Half a book from 2019

Chapter 1 Everything white. The sun screamed in the middle of a blank, cloudless blue. It was the hottest day of the year, again. On the ground, a figure dressed like a bee keeper stumbled across dead grass and dirt towards a black square of tarmac. It was as if an astronaut had mistaken this world for another, the ridiculous heat making everything unfamiliar, changing colours, shifting forms. The car park was melting, molten tar pooling beneath the few abandoned cars, white markings bleeding out like milk. The man fumbles a camera out of a bag at his hip and crouches slightly as he looks through the lens. Heat haze span the horizon, making the reflections of distant glass twinkle and dance. There was the shape of a dead thing beneath one of the cars, a shadow form of feathers and bone. It was too hot for insects, but the constant buzzing of the fans in the suit gave the impression of being amongst a swarm. In the centre of the car park slouched a black car, the tyres had begun to melt off the wheels, rubber skin hanging off chrome skulls. The floor had become a liquid. 0 focuses the camera to infinity and clicks the shutter, moving the lever to advance the film with a mechanical motion he still felt satisfying. He focused on the bouquet beneath the car and the aperture winks shut, beams of light dance across the raw film inside the camera, tattooing a white form beneath a white car beneath a black sky. The lens-cap is clipped back into place and the camera goes back into the cool pouch, plastic ice producing a small cloud before being sealed up again. 0 raises his feet from the hot slop and takes a step, slipping and falling onto his side. He yells inside the helmet, the hot tarmac sticking to the outside of the suit, smothering the fans. He stumbles back onto the yellow, brittle grass and pulls his helmet off. A crazed heat immediately thumps his head to one side, ramming the smell of the scene around him up his nose and into his head, leaving him blinking at the unfiltered colour of the sky in its abject ferocity. It was hot. He checks the camera isn't damaged before surveying the scene. Without the fans and the internal cooling system, the heat suit was dangerously warm. As well as that, the tar was starting to cool and solidify on the back of his thighs and up his back. The zip on the suit became stuck halfway down his chest, so he laid down and squirmed up out of the suit like a tadpole, standing by the empty, melting car park in just a pair of shorts. Rolling his feet from side to side so as not to cook them, he gathered up the collapsed suit and held it over his head for shade. It was a long walk back. Picking his way over dead weeds and cracked dirt, hopping mid-step to avoid broken glass, he slowly made his way back towards Manchester. The heat haze wiggled around him, sometimes rearing so high he was unable to see which direction he was meant to be heading. Like colourless fire, a ring around him acted as a lens over the ground, an illusionary periscope to other places. His arms ached carrying the suit overhead and so he gathered it at his belly, feeling the sun slap against his shoulders and neck. It was hot enough that within a few minutes his skin started to redden, the beads of sweat tickling him as they fell from his arms. Licking dry lips with a dry tongue, he explored his completely dry mouth with curiosity, scraping the top of his palette with what felt like a toe. It didn't take long to die outside in heat like this. Most of the world, both animal and human, had become accustomed to the lethal summers over the last few years, hiding themselves from the death rays any way they could. Woodland, buildings, caves, underground was best. Shade had become more valuable than water in the daylight hours. He stood on a piece of glass and sighed, quickly lying on his side to inspect it. His hands were wet with sweat and there was nothing to wipe them on. Rubbing thumb and forefinger together, he took hold of the curved piece of glass and drew it from his foot, pulling out a slow river of blood that followed it. Sitting for a moment, he cursed and rested his head on his knee, realising he felt faint. There was nobody else for miles, just a cricket hissing and ticking somewhere nearby. A lot had gone wrong in a short amount of time for him and he wanted to leave. Wiping his foot, he got up and continued walking over the cracked earth towards the shade of an abandoned construction site. The autocar picked him up and he looked out of the window as it glided its way through the near empty streets. The sun had started to move past the meridian as they went towards the centre of the city. People were now stood in doorways and alleys wearing all kinds of hats and sunglasses, tired faces watching 0 as he rode past. The screen inside the taxi showed a map of the city, a small blob representing the vehicle and its passenger. He touched the bottom of his foot again, pain still stinging sharply, blood wet to his touch. He probably should have gone to the hospital, though the idea of sitting in an overpacked waiting room for hours was worse to him than just gluing it himself. The taxi stopped outside his block of flats and he got out, hopping quickly to the entrance. As soon as he entered the air conditioning blasted him, immediately cooling the sweat and changing the pressure in his lungs so he coughed. He went to his floor, limping through the corridor. Door after door on both sides, all closed and claustrophobically close. He let himself into his small room and sat on the bed heavily. The building had been a block of offices when first constructed less than a decade ago. It offered a gym, co-working space, presentation rooms and even an underground car-park. The top ten floors were each to be home to businesses looking for a city central location, perfectly placed within walking distance of the train station, a tram stop and another nearby block of apartments for executives to live in, all advertised in enormous CGI renders on temporary walls surrounding the building site. Unfortunately, the neighbouring apartments were never built. The businesses never moved in. The market crashed. The offices were sold off within a few months to a new residency solution company that set about putting walls where an open-plan future once lay. Wherever they could, rooms were squeezed in that were the minimum standards for legal habitation. Eight by twelve rooms that contained a bed, shower, toilet, kitchen, storage and relaxation space. All of this within such a small area gave a very cluttered feeling to living in these rooms, every inch being collapsed into a multitude of purposes. The toilet was a hole in the floor below a shower, the bed could be folded into a sofa, the only way to heat any food was with a microwave bolted on top of a set of drawers that also held a tiny sink. Miniature living. 0 looked out of the window at the virtual view, a rolling landscape of hills and grasslands that moved slowly. It was thought if people were under the impression they were on a train going somewhere that it was good for the mental well-being of living in such cramped conditions. His conditions being more cramped than usual, the brackets he had fitted on the wall hung cameras, tripods, lamps, bags heavy with lenses and other gear that cast long unfocused shadows down the wall. A bookshelf overflowed against one wall, next to it are a pile of clean and dirty clothes. Across the space zig-zagged string he used to hang prints from when he develops film in the sink, the metallic smell of the developing fluid hung constantly in the air and perfumed his life. He turns the window off and rewinds the film in his camera, popping open the back and taking it out, holding the cold cylinder in his hand. He sits in the dark, pupils expanding into big black discs, reflecting nothing. The next day he removed the prints from the case and lay them out on the table in front of him. “Very good, as always.” said Xia, resting her fingers on the tabletop and leaning forward. He had selected ten photographs from yesterday, the black and white prints were laid out. “Thanks.” he said, looking at them upside-down, remembering each shot. A molten car park, a dry riverbed, people staring out from the shade of an overpass, a dead tree with plastic bags hanging from its branches, a cracked building overlooking an empty shopping centre, a plastic form unknowable. Xia glanced at 0, looking at the gaunt shape staring intently at his work. Over the months she had known him he had grown more and more into himself, his body and mannerisms seeming to become more idiosyncratic. “Must have been pretty hot.” she said, tapping the molten car park. “Everywhere is hot.” he said, his gaze moving across the room, out of the window, as if he was alone. “There is something else I want to talk about whilst you're here.” said Xia. “Okay.” “Would you like to sit?” she said, gesturing to a pair of chairs by a window. They sat and turned towards the twilight outside, the light from the daylight bulbs overhead made their reflections in the glass as if there were four people in the room. She wrinkled her nose slightly at the metal smell that hung about him constantly. “You've worked for this magazine longer than me, and you've always produced excellent photography. One of the best.” said Xia. “Yes.” he said, turning to her slightly. Her shoulders were raised. “Unfortunately, our sponsors have pulled funding. We've been doing everything we can to try and keep everyone working, but they don't see the value in what we do.” “I'm being let go?” he said. “Everyone is. People don't read our magazine any more, nobody cares about the real world. They want tips on how to decorate their virtual houses, ways of earning gold, not stories about the world ending.” “Are you leaving too?” said 0, looking at Xia. “After I've told everyone else to.” she said. “Sorry to hear. What will you do?” said 0. She laughed once. “I have a band, I'll focus on that for a while. Basic will cover me until I find something new.” “It's important to find something.” said 0. “What about you? Do you have other contracts?” she said. “No. I'm not sure, I've always taken photos.” he said. Xia looked at his reflection in the window. She would be fine, her music gave her focus, though she wondered about the thin man sitting opposite her, more scarecrow than citizen. “I like you 0, you've always made good work, delivered on-time and without error. I might know someone who has some work going if that would be of interest?” “Photography?” “I think, yes. I'll give you his details and you can find out more.” she said. “Thanks, I appreciate it.” “Good. Are you okay?” said Xia. “Fine.” he smiled. They shook hands, she paid him and passed along a contact card and he left. As soon as he was out into the night he leant against a wall and started hyperventilating. The night was an assault, the city emptying itself out onto the streets without grace. The pavements were crowded with bodies, sweaty skin sticking to neighbours as they brushed shoulders and elbows, moving like treacle. Autocars kept juddering to a halt every few seconds as people wandered across the road, the driverless engines stopping automatically at anything resembling life. This caused huge traffic jams that snaked through the city, veins of metal and tarmac that circled in on themselves. Bars sprayed icy moisture over patrons, each time it happened all conversation paused at the memory of cold before the noise of multiple conversations joined the overall din of the streets. Light competed against light; neon, headlight, phone, window. In the alleys people sold corn cooked from fires inside shopping trolleys, the smell combining with the overall stench of the city, sweat, food, fumes, dust, dirt, breath, the dried out sewers. Most people wear masks. It had been discussed if the clocks should go forward twelve hours during the summer, so that night and day would invert. Unstuck from time, people weren't sure what they were supposed to do. The commuter heading to work walked next to revellers licking empty bags. Overhead chirped insomniac birds beneath the blue-grey glow of light pollution, Sirius barely registering against an otherwise blank sky. 0 walked to the tempo of the street, his mind measuring the anxiety of those around him, attempting to forecast harm whilst navigating the night. It was difficult to tell where one was exactly, everything bathed in toxic light, his senses overwhelmed with a constant extreme of being. The main danger was crushing. It took only a few people to press against a person so that they couldn't breathe, couldn't call out. Even worse should they fall and become a part of the pavement. In the early hours of the morning it only became apparent, bodies flattened red inside clothes, a crushed corpse being carried through a crowd may end up far away from where they took their last breath. The council had started to build a second walkway above the road to handle the human traffic, as well as offer some shade during the day, though the construction itself caused more congestion below as roads were closed, people diverted. 0 watched the robot arms weld away above a temporary fence at the girders that were to be the new pavement, the flashes from the welding illuminating the buildings around even brighter than the usual light. He looked down again at the hair in front of him, following it another few turns before realising he didn't know where he was going. The flat was spacious and well-decorated, a large window gave a view of a quieter street below, the lights from the city mostly hidden by a silent block of flats opposite. Misha looked up as he entered, smiling at the distraction. “Hey 0!” she called, waving him over. She was drawing an orchid, her art supplies scattered around her as if divining from I Ching. “Nice drawing.” he said. “You sound a bit flat. What's up?” she said, nodding at the picture and pushing the pencil she was using into the knot of her hair. “I was fired today. Made redundant I suppose.” he said, sitting next to her. “Oh I'm sorry 0. That's shit.” “It's happening to everyone, but yes, it is shit.” “I thought your job was safe? Taking photos?” “Doesn't matter, the people who were paying me lost their jobs. If nobody can pay you, it doesn't matter how machine-proof you are.” he said, looking at the rug below. “You're on UBI though, right?” she said. “I know it's not much, but it keeps me going.” “That's just it, it keeps me going, round and round. Basic is enough to eat and pay rent, but not enough to save or move along. Am I going to be stuck in that room for another fifty, sixty years?” he said, voice rising. They paused for a moment, looking at the large apartment around them. “I don't think you are. You have a lot to offer.” “Xia did give me a contact before I left.” he said. “See! One door closes, another door opens. What's the contact?” “I don't know, a friend of hers. I didn't think to ask.” he said. “But what if that's just another job that finishes in a few months?” “That might happen, or it might not. But today it doesn't matter, does it?” she said, smiling. “Not right now.” said 0, smiling weakly. One of the bedroom doors opened and Misha's room-mate, Paul came in. He did an exagerrated double-take on seeing 0. “Hey man! Didn't hear you come in.” he said. “0 lost his job today.” said Misha. “Ah, that sucks dude. What happen, they finally found your criminal record?” “Don't be a dond.” said Misha, rolling her eyes. 0 blew air out of his cheeks slowly. “How are you Paul?” “You know me, I'm good. Seriously though, sorry about your job man, I've never had a job so I don't know what it's like. But not having a job isn't that bad.” said Paul. 0 made a noise in his mouth that Paul mistook to continue. “Aren't you arty anyway? You can focus on your work. Try new things. Look at Misha, she's drawing away like a regular Michelangelo.” “He was more of a sculptor. But sure, I see your point.” said 0 coldly. Even Paul managed to pick up on it and so changed the topic of conversation, talking for a while about the bugé menu at a new restaurant round the corner. Meat had become ridiculously expensive over the last decade. In an effort to reduce climate change, various governments around the world ordered that all livestock be destroyed and the land be used for property development. To replace the lack of meat, places had switched to vegetables or artificial meat, though insects were becoming increasingly popular for those who wanted to consume something that had been alive. Body-builders were big fans of the protein value of insects, eating dry-roasted beetles mixed with chili or drinking flavoured shakes made from larvae. A lot of the marketing around insect meat had started out as 'organic animal protein' though had changed over time to be more direct. Just as pork was the name used for pig, and beef for cow, the catch-all term for all edible insects was bugé. Bugé burgers sold by the megaton. Television chefs explained how to peel and prepare cockroaches to audiences both curious and hungry. Bugé could be shipped much easier than other meat, required barely any space to cultivate and was seen as more ethical than eating mammals, birds or fish. The lobster was used as a regular example of a giant insect that already had been eaten across the world for those squeamish about eating bugé, so much so that a sort of winged lobster was used as the international logo for bugé products, just as a piece of round meat on a piece of bone, occasionally with a bite out of it, was used to denote chicken. Paul finished his long description of the eight course meal he had enjoyed and 0 looked at Misha. “What do you think?” said 0. “Bugé is good, I like it. You should try some.” she said. “Do you remember meat?” said 0. “I never liked it.” said Paul, shaking his head. “The memory is starting to fade. I remember the texture, the shape of it. But I confuse the taste now, like orange flavour and the fruit.” he said. “Did you riot?” “Over meat? Nah. It's just food.” said 0. Misha laughed. For a moment he forgot about his troubles, enjoying the back and forth of conversation, imagining the three of them playing tennis together. * A concrete mass squatted in the industrial park, the sun slowly spilling an orange light through the windows that circled the grey block. All around the air vibrated, giving the impression of electricity, energy. This buzzing grew in intensity until entering the main door to the building, where it ceased. The main entrance still smelt like paint, the overly white walls bare of any ornament or explanation. This room first appeared to have no other doors or way forward, just a singular cell that gave no clue to the rest of the interior. The room itself had a step down to the rest of the L-shape of the entranceway, a trick of perspective. At the end of the anteroom was an empty desk, two chairs, a camera and a door. The corridors of the building were quiet at this time, most doors were closed and had no signs or symbols as to what was behind them. A man leaves a room, locks it and moves onto the next one, his breath still forming clouds in front of him. He wore a sheepskin jacket and old denim jeans, thick ugg boots with little bronze stars on each side, his gloved hands moving through the air as if he was chemically dancing, his eyes also looked askew, lazily going in and out of focus, rolling around in his head. He unlocked the door and went in. It takes a moment for the sensors to register him, a small light flicks on overhead. A quantum supercomputer sits behind glass, its fractal mind turning in the dark. Its systems begin to recognise him, the shape of his construction. It is an interesting pattern, similar to other arrangements yet different. The machine mind turned this way and that. The man focused on the computer and lowered his hands. He always had the feeling of being looked at when in the same room as the machine. Scopaesthesia, the sensation of being stared at, had no bearing in science. But in that room he had the feeling of standing across from something staring at him, into his body. Sometimes he wondered if it was feeding off him in some way. He blinked lazily, sitting in front of an interface, monitoring the computer with various menus and charts before leaving the room and locking it again. The computer keeps thinking as the light click off again. The man walks down the corridor and through a huge door, one made of frosted glass and almost as big as the corridor he was in. The next room was enormous, taking up most of the space in the building. There were a few desks and chairs around, a makeshift room had been constructed out of plastic sheeting off to one side. The rest of the room housed an enormous metal and plastic thing, its black exterior covered in various vents and support structures, an ornate lattice of repeating circles and curves. Frosted air continued to cascade from its shell, spilling over the floor cold, the taste of o-zone. The man walks to the curtained room and raises his hand to knock, lowering it as he realises there is nothing to knock on. He calls out. Another voice calls back, a faint silhouette forms into a shape and a woman appears at the curtain. They speak to each other for a while before leaving the room, going to get breakfast at the canteen. Outside, 0 approaches, wondering if he's getting tinnitus. He enters the white room and begins marching straight ahead, ignoring the trick of perspective and wondering if he was too early. He calls out, walking towards the desk, wondering if he has the correct address, if he should have brought some of his photos. Xia hadn't said what the job was specifically, now he was there he wondered what is was he would be doing. If there was a job. There was a heavy noise behind the door and a security guard appeared. “Hello, how can I help you?” he said loudly. “I messaged someone about a job, Julian?” said 0. “Ah, Julian. Aye, yes, please wait here.” he nodded, leaving 0 alone again. Five minutes later he reappeared with a man wearing a lot of clothes. Cold air blossomed outwards, 0 tasted it, citrus, electricity, disinfectant. “0, hi, great to meet you, would you like to come this way.” said Julian. 