The Button (short story)

With the push of a single button, Bruce Larkin was going to change history. With one keystroke, one of the greatest questions in science would finally be answered: is the universe a simulation?

Bruce remembered the first time he had seen the question posed, in a scientific magazine he had checked out of the library as a teenager. Upon finishing the article, Bruce had felt that the trajectory of his life had been forever altered. It was like he had been living in a cave before, immersed in the confines of a quiet darkness. Reading the article was his first step into the light, into a bigger, open world. One big enough for questions about life and existence to unfurl.

What if everything was just a simulation? What if life as he and everyone else knew it was nothing more than a program running in some laboratory? The implications, both scientific and philosophical, kept Bruce awake at night. How could he sleep, when the very nature of existence was in question? While billions of people slumbered under mountains of blankets in cozy homes, Bruce usually spent the night flailing on top of his mattress in a cold sweat until he got up and went to his study, where he would work on a solution to the question until the coffee pot clicked on and the sun’s tangerine light bubbled up over the horizon.

After years of sleepless nights and countless false starts, Bruce was finally ready to receive his answer.

In the end, the solution was simple. Once he had realized it, he was almost ashamed that it had eluded him for so long. But there was no time for regret. His experiment was ready to launch, and the best part was that it would yield results in only a minute or two. All he had to do was set it in motion.

The red, rectangular button stared up at Bruce from the gray console. He licked his lips as his finger hovered over it. He was less than a centimeter from his greatest achievement. He was about to make perhaps the most important discovery in the history of science. On the eve of his final victory, Bruce let himself imagine how this would change things.

Of course, his own life would be drastically different. He would be catipulted into the spotlight. There would be lectures, job offers. Maybe even a Nobel prize. But he felt no rush of adrenaline, no butterflies in his stomach, when thinking about such things. Those were hollow prizes, and he knew that any thrill they generated wouldn’t last. Fame is fleeting, and his fifteen minutes were inconsequential to him.

It was how his results might alter human history that interested him most. If the universe wasn’t simulated, how would people react? He’d have pulled back the curtain to reveal that there was no one pulling the levers, directing things. Life was an emergent property of a natural system. Would people see the beauty of such a random existence, how precious life is? And if they did, would they fill their time with more love and compassion, knowing that the world would only be as good a place as they made it?

And what if the experiment showed that everything was, in fact, a simulation? That they were merely variables in an elaborate computer program? Would anything still matter? Would anything seem meaningful, knowing that there was a singular purpose to everything and nothing else? What would that say about free will?

Bruce tried to imagine the purpose of such a simulation. If it existed, what were the creators trying to accomplish? It was impossible to know, of course. If it turned out to be the case that everything was just a simulation, Bruce wished he could talk to its designers, scientist to scientist.

Bruce snapped out of his reverie. There was time for speculation later. Now, it was time for answers.

Under the cone of yellow light that illuminated the workspace in his lab, Bruce took a deep breath, and let gravity pull his finger down toward the red button. As he made contact with the plastic and began to depress the button, a thought tugged at the back of his mind and he paused.

Something about the purpose of the simulation and wanting to talk to the designers left Bruce with an unsettling feeling. There was something that bothered him, but he couldn’t quite identify what it was. Every simulation had parameters, conditions that defined how it ran. Just like an experiment.

A cold, icy tingling worked its way up Bruce’s spine as the realization set in.

An experiment would be ruined if the conditions changed. The same thing would be true of the simulation that he and everyone else might be living in. And he was trying to change the conditions.

Bruce knew there was only one scenario where someone inside of the simulation would be able to discover that fact: if the simulation was part of an experiment to determine how long it would take intelligent beings to determine they were living in a simulation. And after that? Well, there would be no point in keeping the simulation going.

If Bruce managed to prove that they were part of a simulation, he would be ruining whatever experiment was being run. It would be like the people in a blind control group figuring out which cohort they belonged to. It would ruin everything.

‘Ruin’ was being generous. What Bruce was really talking about was ending the universe, at least his universe. There was no way to sugarcoat it.

Looking down at the console, he no longer saw hope and excitement in that small red rectangle. Instead of the relief he sought to agonizing questions, he saw a venomous snake, coiled up and waiting to bite. Horrified with himself, Bruce’s lips twisted into a disgusted sneer, and he withdrew his finger, clutching it to his chest.

The room wasn’t his lab anymore. It was a weapon of mass destruction. And he knew that it couldn’t continue to exist.

Leaving the little cone of overhead light, Bruce stepped into the darkness and found the emergency fire axe outside in the hall. Returning to the console, his hands tightened around the neck of the axe, and he brought it up over his head.

And for the first time in years, Bruce Larkin felt peace.