Blood Engines(55)

 

“Huh,” Marla said. “I’ve heard stupider theories for how magic works.”

 

“But the real implications are even more vast. Because we’re running on a computer, and I know computers.” He cracked his knuckles. “There’s not a box in the world that I can’t take over, not a system on Earth or in Heaven that I can’t crack and own. And one of these days, I’m going to figure out how to own the box we’re all running on, and that’s the day I become god.”

 

Ah, Marla thought. A new variation on the basic megalomaniacal sorcerer model. “And what about the people who are running the simulation? Why won’t they just unplug you when you start to misbehave?”

 

“I doubt they’re unaware of my efforts. I wouldn’t be, in their position. They’re watching me. Maybe someday they’ll choose to show themselves. It would be trivial for them to do so. If nothing else, I’m sure they’ll want to talk to me directly once I wrest control of this simulation from them. Maybe they’ll upload my consciousness out of the simulation, into their physical world. Maybe I’ll figure out how to upload myself. The possibilities are pretty much endless.”

 

“And this has what to do with Mutex?”

 

He looked at her blankly for a moment, and she suppressed the urge to crack him across the face and smash the lenses of those goggles. She was on a timetable here, and her problems were a hell of a lot more pressing than Dalton’s plan to own the box of the universe.

 

“Oh, right,” Dalton said. “Bostrom talks about the impact of the simulation theory on theology. If the person running this particular simulation is, say, a fundamentalist Christian, then it’s very possible that, in the afterlife, evildoers will burn in Hell—Hell being, in this case, just another simulation. Heaven could be similar. If we’re just digital emulations, then there’s no reason to discount the notion of the afterlife. Now, personally, I tend to think that fundamentalists of all stripes are a dying breed, and that they won’t be around in several subjective centuries, which is probably when our simulation got started.”

 

Marla found that idea even more doubtful than his original premise—fundamentalism was here to stay, in one form or another—but she didn’t object.

 

“Of course, it is possible that someone might run a simulation within a given religious framework for experimental purposes, or even just for fun. Put people in a world where fundamentalist Christianity is true, or Zoroastrianism, or Voudon, or Hinduism—”

 

“Or all that crazy Aztec shit,” Marla said. “That’s what you’re getting at, in your incredibly long-winded way, isn’t it?”

 

Dalton frowned. “Yeah. Basically. Mutex tried to make contact with all the sorcerers in the city, and he told all of us the same thing, when he got the chance. He said the universe is running down. The old gods are starting to get hungry again. The wheels and axles of the universe are greased with blood, and the tremendous stockpile of blood the Aztecs built up with their hundreds of thousands of human sacrifices is dwindling. He says that if we don’t start up the old ways again, the universe is going to grind to a halt, the stars will stand still in their orbits, and everyone and everything will suffer and die. It seems pretty far-fetched to me, but it’s not impossible that he’s right, if those are the parameters the programmer of this simulation set down, you know? Maybe everything in this universe really does run on an engine of blood.”

 

Marla found Mutex’s philosophy marginally more believable than Dalton’s, but that was mostly because of Dalton’s smug assurance that he was right—he was, in a way, something of a religious fundamentalist himself. She had no doubt that Mutex’s gods had once been real, perhaps sustained by the belief of their worshippers. The notion that gods were kept alive by their believers was a popular theory of theology in her circles, since it explained why exorcisms, Voudon, Kabalistic magic, and other mutually incompatible magical systems all more or less worked. Or, maybe, there had been powerful people or creatures or other sorts of beings that chose to be worshipped as gods by Mutex’s forebears, or just fell into the godly gig as a matter of luck and stumble. At any rate, she thought his theory about the universe grinding to a halt for want of blood sacrifice was probably bullshit, and she’d continue to think that unless and until he converted a whole lot of people to his way of thinking, in which case she’d start to worry about it becoming true. But Mutex believed it. She said as much aloud: “Mutex thinks he’s a hero. He’s the only one who can save the universe. By doing…what, exactly?”