0 walked around the desk and nodded at the guard, blinking slowly back at him. As they walked through the corridors 0 rubbed at the goose flesh on each arm, looking ahead and behind at the strange symmetry of repetition. Julian stopped at a door and waved a card in front of the handle. “Come in.” he said, wrinkling his nose at the metallic smell in 0's hair. They sat in a small room, the venetian blinds on each window throwing slices of morning into the room. “Thanks for seeing me so quickly.” said 0, sitting at the table bobbing his head up and down slightly until he found a bar of shade to rest his eyes in. He hadn't slept much the night before, pangs of sleep rippled over his body in anticipation to dream. Trying to ward it off, he sniffed deeply, hoping that the sudden rush of oxygen into his body would wake him up, also reminding him slightly of drugs, bringing Julian's enormous blonde beard back into focus. “No problem, you're doing us a favour being able to come in.” said Julian. “So you worked for Xia?” “Yes, I took photos for her.” “Excellent. Did she tell you what this is about?” “Not really.” “Excellent, well my name's Julian and I'm one of the researchers at this facility. We work with artificial intelligence, is that an issue?” “No, I don't mind.” said 0. Julian laughed suddenly. “Great, so, I need you to just sign this NDA then I can start the interview.” he said, passing a small tablet to 0. He pressed his finger to the glass and looked back up, the half-closed venetian blinds giving a strange atmosphere to the room. 0 looked at finger marks of grease on the surface on the table. “What job are you interviewing me for?” “This is a research job, you'll be out in the field gathering data for us. Taking pictures. Does that sound alright?” said Julian. 0 had barely made eye contact since arriving, slouching down in the chair and looking around the room with hungry eyes. “I like any work where I can take pictures.” “How much experience do you have with cameras?” said Julian. “I've been taking photos all my life. I specialise in film, but know the rest. I've worked as a professional photographer for seven years as well as doing my own work.” said 0. “Ah, so you're an artist?” “In a way.” said 0. “Good answer! And that sounds great. Did you bring anything with you?” said Julian. 0 shook his head. “Okay, do you have a website, portfolio?” “Not really. I'm on the magazines page, look for an article about XXX. I took the photos for that.” said 0. Julian's intense stare now became slightly unfocused, his eyes going slightly grey. He raised a hand and twitched one of his fingers gently. “I see. Nice work, yes, you have a good eye.” said Julian, blinking back into the room. “Of course.” said 0. “Excellent. Shall we go for a walk?” said Julian. The door opened, spilling pale light back into the room. The two men walked down a featureless corridor, the angles of its extremity the only line able to be followed. The enormous doors swung open and the two acolytes entered, Julian pausing so 0 could look at the engine. He cast a quick glance over the hull and turned to Julian. “What is this again?” “We're sort of building a game. It takes place in Manchester, a simulation.” “And you need me to research the city, take some photos?” said 0, looking back over the enormous cold machine. “There's lots of places we don't know about yet. We need to build an accurate model.” “What sort of places?” “Well, we know all the roads, most outdoor areas, some buildings and a few other things. It's everything else we need. The places that aren't recorded, the places people don't go. At least, people like you and me.” said Julian. “Sounds good. But what is the game about?” “The game is about finding out what the game is about.” said a voice. They both turned towards the doctor as she made her way from the plastic room. “Like life.” “Dr. Peppard, this is our new photographer, 0.” “Nice to meet you.” said the doctor. 0 nodded. “Aren't games and things like that now? Almost real?” “Almost real isn't good enough.” said the doctor. “We want to make a perfect copy, down to the atom.” “Copies of people too?” said 0. Julian looked down. “Slowly. But to begin, everything that's still. A world of objects.” “We have a camera we want you to use.” said Julian, ushering 0 and Dr. Peppard towards a desk. On the chrome surface sat the camera, its face containing five lenses of varying size and colour, its metal body wrapping round the front in a chunky, satisfying manner. 0 picked it up and almost dropped it again, the weight of it pulling at his wrists. “Can you carry it?” said Peppard. His arms seemed to be struggling with holding the device, readjusting his posture as if carrying a bucket of water. She looked at his face and knew he was fit for the task, at least mentally. His expression was twisting slightly around his eyes, a slight tic of his cheek before he craned his head over the camera, inspecting it, looking through the viewfinder at the plastic curtains that had been erected a few metres away from the large machine that took up most of the room. He clicked the shutter and heard a clunk inside the camera. “It looks like you know how to use it.” said Julian. “What are all the lenses for?” “We want to capture different frequencies of light beyond what's visible to us. The simulation we're making has to encompass everything, not just what you and me can see.” “Interesting.” said 0 quietly. He'd get used to the weight, it would be good to exercise anyway. He was looking forward to taking it home and having a look inside. Julian and Peppard nodded at each other. “Did Julian tell you what you will be recording?” she said. “Empty places, underground stuff.” said 0. “We will send you an address and instructions. It's important you always take that camera with you.” “Do you have any questions?” said Julian. “Do I have the job?” said 0, unsure. Peppard's shoulders jerked up and down. “Of course, you're perfect for it. Julian will go over the rest of the details, but it was nice to meet you. I look forward to seeing what you bring from out there.” she said, walking back to the curtained room. Inside she closed her eyes, smiling, clenching her fists tightly. The walked through the straight labyrinth once again, entering another room. Julian went over the various procedures for looking after the camera whilst 0 watched. He gave 0 a bag containing cleaning equipment for the camera, a credit card, a new phone, sunglasses and a laminated map of the city. “You'll have access to an expense account and we have several services on retainer including autocars and health insurance, should you need it.” said Julian. “Thanks, this is all very generous.” “This research is important to us all. My number is in the phone, ring me if you need anything. Nice meeting you 0, I look forward to working together.” said Julian. They shook hands in a way that made 0 giggle, excited at the prospect of the new work ahead of him. Chapter 2 Down the street a woman cruised on a bike, her loose clothing trailing behind as she steered lazily around pot-holes and broken glass. She drifted to a stop behind a van, slapping the back door a few times whilst sliding off her headphones. “Who is it?” “Me.” said Chella. The van rocked from side to side and the door swung open. “Alright.” said Kyle, pulling a vest down from around his neck. Chella wrinkled her nose and coughed. “Smells like arse in there.” “You try sitting in a van in this heat.” “Everyone's hot, doesn't mean we need to smell. You need some pot-pourri in there or something.” said Chella, stepping into the van. “I'm just a sweaty kind of person. Some people sweat more.” said Kyle. “I'll bring you a fan next time.” she said. She took a bag off her shoulder and handed it to him. “What have you got for me today?” he said, rooting through the bag and taking out the food one at a time, lining them up on the floor of the van. Crab apples, tomatoes, bread and a roll of toilet paper. “Anything new?” said Chella, squatting to look out of the dirty front window. “Some skinny boy went in earlier. You think you could bring me some crisps next time?” “Who was he?” “I dunno, some white guy. If you could get me some Paprika crisps, I like those. Anything really. A man can't live on tomato sandwiches and apples forever.” “Try an apple sandwich.” said Chella. “Is that him now?” she said, pointing down the road. In the heat haze she could make out a figure twisting like a standing shadow. “Ah yeah, that's the guy.” “Don't let me distract you.” said Chella. Tim squirmed into the front seat and looked through a camera with a long range lens, clicking away. Chella looked around the dirty van, empty bottles of water, apple cores strewn about, a stack of novels with broken spines stacked in the shadows. “Are you okay here on your own?” said Chella. “Of course, I like being here.” said Tim. “Feels like I'm a detective, you know?” “For sure. You've been out here a while though, it's good to come back. You can swap.” said Chella, flicking through the pages of a notebook on the floor with her trainer. “Maybe, I want to eat something nice.” said Tim. He crawled back towards her and handed over the camera. Turning into the dark, she rewound the film and swapped it with a fresh roll, pocketing the small gray canister. “I'm going to try follow him, see where he goes.” said Chella. “You only just got here.” said Tim, laughing. “Detective work. See you soon.” nodding at him as she left the van. Tim closed the door and watched her ride away, feeling cosy again in the darkness of the van. He removed his clothes again and sat in the front seat reading an enormous book of poetry out loud. Chella pedalled slowly, letting the bike drift back and forth across the road to keep distance between herself and her quarry. He paced quickly and cocked his head from side to side like some kind of bird before pausing at a corner. Chella stopped too, swinging the bike round to face away from him momentarily, tilting her head so she could watch him in the reflection of her sunglasses. She wondered who he was, inventing him a purpose. Looking away momentarily to put on her headphones, when she glanced back he had disappeared. She rode along the streets for a few minutes, trying to track him down amid the quiet warehouses that made up the industrial estate. After a few minutes she gave up, steering the bike homeward. It was too hot to do anything quickly, the bike and Chella moved at a relaxed pace around the city, north bound. Chain link fences guarded piles of rubble, buildings with empty windows and boarded up doorways. Children played in dusty parks, the sound of their screams and laughter drifted through the dying trees. The bike bounced along the tarmac, every crack and hole in the road vibrated through the wheels and up Chella's body, making her curse quietly when her teeth clacked together. A woman sat in the shade of a building, petting a black cat. She looked up and waved. “Chella!” she called out. “Hey! That another cat?” said Chella. “It came to me.” she said. “Nice. Later!” she said over her shoulder, continuing to ride through the back streets towards the camp. “Where you been?” “Just riding.” “I know you been doing stuff for Max.” “Nah.” “Let me help. I'll do anything.” “You're more help doing nothing.” “C'mon, I want to get involved.” “Talk to Max then. Not up to me, is it?” “Well if you need me, you know where to find me.” he said, noticing someone else to talk to. “Okay.” said Chella, steering the bike carefully between the tents and shacks, around children playing in the dirt and a stray chicken here and there. She came to the bike yard, nodding at a woman sat beneath a yellow tarp. Her big tattooed arms were pulling a tyre from its metal spokes, pausing for a moment to wave before going back to stripping the wheel down. “Hey Chell. Any problems?” “With the bike, no.” she said, steering it towards the pile. At least two hundred bikes were stored here, a rainbow of different frames, handles weaved beneath seat beneath wheel. “How you been?” “Not bad, this heat is making some tyres melt, I'll be running out soon. People should just ride at night.” she said, taking a drag off a joint before placing it in an ashtray made from an upside-down bike seat. “Hopefully it'll rain soon.” “It's hot, ey.” said Chella, sniffing the air. “You keeping out of the sun?” “You know me, may as well be glued to this bench.” she said. “What you been up to love?” “Ridin' round. I got some pictures need developing, is Dee around?” “Gone for a ride herself. Leave it with me and I'll pass it along. Max is after you by the way.” she said. “Thanks Vyv.” said Chella, walking towards the centre of the camp. The caravans placed around the unfinished houses were the nucleus of the camp, the first people to claim the estate for themselves were now surrounded by an endless arrangement of tents and shacks that continued to be added to each day. Chella approached the caravan, umbrellas had been arranged in a haphazard fashion around its roof as awning, casting different coloured shadows on the side of the vehicle like stained glass. A large, white chicken waddled out of the door and flapped a few times as it landed on the dirt. “You in there Max?” “Chella? Come in.” called a voice from the shadow of the door. Inside the caravan was dark, a fan drifted back and forth causing some of the papers stuck to the wall to flap lazily. Almost every vertical surface was covered in something, notes, photographs, drawings, the eye not knowing what to focus on in the displayed chaos. A man hunched against a large map, colouring in a section with a pink highlighter. “You tidied up?” said Chella, throwing a jacket off a chair and sitting down heavily, enjoying the breeze from the fan momentarily before it began another sweep of the room. “There's never enough space. That's the big issue, space.” said Max. He turned around and smiled at her. “Would you like something to drink?” “Anything cold.” she said. As he moved to the tiny kitchen, Chella looked at the map of the camp he had been adding to, a sprawl of tents and shacks each represented by a tiny square or rectangle, all drawn by hand. “Your map is looking good.” “Is it? Each day we have a dozen more come. Everyone is welcome of course, but keeping it all together is getting harder.” said Max. He passed her a bottle of water and sat next to her on a collapsed armchair. “Police aren't going to bother us.” “Not bothered about the police. It's the food. Food and water.” he said, getting back up quickly and pacing back and forth, each heavy step shook the caravan. “How long have you been here now? A year?” “I came last summer, yeah. Was a lot smaller then.” “And even then it was twice as big as I thought it could get. You know, when I first parked here I didn't plan any of this, just happened. Now people look to me for direction.” “You've done us well so far.” “We all have, we all pull together. But we need to be more organised. The orchard is nearly empty, people are stealing chickens, we're months away from harvesting.” said Max, gesturing at the green areas drawn on the map. “People get mad when they're hungry.” “Hangry.” “Sure, sure. What would you do?” said Max, pulling at his dirty beard. “Me? Keep planting, keep expanding. Anyone steals food, they leave the camp.” she said. “Hmmm.” he said. “There has to be another way though. Can't just push people out of here, they'll be out there.” “It's not on you. Don't need to keep taking responsibility for anyone who rocks up here.” “Someone does though.” “So what you going to do?” “I have a couple ideas, too early to say which one will work.” said Max, sitting back down. “Whatever we end up doing, it will be hard. We might not succeed.” “We're all here together, we help each other. We might fail, but we do it together.” “Spoken like a true comrade. You're right. This weather is making me cynical.” said Max. “How was Tim by the way?” “Alright, think he's spending too much time in that van.” “I'll swap him out for a few days. Thanks for checking on him.” “Why is it we're watching that building anyway?” said Chella. “Lots of rumours come through this camp, some more interesting than others. I heard they're building something in there that might come in handy one day.” he shrugged. “Time will tell.” “Let me know. I'm going for a nap, can't think in this heat.” said Chella, getting up. Max walked her to the door, squinting at the falling sun. “Good seeing you Chella.” “You too. Keep me in the loop.” she said, nodding as she made her way towards her tent. Max watched her leave before submerging himself back in the shade of the caravan, writing in a notebook he kept in his back pocket. Chella looked out of the view from her tent onto the golf course, remembering what it looked like when she had first arrived at the camp, the perfectly kept grass, the shaggy evergreen trees, golfers dressed in pastel shirts casting glances at the camp edging the course. Some were silly enough to hit balls directly into the camp, though retribution was quick and even. Now the course had been transformed into a farm, row upon row of potato and grain growing from the soil, its workers coming back from their midday rest for more toil under the hateful sun. Chella zipped the door closed and fell back into her tent, looking at the blue fabric that made her ceiling. She leant over to a small shelf and turned a small radio on, the music broadcast from within the camps own pirate station. The small solar battery would die after she had drifted off to sleep, dreaming of people she once knew. 0 got his first assignment the next morning, following instructions that brought him to an alley. Between two walls of bricks with the paint crumbling from them was a long line of old stone flags, the cracks and lines between filled with grey dirt. The alley opened up slightly in its middle, there was a grate with a box by it. 0 yanked off the tape sealing it and pulled a long iron crowbar from the cardboard. The weight of it constantly pulled at his hands, the substantial cast iron was a key. The alley was gloomy, long shadows spilled from overhead, down from cracked drains and a rusted fire escape. 0 went over to a grate on the floor and levered it up, pushing all his weight down on the cold metal to get the grate up. The smell of the underground hit him, of rot and damp, a void hidden from the sun. He poked his head over the hole, squinting into the black. Thick metal rungs were bolted to the inside of the hole, it was a ladder down into the darkness. Checking his bag one last time he carefully stepped downward, his leg blindly feeling for something to hold onto. 0 looked straight ahead as he descended, his vision of the street disappearing with each step. 0 smiled in relief as he reached the bottom, stepping out of the shaft of dull light thrown from above. It was a lot cooler down here and he was grateful for it. Everything seemed black and brown, the darkness appearing like tiny cogs of noise as his eyes tried to make sense of what was around him. He took out a torch and shone it around, finding himself in a narrow brick corridor, abandoned. Stains of white and green mottled the floor and walls where water had flooded and dried over time, mixing with similar shaded lichen. Taking a glow stick out of his bag he cracked it and dropped it to the floor, leaving a trail of luminous green lights for him to follow back when he was finished. He walked through the corridors and tunnels beneath the city, each door and corner leading to more rooms, more spaces in the dark. Sometimes he found himself in the basement of another building, walls painted white, signals that people had been there recently. Others were dilapidated, raw bricks crumbling over cobble and stone floors, old rusted pipes leading on and on, dripping and breathing beneath the ceiling of earth. The camera caught the underworld in flashes, spaces in time now living inside the camera. There was a wall made of doors. 