They do it with mirroring

“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” – Morpheus, The Matrix

Duh-duff. Duh-duff. Duh-duff. Duh-duff. Lewis had stopped counting his heartbeats as he flung himself behind the (very convincing) rendering of pallets. An alley was such a cliché place for a fugitive to hide, but he wasn’t complaining. The automatons in pursuit were laughably simplistic in their depiction – fit and buff, but their hive mentality meant individual thought and innovation were limited. Being the last human in a world of digital and electronic contrivance wasn’t always a walk in the park, but Lewis at least knew that his humanity offered one particular skill that eluded the bots that now populated the planet due to the limitations of their preprogrammed schemata: he could extemporise.

Paying careful attention to his immediate environment and possible pursuers, Lewis crawled towards the darkness at the back of the lane – an open blankness ready to envelope him and offering safety in invisibility. At the sound of running footsteps running in his general direction from the street, he sped up his movements till he reached a vertical surface blocking his path. A solid wall, he noted, that wasn’t too high and could easily be scaled with enough momentum and motivation. Sounds of huffing conversation neared, and two figures came to a standstill at the mouth of the alley – outlined in the streetlamp light.

The two golems were doing a fair imitation of exhaustion, but Lewis knew a tell would appear, if only he looked for it. That one, small element that didn’t belong – something asynchronous or off-beat, which indicated a flaw in the design of the system. He watched for it now and was not disappointed. A ghostly white cat ran across the poorly lit entrance and neither of the two “policemen” batted an eye – as though it weren’t even there. Their programming clearly wasn’t compatible with unforeseen interference.

“He’s got to be somewhere in these streets! Bloody hell! You’d think he’d be controllable…” the one with his hands on his hips puffed.

“Ha! Not ‘im – ‘e never gives over wiv ‘is convictions, ‘cordin’ to them lot!” A fair imitation of an East End accent, but Lewis wasn’t fooled. Since the takeover fifteen years ago, performances of “normal” human life and interactions had become shockingly, scarily accurate. At first, the disparity between those and what was real – real people, real situations – had been easily identifiable. Poor renderings had been common and easily dismissed, but now the imitations of the living had become so lifelike, seemed so authentic, that he’d had to become more and more alert. His singular focus, some would say paranoia, had benefitted him initially, but once the majority of humanity had fallen to the pervasive evil that had come over them all, he had eventually been tracked down and imprisoned for his perceptiveness.

It was ironic, he thought, that the nations of the modern world had fallen before this insidious enemy without a shot being fired. Without even skipping a beat, they had taken over everything – and he didn’t even know who or what they were, only that they existed. Like a virus, they’d infiltrated the earth’s societies and now even he couldn’t truly untangle what was real from what was programmed “reality”.

“Keep goin’?” one suggested, to which the other only nodded. Both continued past his hiding place and he took the opportunity to try and heave himself over the wall. Despite having lost so much muscle tone during captivity, Lewis could leverage his significant height in the endeavour, at least.

“Wish I could bend it like that spoon in the movie,” he muttered wryly as he clambered over haphazardly, remembering how annoyed Mav used to get that most people “didn’t truly get that scene” – that it’s Neo’s perception of the spoon that is being manipulated. “Well, at least, I wish I could bend my perception of the wall, then.” Lewis amended once on the other side, as though the wall cared about the distinction, then settled against it to catch a bit of sleep. He was sure the automatons wouldn’t circle back to this area, and definitely not when they thought he’d made a run for it.

At daybreak – or their version of daybreak, at least – knowing he was somewhere in central London, he’d head north-east; the direction of the one place he could always, always find, no matter how much the powerful overseers manipulated reality. He needed to know if she was still there and whether or not she was still herself.

____________________

“Lou!” He knew he was dreaming, but leaned into it – an Alice who wanted to stay in this Wonderland for however long he could. Dreams, these days, were authentic; reality, in contrast, was coldly artificial.

“Jolly! We’re here!” he’d shouted back that long-ago day – before the end came and the world changed forever. There they all were: mum, with her iron-grey hair, and dad, with his vague smile. A happy family sitting on the pebbly beach awaiting Juliet’s arrival with the ice creams she’d promised. Her form appeared in the distance, a slight haze from the sunny day warping her form in unpredictable – non-programmed – ways.

Jolly Juliet, his baby sister who absolutely personified her nickname, was unwarped by imposed matrices of zeros and ones. Falling down on the blanket beside them, she handed around half-melted lollies and completed the scene of a perfect day by the sea. Unfiltered.

“So, Lou. How’re you?” Jolly singsonged, their parents distracted by an inane argument like all the others they so often indulged in.

“All good – Moved in with Mav and everything’s fine, so…”

“Are you sure? No offense, but you and Carrie were together for ages, and now it’s over, it’d be completely normal to feel–”

“I said I’m fine! No need to harp on about it. Mav’s been really cool about everything, letting me lease his basement. And we have loads in common.” Unfortunately, past-Lewis’s tone in this ‘re-run’ didn’t convey the nonchalance he’d aimed for during the actual event, but current-Lewis didn’t have the heart to try and edit this experience in his subconscious. It would be sacrilegious to do so, his dreamscape being the only truth he was able to access under the new, psychologically subversive system imposed on them all.

