Yet another science fiction piece for your perusal

STUCK INSIDE VIRTUAL REALITY

Jack Bragen

I felt odd.  I was in a banquet hall of some hotel, and couldn't remember how I had gotten there, where I was, or what had happened in the last month.  To my left, there was a substantial spread of hors d'oeuvres.  A number of immaculate, healthy-looking seniors, some younger people about my age and some people in wheelchairs mingled and were merrily talking to each other. 
     I had a sense that I was being watched.  So that I wouldn't be noticed as much, I walked up to the table of food. 
     An old woman, with an apparent wig of curly red hair, sitting adjacent to the food table, looked at me.  "You're new here, aren't you?" 
     "Of course I am," I said.  "Can you fill me in about where we are and the expected protocol?" 
     "There is no protocol, and you are nowhere." 
     The seeming non-response took me by unpleasant surprise.  I was tempted to leave the food table and find someone else to talk to. 
     The old woman continued:  "The particles that you are made of are represented in computer memory, down to subatomic level, I'm told."  She paused.  "You don't exist." 
     I struggled to keep frustration out of my voice, "Mankind has no computer of that magnitude.  It will be centuries before we can do that." 
     "Who said anything about humans?  We could be dozens of light years away from earth, or contained in a machine built into one of their mother ships." 
     I said, "And besides that, no computer could ever be fast enough." 
     The old woman persisted, "If we were slowed down, we would never be aware of it.  If all events are equally slowed…"
     "Nice talking to you," I said.  I spotted the exit of the banquet room and started toward it.  Of course this woman was senile. 
     I entered a large hallway and abruptly realized I was on the third floor and had just been on the first.  I concluded that I was subject to memory lapses.  I began to walk with no particular destination.  I spotted a door that was marked, "Room 311:  Reserved for Fred Michaels."  I jumped almost three feet.  Apparently, someone had reserved a hotel room for me.  I tried the door and it opened. 
     In the hotel room, I recognized my laptop, my razors, and my high blood pressure medication, all atop the dresser.  I turned and realized that the room had a very fancy, tiled Jacuzzi set into the floor.  The room was quite large.  I saw that a food cart had been left in the room, and on top of it were a sliced pizza and a container of fruit salad.
     I sat down on the bed and stared off into space.  I assumed I was dreaming, or perhaps I was dead.   I spotted a landline phone next to the bed.  As if in response to my look, the phone rang. 
     "Hello." 
     "Mr. Michaels, this is room service.  We wanted to officially welcome you to our hotel, and ask if there is anything we can get for you that would make your stay here as comfortable and pleasant as possible."  The voice was cordial and sounded like that of a typical female, twenty-five-year-old-or-so hotel worker. 
     "Madam, I don't understand why I am here or what this place is.  Can you explain to me how I got here, where I am and why I am here?" 
     "Mr. Michaels, you are incarcerated as data within a type of computer system, and this computer is not administered or created by humans."
    "So, you're telling me that I am living inside an extraterrestrial computer and that I don’t really exist except on computer memory?"  I struggled not to get verbally abusive with the woman.  Of course this was a hoax of some kind.  "There is something you can get me," I said, "how about two large bottles of vodka." 
     The vodka was delivered almost instantly.  I opened one of the bottles and drank.  The booze was effective at making me oblivious.  I got into the Jacuzzi and finally began to relax. 
     I awoke and was still in the water.  I chastised myself that I could have drowned or gotten overheated.  I got out of the water, and noticed that the pizza was still there on the cart, beckoning.  I ate.  There was a knock on the door. 
     I looked through the peephole and saw a nondescript gentleman in a suit and tie.  I was sure this was a door-to-door religious man wanting to get me to join his church, or perhaps it was a cop.  Against my common sense, I opened the door.
     "Hello Mr. Michaels.  Are you ready for your orientation?"  Without asking, he walked past me and took a seat at the breakfast table near a corner of the room.   As if out of thin air, the gentleman produced an advanced-looking video display. 
     "Who the hell are you and will you please get out of my room?" I said.  I was quite peeved.  My reflex was to think this man was some kind of multi-level marketing schemer, wanting to recruit me. 
     "This is in the vein of an explanation as to where you are and why you're here," he said.  "But if you want me to leave, I can do so."  He folded up the video display and began to get out of his chair.
     "Wait," I said.  "I need an explanation.  Everything has gone weird." 
     The gentleman got back in his chair but didn't put up the video screen.  "To begin with, you don't actually exist…" 
     He proceeded to explain something similar to what that old lady was getting at. 
     "Well then I demand that I be put back," I exclaimed. 
     "That can not happen," the man replied.  "We don't have the technology.  We can scan matter, we can copy it perfectly, we can simulate everything about it, but we don't yet know how to put those particles and those interactions back into the physical universe." 
     "I'm a simulation and there's no way out, that's what you're telling me?" 
     "If you have no other questions, I will leave you to your amusement," he replied. 
     I said, "If you're an alien, is this what you look like?"  I pointed an index finger toward the man's necktie. 
     The nondescript person in front of me faded out and was replaced by something that looked like a combination between a giant slug and an octopus.  It had half a dozen eyes on stalks, twenty tentacles, and a pulsing, mammoth head containing a gaping mouth full of pointed teeth.  I felt like I was having a heart attack. 
     "Okay, I get your point.  You can go back to being a human again," I said.  "Do you have anything stronger than that vodka?  I'm not drunk enough." 
     The extraterrestrial simulation turned back to human form, put away his video display and was about to go out the door. 
     "One more question," I said, "Why?" 
     The extraterrestrial stopped, turned toward me, and said, "We are conducting an experiment.  There is much to learn."   He went out the door. 
     I ultimately adapted to being a simulation, and I lived for the next forty years with no worries, no responsibilities, yet no purpose.  I aged as a normal person would.  When I was to my best guess ninety years old, a man showed up at my door who I recognized as myself--but at the age I had been upon arrival.  I realized then that I was not the last, and probably not the first copy of me.