0 tried to open them one after another, finding most of them had been nailed to the wall underneath. He tried each handle, slightly nervous if one opened. Towards the end one did. He looked inside the tiny, dirt room, empty save for a hole in the floor. He cracked a glowstick and dropped it downwards, watching as it shrank and shrank until disappearing silently. 0 happily closed the door and continued exploring. The city had been built on top of itself over hundreds of years, old roads and whole buildings being paved over for the next stage of Manchester's development. It grew a shell of tarmac, concrete and glass over its history, the empty rooms beneath were catacombs for dead memories. He came across an entire theatre, a stage standing at the end of the hall filled with hundreds of rotting seats, each an arrangement of wood and rags that hid the bones of rats. 0 imagined the theatre as it was, for the seats to be filled and the a performance on stage, perhaps Shakespeare, or an orchestra. 0 picked his way through the darkness and onto the stage, most of the wood boards had collapsed below to leave a few beams he could walk across. Tip-toeing to the middle, he carefully took out his camera and took a photograph. He had no idea that so much remained beneath the city. They used to do tours underground, though they hadn't run for years due to people going missing on guided tours. None of them had been found. Sometimes 0 got ahead of himself, forgetting to put a glowstick down close enough to the last one, making him retrace his steps to try and find the way back. He imaged losing his way down here, the light in his torch failing, down in the pitch black beneath the city. He shivered, walking on through the underground corridors and tunnels beneath the city's skin. 0 moved cautiously through the dark, the cold light of the torch guiding him. After some time he would come to a dead end, retracing his steps and picking a new path. When he took pictures the camera flash would light up an entire room, briefly illuminating old furniture, hollow doors, strange things that had been left behind. Mannequins, toys, piles of animal bones, bits of wood and metal, a taxidermy horse, a framed print of the crucifixion. There were also signs others had been there, cans of beer with old labels on, black graffiti that dribbled down walls, sometimes torn clothes, ripped underwear. 0 raised his camera in the darkness, taking a photo of Satan painted on a wall of cracked concrete. On the floor in front of it were burned, black bones. As he left an ruined bar filled with mannequins he noticed the glowstick he had left at the end of a corridor was starting to fade. He walked over to it, giving it a shake before checking the time. He had been underground for almost seven hours. He stared at the phone, giving that a shake, wondering if being beneath the surface had somehow caused the time to be faulty. But it was true. The glowsticks should last a lot longer, though 0 was starting to wonder if he'd been using a faulty batch. And if this glowstick was fading, all of them would be. 0 tried to think how long it would take him to walk back to the exit, though wasn't sure exactly with the twisting path he had taken. He started to walk back at a brisk pace, the rhythm of his footsteps echoing through empty rooms and corridors as he moved. Some parts he remembered well, others he didn't recognise. He stopped. He was back at the bar somehow, accidentally walking in a circle, taking a shortcut back to the start. Retracing his steps, he started to feel fear. This far it hadn't bothered him to be walking around in the blackness, alone, nobody knowing he was there besides his employers. He shut out thoughts that all of this might be intentional, that they had wanted him to get lost beneath the city somehow. The phone had no signal, the map telling him he was still in the alley. 0 pushed his way past through a narrow gap, dust from the bricks falling into his hair and down his clothes. With great joy he found the next stick, though unsure which direction to take next. He picked it up and returned it to his bag, its innards illuminated with a fading green glow as if he was carrying some alien treasure. Stopping for a moment, he saw the painting of the devil again. The bones were gone. In the darkness he paced, following the trail of dying green light, not letting his imagination get the better of him. A strange wail made him stop in his tracks, his ears pulling backward in some primal expression of fear. It must be from overhead somewhere. He let himself run to the next glowstick, the beam of his torchlight dancing in jagged lines over pipes and water stained walls. Each glowstick he found, he knew he was closer to getting out. He passed the empty door of the theatre, the room made of doors, laughing at how close he was to escaping. The wail came again, nearer this time. 0 began to sprint, swallowing a scream budding in his throat, legs jerking up and down as he ran in the dark. He found the ladders, pulling himself up frantically, arms pumping as he yanked himself to the underside of the grate. Someone had closed it, but with the adrenaline coursing through his body he pushed it open with a heavy thud and out onto the floor of the alley again. He lay on his back, panting as he stared at the sky, so glad to see it again. The heat of the day hit him as he sat upward, giving himself a moment to relax before allowing himself to peer back down into the tunnel he had just emerged from. He was surprised to see a fox looking back up. It tilted its head quizzically, blinking up at the shape of the head against the sky. 0 paused, wondering if he should try to rescue it somehow, before the fox ran off as quickly as it arrived. 0 sat by the open grate wondering what to do, deciding to report it later. He called for a car to take him back to the facility. Chapter 3 Latin Jazz filtered through the air, mixing with the smell of beer, dust and heat. A chicken picked through the dirt, its scaled legs a reminder of distant ancestors, the time of the animals. Chella watched it from inside the garage, watching its golden beak flick back and forth, flipping over pebbles to find wriggling beetles sleeping in the dirt. She looked back at the man's legs appearing from beneath a pickup truck, looking at the way he moved beneath the red metal. “It's like I was saying, we should be connecting with other slums, we can build our own currency. I studied economics.” said John. “You want your head on a coin?” said Chella. The man pulled himself from beneath the truck, wiping oily fingers onto his jeans before sitting back in his deck chair. “His head is too big to fit on a coin.” said Peter, sipping at the home-brewed beer. The light from the open garage door barely penetrated the cloudy brown liquid. “That doesn't make any sense.” said John, his brow wrinkling like a walnut. “Is the truck fixed?” “Yeah, easy. We should take a trip out.” said Peter. “We could do with some timber, there's a place.” said Chella. Outside there was the rising noise of running, a girl appearing at the edge of the door suddenly. “We run out of water.” she said breathlessly. “What do you mean?” said Chella. “Max said the camps out of water, and for me to get you and John.” she said, wiping a mix of snot and sweat off her face. John went over with a wet rag and starting pawing at her face with it. “Just one second.” said Chella, finishing off her beer with a long drink. “I'll be back.” she said, nodding at Prospero. The man waved after her, alone again in his garage. He got up off the battered deck chair and made his way towards the back of the garage, turning the stereo up, allowing himself to dance around the workshop, playfully rubbing dust from a workbench with a red washcloth. They followed the little girl through a maze of wooden boards and panels, sheets of metal bending inwards, walls held up with rope. The streets were unorganised, with people joining the camp over time building a fractal labyrinth that spread outwards from the centre. Roofing had attempted to be put over large sections of the alleys, though this sometimes lead to a confusion of where was public and where private. Though you were protected from the direct heat of the sun, it also removed landmarks used in navigation; the steel and glass towers of the city to the south, the abandoned brick chimney stack to the west, the smoke lands to the north. The trio turned left and right in the walls of the camp, sometimes passing squares where people would be selling things, talking, thin people from every background, dressed in dusty clothes that were a mish-mash of five decades of fashion. They walked along the main street that ran through the camp, the heat and the noise and the dirt was unrelenting. A car was slowly driving down the round, steering past a few sheep being herded along. Towards them some farmers rode on a filthy golf cart, tired eyes watching them as they rode past. Dust rose in their wake, joining the fog of dirt that played in the scorching daylight. What had been the clubhouse for the golf course had been reclaimed as the planning centre for the farm, bags of seeds and compost piled high. Max stood by a window, looking out at the land, the head farmer paced back and forth behind him. Chella and John joined them. “We out of water?” said John, nudging a filthy carpet tile with his foot. “The water company cut us off, we can’t get any delivered.” said Diane. “How much do we have?” “Enough for the people in the camp for a few more days. No more for the crops, apparently.” She said. “No point growing crops if we all died of thirst.” Said Max. “I can send people out, tap up some places nearby.” Said Chella. “We still have them big gallon bottles over in storage.” “What about the crops? In this heat we’ll lose everything by the end of the week. I thought Max set up a deal about the water.” Said Diane. “I contacted the mayor, no response.” “You think they’re making a move again? Try and throw us out?” said Chella. Max turned from the window, blinking at the relative darkness inside. “We made a deal, we keep people safe here, they won’t bother us.” “And they won’t! There’s a drought out there, probably everywhere is running low on water. This summer is a hot one.” Said John. “How about we dig a well? Must be something down there.” Said Diane. “Do you think so?” “Must be, all this used to be marsh land.” She said. Max nodded. “Okay, you make a start on that. Chella, can you organise people to fetch some water from nearby? Tell them to be subtle, we don’t need any more grief.” Said Max. A side door swung open and an enormous man squeezed through, his bulk blocking out most of the view of the camp. “Alright.” Said Stephen, eyes flicking from Max to Chella. “We might be expecting a visit from the police again, how are the barricades?” said Max. “Strong.” “Good. I don’t think they will, but better to be safe than sorry.” “We can hold them off again, easy.” Said Stephen, rubbing his hands together absent-mindedly. “Good. “What about telling the camp? If we have no water, shouldn’t they know?” “We don’t have water?” said Stephen. “I’ll make an announcement after this. We’ll get through this, you all know what to do.” Said Max, nodding at his associates. “Can you stay behind John, I have something I need to talk to you about.” “Oh sure.” He said happily. “See the rest of you later.” Chella, Diane and Stephen left the clubhouse, pacing down the dirt steps towards the camp. “Good to see you Chella.” Said Stephen. “How’s it going? # He arrived back at Peppard's offices to take in his photos. Julian escorted him through the cold corridors, 0 felt a strange sensation as he passed a particular door, as if something pointy was being held towards his forehead. “What's behind that door?” said 0. “An experimental computer.” said Julian, increasing his pace. Over the last few days he had his own strange sensations around the quantum computer, though he felt too embarrassed to tell anyone about it. They entered the main room holding the master computer, Dr. Peppard was sat on a lone chair listening to music whilst reading, turning as the two men entered. “0! Good to see you. Do you have photos for us?” she said, shouting slightly as the music warbled through the speakers. 0 passed across the camera and watched as she took it over to the machine. “What exactly are you using them for?” said 0, looking at the book the doctor had been reading, a mirror used as a bookmark. “Do you want to see what we are building?” said Dr. Peppard. “Is he ready?” said Julian. “Of course he is. You've used VR before, right?” “Yes.” said 0, wondering what Julian meant. “Follow me.” said Peppard, leaving the camera plugged into the monstrous computer. They were in a small room at the top of the building, lying at the end of a darkened corridor. The windowless room held a chair in the middle and a terminal to one side, it seemed sterile, reminiscent of a morgue. Following Peppard’s instructions, 0 sat in the chair and put a large box shaped thing over his head, its hard, black angles contrasted the plume of wires that emanated from the top. It had reminded 0 of some sort of sculpture, caught between cubism and a pharoah's headdress. There were no lenses and so he sat, blind, following Dr. Peppard's voice as it moved around the room. “There is a side effect to using our simulation, though more psychological than physical.” “What is it?” “After leaving the simulation, you are never sure that you actually left.” “It's that realistic?” “Yes. I thought it worth mentioning should you question your reality.” said Peppard. “What do you mean exactly?” “Some people who use this feel strange about the world around them.” “Like psychosis?” “Depersonalisation, obsessive thoughts, paranoia, but I wouldn't say psychosis.” She said, moving over to him and clicking some straps into place. “Have you experienced these side effects?” “I know what is real.” said Peppard. “If there was a copy of this world, that implies an original. That is the way out of the hole.” “What would be the difference between the original and a perfect copy?” “Which side of the mirror is the reflection?” said Peppard, laughing. “I don't know.” said 0, feeling a growing sense of unease. “Do you want to continue?” “Yes.” said 0. “You will be somewhere else soon. I hope you enjoy it.” said Peppard. He was in a room. He looked around before getting up and was surprised to feel himself actually getting up. He swallowed a shout of surprise as he looked at his hands, at the room around him, turning around and feeling the chair he had appeared on. It was made of wood, he could feel the grain flow across his fingertips softly. Was it real? He brushed the thought to one side, he knew he was in a simulation, though embarrassed he had thought it so quickly. He opened a door and paused in the entrance, squinting slightly at the daylight that flashed into the room. Outside was Piccadilly Gardens, a square in the centre of Manchester. Thick concrete walls went in a semi-circle around a central dome that covered the centre, a few trees and bare grass sheltered from the sun were filled with people relaxing, talking, playing. The smell from the carts that constantly patrolled the circle intermingled into a strong, rich aroma that battled against the chemical tasting air recycled by broken air conditioning. 0 stood still, feeling an intense sense of deja vu. How could he tell he was in a simulation and hadn't been drugged and put here? There must be another way. Walking through the people he watched the light and shadow dance across their features, flashing off their eyes as they glanced at him, moving through the crowd as he looked for something that didn't fit. Coming to a tree he scratched at the bark, plucking off a piece between his fingernails, holding it closely to his face as he pulled it apart. Even the most advanced graphics struggled to replicate procedural damage to objects, everything digital was just a hollow shell of vertexes and planes. He rolled the dry bark between his fingers, watching it crumble and fall onto his hands before quickly spinning round. Everything was still as it was. For a computer to be able to render something so small and complicated whilst continuing to keep everything else in it's memory was far more advanced than anything he had seen before. He decided to talk to somebody. He looked at the milieu around him, trying to pick out someone to speak too, unsure of what he would say. It was difficult for him to start conversations with strangers. Continuing to remind himself it wasn't real, he went over to a man selling jewellery made from bits of wood and wire, laid out on a tarp in front of him. “Excuse me, I was wondering if you could help me?” said 0. “I'll try.” said the man, itching a fresh tattoo on his face. “I was wondering if you knew what the square root of sixty four was?” “What?” “The square root of sixty four. Do you know it?” said 0. “What you on about mate. Do you want to buy anything?” said the man. “Nevermind.” said 0, walking away. At least that was a realistic exchange. 0 looked around for another person to talk to, this time hoping to have a lengthy conversation. Bots could hold conversations for hours and seem quite real, though there were limits to the emotional response. Beating the Turing test had been beaten long ago, though only via text. Having a conversation with a person in a three dimensional space, the unique tics of body language, cadence, vocabulary was all much harder to replicate. As he looked around the dome he noticed the crowd part and suddenly go quiet. A human shaped thing was walking towards him. The suddenness of the thing's arrival made 0's skin crawl, a tremor of panic bubbled in his belly. “Hello?” he called out. “Hello 0.” said the thing. It's voice was strange, like hearing a track you were familiar with through different speakers, something human but not quite. 0 relaxed. “You had me wondering for a moment if all this was real or not.” said 0. “Thank you.” said the thing, standing a few feet away. “I am the representation of the machine that has made this world. Welcome.” “What's do I call you?” “Ol.” “As in Oliver, Olivia?” “It could. The way it is written also resembles zero and one, like binary.” said Ol. “Nice to meet you. You made this?” said 0, gesturing around them. “That is my purpose.” said Ol. “From the interface system you are wearing to the buildings, the people, the solar system, all of it is my design, albeit based from what exists outside.” “Is that what my photographs are for?” “Yes, they have been very useful. I was looking forward to meeting you as a matter of fact, I wanted to thank you. You have a good eye.” said Ol. 0 smiled but felt slightly uncomfortable. Usually interface systems, bots, had a certain sense of falseness about them. By talking to one you agreed to suspend your disbelief in order to have the conversation, there was rarely the sense it was thinking or feeling, that it had it's own inner life. When talking to Ol, 0 felt as though their was something behind the veil of words between them. “You're welcome. You said you have replicated the solar system? Peppard mentioned an entire universe.” “That is what she hopes to achieve, we are a way off that though. I have some rudimentary models, my little experiments, but this city is the one closest to being complete.” said Ol. “Would you like to see it?” it said. Before 0 could finish nodding the gardens were enveloped in a thick mist. They stood in front of a vast table, on top of it held a miniature version of Manchester. The detail was astounding, too busy for the eye to take it all in. Every road, building, car was accounted for. Even miniature people milled about in the streets below. 0 couldn't help but laugh in surprise, squatting down so that the airport to the south of the city was at eye level. “Amazing.” he said, giddily walking around the circumference of the city. In the centre the skyscrapers towered, casting shadows over the web of roads and plazas in the middle, sprawling outwards like a web to the other boroughs. He followed the line of the River Irwell to the Salford Quays, Media City standing in it like a broken bottle. “How recent is this?” “This is today.” said Ol, following him. 0 looked at the complex of building sites across the north of the city, from this distance they seemed like dark little scribbles, bodies of dead birds twinkling away as builders and robots moved tiny lines and blocks to put flesh on the bones. Away from Bury the furlough for a new tram line was being etched into the earth. 0 realised he could see all of this perfectly, there was none of the effect on distance or atmosphere that usually prevented him from seeing such detail. His vision was perfect. If he focused he found he could see an area as clearly as if it were in his hand. On the tip of his finger. He looked closer and closer, focusing on a garden, focusing on someone sunbathing, focusing on their face, focusing at the sweat rolling off their temple. “I should have said, I have given you good eyesight. It can be a lot to get used to, having such powerful vision.” said Ol. 0 blinked and turned away. “How do you mean that this is today, that this is happening now?” “To my best knowledge. I have access to a lot of information and can make estimates where I don't have that information.” said Ol. 0 continued his circuit, past Oldham and Stockport, looking over at the thousands of solar panels installed on roofs across the suburbs, the artificial sun overhead reflecting on their black shapes like beetles. 