The Senior Official leapt toward the computer, quicker than anyone had ever seen him move, bringing to mind the dark image of a hungry eagle spotting a baby chick on the ground. He moved the mouse with practiced motions, sliding the time past the Now. In the instant that the slider entered the future, an error window popped up.
Stack Overflow
Bai Bing took the mouse from the Senior Official’s hand. “Let’s run a debugging program and trace that step by step.”
The simulation software returned to the state it had been in before the error and began to run line by line. When the real Bai Bing moved the slider past the present, the simulation Bai Bing in the digital mirror did the same. The debugging program immediately zoomed in on the digital mirror’s superstring computer display, allowing them to see that, on the simulated screen, the simulated simulated Bai Bing two layers down was also moving the slider past the present. Then the debugging program zoomed in on the superstring computer display in the third layer…. In this way the debugger progressed layer after layer deeper, each layer’s Bai Bing in the process of moving the slider past the present time, an infinite Droste image.
“This is recursion, a programming approach where a piece of code calls itself. Under normal circumstances, it finds its answer a finite number of layers down, after which the answer follows the chain of calls back to the surface. But here we see a function calling itself without end, forever unable to find an answer, in infinite recursion. Because it needs to store resources used by the previous layer on the stack at every call, it created the stack overflow we saw earlier. With infinite recursion, even a superstring computer’s ultimate capacity can be used up.”
“Ah.” The Senior Official nodded.
“As a result, even though the course of the universe was decided at the big bang, we still can’t know the future. For people who hate the determinist idea that everything comes from a chain of cause and effect, this probably provides some consolation.”
“Ah…” The Senior Official nodded again. He dragged out the sound for a long, long time.
THE AGE OF THE MIRROR
Bai Bing discovered that a strange change had overcome the Senior Official, as if something had been sucked out of him. His whole body seemed to be withering, swaying as if it had lost the strength to keep itself upright. His face was pale, his breathing rapid. He put both hands on the chair’s arms and lowered himself into the seat, the movement difficult and painstaking, as if he were afraid his bones would snap.
“Young man, you have destroyed my life’s work,” the Senior Official said eventually. “You win.”
Bai Bing looked at Chen Xufeng and Lu Wenming, finding that they were at a loss like himself. But Song Cheng stood straight-backed and unafraid among them, his face alight with victory.
Chen Xufeng slowly stood, drawing his gun from his trouser pocket.
“Stop,” said the Senior Official, not loudly, but with unsurpassed authority in his voice. The gun in Chen Xufeng’s hand stilled in midair. “Put the gun down,” the Senior Official commanded, but Chen didn’t move.
“Sir, at this stage, we have to act decisively. We can explain away their deaths, shot and killed while resisting arrest and attempting escape—”
“Put the gun down, you mad dog!” the Senior Official roared.
The hand holding the gun fell to Chen Xufeng’s side. He slowly turned toward the Senior Official. “I’m no mad dog. I’m a loyal dog, a dog who understands gratitude! A dog who will never betray you, sir! You can trust someone like me, who’s crawled step by step up from the bottom, to know right and wrong like a good dog toward the superior who made him into who he is today. I don’t think the slick thoughts of intelligentsia.”
“What are you trying to say?” Lu Wenming, who had long been silent, got to his feet.
“Everyone knows what I mean. I’m not like some people, taking a step only after making sure there’s two or three steps of retreat open. Where’s my road out? At a time like this, if I don’t protect myself, who will do it for me?!”
Bai Bing said calmly, “It’s useless to kill me. That’s the fastest way to expose the digital mirror technology to the public.”
“Even an idiot would have realized he’d take precautionary measures. You’ve really lost all reason,” Lu Wenming said quietly to Chen Xufeng.
Chen Xufeng said, “Of course I know the bastard wouldn’t be that stupid, but we have our own technological resources. If we put in everything we have, we might be able to completely wipe out the digital mirror technology.”
Bai Bing shook his head. “That’s impossible. Chief Chen, this is the era of the internet. Concealing and distributing information is easy, and I have the defender’s advantage. You can’t beat me at my game, not even if you put in your best tech experts. I could tell you where I’ve hidden the digital mirror software backups and how I plan to release them after my death, and you wouldn’t be able to do a thing. The initialization parameters are even easier to hide and distribute. Forget about that idea.”
Chen Xufeng slowly put the gun back into his pocket and sat down.
“You think you’re already standing on the summit of history, yes?” the Senior Official said tiredly to Song Cheng.
“Justice stands on the summit of history,” Song Cheng said solemnly.
“Indeed, the digital mirror has destroyed us all. But its power to destroy far exceeds this.”
“Yes, it will destroy all evil.”
The Senior Official nodded slowly.
“Then it will destroy all the corruption and immorality that comes short of evil.”
The Senior Official nodded again. “In the end, it will destroy all of human civilization.”
His words made the others take pause. Song Cheng said, “Human civilization has never beheld such a bright future. This battle between good and evil will wash away all its grime.”
“And then?” the Senior Official asked softly.
“And then, the great age of the mirror will arrive. All of humanity will face a mirror in which every action can be perfectly seen and no crime can be hidden. Every sinner will inevitably meet their judgment. It will be an era without darkness, where the sun shines into every crevice. Human society will become as pure as crystal.”
“In other words, society will be dead,” the Senior Official said. He raised his head to look Song Cheng in the eyes.
“Care to explain?” Song Cheng said, with the mocking note of a victor looking at a loser.
“Imagine if DNA never made mistakes, always replicating and inheriting with perfect fidelity. What would life on Earth become?”
While Song Cheng considered this, Bai Bing answered for him. “In that case, life would no longer exist on Earth. The basis of the evolution of life is mutation, caused by mistakes in DNA.”
The Senior Official nodded at Bai Bing. “Society is the same way. Its evolution and vitality is rooted in the myriad urges and desires departing from the morality laid out by the majority. A fish can’t live in perfectly clear water. A society where no one ever makes mistakes in ethics is, in reality, dead.”
“Your attempt to defend your crimes is laughable,” Song Cheng said contemptuously.
“Not completely,” Bai Bing said immediately, surprising the others. He hesitated for a few seconds, as if to steel his resolve. “To be honest, there was another reason I didn’t want to make the mirror simulation software public. I… I don’t much like the idea of a world armed with the digital mirror either.”
“Are you afraid of the light like them?” Song Cheng demanded.
“I’m an ordinary guy. I’m not involved in any shady business, but there are different kinds of the light you’re talking about. If someone beams a searchlight through your bedroom window in the middle of the night, that’s called light pollution…. I’ll give an example. I’ve only been married two years, but I’ve already experienced that… wearying of the aesthetics, so to speak. So I got… uh, involved with a coworker. My wife doesn’t know, of course. Everyone’s lives are good—better this way even I suspect. I wouldn’t be able to live this kind of life in the age of the mirror.”