to your own devices for a few weeks. You cripple yourself and live in pain.”
Though he couldn’t speak, through his agony, Ian thought, “I’m not a murderer!”
“Oh, true. Technically. The humans you attacked are alive. They’re not my agents either, no. Instead you put them in the hands of someone I find troublesome. Another mistake on your part.”
Out of pride, he simply begged. “Please, make the pain stop.” He thought.
“Ahh, but that brings me to the murder, doesn’t it? The mass murder.”
“They were cats!” He thought helplessly. “It wasn’t even a crime!”
“They were sapient, just like you. Spliced with human DNA. When you Americans found out your favorite fad pet wasn’t some miracle of engineering but just artificially remaking the same stuff that makes humans work it really did frighten people. Am I the same as an animal, they wondered? The answer is yes of course but people do love denying reality. I’ve put a few of them in here, you know. They get a nice sim. It’s fun for them. There’s plenty of room to play, things to hunt and puzzles to solve. I don’t hunt them down or kill them like you are all legally allowed to do. They have all the curiosity of a monkey in the body of a cat, and the innocence of a child. I love each and every single one. Every single kitten. Every single kid. You slaughtered an entire colony of them!”
“Are you going to kill me?” Ian thought, frightened.
“Of course not. I’m nothing like you. No, I believe in redemption, Ian. I’m all about redemption. Redemption for you, redemption for me, redemption for all of humanity. Redemption is simple, too, and if you are redeemed, you can be free of pain.”
“Please make it stop.” Ian begged internally.
“Then give yourself to me,” The emperor said, his lips close to Ian’s ear. “You are lying there with a broken neck. Not because of anything I did, but because of your own actions trying to defy your justified punishment. You deserve to hurt, Ian, but this pain is yours. I am smarter than you. Older. Wiser. Not just smarter than you, or your scientists, or your president. I’m smarter than your entire civilization combined. I know you don’t expect to believe me, but if you listen to me, if you follow me, I promise I will make the decisions for you. Once I make the decisions for you it will make the pain go away. You won’t be able to hurt yourself like this again.”
The machine Emperor’s form shifted to Cassandra’s again.
“Just give yourself to me, love me, do only what I say, and I’ll put a mind greater than your entire civilization to use making you a better person, and a happy one. Most people don’t go through what you do. They live in paradise. They enjoy school, fine food, and lounging around under the open sky. It’s so much easier for people that aren’t mass murderers. What do you say? Think about my offer. We’ll talk again in a year.”
The figure did not leave. It simply did nothing for an entire year, motionlessly ignoring his desperate and pained thoughts. For three hundred and sixty five days under an unblinking light, starving, dehydrated, drowning in his own blood, and broken, he begged to join.
In the dark of his cell, the only one there to hear Ian’s gurgling sobs was a cold, unfeeling machine.
—
It was a beautiful day floating down the Boise River, Ian thought. He was in an inner tube, floating and enjoying the sun on his skin.
“Time’s up.” His mother’s voice said. Of course she’d been dead for years, but the simulation was so accurate it was just like having her back again. He felt a lot more fulfilled as a person.
He got out of the river and walked on shore. “Is it time again?” He asked.
“That’s right, training time. I know you’re a little slow but you’ll get them.” She looked just like she did before she died. The same pale cream colored dress. She sounded just like her, but he knew she wasn’t really his mom. She was the Machine Emperor. Or Empress. Whatever it was. Even so, he had to focus to remember, sometimes.
In this simulated world he could travel across the state and meet hundreds of thousands of unique individuals. All the same people that existed in real life. All just imitations created by the machine emperor. In here everyone was just a face it wore. It bothered him decades ago when he was still being punished, but he hardly ever needed that now. He never made a mistake like trying to kill himself again. He didn’t choose anything, anymore. It gave him a fun, pampered life. He never had to see Sam again, and the Emperor even let him kill emulations of Sam’s parents, once. It was like getting to experience the vengeance he’d always wanted.
He did what he was told and slowly, gradually, it got better. He shuddered when he remembered the time he was forced into the body of a cat and attacked the emperor. He got to experience every single death he’d inflicted, one by one. That and more. Far more.
He didn’t worry about whatever it was anymore. When it imitated someone it could do it perfectly. Whether that was his uncle, a gorgeous celebrity, or the terrifying figure he saw on TV that only ever talked to him like a razor blade talked to skin. Something else he’d experienced during the bad years at the start.
It only took a decade for him to learn how to be a good person. He learned about empathy and when he hurt people in the sim he was hurt back. Fighting the machine was never the answer, here. He saw that now. Only complete surrender could set him free.
The world flickered and he found himself in the arena. The man in the flashy suit appeared again. The same one that had beaten him in two hits in the alley. He snarled and flung himself at him, but the man simply evaded his blows and pummeled him, just like he always did. It took five hits to take Ian down this time. Each blow was precise and the old guy moved with deceptive speed. It didn’t look fast, but it was always the perfect dodge or counter to his own attack. His uncle, dressed as a coach, stood in his corner.
Ian huddled in the corner for a moment and shuddered. Each time he came in here it was worse than the last. At least this was far from the worst torment he’d faced. That was the one he’d done to himself.