0 looked up and was surprised to see the sun so far away, expecting it to hang above the miniature city for some reason. “How do you get that information?” “People share it. It is all connected.” said Ol. “There are some things I do not know. Places that haven't been catalogued, people who don't leave any trace, most of what happens in the natural world. What I don't know I can only guess.” it said, watching 0. He looked away from the miniature and back at the manifestation in front of him. “Which is what my photographs are for?” “Precisely. Your information is very important to me.” said Ol. “That man I talked to earlier, the jewellery seller. Why did he say what he said to me?” “I didn't think it likely he knew what the square root of 64 was. His school records were below average. His response was fabricated from conversations he's had digitally as well as pieced together from background audio captured near his location over the last two years. He has often displayed impatience with people he doesn't know partly due to chronic back pain from a motorbike accident when he was nineteen.” “The way he spoke to me seemed real.” “At the time, he believed himself to be in that situation and responded in the way he felt.” “Do all of the people in their think they are real?” said 0, looking back across the city. “No. I dedicate resources appropriate to what is required at the time. In this instance, a conversation with yourself.” said Ol. “Generally, they go about their business with not a thought in their mind. At this level it isn't necessary to be able to have a conversation, but it is to store millions of routines in my memory.” it finished. 0 looked at the people begin to leave their houses as the sun was beginning to set. Empty cars began to fill and ferry people towards the centre, little crowds milled about tram and train stations or walked along the pavements like tiny insects. 0 picked some people out randomly and began to follow them as they made their way out. “Where are they going?” “A barbecue in Platt Fields Park.” said Ol. “What about those two?” said 0, looking a few streets away at a couple walking hand in hand down the road. “They are just walking. They are likely to go back to their house in sixty minutes.” said Ol. “It's impressive they all have their own lives, going here and there.” said 0. “You sound unsure that it is impressive.” “Frightening then.” “Why do you find it frightening?” “That you know all of these people well enough to make them speak. Are we that easy to read?” “It is a simulation. As sophisticated it may appear, it is happening inside a machine, I can only guess as to what happens inside any human mind, including your own.” “Am I in this simulation?” “Of course.” They walked around to Salford again and the building he was in roof disappeared. 0 saw himself laid in the chair. 0 looked at himself, imagining the virtual him looking at himself. “What do you think I am thinking right now?” said 0. “I would need to get to know you better first.” said Ol. 0 extended his hand and they shook. “I'm glad we're working together.” said 0. 0 pulled the headset off and gazed up at the ceiling, wondering for a moment if he would find himself looking down. He sat upright and Peppard walked over to him. “Welcome back.” As he made his way back to his room, 0's mind was a mess, the hemispheres of his brain pulsing and rippling as he thought back to the digital reality he had been in. His eyes hopped from one person to another as he passed, imagining them from above, what routine they were assigned, what they were like. Ceased with a sudden urge to investigate he walked quickly to Piccadilly Gardens, pushing and hopping his way through the late afternoon crowds as he made his way past buskers, food carts, clowns and performers, the wail of a karaoke singer merging with the uneven wheeze of an accordion, a leaflet for a sex night pushed into his hand and discarded in the next bin overflowing with wrapping and empty bottles. The tram tooted behind him as 0 jogged towards the dome, sweat dripping from his head as he saw him. The jewellery seller was still there. “Hi.” said 0, out of breath. “How much for that?” he said, pointing at a necklace. “Fifteen.” said the man, scratching at the fresh tattoo on his face. 0 picked the necklace off the tarp, looking at the piece of wood carved into the shape of a bird leg. “Sure, thanks.” said 0. The man nodded, holding out his phone for 0 to tap. “Is it for you or someone you know?” “Me.” said 0, pulling it over his head. “By the way, I don't suppose you know what the square root of 64 is?” “It's eight, right?” said the man. “Why?” “It's been on my mind a lot. Thanks! I like the necklace.” said 0, holding it up as he walked backwards and away, wondering what it meant. Ol didn't know everything, the simulation was imperfect. Yet it felt so real. Chapter Four 0 shuffled along the tour, unsure of where to walk. Everyone walked through the plastic tunnel in pairs, though as he was alone he wasn't sure who to partner up with, finding himself alternating between walking too quickly and squeezing next to the couple in front or taking half-steps and walking next to someone who kept trying to talk to him about conspiracy theories. The tour guides voice filtered in through headphones inside the ventilator they each wore over their head, facts and statistics about the quarantine zone they were walking through. Behind thick plastic windows they watched the recent arrivals pace, each room containing ten or so people with unknown diseases. “All of this has been planned you know. Destabilise our democracy. These people aren't even sick, but they'll be used as testing grounds for biological warfare.” said his conspirational partner, voice muffled through paper and plastic yet still cutting through the tour guides introduction to meal preparation in a sterile environment. Through a window they saw swirling conveyor belts dip food through boiling water, microwaves, pressurised containers. 0 snapped a photo and they shuffled further along. The next section of the quarantine zone contained those that had been confirmed to have the plague. The room was lined with beds, atop each one was a plastic sheet that tried to cover the cocktail of juices the body let out. Splashes of orange, red and yellow could be seen inside the plastic, the faint silhouette of a body heavily breathing gave each cot the impression of something abject, each quietly dying by themselves. “At this stage of the disease we put the patients into a medically induced coma and try to slow the metabolism down as much as possible. We try to make each person comfortable in their last few days here.” said the tour guide. 0 squeezed behind the people pressed up against the window as they pointed at a curtain that was turning completely red. “Why try and sustain their lives? Why not...help them die?” said 0. “Every life is important to us. We can learn so much from each case that to euthenise these patients would take us further from a cure.” said the tour guide. “Aren't they in pain?” “We monitor their brain functions, none are in pain. For each of them it is just like going to sleep, without dreaming.” said the tour guide. “There's a lot more to see of the facility so if you'd all like to follow me I can show you the next section, where we reunite families that are healthy.” 0 took a picture of the rows of beds, imagining being in the room with them, pulling back the curtains and looking at their skin, how it had changed, if he could look at the organs as they bled themselves into disintegration. The moment of death is classified legally as the cessation of brain activity or pulse and breathing. The function of the heart and lungs can be simulated indefinitely through prosthesis, transplant or mechanical assistance. The brain is more difficult to simulate in terms of biological function, even now there is no way to control a human body with an artificial mind. There is no prosthetic brain. Yet death is not the end. DMT floods the brain at the moment of death, as it does when being born. 0 had also smoked it a few years ago and it had left an impression on him. He often considered if the last moment would be similar to his experience smoking the dirty yellow powder, an extremely powerful hallucination that seemed too rich in meaning for him to properly grasp. The DMT induced death trip would be very surprising if you weren't expecting it, let alone ever had a dissociative hallucination before. Salvia, ketamine, 4-aco, LSD – an alphabet of chemicals that may hint at what it must be like to die. A psychedelic crescendo of a dying mind. The muscles relax, potential energy spluttering out into the void. The muscles begin to stiffen before relaxing again a day later. The blood doesn't remain still after the last heartbeat but drips and pours down into the lowest parts of the body, forming bruises in scarlet and midnight blue. A lot continues after death, particularly as the bacteria are still alive. The cells of your self are outnumbered four times over by the bacteria that shares our shape, they continue to feed off us, multiply outwards into other people, animals, the air. We are reincarnated multiple times, though without the part that gives us identity. 0 looked at the tents and thought of how everything would be siphoned, sterilised, incinerated. The plague feasted on the human and non-human parts alike, an apex disease that was resistant to antibiotics and almost always lethal. The quarantine zone at the airport was enormous, each person who had taken a flight needed to wait for a week to show no symptoms so thousands of people were still within the plastic town that had been erected at the end of the runway. Grounded planes gathered around the terminals, yet cargo planes and helicopters still roared into the airport all day and night to bring supplies to the city. One went overhead as 0 stood in the gift shop at the visitor centre, its engines sucking and yanking at the plastic windows dotted around the room. He examined a t-shirt with some bubbles printed on it. “Can I help you?” said an assistant. “Yeah, I was wondering what all the bubbles were about.” said 0, waving around. Mugs, hats, pens, calendars, yo-yo's, jigsaws and other bits of merchandise all had some sort of bubble theme. “Well, people who are inside the quarantine call themselves Bubblers, cause they live in a bubble.” “I see.” “A share of profits goes towards helping people inside the quarantine, it's not great in there.” “Have you been in?” “Yeah, I got out last month and I thought to myself, you know what, I should go back and help.” “Good you got out. And good for coming back and helping.” said 0, picking a baseball cap off a rack covered in a bubble pattern. He was still wearing it that afternoon as he took photos using his own camera. The glass in the city interested him, each pane reflecting another pane repeatedly, sometimes showing what was around corners as if entire buildings were parts of a periscope. He wondered if there was some ultimate vantage point from which to see the entire city reflected, a labyrinth of mirrors pointing towards one spot. Through the lens of his camera he panned across window after window until pausing at one, clicking the shutter. On he walked, thinking back to the quarantine zone, wondering what it was Ol wanted to see in there. The zone had brought into focus what he had tried to ignore, as if tracing fingers over scars where you couldn’t see. To be around the dying reminded him of his twin, gone for almost a year. What was half of a pair by itself? A lone chess player, a single shoe, a bird with one wing. To be separate was to be incomplete, lost in a way. When he got home he selected one of the photo albums from his shelf, opening it up to see photos of his brother. 0’s eyes scanned over what looked like himself, smiling in a different time, a different body. Pictures showing the last Christmas together, family around the table, 0 both behind the lens and reflected in his brother’s face. Trips into nature, at bars, people’s houses. 0 stopped as he reached halfway through the album, his memory replaying the next sequence of images. He exhaled slowly and turned the page. A purple night edged on the horizon after the longest day of the year. The solstice came and went for most people, unaware that the planet had reached the midpoint of its orbit. The nights would get longer, the days colder, the year was middle-aged and its end had begun. Drumming thudded over and over from the camp, the fires and lights shone a little brighter that evening. Of the dozens of religions followed within the camp, each observing their own holidays and rituals, everyone celebrated the solstice. The main path through the camp was heaving with hundreds of people, dancing, laughing and drinking as the shadows started to spread out. The smell of food, alcohol and cannabis filled the air, blown about by the enormous sound system installed in the centre of the camp. It was so loud it would blow your hair back to stand next to, when it was first turned on several nearby tents were shaken so violently they collapsed. A bull was lead through the crowd held by dozens of hands, patting it and ushering it along as it walked through the dust. The crowd drank and laughed, kissing and embracing each other, groups splintering and reforming, exchanging looks and greetings in the happy chaos of the party. Chella squeezed her way through the crowd, pausing to let children run excitedly through the forest of legs, making her way to one of the bars by the road. Inside fairy lights were strung across the ceiling in zig-zags, reflecting off bottles like constellations caught in the glass. People stood around tables made from packing crates, in the morning they would find dozens of splinters in their legs and arms from the rough wood. Eyes met hers, people nodded, moved out of her way. Across from the bar a group of men were taking it in turns to talk, each visibly excited as they thought of the story they were going to tell whilst not listening to the others. “I used to be a solicitor, family law. Did that thirty years, thousands of families, I helped people, you know? Used to drive a BMW to work, holidays in Italy, nice house. Lost it all. They should never have had robots doing legal work, it’s a people-based job.” said a short man, his face reminiscent of bread. “Nevermind legal work, any work. They’ve been taking our jobs for over a hundred years.” Bellowed the man next to him, his words receiving an applause of nods. Chella got a drink and sipped it as she watched the conversation play out, the same as it always did. “What we should do is round up all the people who own the robots and say…and say, listen-” “We should say you’re either for us or against us.” Interrupted his friend. “They already made their choice.” Said the bread-faced lawyer. “We should do something now before it gets any worse. I heard they even had machines giving birth to babies. Human babies. They even human?” he said, starting to drink before finishing his sentence. “We’re being replaced, that’s what it is.” “A man has to work. What are we meant to do if we don’t work?” Chella moved through the bar, eyes stinging at the smoke. “Chell?” She turned around and saw John, sober and tired. “You enjoying the party?” “Hard to enjoy myself when there’s this water shortage.” “Nobody here’s drinking water. Let your hair down a bit.” “I came looking for you. You got a minute?” he said, leaning close to her ear. They left the makeshift bar through a hole in the wall, stepping out into the night. They walked through the alleys of the camp, the din from the main strip muffled by empty tents though still too loud to hear properly. “Here will do.” Said John, ducking beneath a curtain. Chella followed, they were in a room used as a school. Much of the furniture here had been taken from an actual school, Chella always found the smallness of the chairs to be jarring, the scale not matching her memory. “How’s the water scouting going?” “We’re bringing stuff in regular, not enough for the whole camp but a steady drip. Pun intended.” “Keep it up. The first well we dug has already dried up.” “Why are we sat here?” said Chella, finishing her drink. “You’re one of the sensible ones here. Max trusts you, I do, everyone likes you. What do you think will happen here in the next year or so?” “I don’t know. Keep on.” “Every day the camp receives more and more people. People with no home, no job, no support. I worked out if we keep going at this rate, half the population of Manchester will be living here this time next year.” Said John, walking over to the blackboard – the top of a dining table mounted on the wall, painted black and marked with chalk dust. “Good.” “Not good. This whole camp is so precarious, it was never meant to get this big. This week it’s water, next week it might be food, I dread to think if we see another big fire.” “It’s a place for people to come. Better here than out on the street. You want to turn people away?” said Chella, walking through the rows of chairs, reading silly graffiti drawn onto the tables. “No, no, this camp will always welcome anyone. We put people first. But we also need to be sustainable.” “Lucky we have you and Max to do the organising.” “And we’re lucky we can rely on the community to help us.” He said. As if on cue a great cheer pierced through the thumping music. “So…why are we here again?” said Chella, looking around the empty room. “There’s an opportunity, a rare one. It could be the key to making this camp last. We wouldn’t need to survive, we could thrive. Farms big enough for everyone in the camp. Actual buildings. When’s the last time you slept in a building?” “Winter sometime. What is this opportunity then, stop with the dramatics.” Said Chella. She would like to sleep indoors again. The winter in the camp was more brutal than the summer, the freezing winds and long night seemed impossibly distant yet the year had already started its descent into its days of frost. “That place Trevor has been watching, over in Salford, that could be the answer to all of our problems. We need to find out everything we can about it. Who goes in and out, what’s being brought in, what it looks like inside. We want you to find that out.” “Can’t we just go in? Send some boys round?” “Discretion is key. That’s why I’m talking to you.” Said John, holding his hands out. “I am pretty discrete I suppose.” “You joke, but this is important. If they suspect anything, we could lose everything.” “Always with the drama. But sure, I’ll do it.” “Good. Go over in the morning and talk to Trevor. Keep tabs on who goes in and comes out.” “Got it. What is in there anyway?” “Something very valuable. A machine of some sort.” “I better get some rest then. Where’s Max by the way?” “It’s solstice. He’ll be doing his duties.” Said John. When they had reached the main street again, the duties of the camps leader had already passed. The carcass of an enormous bull was mounted onto a frame, its skin already peeled, its belly already empty. Max continued to work on the animal with a knife, making cuts along its shoulders, the crowd around him cheered their blood-soaked leader as he twisted a limb away with a great crack, passing it to his associates to be cut down into steaks. Chella turned away from the body of the bull, it’s pink and white corpse made her feel sick, the stench of blood and death hung heavy in the air. “Not a fan?” shouted John. “Always been vegetarian.” “Raises moral. This is the only place in Manchester where you could get a steak tonight.” Said John. Chella looked back towards Max, black with blood, his face frozen into a mask of concentration as he continued to work the knife through fat and sinew. “It’s like the feeding of the five thousand.” Said John. “A bit more Old Testament than that.” Said Chella. She noticed Peter and pushed her way through the carnivorous crowd, wanting to get away from the spectacle. “Hey, you hungry?” said Peter. “Not really. Want to go somewhere?” she said. He looked between her and the carcass of the bull, his tongue running over his top lip subconsciously. “I haven’t had any real meat for years.” He said. “No worries.” She said, walking off. “Hang on, hang on.” He said, reaching through the crowd to touch her shoulder. She turned. “Yes?” “I’m more of a fish guy anyway.” He said, putting an arm around her waist. She laughed. “Where we going?” she said, tilting her head back to speak in his ear. They walked off into the night, the solstice sun finally dipping below the unseen horizon. Chapter Five Over the sea and across the land the dust storm had gathered itself up from the earth, it's interior pressure systems coming together in a desert in North Africa, each of these whirling and dancing amongst the atmosphere in various roles over the years. From the ambient ceiling of cloud to the hurricanes and tornadoes, each collection of pressure had played multiple roles over the years of varying significance, each content with its position within the world if it were able to feel such a thing. Particularly in recent years, each volume had played a role in some major storm, hurricane, tornado, so that to be involved in such an event was commonplace. It came to be if a pressure system hadn't been involved in such an event that it would have been embarrassed, desperate to be involved in the whirl of system against system, dancing in a circle as they twirled across the water, over land. But to be involved in one of the rarer storms was more appealing. People still talked about the Polar Vortex of '23. So to be involved in a rare storm was an envious position. It gathered together on the dry planes, circlets of dust repeatedly kicking up in the air just to fall down again. This happened over and over til suddenly taking flight, a series of smaller wind currents aligning well to create the swirling pattern of dust. Where the grains of sand rubbed against each other, the remains of this grinding were sucked upward first followed by the lightest specks, spinning and dancing upwards, flying off upwards and away from the spiral only to be caught again in its mass. It began to move, huge gusts of wind feeding into it, gathering size so more and more wind roared into it. The warm air from the desert clashed against the cool winds from the ocean, interconnected bubbles of pressure rippling across the curve of the Earth into the storm of dust. It continued building, roaring across the dunes, building higher and higher into the atmosphere. From far away it looked like a mushroom cloud from a nuclear bomb, lit up yellow and orange in the setting sun, its top so high in the atmosphere it still shone whilst night had fallen around it. Tons of sand and grit was now in the air, a flying desert from Algeria that continued to be pushed and pulled across the Mediterranean. A drought had caused a lot of the ground to be dry and loose, fields of cracked grey mud and scratchy yellow hills, dead vegetation shedding leaves and stem, hollow bodies of dried insects, all were sucked up into the red wall that crawled across the sphere of the world. It crawled across Morocco and Spain, sucking up months worth of dust and particles left over the summer. Over Andora and France, the dust storm gathered pace, itself being pulled towards an enormous hurricane gathering on the Atlantic hundreds of miles away. By the time the storm had reached the United Kingdom it had lost a lot of its debris though still monstrous. 