Simulacrum

After being asleep for half of my life, I’d forgotten how beautiful the world was.

I walked beneath a sapphire sky, over leaves and grass that smelled fresh and earthy; how I’d imagine the colour green to smell. Birds chirped in the trees and the sun beamed down like a protective eye across the field. In the distance behind me a stark, square white building loomed over its natural surroundings. Ahead of me was a road.

A gunshot boomed overhead.

I gasped, and birds fled the trees. They left a silence behind them that was somehow louder than their presence. This is not how I die, I hoped, naked in a field. Then I heard the rumbling. Low, at first, like the Earth was breathing. Then it turned into the hum of a car motor, rapidly approaching.

A green rover sped towards me, and then drove out in front of me, blocking my path. I darted to the left and tripped over a network of tree roots. I yelped and hit the ground. For a second, I thought I’d been shot. A man jumped out of the car, slammed the door and rushed to my side.

“P- Please don’t hurt me-” I stammered, looking down at my body and realising the only blood on me was dried. I barely recognised my own voice; it felt like a different person was saying my words.

“I’m here to help you,” he said gently, and I’m startled by how soft his voice is. Surely, he would’ve shot me by now, if he wanted to.

“I’m running away,” I confessed, and winced, clutching my sprained foot. “I haven’t moved my legs in so long.”

“You escaped from that Facility over there?” he asked, pointing to the ugly white building across the field.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, let’s get you safe,” he said. His words were like the blue sky, reassuring and deep, anchoring me here. His hair was dark and scraggly under a brown farmer’s cap. I took his hand, and he pulled me up. I got into the car.

We drove. Away from the Facility, down the long abandoned road. All of them were abandoned; the Western world had little need of them, now that most people had gone into the Simulation. I was still shaking beneath the large woollen jumper he had given me. I sat in the back, wedged between the bodies of game he’d caught. He was hunting, he explained, and apologised for scaring me. From a distance, I looked white as a goose. I laughed, and then froze. It sounded strange and foreign coming from my mouth. My voice was older.

“Hey”, he said, snapping me out of my trance. “What was life like in the Simulation?” I scan my memory as I watch the trees flying past my window, and find it’s like chasing a dream I’ve forgotten after waking up. There were memories of mum and dad, and me as a kid. But between then and now was a void of crackling TV static. There were some… other memories, but it was like I was watching them from behind the eyes of someone else. I saw her marching, shooting, fighting.

“Nothing. I remember nothing,” I said. “I have memories of my childhood, but I’m an adult now." I looked down at my long, gangly legs and the strange long arms that were resting on them. “Last thing I remember is going in. They told me to watch the TV, and then they stuck something sharp in my arm. I went to sleep. Then, I woke up.” He smiled at me kindly, with sadness twinkling in his eyes.

“I don’t think there is a simulation,” he said. I shivered and pulled the blanket tighter. “Nobody has ever left the Simulation. I lost my family to it. They called me a paranoid technophobe. But I never went in. Carried on living in the real world.” He paused, then asked: “How did you get out?” My body twinges, remembering the ice-cold vat, like a giant test tube. I had awoken trapped inside, gasping for breath, filling my lungs with a strange liquid. On the other side of the glass, I saw a female Android holding broken wires. She had shattered the glass, and then collapsed. I burst from the vat and landed, wet and coughing, on the floor next to her robotic body. She was wearing my Grandma’s heart-shaped locket. It was the one she had promised to me, when I was little.

“I escaped through the main entrance,” I told the man. “It needed Android permission to unlock, and an Android had left it open,” I explained, my voice barely escaping my throat. He listened, still intently watching the road.

“I’m watching out for them,” he explained gravely. “Androids started appearing everywhere after people went to live in the Simulation.” We passed a huge mansion surrounded by tall fences, and I saw two of them standing in the upstairs window, metal bodies staring lifelessly at me with big black eyes. My breath catches in my throat. As quickly as they appear, though, the mansion flies past and I’m gazing out at trees again. “Sometimes they’re peaceful servants, working menial jobs. Other times, though…” He trailed off.

Around my neck, I traced the heart-shaped locket with my finger anxiously. Finally, a small cottage swam into view. It was gorgeous; thatched roof, colourful windows and vegetable gardens growing out front. I looked closer. The door was smashed in, yellow DO NOT ENTER tape flapped in the wind and a sign read: DEMOLITION SITE. Another sign boasted a new development- another Facility to be built here. That wasn’t right. She would never leave her house.

“Stop!” I cried. “Stop the car!”

