The Program

By Michael Jesse

Fitz could remember a time when the world wasn't so messed up. Bad things had happened, of course — the Second American Civil War, the nuclear terrorist attacks in Europe, the collapse of the ocean currents — but at least back then, people still knew their lives were real.

Then the Program was discovered.

When he'd studied quantum physics at the academy, "Simulation Theory" was a trendy topic for discussion, but no one thought it could be proven one way or the other.

And then it was. 

Dr. Bennet was the one who found it. Though they were nearly the same age, she had already become head of the physics department at the Academy when Fitz was a cadet. She could still walk then, but sometimes used a cane.  He was in her class the year she won the Nobel for her pioneering work in Subquark Physics.  

Before Bennet, it was presumed quarks were the most fundamental particle, but she uncovered a deeper layer of more than 40 distinct subquark particles, each replicated millions of times in seemingly random patterns. It took another 15 years for her to make sense of the patterns, and when she released her findings to physicists around the world, the conclusion was irrefutable. It was code.  Earth and the entire universe were part of a computer simulation.

Like everyone, Fitz remembered exactly where he was when he heard. He had been shuttling a team of scientists back from Mars, and they were listening to the news on the staticky radio. One of the scientists — a more optimistic sort than Fitz — predicted it would have a positive effect. The world was already in such chaos; maybe this would help because it meant there had been a Creator. A few people did see it that way, but many religious people rejected the new science entirely. For people who weren't religious, the revelation only confirmed that life was indeed meaningless. Even those who initially felt encouraged, knowing there had been a Creator, became disheartened by Dr. Bennet's comments in an interview that the Code indicated that the Creator had set the universe in motion, but had abandoned it before human history began.

All of that had happened 10 months before the present moment, and now Fitz was preparing his ship for another mission. This time, the destination was Saturn, and this time he would be escorting only one scientist — Dr. Bennet herself.

Fitz was going through his preflight checklist when he saw the black van coming towards him from across the tarmac. He lowered the ramp and stepped out as the van stopped. A lieutenant emerged from the driver's seat and gave Fitz a smart salute before opening the vehicle's side door. He heard the hum of the lift as it lowered itself and Dr. Bennet's electric wheelchair rolled silently onto the pavement.

Fitz had seen her on the news recently, so he was prepared for her changed appearance. She was as emaciated as a concentration camp survivor, and her spine had begun to twist, but her voice was still strong as she said, "Good to see you again, Captain."

He nodded and replied, "I'm surprised you remember me."

"I didn't, actually, but was reminded by my assistant, who will be joining us by the way. However, I do remember you now. You sat in the first row and always seemed to be brooding. I couldn't tell if you just hated my class or had other concerns on your mind."

Fitz was tempted to remind her that it had been wartime, and that a famous genius such as herself might have considered the possibility that some of her students had just lost the only person they had ever loved.  He kept that thought to himself and instead said, "People tell me that my natural expression is brooding."  And then, to change the subject, he added,  "You said your assistant would be joining us, but I don't have anyone else listed on the manifest."

"She's my research AI. Say hello to the captain, MARI."

"It is fabulous to meet you, Captain," came a tinny woman's voice from a device attached to the wheelchair.

"She's still working on her superlatives," Bennet added.

"It's, uh, fabulous to meet you, too," Fitz replied. Then to Bennet he asked, "Did you name her Mary or did she come that way?"

"It's an acronym. She was a prototype of  Murdock Robotics, when they still existed. So she's a Murdock AI, but they jammed the word 'robotics' in there so the acronym would make a name. They were never great at marketing, which may be one of the reasons they're not in business anymore."

"That and the market crash."

Bennet sighed. "That too."

"Well, please come aboard — both of you," Fitz said and led the way up the ramp.  He had been a little worried the ramp might be too steep for Bennet's chair, but it apparently had good power and ascended easily.

One of the science stations had been modified so Bennet's chair could fit into place and be locked down when needed for safety. Takeoff and reentry were the main times everyone needed to strap in. The g forces were less of an issue on the newer ships, but the debris field around Earth was becoming increasingly cluttered, so it was sometimes a rough ride.

Fitz still had to complete his preflight checklist, and Bennet busied herself interfacing MARI to the ship's computer. When he was ready, Fitz radioed in for permission to take off, which had become almost a formality since his was the only ship still going up. A few minutes later, they launched smoothly, but even after they escaped Earth's pull, Fitz had to remain alert at the controls until they were beyond the last of the debris. 

"More crap up here every time," he muttered as he set the autopilot coordinates and got up to speed.

"On the bright side," MARI said through her speaker, "in 1.4 million years, the debris will have formed a ring, which should be beautiful from this vantage point."

Fitz exchanged a glance with Bennet, who grinned and said, "Thank you, MARI. That does sound nice."

"However," MARI went on, "it is highly unlikely humans will still exist to see it, and so perhaps it will not be beautiful if there is no one to consider it beautiful."

"We've been discussing philosophy," Bennet explained to Fitz.

"Well, you two can leave me out of that kind of talk," he said. "I'm not good at questions that don't have absolute answers. It's okay if I don't know the answer as long as I know there is an answer out there to be found. Which is a good segue, Doctor. I wasn't given much of a briefing on what we're doing on this mission. I didn't even know it was about the Program until I saw your name. Would you mind telling me what you're looking for? I've been to the Saturn moons a few times, so I might have seen it lying around."

Bennet laughed. "You could easily have overlooked it, Captain, because it's quite small."

"Sub-quark small, I assume. But you've already found the Code on Earth. Is it different near Saturn?"

"It is, perhaps in an important way. MARI and I have only seen part of the Code, but we could tell that the Code in New York is different from the Code in Quebec."

"Wouldn't that just be because the New York Code makes New York and the Quebec Code makes Quebec?" As he asked the question, Fitz heard a small squeak from MARI's speaker.

"Did she just . . ."

"She makes little noises sometimes. You're right that it's different in that respect, and even the New York Code changes as the Earth rotates on its axis and follows its orbit around the Sun."

"Okay, that makes sense," Fitz said. "I guess."

"At first, we assumed the differences were simply that spatial aspect, but then we realized it was something else. MARI saw it first. She is able to synthesize vast amounts of data and identify patterns that it would have taken me years to see."

"Thank you for the compliment," MARI said. "I am gratified that I am useful."

"And she is a delightful companion as well," Bennet added, rolling her eyes slightly. "We're practically like sisters."

"That's . . .  nice," Fitz said. "So what was this discovery?"

"As we studied the patterns MARI identified, we realized that the Code itself has an overall structure that is unrelated to the structure of our solar system. The center of the code architecture is in the vicinity of Saturn. We don't know why."

"And what do you expect to find there?"

"Our theory is that as we approach the center point, we would get closer to the root layer of the Program. Imagine it like the nested directory structure that early computers had. The Code that is viewable near Earth is like a folder within a folder within a folder. We can only see data at our level and below within our branch of the folder tree.  But if we could move up directory levels, we would get a more complete view of the Code."

"And by flying towards Saturn, we go up directory levels?"

"From our limited perspective within the Program, yes, that is our theory. So I understand the trip will take about five days?"

"A little less. At this speed, 110 hours. We could shorten that a little, but we'd have to push the engines beyond the optimum maximum speed."

"No need to do that, and I could use the sleep. I hear the quarters are cozy."

"If that means small, then yes." Fitz led her down the starboard corridor to a guest cabin. It was compact, but larger than the sleeping berths used by crew. "I hope it's accessible enough for your chair."