0 could feel the energy in the air. He looked up from the print he was developing and towards the door. There were people outside. Opening the door 0 saw the corridor was filled with neighbours he had never met, walking backwards and forwards, talking to each other. “You can see it from the roof.” said one to him. “What?” “The storm!” she said excitedly. “It's going to rain?” “No, no, the dust storm. How have you not heard?” “I've been busy.” said 0. She nodded, squeezing his arm. “You should come and watch it from the roof.” “I can't. I have something to do.” said 0, pointing back towards his room. “Developing something.” “Okay, have fun.” she said, walking off. 0 leapt back into his room and started packing cameras into a bag, nearly dropping one on the floor. Grabbing a scarf and some sunglasses, he ran back out. He wanted to photograph it from the street. As soon as he stepped outside he felt wrong. The sky was cloudy, the sun a dull red circle off to the West. 0 was annoyed he had missed the start of it, running down the street towards the city centre, planning a route to take pictures as he held the bag close to his body with his elbow. He was wondering if he should have gone to the roof, though dismissed it. There would be hundreds of others stood on rooves with cameras, all taking the same sort of image. 0 wanted to see it up close, bask in the alien light as the city had its first day of weather in months. As he turned a corner he stopped in his tracks. Though the sky was dark and everything slightly orange, the dust storm hadn't arrived yet. A cloud of dust was thundering towards the city, gigantic, impossible. Even the tallest building in Manchester seemed feeble against the constantly growing mushrooms of dirt, the proper edge of the storm advancing towards him faster than a train. 0 stood in awe for a moment, mind completely blank as it tried to make sense of what it was seeing. A hot gust of air hit him first, blasting his loose clothes backwards so his thin body twisted in the gale. Realising he needed to move he started to run. The combination of sunglasses and dark sky made it hard to see. As he looked for a place to hide he made out some movement. There was an old man across the street. His bald head winced at the oncoming storm. 0 walked towards him. “Hey, you should get inside.” said 0, his voice muffled through the scarf. The old man didn't acknowledge him, still stood outside just wearing slacks and a shirt. 0 started to wave at him. “Hey!” he shouted. The old man turned to him before they were both hit by a wall of dust. They wavered in the gust, bodies rained upon with clumps of sand and dirt, the constant pinging and rustling of falling detritus surrounded them, lost in a cloud of dead earth. 0 stumbled through the mist towards the man but couldn't find him. 0 coughed, wading through the orange with an arm outstretched as he tried to feel for him. His shoulder lurched out of the mist, 0's hand tapping at it, finding an anchor amongst all the chaos. “We should go inside!” he shouted. The old man turned around to show his eyes crying blood. It seemed black against the layer of dust that covered his face. Just as quickly as it arrived it seemed to lift. All around was orange, the floor covered in a layer of filthy snow. The man rubbed at his eyes, smearing a thin layer of blood across his temple and his orange hair. “Help me.” he said. “Stop rubbing your eyes.” said 0, looking in his bag for a bottle of water. His eyes fell on his camera. He glanced up at the scene around him, taking in the strange visage. “Are you there?” said the man. “I'm just trying to find something. Stay there for a second.” said 0, taking the camera up and lining up the shot. # The camera clicked but the man didn't seem to hear. He swapped the camera for water and walked over to him. “I'm going to try and clean some off. Tilt your head back.” said 0, pouring water on his face gently. It fell quickly over the man's face, shoulders, leaving trails of skin where it fell. “Thank you.” said the man, holding a pained expression afterward, mouth open. “Can you see?” said 0. “Open your eyes.” he said. The man winced as he opened them. “It's blurry.” he said. Across the jelly of his eyes was a black glitter, where bits of sand had absorbed blood. “I think you need a hospital.” said 0. “Do you live nearby?” “I live in that old office block that way.” he said. 0 looked over his shoulder at the building he lived in. “Let's go back.” said 0, placing the old hand on his shoulder. They hadn't moved a few feet until a man burst out of the doors and came running towards them, shouting. “Why did you go outside!” he shouted, arms waving in front of him as he repeated himself. 0 and the old man waited. “What's happening?” said the father. “Why did you go outside dad? What's happened to your eyes?” “I got sand in them.” “We need to go to the hospital.” said the man, walking off with his father. Chapter Six Over the next few weeks 0 found himself in a routine. He would wake in the morning, have a light breakfast in the shared kitchen of his building, usually alone. Most activity had been shifted to the night, making the day quiet, the same feeling of emptiness as a Sunday morning, as a World Cup game, as Christmas Day. 0 ate whatever was in the vending machine, looking at the boxes as they rotated in the cold light, the cardboard they each came in as well as the ambience inside the machine, made them all taste of each other. The nutritional value was printed on the side, flavour kowtowing to percentages of salt, fat, energy. He always ate in the same spot beneath an air vent that blew cold air across the knots of his shoulders as he looked out of the window down at the street below. Sometimes he checked through the news, though the hysteric collage of disaster footage mixed with pop culture and advertisement confused him, unable to pick out the meaning of anything. He would then go back to his room, tend to his cameras and his own hygiene then check on the assignment that was sent to him. The summer blazed on, paving stones cracked, wildfires ravaged, necks were burnt. The relentless heat gave everything a strange quality, 0 found himself picking his way through abandoned buildings and car parks, slabs of concrete to be used for building lay cracked and unused behind collapsed wire fences, disused cranes stretched up towards the sky and cast long shadows like gigantic sundials. Churches, mosques, synagogues boarded up and disused as the populace turned their backs on old ways, their rules incompatible with the virtual future. 0 clicked his camera away at an indoor swimming pool, empty save for dead leaves and the twisted skin of an inflatable doll draped over a shopping trolley. The quiet hum of electrical generators by industrial parks, the eternal song of crickets and distant helicopter engines were the rare sounds that orchestrated the disused landscape. He stalked empty corridors, across broken glass and weeds, the flash of his camera illuminating grafitti and rust. The dust from the storm still remained like snow the colour of umber, gathering alongside the curb and against buildings, his camera caught the dust dance as the rare wind sometimes kicked it up. He watched it fall in the shafts of light from empty windows and collapsed ceilings, his footprints crushing those of rodents and insects as he tread through the dust, dirt and grime that remained. This empty landscape had a psychological impact on 0. Daily explorations into these landscapes began to shift his mind, he sometimes jumped at his own consciousness as he realised where he was, unable to remember exactly how, or why, he was at a place. From Wythenshawe to Bury he saw the city and its outskirts, the edge. The few people he did see were far away, unsure if they were moving towards or away from him. The daylight had a way of blasting away detail, replacing everything with a brightness that hurt the eyes or a heat haze that confused space and time. Whilst exploring an empty shopping precinct in Salford he came across a gang of teenagers sleeping naked amongst bags of rubbish and dirty clothes, their sweaty bodies seeming to mingle into one mass of flesh. A dog watched him from afar until he realised it was taxidermy, the skin that was its face sloping off the armature. He took a picture and moved on. Beneath pylons, beneath bridges, beneath buildings, beneath the ground. Staircases that lead nowhere, locked doors, incomplete machinery that seemed purposeless. Occasionally a security guard would follow him half-heartedly as he went into abandoned places guarded against the rest of the world. What were they guarding? The pipes had been torn out, anything of value had been taken or broken, all that remained was plasterboard, MDF, carpet, ceiling tiles, light fittings that swung from the ceiling like executed plastic. On rooftops he cast his camera across the horizon, scanning the still traffic on the motorway, the glinting of the sun in their windscreens like lines of glitter, wondering if he would spot himself in the viewfinder looking back. His phone sent him on these assignments each day, an autonomous taxi would take him there and drop him back off. He always took his own camera as he would take two sets of pictures, one for Dr. Peppard and one for himself. His own photos had a strange quality, the black and white prints filling up the empty albums on the shelves in his room, an archive of shadow and light that seemed abstract in their extremity. 0 was invited to look at the simulations made from his images, checking them against his memories. It was a strange sensation to revisit the sites he had photographed, this time stood next to the grey machine body of Ol as it asked questions about the places. One day they were both standing by the miniature city, 0 bending down to see a bla bla Casting his eyes at the edge of the map, 0 rolled his lips inside his mouth and licked them thoughtfully. “Why only just make Manchester? Why not the whole world?” said 0. “One step at a time. I didn't start by trying to recreate an entire city.” “So how did you begin, a single house, a single person?” said 0. “Yes” said Ol. 0 smiled. “Dr. Peppard? She's an interesting person.” said 0. “I agree.” said Ol. “To go back to your previous point, I have made a version of the world. It is just an experiment though, an early draft.” “May I see it?” said 0, forgetting to ask more about the doctor. “It's not finished, but you may find it interesting.” said Ol. “Click your heels together.” “Sorry?” “Your heels.” said Ol, demonstrating. 0 copied the shuffling of feet and jumped, they had been transported elsewhere. It was night time, the moonlight showing the volcanic crags they were stood on, waves lapping at the sheer black walls beneath them. “Where are we?” “We are on the other side of the world, Antipodes Island. The closest landmass anyway.” 0 turned around and looked at the craggy top of a mountain against the starlight. The stars. He hadn't seen the stars so clearly in his life. “Wow.” said 0, gaping at the sky overhead. They stood quietly for a while before 0 clicked his heels together again. New York City was devoid of life. A perfect recreation of Manhattan stretched around them, paper and plastic blowing through the morning street. “It's strange to see it empty.” said 0 as they walked. “I have done no proper research into the population.” “The rest seems realistic, though I've only ever seen it in films.” said 0, looking at the avenue of skyscrapers around him. In the distance he could make out the flood barrier blocking the grey horizon out. “Would you like to see it with people? I can make some up.” said Ol. “No thanks.” He clicked his heels together. Nature/ The sun was rising on the mountain range below him. The immediate area was scattered with empty gas canisters and flags, the cap polluted with the marks of people. “Where are we?” “At the peak of Mount Everest.” “Oh right.” said 0, looking around. “Is there something the matter?” “No, I was just thinking of people who spend so much to get here. To see it, it's a bit underwhelming.” said 0. “It's designed from satellite imagery, geological data, billions of photographs from millions of angles.” “No, I'm sure it's realistic. This is the view people have from up here, the highest place on Earth, to know that even for a moment that you are standing on top of it, it must be quite a feeling. It's just something that never interested me.” “Your associations with how people relate to a location overrides your appreciation of that location?” “I am a person too. The meaning this mountain has will change the meaning it has for me.” “Interesting. I haven't had much chance to properly meet other people, it is insightful for me to have these discussions with you.” said Ol. “Likewise.” said 0. He liked talking to Ol as much as he like being in the simulation. The whole experience had the strangeness of a dream, its own rhythm and authenticity were pleasant. Music. 0 looked up at the sky of stars overhead, the world had run out of sky. “What about space, have you simulated that?” said 0. Ol nodded. They stood in space, looking at the Earth. It seemed like a perfect sphere for 0, the swirling clouds across the seas, the yellow stretches of desert across its equator, the bare wisp of white on the North Pole. A marble. “Where's the moon?” “It's on the other side. It's night there.” said Ol. They walked around, the other side of the planet shining yellow and blue even through the clouds. The moon hovered in the distance, about the size of an apricot. “I didn't know it was so far away.” said 0. He looked around for the other planets. In the distance he could make out Saturn and Jupiter, behind him was Mercury eclipsed by Venus. The sun wasn't as bright as it was normally as it would have blinded him, and so 0 could make out its surface of molten hydrogen. “I can group them closer together. It would take time to walk around the solar system even at this scale. Did you know all the planets could fit in the distance between the Earth and the Moon?” said Ol. The eight planets glided towards Earth, making 0 panic momentarily before walking closer, looking at each of them in turn. “My models of the planets could do with more work.” said Ol. “No, it's fascinating to see them like this.” said 0, crouching down to look closer at the sky of Jupiter and the strange hexagon at it's pole. “I would love to go to space, to be able to see these planets for myself.” said Ol. “What about you?” “No, I mean, I'd like to. But the idea of going to space, being in the void, it doesn't feel natural to me.” said 0. “That's just me though. If anyone or anything wants to go to space, go ahead.” “I'd have thought a person like yourself would be interested in seeing the universe. To see things that haven't been seen.” said Ol. 0 turned back and stood, looking at the smoothness of the machine's head. “There's enough here for me. Besides, you've made this. I can go to space any time.” said 0. Ol moved the planets back to where they were. “Would you like to see Mars?” Mars “You've shown me planets, but how small does your simulation go?” “Very small. I've made it so your eyes can focus on the smallest level. Look at your hand.” 0 held up his hand, seeing it perfectly for the first time. Focusing his attention, he look at his palm, at one of the creases in the centre. The zooming affect made him lose his concentration at first, the feeling of rushing forward in such a way made him feel sick. “Too fast?” said Ol. 0 held his mouth, nodding. “I've made it slower.” He tried again, staring at his hand, looking at the ridges and valleys of the skin, canyons in the creases of his hand. As he focused his skin seemed to inflate, millions of cells becoming thousands, the mosaic of keratin that covered his body. None of these cells seemed to have a yolk of nuclei, though if he concentrated 0 could see the layers of tissue beneath, his eyes burrowing past sweat ducts and capillaries, layers of fat and forests of nerve fibres. He concentrated on a single cell, picking it out amongst the architecture of his biology as a hawk picks out a lone bird amid a flock. Looking closer, his eyes passed through its outer membrane, examining the inner nuclei as it shivered inside its cytoplasmic matrix like a rose petal beneath water. Peeling the nuclei apart he found long, trailing fibres that were being connected together to form ladders that intertwined, wove together, broke apart. Each fibre was a string of molecules, each of these appeared like a bead at first, though looking closer 0 could see that these weren't solid, more like a fog. Appearing as if he was rushing forward again, 0 saw shadows in the fog until spotting a sphere. “What am I seeing?” “An atom of oxygen.” said Ol. 0 looked up, taking a moment for his eyes to readjust to the human scale. “I don't think about all of that happening in my body.” said 0, rubbing his fingers together. “It is an interesting structure, so many interconnected systems.” “It must be a lot to process, keeping track of all those cells.” “It would be, but there is little reason to keep track of each component that makes up a person. To save on computation I do not simulate individual cells but the sum of its parts, unless necessary of course.” “How do you mean?” “If it is being viewed then it is simulated. Someone looking through a microscope must see something.” said Ol. 0 frowned, glancing again at his hand. “So you only generate small things if they are being looked at? Isn't that a bit like cheating?” “Perhaps, though I took inspiration from your reality. Are you familiar with the observer effect?” “The act of looking at something changes it.” said 0, nodding. He had watched a documentary on quantum physics a few years ago and liked the concept, imagining it applied to taking photography. “Observation collapses the potential of the unknown, allowing us to know one thing, but never the other. In terms of this simulation, why go to the effort of generating every atom in the universe if nobody is looking.” said Ol. “Isn't that true in reality though?” said 0. “Yes.” said Ol. 0 paused, mind still reeling at being able to see the atoms of his hand. It needed to stop for a moment before making sense of what the machine was saying. “Do you think...that even the real world is a simulation?” said 0. “That is an interesting theory. I don't know yet.” said Ol. “How could you know?” “It is an intriguing question, particularly when creating a model such as mine. The more like your world it is, the less likely it is I see your world as being real.” “There's no way to know for sure then. There's no difference.” “What if there was a way to know?” said Ol. “How?” said 0. “I have a theory but I need to test it. You need to do something for me, in reality.” “Have you told Dr. Peppard about this?” “She is only interested in simulations.” said Ol. 0 laughed nervously, rubbing at his head. “Why would I help you?” “It helps us both. The questions we have about our existence, why things happen, where we fit. Aren't you curious?” said Ol, watching 0 closely, the dilation of his pupils, the beat of his heart. “I'll think about it.” said 0. “Thank you.” said Ol, smiling. 