Nectar of the Gods

The corporate heads of Simular Inc. initially wanted a main hub of sorts within Simular. A place where everyone who joined would feel welcomed—safe, and at ease.

Although freedom was an important selling point, they didn’t want the entire simulation to be like the wild, wild west. They wanted a place that had restrictions. Just this one corner of their world where they could build their entire simulated empire around. And everywhere else? That was all open and up for grabs. They’d let the people decide the laws, the rules of the land; the first settlers would have the upper hand.

So to appease this plan of theirs, the leaders created a city in the center of all this amalgamation. The city of a trillion suns—

Virgin Thermopylae.

And floating over this metropolis was the developers’ headquarters. They peered down at the people like newfound gods of their world. The holographic adverts and electrifying neon lights of the city were a sight to see from above the simulated skyline. And there, the creator of Simular discussed urgent matters with his partner and friend, Azan.

“Azan, you have to see this,” the creator said. “There’s this boy—"

“Why do you always want to meet here?” The figure peered across the multi-colored horizon in distaste. “We can always chat outside, yeah? Look at the real sun and touch some real grass for once.”

“It doesn’t matter where we are, Azan. It’s all genetically modified anyway. What’s the difference?” Azan wasn’t even looking at him. “Listen, that’s not why I told you to come here. A boy—not even a week old—broke through our perimeter! It’s unreal—”

“If someone broke through, just fix it so it doesn’t happen again.”

“No, I’m not talking about that. The boy! I’m talking about the boy!”

“What boy?” Azan finally turned around. “There’s a bunch of boys out there. There’s the one starving next to our research facility, one we hired yesterday as our attendant, and the one that pissed in a cup and threw it at one of my escorts.” He paused as if recalling the incident. “Maybe I should report that one to the authorities—”

“No, not the ones in real life! I mean in Simular.”

“Simular? Oh, now that’s a lot of boys. You got the drug dealers, the rich brats, the hackers—we better get rid of the hackers though. They’re kind of ruining all the promotional events—”

“Azan! Stop joking around.”

“What? I’m just trying to lighten the mood.” He plucked at his shirt to cool off. “It feels so stuffy in here. Did you raise the temperature again?”

He ignored Azan’s remark. “Somebody just broke through VirTho’s perimeter force field. Weird thing is, server logs say it’s an NPC.”

“An NPC broke through? Well, I’m sure it’s not that big of a deal. That border has probably broken before.”

“First of all”—he gestured aggressively—“no, it hasn’t. And anything that breaks through our perimeter boundary is a big deal. That shouldn’t be possible. It’s inherently a manipulation of the code. Second, this isn’t just some NPC. I never put him there. He’s not supposed to exist.”

“So what is it? A rogue virus?”

“No. Origin values state that it was made here. In Simular.” He restlessly paced back and forth. “Don’t you get it? That means it could be an actual simulated human being! A natural born AI!”

“There’s nothing natural about being born in a simulation. He’s just another AI like the rest. How is this so amusing to you?”

“You don’t get it, Azan. Those are just data dumps. They learn to act human and think like humans, but they’re not really human. They don’t understand real emotions; they don’t have true sentience. They’re just programmed to spout out whatever they need to spout out to sound like one.”

“And what’s so different about this boy?”

“I don’t know yet. But I have a good feeling. If he’s what I think he is, I can use him to revolutionize neural immersion tech. We won’t need corporeal bodies, Azan. We can actually really live inside Simular! Without wires, without all this cybernetic mumbo jumbo!”

“Ah, there you go again with your unrealistic obsessions.”

“It’s not—”

“Just relax.” Azan wrapped his arm around his shoulders. “Enjoy the ride. We made this to—”

“I made this.” He pulled away.

“You made this, I made this. It doesn’t matter.” He pompously waved his hands in the air. “People love Simular. It brings them a breath of freshness to their lives. Freedom! A new start! A chance to choose their future for themselves. So what do we do to make it better? We give them what they want. Sex? It’s already in there. Gambling? Add it in. New Virtual RPG shooter? Make an opening for that—oh, but get the rights for it first. We don’t want some bullshit lawsuit in our hands. But seriously, loosen up a bit!”

Azan slapped him on the back.

“Give the people the life they always dreamed about. Give ‘em superpowers for all I care. It’s a simulation! There are no consequences. Why waste time on that obsession of yours when we can just feast upon this technological marvel you made. And maybe, we’ll get a raise… Think about it. We can make it rain!”

“I don’t care about the money. This is different.”

“No it’s not. It’s the same damn thing as before. We already use AI tech in our NPCs. One more isn’t going to change much.”

The creator sighed.

Azan wasn’t seeing it. He knew this was different. The boy wasn’t just some basic artificial general intelligence. He could be proof that the future of humanity could entirely take place within a simulation.

Currently, people couldn’t live in Simular. It was a second fresh start to life, but it wasn’t permanent. They had to leave the simulation every once in a while to sustain their physical bodies so that they wouldn’t starve to death or deteriorate like living corpses. The simulation hadn’t yet managed to completely replicate the human brain.

But with perfected immersion tech, humanity could be entirely rewritten into cyberspace solely as data and code. There would be no need for a physical body. And the boy could be the key. He could be the answer to life’s mysteries, the solution to death itself.

All he had to do was confirm how human this simulated boy was. He had to know for certain if he had all the necessary connections found within a real, biological brain. Then he’d translate the simulated signals, match them with the real life counterparts, and eventually crack the code to this theoretical fountain of youth. And once he confirmed the interchangeability of the neural signals, he could bring on a new technological age—

An age of longevity and possible immortality.

Yet his dear friend, Azan, still thought it was just a childish pipe dream of his…

“You just don’t get it,” the creator muttered under his breath. Then he swiftly left the scene, leaving a confused Azan in his wake.