"Not a problem, Captain," she said, standing up out of the chair. "I can still walk a few steps when logistics require. Oh my, I love your gravity setting. I feel light enough to fly."

"We keep it at 0.5 g. Takes a little getting used to."  She was so thin and frail-looking, he was glad they weren't at full gravity.

Fitz went back to the bridge and rechecked all of the autopilot and security settings and then retired to his own berth. He felt restless, partly about the mission and whatever additional unsettling news it might reveal, but also about the worsening situation back home. The long-ailing tsar of New Russia had died a few days earlier, bringing his reckless son, Count Dmitri to the throne. Meanwhile, in the Americas, skirmishes had broken out in the long-unsettled border dispute at the Mississippi Valley over water diversions on both sides that had reduced the river itself to a trickle before it reached the gulf.

Bennet's comment on feeling light enough to fly reminded him that before she went to MIT at age 14, Bennet had been a bestselling fantasy author when she was barely in her teens.  At the academy, some cadets would read her childhood stories of fairies and magic, looking for psychological clues to get on her good side. Fitz himself had been too much of a straight arrow for such subterfuge — plus he hated fantasy stories. Now he was more curious and also in need of something to do for the next 100 hours or so. He got out his personal tablet and found her first book.

Eliza was a fairy. That was just how she'd been born, and no one knew why. There were other fairies scattered around the kingdom, but no fairy towns or fairy families. Fairy babies weren't born to fairy mothers, but to human mothers. All fairies were female and could not reproduce. They just happened.

Being born a fairy, some said, was like a birth defect — an accident of nature, like webbed feet or cleft palates. When such a birth took place, it was obvious that the baby was a fairy because it would have pointed ears — and also wings.

Fairy wings were so thin they were shimmeringly translucent with a bluish tint, and yet remarkably durable. When folded, a fairy's wings wrapped themselves snugly around the torso, snapping tight like a second skin. 

There were many good things about being a fairy.  They were beautiful, highly intelligent and, of course, they could fly.  But they were very few in number — Eliza herself, though nearly grown, had never met another fairy. She was aware that in some parts of the kingdom, fairies were looked upon with suspicion and often blamed for any random bad thing that might happen in the community. 

Eliza was fortunate on that account. She was loved by her family and, although considered odd, was accepted by the people of the little town where she had grown up. She went to school with the other children, who barely noticed or cared that she was different.  Her folded wings were hidden by her dress and the points of her ears only occasionally poked out from within her hair.

Although everyone knew Eliza could fly, no one ever saw her do so because the instant a fairy began to open her wings, she would disappear from human sight. This was fortunate because fairies had nothing beneath their wings except their modesty. In addition to being invisible, fairies in flight could pass through openings much smaller than their bodies. When she was home from school and in the bedroom she shared with her older sister, Eliza would slip out of her school dress and vanish, and even if a window was only open a crack, she could dart through it like a hummingbird. 

Outside, she would flap her wings silently to propel herself up into the sky and over the treetops. Eliza loved flying over the little town and the terraced farmlands and woods beyond it where the mountain tumbled down to the river far below.

Fitz set the tablet aside. He preferred reading something real, like histories or biographies. Fiction seemed like a waste of time, especially fantasy. Still, this was interesting considering its author.  At the Academy, the cadets could see she was somewhat disabled, but weren't privy to the cause. Only years later did it become publicly known that she had Northans Syndrome, an incurable condition that would inevitably kill her before age 40 after slowly wasting away her body. She'd first been diagnosed as a small child after her parents noticed she could not run and jump like other children. Knowing that now, Fitz thought, it was not surprising that she had written stories about a girl who could fly.

A day later, Fitz was at his station on the bridge checking readings that did not need to be checked. He had little else to do except monitor the news from Earth, which was never good. Ten feet away, Bennet was focused on her screen. He remembered what she had looked like back at the academy. Even then, she was not the kind of woman many would describe as beautiful. Her angular features seemed just slightly askew, and the two sides of her face were not at all symmetrical.  And yet somehow it all came together, and she was oddly attractive. Her most compelling feature was her eyes — not because of their color or shape, but because of the intensity of her dark stare. Now, her body was wasting away, all of her bones showing below her threadbare skin. 

She looked up and caught him staring, so he pretended he had been about to speak to her. "Are you seeing anything new at this location?" he asked.

"More data files, yes," Bennet replied, "but we're still trying to sort them out."

"Are you looking for anything in particular?" MARI made another random beep that he suspected was a titter, so he added, "that would . . .  confirm or conflict with your suppositions thus far?"

"So much of it is just unknowable until we see it," Bennet said, "but there is one thing I am quite curious about."

"Can you tell me, or would it be over my head?"

"Not at all, Captain," Bennet said with a smile. "You might even have thought of this question yourself."

"Oh, I have lots of questions."

"Perhaps this is one of them. We are headed towards Saturn because it appears to be the origin point for the Program — at least for our own solar system. But what about the rest of the visible universe?  We know it's part of the Program also, but it seems highly unlikely that the entire universe has its origin in our solar system."

"So are you thinking every star system has its own program?"

"Maybe. Or more likely it is a single program with many points of creation."

"Or maybe we're the center of the universe after all."

MARI made another quiet beep.

"Are you laughing at me, MARI?"

"Goodness no," MARI said. "Not this time. Doctor, you may want to look at this."

Bennet focused on the screen, and the two mumbled in jargon that Fitz did not understand. He started through another review of the ship's systems — again. 

There was no night or day in space, but the ship's main console had five clocks displaying the current time in major world cities. Paris didn't matter anymore, of course, but they still kept its clock. Over the course of many space missions, Fitz had learned to stick to one time zone, and he suggested Bennet do so as well, so she would be properly rested when they reached their destination.

Fitz liked following the Cape Canaveral clock for old time's sake, and when it said 6 p.m., he suggested they break for dinner. Meal packs had improved considerably during Fitz's career and now were little different from what most people on Earth were eating. Natural Agriculture was still practiced at a few historical sites, but nearly everyone ate lab food of one kind or another.

"So, Captain," Bennet said as she took a tentative first bite of a packet that imitated the taste and texture of chicken Parmesan, "you have the job most children say they dream of. Did you imagine being a spaceship captain when you were a boy?"

"Well . . .  the war was going on most of my childhood, so I knew I'd be in the military. But yes, I did grow up wanting to be a fighter pilot first and then a spaceship captain."

"I have a feeling you may have preferred something very different had it been peacetime," Bennet said, "but I haven't a clue what that would have been."

It had been a long time since Fitz had given any thought to such a question because it had never been possible, and therefore, he decided long ago, it was not worth thinking about. 

"Pardon me, doctor," MARI's voice said, almost startling Fitz because he'd forgotten she was there. 

"Yes, MARI?" Bennet asked.

"Would you — and the Captain— enjoy hearing music while you are engaged in conversation?"

"Thank you for offering, dear," Bennet said, "but you still need to work on how you interject in a conversation."

"You said to wait for a pause," MARI said, seeming hurt. "There was a pause."

"You are correct, MARI," Bennet replied, "and you did exactly as instructed. This is just an additional nuance in the art of conversation. Sometimes people pause to consider their reply."

"Four-point-two seconds seemed ample time for that task."

"It can vary. What kind of music would you suggest, MARI?  It should be something quiet so we can continue our conversation as we listen."

