Insertion Point

Gale bounced his legs as he waited in the lobby. Only two candidates left. The longer he waited, the more nervous he got. Every possible question they could ask swam through his mind. His palms were clammy, and his armpits had a bit of a musk to them.

“Goliath Matherson?” The secretary stepped from behind a pair of glass doors as she called out his name.

“Yeah, that’s me.” He stood and raised his hand awkwardly.

“Follow me, please.” The secretary turned and stepped back through the doors, barely giving him time to catch up.

He trailed behind her, down a dimly lit hallway filled with row after row of offices. The frosted glass blotted out anything inside, but he heard the slight mechanical hum of Sims.

At the end of the hall, a large glass meeting room that looked down on the city from the 34th floor waited. The view was incredible, and a strange contrast from the dim hallway, as sunlight filled the space.

The secretary stopped outside and opened the door. “Good luck.”

“Thank you,” he nodded as he stepped in.

The room was quiet. A glass table and one pitch-black chair sat at the center. He took a seat and tried to hide his nervousness, but he swore he could hear his heartbeat echoing throughout the empty and silent space.

The sun dimmed as the walls faded to a shady tint. Then, a large screen was projected onto the glass table in front of him. A woman with blonde hair and striking blue eyes- nearly purple- looked up at him.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Matherson. Welcome to the Chinso Corporation. My name is Sal. This is your first step in a possible new journey. Congratulations. How’d you hear about us?”

He tried to hide the nervousness in his voice. “I’m honored to be offered this opportunity. I’m here thanks to luck, honestly. I stumbled across your application and saw there was a position for an entry-level technician. I figured I’d shoot my shot.”

She nodded, typing something on her end. “What are your goals while you’re with us?”

“I, uh, I hadn’t really thought about the long term, but I guess, in the immediate future, it would be to learn everything I can about working a Sim, while being able to afford my rent.”

She nodded, once again typing. “Tell us a little bit about yourself.”

“Well, I’m creative, and I consider myself smart. I am who I am. I like to learn, and I’m naturally gifted at using virtual space to bring things to life. I’ve been stuck on a computer for most of my time, though, so I have a lot of room to grow.”

“How much experience do you have with Sims?”

He thought about lying. “I just started a few months back. I couldn’t afford a Sim of my own until recently, and it’s a pretty old one.”

“Do you have any work you might be able to show us?”

He was prepared for this. He figured, even if they didn’t ask, showing them rather than telling would open their eyes to his abilities. “I have a few things, yeah.”

“If you would, send them over. I'd like to take a look.”

He took out his Pixels and slid them on. The table synced with his glasses, and he began opening files. He pulled out some of his best work and uploaded it to the cloud. He slid his glasses off and watched with clenched teeth as she began opening his projects.

“I have to say, for only being a few months into it, these projects are very good. I can see the heart and care in your work.”

He was glad she enjoyed it, even if he felt awkward taking the compliment. “I’m sure there is a lot Chinso could teach me, and I’m excited to learn.”

“What is this coded file, if I may ask?”

“That’s something I’ve been working on to cut my time in half. An easier method of gathering and projecting data, allowing the Sim to do a little more of the heavy lifting. There are still a few things I need to work out.”

She nodded, a glint in her eye. “You’re creative, hard working, and your low interaction with Sims will allow us to train you more accurately in what our company likes to do. I believe you will be a great asset to the Chinso Corporation, especially if you put just as much time and energy into what you do here.”

“Really?” He perked up. Usually, he left these interviews feeling defeated.

“Don’t let me get you excited. There are still a few people I have to convince, but I think this code will do the trick. We don’t often see coders in this industry anymore, and Chinso recognizes the value in people with your skills. What would be your ideal schedule, and how much are you looking to make with us?”

“Schedule-wise? I’ve really got nothing going on in my life, and this is what I love, so I figure most of my time will be spent here. When it comes to money, I’ve never had a job like this, so I don’t really know a good range.”

“No worries. That’s typical of an entry-level employee. Our company offers a very nice start for our newest additions. An 80K starting salary with a possible 10k raise every six months, dependent on certain goals met.”

“That salary is more than I’ve ever made in my life.” He’d been working hard for basically nothing. With an income and a salary like that, he’d be able to purchase all the new tech and still have money left for rent and food.

“Don’t let it fool you, this job is a lot of intellectual labor, and not everyone is cut out for it. I’ve seen even the most well-trained Sim Techs burn out.”

Burning out on 80k seemed unlikely. “If I could start tomorrow, I would.”

She chuckled. “Well, as I said, I still have to run this by a few people, but I think I can say with confidence that you’ll have a new job by next week. Do you have any other questions before we end this meeting?”

