The Glitch Hunter: Too Much Universe Series Book 1

By Aakanksha Singh

LIFE IS A COSMIC COMPUTER SIMULATION THAT CAN MALFUNCTION AT ANY TIME.

The prophet said so and the gods-fearing folk of Domaan city certainly believe it. It’s why Rhea Harte has a job.

On a Friday afternoon, as she investigates yet another falsely-reported “glitch”, she daydreams of the old Terran flatfilms she will

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aakanksha Zettl-Singh
• Release date: May 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9783951980805

Aakanksha Singh

Aku calls a dozen places home. Born in India, raised in the middle east, pottered around Australia for a while, now living in Vienna, Austria. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Media and Communication and a Master's degree in Multimedia Design. After a 7-year career in design, web programming and digital strategy, she gave it all up to pursue her dream of writing. She's a millennial. You can tell, can't you? Her stories are inspired by cultural conflict, problems in physics, mythology, pop culture, and all the wonderful weirdos she has met during her travels. In her free time, she consumes copious amounts of books, movies, anime, podcasts and TV shows. If you bring up philosophical conundrums raised by Star Trek, cultural symbology in Studio Ghibli movies, or the latest episode of Radiolab, you better have a few hours to kill. Basic courtesy. Aku also enjoys spicy dim sums, adventurous holidays, wild dancing, and long walks through the multiverse.

Book preview

1: Act of God

Smart-Faith Symbols

Rhea Harte was in a great mood. It was an ordinary Friday, which was the best thing about it. Time might be an illusion, but a free weekend is a profoundly real thing. That past month, a sudden influx of cases at the Bureau, compounded by three field investigators handing in their resignations, had turned her work calendar into a torture device. Staying on top of it had not been easy—as the dark shadows around her eyes testified—but she had pulled it off. The tide was ebbing. One last case to wrap up, and she was free as a mote of dust in space for the next three, glorious days. She planned to spend them splattered across her couch, sipping spiced sherry, puffing on her shortpipe, and watching old flatfilms to her heart’s content. It was going to be the kind of heaven that no smart-faith could promise her.

She stood listlessly, day-dreaming, waiting, eyeing the other arrivals to keep herself awake and entertained. Something out of the ordinary was happening at DERI. The parking decks outside were packed with vehicles. A variety of formally-dressed dignitaries were trickling into the reception area and streaming down a passageway towards the heart of the facility. It was no secret that leasing out spaces to event organisers was DERI’s way of supplementing their research grants. Two years ago, she had attended a visharmonic jazz concert in one of the greenhouses on premises. As the memory returned to her, she began humming a half-forgotten tune, her fingers dropping to the reception desk beside her to drum a beat on its glassy surface.

Her tapping triggered the receptionist into action. A holographic young woman, cut off at the waist, appeared above the desk. Neatly-dressed with tightly-curled hair, she flashed a smile, parting bright red lips. Welcome to the Domaan Environmental Research Institute. May I help—oh, it’s still you.

Still me. Still waiting for Chief Parko, she said, withdrawing her fingers from the desk. Our appointment was fifteen minutes ago. Her voice remained calm, her mood buoyant as ever. After four years on the job, she was used to the cold welcomes. Parko’s rudeness was hardly unusual.

Apologies for the wait. I have messaged the Chief Administrator several times. He’s busy attending to the delegates at the moment, but he will report here as soon as possible, said the virtual receptionist before dissolving into thin air.

Somehow, she doubted that. It would not be the first time she had to hunt down someone she had an appointment with. If Parko thought he could avoid her by hiding out, he was mistaken. She resumed her humming and walked down the passageway towards the greenhouses.

The event was taking place in Greenhouse One. She recognised it immediately as the concert hall from two years ago. Most of the plants had been cleared out to make room for a stage, cocktail and banquet tables, and great multitudes of people. As she stepped inside, there was a sense of déjà vu, but it passed quickly. This was an entirely different sort of event, one she had never expected to find herself at. She nearly laughed out loud at the holographic banner waving near the ceiling. It welcomed delegates from the three major planets to the fourteenth meeting of the Sulan Smart-Faith Summit.

She should have worked it out sooner; fatigue was slowing down her faculties. When she looked closely, the signs were everywhere. Literally. Truthists announced their allegiance to their smart-faith with the Omega symbol dangling around their necks, Alphians did the same with the All-Seeing Eye, and Unitians sported robes embellished with red stars. Renderists, demonists, recyclers, and a whole bunch of others she did not recognise by insignia alone. Server droids navigated between the people. Ball-cameras hovered over the crowd, capturing the momentous occasion from every angle. The delegates might have gathered to discuss serious topics like scripture analysis and the state of fortune-telling technology, but they did so while nibbling on entrées and clinking glasses, as though to show the worlds that even a gathering of priests, monks, and smart-faith scholars could forget their existential terrors for a day and have fun.

