Endless Alien Simulation
I shook my head in disbelief.
Again?
It seems they really never got tired of this. A massive war-machine loomed before me, training its guns on me. It was 20 feet tall, with four, long, bionic legs holding up its head, which contained its guns. I groaned before walking calmly below it. Many simulations ago, I would be shot by the thing, but I hadn’t felt any pain from these simulations for ages now. The guns began spinning rapidly, preparing to mow me down, but once I got immediately below it, the guns would no longer be able to aim at me.
“Are we not tired of using the same simulation every time?” I called out to the machine. I hesitated for a moment while its pilot realized that simply sitting down would crush me. I took two steps to the right and grabbed a rock from the floor. The machine smashed itself into the ground. The pilot looked smug in his alien cockpit before I smashed it open with the rock in hand. It shrieked and put its limbs above its head.
“Akja mo plee no — “
“Lampa noo de?” I said, climbing into the cockpit while yawning. I was completing its sentence, but I still had no idea what it meant. Probably something like ‘spare me.’ I smashed its head in with the rock as it looked at me, shocked. I learned long ago that if I spared it, it would spit acid at me immediately. I threw its body out the cockpit and took the seat for myself, preparing yet another rampage. I decided I’d go to the suburbs this time.
“Onka no. Onka no,” I heard from overhead. It sounded like a loudspeaker. It could have been an evacuation alarm, or the aliens trying to talk to me. Whatever it was, I was going for the rampage. I drove the mech to the houses and smashed each of its feet into different houses. Small aliens started running from most houses. Children presumably. I smashed each one into a pulp, humming a tune. I wonder if the things in the simulations remembered too. They seemed scared of me, but it’s hard remembering a time they weren’t afraid of me after learning how to pilot this thing. I pointed the guns at the neighborhoods in front of me and obliterated them. Must have been hundreds, dead.
I grabbed a couple of the children’s corpses from below me and threw them backward, over my shoulder. By now, the flying war machines would be trying to stop me, but I would throw the deceased into their engines, destroying them as soon as they came on the scene. After the initial carnage, I dropped the machine and climbed out.
I walked through the utter wreckage wrought by me. Any survivors on the brink of death were brought a swift one by my trusty rock. I made my way to the satellite tower in the center. Long ago, I believed it was the origin of all the simulations, but it also seemed to be indestructible. Nothing would take it down. I wasn’t even sure it was my way out, it was just natural for me to gravitate toward it after my recurring murder sprees.
As I reached the base of the tower, the world around me glitched and faded. I sighed and put my hands into my pockets. I looked up to the audience of aliens applauding me as if I had done something they had never seen before. A few were cheering in their strange language while others booed and hissed at me. I leaned from one leg to the next, waiting for the council that sat on a panel below to start speaking.
“Pompa. Ikta no,” one said, solemnly.
“I did this exact same thing, like three simulations ago! I killed just as many people and everything! Just let me go!”
One of the council members pantomimed bashing a rock into the alien next to it, then it shook its head at me.
“I won’t kill anyone if you just let me go! I got bored like 700 trials ago, just let me go!”
Another council member held up a small alien and patted it compassionately, looking at me as if to suggest I should try to do the same.
“I already tried the pacifist route! I reset every time!! What do you want from me!? Please! Just let me go!”
The aliens nodded to one another, pretending to understand what I was saying. One in the center stood and said something slowly and benevolently.
“No!! No, no!! I swear I don’t want any second chances, just let me — “
The world spun around me and I was dropped in front of a giant war machine training its guns on me.
I shook my head in disbelief.
Again.
* * *
I smashed the machine open, bellowing at the pilot of it,
“They sent you to die! Is that how you want to live? Perpetually dying by my hand?”
It stared at my rock horrified, then stammered,
“Akja mo plee nolampa noo de.”
“What’s so hard to understand?? I will smash your face in with the rock and you will die. That’s all there is to it. Don’t you want to survive?” I screamed. I shoved my rock inside of its mouth as it attempted to spit acid at me. The backfire made its eyes bulge and it screamed in pain, but it was otherwise still alive.