"I have been working on a piano concerto of my own composition."

"That sounds very nice," Fitz quickly said, "and I for one would love to hear it."  Bennet gave him the grateful smile of a parent whose intrusive child is being humored by visitors.

The music began as MARI said, "I apologize for interrupting you earlier, Captain. I am confident you have formulated your response given that nearly two minutes have transpired since you heard the question."

"I was going to give a one-sentence answer," Fitz said, "but now I feel obligated to be more expansive."

Bennet laughed. "You have no such obligation."

"I wouldn't want to disappoint MARI," Fitz said, "so I'll start out by saying that although fighter pilot and spaceship captain are important vocations that I'm proud to have been able to fulfill, they share a few disadvantages beyond the physical risk. The main thing that has always frustrated me is that I get to make very few decisions of my own. I wear a uniform, report to my commanding officers, and execute whatever orders they give me. If I were civilian, I'd look for an occupation with more autonomy."

"Such as?"

"I honestly don't know," Fitz shrugged.  "There aren't any modern-day occupations that I'd want."

"Ah, now that suggests you'd perhaps like something from the past. Blacksmith, perhaps?"

"Maybe from the same time period as blacksmithing, but I was more ambitious than that. When I was a kid, my sister and I were alone a lot, and we didn't have much to entertain ourselves. But we did have a bunch of movies. Not the holographic kind, but just the old-style flat video. And my sister loved those Jane Austen romances that take place in horse-and-buggy England."

"Oh, I loved those too!" Bennet exclaimed.

"Well, I didn't," Fitz said.  "Not the romance part, but I did like how they depicted the big estates and the lords and dukes who presided over them."

"You wanted to be an aristocrat?"

"Not that aspect, but each of those manor houses had its own network of farmers and tradesmen — including blacksmiths — who made virtually everything needed to sustain the estate and the surrounding towns. It functioned as an autonomous little city-state, and the lord of the estate made every important decision, managing it all while looking out for the welfare of all of the people in his realm."

"May I pose a query?" MARI asked, "Or am I interjecting at the wrong moment?"

"Ask away," Fitz said.

"While you were speaking, I reviewed the historical record, and it does not support your description of 19th-century lords as being concerned with the happiness of their peasant laborers." 

"Yeah, I know.  But this was fiction, so some of the lords were bad guy characters who mistreated their servants, but other lords were the good guys. Therefore, they were presented as noble, competent and caring about their people. So naturally, that's the kind of lord I imagined myself being."

"I see," MARI said. "So you aspired to be something that did not exist, and because it was impossible for you to succeed in your aspiration, its reality was irrelevant."

"Um, something like that."

         *  * *. * *

It was the third day, and Fitz had been monitoring the news from Earth with increasing worry. The long-unresolved conflict between the states had heated up again, and now the two militaries were on alert status. He was frustrated because out here he was of no help to his side. He should be defending his country.

"There's something odd about this mission," he finally said.

Bennet looked up from her screen. "I thought we'd already established that every single thing about this mission is odd."

"It doesn't make sense that they'd send me and this ship away at such a critical moment. So what if it's all a program. That's just academic when you're at war, and whatever we learn near Saturn won't change a damn thing that matters. What are you not telling me?"

Bennet sighed. "You're right that it's not just about learning. There's a chance we could do something out here that would change things for the better back home."

"And what could that possibly be!?"

"Captain, there's something wrong with us — with humanity.  We have the power and the resources and the know-how to feed the world and live together in peace. Why don't we do that?"

"That's just how it is. It's human nature to—"

"Exactly — it's 'human nature.' But now we know that we didn't just randomly become this way. We were programmed this way. Maybe it was on purpose or maybe it was a flaw in our programming, but there's something wrong with us, and if we can't fix it, we are almost certainly going to destroy ourselves."

"Fix it??"

"That's right, Captain. Our mission is not just to learn more about the Program. Our mission is to figure out how to edit the Program and fix whatever is wrong with us before it's too late."

"How . . . how would you even do that?"

"It depends on a couple of factors that we won't know until we get there. First, if we can get to the root directory, will we be able to gain edit access or otherwise hack our way in? Secondly, will the code that defines humanity include options to regulate instinctive behavior relative to aggression, self-preservation, dominance, etc?"

"And you think you can do what — dial that down?"

"Maybe.  Look, you've played holographic games, right? You start out at level one, and you have limited powers. But to survive, your character's abilities have to increase by levels to face greater challenges. In the human experience — established by the Code — we had to overcome predators stronger than ourselves. We had to be aggressive, selfish and even brutal to do that. But then, after our predators were vanquished or tamed, we could have refocused on other things like making life better for everyone, protecting our world's natural resources, and so on — but we didn't.  We just kept following our aggressive programming level even when the reasons for that behavior were gone, and we were only fighting each other."

"And you think you can just change that?"

"If it's in the Code, and if I can edit the Code."

"And then what happens? People become . . . nicer?"

"I don't know, Captain. No one does. I hope it does something." When Fitz did not respond, she added, "I can see by your expression you can't believe they sent you on such a crazy mission."

"Well, it is pretty crazy," he said, "but I've been getting used to crazy. What you were saying suddenly reminded me of something that happened when I was a kid. My parents were both pretty negative people, always bickering and never satisfied with anything my little sister or I ever did. But one day we were driving somewhere on the highway, and there was a big accident right in front of us. My father tried to steer around it, but we went off the road and our car rolled over several times and bashed into a concrete wall.  The car was absolutely totaled, and yet none of us was injured. After that day, my parents were like different people. They were nice to each other and sweetly affectionate to my sister and me. For a while. Then things gradually went back to the way they were before, and none of us ever spoke of it again."

"I'm sorry to hear you had that kind of childhood," Bennet said, her eyes shining. "Where is your sister now?"

"She died when she was 16. We lived in a border town so sometimes there was shelling. Her school got hit."

"Oh, I'm so—"

"Don't," he said, waving it off. "I appreciate it, but don't. Lots of people lost someone. I only mentioned it because it occurred to me that maybe that's what could happen if you can somehow do what you want to do. Maybe everyone on Earth, or at least all the mean, vindictive people — of which there seem to be so many these days — maybe when you flip that switch, all those people will change in the way my parents did, but it will stick this time and not wear off."

"It's hard to even imagine," Bennet said, "what a difference that would make."

"Shelley imagined it," MARI said, "in his 1820 lyrical drama 'Prometheus Unbound.' Shall I recite the relevant passage?"

Fitz winced and Bennet winked at him and said, "Thank you so much for offering, MARI, but could you just summarize how it relates to the discussion?"

"Prometheus has been chained to the mountain for untold millennia by Zeus, referred to in the poem by his Roman name, Jupiter. However, the Fates foretold that one day Prometheus would be freed and Jupiter would fall from power. When that day finally arrives, all the people of the world feel the weight of oppression lifted from them at the same moment. Men drop their weapons and kings abandon their crowns."

"Yes, MARI," Bennet said. "That is an excellent example."

"I shall now recite the relevant passage from Act Four, Scene Three."

"Thank you for offering, MARI, but—"

"'Soon as the sound had ceased whose thunder filled the abysses of the sky and the wide earth, there was a change. The impalpable thin air and the all-circling sunlight were transformed, as if the sense of love dissolved in them, had folded itself round the sphered world.'"

