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I was a living computer back then.
The steady tapping of the keyboard is the only sound in the room, as Mikage studiously fills the details of the report, before sending it forward to collect digital dust in some nameless stack of bureaucracy. It is the third of its kind, but as filling them is a necessity for the program to keep going, Mikage expresses no hesitation towards the tedious task.
Mikage is aware how a gesture of his own is occasionally interrupting the flow of the typing – his left hand moves and touches a framed photograph next to the screen. His fingertips briefly brush the glass and then he continues. As if he had to assure himself of the reality of the boy in the picture. Brown skin, light hair, purple uniform, a reassuring gaze in his eyes that stare right at him.
As the report is finished and sent, Mikage re-visits the database. Updates the information, so he can be sure that nothing is missing.
The picture is paper, but the boy is flesh and blood. Mikage is well aware the reality of his touch as he revises previous moments. Every single memory is real.
Mikage runs the models, and the results are same. He closest the program and switches into the calendar view. They have plenty of time left, the program is only in the beginning.
A living computer, or living in a computer, the difference is not as significant as the pivotal notion of not having one’s identity programmed and executed through binary states. Anymore.
Mikage closes the calendar view and opens the workspace, but after a while, switches to pen and paper that already await next to the keyboard. The freedom of being not bound into machinery but being able to express the pinnacle of your logical thinking just by yourself, your embodied self, that is significant.
This world is real to him and he solves it.
He has already surpassed that man, the professor, the failure.
He knows it. He knows it.
His fingers are again on the glass of the picture. Yes, it is there. Yes, it is tangible, as tangible as everything around it.
“Senpai?”
Mikage startles as he feels a hand on his shoulder. It is Thursday, so he was already prepared for Mamiya not being here tonight. As each Thursday, Mamiya does-
Mamiya does-
“Do you have a lot of work left? It’s already late.”
“Don’t worry, Mamiya. I am almost finished.”
“Please, don’t overwork yourself.”
Mikage smiles and turns to face his partner. There he stands, real and embodied, fundamental particles gathered in that specific physical shape.
“You don’t need to be concerned about me.”
An odd look visits Mamiya’s face, but then it is back to normal.
“Actually, I came here to say… Um… I’m sorry but I have something to do and that’s why I have to leave already now, even though it’s Thursday. I’m sorry, I’ll be back by noon tomorrow.”
But you are already away on Thursdays? Or was it on Wednesdays? How could he make such a mistake?
After Mamiya has left, Mikage revisits frantically his notes, and yes, it is every Wednesday Mamiya is away. He is absolutely sure that just five minutes ago, not only his notes but also all the other time-depended items displayed something else. Their entire schedule is arranged after Mamiya’s preferences, and yet, everything here signifies that it has always been like this.
There is a small but uncomfortable feeling somewhere in his throat.
As he returns to his notebooks, he realises how the latest formulas, or rather drafts of formulas are gone.
This is a coincidence, Mikage reassures himself, there is nothing wrong in his cognitive system, here he is alone but still embodied, and this is only the first time, not one of the countless. Definitely not.
For next eleven minutes, Mikage only stares at the clock, counting every single second, assuring that their length is equal and the movement of the clock hands is steady.
When a clock hour is even, it is time for him to move to the basement level and execute the regular routine.
Mamiya’s movement is quiet and the voice he talks is small, but still the silence of the hall is much vaster without his presence. The emptiness is almost suffocating, even though there is nothing unusual in it.
Mikage counts each step as he descends into the basement level, and he observes the physical feeling of every single footstep so cautiously that it takes much longer than normal.
I was a living computer back then.
He passes the main chamber and goes to a smaller room, which features only a large screen, attached to the wall, and a small bench.
BACK then.
He does not have to push any buttons, as professor Nemuro’s face appears on the screen. From this perspective, Nemuro’s appearance seems virtual, as the interface between them is reduced to a two-dimensional grid of pixels. But Mikage is aware that his own position is impossible to define from inside. For a moment, they are observing each other in silence. A severe violation of principle of the identity of indiscernibles is under threat to occur, but Mikage keeps his mind determined.
In the world controlled by the laws of physics, the multiplicity of a singular existence is by definition virtual. The particles that compose his body can be simulated, represented as a vast set of numbers.
“Shall we continue?” asks Nemuro, looking at him behind his tinted lenses.
You are virtual particles, professor. A simulated memory, a representation computed ultimately in terms of binary states.
“Yes, do that,” says Mikage.
He recapitulates the fundamentals in his mind. His embodiment is physical, ultimately in fields of fundamental particles, instead of computational states. As his ongoing persuasion claims, the structure is flawless.
Professor Nemuro looks at something in his hand, before stating the familiar lines.
“Experiment one, trial zero. Baseline data. Time resolution one millisecond – system standard. Just count from one to ten, at one-second intervals. Can you manage that?”
“I think I can.”
Of course he can, he has planned this all himself.
Nemuro’s image vanishes and the screen is blank for a while, so the visual cues are not possible. For less than a second, Mikage lets himself think he is singular and whole, located in a stable timeline. He lets that fall through. He counts.
Nemuro’s image flashes back.
“Okay. Experiment one, trial number one. Time resolution five milliseconds. Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
Five milliseconds. An interval indistinguishable for human perception. His reality cannot be ruptured. Nothing has changed. Nothing.
“One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.”
“Anything to report?”
“No.”
“Okay. Trial number two. Time resolution ten milliseconds.”
