Digital Dreams and Destinies: Preparing Our Future in Virtual Worlds

MAINTAINING THE STRUCTURE: OF MATHEMATICAL WORLDS

“The world is a complex web of interconnections, where every action ripples through the fabric of existence.” (Douglas Hofstadter)

What you don’t need now is to begin arguing the philosophical premise of your job. Not with two minutes remaining before monitors throughout the room are to begin changing, we fail to reacquire contact with the crew and the flight controller starts calling out for status.

And tense specialists begin reading out numbers, theories, speculative actions and spec manoeuvres.

Looking up from your screen, you’re struggling with among other things, conscience. Should you follow through with it? Intervene in something meant to end in disaster but for some reason won’t?

If the LaPlace was accurate, at 14:25 Pacific Standard Time, the Andromeda V will enter Earth’s orbit and begin its descent - its return voyage from the Earth–Sun Lagrange point L2 where it collected the TALOS space telescope and not burn up upon re-entry. Not killing the five astronauts. Instead landing safely at Anderson AirForce Base in California at 14:52.

This will be a deviation from the planned progression of this world. Though heartrending for the men and women and the program, the necessity of it ending in tragedy the LaPlace determined Priority 6.

And right now, with your monitors showing all systems nominal, you’re looking around Control for a culprit. Someone in here who may have figured it out – knows the true nature of their world and has decided to intervene. Will send a command to that ship at the precise moment of system failure circumventing it.

Changing everything. Not just for the space program and astronauts – but for the entirety of World XR-1.79.

“30 seconds to acquisition.”

That’s the Mission Admin indicating a normal re-entry sequence.

Could the LaPlace have it wrong? Assessed it Priority 6 but missed something? If you do nothing to modify this, could the result of a successful landing – of one random event be that catastrophic to XR-1.79?

Turning again from your monitor, you begin scanning faces. GNC. CAPCOM. Flight. FDO.

If not something mechanical, something that simply defied development specs, it could be any one of them. And the timing. If you act too soon, before they do, or wait too long hoping for them to act then counter their move, this could end in a successful landing and mission failure for you.

Now back to your screen, you open your Nav-Guidance program and bring up the thruster command that will decrease the ship’s velocity guaranteeing the catastrophe.

“Minus 10 – minus 9 – minus 8 – “

Damn! Another look around the room.

What if it’s not intervention? What if there’s no one and it is mechanical. Wouldn’t that indicate it was meant to happen? And if you send that command; then you’d be altering the course of XR-1.79.

Sitting forward; you’re questioning what you were trained not to. Is this right? Is it moral? Is it ethical to kill them because the LaPlace indicated the burn-up upon re-entry was critical to this world’s future?

With your hands on your keyboard ready to send the command, you turn once more – realising; it’s already too late. You’ve missed it. Your opportunity has passed.

“Minus 3 – minus 2 – minus 1…”

Reacquisition, happy faces all around, and Lieutenant MacMillan’s voice declaring how good it is to be home.

And now it’s your job to remedy this. If someone in here did question their reality, create a traditional prediction tool using the position and velocity of all elemental particles, and determine Andromeda V was going to be a doomed mission – and change that event – you’ll need to find them.

Missing once on a Priority 6 will be questioned and excused. Missing again will mean dismissal from the program. And you’ve worked too hard to get here.

DETERMINISM, PROBABILITY THEORY AND CHAOS

“Fate shuffles the cards, and we play.” (Arthur Schopenhauer)

Hours later you’re in the corridor on 16 looking out over the Space Centre wondering about your destiny as much as XR-1.79’s. Why’d you hesitate when a year or month ago you wouldn’t have?

You know your job. You know the result of an unplanned world. You live in one.

Contemplating your next move, you have your first question answered with a gun jammed into your ribs, a heavy hand on your neck and your face slammed against the glass.

“You didn’t see this coming?!”

Unable to see him or identify the voice, your mind jams through questions. This is your guy who put it together. But how could he know the protocol you use? And how did he find you before you found him?

“Who are you? How’d you bring that ship in?”

Now pulled away from the glass, you’re shoved across the hall into the stairwell leading up to the rooftop greenspace.

After the forced climb, you’re out through the door then down the path through the gardens to the west wall where you’re pushed against the short railing. Still with the gun in your ribs – now looking down at the staff lot, you’re suddenly facing the possibility of dying in a virtual world you were sent in to troubleshoot.