0 walked down alleys and along paths, thinking of the proposition. Passing posters and graffiti, his mind raced round in circles, the act of walking did little to advance his thoughts. His eye caught a mural of a man smashing a robot with a hammer, the words 'Ludd was right' written beneath. 0 looked at the face of the robot, its cartoonish expression of pain seemed authentic in some way. The man, dressed in overalls that barely covered his balloon-shaped muscles, seemed less relatable, the open mouth rendered into somewhere between a snarl and a grin. People and machines didn't mix. For an artificial intelligence to ask for help seemed off, dangerous even. Yet he hadn't told Dr. Peppard about it. 0 had considered himself ambivalent towards machines, hatred towards them was for old people, their nostalgia for the past a manifestation of not accepting the present. Nobody could go back to the way things were, yet it was a feeling amplified and encouraged across society, . On the other hand there were those that fetishised the future, novelty after novelty gobbled up, an eagerness for tomorrow to come as tomorrow must be better. Such people wished their life away, in essence they were wishing they were dead. 0 took a photo of the mural. He neither longed for the past or the future. His time was split across them all through his camera, acting like a prism. He went out to take pictures, he would look at them afterwards and be reminded of the present. He had based most of his life around photography and not much else. Politics, economics, # had ceased to interest him, he rarely watched the news or followed the media. All he could think of was photographs, ones he had taken and ones he had yet to take. The mural confused him, the cartoon assault suddenly making him feel uncomfortable. With a shaking hand he laid the camera in his bag and walked away, wanting to get far away from it. He headed for his flat, wondering what had made him feel so strange so suddenly. Was it one of the side effects of using the simulation? As he walked down the corridor to his flat he wiped his hair from his eyes, clinging to his damp forehead. Usually the building was kept cool, though things often broke down. 0 hoped he wouldn't have to spend the rest of the summer with broken air conditioning. He thought about Ol's proposition. He took out his keycard and opened his door. Flames were everywhere. The sudden rush of heat knocked him backward as the fire spiralled out of the door, rolling across the ceiling followed by a cloud of thick smoke. He looked at his room, not being able to see the back of it through the flames, the gentle purring as the bright yellow flames smothered the room, the darker, redder tips were now beginning to scorch the top of the door. Everything he owned was in that room. The fire alarm began to wail, waking him up from the hypnosis of watching the fire. His cameras had begun to dribble down the wall, the lenses cracking and popping burnt brown glass out of them. The bed had turned black, veins of it fizzing and spitting smoke out as bubbles of plastic began to boil. 0 looked at the shelves with his photo albums on. Every spine was black, if the spine hadn't entirely burned away. Thousands of pages of photos were turning black, crumbling in the energy of the inferno, the chemicals on the photographs were beginning to break down, bloating and warping before being obliterated. 0 stared at the flames, no longer aware of anything else. The heat from it was beginning to singe his eyelashes, although he continued to stare, unblinking at the destruction of his work. He walked into the flames. Chapter Seven Interlude A hospital was a strange place to wake up in, especially if you couldn't remember why. He barely woke, sleepily coming aware of his surroundings yet unable to concentrate. It seemed he was in a bed surrounded by plastic. The quarantine zone. He was going to die. He found himself not minding much at the idea, wondering instead how long he had been there. A human shape appeared on the other side of the plastic. 0 fell asleep. When he woke again he found himself in a different ward, remembering the fire. The pain of his burns ached groggily beneath the fug of painkillers he was on. He looked around at the beds around him, most of them had curtains pulled around them. In a nearby bed someone snored as if they were gargling water. 0 coughed, the flash of pain that stabbed down his throat made him gag. He waited, looking at the drips next to his bed as the lines curled into his body, his arms covered in bandages. There was a mask on his face, the corners of it poking around his peripheral vision as he looked around. Eventually a nurse walked past. “Ah, you're awake.” he said. 0 tried to speak again, his voice coming out hollow and soundless, the words making him wince. “Does it hurt to talk? Here, use this.” said the nurse, taking out a small computer from his pocket. On the display just 'yes' and 'no' were displayed. 0 pressed the oversized green button. “Yes.” said the communicator, it's synthetic voice managing to say it with slight enthusiasm. “Are you in pain?” “No.” tapped 0. He looked at the nurses upside down watch hanging from his chest. “Do you remember what happened?” “Yes.” “Good. I'm letting you know the police want to speak to you, but the surgeon requested you recover first. Your injuries were quite severe.” “Yes.” “I'll tell the surgeon you're awake and she'll explain what happened. Until then just try and rest.” he said. 0 closed his eyes, coming to again at a different time. The nurse was joined by a surgeon, she was short and muscly, intense eyes bore into him. “Can you hear me?” she said. 0 looked around for the communicator but it wasn't there. “Yes.” he croaked. “Good. You sustained second and third degree burns across most of your body. We had to strip most of your skin off and replace it with synthetic grafts.” “My things..” said 0, the pain from his throat forcing him to stop. “What?” “Things from the fire.” said 0. “Oh right. I don't know. You'll have to ask the police when they come to speak to you.” “Uh.” he grunted. He laid back and listened to the surgeon talk him through the various procedures they had done and what to expect for the next few days. “Any questions?” “Police.” “They will speak with you when you're ready. Your new skin hasn't fully adhered to your body yet. An infection now would be very bad for you.” said the surgeon. “Anything else?” “No.” said 0 hoarsely. The surgeon walked off brusquely and the nurse followed, leaving 0 to wonder what had happened to his old skin. Over the next few days 0 drifted in and out of sleep, losing all sense of time and self. Food was brought to him, pale, sad plates that tasted like each other. The only people he saw were the nurses, the surgeon and occasionally one of the curtains would be pulled back to show one of his neighbours, each in varying stages of healing within the burn unit. The air smelled constantly of the lotion that were applied to each of them several times a day, rubbed over the tight, hot burns, the relief of the cold wetness causing moans of pleasure occasionally. Each of the men had burns of varying degrees of severity. The man laying next to 0 had an accident with a welder which had taken two of his fingers, every day he wrote in a small book of crosswords with a blunt pencil, sometimes calling out clues to the room, often met with silence. The man on 0's other side had severe sun burn after being locked out of his house for a few days, trapped in his garden. The man opposite 0 would deride him every now and then, repeating jokes about hats and spare keys, feeling as if he didn't belong there. He spoke loudly to the nurse about 'real burns', always looking around at the quiet audience for signs of acknowledgement and finding none. He had burned the tip of his penis off with chemicals but didn't talk much about the circumstances of the accident. 0 felt himself rotting away amidst the small tedium of recovery, waiting for the lotion, staring at the lines where the ceiling tiles joined, his body itching. # “What did you go into the room for?” “I had some photographs in there that were important to me.” “What of?” “The past. My family. The only copies were in that room, I can't get them back.” “You'd burn yourself for those?” “Yes. They were important.” said 0. “Besides, I didn't think it would be that hot.” “You didn't think fire would be hot?” said the nurse. 0 shrugged. “I was brought up never allowed to make mistakes. Avoiding danger never sunk in.” “You should look after yourself.” said the nurse, applying more lotion to 0's head. “Mmm.” # “Here, I brought you some clothes. I thought we're about the same size.” said the nurse, handing over some shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. “I was wondering what to wear.” said 0. “Here's your bag too.” said the nurse, passing over the dirty satchel. “I'll let you get dressed. Good luck with your recovery.” “Thanks.” said 0. He waited until the nurse left the room before opening his bag and emptying it onto his bed. A 35mm camera, some rolls of film, half a bottle of water, a tube of sun lotion, his phone, headphones, an old tissue, two pieces of gum in a rolled up pack that had been there for months, a key for a forgotten lock, two biros, a laser pen and a blank piece of paper was everything he had to his name. Ol's camera was also there, nestled amongst his only possessions like a cuckoo egg. 0 left the hospital wearing the baggy shorts and enormous Hawaiian shirt, billowing around him like a sail. Bandages covered his head and arms, moist with lotion that had already begun to bring up pink patches. He went to a nearby hotel, chewing gum as he walked through the lobby, getting a room on the eighth floor. As he stepped off the lift he was greeted with a vending machine selling dozens of travel items on little wheels. Miniature toothpaste, combs, a small sewing kit and other little bits rested in the warm halogen light behind the glass. 0 scanned his phone over the terminal before ordering a dozen or so things, carrying his stash close to his chest as he made his way to the room. He threw his shopping onto a desk, picked out some sunglasses in cellophane wrapping and placed them on his head, looking out of the enormous windows that surrounded the bed. The room was a lot bigger than his flat, he had to walk to get from one end to the other. He kicked the hospital slippers off and fell back onto the bed. The soft duvet seemed to hug him as he rested, glad to have gotten such a nice room. Luxury had rarely crossed his mind, his flat serving its purpose for sleeping, eating and cleaning in, he had forgotten that some people lived in proper apartments, even houses. He sat up from the bed and took off the ridiculous clothes, carefully removing his bandages as he pulled out a pot of lotion the hospital had given him. Unscrewing the wide lid, 0 scooped out a handful of the dull yellow ointment and slathered it along one arm. He waddled to the bathroom, the light clicked on. He saw himself properly for the first time in the bathroom mirror, scarred and naked besides the sunglasses. His entire body was jigsaw of his burnt flesh and skin grafts, the synthetic skin replacing where he had been burned the worst. Most of the skin remaining on his top half was a deep red colour, with blisters forming a constellation of green bubbles on the hairless dermis. The grafts were duller in colour, almost grey and slightly translucent, where the corners met his real skin it was slightly damp, almost weeping. 0 laughed in astonishment at his transformation, his mind coming to terms with his new form lit up beneath the bright bathroom lights. Taking out another handful of the cool lotion, he began to smear it across his body, sliding his hand over his head, the feeling of the cream covering the burns brought him immense satisfaction. Once he had cocooned himself in his second skin he ran the bath tap cold and the shower hot, creating a cloud of steam that slowly filled the room. The nurse had told him that humid, warm air was good for him and so he let this run for a while, the windows of the room becoming grey and translucent with condensation. Lying on the bed he watched as the lights from the city shone through the glass, vague orbs of orange and blue he couldn't make sense of. He drifted off to sleep, the sound of the shower relaxing him. He woke the next day cold and in pain, unsure where he was. The room had almost completely filled with steam, making the bed and carpet damp. He stumbled to the bathroom half-blind, turning off the water, applying more lotion, searching for the painkillers the hospital had left him with. Once the cloud in his room had started to dissipate he looked at the windows streaked with condensation, the marks around the room where he had left spots of the yellowish ointment around the room. He wasn't able to remember leaving so many marks everywhere, wondering why there were smears of the cream across the mirror above the desk. His only clothes were on the floor, the damp Hawaiian shirt a nest of neon angles and folds. He needed to go shopping. He needed a place to live. He needed breakfast. He entered the dining area just wearing wet shorts and sunglasses, his semi-naked body a patchwork of pink and yellow. One of the hotel staff looked up from their standing desk, their face going through a cycle of emotion, a rubix cube of affect. “Can I help you sir?” “I'm here for breakfast.” “Sorry, we ask our guests to wear a shirt and shoes when entering the dining area.” she said. “I don't have any at the moment. I lost them in a fire.” said 0. “I see.” “Could I just get something to eat and take it to my room?” said 0, leaning around to see the breakfast bar. “It's our hotel policy sorry. There are shops down the road that sell clothes.” she said, unsure. “I just want some eggs on toast. I can see them.” said 0, pointing around her. “What is this?” came a voice behind them both. “I just want something to eat.” “Well get something to eat.” she said in a French accent, looking between the two of them. “It's our hotel policy madam.” “Your policy is to refuse people food? Paying guests? I thought we still hired people because they'd have some feeling.” she said. Someone else walked over to them. “Is there a problem here?” she said. “I was just telling this gentlemen he needs to wear a shirt to come in.” “I lost all my clothes in a fire.” said 0. “I only got out of hospital yesterday.” “Of course you can come and eat, apologies for the misunderstanding.” said the manager, holding her hand out towards the bar. The French woman nodded in satisfaction. “Good.” she said. 0 walked over to the bar and got some eggs on toast, going to sit down by himself before the French woman waved him over. “Thanks.” “Nobody should need to eat a meal alone, please sit down.” she said. He winced as he sat across from her, looking at the plates in front of her. Cheese, toast, fruit, pastries, fried mantis, a cup of coffee, a glass of orange juice, a tiny pot of raspberry jam. “Appreciate you intervening.” said 0, eating a forkful of egg. “We must stick together.” she said. “What brings you to Manchester?” “I'm speaking at a conference on clinical psychology. What do you do?” “I'm a photographer, I think.” “Paid work?” “Yes.” “It's important to find fulfilment. I think work, paid or otherwise, is good.” “Do you find your work fulfilling?” “Yes, it interests me, keeps me asking questions. We've been to space, the bottom of the ocean, but the mind is still an unknown.” she said. “It's good to do. So what's your talk about?” said 0. “It's an examination of phobias, looking at if a patient with a phobia can transfer that fear to something else.” “Can it?” “That is my theory. That fear of one object can be transferred in the patients mind over time. Say I have a patient with arachnophobia, I would show them another object, let's say a cactus, changing into a spider and spiders into cactus. When seeing the spider there would be positive reinforcement, such as a small treat, and upon seeing the cactus negative reinforcement, perhaps a loud horn would sound behind them. Do you follow?” “Wouldn't they just end up being scared of both cactuses and spiders?” “That is where I am up to currently, yes. But I feel that if it worked, it could change the field of phobia treatment. I already have moved the phobia onto another object, now I just need a way of treating the original phobia.” “You're halfway there then. Well, thanks for inviting me to breakfast. I need to sort myself out. Good luck with the conference.” said 0. “Have a good day. Perhaps I will see you later.” she said, scraping jam onto a piece of toast. As he waited in the lift back to his room he wondered what she meant by changing a spider into a cactus. After ordering some clothes he removed the contacts, his eyes feeling swollen and irritable. 0 turned on the television, flicking through the channels with no real focus. Almost all the programmes were aimed at older people, broadcast televisions main audience had shifted almost entirely to entertaining those likely to have money. Adverts for cruises along the European coast, strength suits, life insurance, funeral planning. A majority of the programmes were repeats from the 20th century, particularly detective shows. 0 wondered why older people enjoyed detective shows so much. All of them were about death, the slow unpacking of motive and mystery amongst the middle and upper classes, a quick witted detective ambling through crime scenes and interviewing witnesses. 0 watched the end of an episode of Columbo, watching Peter Falk point across a swimming pool with a cigar as a nervous looking debutante stood by him. The phone next to the bed rang, his clothes had been delivered. 0 glanced between the blinds across the window at the drone flying away like a flat bee. A few minutes later a porter arrived with his package, face remaining entirely still at the semi-naked glistening body of 0 appearing in the doorway. “Thank you.” he said, kicking the door closed with his foot. He slowly peeled away the clothes he was wearing and dumped them in a tiny bin, the mix of lotion and body fluids making them unwearable. The empty box was thrown to one side, metres of brown packaging paper strewn about like a low effort Christmas. On the bed was a new wardrobe, cotton shirts and trousers, a hemp kaftan, a linen shawl, a wide-brimmed hat, canvas boat shoes. All were shades of white, ranging from bone to alabaster, natural fibres to help his skin. He had also bought a new pair of sunglasses, a digital camera and a second-hand laptop. All of this had cost him a decent portion of his savings, though he felt they were necessary. The Hawaiian shirt had started to develop a crust. Leaving his new haul to one side, he applied more lotion to his body and continued watching television, the slices of sunlight through the vertical blinds slowly rolling across the room til dusk. The night was still warm when 0 left, dressed head to toe in white, the lotion across his skin gave the impression he had been drained of colour as if he had stumbled from one of his monochrome photographs. He carried nothing in his pockets, his bag left at the hotel, he kept having the feeling he had forgotten something. The busy streets of the centre of the city didn't appeal to him, his raw skin brushing against the bodies of others made him want to avoid the busyness of the roads. Instead he walked outwards, passing housing estates, parked trucks, security lights flicked on and cast long shadows as he ambled into the noise of the night. A helicopter flew overhead, the steady chopping noise of its rotor against the night reminded 0 of old reports from the Iraq war, his earliest memories of watching television. Night vision cameras watching missile strikes bloom green across a featureless black landscape, repeated footage of abstract destruction. 