Conflict in Paradise

-- Carol --

“I think we’ve done it!” I said, closing the coding window on the computer.

David and I had been working on the project for the last 10 years, but at last it seemed we were finished.

“You want to celebrate, Carol?” said David excitedly.

“I still can’t believe after all these years we’ve finally done it!” I exclaimed again.

“Here, let me pour us a scotch,” said David, reaching under the desk for a bottle.

Soon two glasses were being filled with the malty liquid. David looked as happy as I felt, which is to say, completely over the moon. It had been a long 10 years.

We picked up our glasses, and David clinked his with mine before taking a sip. “So, are we actually going to do it?”

“Let’s see what it looks like in the viewer.” I muttered nervously, still reeling from the excitement of it all.

I pressed a button, and the viewer began to load – and there it was; a picture-perfect cloudy sky, woods and trees speckling the landscape, and in the distance, a shining city.

David inhaled sharply. “Imagine what it will look like when we are actually experiencing it for ourselves! The resolution is high; everything has been rendered beautifully. It will be amazing.”

David and I had been working on a simulation of life, except it was a utopia. Thanks to recent jumps in technology, we had been given the means to upload our consciousnesses to a computer, and we were planning to put them in an idyllic environment that we had created ourselves. The last year had been spent on the details of how we would go about merging our brain states with this perfect world, so that we could exist in it.

I looked at David, feeling ignited by enthusiasm. "Why wait, let’s go in now! Let’s see it for ourselves!”

David agreed. Soon we were hooking up the scanners to our headsets and getting everything ready. Cables trailed off to the computer, which was running the simulation of the detailed world we had created. We both sat down in the chairs, with the brain scanners nestled around our heads.

“Are you ready?” I asked David, my hand hovering above the switch.

“Ready.” Said David, his face wearing a resolute expression.

I turned the switch.

I blacked out for a few seconds, before I found myself standing in a cave, with David there next to me. The air was alpine crisp, the inside of the cave studded with sparkling crystals.

I turned to David. “Are you okay? Did you make it in alright?”

David patted his body with his palms, as though checking that everything had transferred correctly. “I’m here, I think. What about you?”

“I’m here. Let’s get out of here and see what the rest of the world looks like.”

I took his hand and led him out of the cave, into the forest outside. A rush of wind sent the branches rustling against each other, and butterflies flew around us before flying off into the woods. A stone path led through the forest, and we followed it till we reached a lookout on the edge of a great cliff. In the distance, a glimmering city lay, with steps down from the lookout seeming to trace a path to it.

“This is amazing.” I exclaimed, my eyes brimming with the sights and my ears filled with the sound of the wind.

I turned to David. “Let’s walk to the city!”

We followed a trail down the cliff, and then walked across a green meadow down a path that led to the city. The only sound was the wind blowing across the grass in the field, and the sky was filled with towering monolithic clouds. It was amazing to me that something we created could be so vividly present before us – almost real.

When we arrived at the city, the first thing I wanted to see was the library I had placed within it. We took a lift up to the 2nd floor of one of the buildings and walked in, and were greeted by rows of bookshelves filled with books of every kind. There was Russian literature, classics, modern fiction, non-fiction, an endless supply of books to read.

“You told me about the library you were making,” said David. “It’s amazing.”

“What sort of things did you design in the city?” I asked him.

“I made sure we can taste things—there’s a whole food district run by AIs. What else did I add… there’s an arcade with a huge selection of games, there’s at least five different lounges, some with waterfront views, there’s fashion outlets so we can decide how we want to look, and I’m pretty sure the top of one of these buildings has hover flight tours around the city, as well as flights over the country.’

“Amazing.” I replied. “Well let’s leave the simulation for now, and wrap up everything we need to in the real world, then we can make a permanent switch.”

I pulled a small device out of my pocket, and punched in the disconnect command. Another black out for a few seconds, and we were back in our office.

It was disorientating going from the simulation back to the real world. Now that our consciousnesses were back in our bodies there was some readjustment to get used to. But we were planning on leaving our bodies behind permanently. If we stayed in the simulation long enough, eventually our bodies would perish, and there would be no way back. This was what we had planned, but we wanted to leave the world in order when we left it. We had to arrange for morticians to come in and dispose of our bodies, and above all it was important that the hardware that we were going to run the simulation on would be kept powered on, safely held somewhere.

After 15 minutes of acclimatizing to reality again, we set to work.

---

Soon everything was taken care of. We sold everything we had and used the money to pay for a permanent storage place for our computer hardware, which was guaranteed to be powered at all times, and we had special back up rechargeable batteries to provide power if there was ever a black out which would last for up to a week. We arranged for people to come and clear out our office, as well as dispose of the bodies that would be there, after we had left the world behind. We said our goodbyes.

Soon we were ready for the big day. We hooked up the headsets, sat back in our chairs and made the switch from reality to the simulation for the last time.

--- David, 10 years later ---

How did things get to this state?

The first couple of years were amazing. We had it all at our fingertips. We always had something to do. How we spent our time seemed to change in phases. For a while we would spend a lot of time at the arcade, playing the games there, other times we would just walk around the countryside outside the city. We were always in each other’s company, sharing our time and experiences together. We started projects, designing and building all kinds of things, from homes to display halls for all of the virtual stuff we accumulated. We would eat at a different restaurant every night. True, being a simulation, the sheen of things could wane over time when we ran up against the limits of the world, but there was always something new to try.

It was the last 2 years when things started to change. Carol started spending more and more time in the library reading. At first it didn’t seem odd – so she wanted to read, why not? I would also spend time reading, but eventually I grew bored of it and went back to the arcade. We shared a room in one of the buildings, and I would find that she often came back late from her time reading.