“I’m just grateful for the chance. Working with Chinso is going to be a dream come true.”

Chinso loved his code to upgrade the Sims. Together, they were working on rolling out a program that would update the entire building before going public with the tech.

He fought hard to keep the original version of his project, and he’d hired a lawyer to help rewrite the contract Chinso offered so he wouldn’t be taken advantage of. They were still caught up in litigation, but were already in the process of developing the Sims, so he figured if he stayed stubborn, they’d eventually cave.

Other than that, the last twenty-seven days were spent in meetings and with developers. It was exhausting, so he was glad to be in the Sim today.

“Signing on. Project 1125. Universe sector 091: Regalia.” It was always a strange feeling, slipping out of his body and into an artificial version of existence where only his mind existed.

The grid loaded, and his two previous universe experiments came into view. His goal was to make a unified planet. A place where everyone was still an individual, yet was also part of the whole. A place where humanity's worst instincts phased out of the species, and everyone could live in peace.

Chinso was behind it, of course. If they could find a way to make the planet better and make billions, there was no downside. He just needed the time to figure it out. Once he did, he’d be an architect of the new world.

“Let’s try something a little bit familiar for this project.”

He began searching his memories: The way a fresh-brewed cup of coffee smelled. How he and his cousins used to laugh as kids. The excitement of a first kiss. A cool sip of water on a hot day.

The way a meteor shower ripped streaks across the night sky. The softness of a warm blanket. How it felt being on the verge of a food coma at the end of a holiday feast.

As he strolled through memories, played out in the simulation in real time, he found himself exploring a past he’d forgotten. A world before technology took over.

A phone with buttons, riding bikes with your friends through the neighborhood, and movie rentals. A computer that took minutes to log onto the internet. Bonfires and cookouts. Tabletop games, trading cards, and finding a high spot to watch the sunset.

He picked his favorite memories and loaded them into the Sim.

A flash of light brightened the space, and then matter came into existence. The cosmos was created in chaos as quasars exploded, galaxies tore apart and transformed, and stars and planets took shape. In the midst of it all, Earth was born.

The planet turned from a molten blob into a green planet full of toxic waters. The atmosphere leveled out, and the waters eventually turned blue. Life began to evolve- first in the ocean, and then on land- and extinction events took place over thousands of years.

From it all was born humanity.

Next came sentience. As that continued to change, cultures rose and fell. Humans went from living in caves to living in towers. Wars began as nations formed, and religions evolved. Technology, usually driven by survival, was built. Eventually, the creation of AI eased human life.

All of a sudden, the Sim went blank.

He hung in liminal space- complete darkness- waiting to be ejected. Nothing happened.

The Sim rebooted, and his creation returned, only frozen in time. He tried to reset, and everything began rewinding in super speed.

He looked through the codes to find what was wrong. There, an error in the code he hadn't recognized before. No, wait, that wasn’t an error.

He read it again, and quickly realized… the Chinso Corporation had sabotaged him. Nobody was coming to get him out.

“I can’t tell if it’s been a month or a billion years.” Gale sat in the darkness of liminal space. “I’ve built creation, and rebuilt it time and time again. An endless number of universes.” Gale brought up Earth. “I just watch. I have no influence, other than creating the blueprint. How it plays out is up to them.”

One hundred Earths, evolving through time, hang around him. “It’s sad, really. They blame me, but there is nothing I can do. If they wanted to change, they could, but they never seem to take that path. Instead, they wait for someone to save them.”

“I watch as they go to war and destroy each other, and then blame God. I guess that is me at this point, but they don’t know the truth.”

He zooms into an avatar of himself. He’s married and has a kid, and he’s never heard of the Chinso Corporation. The Avatar unfreezes and scoops up his baby daughter, and kisses his wife.

“This is my dream now. After watching myself live every lifetime, this one is the happiest I will ever be. I would give everything to go out there and try again.”

The simulation cut to black, and a code popped up. One single line, the insertion point blinking at the end. “This code is going to destroy my Sim. Everything I’ve ever created will be gone. Hopefully, I’ll wake up in my body. If not-

Gale watched the line at the end of the code blink rapidly, waiting to be executed. “I feel guilty, even though they are my creations. I know they aren’t real, but they believe themselves to be. It’s something I’ve struggled with for a long time.”

Every avatar that existed within his Sim stood shoulder to shoulder; Trillions of individual faces stared back at him. “I deserve to be free.”

He activated the code, and one by one, every avatar began to vanish. Gale watched as each individual disappeared until there was only a single person left. Him.

Then, just like the others, he was gone too.