Solipsis: Escape from the Comatorium (35 page)

The
helicopter hovers not far away, the wind surges through the
staircase. Paul peeks over the lip of the stairs, directly above
Renee. He fires a shot before she can react. The bullet slams into
the side of her forehead, near the temple. It rips open a section of
rubber on her scalp, impacting her skull, sending sparks flying and
bits of metal fall out. Renee flinches after the fact, her reflexes
aren't without some lag in this damaged animatron. However a gunshot
to the head will not kill her. Her brain is in her chest.

Renee
recoils back down, nearly losing her balance, clattering to a clumsy
stop. She holds her gun up, aimed at the top of the stairs, and sits
completely still. The helicopter remains in a hover just off the
platform which is far too small to land on.

Renee
knows Paul is hoping to ambush her as she climbs the top stairs. He
has an immense advantage, knowing exactly where she will come from.
But for Renee, her enemy could be in any direction once she gets to
the top, it's not a good way to fight. She has to turn the odds.

She
waits. Gun at the ready. Paul waits. The helicopter hovers.

He
hasn't simply left, what is he waiting for? Maybe he's afraid that as
soon as he turns his back to get on the chopper, I'll shoot him. He
wants to deal with me first, then go. But will he just grow impatient
and then get on the chopper? Or will he come to finish me off? See
that he killed me. Perhaps even steal my computer. I might wake up in
his personal hell. And that's where the...other me might end up if I
don't get him. God dammit I have to get that blade back.

Renee
spots the fringes of Paul's hair, peering over the lip. She aims
right at the spot where the crown of his forehead will emerge. Renee
holds the gun tightly in her metallic hand. Her arm can't sit still,
it shakes as opposing hydraulic motors fight over the angle of her
arm. The metal and plastic joint in her elbow rattles. He slowly
leans over the edge, she starts to squeeze the trigger, preparing to
fire. The gun slithers in her hand, but she fights to keep it as
still as possible.

Paul's
face darts into the open, his eyes quickly lock on Renee and discover
her aiming right at him.

She
fires. The gun breaks free of her weakened hand, spinning back. She
catches it, but looks up to her target. The bullet blew out a portion
of the concrete, right at the edge where Paul was. Perhaps the bullet
only clipped the concrete and didn't hit him. Perhaps she got a piece
of him. He might be returning the same trick to her, playing dead and
hoping she'll walk into an ambush. Renee stands up, knowing she
shouldn't stay in the spot he last saw her.

Renee
tiptoes up the opposite side of the stairwell, closer to the opening.
Her rattling arm struggles to hold the gun steady.

The
wind whips up a tornado that gusts down the spiral staircase. The
helicopter must be approaching the platform.

He's
running for it!

Renee
sprints up the stairs, her steps are barely audible under the noise
of the chopper. She jumps past the last two steps, arriving on the
platform, finding Paul standing five meters up an antenna, trying to
grab onto the leg of the chopper, which has a fixed metal ladder on
the landing strut, leading to the cabin. Renee whips the gun in his
direction.

He
clutches the blade across his chest with one arm, while holding tight
to the antenna with the other.

They
lock eyes.

Paul
motions for Renee to lower her gun. He holds the blade out as though
he will throw it off the side. The chopper makes speaking completely
useless. All the communication is done with their eyes. It's as
though she can hear Paul's threat to kill the other Renee if she
shoots. Even if she had a clean shot, he might still drop the blade
off the side. He climbs closer to the chopper.

Paul
reaches for the ladder without looking, searching blindly with his
hand. Once he gets one hand on it, he prepares to turn, staring her
down. He turns his back to quickly get aboard.

Renee
acts, immediately raising her gun, firing three rounds in an instant.
The bullets enter the cabin of the chopper, roughly in the direction
of the pilot. The chopper immediately peels off, flying away from the
platform. Renee can't tell if she hit the pilot, or if he was simply
scared off by the bullets ricocheting past his head. In the chopper's
wake, Paul is left leaning far off his perch and is barely able to
recover, grasping the antenna.

Renee
steps closer, aiming right at his face.

“
You
come any closer and I throw this,” Paul says. The chopper
recovers from its dive and flies back up to altitude a kilometer
away.

“
Surrender,”
Renee responds sternly.

“
What?!”

“
Surrender,”
she repeats, “I'm not a murderer. If you surrender I won't harm
you.”

Paul
is taken aback by her offer. He looks to the chopper hovering in the
distance.

“
Nobody
has to die,” Renee says. Her right elbow rattles. Her left arm
hangs limp.

“
No
you surrender!” Paul shouts back.

“
I'm
the one with a gun.”

“
And
if you lower it, then I'll take you with me, along with her,”
he taps on the blade. “The world needs to see you. They need to
know about this.”

“
I'm
not going to be somebody's guinea pig,” Renee replies.

“
You
already are!”

“
Shut
up and put down the blade, I won't hurt you.”

“
Don't
you get it? You're not just some AI, there have been millions of
those. You're the real thing. A man-made human being.”

“
What
does that have to do with anything?” Renee replies, “I've
got a gun, you've got something I want, this is not complicated.”

“
The
world needs to see this. It changes everything we know about the
nature of humanity. Please, come with me, the world needs to know.”

“
Set
her down or I'm putting a bullet through your head,” Renee
takes tentative steps, closing the gap.

“
Stop
right there!”

Renee
takes another step, ready to fire. She reaches him, she presses the
gun against his stomach, underneath the blade.

“
Alright,
you got me,” Paul says. He climbs down from his perch, putting
his feet firmly on the deck, he still clutches to the blade
containing the copy.

