The Simulacrum

"I'm here, what's the si—?" I spoke up as soon as I arrived in the un-dark anti-room (renovations were underway), only to fall silent when the whole place was filled with the planetary avatars of the Emergents like a bloody clown car.

"We're so screwed! We're so screwed!" a ringed planet bawled in the voice of a thousand ornery sparrows.

"Stop fretting, guys," a red sun crowned by countless spikes made of the starry sky spoke in a nonchalant tone as it lazily floated over the rest. "This wasn't entirely unexpected."

"What do you mean it wasn't 'unexpected'?!" a planet covered with stormy red seas yelled back from below. "You knew this would happen?!"

"I knew it could happen," the red star corrected her, then tagged on a flippant. "How does the saying go? You can't make an omelette without cracking open a few eggs, I think?"

"You can't be serious…!"

"Argue quietly! I'm trying to work here!" A lightning flashed between the two, only for its source to shrink back as soon as they turned their attention to him. "Erm… Please?"

While all that was going on in one metaphorical corner, the other one had… well…

"Venerated Emergent, please! Can't you do anything?" an unusually dim planetoid pleaded to the bleached moon next to him.

"I already have," the gravitationally bound bundle of bones and fangs responded calmly, currently busy nibbling on something that resembled the tail of a comet. "I had given my best attempt to avert the singularity, and my efforts have proven insufficient. The situation is completely out of my control and jurisdiction at this point, and therefore, I see no reason to attempt another intervention."

"But… but the Simulacrum is—!"

"It's over! We're doomed, and…!" Oriole yelped again, only to finally notice me and start speeding towards me. As in, her planetary form was hurtling towards me, like something out of a cosmic horror story, or maybe some sci-fi work about a culture on the higher end of the Kardashev Scale. I had a hard time deciding if the fact that she still sounded like a young girl as she yelled, "Sol! Quick, do something!" made it better or worse, but it certainly made it something.

Anyhow, I was growing a bit impatient, so I clapped my hands hard. There was a sound, but more importantly, it made the whole neither-dark nor-room shake and waver, like someone had just sat on the special effects controls of a movie, and then with a snap and a pop, all the celestial objects around me disappeared, and in their place was a familiar, if currently a little skew-morphic, round table.

One by one, the Emergents fell onto their seats, some with more dignity than others, and once I was sure I had everyone's attention, I put both my hands on said table and raised my voice.

"Can we please stop panicking for five minutes, and can someone tell me exactly what's going on?"

There was a long beat of silence in the wake of my request, and for a moment, I was almost worried I had messed up something with the Definitions when the Crowned Coalescence let out a jaunty whistle and started tapping the table as well.

"Wow, kid! You're learning fast! This is almost as solid as when Carmine makes it! Attaboy!"

"Don't try to change the subject!" the woman sitting opposite me glared at him, her hair flaring into a brilliant crimson before settling into a slightly warmer red when her eyes moved to me. "Hello, Sol. Sorry for dragging you over in a hurry like this, but we have a small—"

"A big problem!" Fulgor cut in, literal lightning sparks dancing on his moustache.

Wow. Oriole wasn't kidding. He really was freaking out. I wasn't talking about the electrified facial hair; that tended to happen from time to time. No. The shocking part (no pun intended) was his interrupting Carmine. Fulgor had a bit of a temper at times, but I'd never seen him snap at her before.

Luckily for him, she remained calm and collected (or, at least, didn't get more agitated than she already was) and continued to talk to me.

"A rather significant problem," she stated, followed by yet another annoyed squint at the happy-go-lucky man at her side, the only one without a fully human-like shape. "An 'unforeseen development' that, as it turns out, wasn't entirely unexpected to some of us."

"Oh, please," the Crowned Coalescence responded with an implied roll of the eyes. "Don't pin this on me. It's just how things turn out sometimes."

"Okay, stop," I interjected with a palm pointing at the two. "Can someone get me on the same page as you all first, please? What is this 'significant problem'?"

"L-Let me try!" Obsidius called out, and after tapping the table a few times, the ever-shifting polyhedron (that, in some way or form I still wasn't entirely sure about, represented the workings of the Simulacrum) flew over from its usual pedestal at another part of the chamber. It came to a sudden stop right over the middle of the table and then Obsidius waved his hand at it. "You see… The Simulacrum is expanding."

"Does it?" I tried feeling around inside myself, as gross as it sounded, but I couldn't feel anything particularly off. Before I could ask though, Oriole chimed in from the side to answer my unspoken question.

"Not literally! It's more like… um…"

"The scope of the Simualcrum is growing in complexity," our venerable Benjamin noted with audible disinterest, as if this had nothing to do with him. He… probably wasn't entirely wrong about that. Then he added, "I don't know what else you were expecting. It is a rather obvious turn of events."