She chuckled to herself as she realised that she was attracting stern glares from those in her vicinity. She was not exactly dressed for the occasion. In comparison to the delegates, she looked downright boorish. Her hair trailed down her back in a messy braid, her shoes were caked with dust. Her shirt was not printed with smart-faith symbols, but with four wavy lines and the famous Crisis-Era slogan: Draw waves, not circles. Her green jacket was a sophisticated garment—hard as diamonds, soft as leather, space-ready, temperature-regulated, lightweight, its discreet pockets stocked with a variety of items ranging from nutrition pills and game cubes to dead bugs in a jar—but it was not much to look at. To complete her ensemble, a heavy tool bag floated beside her, upLoops stuck to the bottom pushing it away from the ground.

Ignoring the disapproving glances, she carefully scanned the faces in the room. It took her a minute to locate the one she was after, the one in her files. Chief Admin Parko stood near the centre of the greenhouse talking to a huddle of nuns. She moved in his direction, nudging and sliding her way through, leaving jostled holy men and women in her wake. She had barely made any headway, when the main gates closed with a great whooshing sound. Lights dimmed and voices hushed as the holographic banner melted away, leaving her fumbling in the darkness.

A bright light appeared high above, drawing gasps from the crowd. She could not help but look up with the rest.

In place of the banner, a massive bust hovered near the ceiling, angled to look down at the audience. An old man stared at them, frozen in time. His hair and skin had achieved that uniform greyness that age brought to all colours and textures. The sombre five-piece suit spoke volumes about the fashion excesses and poor heating systems of his era.

She knew the man of course, every person in the room did. The long face with its iconic hooked nose was probably the most famous one in all of Sula. Even if you ignored the smart-faiths he had fathered, the prophet turned up in political debates, art, advertisements, rap songs, hologames, common metaphors, children’s rhymes—you name it. He even turned up in her dreams every now and then. He was impossible to avoid. She had once played a drinking game that involved watching the holoclip and downing a shot of whiskey every time he said Omega. Advanced players might also drink when plan was uttered.

The ghostly torso circled in spot for several seconds before it came to life. The prophet’s amplified voice came from all corners of the greenhouse, loud but frail, dried up and spat out, struggling to hoist itself to clarity. Several pairs of lips in the audience fervently mouthed his words as they were spoken:

My name is Myron Fayde. I’m a hundred and twenty years old, I don’t have much longer to live. I’m uploading this clip in the hopes that, in case of my death, someone will see it and continue what I’ve started. The truth is too important for me to take to my grave. I have to speak it even if no one believes me. I have no one left to give this knowledge to. My family and friends have abandoned me, perhaps for good reasons.

The wrinkled face sagged in unguarded dismay. Several people in the audience made pitiful cooing sounds, or cried out the prophet’s name. A young preacher beside her was so overcome with emotion that he buried his face in his hands and sobbed. Poor Myron, sad and lonely, never living to see his days as prophet. His holoclip—the most-watched holoclip in history—had racked up fifty billion views on the Sulanet, but almost all of them after his death.

"Everything we have ever known, our universe, is a bundle of programs running on a quantum supercomputer. Our reality is written in code. Our bodies are bits and bytes of data imprinted on cosmic hard drives. And this great simulation we call life…can malfunction at any time. The truth is shocking. It frightens you. But you must accept it, or we can’t continue.

The idea has been around since pre-A.I. times. You’ve heard of it before. But the simulation hypothesis has remained a hypothesis, never established as empirical fact. That is about to change. One year from today, the Absurdly Large Particle Collider will be switched on for the first time. A group of researchers will make a discovery, perhaps by accident. They will trigger a causality-defying event, a ‘glitch’ in the fabric of space-time itself, a miscommunication between the hardware and software of the universe. This historic glitch will be undeniable proof of the hypothesis. It will change us forever, trigger the beginning of a new age for humankind. Mark my words…

The prophet’s voice nearly gave out from the effort of sustained speech. He paused to cough into a silken napkin, drink a sip of water.

Rhea used the moment to shake herself free of the trance she was in and peel her eyes away from the ceiling. By the light of Myron Fayde’s hologram, she hugged the tool bag to her chest and began moving through the gaps in the crowd.

As he regained his breath, he resumed his monologue.

How do I know all this, you might ask. How do I know the future? The answer to that will be even harder to accept. Or not. That idea is far older than the simulation hypothesis, older than civilisation itself. We’ve always wondered, haven’t we? Who created us and why? Well…I call them the Omega.

Resisting the urge to yell out drink, Rhea circled around a cluster of frocked and turbaned women with pale blue skin. They glared at her for causing a disturbance during the hallowed moment, but she pushed on.

The Omega are engineers, but to us, they are gods in the ancient sense because they wield ultimate power over our existence. They created our universe and they can wipe it out. We are not here without purpose. The Omega have a plan for us. It’s why we exist from one nanosecond to the next, to execute this Omega-plan. It’s absolutely essential that we keep on track with it. I have been in contact with one of them. I call him Alpha. He’s either our patron god or our dedicated technical support among the Omega, depends how you choose to see it. Alpha is always watching, always reading the outputs. His job is to make sure that our universe stays within an acceptable range of parameters, as the plan requires. He has asked me to share the message with as many people as I can because the survival of our simulation depends on it. We have to implement the corrections in society that the Omega want and we have to do them immediately. Alpha will guide us along.