"MARI, you don't need to—"

"I wandered among the haunts and dwellings of mankind, and first was disappointed not to see such mighty change as I had felt within expressed in outward things; but soon I looked, and behold, thrones were kingless, and men walked one with the other." 

As Fitz watched, Bennet opened her mouth to try again, but then closed it as she shrugged at him and let MARI continue.

None fawned, none trampled; hate, disdain, or fear, self-love or self-contempt, on human brows no more inscribed, as o'er the gate of hell, 'All hope abandon ye who enter here.'

This went on for a while as Fitz and Bennet maintained amused eye contact. When they heard MARI say, "end of Act Four," both began to applaud, conspiring to sustain the ovation long enough for MARI to decide she had reached the optimal conclusion to her performance.

   * * * * *

On the fourth day, Bennet and MARI were busy together, and Fitz was trying to pass the time without fixating on the ever-worsening news from Earth.. He wanted to believe that Bennet could really do it — to dial down humanity's aggression level. He imagined what it might be like afterwards — listening to the news and hearing of peace agreements and plans being made to help all the people who were just trying to survive. He looked up from his screen and glanced at Bennet, who looked vacantly back at him with a stunned expression. 

"Doctor?" he asked. "You okay?"

"I don't know. But I have an update for you regarding that pesky little question about the entire rest of the universe."

"Okay . . ?"

"Well, funny thing; it turns out we are the center of the universe after all. These coordinates near Saturn that we are heading toward . . . that's where the Program originates — not just for our solar system, but for everything else as well."

"Wow. That's. . . unexpected."

"But there's . . . something else. Apparently, the Creator of the Program was focused primarily on this solar system, introducing life at three locations: Titan, Mars and Earth. The first two died out, but Earth thrived."

"Well, not so much lately."

"The rest of the universe was created, but left in sort of a draft state pending observation from Earth."

"Observation? As in quantum mechanics observation?"

"Exactly. For example, Mars was just a reddish dot in the sky until humans started building telescopes. Only when we could see it in more detail did Mars have more detail."

 "Oh crap, that means—"

"The rest of the universe is only what we can see," Bennet said. "Yes, there are billions of stars, but they are little more formed than dots in the sky. And the only planets that exist are the ones we've detected so far. And those planets—"

"Are still lifeless," Fitz said, "because we haven't observed them closely enough to make them become something else."

"And unfortunately, that means that the only place where life exists in our universe is on Earth."

"Damn," Fitz sighed. "That's just . . .  not a good place to keep it."

         *  * * * *

They arrived at the coordinates in the middle of the fourth day. It was between Saturn and Titan, closest to the orbit of Rhea.  There was nothing to be seen visually, and nothing notable on sensors. It was just more empty space.

"So you're saying this is where the entire universe came from," Fitz said. "And there was never a Big Bang."

"There was and there wasn't." 

"I hate answers that start like that."

"The Program was designed to represent a universe as if it had already existed for a few billion years. So the Big Bang 'happened,' but only in our backstory."

"Okayyy . . . and you think the creation point was here because Titan was where the Creator expected life to emerge."

"It's just a theory, but now that we're this close, we are seeing the entire program, which MARI is mapping out now."

"Would you like an update?" MARI asked. 

"If it won't interrupt your work."

"I can perform both functions without loss of efficiency. I have located a log directory containing activity timestamps. This program launched 527 million years ago and was continuously observed and occasionally interacted with from these coordinates until the final timestamp, which was 342,619 years ago."

"And nothing at all since?"

"Nothing, doctor. Our universe has not been viewed by the Creator since that time."

"Huh," Fitz said. "Why stop then? Maybe nothing much happened on Titan, but lots was happening on Earth by then. Would they not have seen that from here?"

"I am still processing data," MARI said, "but activity logs show that Earth had become the primary subject of observation for millions of years before the final file."

"Which was more than 300,000 years ago."

"342,619."

"Seems like an odd time to stop. Isn't that about when humans developed?"

Bennet laughed. "Are you insulted on behalf of our species, Captain?"

"A little bit, yes. But if the point of the Program was to watch life develop, why stop just when things were getting interesting?"

"I am wondering that myself," Bennet said, "though we may be giving ourselves too much credit for being interesting.  Maybe the Creator was only interested in the process and not the result, and so perhaps our universe has been in a box on the Creator's storage shelf ever since."

"Well, that's a depressing thought."

"Another possibility, of course, is that the Creator simply died. After all, being the Creator doesn't necessarily mean being Immortal, despite our mythology. What really matters about that date, Captain, is that the Creator was still involved when humanity emerged. Since we're hoping to find and edit an aggression variable, that is more likely to exist if our species was intentionally designed."

"Right," Fitz said."That's what I meant."

"Doctor, I have an initial report ready for your review," MARI said. 

"Thank you," Bennet said. "Captain, if you will excuse me."

As Bennet and MARI focused on hacking into the Program, Fitz took readings to make sure they were not parked in the orbital path of anything that could damage them. They were well outside Saturn's outermost F ring, but there were plenty of additional rocks and ice blocks circling the massive planet.

Looking for something to fill the time. Fitz opened his tablet and went back to reading Bennet's childhood story.

Eliza was a very good student, which came as a surprise to no one because fairies were known for their intelligence. One day, her teacher informed her she had been invited to attend university. It was an honor, though one that everyone expected would come to her eventually.  The university was not far away — so close that its towers could be seen from the town, though few who lived in the town had been there.  It was a long way on foot because the university was on a different mountain, and the land between them tumbled down steeply to the river and then climbed up again.

However, if one could fly like a bird — or a fairy — the trip was not so difficult. Indeed, Eliza had flown to the university towers many times. She never landed because it would not be appropriate until she was invited, but often she flew past the tall towers with their clay tile roofs and billowing pennant flags. Each tower was a distinct college of the university: Arts, Philosophy, Law, History and Science. Erected ages ago, the slender cylindrical stone towers rose hundreds of feet into the air. She would fly close to the windows to peek in at the students who were sitting in classrooms or dashing up or down the stairways that coiled along the inner walls of each tower.  

Naturally, she had always been most drawn to the Sciences tower, which was the tallest at 90 stories. While the other towers had conical roofs with flags, the Sciences Tower was topped by a copper dome that housed the largest telescope in the world.  Though she had flown past it in secret many times, now Eliza alighted on the tile balcony next to the copper dome. Her wings wrapped themselves snugly around her body as she suddenly became visible to the admissions counselor, who was waiting to welcome her as a new student.

When it was past 6 p.m. at Cape Canaveral, Fitz suggested a meal break, and Bennet pulled herself away.

"Find anything?" he asked as she rubbed her eyes.

"Lots, actually, but I don't know what half of it means. The good news is that we've found the design parameters on humans and there is, in fact, a setting that I think governs aggression."

"That's great."

"Yes, but we can't yet edit it." 

"Isn't it likely that the Program is read-only code and there's no edit option?"

"That's what I had been fearing, but we did find some empty folders that we could edit. We inserted some meaningless text, edited it and deleted it."

"Okay, but those were only empty folders."

"Yes, but it means an edit option exists, so it's a matter of permissions. If we can figure out what those are, we could enable or bypass them."

"So if you manage to get in, you're going to dial back the aggression setting a few notches, right?"

"It turned out to be a little different than that. We found it in the settings for the senses. Humans interact with our surroundings and interpret 'reality' using our five senses — sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. We've long speculated that there could be an additional sense, and indeed there is. I would call it 'empathy,' but it means more than just caring about the well-being of others. This is an actual sense, like hearing and sight."