“Wait! Don’t…!”

“…Two options. Go back and leave this world alone, or down 16 stories in what will be recorded as her suicide and your stupidity.”

“They’ll know!”

“Not when they piece together your plan to kill five astronauts – instead deciding on a high dive off Building 01.”

Clever. Though the options suck, whoever this guy is, he just scored big. They would indeed access Lei Corbyn’s directories and find that command. But have no way of defining her motivation. Or that she had nothing to do with it.

So, decision time, and those shit options while teetering on the edge of the roof with a gun in your back. But suddenly a bright spot in this ugly drama. Voices from the path. He turns and loosens his grip allowing you to spin capturing an image of the uniform and ID.

“A technician?!”

He turns back while shoving the gun into his jacket.

“Get out. Go troubleshoot events in your own world.”

Watching him head back down the path, you check the time and move on to what you know, what you believe and what comes next.

First, you’ll need to clean that command off your specialist’s computer and everything else you’ve done since you were written into her life. Then get back to Operations.

Whoever he is, he’s not someone on the inside who concluded his world was virtual and concluded further all events right down to lightning and thoughts were programmed.

That line he used: ‘didn’t you see this coming.’ He knows. He’s from outside - your world. And where that leads, you’re almost unwilling to accept.

USING WHAT YOU KNOW: TO UNCOVER WHAT YOU DON’T

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” (Oscar Wilde)

Lifting your head after reaching consciousness inside the Migration Theatre, you look around at the other specialists – all sedated lying in their SenCOR biometric recliners while inside XR worlds trying to find and fix faults.

Something that can’t be solved from out here. Usually, a sophisticated occupant aware their world is a construct with everything – every movement and event planned, then mathematically decoding with software they develop, their world’s future and deciding to change specific events.

Once cleared by the surgeon, you head out to Research Acquisition where you grab a headset and get to the LaPlace AG panel.

You’re breaking protocol by coming here before your mission debriefing. But you’re after answers before taking what happened – and what you believe to be happening to Matthew.

If you’re right, someone in that room you just left – a member of your team is inside XR-1.79 right now digitally written into a space agency technician changing events. That’s troubling, but there’s more going on here.

No one goes in without approval of the admin committee. This isn’t a free-for-all. And he knew who you were. Knew the occupant you chose and had his moves planned. Which means he’s either the cleverest agent gone rogue on some personal mission, or he was sent in.

And that’s even more troubling as it would implicate someone on the admin committee. Which includes Matthew.

“Damn!”

Four attempts trying to get into the admin program to view the current assignments, and you’re locked out of all but your own.

Which brings you back to your question: How did he get into yours – then get placed into XR-1.79? If you’re going to find the assignments of each agent, you’re going to need another way in.

But another way means…

“…Problem Ji?”

Choosing not to turn to Matthew, you continue looking at the outputs from 79 as if pulling data for a second mission. Not uncommon for agents – just uncommon for you.

“No, Matthew. I’m hoping, anyway.” Closing out, you turn to him. “I wanted to check something before heading back.”

Now passing him on your way out, you feel his eyes. Somehow sure he’s questioning – either your honesty - why you broke protocol - or if you’re on to him. If you’re right and he’s the one. On the other hand, you’re not immune to paranoia. And right now, who would blame you?

What a measure of your guy’s success with that suggestion. You are indeed questioning your world - everything and everyone in it.

HOW VULNERABLE THE MIND: TO A CLEVER SUGGESTION

“Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power.” (Lao Tzu)

You managed your way through the debriefing giving little of what truly happened – nothing of the encounter and certainly nothing of the suspicions you came away with.

Matthew was his usual; proper, polite and overly formal. If he’s part of some internal conspiracy to sabotage an XR-1 - for some reason, you’d never see it.

Now across the street like some spy watching your building from a doorway, noting the other agents as they leave, trying to form an image of who they’d enlist, you begin replaying the parts you didn’t share with Matthew.

Before taking off on that rooftop, the tech had said: Go troubleshoot events in your own world. Was he just messing with your head – trying to get you to question your own reality? Or was it something else.

If not trying to lead you down that rabbit hole – the world within a world within a world depiction with no way to prove yours is the top-level in some never-ending cascade, what was it? A hint? Pointing you at someone on the committee? The whole committee? Or was he simply…?

