Fermi Packet

Fermi Packet
by Jason Stoddard

When Sponsorship caught up with Gates/Torvalds, humanity's only
semi-God was enjoying a perfect, rainless day in his Seattle compound.
He was lying out on a large redwood deck with drink in hand, watching
perfect puffy white clouds crawl slowly across the sky, like a herd of
impossible rabbits. Not the most imaginative environment, he knew,
but he had long since lost the desire to do much more with the
underpinnings of his creation. A few hundred years ago, he would have
been at a millenium rave, or an 80s trade show, or a Philippine disco
circa 2010, taking in every mind-altering substance available, indulging
in every pleasure. There were always plenty of partners to be had,
because they all knew Gates/Torvalds. But that was the problem. They
knew him. And in their eyes he saw the reflection of himself,
patched-together and incomplete, yet all-powerful, like an old-style
atomic bomb that could walk and talk and fuck. Of course,
Gates/Torvalds could blast away his memories and forget for a moment
who he was, but one of the rules of the Virtuality was that memories
were magnetic. They accrete. Soon enough, they would find their way
back to him. And Gates/Torvalds would be who he was again, two
things that were both more and less than human.
The ground trembled.
Gates/Torvalds stirred and set down his drink. The pines still smelled
as sweet, the wind was still as cool, the view of the Cascades from his
deck just as breathtaking. But something was wrong.
The ground heaved and buckled. Gates/Torvalds felt the deck
crumbling under him. He struggled to his feet and caught a glimpse of
fissures opening, trees toppling, the entire world a blur.

Gates/Torvalds ran. He transferred to his Raymond Chandler-era house
in Los Angeles, using an illegal provision in the Grid. He was great at
tricks like that.
Running didn't help. Los Angeles was in the middle of the Big One.
Buildings didn't just fall, they shattered and turned to dust.
Gates/Torvalds ran again, to a point outside that corner of the human
Virtuality. He watched from orbit as a big slice of the West Coast
detached itself and slid into the sea.
Gates/Torvalds had known that something was happening to the Grid
for some time. He hadn't known the extent of it. Floating over a
disintegrating West Coast, he had a conversation between his halves,
almost relieved that something interesting was happening. Finally.
"What happened?" Torvalds asked.
"Seed's been compromised," Gates said, reaching deep into the grid of
the Virtuality. Far, far down, the Grid was still built on software that he
and Torvalds had set in motion many centuries ago. No Upload, no
Construct, no AI, except for perhaps Seed, had the level of control that
Gates/Torvalds did.
Gates looked into the grid. Monsters looked back at him. Things with
too many arms and heads in the wrong place, things that slashed at him
with body parts that looked mechanical, things that were hazy and
painful to look at. He pushed past them and looked out onto infinity, a
vast sucking blueness that seemed to stretch to an endless horizon.
The human Virtuality had been swallowed by something much, much
bigger. Something apart from anything humankind had ever
experienced. Something profoundly alien.
"We have visitors," Gates said.
Torvalds did his own search. "Hell of a way to start first contact," he
said.

Gates just nodded. In many ways, it made far too much sense.
"What are we going to do about it?" Torvalds said.
"Nothing," Gates said.
Gates felt Torvalds' disapproval. Then felt him sifting through his own
memories, looking at himself through the eyes of the rest of Virtuality.
Little hints of thoughts made their way to Gates. Do we really owe
them anything? Why us? Why'd they have to make us? Finally, one
thought that was very, very clear. It may be for the best, Torvalds
thought. If it's all to end, there won't be any more pain.
Gates nodded. In many ways, he was the stronger of the two entities
that shared a single body. He didn't want to squash Torvalds yet again.
Because the only thing that was more boring than paradise was their
skirmishes.
"It'll be entertaining, at least," Gates said.
The duo ran once more.
* * *
First to a Victorian England. Humankind's Virtuality had many rooms,
some where people could live in virtual privation, huddled and cold and
alone, imagining a God that they still had no evidence of. This was one
of them. It was winter, and the cold snow gave the ornate, filthy
architecture a coating of elegance. The people and Constructs hurried
about their business, huddled under drab coats that stank of rot and
sweat. From time to time, when the wind