"So . . . what would that mean?  Like, telepathy?"

"Possibly. But definitely a stronger awareness of other people in some way. You walk into a room and you see people, or if it is dark, you could hear them speak, feel them touch your hand, even smell them sometimes. With this additional sense, you may know exactly where someone is, even when they are hidden from your other senses. You might be able to send thoughts to them."

"Okay, I can picture that," Fitz said, "but we understand how our other senses actually function. We can explain how light reflects off an object and then enters through our pupils to reach our optic nerve. We know how sound waves hit our eardrums. How would the sense of empathy actually work?"

"Excellent question. If you had asked such good questions when you were in my class, I'd  have given you a better grade."

"I got an A, which apparently wasn't in the reminder briefing you got from MARI."

"It was included," MARI noted. "However, it is understandable that the doctor did not retain that detail because it was of low importance to her."

"MARI—"

"And also because humans are poor at retaining details."

Bennet gave Fitz a little shrug and said, "in answer to your question, Captain, MARI and I have discovered a connection linking all of humanity. It is almost like an entanglement and almost like string theory. We can see it in the math, but I don't quite know how we would detect it. I'm visualizing it as an intricately complex three-dimensional spiderweb with strands connecting every person with every other person. It never gets tangled as people physically move around, but simply takes a different elegant shape."

 "That's quite a visualization."

"And that connection does already exist, but is too weak for us to feel much through it."

"So, you want to increase that sense even though you don't quite know what that will do?"

"Yep," Bennet said, "because we're desperate and whatever else it might do, it should at least make us less likely to kill each other.  Do you concur, MARI?"

"It is a plausible outcome," MARI stated.

Fitz laughed. "That doesn't sound like a strong recommendation."

"Actually, it's better than it sounds," Bennet said.  "When we first began working together, MARI was reluctant to make any kind of assessment of whether a proposed action was worth attempting."

"There are too many variables," MARI said defensively, "any of which could be true or not true in any given attempt."

"After some negotiation," Bennet went on, "we agreed on a set of five subjective descriptors that don't have to be quantifiable. Number two is 'plausible', so that's actually a good rating."

"I really want to ask what those other descriptors are," Fitz said, "but I guess the more important question is, where are we at on that scale, and where are you going to put us?"

"It is a range, and if you think of it as a 1-10 scale, we are in the neighborhood of a 2."

"Well heck, let's crank that baby up," Fitz said. "Is there a downside to going too high?  Would we be overwhelmed by the interior monologues of every person on earth?  Would there be orgies?"

Bennet laughed. "Probably not that second one, but information overload does seem like a credible risk."

"Orgies could be a risk also," MARI said, "though the probability of that outcome is quite low."

Bennet struggled to speak through her laughter. "I think the Captain was not being serious."

"Yes, I was," Fitz insisted. "MARI, what's your scientific assessment on that topic?"

"The unknown variable is how the heightened sense of another human's presence would impact sexual attraction," MARI explained. "Humans are sometimes unable to control such attractions even at current levels. Therefore, any significant increase in the sense of empathy could potentially exacerbate such behaviors."

"But you said you consider it a low risk."

"I assigned a low risk to orgies, Captain, which are largely fictional and not a natural human activity. If increased empathy causes humans to feel overwhelming sexual desire, they would likely copulate in numerous pairs rather than in groups.  Doctor, I have completed the code analysis protocols you suggested."

"And?"

"None of our gain-of-access protocols have been successful."

"Damn."

Bennet and MARI went back to work trying to find a solution, but Fitz could see that neither was optimistic.  He heard MARI declare success "unlikely," which he guessed was still not one of her lowest descriptors. He expected they would reach "pointless" eventually, or maybe "delusional." He realized he did not feel much disappointment because he had never believed it was going to happen, or if it happened, that it would do any good. They would just go home to their dysfunctional planet, and he would join the war effort and hope for a  "plausible" victory.

As Bennet and MARI mumbled together in fatalistic tones, Fitz checked the readings for objects large enough to damage the ship. Seeing nothing of concern, he checked messages from Central Command, but did not see any recent activity. He flagged them and waited for the usual delay, but there was no response. Bennet noticed and looked up from her screen. "That's odd," he muttered and switched to the satellite feed of radio stations. The ones he usually tuned into were only static. "Maybe our receiver has gotten—"

Fitz did not complete his thought because at that moment, he picked up a news channel from London.

". . . It is not known what precipitated the first nuclear strike, but the Eastern and Western United States launched massive attacks on each other beginning at 10:27 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. At least 15 nuclear blasts have occurred, leaving both sides of North America in ruins and survivors facing widespread fallout. New Russia, which is allied to the Western American States, is threatening to attack European countries allied with the Eastern States. India, Pakistan, China, Japan, Israel, Iran, Nigeria and Kenya all have their arsenals on high alert according to each country's alliances in the American Conflict.  Casualties-—"

The station went off-line, and Fitz found another in Finland, running the audio through a translator.  They listened in silent horror as the war spread through the alliances both sides had made across the globe. Nearly every country had nuclear arsenals, and now they had all deployed them. Fitz kept switching to radio stations elsewhere in the world, but one by one, they all fell silent.

For a long while, no one spoke. Then Bennet whispered, "I could have prevented this. If I had  just figured out how to—-"

"Don't think like that," Fitz said. "There's a long list of people to blame, and none of them are you."

"But if I had—"

"Done what — performed a fucking miracle? Changed humanity? That was a pipe dream from the start — the most insane Hail Mary pass that anyone ever thought of trying."

"By what . . . what do we do now?"

"We go back and see what's left, and we . . . try to help whoever is still alive," Fitz said resolutely. It was in his training and character to accept losses and move on. "It's the only thing we can do."

"But maybe no one is left. You couldn't get any radio stations at all."

"That doesn't mean no one is left," Fitz said. "We mostly get radio via satellites, and I know from war plan exercises that the satellites were probably intentionally disrupted as a military tactic. We do get old-style broadcast waves out here, but only those that happen to sometimes point our way during Earth's rotation."

"But you heard what they said, Fitz. It was global. Where will we even go?"

"I don't know, but there will be places minimally affected. Maybe New Zealand. When we get back, we'll orbit Earth and see what broadcast signals we can pick up and decide from there. I can land this ship on any long stretch of highway."

"How long do we have before we need to set out? I need to keep trying with whatever time there is."

"A little more than a day, but unless you're also inventing a time machine — and I really hope you are — isn't it too late for that fix?"

"You know the answer to that question. You're probably right that there will be some small number of survivors, and maybe they will vow to live together in peace and never let this happen again. But after a few generations, it will."

"That is the likely outcome," MARI said.

"Okay, you have about 24 hours, possibly a little more. I'll do some calculations, but we need to reserve enough fuel to orbit Earth for a while, figuring out where to land."

For the rest of that day, Bennet and MARI went over and over everything they could think of, but had no success. Fitz could see that Bennet was near collapse. When it was past 9 pm at whatever was left of Cape Canaveral, he went over to her. "We still have 14 hours. You can afford a little nap."

"And I will continue working," MARI said. "I will be stationed right outside your door in case you want an update or have a new idea you want me to investigate."

"I have no more ideas," Bennet said quietly and did not make eye contact with Fitz as she maneuvered her chair off of the bridge and down the corridor to her quarters.

He decided to run through all of the radio frequencies again, but then heard MARI's voice through his com.  "Captain, she needs you! Come quickly!"