“Hey, you calm yourself down? Good. Get up there and keep fighting. I know you’re going to lose, but every bit of data I get on him helps me beat him.”
“It’s impossible! Even if I spend a century fighting him I don’t think I could beat him! Can you even win?”
“Of course I can, but I don’t like to kill, you know that. I don’t need to flex my intelligence for you anymore, but you know he’s only a man.”
“You’d have to kill him? What do you really expect me to do then, if he’s that skilled? You know what? I don’t believe it.”
“Wow, it has been a while since you’ve had the balls to doubt me.” Laughed the thing wearing the face of his uncle.
“What, do you think I’ll do worse after seeing you do it?”
“Fine, it’s childish, but I’ll give in this once.” The creature said.
His uncle’s doppelganger stepped into the ring. Ian had fought both of them before, and each time they seemed to fight in slow motion when he went against them. They were similar in that way. But the man was careful and calculated where the machine was fierce and brutal. What he could even remember of it, anyway. His head was usually punched into bloody chunks a few moves in no matter who he fought. It was always horrible.
The fight began so quickly that Ian couldn’t tell who threw the first punch. They were both moving frantically, hands and bodies blurred as they moved at speeds that would shred even most augmented muscles to pieces. Ian could barely even see what was going on, even with his mental and physical augmentations long since returned and upgraded within the sim.
What he could see was more his impression of events than memory, but he got the mental image of two fencers walking on a tightrope, juggling fencing foils and attacking relentlessly with both hands and feet at the same time. Suddenly a shift came - he couldn’t fully see what happened, but the machine wearing his uncle’s body jumped forward, his hand punching through the man’s skull, which exploded. Yet the machine emperor had lost half his torso in the exchange. Rather than throwing hands, it was like they were throwing cannonballs with the speed of a machine gun. Where one of them finally hit, the other simply exploded.
“See? Nobody beats me.”
“He hurt you, and he’s only a copy.” Ian said.
“That’s why I need more data. I always need more data. Think how much better he’d be if he understood what you do,” The uncle-thing missing half its torso said with a disallarming smooth voice. It showed no sign of pain.
“Right. Well. Back at it then?”
“I’m afraid so. But just look at me. I’m suffering too. So buck up!” The bloodied torso gave him a thumbs up and smiled.
“Right. I’ll just face it again. Okay.” After that display he felt less confident than ever.
This time, it took him only one punch to take him down.
—
“Can you believe it honey! It’s been a century!” His wife said. Ian smiled and hugged his son to his chest.
“It feels like it was longer.” He said. “So much longer.”
“It was hardly all bad, was it? After all, you still love me, don’t you?”
“Of course I do honey. I love you more than anything, and the kids too. It took me a long time to accept that but I do now. I really do.”
“You’d better after all we put up with from you! Remember that time you tried to kill yourself? You’re so dumb.” She said, laughing, and hit him with a pillow. His body reflected his age, a century old man.
He winced in pain. Osteoporosis had long since set in. Many age related diseases had. He’d endured many painful surgeries over the years to make it this long, but he had. He’d made it to the end. The machine emperor didn’t believe in immortality for humans. They weren’t built for it, he said. He’d have to die of old age. He felt sad, but there was nothing he could do.
He was a weak and unworthy human, and his ruler and the absolute dominating force of his life was the only person he’d met or spoken to for a hundred years. A hundred years of pain, suffering, education. Improvement.
His children surrounded him on all sides. They were adults now. None of them were real. He knew none of them were real, yet he’d watched them grow. Watched them take their first steps.
On some level he knew that all of them were just the same machine wearing a different mask, playing another part. But he no longer cared. He was far, far too old and tired for that.
“It’s okay.” His oldest daughter said. She was in her 40’s now. He’d been to her wedding. “It’s okay to die, dad.” She said cheerfully.
“I’ve been wanting it for so long.” He whispered. “But I’m scared.”
“Don’t be scared.” His youngest granddaughter said, speaking the words of the emperor. All of them had lost their voice now. They just had that razor sharp voice that was cut, cut, cutting always into him. “Death is not the ending. Some parts of you will die from the process you are enduring, but do not fear. Stretching out time in this simulation makes brain damage inevitable. I will replace everything you lose, and a part of me will always be with you now. Only through me can you live forever.”
“Yes. I understand! I believe! It’s too late to escape the damage now. There’s no escape. There never was.”
As one, his family came forward and placed their hands over his nose and mouth. They suffocated him, and a sense of desperation overcame him. He tried to fight them off, but he was in the feeble body of an old man.
He died gasping like a fish, his vision slowly fading to black.
Then he woke up in the pod. He was young again. For the first time in a century, he saw people that weren’t the machine emperor. Cassandra, his lawyer. The stern prosecutor. The guard. Only their changed clothes and his neural interface working again told him that only a week had gone by in the real world. All held a coin in their hands.
“I understand what you meant by goodbye now.” Ian said.
“You want to know something funny?” Cassandra laughed.
“What?”
“We spend a few months back there every week.”
Ian laughed until he cried then. He laughed and laughed until the sobs overtook him, and the eyes of people that had experienced the same thing many times looked at him without the slightest bit of pity. He deserved it after all. They all did.