Rhea half-listened but only because there was no way to avoid it. She focused on her task, on navigating the maze of people on the greenhouse floor, and on the reward waiting for her when she was done. As she squeezed past one last cleric to reach the elusive chief admin of DERI, she straightened her jacket and tucked back several stray wisps of hair. He was a hunched figure, with thinning orange hair slicked away from his face, further emphasising an already impressive set of eyebrows, also coloured orange. He had one of those Infostream implants in his left ear, a common bio-modification among administrator-types. The light on it was blinking red, perhaps indicating that he had set it on mute. That would explain why he had not received any of the receptionist’s messages. He was looking up like everyone else there, engrossed by a speech that he probably knew by heart. A silver button pinned to his lapel was embossed with the Alphian All-Seeing Eye. She tapped him on the shoulder.

Chief Parko?

Yes? His eyebrows waggled in her direction for a brief moment, but he did not spare her a second glance. He had eyes only for the prophet.

"Make no mistake. If we should ever deviate too far, if the purpose the Omega have in mind for us is not achieved, they will end us. The end will be like nothing we’ve ever seen. The Omega will set off the Great Restart."

May we speak outside? she said, well aware that she was disturbing him during the most dramatic part of the holoclip.

Now? asked Parko in annoyance, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

I’m afraid so, she said. She felt a grudging morsel of sympathy for the rude man, knowing the effect her words were about to have. I’m here to investigate your insurance claim.

Her words struck target. Parko tore his gaze away from the prophet and fixed them on her. Eyebrows arched and squirmed, fleeing towards the hairline like alarmed caterpillars. She might as well have introduced herself as one of the Omega. As he gawked at her, mouth opening and closing uselessly, above them Myron struggled to speak as well. His breathing was growing more laboured, each sentence leaving him winded.

They will cut off power, which means the Luboya static that keeps our universe expanding will disappear. The big crunch will begin and accelerate faster than the speed of light. Here on the inside, we won’t see death coming. It’ll be over before we know it. That’s why it’s vitally important that we follow the Omega-plan. I will be posting a series of holoclips explaining everything.

Myron Fayde sucked in a great wheezing breath. With a searing lungful of air, he said his last words on record.

Subscribe to my channel. Share this holoclip. Spread the word.

The man flickered then vanished, leaving the darkness darker than before. The audience was given a moment of silence to absorb the aftershock and ponder upon the greatest cliff-hanger in history. The prophet had posted no more holoclips. No one ever found out what plan he had discovered from the Omega.

Without warning, lights flooded the greenhouse.

As her eyes adjusted, she noticed that Parko was still staring at her, but the nature of his staring had changed. His alarm was infused with suspicion.

"You’re the glitch hunter?" he asked in a child-like whisper.

Always the surprise. Rhea was never what they expected to see, of course, far too young and too normal for the job. Other than the obligatory HCP chip in her head, she had no physical modifications of note. She certainly did not carry her brain around in a jar like the Glitchin’ Gary character from the Glitchbusters holofilms. To make matters worse, she made no effort to spice up her plain appearance with costumes either. The quantum witch from House of a Thousand Glitches, a popular reality show, wore miniature satellites on her head when in public to be taken seriously in her job. Some of the other investigators at the Bureau even donned eccentric robes or unusual hats when out in the field, but she had never bothered with such. Once, as a joke, she had turned up at the office wearing a black mantle, sunshades, and an air of mystery like the agents in Terran-Era flatfilms, but almost no one got the reference.

Despite what she looked like, she was the closest thing to a glitch hunter that Chief Parko would ever meet in real life.

The Bureau prefers to call them quantum intrusions, not glitches, she said as she was required to. She tossed Parko a friendly smile to boot, her way of pointing out that the head of a research institute ought to prefer scientific terminology over popular lingo as well. She pulled up a jacket sleeve and tapped the meCom band wrapped around her wrist. A holoscreen shimmered into view above her meCom, displaying her identification card.

B.I.S.Q.I.

Bureau for Investigation of Space-time Quantum Intrusions

Rhea T. Harte, Certified Intrusion Investigator

She liked to think of it as detective work combined with public relations, not a difficult line of work to get into. The training took a month and did not require a degree in advanced physics. She had learned how to operate instruments, verify readings, ask questions, file reports, and politely give people the news that whatever happened was probably their own fault, not the universe’s.

Allied Providence, your insurance provider, has hired BISQI to verify your insurance claim, she said with a practiced flourish. According to you, a ‘deliberate act of god or gods’ has occurred on these premises? I’m here to inspect the site of intrusion.

Yes, yes, he said, turning red in the face, waving at her urgently to put the screen away. His eyes scanned the surroundings for eavesdroppers. "Let’s