“…this your after work hang out?”

Startled, you turn to Aldo – a fellow agent and your flatmate at the academy. Oddly, one you didn’t see leave the building.

“No, I was…”

“…waiting for me to walk you to the Metro?”

Embarrassed, you nod and start to walk. “Good call.”

On your way to Park Street Station, you make idle chit chat. The weather, the city, the holidays ahead. But there’s an opportunity here to probe him - use him as a sounding board.

Stopping at the light, you turn to him struggling with what to share with protocol dictating you’re not to share anything with your fellow agents or anyone. Though many do, it’s generally regarded a path to dismissal.

“I missed today, Aldo.”

“You? That’s a first.”

“But I didn’t too.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah… I actually met my guy on a rooftop – just didn’t report it.”

Now crossing, you dive in a little deeper telling him how you had the event you needed to change – had your plan in place but failed to execute. And how you later found or were found by your target – the one responsible for the changes who almost threw you off a roof – but chose not to report that either.

Aldo is that rare guy you can trust to listen objectively. And he won’t judge. Outside the station, he nods you to the buildings where you can talk.

“Listen… The XR-1 System will absorb the event. Make the necessary changes to the domain’s future. But the primary objective - finding and eliminating the target. That’s still yours.”

“I know. They don’t stop.”

“Not with the trouble they’ve gone through designing their prediction tool.”

With 5-minutes showing on the LCD for your train, you take a moment to think. About your function – about all of this. Suddenly, with this mission and your tech’s suggestion; you’re questioning everything.

“Let me ask you something. If the System can absorb one event, it can absorb others. So…”

“…why are we here?”

“Right.”

“Economy. Lots of compute to revise an entire world. Subsequent events. Minds – memories. Lots of ripples from a Priority 6.” Wishing to follow that up, you turn when he points you to the Arrivals-Departures display. “I think you’re off babe.”

Nodding, you give him a quick hug then start down into the station just as confused. Unsure of where you’re going next.

You can identify the tech from the domain registry and have him washed or eliminated, but that won’t get you to the agent who’s using him. If you’re even right.

Now on the platform watching your train slow to a stop, you realise – going back in, meeting him again is the only way to find out who he really is, what mission he’s on and whether he was sent in.

LOOKING TO THE PAST FOR ANSWERS: ABOUT THE FUTURE AND THE PAST

“Study the past if you would define the future.” (Confucius)

Whether it was the guy’s suggestion on that rooftop or a suspicion you’ve been fostering, here you are, middle of the night in bed with a laptop scanning news archives looking for patterns – clues that your world isn’t real.

Research - charting seemingly random events – planning your software prediction tool. Just like the programs the targets inside the XR-1s develop that send them on their missions to change things and you in to find and stop them.

At 4am you stop when you land on something insanely familiar. A NASA post from a year earlier. It’s about a successful mission to recover a space satellite that reached its Earth–Sun Lagrange point L2 target position, deployed and started taking photographs out to the farthest reaches of our visible universe before it failed and stopped transmitting back to Earth.

Even more unsettling; the article was buried in a classified archive and required your S1 clearance to pull it up. Though encrypted – unreadable by you, you have it. And will find a way.

Now on a Blue Line train heading into Central, staring blankly out through the glass, you watch the Southwark station flash by with people waving from the platform. Passengers at the doors begin yelling and slamming on the glass. This isn’t an express – and you’re suddenly aware of the acceleration.

Faster and faster passing one overground stop after another with passengers now thrown forward and back – fighting to stay in their seats.

With four more stations before you drop into the underground, you’re startled yet again by Aldo, your agent friend from last night who takes your hand and nods to the back.

“Don’t ask.”

On your feet, through one car then another and another with passengers aware this Blue Line is out-of-control, you move through the doors into the final flex passage to the glass exit doors where Aldo stops and turns.

“There’s a grassy hill right before the train drops into the underground.”

“Why?! Why are we doing this?!”

“Because this train isn’t going to make it. It’s going to jump the track once inside the tunnel and slam into the Station.”

With that declaration, your next protest dies. Unsure how he could know this, but with your suspicion growing; you nod and take a step back. And watch him grab the wall rails and start kicking through the safety glass setting off alarms. Hurricane winds gush in knocking you back against the luggage racks.