Fitz raced to the other side of the ship and saw Bennet in the corridor, sprawled on the deck.

"I'm not injured," she said as he knelt to help her. "Sometimes when I'm very tired, my legs are less reliable than I think they will be."

Fitz helped her to her feet and supported her as she made it to her quarters. His hand was on her bony spine. It was a wonder she could walk at all, he thought, and made a mental note to lower the gravity to 0.25."

"Thank you, Captain," she said as she lowered herself to her bunk. "That's the first time I've fallen at half gravity, and I must say I quite prefer it to full-gravity falling."

"Are you sure you're okay?"  

She laughed darkly. "I'm not at all okay, nor is anyone else, but we still have work to do, and maybe with a little rest I'll think of something. I will see you in two or three hours."

Fitz nodded and left, the door whooshing closed behind him. In the corridor, he heard discordant beeps coming from Bennet's wheelchair. He knelt next to it and put his hand gently near the speaker. 

"She's okay, MARI," he said quietly. "You helped her a lot by calling for me. She's grateful."

"Did she say that?"

"Yes. Now, how about you? Are you going to be okay? Do you want me to move you anywhere?"

"I must stay here and be available for her."

"Okay, MARI. Call me if she needs anything. Or if you do."

"I do have a request. Not for now, but . . . for later."

"Sure, MARI. What do you want me to do for you?"

"When Dr. Bennet dies, which she will very soon-—"

"Look, I know she's pushing herself too hard," Fitz said. "But she'll be able to rest on the way back."

"No, she will die," MARI said. "I monitor her vital signs and can track the progression of her disease. It is a likely outcome in a few days, regardless of rest. My request is that when that happens, you will power me down immediately."

"Um, okay. For how long?"

"If we reach Earth and you decide you need to make use of me, please reformat my memory disk before powering me back on."

Fitz caressed the speaker and said, "Okay, if that's what you want.

         *  * * * *

Two hours later, Fitz was at his workstation, looking at Saturn on the viewscreen, when he heard the nearly silent whir of Bennet's chair.

"I've been wondering," he said, looking back at her. "Do you think there's an Afterlife?"

"I'm a scientist. I've never believed in an afterlife."

"I don't mean what you believe in. I mean within the Program. Whoever created it included a lot of great details, like rainbows and octopuses."

"Pi."

"And you and MARI have been so focused on this one important thing."

"And failing at it."

"I  was wondering if because you were so focused on that one important thing, whether you had time to look in all of those other folders and directories. Might there be, you know, an Afterlife program in there somewhere?"

"That's a nice thought," Bennet said, "but anything like that would have required a massive amount of code. MARI and I wouldn't have overlooked something that big. The only directories we couldn't identify  were empty." She paused and then said, "MARI, was there any scrap of code or metadata in that section that we could take a closer look at?"

"Yes, some sequences exist. I will review and summarize a report for you."

As Bennet hunched over her screen, an alarm went off, and Fitz put his attention on his control panel.

"Is everything okay?" Bennet asked when the alarm stopped. "I mean, besides everything else?"

That was a proximity sensor alert. There's a big rock we need to make sure we avoid.  It wasn't going to hit us, but got close enough to trigger the alert."

"Darn, that would have solved all of our problems."

Bennet was focused on her work again and he left her to it.  He scanned all the frequencies, but there was nothing."

"Here's something interesting," Bennet said after a while. "Not necessarily helpful, but very, very interesting."

"What's that?"

"It looks like the Creator did have plans for an afterlife — and that's what those empty folders were intended for. It was to be a multiverse of universes like this one, but none of that got built. The intention was that when someone died on our Earth, that individual's unique ID would be passed on to a different universe where it would become part of the consciousness of a new person in a reincarnation sort of way. "

"Damn," Fitz said. "That could have come in handy right about now."

"It would indeed, but the folders representing the other universes are all empty."

"So our unique IDs are basically our souls," Fitz said. "What do you know — we had souls after all."

"Which doesn't mean much if there's no place for those souls to go. Take a look at this." She turned her monitor for him to see. It was an endless list of long numbers. "These are all the people who have ever lived — more than 200 billion of them, nearly all of whom are now dead. When each person died, their code remained, and their unique IDs went into the reincarnation queue. But since that was a dead end, each person's code eventually got deleted. But if the Creator had finished his plan, each of these numbers could have automatically been transferred to another directory, and the soul could have had a whole new life."

"Too bad our Creator got bored and didn't bother finishing his little project."

"Or the Creator died."

"Oh fine, make excuses for him."

"We could finish building the Afterlife," MARI said.

"That is also a nice thought," Bennet said, "but we can't build a new universe from scratch."

"Actually," MARI said, "the universe itself would be the easiest part of it. As we have discovered, it is only an unfinished draft with limited detail. We could easily copy the code for that into one of the empty folders."

"True enough," Bennet said, "but what about the Earth? It's not in very good condition to copy right now. Were any backups ever made?"

"Yes," MARI said. "The most recent was 562,673 years ago."

"Well, that would do nicely," Bennet said, "but next we come to the really hard part. We would have to create people. And not just blank-sheet newborns, but adults who have a lifetime of memories that are intertwined with each other."

"We have people!" Fitz cried. "Can't we just move everyone who's still alive from one Earth to the other Earth. God, I can't believe I'm saying those words, but can't we just do that?"

"Nope," Bennet said. "It's hard to explain, and there's a lot of math involved, but those specific people can only exist in their specific universe. MARI, do you see any way around that fundamental problem?"

"No, doctor. Within the laws of physics hard-coded within the Program, that is an absolute limitation. However, if we can create new people, we would only need to activate the process that the Creator already programmed to transfer the unique IDs of people who have recently died on our Earth."

"So we just need to make several billion fully formed human beings with life stories, childhood memories, past loves, and secret dreams."

"But why would you need to do all that?" Fitz demanded. "If you create the bodies, wouldn't the Unique IDs do the rest?"

"It's a reincarnation program," Bennet said. "The 'souls' from our universe would be deep within the dominant consciousness of the new person, who may occasionally have bits of memory and feelings about that previous life. So that new person needs to be a fully formed consciousness that is somehow created by us."

"It could potentially be done," MARI said, "though likely not in sufficient numbers, by selecting a time and place, and then synthesizing all sources describing ordinary life in that time and place — histories, letters, biographies, documentaries, and works of fiction. It is possible."

"Possible," Fitz repeated. "MARI used the word 'possible,' and she doesn't throw words like that around lightly."

"I agree that it's possible," Bennet said, "and we might as well give it a try with our remaining time since we utterly failed at our original plan. The problem would be scaling it to millions or billions. Yes, we can create some limited number of people, but even then it would take a shit-ton of processing power."

"I am not familiar with that unit of measurement," MARI said, "but I assume from the vernacular that it represents a very large but nonspecific amount. I have significant processing power myself, and I am currently connected to the ship's computer. Together, I believe we might achieve the requisite shit-ton of processing power."

Bennet shrugged and looked at Fitz and said, "Don't get your hopes up."

"No problem," he said. "I stopped having hope years ago." 

Bennet and MARI went to work while Fitz monitored a few big rocks in their vicinity and tried again to find any broadcast signals from Earth. Two hours passed, and then he heard Bennet and MARI cheering behind him. He went to Bennet's workstation and looked at her screen, but it made no sense to him.

"That sounded like good news," he said. "Did you figure something out?"