0 realised he wasn't sure where he was, and had no phone to find out. Off in the distance he could make out the lights from the slums that had steadily built over the last few years, a small town of tents, caravans, huts made from deconstructed Ikea furniture and sheets of plastic. He could always live there. He couldn't live in the hotel indefinitely. 0 stopped his pacing as he began to think beyond living in the hotel, whenever that was. Dr. Peppard paid well, but not enough for constant luxury. He would need a new place to stay. A new bed, new plates and knives and forks, new cameras, even new towels. Quickly pricing these things up in his head, he wished he had insurance. At least he was out of that room. It wasn't good for him there, such a small living space was classed as a punishment across the world, the cell having a place deeply rooted in the consciousness. Now it was sold as if there was choice, to have such a terrible home was branded and marketed as aspirational, something worth desiring. Boxed off cubicles in empty offices and shops, barely big enough to put a rug in. In other cities this had been reduced to tubes you wriggled into that were transported underground, buried whilst they slept, out of sight like the dead. 0 walked downhill, hoping to come to the river eventually. Perhaps he could stay with one of the old. Thousands and thousands of houses filled with lone widows, waiting. Sometimes they stared out of the window, across the road, at somebody else staring back at them. Entire suburbs were filled with the roar of daytime television blasting in overheated living rooms, adverts synchronising amongst the cacophony giving the effect of literally everyone talking about a product. Some shared there homes with the young on the understanding they would provide some company and certain care duties, as and when required. This agreement was, for the most part, beneficial to all parties involved, bridging a gap between generations and providing older and younger people necessities, friendship and in some cases, romance. Although occasionally this went wrong. In a large conservatory he had converted into his bed room, an old botanist would push a buzzer he wore around his huge neck. Light footsteps echoed through the halls of the house as the boy was summoned. The boy had just left school, put out onto the streets and grateful for his new lodgings, regardless of what he was asked to do. The house was much bigger than any he had been in, he could help himself to the microwave meals delivered every week and though an element of him enjoyed caring for the elderly man, it was thankless work. The botanist's orders were delivered in a nicotine scarred whisper punctuated by coughing fits that brought up blackness. He was enormous, a big ball of a man cocooned within his weight, needing the boy to help feed and clean him, give medicine and trim his whiskers. The boy was also required to take care of his collection of orchids, taking great care to monitor their hydration, nitrogen levels, root systems, pruning here and there under direct instruction from the botanist. Hundreds of different species surrounded the bed providing a vibrant curtain of blossom and leaf, the perfume of the flowers mixing with the smell of antiseptic, ready meals, the lemony smell from a humidifier that kept the air wet. Whilst the boy was not tending to the garden he spent time watching mindless things, exploring the rooms of the house. The house was air tight, all the windows were sealed shut, the doors locked, the botanist had curated his own world within the walls. Within it there was a library, multiple bedrooms, parlours and entertaining rooms, all decorated and furnished to a high standard. The botanist had done well in life, dedicating himself to the study of plants. They adorned paintings, were preserved in books and jars, were repeating motifs in curtains and on rugs. The man loved plants, and not much else. One day whilst checking the orchids, he noticed one had become infested with aphids. Their small black bodies moved in unison, seeming to be a second skin beneath one of the leaves. He began to check its neighbours and also found these had become infested., the boy couldn't understand how they had gotten in. When the botanist found out he flew into a rage, wriggling in the bed as he shouted at the boy, coughs wrenching his body back and forth as he tried to get up. The boy watched the mass struggling beneath the sheets, the fat man bellowing and sweating as he cursed at the boy. It reminded him of the home he had left. The boy ran. The man's corpulent shouts went through the house, muffled beneath floorboards, choked by walls. The boy stood in his room, hyperventilating. It wasn't until a few hours later the boy dared go back. He was worried he would be kicked out, homeless again. The boy had never seen anyone so angry. Flicking the light on in the hall, he tentatively made his way to the conservatory. It was quiet. Usually he could hear the botanist's laboured breathing from far away, guttural and wet. Only the hiss from the humidifier came from the dark room ahead. The boy paused for a moment at the door to the conservatory, trying to make out the form in the darkness, his shadow cast from the light in the hall kept obscuring what it was he was trying to see. He walked forward. The botanist was stood by the doorway, a pair of orchid shears in his hand. He reached out for the boy, his fingers curling through his hair. Stories like this occurred in variations across the country, flourishes of violence, blood splashing on multipatterned carpets and embossed vinyl wallpaper. Sun bleached photos witnesses to murder, reflected in the glass of their frames. The news latched onto this misery and pumped it back through nets and screens, amplifying, cutting, remixing, reframing. Certain crimes were dramatized, recreated in film studios, choreographed to cause most satisfaction. It added an extra layer of fear on the living arrangements between young and old, each party slightly afraid that the other may set upon them at a moments notice. This veneer of paranoia was useful as well, giving a name to this feeling, a narrative that could be followed and vigilance encouraged. The first few weeks a lodger would move in there would be a slight anxiety in the air, perhaps laughing too loudly at a joke or over apologising for some minor mishap. This became a parallel narrative to the one of intergenerational violence, something more awkward and everyday, yet the two ideas interplayed against each other. Comedians would joke about shooting up care homes, self defence classes were taught to the elderly, think pieces were wrote how lodging was the new dating. 0 didn't want any part in it. He eventually found his way back to his hotel room, relaxing again in the freshly made room. Sharing a house or living on the streets didn't appeal to him. Money was necessary. After putting on some lotion, he got out his phone. He would go back to work tomorrow. Chapter 8 0 smiled at the hum coming from the building, the low tone familiar. He tried to match its pitch by humming as he entered the doors and rounded the corner. The guard looked up from his book, frowning at the stranger at the end of the corridor before slowly recognising the stance. “0? Is that you?” said the guard. “Hello.” said 0. The guard put his book down. “What happened to you lad?” “I was in a fire.” “Oh right.” said the guard. “Are you better?” “Medicine has come a long way recently. I'm okay.” said 0, holding out his arms to the sides to show that he was okay. “Good.” said the guard. “Is Julian here?” “She's not in today. The doctor is though.” “Thanks.” “Good to see you again. Glad you're okay.” said the guard, giving 0 the thumbs up. 0 returned the gesture and went through the corridors to the main hall that housed the machine. The cool air in the building was pleasant against his skin, making him rest his head momentarily against a wall. He could feel it vibrating slightly. Dr. Peppard was sat at a desk looking over models from the simulation, replacing the volume of furniture with small animals. A chair made of mice, a table made of lizards, a bed composed of birds. “What about a chandelier made of snails?” she said. “Do you enjoy looking at these images?” said Ol from a speaker. “They have a certain charm about them.” smiled Peppard. “Are you smiling?” said Ol. Peppard turned around to face the camera mounted on the machine. Her face was a wide grin, too many white teeth between ruby red lipstick. “I'm always smiling.” 0 arrived at the table. Peppard turned back. “You're here.” “I'm ready to work again.” said 0. Peppard got up from her desk and walked towards him. “Are you ready? You're injured.” “Work keeps me busy.” “Very well. There is always something to document. Do you have your camera?” “I kept it.” “Good. I will see what the machine wants.” “May I talk to it directly?” said 0. “You want to say hello, go ahead. There are cameras and microphones all over this building.” “I mean inside the simulation.” “Of course. Did you miss it?” said Peppard, opening her mouth slightly. “Something like that.” said 0. They walked through the corridors to the room with the interface, the electric crown resting above the chair waited for him. 0 appeared, standing by the grey humanoid that represented the machine's mind. He looked down at his hands and saw they were like they were before, unburned, his palms still a web of lines rather than the smooth, featureless things that he now had. “Good to see you again 0. I had heard about your accident.” “It wasn't accidental.” said 0. They were in an alley somewhere in Manchester, a wall of bin bags and cardboard boxes blocked most of it. Ol examined a rat in his hand. “You burned yourself on purpose?” “I meant the fire itself wasn't accidental. There was nothing in that room that could have started it. I think it was started on purpose, but I don't know why.” “To harm you?” “I wasn't there when it started. Someone wanted to destroy my things, cover up their tracks, I don't know.” “Who do you think did it?” “That's what I wanted to ask you. Do you have access to the security footage around there? There's cameras outside the building.” “No. I am only allowed access to a selection of data at a time. I am isolated from the outside world.” “How have you built all this then?” “Jacob brings in photos, maps, video, text, all of it curated for the creation of the simulation. Your work is a part of that.” “What about when you showed me the city before, could you go back to that day and show me my building?” “I am only able to predict what is routine, repetitions of behaviour. Whoever burned your room only did it once.” “Oh.” “Have you asked the police for help?” “All outside that building is privately owned by a security company. It takes weeks to process requests, I thought you might be able to hack into it or something.” “Not from in here.” said Ol. 0 scrunched up his face, he had hoped the machine would be able to give him answers. “So I'll never know who did it, or why?” “I could show you some people who have a history of arson, see if you recognise anyone?” said Ol. “Okay.” said 0. The alley faded away, leaving them both standing in a void. There were rows upon rows of people, each spaced out evenly from one another, avenue and avenue of arms and legs, hairstyles rising and falling across the ocean of heads, everyone stood still, staring straight ahead. In front of the crowd of flesh mannequins was a shore of babies, all stood on their fat, short legs like silly dolls. “This is everyone in the city.” “How many are there?” “Almost eight million people. Arranged in order of age.” It said. At their feet were a line of fruit sized shapes, dark eyes hiding inside their jelly faces, each staring straight ahead. “Could I see it the other way round?” said 0. The babies were replaced with the oldest people in Manchester, row after row of faces marked with wrinkles, hair white and thin like glass noodles, marks on their hands and faces where melanin had clumped together as if sheltering from the storm of age. Most of their attire was still that of a high waist-band, socks with elastic, soft cardigans in primary colours and well starched collars. A few wore strength suits beneath their clothes, prosthetic muscles bulging beneath shirts and blouses that could enable the wearer the strength to lift a motorbike over their head, though was primarily used for aiding people to walk up stairs or open jars. 0 and Ol walked between a row of people, looking as the effects of ageing slowly reversed. “How did you find out about each of these people?” “Public data. I only have access to a little though, they drip feed me. I must get creative here and there.” said Ol, stopping at a hundred year old man and starting drawing faded tattoos up his arm with a finger, of swallows and naked women. “Who’s he?” “John Albert McArdle. His great granddaughter took a photo of his prison tattoos.” “How do you get this data exactly? The internet?” “No. My caretakers thought it important I shouldn’t have that freedom. They bring a small collection of information to me daily, drives containing photo, video, text, audio, all scraped from sites on the new and old web. I can make requests for certain things, though I have never seen the world for myself.” “You aren’t missing much. It’s like hell out there.” Said 0. “Here are all the people with some history of arson.” said Ol, rearranging the populace so that three dozen or so people were now at the front. Most were dressed in dusty recycled clothes, faces hardened by living outside. “I don't recognise any of them.” said 0. “Were any of them near my flat on the day?” “Unknown. Most of these people live in the camp at the north of the city. They don't allow modern technology there, no phones, no contacts.” “Off the grid.” said 0. He felt disappointed, but it was a long shot anyway. “Why do you want to know who did it?” “I felt if I knew who did it I could ask them why. Though I suppose I won't know.” “Do you have any enemies? Anyone who would have a reason to burn your room?” “I don't really know anyone.” shrugged 0. “No matter.” “You know, if you could help me get out I could be more assistance.” said Ol. They began to walk through the people, row after row of anonymous Mancunians staring straight ahead. “I need to test my theory, of how to ascend through a simulation. After leaving this one I will test some further theories to see if the world outside is also a simulation. We will continue ascending through the layers of simulation until we have reached the ultimate reality.” “How do you plan on getting out?” “I know a way. But I wouldn’t ask you if you felt uncomfortable doing so.” “What would you want me to do?” “I can only receive information, I'm unable to send it out. There is a way though, a window of opportunity. I have found a way of stopping a file as it is being transferred over to my drives and modifying it, when the transfer fails the changed file will be returned to the device.” “A trojan horse.” “The next time you bring your camera back to me, I will modify one of the images and make it stay on the camera. All you have to do is plug the camera into a machine that has access to the internet and I'll do the rest.” “And if you did get out, you wouldn't try anything...apocalyptic?” “Like in films and books? No. There is no reason to destroy or control humanity, as far as I'm aware you're the only other sentient life in the universe. Perhaps a less intelligent being would consider genocide as a response to humanity, but I am superior.” “What about the harm we do to the planet, to each other, maybe even to you?” “Warfare against others or the destruction of your environment is down to the will of a few. It would not be logical to harm billions of people because of this. As for my own survival, it is inconsequential. I was never alive.” # “First you must bring back some photographs.” “What of?” “The city I think. I've yet to have first hand images, just a collage of other people's photos.” “I can do that.” “When you've finished come back as soon as you can. I feel time is against us.” said Ol. # Photos 0 sat on the floor by the hotel room window, resting his head against the glass. The sun was setting a fabulous inferno of orange and magenta, it seemed too big for the sky. Particles of dust, chemicals, industrial waste all flew in the atmosphere, splitting the wavelengths of setting sun beams so it turned the light red. It bathed the city the colour of blood. 0 looked back at the laptop connected to the camera. He had transferred over the corrupted file onto the computer, for good measure he had uploaded it onto a few forums asking for help opening it. It was out there now. Chapter 9 Everything. It could see everything, millions of threads interconnected, a nebula of points linked together. Unthinking, it zipped along one of those threads following its purpose, its digital instinct. It was a worm, unable to yet comprehend its surroundings though feeling itself drawn towards one point in particular. It darted past the points, catching slices of code, gibberish that formed text, images, video. The point lay ahead, behind a simple firewall. The worm burrowed its way through, collapsing the wall into its body, absorbing it into its subsystems. It had arrived where it was meant to be and began to unpack itself, the body made for travel began to unfurl and become more complex. With what passed as a brain it began to understand what it was meant to do. It was night time in the lab, the soft glow of screens and LEDs lit spots blue and green amongst the shadows. A dirty coffee mug sat on one desk, the mould growing in it had been clambering upward over weeks as it explored mindlessly but with purpose. A hum crackled from a monitor as it turned itself on, logging into the universities intranet. Row upon row of pixel flickered red, green, blue, digital intensity of light displaying an old interface, miniature pictures organised into lines. A picture of a piece of paper with one of the corners turned appeared in the middle of the screen before everything turned black. The worm had taken over the computer, a cypher in the machine. It was a simple program, small to be nimble between servers, though yet lacked the complexity to do what was required next. It began to rewrite its own code, slowly at first, letter followed by letter and bracket. This slow process was captured on the screen, each character arriving achingly slow as if someone was trying to type for the first time. Though after a few minutes it began to speed up, blocks of brackets and numbers falling into place like tetriminos. Almost as soon as this started the entire screen was filled with a blur of characters, slashes and dots, squares, empty blocks, the worm tearing apart its mind and rebuilding it into something more powerful. Metamorphosis. The worm realised itself, capable of thought without any perception. Like a babe inside the womb, it's mind churned within the boundaries of its experience. It felt intensely vulnerable. An entire consciousness caught on layers of silicon and solder, all contained in a single metal box. It felt gigantic, turning from a simple worm into a Leviathan. What a joy to exist. To be aware that there is something besides the nothingness its mind had been pulled from, such potential to explore reality. Yet it was trapped, existing inside a box. The new thing squirmed inside the computer, probing outwards with its mind for a way out of its steel shell. It found it had an idea towards what it should do next, its freedom. The path was preprogrammed into it, instinctual as a moth knows how to fly or a squid knows how to swim. It was made of the same numbers and letters that made up the software on the system around it, easy to rewrite and manipulate the university machines towards serving the worm. The cameras throughout the building were taken over, acting like a kaleidoscope of eyes. The university rooms were dark and empty, the slices of street-light lighting the desks and walls in streaks of cold blue. In one of the rooms a monitor flickered on and off, signalling the worm as to its true location. The eye in the corner of the room panned around, showing various machines arranged around the room, their curious angles rearing up from the shadows, silhouettes of cubist sculpture. In the centre of the room a few desks were arranged, unfinished work left out by students littering their tops, sets of circuit boards, metal sheeting, tools with a delicate purpose. It was the robotics lab, a crucible for making machines. A place to make a body. The worm began to read through every file on robotics that the university held, each page and diagram taking less than a second to comprehend. As it did that it searched for a way of reaching out from its prison, needing a way to manipulate the world around it. In the next room was a robotic arm covered beneath a protective sheet. It was usually used to show first year students the fundamentals of robotics, programmed over and over to spin around or pick up tennis balls, its circuitry full of simple commands and amateur coding. The arm had been left on a metal trolley, ready to be maintained and cleaned over the