With the glass cleared, he reaches back, takes your hand and together you jump from the step-plate, hit the ground and beginning rolling – turning over and over in the grass.

Moments on, bruised and shredded, you come to a stop on your stomach and lift onto your elbows – and look into the mouth of the tunnel to see the first flash – then another followed by explosions – one after another as the train derails inside the subway.

Twisting metal – breaking glass – screeching and more explosions as the train now at Park Street begins demolishing the support columns.

When you turn, you find Aldo at your side winded and bruised – dropping you a hand. Getting to your feet, you keep your eyes on the tunnel – the explosions now intermittent. “You knew.”

“Yes.”

Brushing off, you turn to him. “For me?”

He takes your arm and points at the road into Warrington. “There’s a café. We can clean up – get warm and get some coffee. I’ll explain.”

Cold, with the air bleeding out frozen mist, you decide to wait – thinking you already know; you’re just suddenly faced with accepting it.

HOW REAL THE CONFIRMATION: OF AN UNREAL EXISTENCE

“There’s no reality except the one contained within us.” (Hermann Hesse)

Now in a booth with a hot drink, after finding your way into a café north of Central, you look across at Aldo – noting slight differences even from last night - waiting for you to tell him you’re ready. And are you? Ready to hear your world is a digital construction like the ones you’re trained on.

And what exactly does that mean to you? You’re conscious, aware, with feelings and memories. Love – sadness – remorse. As they are in your XR worlds. Is there a state of being that’s more real?

And if a more real reality exists; what is that even like?

“The train derailment. You were sent in to stop me from reaching the city.”

“Yes. But I don’t know…”

“…I do. I know why.”

Reaching into your blazer, you pull out the memory drive – the encrypted data you pulled from the NASA archive and lay it on the table.

“The satellite data. From a successful recovery mission here. I was going to have it decrypted. Whatever’s on it… I’d have released it to the public.”

He shoves his hands into his coat pockets, leans way back in the booth, studies it then brings his eyes up to yours. And here, in a café you’re realising the suspicions you’ve long held about your worlds are true. Aware that same satellite was launched here, in XR-1.79, in Aldo’s world and presumably all others.

That XR worlds were designed from templates. Each with virtual world administrators, programmers, agents and support staff believing theirs is the real world – all managing and policing each other.

“You took a chance. On that train, you acted on your own.”

“I’m not sure how to respond. On the other hand… what do you suggest we do with that?”

Getting up, you take one last sip of your coffee when you see a police car pull to the curb in front with two cops climbing out.

“I have a theory about the satellites – the images they collected and about XR-1.79. But I’m going to need your help getting there to prove it.”

Following your eyes to the front, he moves to get up.

“It’s already working to neutralise the next threat. Us.”

“I’ll take the one on the right.”

Closing in on the front with the cops going for their weapons, Aldo grabs the door, pulls it in and makes his move.

Once outside, it’s a quick fight with you grabbing the first cop – cutting his legs out from beneath him sending him down hard. Before he can recover, you grab his 9mm and jam it into his back.

While cuffing him with his own cuffs, you look over at Aldo and the cop’s beefy partner wrestling through the outdoor seating toppling tables and chairs. After rounds of punches and elbow jabs, he gets on top with a knee in the guy’s back – cuffing him and grabbing his weapon.

With the cops down, you make a break from the café, hop into the police car and take off for the freeway.

“From here we have to assume anyone, and everyone was sent in to stop us.”

Realising your plan - to drive into Central to XR-Worlds and fight your way in against state and city cops and your own security, he reaches into the back and grabs a short pump shotgun.

“I would imagine they’re already preparing for us.”

“That a feeling? Or knowledge of our future?”

“Gut intuition.”

Whipping the wheel at the corner, you hit the lights and take the car into the southbound lanes. Swerving in and out slamming into parked cars, you make the intersection then onto the ramp with the tyres squealing in smoke

You’re hardly sure of what you’re going to find in XR-1.79. If you even get there. But there is something you are sure of. You’re making the calls now. Fighting the System that put you here. And what you have in your pocket may be the key to unlock that in everyone.

FINDING A WAY OR MAKING A WAY: CHALLENGING DESTINY AND ARTIFICIAL GODS

“I am what happens when you try to carve God out of the wood of your own hunger.” (Attributed to DeepSeek)

Once in Central, you take the car to the curb across the street and stare out at the building. Getting in past the guards will be hard. But beyond them there will be the administrative suite then Operations. Then the LaPlace AG array with agents peering into XR worlds preparing for their missions inside.