“You see that wall?” I pointed to the sky to the left of us. Its eyes followed my finger. “We’re watched by your stupid council. They wait for me to do something, then they turn it off. You get it? If you just start this simulation with the intent of getting out, maybe we’ll stand a chance! Try to remember!”
“Appa li!” It flailed a limb that I nimbly avoided and knocked its head to one side with my elbow. It stared at my face, astonished. It seemed to expect I would have killed it by now. Well, it wasn’t wrong to think that, since I’d done it thousands of times now, but I just wanted to know if it would understand I wanted something from it.
“The tower,” I said, pointing to the building with a stern finger. “Can you do something about the tower? I could swear it has something to do with all of this! Just take it down, and we’ll both be free.”
It looked to the tower, then back at me. Its eyes made a quick dance between my rock, my face, and the tower.
“Be free?” it mimicked.
Tears stung at my eyes. The first response I’d forced out of these stupid things. But its eyes didn’t stop its race, jumping between the three points while it chanted something to itself, condescending:
“Be free. Be free! Be free!! Befree!!! BEFREE!!!” it screamed, shaking its head wildly.
“Uhh.. yeah,” I lowered the rock, hoping it would do something else.
“BEFREE! BEFREE!”
“Maybe not be free? I don’t know what’s happening here, do you — “
“BEEEEEEEEEEEEE FREEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!” it yelled, its body suddenly convulsing. It shook violently, looking between my general direction and the tower. Its skin began bubbling until it exploded. I stared at the empty cockpit in shock. I was covered in its innards and had once again made no progress.
The simulation powered down and the aliens in the audience all looked at me in utter shock. The council was visibly shaken, refusing to make eye contact with me.
“Really?” I asked. “That was the worst thing I’ve done? Infanticide is cool with you all? The countless murders are all part of the plan, but this guy’s explosion was the one thing out of place? I made it blow up before! Remember when I shoved the explosive down its throat and it ran into the building and killed everyone inside?”
No answer, they couldn’t fully grasp whatever sin I had committed. Evidently, neither could I. I heard one of them sob. A handful of the audience members got up and left the room. I really crossed the line this time.
The head council member stood up and looked gravely upon me.
“B — “ it stopped itself, thinking its words out carefully. “Bahla noma.”
The scene began fading before me and I felt the pull of the simulation starting back up again.
“Wait!! But I changed it! It’s not fair!” I yelled.
The world spun around me and I was dropped in front of a giant war machine training its guns on me.
I shook my head in disbelief, waiting for the machine to make its first move, but it remained frozen. I waited a couple more moments. Was the simulation buffering? I took a few steps back to get a good look at what the pilot was doing. But the cockpit was empty. There was nothing but the husk of the war machine.
I changed the simulation.
* * *
I stared for a moment, waiting for the trick to be over with. For them to start up the machine and disintegrate me in unbearable pain again. But it didn’t happen.
“Is… Is it broken?” I yelled toward where the council normally was. No answer. I knelt down and grabbed my trusty rock. I don’t know how else to start these simulations and it felt familiar to me at this point. I walked up to the war machine, gazing at its peak.
“Hello?” I called hesitantly.
I walked between its legs and walked towards the tower in the center of this world. I hadn’t tried in hundreds of resets, but I felt like I’d done something significant this time. I had to have access now. It was only a few blocks to the base of it.
Entering into the city, I came across a small group of them exiting a house hesitantly. They stayed close together, defending one another from my approaching.
“Ooklong?” the tallest one asked.
“Buddy, I’ve killed you before, and I’ll do it again. I’m going to the tower. Get in my way and I’ll destroy you and your little family. Again.”
“Porba,” it said, standing directly in my way. The others made their way surrounding me.
“Ok, fine, I warned — “ I stopped as an epiphany hit me like a train. There was only one thing I ever got one of them to respond to.
“Be free, you guys. Be free,” I said, encouragingly.
“Buh — “ one of them stepped back, looking at its surroundings, “Be free?”
