The Emulator

The sharp-eyed woman observing Arsh closely was Sophia Coleman. Against his will, Arsh found himself unable to look away from her profile. It was as if he were captivated by a piece of fabric carried away by the wind; his gaze was fixed on her.

Arsh understood what that expression on her face meant. He saw in her the reflection of himself, a researcher trying to grasp the nature of a complex problem despite feeling overwhelmed. Arsh found a semblance of his own daily life in Sophia.

The petite woman, with her long blonde hair casually draped over her shoulders, wore black-rimmed external augmented glasses without any physical enhancements. She belonged to Skyler Green’s team under Professor Evans. When Professor Evans had joined the Epsilon Corporation, he brought along a few trusted subordinates. Neither Skyler nor Sophia were emulator researchers; they were software engineers. While Arsh and Professor Evans worked on designing the core algorithms and logic for emulation, Sophia and her team were responsible for the application architecture and its implementation. The architecture of the ‘virtual computing device,’ which facilitated the movement of emulation targets between processing units, was designed by this team. They also designed the system for modeling computation results in the observation view, most of which Sophia handled. Arsh had known Sophia since he joined Epsilon. Despite being younger than Arsh, Sophia was exceptionally skilled and reliable. Her blunt personality contrasted sharply with her beautiful and elegant appearance.

“Even assuming it’s damage to the observation view or the material, as you two say, its size makes it feel unrealistic. What do you think would happen if someone touched it or went inside?”

Sophia spoke to no one in particular, her eyes fixed on the white space through her augmented glasses. Her long hair fell over her forehead, unnoticed. The white space was a 13-foot square.

“Well, it’s essentially like a dead pixel. Think of it as a dead pixel in the real world. Can I call it a ‘defect’?”

Sophia named the white space ‘the defect.’ It was dazzlingly white, but it did not emit light. Instead, it appeared to absorb surrounding light, casting no shadows and offering no sense of depth. As a result, its exact shape could not be determined just by looking at it; only by combining surrounding images and stills could one recognize it as a square. Any deviation from the perceived front—a position where it looked square—caused a vertigo-inducing illusion. The radiation meter they brought had shown no reaction. Jeff, examining the defect up close, stroked his chin and said,

“Look at this whiteness. Is it emitting light or absorbing it? This inability to determine what it is makes you feel like you’re losing your mind. Moreover, our measuring devices don’t work inside it, and objects seem to disappear when placed in it. What kind of phenomenon is this?”

Jeff extended and retracted a steel tape measure into the defect.

“We’ve tried several inorganic objects, but they seem unchanged after passing through. We’ll need detailed analysis to see if there are any internal or compositional changes.”

Professor Evans, saying this, placed an aluminum cage with two rats in front of the defect. Jeff used the steel measure to push the cage into the defect, leaving part of it outside. Minutes later, he hooked the steel measure to the cage and pulled it out. The rats, seemingly unaffected, scurried around inside, squeaking.

“I’ll take this back to my company for further analysis. The rats probably made noise inside the defect, but we couldn’t hear it. Once inside, they wouldn’t be able to get out on their own. Since we could pull the whole cage out by hooking onto its frame, it stands to reason that if we tied a rope to a person and pulled from outside, they could be retrieved from the defect. At least, we should be able to pull back any body part inserted. Though it’s tempting to test it immediately, we should wait for the rat test results.”

Professor Evans stopped just short of putting his finger into the defect. Everyone watching held their breath. The thought of being trapped inside, where physical laws might not apply, was terrifying, and seeing the white space firsthand was a stark reminder of that fear.

This happened on the day they first inspected the defect.