Now the whole world had one language and a common speech…Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
– Genesis 11:1-4
Jem looked up as Kir slumped down in the cafeteria seat across from her. He looked as exhausted as she felt. “SimOne says the central command system didn’t do it,” Kir said, dragging his hand over his eyes before taking a sip from the flask he carried.
“I know. I checked too.” Jem blinked hard, gazing at him through the haze of her astral workstation. Her eyes still stung from the effort of going through all the reports SimOne had sent to her. “There’s no way anyone could have known in advance that Kav would spill water on the planet. It was an accident.”
“He’s really sorry, by the way.”
“I know. I’m sorry I yelled at him. I just flipped out.”
“I did too when I saw all that water sloshing down.” Kir chuckled. “He’s heard swearing before, so it’s not as if you’re responsible for expanding his vocabulary.”
Jem smiled wanly. The guilt still tickled in the pit of her stomach. It was easier to change the topic. “So, if it’s not the central command system, and not SimOne, and not either of us, then who the hell told the humans to build a boat? A network virus? A hacker?”
“Who knows? We don’t have the academic or professional background to figure it out.”
“SimOne could,” Jem said.
Kir sighed and drank deeply from his flask. “That’s an option. We could turn her loose on the mystery and see what she finds. If there’s an anomaly in the programming that is cueing the humans on our planet, I’d like to know about it.”
“Do you think she could do that on top of everything else she’s doing to monitor the planet?”
Kir nodded. “She might have to use a fraction of her computing power, as opposed to virtually none of it, but yeah, she could probably manage.”
Jem slid her astral workstation back into her personal device. “It’s going to drive me crazy until we pin it down. Someone or something out there is gaming the system.”
“We were lucky it did, or we would have had one very dead, wet planet.”
“No food, no drinks around the planet ever again,” Jem said.
“Right. Never again. We can drink to that.”
She glared at him as Kir tipped his flask to her.
Kir chuckled. “Off to class?”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
In companionable silence, they made the long trek from Levering Hall, across the lower quadrangle, the upper quadrangle, and then up the hill to the Simulation Center. “It’s a nice day,” Jem remarked, breaking the silence as she raised her face to the soft breeze. “Pity we’re spending so much time indoors.”
“We could always work out here. SimOne can send us the reports we need to make decisions. It’s not as if we’re doing anything physical to the planet, other than spill water over it.”
She shot him a slanted glare. “Those water jokes are getting less funny each time.”
“Okay, all right. Sorry.” Kir grinned, apparently not offended. He shrugged his backpack off his shoulders and put his flask away before walking into the classroom. Students were gathered around a screen in front of the class. “What’s that?” he asked.
“Probably interim results for the semester,” Jem murmured. She pressed a fist against the sinking feeling in her stomach.
Kir cast her a quick sideways glance. “Want me to check it?”
She swallowed hard. “Yes, please.”
It was cowardly, she knew, but after the near disasters of the past few weeks, she was not ready to face up to their scores. She could hear envious murmurs, soft laughs, and knowing chuckles, and wondered which team was at the top, and which one at the bottom. Her team would not be the former. She could only hope and pray they were not the latter.
Kir came back quickly. He seemed calm and relaxed, as always. She might have smacked him just for that, but the tense knots in her shoulders did not allow for that much freedom of movement. “We’re okay,” he said.
“Define okay.”
“We’re sixteenth.”
“Aren’t there only twenty teams?”
“Nineteen, now. One fell apart last week.”
“That’s not okay.”
“Jem, we’re only a few weeks in.”
“We’re midway through the semester and a quarter of the way through the entire course.” Jem shook her head and turned away from him. Damn it. They had to catch up, somehow. The only problem was that she did not know how.
Kir shrugged. “Look, we’re the only undergraduate team. We’re not scraping bottom. That’s saying something, and we’ve got time to get better.”
“We’re younger than everyone else, so we’ve got a reason to suck?” She spun around to glare at him. “With that kind of attitude, it’s a wonder you’ve even gotten this far in life.”
“You can be competitive without being obsessive. I’m competitive. You’re obsessive. Big difference.”
She turned her back on him and walked into the simulation laboratory. The chill hit her harder that day than it usually did. “Status report, SimOne.”