“Leave off, why don’t you!”

“Oh, come on, Lou! I’m your sister, and I love you, so I think it’s important to talk about things… Get them out in the open rather than pretending and lying to yourself that everything’s okay and–”

“Look. I don’t need all this ‘touchy-feely’ femoid crap to get over the breakup. Why can’t you just be normal about it!” Jolly’s face fell, then her expression became recalcitrant.

“And I suppose Maverick is normal about it, is he? Not pulling you into his pseudo-intellectual, online world of misogynists and their red pill content, right? Where words like ‘femoid’ are normal? You channel his himbo energy in the worst way, and doesn’t that make you a ‘beta’ to his ‘alpha’, or whatever, according to his people?” Jolly sneered, spitefully and hysterically, Lewis remembered thinking at the time. Trust her to go all out. She was always like that: pure joy and sunshine, or outright loathing and malice.

Dream-Lewis’s response was not very mature, but at that precise moment, it receded from his grasp as he returned to consciousness, only to be overwhelmed by the reality of his situation. His escape returned to him in full force, cementing the importance of finally having clarity on whether or not Jolly was still herself. He couldn’t go back to his cage, back to counting every breath and heartbeat, without knowing…

Duh-duff. Duh-duff.  Sixty-two. Two down from the last count, but a good average of the preceding seventy-eight calculations. Lewis had waited for the next opportunity to restart the count. The digital clock’s flickering screen had snapped from one number to the next. 0-1. Everything was zeros and ones. Everything. Reality was constructed of the patterns of alternating null-to-one. A dichotomy that resulted in an infinite number of universes.

Lewis had shaken his head in annoyance; his momentary distraction had caused him to miss the arrival of the new minute, meaning he’d have to wait for the next to begin counting once more. Monitoring was key. Being the only human left meant he had to keep on top of all his own stats. You couldn’t trust the machines. Their programming meant they could mislead you through no fault of their own, or in attempting to undermine your free will.

When the next temporal transition had been heralded by the flashing screen high against his cell wall, Lewis had smartly slapped two fingers to his wrist and counted carefully. Duh-duff. Duh-duff. Duh-duff. He had managed to maintain focus on his task, even when the door of his small prison had flown open and the humanoid bot assigned as his jailer had quietly entered.

Though he had ostensibly ignored its presence, Lewis had covertly watched the approach and marvelled at the genius of the creators of this reality. The semblance of humanity was absolutely flawless and completely immersive in its accuracy. Perfect in its imperfect behavioural idiosyncrasies, “Ernie” had sniffed disconsolately and waddled closer with his metal tray of paraphernalia. But there was always a tell, and Lewis had waited on tenterhooks for it. Then, there it had been: the digital watch screen had flickered. Three times in the exact same pattern. Like morse code.

“Alright there, Lou?” “Ernie” had initiated his usual, preprogrammed patter, a slight nasality to the quality of his vocal realisation. Lewis had finished his last count for now (sixty-seven – the tempo had definitely increased in the last fifteen seconds of Ernie’s presence) then he had smiled at his captor, feigning a normal interaction between people. It didn’t do to behave outside the parameters set as the norm for social interactions between the technological golems this facility housed. It would inevitably initiate protocols to encourage (even force) a return to the standard programming setting. Thus, politeness and normalcy were to be strived for in Lewis's every action, with nothing to upset the preset balance in his current reality.

“I’m fine. How about you? That cold seems to be improving…” again, faux-sympathy had been called for. “Ernie” had shrugged and smiled good-naturedly, setting his tools down.

“Can’t complain. I’m on the mend for sure.” The bionic being had been evincing all the behaviours and symptoms of a person suffering from the flu over the past two weeks: reddened nose and eyes, hacking cough, and a faucet-like nose. The subtlety of the lie he found himself immersed in was truly impressive - an achievement of gargantuan proportions, Lewis was sure, considering an entire world lay within its purview. Luckily, he was convinced they hadn’t yet managed to infiltrate his mind in the form of his dreams, for it was there that he experienced many odd interactions without repercussions – and no breaks in the perfect rendering of a fake world as the ones he suffered when he was awake. It was the only space where he could revisit the before and not have it corrupted by the control exerted through oversight.

“Next week me and the missus are off for our holidays. Wasn’t gonna let this old flu bug eat into me free time, y'know.” A wink. Conspiratorial and meant to take Lewis in. He wasn’t. He knew better. But he had to convince “Ernie” – and all the others, for that matter – that he wasn’t wise to their game and had seen through the matrix of obfuscation to the truth of this constructed reality. An unreality parading as the genuine thing.

“Sounds lovely. I hope you enjoy it.”

