The Plagiarist (5 page)

“
Bela, open up.”

He heard something squeak inside the room, like a tight drawer being pushed shut.

“
Who is it?”

“
It’s me. Open up.”

The knob jumped; the door flew open. Belatrix stood there, hair veiling her face in loose wisps, her eyes wide.

“
How did you get here so fast?” she asked.

Adam moved inside the apartment, his hands on her shoulders. She was trembling.

“
I hurried right over.”

“
I just talked to you,” she said. “You were at work.”

Adam wasn’t sure what his avatar had been doing before he arrived to borrow it. He rarely knew.

“
I was already on my way. You called my portable, remember?”

Belatrix scrunched up her face, swiped the hair off her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. “I must be confused. It’s— The world has gone nuts. What’re we gonna do? What’s
happening?
”

She looked toward the windows. Adam noticed the blinds had been drawn. Why was he lying to her about how he got to her apartment? What good did that do? Didn’t he come there planning on telling her the truth? What good would
that
do? Was it better for her to go without knowing, to die thinking that she was real—?

Die. Why did he keep thinking about it like that?
Deleted
. She didn’t exist. None of this was real. He had to fight to remind himself of that.

“
Honey? Are you okay?” Belatrix put a hand on his chest, another around his waist. Adam realized he probably looked worse than she did. What was really about to happen to her planet was far more sinister, more permanent, more
real
than anything she could dread from the fake flying saucers.

“
I have to tell you something,” he said, even though he didn’t yet know what he wanted to say.

There was an explosion outside; the windows rattled, then the vibrations could be felt in the floor. The building was swaying. Adam had never been on the ground level of a deletion before. It was terrifying and authentic. He couldn’t believe how
real
it felt. Raw terror coursed up through him as he lost his center yet again. He had a brief pang of doubt that this world
was
real and that he was about to die. Perhaps his life at the university was some sort of delusion, and he really worked at Telematics Express on Hammond, selling accounts to—

Belatrix was screaming, her hands pressed to her cheeks. More rumbles of destruction sounded in the distance. Somewhere, avatars probably floated above it all, soaking up the data while their fleshy bodies sat in a room a billion virtual light years away. Adam’s body was in that room as well. He tried to remember that.

“
None of this is real!” he screamed, voicing his thoughts. The building moved again, or his balance was gone. He wasn’t sure Belatrix heard him over her own screams. This was no way to say goodbye.

Belatrix’s arms went out for balance. She looked around the room, eyes wide with a sudden look of concentration and desperation. “We have to go,” she said. She hurried to her purse, dug around until she came out with her keys. She scanned the room for what else.

“
It’s no better anywhere else,” Adam said. “There’s something I have to say.”

Anger flashed across her face. “Not now—” she began.

“
None of this is real,” Adam said again. He threw his arms wide and spun in a slow circle, accusing her entire world. “There are no aliens outside. There
is
no outside. This planet isn’t real.”

Belatrix dug out her phone and started dialing someone. She kept a wary eye on Adam. He realized how pointless and sad all this was, how impossible it would be to convince her with words, so he disappeared. He logged off, then reinserted himself near the ceiling of her apartment, teleporting as he had before. He lessened his personal gravity and drifted slowly toward the floor, his arms stretched wide and his knees bent. Belatrix dropped her phone. Her jaw hung agape.

“
Sweetheart. Listen to me. I need you to know something.” His feet reached the ground; Belatrix hadn’t moved. “It’s impossible to believe, I know. It’s impossible to even explain, but this world is a virtual construct. It’s an illusion created by my people on another planet—”

Her eyes darted toward the windows. Her lips and hands trembled.

“
No.” Adam stretched an arm toward the chaos outside. “I’m not with them. Those flying saucers aren’t real either. It’s—” He needed more time to explain. “Have you read about the simulations in the news? Did you know your world has created entire other virtual worlds? Computer systems have gone live recently where entire planets evolve and thrive so people can do research.”

Belatrix nodded. “I’ve heard,” she whispered. A lump rose and fell across her throat. She was terrified.

Adam pressed his palms toward the floor. “This is a world like that.”

She shook her head. Fires crackled outside like paper being balled up and twisted. Adam could smell smoke.

“
I know it’s hard to imagine—” Adam waved at the room. “But all this is a simulation, just like the worlds your people have begun to create.”

“
But
you’re
real.” Her voice was a squeak. It was meant as a question. She didn’t believe him.

“
I’m real. And I came here because I need you to know that what we have between us—it’s been the only thing in my life lately that’s
felt
real.”

Tears dripped from his chin, and Adam realized he was crying. He didn’t know the simulation could do that. He didn’t know why it wouldn’t be able to, but he was surprised. Belatrix took a step toward him. Something in her face changed. Wide, disbelieving eyes had narrowed with suspicion. The teleportation trick, calling him at work and him showing up at her door, the absurdity of the scene outside the window, some internal doubts perhaps that had already been there—

“
I’m ashamed of us in my world,” Adam said, sobbing. “I’m living more of a lie than you are.”

Belatrix reached out and held his arms. Her hands were shaking terribly. Tears were welling up in her own virtual eyes.

Adam wrapped her up. He could taste the salt of his tears on her neck. He wanted to take her with him, to teleport out and drag her back to reality, but she had no body there to inhabit even if such a thing were possible. A deeper part of him wanted something worse. It wanted to stay on Hammond, to die right then with her.

“
I’m so sorry—” he said.

“
Shhh.”

She
was comforting
him
.