To be completely shut down for each ten milliseconds. To be completely shut down, in intervals so diminutive that a subject cannot perceive, but still. Mikage is aware how these are illogical thoughts to have. Inside this little paradox, Nemuro is the one who is being computed. By altering the clock rate of the system, the professor can only affect the appearance of his own virtual self. On this side of the screen, it does not matter.
He knows that.
He has planned this experiment by himself.
“Trial number three. Time resolution twenty milliseconds.”
“One. Two. Three. Four.”
Mikage feels something on his throat, as he utters the numbers. It must be a false feeling; there cannot be anything special.
“Five. Six.”
A sequence of snapshots. No, it is not like that. The airflow is continuous as he breathes in, as continuous as the blood circulating in his veins.
Twenty milliseconds is still a rate that he would not notice. Nor his body. Still.
“Trial number four. Time resolution fifty milliseconds.”
And whatever was flickering, it did not matter. He was nevertheless wholly present in the system of relationships that-
No, where was he?
Nemuro looks at him, expression still unchanged.
“Trial number five. One hundred milliseconds.”
“One. Two. Three.”
Mikage listens to his own voice. Each second was consisted of ten snapshots. But it did not matter. There was nothing special in anything he felt in his body.
“Two hundred milliseconds.”
“One. Two.”
Five subjective hertz. That is the rate he is now flickering in and out of existence. No, no, not him but Nemuro is. Mikage waves his hand in front of his face, and the motion is perfectly smooth, continuous.
“Three. Four. Five. Six.”
There is no reason for his voice to be on the verge of cracking when he utters the number, the ordinary sequence.
“Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.”
“Are you all right? You look pale. Are you able to continue?” Nemuro asks in totally unempathetic voice.
“Who are you to speak? You are the one who cannot be separated from the whiteboard.”
“You are aware that we are the same.”
“No, we are not.”
They stare at each other in silence; through the screen whose existence is almost invisible.
“Trial number seven,” Nemuro states. “Time resolution five hundred milliseconds.”
Twice per second. These gaps are detectable, he cannot fool himself anymore.
“One. Two. Three.”
So, what was there in between? If his model of brain was fully described at half-second intervals, what was going in between? Not only in his brain, but in his nerves, his veins, in every tissue of his body.
In the computational model of every tissue in his body.
Suddenly the ongoing self-persuasion that of the two instances of the same object on the different sides of the screen, he is the real and embodied one, is useless. Totally useless.
A wave of nausea hits Mikage as he spits out the last numerals.
“One thousand milliseconds.”
Once per second.
His head is swinging now. Of course it is, if everything in his being is reduced to this primitive rate, he is no more than an ordinary ticking clock on the wall.
“One. Two.”
He should not be able to breathe. Nor speak. The equations controlling the model were far too complex to solve in a single step. There must have been vast arrays of partial results being generated and discarded along the way. Each word he utters, each breath he takes is now a paradox.
“Two thousand milliseconds.”
“One.”
It should have been impossible to even utter that word. It takes less than two seconds. It happens in the non-existent, noncomputed space.
“Two.”
A strong sense of vertigo fills Mikage’s mind. The reality of the feeling is a clear sign of the unreality of this; the nausea and the sense of suffocation are only side effects of his faltering existence being forced into this lethal frequency. Soon indistinguishable from the stable emptiness.
“Five thousand milliseconds.”
He needs to sit down before he collapses. But how could he, each muscle cell being inoperable for five consecutive seconds? Billions of intermediate calculations were not able to bridge the gap; the sheer knowledge of these insane numbers was able to shatter the illusion.
He is being shut down.
He is being shut down.
Where is Mamiya now, he cannot do that, he cannot
He cannot breathe.
He cannot breathe.
The continuous movement of his hand is pure illusion, as nothing happens inside those five seconds, but who or what is the one perceiving the illusion then? How is this possible, how can he still see the edges of the room and the screen in front of him, and Nemuro’s narrow face as his lips move as he utters the next words, with the unchanging, steady voice.
“Time resolution ten thousand milliseconds.”
Mikage cannot comprehend how he is able to enumerate the entire sequence in the total vastness.
With the ‘en’ of the ‘ten’, he finally falls on the floor, head between his hands.
Is Nemuro still speaking? He cannot see him from this level.
Mikage is gasping for air, his hands are frantically searching for tangible reality to clutch onto, but there is nothing but subsequent binary states.
Virtual particles. A simulated memory, a representation computed ultimately in terms of binary states.
The image of Mamiya is somewhere far away.
Mamiya, who is real, real, real.
Mamiya.
Mamiya!
…
“Look at me. Breathe.”
I cannot as I have no lungs.
The figure has crouched down on Mikage’s level and put his hand on his shoulder.
It is marvellously realistic to be a three-dimensional holograph.
Professor Nemuro looks directly at him and repeats his words. Mikage can even sense the feeling on his skin, as Nemuro lifts his chin up.
“You are as real as I am.”
He puts both of his virtual hands on the sides of his face and moves it gently closer to his. Yes, physically moves, even if he is a holograph.
“Mikage. You can breathe now. You are as real as I am.”
Their foreheads touch. The paradox is complete. Ultimately, there is nothing but data. Patterns in that data may form something that may be called real. Which in the end was nothing but a matter of viewpoint and algorithmic compressibility.
“Which was… I?” Mikage hears his own, choked voice asking, before everything in his vision blurs into the same.
Before he finds himself being crouched down on the ground, holding this person-shaped anomaly in his own hands, like a three-dimensional mirror image. Trailing his finger on his cheek as he still desperately tries to breathe as if he was alive, observes him through his tinted lenses, observes the anomaly.