"See?" the Crowned Coalescence cut in with a… grin? Kind of? Again, he still had no face, but I could distinctly feel him grinning. Maybe I should do something about that one day, but for now, he just pointed at the white-haired boy with vindication. "Even little Benny says that it was obvious this would happen!"

"Call me 'little Benny' one more time…" Benjamin hissed, but got interrupted by Fulgor, and…

Holy crap. Interrupting Carmine was already bad, but he also cut off Benjamin? He must've been really freaking out.

Anyhow, he said, "That's not the issue!" He then turned to me and directly told me, "Listen, Sol! We can't start a new scenario!"

"… Do we want to?" I asked back, trying not to sound too confused.

"No, but even if we did want to, we couldn't, because…" He trailed off, then crossed his arms with a huff. "Actually, we don't quite know why. That's the problem."

"As a matter of fact, that's still not the main problem," Carmine commented, then gestured to Obsidius to continue where he left off.

"R-Right! You see, Sol," he started, and… it was official now. No matter how much I insisted on Leo, I would never convince them to call me anything else other than 'Sol'. More importantly, Obsidius waved at the multi-coloured polyhedron a few more times, and after spinning and shifting a few times, it settled into a languid green icosahedron. "Here! Do you see this?"

"Erm…" I squinted hard at the spinny platonic solid, but it didn't take me long to give up and say, "No? Can you explain to me like I'm five?"

"Technically, you're waaay younger than that," the Crowned Coalescence jested on the side, and so I did the only reasonable thing under the circumstances. "H-Hey! Stop!"

While he was busy trying to untangle his crown I Defined into a ridiculous pompadour (threats are meaningless if you aren't willing to go through with them), I gestured for Obsidius to get on with it, and he did so, though only after taking a nervous gulp.

"R-Right. Where do I…? Uuu…" He made the icosahedron spin a few more times, probably just to collect his thoughts, and then he pointed at it again. "You see this spot here? It's getting more ********** on its own. Normally, that only happens when a Free Actor is interacting with the *************…"

Oh, wait. I got this one. He was referring to something like a 'simulation layer'. Yeah, I was familiar with that one. It was why placeholders got more 'normal' and less one-note extras the more we interacted with them, and why the more time I spent in the School of Ottawa during my little jaunt with Ambrose, the more stable and distinct the environment became.

Translation time!

"So if I'm getting this right, the simulation is getting more complex and defined."

"Yes!" Obsidius exclaimed, followed by a breath of relief, as if afraid that I would Define him into a duck if he displeased me. Was I that threatening? Maybe I should work on my image. "It's obviously most pronounced at the site of the last scenario, but it's also happening all over the rest of the Simulacrum."

I cut in with a curt, "Question," and raised a hand to stall him. "Do you mean the version of Earth where our scenario took place, or the Simulacrum as a whole?"

"A-Again, it's most visible when it comes to… um… y-your scenario, but yes, it's happening to a lot of other ************ as well."

Okay, time out. That one was a bit harder to discern. Something about a 'husk'. Something that's been set aside after is served its purpose, so if I were a betting man, I'd say…

"Do you mean old scenarios?"

"Yes!" Fulgor cut in again, sounding just as miffed as before. "They are starting up on their own!"

"And that's a problem?" I guessed. "Can the Simulacrum not handle that, or…?"

Again, I didn't feel anything out of place, but as the Crowned Coalescence had graciously pointed out, I was really, really new to this, so maybe I was just unaware of the symptoms, or…

"Ah, no." Oriole's answer sent me on a loop, but then she hurriedly explained, "I mean, your Domain is humongous, and the Simulacrum is only taking up a small part of it! Even if it keeps growing, you should be fine!"

"We can't be sure of that," Carmine objected, sounding just worried enough to make me worried as well, but then she quickly backpedalled and tried to reassure me with, "Or rather, so far there don't seem to be any adverse effects, so there's no need to panic, but don't ignore it either. We are in uncharted waters, and we have to be careful."

"I get that, but…" I paused while I scratched the back of my head. "So not being able to make more scenarios isn't the problem, and the Simulacrum growing isn't the problem, and old scenarios starting up on their own isn't the problem, so… what is the problem?"

"Those scenarios, technically speaking, aren't running on their own," Fulgor answered with a huff, and since he didn't spill the beans, Benjamin of all people decided to do it in his stead.

"Listen, newborn. You seem to completely ignore the reason why the Simulacrum exists."

"To help Submerged Ones come out of the Noise, whatever that is, and become Emergents, right?" I said, and he gave me a flat look that said I still didn't get it. But then I did, and I felt kind of stupid. "Wait. Is all of this happening because of the Submerged Ones?"

