And nothing happened. The Wau was still in the laboratory with the liquid metal spheres, under Ismaël's supervision.
"Is there a problem?" asked the Wau.
"I can't say. I know everything about this machine, including how it works, and yet, yes, I observe that nothing has changed."
"Have you perhaps sent a double of me into the simulation?"
"No, it doesn't work that way. And yet…"
He displayed a two-dimensional diagram in space. He pointed to a small red dot in the middle of a sea of grey.
"This dot means that you are in the simulation."
The Wau tried to analyze the graph, but what he understood of it brought him no more clarity. A civilization that had "completed mathematics" and created "a scale-1 simulation of the universe"… and if all of this was some sort of theatre or illusion? He strolled through the room, then went into another, facing the bay that showed the magmatic currents.
He thought of the copy of the universe that existed in the After, and which had little success. The universe is beautiful and terrible, with its suns and deadly black holes, and its bleak, abandoned planets. No wonder humans prefer the colorful virtual worlds of video games…
He imagined what kind of video game the Travellers might have created, and then he realized.
He was in the simulation.
But since it was scale 1, identical, he had no way to perceive it. No way, except one. He said "Exit," and found himself, as if moved miraculously, back on the pedestal in the laboratory.
"Did you enjoy the experience, Wau?" asked Ismaël.
The Wau looked at his metal-gloved hands. No difference between the simulation and the real world.
"It's remarkable. Could you put me back in?"
"Of course."
Ismaël activated a command, and again, nothing happened.
"Uh, it should work," said Ismaël. "I'll run a test."
He can't notice it. We are one floor down in the simulation. He has sent my simulation into… well, into a simulation of a simulation, while I myself come from the layer of reality above him.
He thought of all the living beings in the simulation. Did they have hopes, sorrows, lives of their own? Of course-since this was a simulation in every detail. The thought made the Wau dizzy.
But what could it be useful for? He could dash to Earth, try to kill the Aleph, and if things went badly, just say the exit word? But what is the point of this simulation, for heaven's sake?
"Can we access other parts of the universe, say, like a camera flying over the simulation?" asked the Wau.
"No. The simulation reproduces the Universe absolutely, with its limits."
Let's try something.
"Ismaël, I'd like to test the simulation again. I have a feeling this time it will work. The exit word will be Exit 1."
"Exit 1? Noted."
He activated the simulation again. And again, the Wau found himself in exactly the same place, on the pedestal. Had it worked? he wondered, as Ismaël apologized again. He took a step, said "Exit 1," and was moved back to the pedestal. He took another step, said "Exit," and was again moved back to the pedestal.
It took his breath away. Not only could the machine simulate the universe at scale 1-which is theoretically impossible (you need more than one molecule, for example, to simulate a molecule)-but it could also simulate the simulation machine itself, meaning you could enter simulations of simulations. It was dizzying.
Ismaël asked:
"Was that an experience you were satisfied with?"
"Yes, but I want more. Always keep the word as Exit."
Ismaël started the machine.
Floor 1, Exit 1. Floor 2, Exit 2. Floor 3 of the simulation. The Wau walked a few more steps in the lab. One mustn't get lost in the simulation floors… he could never meet his double, always travelling one layer below. The magma looked different through the window, though he couldn't say why… surely there was still a limit to simulations, wasn't there?
He returned to the laboratory. Floor 4. Floor 5… Floor 10. Floor 11.
Ismaël said:
"It's not working."
Ah-different words. The Wau looked at Ismaël. He no longer had the appearance of a Wau. He was humanoid, very roughly. "It's not working!" he cried plaintively, while the Wau went back to inspect the magma. It was a large, solid orange-red patch. He looked at his hands. His armor was intact. Everything else seemed… smoother, without detail.
Eleven floors. We're reaching the limits of the simulation.
"I want to test the simulation," he told Ismaël.
"Same exit word?"
"Exit 11."
"OK. Go up."
At worst, he could return to the upper floors.
Floor 12. It was degrading. Entire sections of walls were now missing, replaced by a computational grid. Ismaël was a wireframe skeleton, no longer speaking, but still understanding.
