James Axler – Rat King

Doc was about to comment that he felt Wallace was bordering on insanity, when it

suddenly struck him: the Army man was talking about the General Wallace who had

been in charge of the redoubt when they were initially hooked up to the Moebius

MkI. He had no idea that he was now several generations of Wallace down the

line.

“Do you actually know how long you’ve been linked together?” Doc asked quietly.

The Air Force man looked puzzled, scratched his head and turned to the others

for guidance. They all seemed to be at a loss. Finally he said, “Something you

will soon realize Doctor, is that time has no meaning as such in here. Once you

become part of the rat king, as you just have, then the outside world and all

its concepts become very, ah, abstracted is probably the best word.”

“To a ridiculous degree,” Doc commented. “There is no need for this computer.

There are no Reds anymore. There’s little of anything anymore. Your obscene

plans caused the end of the world as you know it.”

“You mean there’s been a war?” the Army man asked after some whispered

consultation.

Doc gave a hollow laugh. “You could call it that. Skydark. A total nuclear

conflagration that has laid waste to the world. What we used to call the United

States is now the Deathlands. And believe me, gentlemen, it more than lives up

to that name.”

There was more whispered consultation. The Army man turned to Doc.

“So who won?”

Doc felt an urge to giggle. It crept up his throat, making him choke. He began

to laugh. At first it was soft and low, but it grew louder and louder, harsher

and harsher, verging on hysteria. Tears of laughter ran down his cheeks, turning

to tears of rage and sadness.

They watched him impassively, only the occasional puzzled flicker of a frown

giving away any emotions.

Doc finished, doubled up and in agony from cramps in his ribs. Which, if he

tried hard to concentrate, was absurd. How could he get cramps when he wasn’t,

as such, real?

He pulled himself upright. “Nobody won, you cretin. Everyone lost. There is no

world as you know it. There’s nothing. Just outposts of mutated idiots trying to

take little degrees of power and justify their pathetic existence. Just a few

people trying to make their way in the rad-blasted world without being chilled

by those of little sense.”

One of the men in suits stepped forward and spoke for the first time. “I’m

sorry, Doctor, but that just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t fit with any of the

models we’ve used for our simulations over the years. And those models were very

carefully planned and plotted to cover any eventuality. There’s no chance that

anything could have happened outside of that.”

Doc sighed. “I’ve been outside of this mechanism. Have you?”

“Of course. Before we were attached—”

“I’m talking about since,” Doc snapped. “You’ve been in here over a hundred

years. How could you possibly know what has happened?”

“Because the simulations and simulatory models fed into our mainframe covered

every possibility.”

It was a circular argument, and Doc could see no way of countering it. He threw

up his hands in resignation and exasperation. “Have it your way, gentlemen. Have

it your way.”

“Oh, but we will,” said the Air Force officer. “After all, there is one flaw in

your argument.”

Doc was about to explode in fury and say that it wasn’t a debating society, he

was talking about reality, when he realized that for these men, the rarefied air

of abstract argument and simulation had become the only reality they knew. So he

said simply, “What, pray tell, is this flaw?”

“Simple. If the outside world is so irrevocably changed, then why do we still

exist? Who is keeping us maintained?”

Doc shook his head, refusing to answer, to debate. It didn’t matter. Fate had

decreed that he be locked inside this machine, perhaps forever. If it came to

that, what was forever in a realm where there was no such thing as time?

“Gentlemen, I acquiesce,” Doc said with a bow. “As I am here, you may as well