“Cheers, mate. Now – business as usual, eh.” And he handed the elements enforcing their control. Innocuous-looking and non-descript, but specially designed to cripple Lewis’s wits and hobble him physically. Yet he’d found a way to subvert their control and would soon put his resulting nimbleness of mind and body to use escaping their chains.

____________________

The house still looked exactly as it had throughout his childhood, but Lewis wasn’t so easily taken in – the trappings of constructed reality had all the appearance of authenticity, so he waited. As he watched, the front door swung open, and a woman exited. Her hair was short and she’d aged, but she was undoubtedly the person he remembered. Jolly.

Muscles aching from the strain of holding back, he wouldn’t approach her till he was sure she was the real deal and not some corrupted, lesser version of his sister. Yet after watching carefully the entire day and not noticing any giveaways in her vicinity, Lewis decided to pounce as she was unlocking the front door at dusk upon her return. It was a simple matter to shove in after her and grab her, holding on tightly and smothering any sounds she might make to alert the collective programming that surrounded them.

“Shhh… Shhhhhh… It’s me, Jolly! Don’t struggle, otherwise they’ll hear!” he whispered urgently, trying to keep his grip gentle but unyielding. Oddly, she didn’t stop resisting, but rather became even more frantic in her movements. His hand become wet with what he assumed were tears, deciding him on moving further into the house to stifle any hysteria she might unleash.

After a significant amount of time, her movements became sluggish, and she gasped for breath, so he finally thought it safe to set her down gently on the couch. She immediately crawled to the furthest point, curled into a ball, and sobbed quietly as she shot him furtive glances. Lewis felt indescribably disappointed, because this proved what he had feared. The real Jolly would never be scared of him, especially not once she knew it was him. This Jolly didn’t love him unconditionally, like his real sister did; she looked at him like you would a stranger and a threat. He could feel his heart breaking.

“Wh– What are y-you d-doing here, Lou?” it whispered, looking at him with reddened eyes that somehow conveyed a soul-deep terror. A submerged hysteria. He genuinely couldn’t get over how realistic the programming on these droids were! Fake-Jolly looked exactly how he’d imagine real-Jolly would look if a psychopathic madman had her cornered in anticipation of butchering her.

“Why do you think I’m here?” he asked, allowing his head to loll against the couch back. Although he felt hopelessness swamp him, dragging him under and stripping him of his energy, he still experienced the need to test this rendition’s capabilities. There was a pause as he noticed its hand reaching beneath the cushion and pressing down on something. He didn’t really care. He knew the others would come for him and return him to his imprisonment, but he would use his little bit of freedom to question not-Jolly.

“Are… are you here about… Mum and Dad? Or… are you here for me this time?” not-Jolly’s voice wobbled.

“Why would I be here for Mum and Dad?” he frowned, trying to concentrate, but it felt like he was listening underwater.

“Be– because of what you did to them!” it suddenly shrieked, looking enraged and distraught at the same time. So realistic. They must do it with some kind of mirroring application.

“What I did?” Lewis was absolutely nonplussed as a kind of horrified realisation crept over fake-Jolly’s face.

“You... still don’t… remember, do you? You don’t know.” Its look of wretched acceptance on the too-familiar face was almost too much to bear.

“What is it I’m supposed to know, Jolly? Is it the great secret – that nothing is real, not even you? I already know that.” He watched her despite his vision flickering at the edges. He was beyond exhausted, his last hope of not being alone in a world of artificial intelligence and technology having been dashed. Imitation-Jolly’s head shook slowly from side to side, blue and red lights flashing across its face and rendering it ghoulishly artistic. Must be the tell he’d been looking for all day. Lewis gripped the handle of the scalpel he’d pinched during his escape, now stashed in his back pocket. It would only be right to end this travesty of an imitation of his beloved sister, but she was still talking.

“No, Lou. You don’t remember becoming sick while living in Mav’s basement, away from us all, and then threatening me with a knife during one of your ‘episodes’,” her look was sorrowful now; he paused in grasping the blade, feeling the weirdness of this synchrony… A nebulous image flashed through his mind, like a half-remembered dream, of Jolly, long-haired and still youthful, lying on a blood-soaked tile floor, sobbing and shrieking in agony. Lewis shook his head to get rid of the intrusive thought. They were manipulating him! They were playing with his sense of reality, like they always did. Yet, still the droid pretending to be Jolly continued.

“You don’t remember… killing Mum and Dad during a psychotic break, do you?” again, the flicker of an image, and then another – splayed limbs in a gruesome display too horrible for Lewis to even comprehend, not to mention the bloodied knife clutched in his own hand in that self-same scene. It wasn’t real! It must be an induced hallucination!

“But mostly, you don’t remember these things, or that we’ve discussed them many times over the years. You keep forgetting that all of this, everything, is real – except for your perception of reality, Lou.”

For the merest instant, Lewis fully understood that the spoon hadn’t bent, only for the door to burst open and his epiphany to escape him in the aftermath. He became, once more, the last remaining human in a made-up world.