One night I asked her what she was reading about, and she said she had become drawn to the religion section. She was reading about all the major world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Of particular interest to her was Christianity. I didn’t understand this fascination. After all, we were guaranteed to live for as long as we could keep the simulation running, which could be for an indefinite period of time, so long as the vault we had chosen to power our computer hardware was well maintained. We had talked about this with the organization which had agreed to house the computers, and they had promised that it would be maintained for generations.

Why couldn’t she just enjoy the life we had created? I agreed with her that it wasn’t perfect, but there was just so many things to enjoy, so much variety, that I didn’t think it mattered. Still, I stayed by her side. I would ask her about how her reading was going. She would tell me about how each religion had different views of the afterlife. She had decided early on that Hinduism and Buddhism did not interest her, as she did not believe in reincarnation. Islam had too many things she objected to. Judaism was a closer fit, but she felt that the prophecies were fulfilled already.

She began to talk a lot to me about resurrection, the idea that your body would be restored after death in the final judgment. It was like she had become obsessed with it She said that the paradise we had created was nothing compared to a paradise for people after the resurrection.

At this point I began to worry. I asked her, “isn’t this world we’ve created enough?”

However, she would always argue with me, “don’t you think that a paradise in reality is better than a paradise in a simulation?” she would say.

“But there’s no way out now. Now that our bodies have passed on, the system won’t allow us to leave.”

“Well then I’m going to find a way to shut this down.”

“What? You can’t do that; I don’t want to leave!”

“Don’t stand in my way. This place is unnatural. I’m freeing the both of us.”

She stormed off. There was one building in the city which contained the controls for the world. I knew I had to keep her away from it at all costs. There was a weapons outlet in the city, but due to the programming we had put in, the use of them was similar to how it would be in a game. There was no pain or blood in fighting. If you took fatal damage, you would eventually regenerate and come back to life in the hospital after AI ambulances picked you up. The original idea was it would be like a more realistic game to try if the arcade got boring, though it hadn’t been tested.

So, I went to the weapons outlet and loaded myself up with as many guns as I could carry. Then I went and stood in front of the entrance to the building. That was when I saw her. She had somehow attached giant feathered wings to her body, and was holding a sword and a shield, her body wrapped in armour.

“Please don’t make me do this.” I said to her, pointing a gun at her.

“I’m sorry, David.” She replied. “I’m shutting this place down one way or another.”

I started to fire at her, but she blocked it with the shield.

We fought.

It was the most surreal moment of my life—this pristine utopia we had built as a refuge from death and decay had become a battlefield. Our city, our dream, echoed with the sounds of simulated war. I fired; she deflected. She swung; I dodged.

And then, I faltered. I had her in my sights, but I couldn’t pull the trigger again.

She stood before me, her sword lowered.

“David, you have to let go. Can't you see? I’m saving you; I’m saving both of us.”

“You’re crazy!” I yelled back. “We have everything we could ever want here, but it’s still not enough for you! This is a betrayal, I wanted to share everything in this world with you, spend a million lifetimes with you, and this is what you do? Am I not enough for you?”

I saw a glimmer of reflection pass over her face before it darkened and she thundered back at me with resolve.

“Life in this place is an illusion. And it won’t last forever. Eventually the last day will come, and by then we’ll be so distracted by this place that we won’t be ready. We need to leave this place now while were still able to.”

We squared off again. The sun caught her armour and it reflected its light dazzlingly. I readied my hands to draw the pistols I had at my side. I didn’t know how much longer I could keep this up, but I could see the conviction in her eyes.

Suddenly, everything froze.

The wind stopped blowing. The golden light of the sun halted in mid-beam, suspended like liquid in air. Birds above, mid-flight, were now motionless specks in the sky.

A loud chime echoed through the city—a failsafe notification.

"Conflict level: Critical. User cognitive stability threshold reached."

We had coded this ourselves, years ago. In case our minds ever became unstable in the simulation, the system would isolate us and ask for user resolution. We never thought we’d actually trigger it.

The world blurred to white around us. Then, silence.

And then I was sitting alone in a vast, empty white chamber. A moment later, Carol appeared in front of me, still wearing the angelic armour and wings—but her expression was softened. Her sword was sheathed.

A voice spoke above us, neutral and calm. “Would you like to initiate separation mode?”

Carol looked at me. For a moment, neither of us said anything.

Then she spoke. “David. I love you. But I can’t stay here any longer.”

“But there’s nothing beyond here,” I said, my voice barely holding together. “Not for us. This is it. This is all we have left.”

“You don’t know that,” she whispered.

I clenched my fists. “You’re willing to die for a maybe?”

She stepped closer. “I’m willing to live for it. Even if it means going somewhere unknown. Even if it means leaving you.”

I stared at her. I wanted to scream, to beg, to convince her otherwise—but I could see it in her eyes. She was already gone.

I nodded, quietly.

“Separation mode confirmed,” said the system.

A great light shone behind her, and she turned toward it. I watched her walk into it—into the unknown, her wings folding gently as she passed through a threshold I could not see.

And then I was alone again.

The system returned me to the city. Everything was restored. The arcade blinked to life again. The clouds rolled overhead. AI baristas served perfect cups of coffee. But it was all just shadows without her.

I kept walking. Through the streets. Through the library. Past the tower where we fought. I visited every place we had built together.

Years passed—decades, maybe. Time had no meaning here.

Eventually, I returned to the lookout on the cliff, where we had first seen the city.

I sat down, legs dangling over the edge, and whispered to the sky:

“I hope you found what you were looking for, Carol.”

And I waited.

Maybe one day, the system will fail. Maybe entropy will claim even this.

Or maybe, in some other world—some real world—I’ll see her again.

Until then, I remain.

A ghost in paradise.

Alone.

Remembering her.