“Status is normal.”
It was a nice change. Jem closed in on the planet and walked slowly around it for her customary visual inspection. She jerked to a stop and stared at the area around which life had sprouted after Kav had spilt the water. “What is that?”
“What is what?” Kir asked as he walked up to join them. He peered closer. “It looks like a building of some sort. SimOne, we need a detailed visual of the area.”
SimOne complied, projecting the image on an astral screen above the planet.
Jem’s eyes narrowed. “It is a building…a ridiculously large tower. What would anyone need with a building that large?”
Kir chuckled. “Remember the boat? I think our humans just do everything large. I blame it on delusions of grandeur.”
“How many people would it take to build something like this?” Jem asked.
“Without modern technology? Insane numbers of people,” Kir confirmed. “SimOne, can you give us a map of the planet and overlay it with population density?”
The image of the tower vanished as a map of the world unfurled across the astral screen. There was a cluster of black around the coordinates of the tower. The rest of the map was conspicuously and disturbingly empty.
“I don’t believe it. Every human being on the damn planet is right down there.” Kir sighed. “They’re lucky the ground’s not sinking beneath all that weight. Freaking cowards. There’s a big world out there. Go explore it.”
Jem snorted. “I know what you’re going to say next. Risk diversification.”
“We need to. You could wipe out the entire human population of the planet by accidentally sneezing on that spot. Not a good idea.”
Jem agreed. “Fine. Scatter them.”
“Right.” Kir paused, staring at Jem. “Uh, how?”
She arched an eyebrow. “Ask them nicely?”
“Funny.” Kir took a deliberate step back and stared down at the planet and at the monstrosity of a building that rose above it. “If the building gets any bigger, it may even affect the axial tilt of the planet. SimOne, who’s driving the project?”
“There are many leaders on the project.”
“How are they coordinating with each other?”
There was a pause. Startled, Jem glanced at the android. SimOne always had answers for everything. Finally, SimOne said softly, a puzzled lilt in her soft voice. “They talk to each other.”
Kir swallowed a snort of laughter. “No, what I meant was—”
“What were you expecting, Kir?” Jem interjected. “Hand signals? Smoke signals? Messenger pigeons? Or electronic mail, perhaps?”
He laughed aloud. “All right, but I think we’ve just stumbled on a way to scatter them.”
“Which is?” Jem asked.
“What happens if someone doesn’t understand what you’re saying?”
“You fire them.”
Kir rolled his eyes at her. “No, seriously. We scramble their language. If they can’t communicate, they can’t build. If they can’t build, they may move away from each other.”
Jem considered it briefly and then shrugged. “It’s worth a try.”
“All right.” Kir inhaled deeply. “We’ll need to do this carefully. SimOne, propose a restructuring of the population along familial lines. However, I want you to ensure there’s enough diversity in each new cluster to avoid inbreeding issues.”
“Developing restructuring proposal…Proposal complete.”
Jem and Kir studied the information that flowed across the astral screen. Jem could not make any sense of it, but Kir nodded several times as he scanned down the document. “That works, SimOne. Execute.”
“Executing.”
“You made it seem easy,” Jem said.
“It’s just like restructuring…reorganizing a business. There are logical structures—departments, functions, corporate centers, stuff like that. The trick is knowing where to draw the lines and how to tie them all together. Once you figure that out, the rest is easy. It’s not quite like rocket science, or designing a human being from scratch.”
“It’s working,” Jem said. Together, they watched the cluster of black disperse. Like a river overflowing its banks, the trickle swelled into a flood, spreading across the surface of the planet along seemingly preset lines. “Like ants at a picnic.”
Kir nodded. “They’re following the water. They’re mapping the path of major rivers and their smaller tributaries. They don’t have the technology to move away from large water sources just yet.”
“One day they will.”
“Yes, one day,” Kir agreed. “Meanwhile, crisis averted.”
“We need at least one a day.”
“Got to stay in practice. Keeps us feeling useful,” Kir said. “Oh, SimOne, we wanted to ask you about the big boat that the humans built yesterday. Someone must have told them to build it. We need you to figure out who.”
“The central command system has no record of any such order,” SimOne said.
“Precisely. Something or someone is circumventing the central command system.”
