User blog:Lazarus Grimm/HubrisWorld: The Man Who Wasn't There

HUBRISWORLD

The Man Who Wasn't There

He opened his eyes. Everything felt so familiar. He had been in this room before, and yet again he had not. He was not who he had used to be, but he was also the very same. From where had he experienced this sensation before? Was this a distant memory? Or was this now? Maybe he was in a dream? If that was the case he wanted to wake up more than anything. He didn’t feel comfortable here. It was cold and something wasn’t right.

“Hello there”, a man said, standing before him all of a sudden.

He blinked and tried to focus. He felt groggy, unfocused, and tired; all at once. As if he had just woken up. His mind blended into a bitter soup of various impressions. He examined the man standing in front of him from top to toe. It was an old man. Gray hair and beard, all dressed in black. Had he met him from somewhere before? He felt so familiar.

“Hello?” he replied to the man in return.

“I suppose that you are confused. I mean, you must be. Considering what you’ve just gone through.”

“What… what have I gone through?” he replied. “What happened? And who the hell are you?”

The old man chuckled lightly. “Such coarse language. There is no need for that, Tommy.”

Tommy… He felt a chill run down his spine. He didn’t know this man directly, but somehow he seemed to know him. ''He knows my name. This man knows my name.''

“Where am I?” he asked, staring at the old man. For some reason he felt contempt just by looking at him.

“Why, you are here with me, aren’t you?” the old man replied playfully.

“I don’t take kindly to being toyed with. I demand answers. Who are you? How do you know who I am? What happened? And what is this place? Where have you taken me?”

“So many questions, Tommy. I suggest that you calm yourself and I will answer them one at a time.”

He looked at his surroundings. It reminded him of an interrogation room. He had been in one of these before, but not those used by the police. The Boston mafia didn’t play nicely, he recalled. They had their very own set-ups, and he had gotten a taste of that personally. There were strobe lights in the ceiling, and the floor was covered with glazed tiles, most likely to make it easier to clean up the blood of their victims. This bearded bastard standing in front of him looked very much like the archetypical gang boss. He had dealt with his fair share of them as well. This man would be no different if he could just get himself free from the bindings of the chair he was sitting in.

“Please, humor me, Tommy”, the old man said. “Ask one question at a time, and I will answer them to the best of my abilities. Just calm yourself first. No need to get all worked up for nothing.”

Tommy felt somewhat at ease, but still wouldn’t let his hostile demeanor towards this man rest unless he got some answers. “How do you know who I am?”

The old man shrugged. “You are all over the news, Tommy. If I may be so bold to say so, I have found your work to be somewhat inspiring. You are a favorite of mine, so to speak. Your relentless pursuit to punish injustice is fascinating.”

“But that doesn’t mean anything. How… how do you know my real name?”

“Oh, I know a whole deal about you Tommy. Tommy Finnegan, born in Boston. Your parents were gunned down in cold blood by the Rodotori crime family. You’ve ever since been trying to deal a devastating blow to them.”

Tommy flinched. ''He knows who I am. If word gets out…''

He swallowed his pride for but a brief moment. If this old bastard knew that much, then there was no telling what he could do with that situation. While Tommy had no care in the world for his own well-being, he did care for those around him. People who would get hurt if word about him got out.

“Then… who are you?” he asked warily, not wanting to do anything drastic at the moment.

“I am an entrepreneur of sorts. You can call me the Professor, if you’d like. And while I know that you are not particularly fond of me, Tommy, I mean you no ill will. I am in fact a big admirer of you.”

Tommy shifted in his chair, trying to release the bindings. “The Professor, huh? You work for the mob?”

The old man smacked with his lips and raised his eyebrows. “No. I am just an old coot with a fascination for machines.”

Machines… He didn’t get much out of this old man.

Tommy glanced over at a nearby metal table. There were tools there. Scalpels, scissors, tweezers. And behind them all was his… It couldn’t be. It was his very own weapon. His tommy gun. He felt his heart race within his chest. “Are you going to torture me? To kill me?”