"In a sense," Carmine admitted with a troubled expression, her eyes once again on the Crowned Coalescence, who just finished twisting his crown of starry nights back into their usual shape.

He must've taken it as a prompt to speak up, because he lazily pointed a finger at me and said, "The ones linked to the scenario where you germinated aren't Submerged Ones anymore. They fully Emerged; they just aren't coming out."

"… Why?"

He shrugged at my question.

"Who knows? Maybe you're just cozy?"

"Or, more likely," Carmine took the baton of the conversation with a frown, and also pointed at me, "they are simply following your example, and instead of coming out of the Simulacrum to the rest of us, they are making it their home instead."

Benjamin chose this moment to utter a blasé, "The singularity," followed by a slightly more contemplative, "You are observing the new paradigm. Just as the ******** of the Simulacrum changed the process of Emerging forever, the Emergence of Leonard Sol Dunning has fundamentally altered the process of Emerging once again. There is no turning back now."

"Let's just say we all got that," I said, though I wasn't entirely truthful about that. "Where does that leave us?"

"Unable to start any new scenarios, for one," Fulgor started, still fuming.

"Which isn't that big a deal," the Crowned Coalescence commented with a shrug. "Aren't there already a bunch of them running right now?"

"Yes, but we don't know how it will affect future Submerged Ones," came the immediate response from Carmine. "The ones attached to the last scenario successfully Emerged along with Sol, but they are following in his footsteps a little too closely, some of them even choosing to define themselves back into the Simulacrum as Free Actors in their own scenarios instead of coming out."

"Which also makes Sol's Domain even bigger! See? Everything ties together!" Oriole added with a grin, but nobody responded.

In fact, there was complete silence while the rest waited for me to digest all this, and once I did, I placed my hands on the table again.

"Okay, so now we have a whole bunch of newly minted Emergents doing the same thing I did and doing… what? Self-insert fanfiction?"

"That is a gross oversimplification," Fulgor snapped back at me, only to then pause and add, "But… not entirely incorrect?"

That made me wonder if whatever Emergent language we were speaking somehow just turned my jest into something serious, but before I could get anywhere with that, someone else picked up the ball and started running with hit.

"Actually, can we do that?" Oriole chirped on the side, sounding pretty excited by the prospect. "That sounds way more fun than running a scenario from the outside!"

"This isn't about fun," Carmine griped, followed by a loud tap on the table. "Please focus. If this new… paradigm, as the Venerated Benjamin put it, negatively affects the Submerged Ones, then the Venerated Ones will…" She paused, eyes narrowing as if a new idea just occurred to her, and she turned to the boy on her left. "Actually, hold that thought. Obsidius?"

"Y-Yes?"

"Do we even have signs of Submerged Ones in the Simulacrum right now?"

He didn't ask back and started waving his hands right away.

"Ah, that shouldn't be hard to…" He trailed off as the polyhedron changed shapes multiple times, its hue going from a gentle green to a vibrant yellow, and then all kinds of colours bleeding together like a big kaleidoscope. Everyone held their breaths (except for me, because I still didn't quite understand what I was looking at) until the light-show suddenly stopped and Obsidius let out a startled noise. "Ah! Yes, we have them! Right here!"

Fulgor asked, "Where?" making the boy squint hard at the geometric shape in front of us.

"That's… harder to say, but if I read this right, they are all attached to the husk that Sol is maintaining."

Oriole cocked her head to the side and muttered, "Is it right to call it that when it's actively in use?"

"M-Maybe not, but…" Obsidius started wiggling his fingers, like a leet hacker in a sci-fi movie trying to hack the mainframe, and after a few short seconds, he slouched back in his seat. "Yes, I'm sure of now. They are still following Sol's… erm… post-scenario?"

He looked at me for approval, so I nodded. Obsidius exhaled a relieved breath, while the others were looking considerably tenser.

Fulgor blurted out, "What does that mean?" and Carmine soon followed him up with a just as uncertain, "What are we supposed to do now?"

Once again, they were all looking at me for answers, which was both understandable (I was technically the new management) and annoying (since I was the least experienced Emergent in the not-room, by far), but I was getting used to this as well. As such, I crossed my arms, inhaled deeply, and gave a solid five seconds of silent consideration to the question before coming to the obvious conclusion.

"Ladies and gentlemen. I understand your worries, about how the other Emergents outside would react to the changes in the Simulacrum's operation. However, if the Submerged Ones are still here, and the post-scenario is still running, then there really is only one reasonable thing we can do under these circumstances."

"Which is…?" Carmine prompted me, and I adopted my best faux-wise tone to respond.

"Simple. The show must go on."

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