“It is impossible to circumvent the central command system,” the android said.
“Suspend disbelief for a second, SimOne—”
“It is impossible to suspend what one does not have, and your second is over.”
Kir chuckled. “Just imagine with me, what if something did circumvent the central command system? What would it mean for the simulation?”
“If the rules of the universe are circumvented, there will be total chaos.”
Kir nodded. “Precisely. That’s why we need to track it down.”
“Professor Ptera must be informed,” SimOne said.
“At this point, we have nothing more than a hunch that something’s not quite right. Until you find evidence that leads somewhere, there’s nothing to tell him,” Kir said. “Can you do it, SimOne?”
“I can do anything.”
Jem chuckled softly. “She said that with far more certainty than I’ve ever been able to muster in any situation.”
Kir laughed. “All right, SimOne. Go find this anomaly in the universe.”
The anomaly in the universe was the last thing on Jem’s mind as she raced into the simulation laboratory two days later. She ducked under the rings of the second gas giant, maneuvered her way through the asteroid belt, and skidded to a stop in time to avoid a collision with the red planet. Damn it. She knew better. They could not risk any physical accidents around the planets.
Jem checked her pace as she closed the distance to Kir and SimOne and wished she had brought a warmer jacket. She turned her head to sneeze into her hand. “I’m sorry I’m late. What did I miss?”
Kir threw her a grin. “The rise of empires. Looks like our little munchkins are starting to grow up. They’ve even progressed to enslaving each other. I think they need lessons on the virtues of benevolent autocracy.”
“Really?” She leaned forward, her hand brushing against SimOne’s shoulder as she stepped past the android. A sharp pain pricked her finger. “Ow!” She jerked her hand away from SimOne. “What was that?”
“What?” Kir looked back over his shoulder.
A single drop of blood trickled down Jem’s index finger and splashed into the planet.
Jem’s eyes widened. Her hand pressed against her open mouth. “Oh, my God!”
“Oh, damn.” Kir swallowed hard. “That’s our crisis for the day.”
“Do something!” Jem shouted.
Kir shook his head. “Do what? It’s too late. SimOne?”
“The blood has contaminated the longest river on the planet,” the android said.
“Contain it!” Jem ordered.
“The effects cannot be contained,” SimOne said calmly. “Your blood is toxic to the life forms on the planet. One hundred percent of the fish at the point of impact were eradicated. Amphibians are abandoning aquatic habitats and dying in large numbers on land. The insect population is expanding exponentially, unchecked by natural predators. Terrestrial animals are dying from disease vectored by insects. Infection and disease is spreading through human populations close to the point of impact.”
Tears sprang into Jem’s eyes. “Damn it.”
“You have to stop it, SimOne!” Kir insisted. “Do something.”
After a brief silence, SimOne said quietly, “Something is happening to the planet.”
“What are you doing to it?” Kir asked.
“I am not doing anything. Something else is.”
Jem yanked her gaze up to SimOne. Jem sneezed but barely noticed it. “Tell us what’s happening, damn it.”
SimOne tilted her head. Her blue eyes seemed more vacant than ever. Was she listening to something only she could hear? SimOne was their only connection to the central command system, and the entire chain was only as strong as its weakest link. Could she…could it be trusted?
SimOne spoke quietly. “Planetary sensors report that supra-atmospheric hail is falling close to the point of impact at 25°43’14”N, 32°36’37”E.”
“Supra-atmospheric hail?” Kir asked.
“The hail stones form above the atmosphere and burn as they fall,” SimOne explained in a calm tone, as if the world were not falling apart around them as she spoke.
“My blood did not do that,” Jem protested.
“Of course not. Something else is happening,” Kir agreed. “Track it down, SimOne.”
SimOne continued as if she had not heard Kir. “Planetary sensors report that swarms of locusts are concentrating around the crops devastated by hail. A solar eclipse is taking place over point of impact.”
“What the hell is going on down there?” Kir grabbed SimOne by her shoulders. “Stop it. Whatever it is, stop it.”
Jem looked at the planet and sneezed again.
“The central command system confirms that the environmental anomalies are taking place independently of the programming,” SimOne said.
“What kinds of environmental anomalies? The solar eclipse?” Kir asked.