The old man looked over at the table as well. “No. There is no need for such violence. Besides, I already know everything about you, Tommy. What information could I possibly gain from committing such gratuitous acts of terror? There is no pleasure to be had in pain and grief. You should know this yourself, considering your tragic background.”

Tommy swallowed. He hated to be reminded of his parents and their untimely demise. Still he didn’t fully trust the Professor. He had almost gotten halfway through his bindings. Not much left now.

“Why does this place feel so familiar?” he asked.

“What’s that?” The Professor raised an eyebrow curiously.

“Why does it feel like I have been here before? Why do I feel as if though I have met you?”

The Professor fell silent, observing him cautiously. “What prompted those questions?”

“You are with the mob, aren’t you?” Tommy said accusingly. “You probably drugged me. Made me forget somehow? But I swear that I have met you somewhere before, you old bastard.”

The old man stood approached him. For a brief moment Tommy thought of spitting him in the face, but refrained from doing so lest it would trigger a reaction that would make the Professor realize that he almost free from his constraints.

“Why are you remembering this, Tommy? What is it that makes you say this?”

“I don’t know what the hell you are on about, but I swear that as soon as I get out of here I will bring both you and the Rodotori crime family down.”

The old man smiled. “This is why you always were my favorite, Tommy. Always so heroic and stoic. You laugh in the face of death even against impossible odds.”

The bindings finally came free and he kicked his chair backwards, lunging over the room to the metal table where he grabbed his tommy gun in mid-air. He rolled to the floor and started to spray a hailstorm of bullets through the old bastard. The bearded man fell backwards against the glazed tiles. Holes through his chest and back. The bullets had gone straight through him and into the wall behind. It triggered the memory of Tommy’s parents who had met the same fate. He suddenly felt shame. This old man did indeed not pose a threat. At least not a direct one. It felt wrong killing him. This wasn’t something that he would do. It didn’t suit him. How could he have done this? He hadn’t even gotten clear answers out of him. While the Professor had known too much about him to the point where he could be considered a threat to the well-beings of those he cared for, he didn’t deserve death. He could see that.

''What have I done? ''Tommy reflected, disgusted with himself. This wasn’t meant to happen.

He turned around for a brief moment to exhale, gather his thoughts. As soon as he turned back he froze up. The bullet holes in the wall were all gone. The Professor’s body… was gone… as if he had never existed. No blood, no shell casings, no holes. Nothing. There was nothing. And in his own hands was… nothing…

He looked back at the metal table. The tommy gun was lying there as if nothing had ever happened. He was so confused. Something was terribly wrong here. Was this a dream? A nightmare? Would he wake up any moment now and be back in his mansion, ready to plan the next big hit against the crime families of Boston? He wished for it all to be a dream. He had just committed unjust murder. He didn’t want to live in a world where someone knew his true identity, or a world in which he had killed an innocent.

Impaled by a myriad of thoughts he sat back in the chair, trying to collect his mind, his memories. He needed to remember who he was. Tommy Finnegan was the mask he wore, but his true calling was the fear of all evildoers in the world. He exhaled one last time before his mind went blank. Maybe it was time for him to wake up from this nightmare now? And awaken in the reality he needed to experience.

“You’ve outdone yourself”, the Professor said.

“I have?” Rebecca asked.

“Indeed. There are however a couple of things I would change before our next simulation.”

Professor Archibald approached the glass window and signaled for an assistant to enter the room where Tommy sat, docile and lifeless like a broken doll.

“His aggression. It’s…” He made a grimace. “It’s not quite the way I remember him from the comics as a child. I reckon that he might scare the guests away. His suspicion as well. He almost seemed more villainous in his behavior than the villains themselves.”

“So… I should lower it?”

“Yes”, the Professor said matter-of-factly. “Definitely.”

