“What do you mean? All that’s left?”
“What he means,” Aldous cut back in, still holding a silent Samantha with his arm around her shoulder, “is that you’re looking at the only three survivors of this universe—a universe that can trace its demise back to the day when intruders from your universe took it upon themselves to attack us and then, quite inexplicably, leave behind technology that was decades ahead of anything in our world.”
“And decades beyond what we could control,” Paine summarized. Then he addressed Old-timer directly. “And, while you might think we’d be a little on the pissed off side about all that, we’re not looking for revenge. Do you know why?”
Old-timer could hardly breathe. Is this the moment I go insane? he asked himself. Is this what breaks me? If I’ve gone insane already, would I even know it?
“We’re not angry with you,” Paine continued, “because what goes around, comes around, and the technology you unleashed here, the tech responsible for destroying innumerable lives throughout our universe, isn’t finished killing.”
“What do you mean?” Old-timer asked, trying to focus his eyes. The shock had nearly overwhelmed him and Paine’s foreboding words seemed to grip everything within earshot with ice.
“Your universe is its big prize,” Paine related coldly, “and unless you ready yourselves—and in a hurry—your universe is going to be just as erased as we were.”
4
“WAKE UP!” Thel shouted as she vigorously slapped James’s cheek in an effort to keep him from passing out. His head was bobbing up and down as though he were drunk. Thel turned to the A.I. “If we don’t break the windows now, we’re going to die!”
She helped James get out of the driver’s seat and he stooped over, trying to regain his footing inside the cabin of the car as it quickly filled with water that was only a few degrees above freezing. Like a boxer trying to beat the ten-count, he wobbled on rubberized legs.
The A.I. took his eyes off the candidate, who was still visibly looming above them in the darkness, and helped Thel guide James to the back seat. There, the three of them knelt in water that was nearly waist-deep.
“We have to remain calm,” the A.I. said, controlling his own fear as their circumstances deteriorated rapidly. “The more panicked we are, the more quickly we’ll use up oxygen.”
“This is ridiculous!” Thel shouted back. “There is no oxygen here! Why can’t we get out of this sim?”
“For all intents and purposes, there is oxygen here, Thel,” the A.I. replied emphatically, “and your simulated body needs it to survive in this simulated world. And if your matrix pattern is harmed in the sim, there’s no guarantee we’ll ever be able to resuscitate your body in the real world. Do you understand? We have to survive here if we want to survive in the real world, and to survive here, we have to remain calm.”
Thel’s eyes were distraught as she struggled to keep James from tumbling forward, passing out into the water.
The A.I. continued, speaking slowly, careful to enunciate every word so Thel couldn’t misunderstand. “We’ll figure out the whys and hows once we’ve survived this immediate predicament. In the meantime, I need you to listen to me.”
“Okay.” Thel nodded, trying in earnest to calm herself as the sound of the water rushing in and the air rushing out of the interior increased.
“We can’t smash a window. I tried to free the tire iron, but that’s impossible. The locks are also frozen and beyond our ability to manipulate them. Even if we could unlock them, the doors would be impossible to open until the pressure inside and outside of the car equalizes.”
“Oh my God!” Thel reacted mournfully. “You’re talking about letting the car completely fill with water, aren’t you?”
“It’s our only chance,” the A.I. answered, confirming Thel’s worst fears.
“But James—”
“Will almost certainly drown. I know.”
“What!?” Thel reacted, aghast at the A.I.’s apparent lack of human empathy. “How... No! That’s unacceptable!” Thel shouted, incredulous.
“We can revive him when we reach the shore, but only if we survive too.”
“How can we?” she shrieked as the water reached her collarbone. The top of her head was now against the roof of the car. “The doors are locked, and we’ll drown!”
“If the electrical system obeys the same physical laws as those of cars of this era in the real world, then they’re designed to withstand being submerged for two minutes so the passengers can roll the windows down before the car sinks. After that, they fail, so the locking mechanisms automatically release, unlocking the doors. I estimate that we’ve been in the water for over a minute. We’ll be under water in less than thirty seconds and therefore—”