“Yes, and others like this.” An astral screen flashed into existence above the planet.
Jem stared at the screen, the chill of the simulation laboratory forgotten. “What…is that?”
“A vertical cloud?” Kir asked.
The scene darkened as day gave way to night. The cloud swirled, catching flame.
“This is crazy.” Kir shook his head sharply. “That pillar of fire isn’t just an environmental anomaly. Someone is screwing around with the program.”
“I believe I already mentioned that,” SimOne said.
“SimOne, you’re supposed to find the damn thing and stop it,” Kir said, his voice a hiss of frustration.
“I am trying.”
“Try harder.”
“Forget the damned pillar of fire. What’s happening back at the point of impact?” Jem asked.
“Human lives were eradicated,” SimOne said.
“How?”
SimOne’s eyes narrowed. “A portion of the eradication cannot be explained.”
“I’m getting awfully tired of hearing that, SimOne,” Kir warned.
“What about the portion you can explain?” Jem asked.
“They died when they tried to cross the seawater inlet at the junction of two continents,” SimOne said.
“Their boats sank?”
“No. They attempted to cross on foot, but the water returned.”
Jem’s brow furrowed. “The water returned? What does that mean? How did the water go away in the first place?”
“You sneezed.”
“What?”
“You sneezed, causing the water in the inlet to momentarily recede. A portion of the humans who attempted the crossing did make it across successfully.”
“Ugh.” Jem looked away. She sighed as she sank into a cross-legged slump. “Twice in a day.”
Kir sat beside her. “We could give you a title. How does ‘the goddess of calamity’ sound?”
Jem buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook. She did not know whether to laugh or cry. “Damn it,” she said, voice muffled.
“Situation is now normal at point of impact,” SimOne reported.
“Good. Can you keep an eye on things, SimOne? Call us if anything out of the ordinary happens,” Jem said.
“Certainly.”
Jem stood up. “Kir, I need to talk to you. Outside. Now.”
“What about?” Kir asked as they exchanged the chill of the Simulation Center for the kiss of the autumn sun.
“I…” Jem hesitated. There was no way to say it nicely; it was better just to get it all out. “I don’t trust SimOne.”
“Why?”
“All of our contact with the world and the central command system goes through her. Do we know for certain that she’s doing what we tell her to, or that she’s even telling us everything?”
“She’s an android. She’s incapable of lying.”
“Omission isn’t a lie,” Jem said.
Kir rolled his eyes. “You are so paranoid. She’s a part of the team.”
“There are so many unexplained disasters in our world. Do you honestly believe that the android responsible for keeping our little world turning really has no idea what’s going on?”
Kir paused as he considered it, and then he said, “Yes. Look, this is a planet. It may be small, and it may be part of a simulation, but it doesn’t make it less real. Planets are complex things. Who knows what forces actually affect a planet?”
“The central command system,” Jem said.
“Yes, and what else? What forces do you think control our planet?”
“God.”
“And?”
“And?” Jem echoed, perplexed.
Kir shook his head. “Wow, no wonder you’re having so much trouble with this concept. Is your worldview always so black and white? No opposing evil force? No free will?”
She glared at him.
“What about mere chance?” Kir asked. “Like Kav spilling water on the planet? You cutting your finger? Sneezing?”
Jem scowled. “We’re the equivalent of gods for this planet, Kir, and we’re screwing up in a huge way if we can’t figure out who else is playing them for fools.”
“Just relax. We’ll figure it out, but getting tied up in knots over SimOne isn’t the answer.”
“Then what is?” Jem challenged.
“SimOne is on task to figure this problem out. Let’s give her some time. Meanwhile, we should ask around. If weird things are happening on other planets too, there may be a bigger problem to tackle than an unexplained supra-atmospheric hailstorm.”
Jem inhaled deeply. Kir was trying to stay calm. She could too. “All right. When you ask around, remember to mention that pillar of cloud and fire.”
“I know.” Kir’s eyes narrowed. “That was really odd. It was moving.”
“It’s just desert down there. Where would it go?” she asked.
“That’s what I want to find out. I bet SimOne’s tracking it now. You know, we need to start paying a lot more attention to what the humans are doing on this planet. They’re starting to make their presence felt.”