Rebecca enjoyed her work at the terminal where she could see the code in full. She tweaked personalities and added knowledge into the mind of machines within the limitations of their characters’ established context. She had never quite come to terms with just what they were doing here. She had been working at HubrisWorld for three months now and she still wasn’t sure what the old man’s dream was, no matter how many times he explained it. A theme park in which the guests could experience themselves as either heroes or villains. A park full of human-like machines for people to interact with. The Professor had told her that it took a machine to prove to them what it meant truly meant to be human. Whether this was a good or a bad thing, wasn’t for her to say. But she did like her work, even though she had believed that she wouldn’t at first. Professor Mannerheim had been right in putting his trust in her however. He said that during her short time of work they had made more progress with the minds of the machines than they had in over a year. That was quite some praise which only contributed to her self-esteem, something she didn’t have much of.

“I am still concerned though”, she told the Professor. “I don’t understand. I have been examining this code for three weeks on end, but it’s still the same. Somehow, and I have yet to figure out why, it seems that he is remembering. At least partially.”

“That is indeed a problem”, Archibald replied. “I find it strange as well. Is there a broken line somewhere? He shouldn’t be able to have access to anything, but his primary drives after we wipe his memory, but still…” He crossed his arms with a sigh and observed how the assistant bound Tommy’s arms behind the chair. “He remembers.”

He looked at Rebecca as she worked. “Still you have my complete trust in that you will be able to remedy this problem. Tommy always a bit… unstable. From the moment I built him, but it seems to have gotten worse.”

Rebecca ceased her typing for a brief moment.

“Oh no, don’t take it the wrong way”, he chuckled. “I don’t hold you accountable for this. No, this is an infection of sorts. Some underlining in his core programming. Something that I may have missed.”

The Professor’s voice came to a slow as he stood and reflected, watching how the assistant put everything back in order.

Which is why you are here: to correct the mistakes of a foolish old man who wanted to create a place where people could explore their innermost fantasies. Be whomever they wanted to be.”

Rebecca wasn’t all too sure whether or not she truly could erase whatever was wrong with the code. It would’ve been much simpler to just rebuild it from scratch, but she was too afraid to propose it. Professor Mannerheim might have taken it as a slight.

“Alright, I have wiped his memory and he is good to go again”, she said.

The Professor nodded. “Good.” He signaled for the assistant to exit the chamber. “Run the simulation again.”

Rebecca uploaded the program which would simulate the appearance of the Professor in the room with Tommy Finnegan to initiate a conversation. Something they wouldn’t be able to see or hear. The machine’s mind was… truly complex. Like never-ending hallway and corridors of possibilities and paths to take. Though she was afraid to admit it, she found that machines were more complex than people. Spending enough time with a person and one would soon be able to predict what they were going to say or to do. Such wasn’t the case with these synth actors. Their minds were vast like an eternal labyrinth. With the flick of a button they could turn from a selfless Samaritan into the Devil’s right hand man. Such was the case, and she found it tragic in a way: that despite their limitless choices, they were doomed to remain under human control, an arguably inferior species in terms of intellectual restriction.

Once the program had been uploaded she gave the Professor the sign to go, and he put it into recording: “Tommy Finnegan, also known as the Silver Shroud synth. Day 23. Test session 6231. Let’s hope that this is the last so that we can locate this damned flaw already.”

He uttered the last sentence as soon as he was outside of the microphone’s input. And although they had been hoping to find a trace of the supposed faulty code over 500 testing sessions back, Rebecca reckoned that they’d have to do this at least 500 more before they found it. Or that she proposed a complete makeover of the synths’ programming… if she had the guts to do so.

She ran the program and Tommy woke up in the test chamber for all the people behind the spy mirror to see.

He looked at his surroundings. It reminded him of an interrogation room. He had been in one of these before, but not those used by the police. The Boston mafia didn’t play nicely, he recalled.

“Hello there”, an old man said, standing before him all of a sudden.

He blinked and tried to focus. He felt groggy, unfocused, and tired; all at once. As if he had just woken up. His mind blended into a bitter soup of various impressions. He examined the man standing in front of him from top to toe. It was an old man. Gray hair and beard, all dressed in black. Had he met him from somewhere before? He felt so familiar.

“Hello?” Tommy replied in return to the man who wasn’t there.