"We did better than that," Bennet said with tears in her eyes. "I think we just created an afterlife." She pointed at a list of numbers that Fitz now recognized as unique IDs. "These are the digital 'souls' of people who died on our Earth, but who are now part of a new consciousness in a different human body on a different Earth."

"How many?"

"A little over 3,000."

"3,263," MARI clarified. 

"We created an 18th-century village in France," Bennet went on. "MARI did the heavy lifting — distilling thousands of histories, biographies, plays, novels and personal letters to create the memories, family relationships and networks of friendships, acquaintances and school chums that make up a person's life."

"Thank you, Doctor," MARI said. "Shall I begin on the next universe?"

"Yes, please do. Let me know when you're ready for my part."

"Next universe?" Fitz repeated.

"The Creator clearly envisioned this as a multiverse afterlife so when a person dies in one universe, they would be born in another universe, live a life, die there, and get born again elsewhere and eventually end up in the first universe a hundred lifetimes later."

"So you're going to make a hundred universes?"

"We won't have time for that, but I'd like to at least have four or five in case they keep blowing themselves up. Creating a new universe and a fresh Earth is easy because we just make another copy. It's the people that take a while."

"So, each Earth will only have a few thousand people on it?"

"At first, but we're hoping the Program's observer function will give us a boost. Just as Mars had no detail until people were able to look close enough to see it, the same principle may apply with people."

"You're losing me now, Doc. Are you saying the Program will make more people?"

"Fingers crossed, but yes. Our 3,263 people living in this one French village have memories of other places they've lived and people they've known. So when one of them gets on his horse and rides over to the neighboring village — which he remembers but which we have not created — guess what I'm hoping will happen."

"That the Program will . . . create that village?"

"That's the theory. And the people in our village also believe they are on the outskirts of Paris. We didn't make Paris, but as soon as one of them decides to go there—"

"Paris will suddenly exist?"

"Fingers crossed. The Program can do these things much more quickly than we can."

"Doctor," MARI said. "I'm ready for you."

Fitz went back to his station, wishing he could do more to contribute.  He put on his headphones and checked the broadcast frequencies. That's when he heard it.

". . . and the most important thing survivors can do right now is stay indoors, preferably in a basement, as contaminated winds are blowing from the nuclear blast that hit Sydney. Many people are headed towards the Dunedin area, which is said to be the safest place in New Zealand right now.  I'm broadcasting from Queenstown, but we'll be going off the air soon so we can seek better shelter."

It went on for a few more minutes, and then the voice signed off, promising to return in a few days if it were possible to do so then. As he took off the headphones, Fitz realized Bennet was speaking to him.

"I assume we're about out of time," she was saying. "We've made six afterlife universes, which isn't a lot, but it's something. We haven't seen any proof of the observer effect on population yet, but I'm hopeful that will happen, so it's possible that the 22,000 people we've created could expand to a few million. We couldn't save everyone, but damn it we saved some. When do we need to depart for home?"

"Well, pretty soon," Fitz said. "If we're going."

"What do you mean 'if'?"

"You've made six afterlife universes in half a day," Fitz said. "If we stay here, you'd have a week before our power runs out. Think of how many people you'd save."

"But if we did that, you'd die out here, Fitz, and I don't want that to happen. You told me there are probably survivors in isolated parts of the globe, and I believe you're right about that. Those people need someone like you to figure out how to make things work again. You were born to do that."

"Nobody is born to do anything," Fitz said, "except to play the hand you've been dealt. Don't you want to stay out here using every minute you have doing what you have been doing today?"

"Yes, but I don't have much of a life left. You do."

"I think I'm down to half of a life at best."

"But I want you to have that," Bennet cried, tears now on her cheeks. She rose out of her chair and took a step towards him, but began to fall. He had the gravity down to 15 percent, so everything felt like slow motion as he moved forward as quickly as he could and caught her. His hands were on her bony ribs, and he feared he would crush her without realizing it. They were face to face as she said, "I've been imagining you as the Lord of Aukland, or some such place, and you lead a population of survivors of this terrible day to a new future in which the same mistakes don't get made. I want that half a life for you."

She was so light in his hands. "That would be a tempting future," he said, "if you could be there too."

"That's a very sweet thing to say, but you know it can't happen, no matter what we decide."

"So let's stay here and keep making universes.  Just imagine how many more souls you could save with seven or eight more days out here. I think you'd make that choice even if you were going to live another 40 years."

"For myself," she said, "but not for you."

"I get to decide for myself. And technically, this is not a democracy. I'm the captain of this ship and the only one who knows how to fly it. So, I could just make a command decision, but I think it would be fair to decide by consensus. MARI, what's your vote?"

"Thank you for the gesture, Captain," MARI said. "But given that I am machine intelligence and not human, it would be inappropriate for me to vote."

"There are three people on this boat, MARI, and you're one of them," Fitz said. "Now, how do you vote?"

"I . . I vote . . . I vote to stay."

"That makes it two to one," he said to Bennet as he lifted her gently by the waist and tossed her a few feet into the air, catching her easily as she slowly drifted back down.

"I haven't voted yet," she said.

"Okay, how do you vote? Not that it matters because of, you know, math."

"I abstain because of, you know, imminent death."

Before he knew he was going to do it, Fitz kissed her.  Then he said, "if that's your fate, what do you want to do with the rest of your life?"

They stayed.

Now, they had several days of time. Each day, Bennet and MARI made more universes, and more Earths and more people. Every day, Fitz brought Bennet lunch when it was noon according to the Cape Canaveral clock. At 4 p.m., he brought her tea, and at 6 p.m., he brought her dinner and told her to stop working. "We have time," he would say. "Tell me about your day."

And each day, she was so excited about the new Earths she and MARI were creating. Some of their starter communities were in Europe, some in the Americas, some in Africa or Asia. On the second day, she said, "I started giving them libraries, but I'm not sure I'm doing the right thing."

"What do you mean?"

"At first, I was relying on memories to nudge people to go to Paris or Barcelona or Cairo, but then it occurred to me I could also give the town a library with books from whatever country and time period I had chosen. But I wondered, should the books in that library tell the full truth about that country's past, or should I leave out all mention of war and oppression and slavery? MARI argues that I should because . . . well, you tell him, MARI."

"Yes, doctor," MARI said. "Although it would be considered 'whitewashing' to omit such details from the history of our own Earth, in this case, we are creating a new Earth that has whatever history we give it. If we do not want the people there to be inclined towards war or enslavement, we should not establish the precedent in their past. Their ancestors did not engage in such acts unless we tell them that they did."

"I vote for that," Fitz said. 

"Good," Bennet said, "because that's what we've been doing, but I was feeling guilty making their history books sound like cheery travel guides."

 On the third day, Bennet triumphantly announced that the population of her first universe had leaped from 3,200 to more than 600,000. "Evidently, someone went to Paris."

"Nice to have it back," Fitz said.

By lunchtime on the fourth day, Bennet and MARI had created more than 50 Earths using a variety of ethnicities, continents and time periods. "We've got a universe of Native Americans but no Europeans to invade them," she told him excitedly. "We have an ancient Egyptian village near the Library of Alexandria, but in this universe there are no invaders to burn it down."

"So you're expecting the Program to re-create all the lost books in the Library of Alexandria?"

"I don't know. The Program was around when all those books were written, so maybe it can. Or, it might create new books drawing on everything that is currently known of that time."