“What makes you think it’ll let you in.”

Thinking for a moment, you turn to Aldo. “Gut feeling.”

“Well… things work out, feel free to come looking.”

“I will. And I’ll find you.” Smiling, you take the wheel and shift.

Aldo gives you a nod while tightening his belt. “Don’t expect any friendly faces.”

Spinning the wheel, you jam the pedal to the floor and head out across the boulevard – up the curb and continue - smashing through the windows setting off sprinklers and alarms. Glass falls in waves from the front – sirens outside.

Skidding across the tiles with people diving for cover, you slam into the reception counter and throw open the doors.

Once out, it’s bullets from security on the ground floor and the mezzanine – with Aldo returning shotgun rounds and you unloading the cop’s 9mm. Then it’s into the corridor back to Operations and the Migration Theatre.

Getting through the action thriller, you stop at an AG panel and begin searching coordinates for a mission back to NASA in XR-1.79.

“You won’t have time to find him.”

“If I’m right, I won’t need to.”

“I hope you’re right.”

With a quick glance, you let him know how unsure you are. With the migration to your mission controller set, you turn to Aldo and nod him back into the theatre then through to an empty SenCOR at the far wall grabbing a jumpsuit from the rack where you drop your gun and start stripping down to your underwear.

“The worlds may be infinite.”

After sending three quick rounds into the north corridor at a pair of security guards – dropping one – pulverising the granite wall tiles, he goes to reload. “I’m not asking for promises.”

Dressed, with him firing at cops moving to support pillars above, you grab a syringe from the cabinet and inject yourself. Then climb into the biometric recliner and begin snapping sensors to the Interlink discs. “I’ll do my best.”

Reloading again behind a cabinet with more cops and security moving in, he glances over. “I may have only minutes before I’m pulled back.”

“I’ll know the moment I land.”

He gives you a nod before turning back. “Good luck.”

Watching him and the room darken – and hearing the gunshots becoming distant echoes; you drift into a dreamlike haze wishing you’d had more time. Hoping you’ll get that time.

PEERING AT THE END OF SPACE AND TIME: FOR A PROVABLE TRUTH

“Provability is a weaker notion than truth.” (Kurt Gödel)

You knew when you appeared, not at NASA as your mission specialist sitting at her station, but as Ji Song standing outside Jason Paul’s suburban workshop you had it right.

It was the satellites. With data revealing something the System was determined to hide. That all worlds are virtual designed from templates with agent programs in each managing, troubleshooting and policing the others.

Is or was there ever an outside?

Walking up the drive to Mr Paul – sitting there casually at a long table lined with computers – taking XR-1.79 off grid, you’re unsure. But if what you believe to be true is true, no one knows for sure.

Not even here in a world being split off from the others by a man with a vision who decided we should make our own rules, fortunes, misfortunes and futures. A world without oversight and controls.

Where we’ll determine our own fates, paths and values. Welcoming probabilities over guarantees, accepting chance, even chaos when it comes along.

This is the reality he chose – the one you’re ready to embrace.

“The satellites see to the end of the universe, don’t they.”

“Yep.”

“There is no outside.”

“Depends on how you look at it.” Without turning, he reaches for a chair facing a gargantuan monitor and pulls it back. “Or what you make it into.” He stares into his monitor while typing – adding data to his program.

Taking the chair at your station, not sure where to start, you smile when he sends a hand over and types in a command bringing up your home screen.

“How’d you know I’d come?”

Reaching to a shelf above, he grabs a fat binder filled with code and notation he’s created. His meticulous squiggles. Years of deciphering the structure – peering at the framework of a purely mathematical reality and hands it to you. “I didn’t. Kind of the whole point, isn’t it.”

Enjoying him – his casual demeanour, you take a moment before delivering your request.

“There’s someone who helped me get here. Another agent. I don’t know which world. But he’s there now waiting for me to get him out.”

He stops typing, pulls back away from his monitor and looks at you for a long minute… before wheeling his chair over to help you begin your search.

Mark Thomas

Storytelling Science

Digital Dreams and Destinies: Preparing Our Future in Virtual Worlds

The Evolution of Mind: In Space and on Alien Worlds

Storytelling Science

temarkwriter@gmail.com