The man slammed on the breaks and I threw open my door, stumbling out towards the house. “What are you doing, girl! The doctors is only a little further,” The man called from behind me as I reached the door. I went through. On the floor was a brochure for the Simulation: “Say Goodbye to the Costs of Living- Hello to a Life of Simulated Luxury!” A young boy in casual dress was grinning on the front cover, a lavish mansion and sports car behind him.

In the dim sunlight, swirls of dust danced across the empty hall. Pictures on the walls showed a woman who had lived a very full life, travelled the world. More recent photos showed her older, tending to her vegetable gardens. I walk, running my hands along the lime green wallpaper, finding the spot near the corner where I’d once drawn flowers with a crayon; faded, but still there. In the living room, I see framed photographs of my family smiling down from the walls; me in my school uniform with freckles and gaps in my teeth, my parents kissing at their wedding.

I had looked for them before I escaped. The Facility lab room was enormous. Thousands of people were in vats, except they had still been asleep and wired up to a huge, flashing screen. The lab had been silent apart from the faint hum of electric, the occasional droid darting about on wheels from one place to the next, recording temperatures, and inspecting the machinery. There were no more Androids. I spent hours walking, staring at each and every face, avoiding the droids as they passed by. I didn’t recognise a single one as my mum or dad. They must have been moved to another Facility.

“Girl! What are you doing? Is this where you lived?” The man called, shutting the front door behind him and following me into the living room.

“No,” I whispered, just as I spotted a figure hunched over in the rocking chair, in front of the TV. “Grandma?” I ask. There was no answer, and I step closer to the chair. She was dead. I almost fall backwards to the floor, clutching my locket. The man is suddenly behind me, steadying me by the shoulders. I felt like I was going to faint.

“Hey now, girl, it’s all right,” he soothed, steering me away. I pulled myself away from his gentle grasp and stood in front of my Grandma.

Flashes of recent memories attacked my mind, the ones that filled the space in-between my childhood and now, the ones I felt I had watched from behind someone else’s eyes. I remember standing here, in front of her. She was holding the locket out to me, pleading. I raised my own shaking arms. I remember holding a gun with Android arms. I remember…

“I shot her.” I said, my voice breaking. “I was an Android, and I killed her,” my voice rose, tears stung my eyes, and he was there to steady me by the shoulders again.

“You can’t blame yourself; you weren’t in control,” he soothed. I sobbed, confused, and my legs slumped me down to the floor.

“I- don’t- understand,” I say, between sobs.

“Androids are programmed to complete their tasks,” he began. “Some act as security, enforcing order“ -he gestured to the busted door- “like forcefully evicting people from their homes. Those jobs aren’t done by people anymore. But they had to steal their intelligence from somewhere,” he mused. The realisation hits me like a truck.

“Maybe my Grandma recognised my voice, and that’s why she gave my Android her locket. She was trying to make me remember.”

“Your Grandma’s locket? It must have triggered something, like a malfunction, for your Android to then come and break you out.”

I bolt to my feet. “We have to get back to the Facility. There are more like me, trapped,” I cry. “We break them free. Shut the Androids down.”

We hurried back to the car. The blue sky was growing dark, a deep indigo, and the air was thick and humid with the promise of rain. By the time we reached the Facility, swarms of people were already there. People in clothes carried pale, naked and dripping bodies, some semi-conscious, and supported others by the arms as they walked out of the Facility.

“Rebels,” the man said, wonder and admiration filling his voice. They were clad in armour that had been reworked out of Android scraps. Rain was now hammering down, licking the armour so they shimmered like medieval nights. A couple of Androids had rushed to defend the Facility, but had fallen facedown into the waterlogged grass. A tall rebel woman stepped over one and looked out over the crowds.

“That’s the last of them rescued,” she announced, which was met by cheers and whoops of celebration. “Can’t stand the rain, those Androids. Talk about flawed design,” she laughed victoriously. I met her eye and she broke away from the rest, coming over to meet us both. “Nearby scouts saw the security breach, decided it was best time to strike. We had no way in until now. Thank you.” She said. “It isn’t all of the Facilities, but one is a start.” She nodded goodbye and walked away, joining the other rebels and climbing into one of many large vans that were parked nearby. The man followed her, asking about his family, if any of them were amongst the people rescued. “Come see for yourself,” she replied.

I wandered back into the Facility alone. Sure enough, the doors were still wide open, the security compromised by my rogue Android who was still lying dead on the floor. Inside, empty glass vats everywhere were smashed; droids lay on their sides, some of their wheels still spinning. I turn back to see the man in one of the rebels’ vans now, smiling, with his arm around a lady who looked like his wife.

“Girl!” He called, holding out his hand. I run to join the rebels, and I take his hand, climbing into the van.

We drove.