Fitz indicated her computer screen, which only showed code and numbers. "Can you get some video on that thing so we can watch?"

"Sadly, no," but we can tell that the people we created are alive and physically moving around a little within and near their villages, so we just have to have faith that good things will happen in at least some of those places."

"Speaking of faith, do these places have religions?"

"We gave some of them the religious writings of their original cultures," Bennet said, "but with others we left that out entirely. We gave some of them a religion in which Earth is worshipped, so they are called upon to protect her and be kind to each other."

"Well, that's just crazy talk. Are there universes where they worship you as the Creator God?"

"Not a single one. I'm just trying for as much variety to increase the odds of survival," she said. "Got any ideas?"

"None that are practical," Fitz said. 

"Fitz, we're creating universes, and you're worried about what's practical?  What's your idea?"

"Well, if you're going to make a hundred universes, it would be cool if in at least one of them, Earth is a moon of Saturn."

"That would be too far from the sun."

"So, move Saturn closer to the sun in that universe."

"That's intriguing, but I don't see how it would improve survivability."

"Well, maybe it wouldn't, but it would be very cool."

"I'll keep that in mind," she said, "but I already know what I want to try next."

"Then why did you ask me for an idea?"

"I was just humoring you."

"Fine, so tell me your better idea."

"I think its time to try empathy adjustments."

"I thought you couldn't do that."

"We couldn't change it in our own universe, but we can in the new ones."

"Then I'm surprised you haven't done that already. It seemed pretty urgent to you before."

"That was when there was only one Earth. Now we have numbers on our side. Even if all the humans we've made on 50 Earths are just as flawed, they probably won't blow up all 50 of them."

"Don't underestimate us."

"Agreed. That's why I want to make the next 10  Earths with different empathy levels just in case."

"Okay, but be careful about that orgy risk."

"Pardon me, Captain," MARI said. "Perhaps you did not retain my previous explanation about orgies. The actual sex risk-—"

"He retained the explanation," Bennet said. "The captain was employing a conversational shortcut in which a brief term, even if inaccurate itself, refers to a broader range of related possibilities — in this case, all the risks of increased empathy."

Fitz was going to object so that MARI would have to talk about sex again, but Bennet gave him a warning look, so he let it go.

"I don't think I will ever understand human conversation," MARI said.

Although each day, Bennet had remained enthusiastic about what they were achieving, Fitz could see she was declining rapidly. He insisted she take a break to rest in her quarters that afternoon. She complied, but kept MARI busy with instructions. 

On the morning of the sixth day, Bennet could no longer get out of bed, but continued to work with MARI at her bedside and Fitz hovering outside the door. Occasionally, the proximity alert would go off and he would check the sensor reading to make sure nothing was too close. He would also put on his headphones to listen to radio broadcasts from Earth. The New Zealanders seemed to be doing well, having escaped most of the fallout from Sydney. There were also survivor communities in China and South America.

That afternoon, he brought her tea, but she was unable to drink it. 

"I wish you weren't trapped out here," she said as he held her hand. 

"Don't be. I believe in your work. You've given millions of human souls the chance of a new life — possibly including me."

"I don't think we'll make the cut. There are billions of souls in the queue ahead of us, and our code will probably expire before the populations grow enough to get to us on the list."

"That's okay," he said. "What matters is that lots of other people are making it. That wouldn't have happened without you."

She squeezed his hand weakly. "I wish I could save you."

"Maybe you have. Maybe the numbers will work out and the Program will get to us on the list and plop us into new people somewhere."

"That's a nice thing to imagine."

"And guess what I'm going to do when I get to my new life?"

"What?" she whispered, her voice barely audible.

"I'm going to come looking for you."

Her eyes filled with tears, but then went blank, and he knew she was gone. He could hear the proximity alarm going off on the bridge, but he didn't care anymore.  His time to grieve was brief.  He heard and felt the impact as a space rock the size of a house tore the ship in half and sent their bodies into the vacuum of space.

         *  * * * *

It was almost planetrise, and Eliza had been busy at the telescope for hours, so her eyes were getting tired. Being a fairy gave her a number of physical advantages, including better vision, but even she got tired after a while.

Her assignment had just been a routine mapping of orbiting objects beyond the planet's outer ring. It was a standard class assignment that had been done by many previous students, but Eliza had been lucky and spotted a stray object not actually in orbit but just passing through. It had an interesting color that almost seemed to oscillate before going dark altogether. Most likely, it had been highly metallic, or possibly glass to cause such a bright light for a small object. 

She could write up her assignment later. For now, she had to hurry home because she could already feel her sisters getting impatient with her.  As the rings of the planet rose above the horizon, Eliza stepped to the edge of the windswept Science Tower roof and leaped off. From the perspective of other students and professors nearby, she vanished as soon as her wings began to open.

Because she had started from such a high altitude, Eliza allowed her body to plummet until she approached the treetops and then soared just above the thatched roofs of one of the many little towns scattered along both mountainsides. It made the trip a few seconds longer than the most direct flight, but she liked zipping over the rooftops because she was close enough for the people in their homes to briefly feel her presence. She could feel them from much farther away, but she wanted them to feel her and to know that a fairy just passed above. Eliza had been taught growing up that most people considered it a blessing to feel the presence of a fairy, so she made that happen whenever she could. And so, Elsza flew over rooftops and reached her own village and her own home, almost on time. As she stepped through the window and became visible again, her sisters threw her dress at her in exasperation. 

"You're going to make us late, Lizzy," her older sister cried. "I want to get there in time to see the carriages arrive."

Eliza had her frilly dress on in seconds and grabbed a few hairpins from the dresser as she dashed ahead of them to the bedroom door. She called back teasingly, "You must hurry, sisters, or we shall miss seeing the carriages!"

By the time she reached the front door, her sisters galloping down the stairs behind her, Eliza had pinned up her hair to show off her ears and paused to examine herself in the hallway mirror while Mother chirped a spirited final word of romantic encouragement to all the girls and Father frowned at his newspaper waiting for the hubbub to pass.

Out in the summer air, the sisters hurried down the brick lane in their billowing skirts and soon reached the village square. An elegant coach had just arrived, and its driver hopped down to tie up the horses. The carriage door opened, and a handsome young man stepped out.

"There he is, Lizzy," Jane squealed. "It's Mr. Bingley!  Can you read him from here? I danced with him twice, and he seemed quite good-hearted."

"I agree," Eliza said.  "I can feel that he is an honest and noble gentleman. He strikes me as a very positive fellow."

"Well, the same cannot be said for his friend, the dreadful Mr. Darcy, whose scowling visage you can now see exiting the carriage. At the last ball, he would not join the dance and did nothing but pace about looking vexed."

"I can certainly tell that his displeasure at attending a dance is genuine," Eliza said. "He is much less open than his friend, but I sense he is just uncomfortable in social groups and preoccupied with something else."

"Mr. Darcy is Lord of Pemberley," the younger sister explained. "I understand it is a very large estate to manage, so perhaps he has more important concerns than dancing."

"If he does not wish to dance," Jane huffed, "one wonders why he chooses to attend dances."

"Perhaps I shall ask him that question," Eliza said. "If he will not dance with me, he will need to converse with me at least briefly, and when we are standing in such proximity, I will see into his heart.  But I think I shall find a good man in there. What do you think, little sister?"

Mary peered over her spectacles at the handsome, frowning man and said, "I dare say, sister, that would indeed be a plausible outcome."

The End