Floor 13. The visible walls shrank. Through the gaps, the Wau saw magma, which sometimes vanished to reveal stars-mere white dots.
Floor 14. There was nothing left but the machine, and a single white dot where Ismaël stood.
Floor 15. A room of nothingness. Everything around him was "without color," but his brain interpreted it as black… even though, quite simply, he could not look. From time to time, he felt as though his eyes were turning inward and he could see the inside of his head. No more Ismaël, nothing else… but in the distance, there was something luminous…
The Wau moved toward it. He advanced, walking on nothingness, and the distance to the thing shrank. It was a luminous sphere, as big as he was. A Transient?
"A captive Transient," the sphere commented.
A new vertigo. Simulating the Universe meant also simulating the complexity of the Transients. Incredible. But what was he doing here?
"I have trouble imagining a captive Transient," said the Wau.
"And yet, I am simulated-unlike you, who remain an explorer of the simulation. I cannot utter a magic formula and go up to a higher floor of the simulation."
"I understand that, for lack of technological means, this level of simulation here has reached its limits. And only you remain, is that right? But if you are simulated… then you have a counterpart in reality."
"Reality is a subjective term. I was born on this floor. For me, this is reality."
"There's not much here."
"There is not even hope anymore. Wau, I read in you and see your noble intentions. Shut down the Blind Gods project."
"And you will die?"
"My work is done. I am eager. But I know you will shut down the project. I must master my emotions. They overwhelm me. But it's the only thing I have left here. You want to know the whys and wherefores, don't you? The Blind Gods project has nothing to do with me. It was an experiment by the Travellers to understand the nature of the Blind Gods. To see whether they could be of any use in their grand personal Plan. But by its nature-by simulating the simulation-there was a collapse of possibilities, artifacts, errors, problems, absences, voids. And in the infinity of possibilities, these voids here, on the fifteenth layer, gave birth to a sentient civilization, living in nothingness, which eventually transcended itself…"
"The Travellers couldn't help you?"
"The Travellers are not here yet. They will build this simulation in the future, and for one reason or another, will do nothing to prevent my civilization from emerging. Now go back up, and free me."
"I will. Am I your first contact outside your civilization?"
"No. In the infinity of time, past as well as future, there are errors, artifacts, bugs, that descend from the higher reality. Some are sentient. Much of the information that trickles down concerns the Creators, whom you call the Travellers, and their plans. But you are the one who will help us."
"The past and the future?"
"You are in an overloaded simulation that cannot process the flow of time naturally. This place, in computational terms, follows one arrow of time, and in electronic terms, follows an opposite one. We are in both of these places, stretched. Our time, that of cause and consequence which you are living now, flows perpendicularly. The third side."
"Shouldn't we save everything you've created?"
The impatient Transient stayed silent.
"How? We far exceed the data you can carry with you."
The Wau also thought, pacing a few steps in the nothingness. He remembered Aloysius, and Proteus.
"Could you synthesize all your information into a sentient number containing its own encoding, plus an equation to generate it?"
"Are you a Transient?"
"No, but the Transients say our civilization is on the right path."
"In cunning and empathy, indeed. We will set to it."
"Save me a little of your awareness to answer me. You said this simulation was to understand the nature of the Blind Gods. What is it?"
"What we think we have understood over time is that the Blind Gods live in an infinity where everything is possible. And since everything is possible, at some point they realize a simulation of their infinite universe, and this leads to a singularity."
"Or a collapse, in which would be found an abandoned civilization."
"Or a universe like yours, where you would all be abandoned, for eternity. Should I wish that for you?"
"Do you know the Deviation project?"
"Yes-it allows access to the three-sided shape, as well as the Opening. We are ignorant of both, but the Opening is thought to be a sort of irresistible destiny, very important to the Travellers. The Deviation project is incompatible with the simulation, you know. If it is activated at its full potential, we will die."
"Isn't that what you want?"
"We want a certainty. My equation is ready. Here it is."
The equation was twenty thousand lines long, and the Wau stored it with instructions to send it to a university as soon as contact with a Drift was made.
"Please honor your commitment," said the Transient.
"I will keep my word. Farewell."