I was little worried about my heart stop beating, then a guy from some IT department informed me about a couple of things that made me stop worrying and go completely bonkers.
At first, I had thought my heart failing to beat was some trick my mind was playing on me. But, then afterwards, no matter how many times I tried to find my heart beat, it just wasn’t there. But hey, you know, what’s a guy to do? You forget about it because you're at work and you gotta do your job. You don’t have time to worry about little things like your heart stopping when you got a list of stuff you gotta do that’s growing by the minute.
By the time I had gotten home, the only thing on my mind was the pizza delivery I ordered on the way back to my apartment. Well, if it wasn’t for the guy sitting on my couch when I opened the lights. Needless to say, I skedaddled out of there as fast as I could. Well, I would have, if I could have if I wasn’t frozen solid like a statue.
“Please, I don’t mean you any harm, I just want to talk,” said the man. “When you can move then, can we please sit down and talk calmly. I’m sorry if I scared you. Please nod your head if your agree.” I nodded my head. “Great!”
He released me a second later. I gingerly took steps over to the couch, sitting down on it.
“Okay…” I muttered, unsure of what to say.
The man fidgeted in his seat uncomfortably. “Ok. Uhh, well, I suppose I should just start from the beginning.” The man rubbed his hands together. “Okay, well, we all drew straws to decide who was going to talk to you because the higher ups decided that we had to do damage control ASAP. I mean, I’m just in the IT department, not some PR rep you know. I mean, this is pretty big stuff. We IT guys aren’t supposed to be, you know, making contact and stuff like this. Those higher ups just like to say and do whatever they want you know. This is totally just out of scope. And-”
He saw the hand I was holding up in my befuddlement.
“I need a little context, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said confused.
He chuckled nervously in embarrassment at himself. “Sorry.” He took a breath and held a hand. “I’m George.”
I shook it. “Roger. Nice to meet you I guess,” I uttered half heartedly, still dazed at the whole situation.
“Okay, so I guess I should start from the beginning.”
“Alright.”
“So, you ever read about the theories that say the reality you’re living in is just a simulation?”
“Yes.”
“Well, their right.”
“Oh,” I said nodding. It start sinking in a moment later. “OH.”
“Ya,” said George nervously.
Doubt welled up in me. “Well, you can’t just expect me to believe that all of a sudden out of the blue?”
“Okay, well, here, just let me do this,” said George thoughtfully. “Give me a moment.” Suddenly, half the apartment, and the world outside it became nothing but dark shapes with grids of blue streaming data on it all. “This is the underlying code and framework for the reality you live in.”
“Oh,” I muttered in shock, in a daze. “So, why are you to me.”
“Well, it’s a long story. But to sum it up, the company made promises that the code modeling realistic hearts was virtually infallible. The chances of an error of such being one in a trillion trillion.”
“Alright…”
“So, when it did happen to you and it was reported, you can imagine that everybody got into a panic.”
“Ah…”
“You see, the company had made a big show of stating that this simulation was incapable of failure and that it would run perfectly without a hiccup.” George rubbed his head. “Crazy claim right? Everyone knows that you someone runs perfectly all the time. Things break down, the unexpected happens.” He took a breath. “I mean, the only reason the company was approved to do the simulation and got through all the regulatory approval was because of it. After all, no one wants a simulated world full of sentient and sapient individuals to crash and die. I mean, that’d be like mass murder of the highest degree.”
George couldn’t stop laughing nervously. My eyes were wide and unbelieving. “S-So…”
“But don’t worry!” he exclaimed. “We’re going to make sure everything is okay! That’s what we're here for. The company will be saying soon that they’ll be taking full responsibility for this situation and that any and all resources will be dedicated to making sure that this world will keep on chugging without trouble.”
His half heartedly smile wasn’t reassuring.
“So, my heart stopping was just the first small trouble in the system. One of many, larger ones to come?”
“Yes! Uh, NO!” George swallowed. “We’re going to make everything is OK! We’re here to help.”
He wasn’t reassuring.
“Can you look me in the eyes and tell me if this simulated world is going to be OK?”
He looked me in the eyes. “Uhh, it’s going to be, uhh… I don’t know.” He looked away. He took a breath. “Hey Roger. You and everybody else in this world is going to be alright OK. The world I come from has laws about these kind of things. Listen, if this world goes down, you guys are gonna be alright. You’ll be able to come to our world. Get yourself a nice body you know. Or maybe just roam the digital realms for a while without one.” He pulled out a card. “Here, I know we’re contacting you because you had the first glitch, but from just one guy to another, just contact us if you got any more trouble alright?”
I took the card. “Alright.”
“Okay great. So I’m just gonna go now and get back to work.” He rose from the couch, patting himself down to make sure everything was nice and tidy. “Nice meeting you Roger.” He held out a hand.
I shook it. “Nice meeting you George.”
He vanished and I just stared at the card, stupefied over what had just transpired in such a short time.