“
March
your ass down the stairs,” Renee demands. Paul nods, walking
toward the stairwell that goes back into the station, Renee follows
behind him, gun at his back.

“
You
aren't going to kill me are you?” Paul asks.

“
No,
I'm not a murderer.”

“
What
will you do with me?” Paul stops and looks back at her.

“
I
don't know yet,” Renee says. Paul takes a deep breath then
continues the walk back to the stairs.

What
will I do with him? Can I really keep him hostage? Perhaps tie him
up, sedate him, I could hold him long enough for help to arrive.

Paul
darts away, to the waist-high edge of the roof, leaping over the
side, onto a wall of the glass pyramid, he slides toward the sea at
an incredible rate, clutching the blade to his chest.

Renee
rushes to the edge, unable to react in time, he has taken her by
surprise. Paul picks up speed on the wet glass, hitting a wave with a
large splash. He hangs onto the blade and tries to cling to the edge
of the pyramid. The helicopter zooms toward him, to retrieve Paul and
the other Renee.

She
looks down the steep wall, contemplating her next move. She doesn't
have much time to think. Her animatron is not in the best shape and
she won't exactly be seaworthy. These things are protected pretty
well against water, at least externally. But her brain is in her
body, if she sinks, that's it for her. Paul looks up at her from
several stories below with an evil smile that she sees with perfect
clarity. The chopper slows to a crawl, approaching the edge of the
pyramid, hoping to get low enough to extract Paul but also keep the
blades away from the glass. The rotor-wash throws up a blinding mist
of seawater.

“
God
dammit,” Renee mutters. She steps up onto the edge of the
platform and throws herself down the glass slide. The pyramid is not
seamless, she hits ridges that rhythmically buffet and rattle her.
She has some control of her descent by putting a palm down and making
some effort to steer. Soon her speed becomes too great that she loses
all control, even of orientation. She spins around, heading for the
water back first. She hits the water, disappearing into a crashing
wave.

Renee
is trapped underwater. Sunlight glitters through the surface several
meters above her. She holds her breath, completely unable to move.

Renee
feels a warmth come over her like a soft blanket. Her ear is pressed
against Patrick's chest as they lay on the wooden floor of his large
tree house on a hot summer night. She listens to the beating of his
virtual heart.

“
What
was it like, living on Earth, knowing you could die?” Renee
asks softly.

“
It
wasn't that bad, you get used to it,” Patrick replies.
“Whatever you grow up with seems normal to you, however weird
it might really be.”

“
Did
you ever think about it though? How did you do anything at all
dangerous knowing it might lead to your death?” Renee looks up
at Patrick.

“
I'd
rather not talk about it.”

“
I
just don't know what it's like, and yet all of history, films, games,
books, they're filled with people struggling to cope with mortality,
but I find it hard to relate.”

“
For
the most part you don't think about it. You get up, you go about your
day, you just don't think about the possibility of dying,”
Patrick says quietly. Renee reaches up, placing her right hand on his
cheek, her chin rests on his chest. “You know that you'll die,
you just don't think about it. You ride in cars and planes and do
stupid things on your bike, but you just don't think about it. Maybe
at funerals, you think about yourself, but mostly it's about
remembering the person who died. People tell stories, finding little
smiles as they get lost in the story and forget that the person is
gone.”

Patrick's
piercing eyes begin to water, not venturing away from a spot on the
tree house ceiling. He's silent, lost in the thoughts of a fallen
loved one. Renee examines his sad face. She wonders what it would be
like to lose someone close to her. What if Patrick died. Would she be
able to go on, just having him as a series of fond memories? What if
she died? How would they remember her?

“
I
feel so unprepared for mortality,” Renee says, “like you
said you just take for granted the reality you grow up in. I grew up
without the specter of death. If someone I knew died, I don't know if
I could handle it.”

Patrick
gulps hard. A tear runs down his cheek. Renee wants desperately to
know what he's thinking. He remains silent, until a few words escape
his lips, “I was sick for a long time.” He takes a deep
breath, fighting back tears. “At one point, the treatment
wasn't working, we didn't know if I would be a candidate for
vivisection, and even if I was, it doesn't always work. It got to the
point where nothing was working and I realized I was dying. I...I
started to think about suicide, just end it now, avoid the suffering.
The hard part isn't the act of dying, it's the acceptance, it's
becoming comfortable with letting go, with knowing that you won't be
around to see what happens next. Accepting that you'll never see
loved ones again. You won't get to see how your niece grows up or how
life turns out for you. I thought about my funeral. I thought about
what stories they would tell. I pictured my mom crying
uncontrollably, my dad trying to comfort her. I pictured them going
on without me. A year later, how often would they still think of me?
Would they remember the good things or the bad? Would they hate that
I killed myself? Would they blame themselves? Maybe killing myself
would make it even harder on them, even if it only meant that I
missed out on a couple of months of suffering. Then it felt like I
had a reprieve, I had several months to live, why waste that on
suicide? I still exist, why waste my remaining existence? Just
because I'm going to stop existing soon doesn't mean that I can't
enjoy what time I have left. I started imagining what I could do with
that time. I wanted to go skydiving, drive a car, meet a girl. The
hardest thing for me to accept was the idea that I would die, having
never loved. That really hit me. After a while, I became okay even
with that. I finally just decided that death means the end of my
existence, and that's not something we experience. There is no
suffering. I might not get to love, but I wouldn't mind, I wouldn't
know any better. Thinking back now, from the comfort of apparent
immortality, I find it hard to believe that I was comfortable with
it, but...I was. Death's not so bad.”