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instantiate duplicates of myself, using something we choose to call sympathetic magic,
with the help of some very fast computers.”
“Huh,” Marla said. “I’ve heard stupider theories for how magic works.”
“But the real implications are even more vast. Because we’re running on a computer,
and I know computers.” He cracked his knuckles. “There’s not a box in the world that I
can’t take over, not a system on Earth or in Heaven that I can’t crack and own. And one
of these days, I’m going to figure out how to own the box we’re all running on, and
that’s the day I become god.”
Ah, Marla thought. A new variation on the basic megalomaniacal sorcerer model. “And
what about the people who are running the simulation? Why won’t they just unplug you
when you start to misbehave?”
“I doubt they’re unaware of my efforts. I wouldn’t be, in their position. They’re
watching me. Maybe someday they’ll choose to show themselves. It would be trivial for
them to do so. If nothing else, I’m sure they’ll want to talk to me directly once I wrest
control of this simulation from them. Maybe they’ll upload my consciousness out of the
simulation, into their physical world. Maybe I’ll figure out how to upload myself. The
possibilities are pretty much endless.”
“And this has what to do with Mutex?”
He looked at her blankly for a moment, and she suppressed the urge to crack him across
the face and smash the lenses of those goggles. She was on a timetable here, and her
problems were a hell of a lot more pressing than Dalton’s plan to own the box of the
universe.
“Oh, right,” Dalton said. “Bostrom talks about the impact of the simulation theory on
theology. If the person running this particular simulation is, say, a fundamentalist
Christian, then it’s very possible that, in the afterlife, evildoers will burn in Hell—Hell
being, in this case, just another simulation. Heaven could be similar. If we’re just digital
emulations, then there’s no reason to discount the notion of the afterlife. Now,
personally, I tend to think that fundamentalists of all stripes are a dying breed, and that
they won’t be around in several subjective centuries, which is probably when our
simulation got started.”
Marla found that idea even more doubtful than his original premise—fundamentalism
was here to stay, in one form or another—but she didn’t object.
“Of course, it is possible that someone might run a simulation within a given religious
framework for experimental purposes, or even just for fun. Put people in a world where
fundamentalist Christianity is true, or Zoroastrianism, or Voudon, or Hinduism—”
“Or all that crazy Aztec shit,” Marla said. “That’s what you’re getting at, in your
incredibly long-winded way, isn’t it?”
Dalton frowned. “Yeah. Basically. Mutex tried to make contact with all the sorcerers in
the city, and he told all of us the same thing, when he got the chance. He said the