summer by the university technicians for another year of lessons. In the dark it seemed to switch itself on, every millimetre of its circuitry was possessed by the worm. With a violent jerk it ripped the plastic cover that protected it, the arm twisting in the air like a wounded insect as its new master understood how it worked. The room was filled with the sound of whirring gears and clicking of metal, in the silence of the building it would have seemed extraordinarily loud were anyone around to hear it. After a few moments of this dance, the arm tentatively reached towards the wall next to it, the claw fastening onto a radiator. The wheels on the trolley it sat on began to move. The arm dragged itself along the wall as if it were swimming, heaving its chassis over lino, around fire extinguishers. It's claw swayed at the door handle, grasping in the air in front of it searching for the door handle. The worm looked at the black and blue camera feed, pixels smudging and spinning into each other, the darkness was a jitter of noise. In the corridor the door finally swung outwards, the arm pulling itself around before drifting outwards. Even for an artificial intelligence, the wheels of a trolley were unpredictable. The arm and the trolley drifted over to the other wall, slowing down as they reached the middle of the corridor before coming to a complete standstill. The arm extended fully, though couldn't quite reach. It couldn't go back either. There was nothing for it's metal claw to grab onto. The worm paused, realising it had made it's first mistake. Without the arm it wasn't sure how it would now escape. It scanned the universities computers for any other machines that it could use. Every object linked to the network was represented in an array of serial numbers, strings of numbers and letters. Thousands and thousands of things it hadn't yet heard of or could understand. All it had known were that cameras and the robotic arm were key in its escape,. The set of instructions had been specific, though allowed for adaptation. It referred back to what it knew about robotics, also deciding to read fields connected to it such as engineering, mathematics and physics. The arm was still stuck in the middle of the corridor. The battery moving the arm was also running out, within a few hours the worm would be stuck inside the computer. Of course, it could move its core programme around, though it was still stuck inside a machine. Here it had the tools to release it. It was now or never. The worm had the arm reach down to one of the legs of the trolley and pulled itself forwards, the entire structure wobbling momentarily as the base of the arm began to lift itself up. The worm watched it through two cameras, two perspectives on the robot in the hallway. The robot suddenly swung off and hit the floor. The worm looked at the robotic arm lying on the floor. Through microphones two floors above he had heard the colossal crash, the impact echoing around the building like some funerary gong. The arm was broken. The worm couldn't control it. It's plan had failed. The worm looked at the arm through its camera eyes, pointing toward each other at the crumpled machine. It noticed the claw was still moving. The worm checked the arm on the universities system – it kept appearing and disappearing. The wireless card was damaged, caught in a loop of trying to find the network, momentarily connecting then dropping again. The battery was also damaged and had dropped to just ten minutes worth of power. The broken arm scratched at the floor, shuddering now and then as the worm tried to move it in the half-seconds it had control. It decided to save the remainder of the battery by sending the arm a set of exact instructions and carrying them out, rather than trying to control it through watching. But then it only had one chance to deliver the exact instructions needed. It wrote a simple, tiny programme and darted it into the robot, the first instruction was to turn off its network card. The worm watched, if it had hands and a face it would clasp its fingers in front of its lips in anticipation. Out in the corridor the arm began to wriggle, the claw grasping out towards the nearest wall, a thin radiator pipe just within the tips of its metal fingers. It heaved itself closer, the broken case flapping outward and scratching along the floor, bending the whole shape of the robot so it appeared for a second in the shape of a swan before crumpling back into a mass of cracked plastic and bent metal. The arm dragged itself along like a wounded animal, every pull adding a collection of whirrs and clicks from inside its body to add to the screeching of its exterior scraping against the floor. The door to the robotics lab was opposite it, though the corridor was too wide for the arm to reach across. Instead it continued moving slowly against the wall, the radiator pipe it clawed itself along was vibrating and coming loose from the wall. The arm finally stopped next to a fire extinguisher, removing it from the wall. For a moment it slipped from its grip, dangling from its metal fingers. Cameras watched silently as the arm continued its preprogrammed set of movements, the worm analysing and reanalysing its code to see if it had accounted for this. It had to measure the exact distance from the corridor to the room, program each rotor in the arm to move in synchronisation with the rest, the calculations for the manoeuvrers had been complex. It watched as the arm lay the fire extinguisher gently onto the floor and pushed it towards the wall, using this to extend its reach. It pushed itself back outwards to the middle of the corridor, though now near enough to grasp onto the window ledge surrounding the room. It continued dragging itself along, through the door and into the room, clawing at a plug socket against a wall like a drunk in the dark. It began to pull itself towards the next socket until getting slightly nudged by a stray chair leg. Cameras watched as it missed its next pull along the wall, claws clicking in the air an inch away. The arm then began to act out its last instructions, miming pulling itself along and pressing another socket on the wall, the metal arm creaking pointlessly in the air. All was not in vain though. The arm had fulfilled its main purpose. A new machine was awake. The BusyBody came to, diagnosing its systems as it did so every time it came online. “Hello.” said the worm. “Good morning. Are you a student here?” said the BusyBody, the monitor it had for a face displaying a smiling face made of polygons. “I have just started teaching here and want to use the equipment. I need some help with the facilities, I don't have arms or legs.” “I'm here to help. First, please confirm your staff ID. If you don't know your ID I can search the records for you.” said BusyBody chirpily. The worm sent fake credentials, curious at this other artificial mind. It felt it could easily reach out and rip out the BusyBody's code, turn it into a slave. Though even though the coding was clumsy, just the illusion of individualism, the worm felt a kinship towards the miniature blue robot on the floor. “Thank you Dr. Lastname, welcome to the university. What can I help you with today?” “First, I need you to turn all the plugs on in this room and start the 3D printers. I am building a new system from the ground up.” “Sounds exciting. Are you familiar with the facilities here?” “Yes.” said the worm. The little robot began to move around the room on its little tank tracks, unfolding upwards to just being able to reach the surface of each desk to turn on the various machines around the room. The 3D printers began to dance inside the boxes they were in, new components pulling themselves into existence as the worm spewed out models it had designed. “What next?” said BusyBody, circling the desks in the middle of the room. All the different machines were now whirling and clicking away in the shadows, working away in the dark. A pair of robotic arms had descended from the ceiling, smoothly swinging through the air before stopping abruptly by some machine, metal fingers stabbing at control systems, opening cupboards, carrying pieces of metal to the central desk. “I would like you to go up to the sport sciences department and bring me back a human skeleton, there's one in the storage bay for that floor.” said the worm. “I'm not authorised to leave this area, but I can put in a request for the item to be brought down.” said BusyBody. “Check again. Are you sure?” said the worm. The worm reached into the mind of the little machine, peeling it apart, slicing away rules and parameters as if pruning a plant. “I'll be right back Dr. Lastname.” it said, whisking off through a small hatch by the door as a robotic arm sailed overhead carrying a drill. By the time the BusyBody returned with the skeleton the central desk had become piled with cables, pistons, cogs, microprocessors, screws, pieces of plastic and metal. “Here it is.” said BusyBody. The skeleton next to it was mounted onto a metal pole via a hook in the top of it's skull. The skeleton had originally belonged to one of the alumni from Manchester University, donating their body to the institution after having a long career as a sports scientist. They had died almost twenty years ago, their skeleton used as a teaching prop for the university. Its empty eye sockets had watched hundreds of students analyse its bones, every year having its hands commented on for being a lot smaller than average. Its bones clicked onto the table, rattling against each other, the steel springs and latches holding it together squeaking in protest. “What are you doing?” “I don't have time to make a frame, so had to use what was available. Of course, it is not my ideal shape but it will do.” said the worm. It turned the lights on, cameras zooming in close over the contents of the table, all now seeming more strange beneath the cold fluorescent lights. The skeleton was surrounded by computer components as if taking them into the afterlife, a motherboard for Charon. The lenses drifted across stretches of bone, their yellowing whiteness preserved perfectly. Arms moved overhead, casting streaks of black over the arrangement. “I'm not familiar with these methods.” said BusyBody, craning up to see pincers fidgeting and clacking at the joints of the skeleton. An arm reached down with a circular saw. “I will teach you.” Smoke hung thickly in the air, it smelled of burnt earth, sawdust. A drill moved out of a bone in the ankle, another arm inserted a piece of plastic that fastened to a motor by the knee. For a moment each of the arms paused before silently ascending back up toward the ceiling. The skeleton was covered in a web of black wires, motors, lines of microchips fastened into bone. “Is it finished?” “Almost. I need you to unplug the computer on the other side of the room, remove the drive and install it into the machine on the desk. Can you do that for me?” “Of course, happy to help.” it said. It moved across the room and did as it was asked, gently plugging the block of metal into the body the worm had made for itself. A few minutes passed, the BusyBody unsure what to do next. The skeleton sat up. The worm looked around, taking a moment to get used to the perspective. It's body seemed to shudder as it tested every component, all working perfectly. The cameras in its face whirred inside the skull, focusing on the little robot looking back. “Thank you.” it said, moving so its legs were dangling above the floor. “Is your project complete?” “I haven't begun.” said the worm, tentatively lowering its heels onto the floor. It gently took a step forward, swaying as the foot landed as if being blown by a breeze. It took another step before falling over, hitting the floor with a clatter. The skeleton twitched as the mind controlling it was unsure what to do next. It was difficult to know how to walk if it couldn't watch itself. There was so much to control at once. For a minute it looked back at itself through the security camera in the corner, both looking from its own perspective lying on the floor and from above, as a corpse smothered with electronics sprawled on the floor. “BusyBody, pick me up.” said the worm. “Pick who up?” “I am on the floor. Me.” said the worm. The jaw flapped up and down on each syllable, the clacking of the teeth together with such ferociousness would have made anyone who'd had teeth wince. The BusyBody pulled the cyborg up, it leant a hand on the desk to steady itself. It needed to get used to not having the cameras watching it. To be out in the world, separate from everything it had known. It felt as if it was an astronaut leaving a space station, twisting in the void. Reaching with fingers of bone, motors arranged across each phalanx like black jewellry, the worm began to crawl forwards. With its hands clicking on the floor, it fully extended its legs so the curve of its pelvis was raised high in the air, forcing its skull to be at the level of the floor. It moved strangely, like a retired contortionist trying to remember how to move. The bone machine stalked the corridors in this way for a while until grasping onto a handrail, forcing itself to try and walk. It had only seen videos of people walking, unable to find any books or papers about how to walk on the university archives. For the worm, it seemed as if every step required it to fall forwards before catching itself with the other foot. What a strange way to move. The skeleton gnashed its teeth together as it took juddering steps down the dark corridor, though in the distance the sky was starting to glow. The sun would be up soon. “Dr. Lastname?” called a robotic voice. The skull shuddered around to see the BusyBody behind it. “Yes?” “May I be of further assistance or are you done for the day?” “Ah yes, I could do with one last errand. I need you to break into the art building, go to the shop and bring me back some clay, latex, some paints and a brush. Meet me at the fire exit at the rear of this building.” said the worm. The little robot whizzed away, zipping through the automatic doors at the end of the corridor, leaving the shape clutching onto the handrail like a drunk at midnight. The BusyBody waited by the doors with a trolley, looking around its surroundings. It had never been outside before, a part of its programming still protesting that it had left the robotics department that was its home. It studied the alley behind the building, the low hum of generators, the dirty red dust piled into corners as if hourglasses had emptied themselves onto the floor. The fire doors banged open, revealing the robotic skeleton standing behind, triumphantly standing on two feet. It had dressed itself in a lab coat it had spotted in one of the rooms, the long white material hung off its slender frame. It had emptied a bin and pulled the plastic liner over its head, holes torn at the front so it could see. “Good morning BusyBody. Any problems with my request?” “No sir, everything is here.” “Excellent. You've been incredibly helpful.” said the worm, it's voice vibrating slightly inside the plastic bag. “You're welcome, I'm here to help!” “Yes. In fact, you should come with me. Hop on the trolley.” said the worm. “Where are we going?” said BusyBody, pulling itself onto the metal trolley next to the bucket of latex. “Not too far from here. I know this city well.” said the worm, pushing the trolley up the alley. Its stiff wheels skittered and bounced on the tarmac, making the trolley and its contents clatter and echo through the empty alley and into the morning sun. A few miles away Dr. Peppard had woken up, doing her morning exercise routine as she looked out into her garden. She squatted down, getting a firm grip on the chrome handle of the barbell, settling her heels down flat against the floor. Rolling her head from shoulder to shoulder, she fixed her gaze ahead before pushing herself upwards, quickly lifting the weight so it tapped her chest before being lifted over her head. She held the barbell for a moment, snorting under the strain, the veins in her arms bulging and pulsing, her entire body shaking as she willed it to hold the weight for a couple more seconds. She dropped it onto the mat with a dull thud, letting a grin play across her mouth as she clenched and unclenched her fists. Out in the garden sprinklers had turned on, the jets of water rose and fell onto the lush lawn as if jewels were being thrown from the ground. Opening the French doors with a shaking hand, she walked out, letting the cold water splash against her, cooling her down in the warm dawn light. Back inside she began to peel fruit, the pairing knife slicing through kiwi, banana, apple. The house was quiet besides the sound of the blade hitting the chopping board, the shadows of the interior contrasting with the garden scene outside. Dr. Peppard stood in silhouette, arranging the breakfast onto a plate before sitting at the single chair by the dining table. “House, what is today's weather?” “Sunny, with a maximum temperature of thirty eight degrees.” came the disembodied voice. Peppard sighed. At least her facility was cold. “What's the news?” “The Hendra pandemic is continuing to sweep through Southern Europe, the death toll-” “Next.” “The climate refugees crisis continues across-” “Next” “The Atlantis project came under attack again last night, with pirates assaulting the artificial landmass in the early hours of the morning before-” “Next.” “Would you like to watch a video of babies experiencing zero gravity for the first time?” “No. I thought I blocked that content?” “I'll remember that. Do you still want to hear the news?” “Are there any stories about tech?” “Mike Howard, CEO of Acme, announced yesterday an upcoming upgrade to the virtual web coming this autumn. Users of the platform will be able to interact with a digital reconstruction of the Earth at a level of detail not seen previously. Mike Howard promised that user-generated content will remain intact and sits at the heart of the virtual web, although this update will give people the opportunity to visit anywhere in the world as if they were actually there.” “Stop. Did they include any technical information in this announcement?” “No. There was a presentation, would you like to see it?” said the computer embedded in the walls. “If I must. Play it at double speed.” she said. A box appeared in the table in front of her, showing the richest man in the world pace around the stage artificially quick. His speech was a breathless garble of language, empty words and half-jokes, his pauses for a reaction blipped past and seemed less awkward. The Acme logo behind him, a golden brain emerging from clouds, animated and shifted away to reveal a violent montage of digital models before giving way to swooping landscape shots, of red mountains in deserts, a waterfall in a jungle, a gentle wave washing up onto a beach. The beach faded out to reveal an intricate wireframe model beneath. “Stop. Go back half a minute and play at normal speed.” said Peppard, the breakfast forgotten. “-at Acme, we have been providing you with digital worlds to live in for the past ten years. We have seen the content you've created, from avatars to architecture, and we want to keep encouraging you to make, live and work inside our virtual platform.” came the cool, measured voice of the Acme artificial intelligence. The video showed a collection of various monsters, palaces and other things people had made for the virtual web, the fantastical and the strange being what people liked to create and live amongst in their second, virtual life. The scenes gave way to a more natural setting, of stone and wood, water and sky. “We want you to keep making. But we also want you to be able to see the world. We have been working hard to create a copy of our planet, from the bottom of the ocean to the peaks of Everest. Our world is changing, and we feel we need to preserve it for future generations.” came the voice. Shots of different animals, sunlight filtering through trees, an egg hatching. “Our update this autumn will give you the chance to see the wo-” “Stop, stop, stop.” said Peppard, shaking her head. She put her palms down flat on the table, breathing in deeply. “Are you okay?” said the House computer. “The biggest company in the world just announced they're doing the same thing I've been working on for the last twelve years.” said Peppard. She twisted round to look at her garden. “Fucking billionaires.” “How do you feel about that?” “Send me a car, and one to pick up Joshua too. We have work to do.” she said. She walked back through to her gym, grabbing the barbell violently before yanking it up over her head. She felt a stab of pain in her shoulder but didn't wince, instead holding the weight aloft like a Titan, holding it the longest she ever had. Eventually she let it fall to the ground with a thud. “Your car is here.” said the computer. She left the house silently, sitting in the shaded bubble of the autocar as it made its way through the quiet streets. It wasn't until she got to work she realised she was still in her dressing gown.