The rumbles outside faded, leaving the wail of many distant, fearful screams.

“
It’s not fair,” Adam whispered to no one.

“
What’s going to happen?” Belatrix asked.

He squeezed her tightly. “I wish I could save this—”

Adam wasn’t sure if he meant the moment, her planet, Belatrix, or just the feeling of a better existence.

“
What happens next?” she asked. “If you’re right, if this isn’t real, then what happens next?”

Adam went to kiss her, to feel the soft and warm sensation on his lips, as real as anything in the universe, one final time—

But there was no time.

His avatar automatically logged out as the planet he had been on ceased to exist.

The interface room buzzed with human energy as Adam logged out. Laughter and chatter, the static of giddy elation, surrounded him and left little room for his dull sadness. Professors and researchers exchanged notes from their various and varied disaster scenes, the thrum of their enthusiasm drilling into Adam’s head. He tugged his temple pads off the wires, then slowly peeled them from his head. He sat there, looking at them for a moment, then wiped the crust from his eyes. Samualson was still deeply interfaced beside him, his chin resting on his hands. His notepad of squiggly letters had grown over the last half hour. Adam wondered if his friend might have heard him yelling or crying as he repeatedly logged out to jot notes. He realized how little he cared, even if he had. He no longer wanted to hide Belatrix from his world; he wanted to share his memories of her.

Someone bumped into the back of Adam’s chair, causing him to drop his temple pads. An apology was offered. Adam felt like killing the man. He felt like deleting something to make room in this world for Belatrix. He never felt anger like this, not this murderous rage. Such fury took more energy than he normally had. He suddenly felt a great reserve of it.

He stood and jostled his way through the joyousness, terrified by his own anger. A different crowd mingled outside. The thick glasses and rows of pocketed pens meant the planetary crowd was wasting no time forming a new world where Hammond had once been. There would be so much new empty space on the quantum drives. All those qubits were gone. The astronomers would get their accretion disc to mold a new world with. The joy on their faces, the anticipation, it reminded Adam of how he felt logging on each night. For them, the empty space around a star was like lover’s lips to Adam. One man’s heart was shattered to make whole dozens more. But these men could freely discuss their passion. There was no shame, no lie, nothing hidden. Adam remembered feeling that way about his literary discoveries once, long ago. He had had friends in the English department, people he drank coffee with, ate with. Now he had a girlfriend he’d never met and a love who had never existed. He wasn’t yet forty and he might as well be dead.

He
felt
vaguely dead as he stumbled out the building and into the freshly fallen snow. Adam should have gone home. Distantly, he knew that. He hadn’t slept in two nights. He went to the cafeteria instead and drank coffee. The taste and the heat of it felt far removed from him. He listened to the clamor from the kitchen, the rattle of plastic trays and clang of silverware and chatter from the night crew. He watched the cashier flip slowly through her romance novel, scratching her head through her hairnet now and then. Through frosted glass, he could see a veil of snow begin to descend on campus. He wondered if there would be enough to cancel his morning class. Somehow, he knew he wouldn’t be teaching that day even if they didn’t call it off. He was going to be sick. He already was sick.

He nursed his coffee until the last sip was cold, went to grab his backpack and realized he’d left it in the lab. He’d left his gloves in there as well. He had his jacket, but couldn’t remember putting it on. The analog clock on the wall let him know he’d been spacing out for hours. A group in lab coats sat in a booth across from him, gesturing excitedly for the late hour. Adam didn’t remember them coming in. He wondered if he’d slept. It would be nice if he had.

He went back out into the cold. The snow was the wet kind, sticking to his hair. Adam pulled his hood up and thought briefly about heading back to the lab, then realized he didn’t care about the backpack. He trudged up the walk toward the library—another of the sleepless buildings on campus. He knew all the sleepless buildings well.

The policeman behind the night desk waved in recognition. Adam dipped his head. He sank into a chair by the periodicals and tried to sleep. He gave up as the sun eventually peeked over the mountains and the students began to emerge from their dorm caves.

The snow had ceased; it wasn’t enough to close campus. Adam knew he needed to call the department secretary, let her know he wouldn’t be coming to class, but even that required some semblance of motivation. He needed an excuse to not call in sick. He wasn’t well enough for even that.

The long walk to his apartment was chewed up one lumbering step at a time. Up several walkways, around the education building, up, up, up more steps. He pushed down on his knees to force them to work. The snow to either side seemed inviting. Adam imagined spreading out on the wide blanket of it, letting the cold erode away the last of sensation. He would sleep forever and never wake, never feel. He willed himself to do it, could
feel
his insides moving that way, but the shell of him kept staggering forward and up the steps, taking the rest of him home with it.

He could barely feel the keys in his numb fingers. He couldn’t tell the door was already unlocked as he worked it open. Adam was too far gone to notice the puddles on the linoleum as he crossed the foyer and into his living room. It was several moments, even, before he realized someone was sitting at his computer.

“
Hello?”

A woman spun around, a worried frown breaking into a brief smile, then back to the worried frown.

“
Hello, Adam.”

He didn’t know this woman. Was this his landlord’s wife? He tried to think who would have a key, or a reason to be here. Why would she be on his computer? Adam needed sleep.

“
I’m Amanda.”

The woman rose from the chair and took a step toward him. Adam was too tired to recoil. If she hadn’t been standing by his computer, the name wouldn’t have registered as one he knew. With the computer in the background, though, it made sense.

“
Amanda?”

This was his girlfriend, the one he chatted nightly with, his
virtual
girlfriend. She nodded.