Feb 2018 v01 online

Findlay’s pretentious messenger bag – does he
wear that every time?
At least the urgent, hushed ticking over of
Gino’s in the presence of a stroke victim was
unfamiliar to me.
Was that it? Familiarity?
What the hell is going on?
***
The whine didn’t come as a surprise, but as a
stone in the pit of Daniel’s stomach as he
watched the mess of the simulation unfold in a
45-second scroll of code in front of him.
Something is wrong. Something is definitely wrong.
He thought.
The simulation shouldn’t have reacted that
way. Simulated Daniel shouldn’t have reacted
that way. Medical concepts were very clearly
described in the simulator’s code – it is
extremely important to a great many
simulations, when the client is instrumental in
causing medical anomalies or when they are
experiencing them. Daniel hadn’t experienced
a stroke in there. He had no idea what it was.
“Hey,”
Daniel whipped around, pale as a ghost.
Arjun hung in the arch between Daniel and the
rest of the office, out of the icy cold that housed
the simulator. He took a step back when he saw
Daniel’s face, and swallowed.
“Was – was that the end of the political
simulation I just heard?” The boy asked. He was
small and slight, and very young. He did some
of the programming that turned hearsay and
insider tips into simulation fodder, altering the
realities the simulator would create by
mirroring changes occurring in the real world
that would have big effects – even though most
everybody would live their lives without finding
out about them. “I was just walking past.”
“Yes.” Daniel said stonily. Pull yourself together.
You’ll rouse suspicion. “Yes. It just finished.”
Arjun glanced for a fraction of a second at the
screen, just long enough to notice it was tilted
out of his view. Daniel wanted to strangle him.
It wouldn’t be hard.
“Okay, cool!” The boy tried to embed a chirpy
demeanour into his shaken voice. “I’ll send the
updates for the next client into the network
hub. You can download it whenever for the
next sim. It'll be an interesting one for sure.”
Daniel did not respond. He did not blink.
Arjun looked at the ground, flushed red, and
made himself scarce.
Unable to run another reboot of the affected
universe, or try to enact some diagnostic test on
the resultant data, Daniel was forced to wipe
the screens clean, clear his history, launder his
stolen moments and hurry through the data
collation for the client’s simulation. His bet was
that she’d cut the healthcare benefits and use
the simulator info to sell up her California
properties, beloved though they may be, before
the Pacific could swallow them whole – a winwin.
Daniel struggled to pay attention through the
next simulation, though it was a particularly
nasty one. While possible issues with the last
Findlay run through scrolled through his mind,
a solid sheet of numbers scrolled across his
many screens, individual strings and sections
leaping out as if jostling for the attention he
wasn’t paying.
This client – a private individual with enough
wealth to cover the cost of a simulation that
would bankrupt many large businesses – was
looking forward to earning big. After accruing a
godforsaken heap of debt on a chain of hotels