“Junkli be free, junkli!” the tall one said to me, accusingly. The others were already in a frenzy. One was tearing its arms off, yelling ‘be free’ affirmatively. Another was at the brink of exploding.
The tall one watched as his companions all massacred themselves aggressively. It looked at me angrily. Then it turned to the tower.
“Be free?” it asked, still watching the tower.
“I still have no idea what you’re saying, but come along if you want. It’s either that or the rock,” I said, walking past it. I didn’t care if it attacked me from behind, I’d just reset at square one again. Either that or I just stopped caring about my life. Maybe they were equally true.
I made it past the next couple blocks without incident. At the last house before the tower, another one jumped in my way.
“Be free,” I said, noncommittally, hoping it would kill itself and I’d be done with it quick.
It stopped in place and started stomping on the floor below it. Then it had a mischievous look creep upon its face and it ran into the house next to the one it came out of. I heard screams from inside. I shrugged and kept walking.
I made it to the base of the tower. I touched it. I cringed, waiting for the simulation to power down, but I was still there. Dopamine fueled me, and I clambered up the stairs to the stop, running at max speed. I smacked my rock against the tower and whooped. I had finally made it. It felt like this was my life’s purpose.
At the top of the tower was a plain room with thousands of wires running through one box in the center and flowing out to the rest of the simulation. I looked around the room, trying to locate a switch, lever, or plug of some sort to power it down. I looked back at the box. I gripped my rock tightly and smiled. Probably the last time I’d see it.
I smacked the rock into the box. It began whining with a deafening sonic sound. I continued to smack it, as it continued to grow in volume. I screamed, but couldn’t hear my voice over the noise, only the feeling of my vocal cords being used. I used both hands to smash it to pieces. I was blinded by the resulting explosion.
I didn’t know what I did, but I began seeing things. I saw myself running the simulation. Each time more brutal than the last. There was a time I enjoyed it and then a later time I became bored. I continued to see more, including the other aliens that were in the simulation with me. Each of them, a horrible past. From theft to murders, to cannibalism. Each one I interacted with was a criminal of some sort. I saw the war machine pilot from earlier committing a war crime in the same machine.
And then I saw the truth.
The simulation was the aliens’ prison system. Anyone that had committed an egregious enough crime would be sent to this simulation forever. They could live their lives with each other. Whether they lived together at peace or at war was up to them. But there was a catch. The aliens were never made aware they were in a simulation. In fact, they had their memories wiped every time the simulation reset because this race of aliens could free themselves from the simulation if they knew they were in a simulation. I was placed here for trespassing on an alien ship which seemed like years ago, and they believed that I was having my memory reset as well. The other aliens would watch us for sport. The ones I believed were council members would tell me about the crimes that the ones I killed had committed. One smashed another with a rock, just like I did. Another would groom little ones until they were old enough to eat.
I could suddenly feel my body again, like I was being removed from the simulation, but not before being given the last bit of information.
The simulation was called a “Be Free” in the alien language. And reminding them of it gave them the ability to remember, and free themselves.
I awoke laying down in a pod, my body aching all over like I hadn’t used it in days. The entire backside of my body burned like they had been seared off, and a quick sickening glance told me I was covered in bedsores. I groaned loudly but had no energy to get up. I was completely spent. Reality was killing me.
Outside of my pod, I heard pandemonium outside. The sound of war machines was prevalent, but I also heard the fearful scream of innocents and some crashing happening in rooms near mine. I closed my eyes and considered the fact that I had released every criminal in this alien world from the simulation, and they had collectively decided to start an apocalypse. I heard something approach my pod, and I opened my eyes to see an alien looking down on me in my exhausted and dying state.
I opened my mouth to try and say something, but my throat was completely dry and no noise came out. After looking at it a little longer, recognition came over me as I realized this was the pilot alien. It stared, clearly upset. It might have remembered the simulations as well as I, now. The countless number of times I killed it, sometimes with a smile on my face. I saw it slowly raise a rock up.
I opened my mouth to try and ask it to stop, but I was again hindered by my sheer inability to move a muscle.
“Be free,” it said, sending the rock down on my face.