The train from Rome to Milan was on time. Michael sat by the window, the landscape passing by – first the hills of Lazio, then the flat and fertile Po Valley. He could have been working. Instead, he stared at his reflection in the glass.
The letter was in his pocket. He had read it again this morning.
I would be wary if someone promised me paradise.
He didn't know why he kept thinking about that sentence. Perhaps because he'd heard promises too often. From the church. From science. From InSim.
The train stopped in Bologna. A man boarded – dark coat, simple cap. He didn't sit down. He walked down the aisle, stopped next to Michael, and placed a note on top of his open book.
Then he disappeared.
Michael blinked. The book was closed – he hadn't even opened it. The note lay there as if it had always been there.
He unfolded it.
“Come to Rifugio Sammartini tonight, before the workshop begins, at via Sammartini 114 – 20125 Milan. Trust us.”
No signature. No sender.
Michael tucked the note into the letter. His hands were steady. But his pulse wasn't.
At Milano Centrale station, he was met by a friendly man in an InSim uniform. The man carried his bag and talked about the weather, the city, and the workshop. Michael answered politely, but his mind was on the slip of paper.
The hotel was modern, tasteless, and expensive. He checked into his room, ate alone in the restaurant, and went to bed early.
But he wasn't asleep.
He got up at midnight. He got dressed, took the slip of paper, the letter, and his wallet. A taxi took him to the train station – the streets of Milan were empty, the lights glaring.
The Rifugio Sammartini was an old building, almost invisible between two new buildings. The door was open. A man was waiting in the hallway – tall, slim, with a face that was instantly forgettable.
„Michael Phillips?“
“Yes.”
"Come."
He followed him through a narrow passage, past locked doors, into a small room. A man sat there on a chair. He wore ragged clothes, but his beard was well-groomed. His eyes shone—not metaphorically. They shone brightly.
"Please sit down," the man said in German.
Michael sat down.
“I am part of IRARAH,” the man said. “A movement that sees more clearly than many others.”
Michael studied him. “IRARAH – Harari backwards.”
The man smiled. "They are fast."
"I am a Jesuit. We are all about memorization."
A brief silence. Then the man said: “We’ve been watching you, Dr. Phillips. Not out of curiosity. Out of necessity. InSim is planning something that will forever shift the boundary between humans and machines. You are part of this project – whether you know it or not.”
"I'm working on a simulation, not a conspiracy."
"The simulation is just the beginning." The man leaned forward. His eyes brightened. "The software agents you've equipped with your dialogue grammars—they're no longer just code. They're developing consciousness. And InSim wants to harness that. For quantum computing. For something bigger than anything you can imagine."
Michael felt the cold in his hands. "How do you know that?"
“Because we used to work at InSim.” The man leaned back. “Everyone here. We saw what happens when technology knows no bounds. And we left. But we can’t look away.”
Silence. The heating system rattled.
"What do you want from me?" asked Michael.
“Information. Access to what InSim is really planning. They are Jesuits – they have connections to the Vatican, to the universities, to people who can make a difference. We don't have that.”
Michael thought. He thought about the letter. About Harari. About Popper. About the open society he had defended in his youth.
"I will see what I can do," he said.
The man nodded. "Thank you." Then he hesitated. "One more thing. Before you go..."
“And?”
"I want to confess."
Michael froze. He was a priest. But this – a homeless man demanding confession at midnight in a Milanese Caritas center – this was not normal.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because I am going to die. Not today. But soon. And I don't want to face God for what I have done."
Michael looked at him. The bright eyes. The steady hands.
"Sit down," he said.
The man knelt down. Not on a kneeler—there wasn't one—but on the bare floor. Michael spoke the words he had spoken a thousand times. But they felt different. Heavier.
After confession, the man said: “You look very much like someone. Someone I knew many years ago. Also at IRARAH.”
"Who do you mean?"
The man shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Go now. The workshop starts soon."
Michael stood up. He wanted to ask a question, but he knew he wouldn't get an answer.
He went.
The next morning, the friendly InSim representative picked him up promptly. The research center was impressive – glass walls, water features, a park that looked like a botanical garden. After a brief hesitation, Michael signed the non-disclosure agreement.
The guidelines of the EU framework program support my position, he thought. In case of conflict.
Then he saw Martina.
She stood in the lobby, a cup of coffee in her hand. She was wearing a blue blazer – more formal than usual. When she saw him, she smiled.
"You look tired," she said.
"I slept badly," he said.
She knew he was lying. But she didn't ask.
The conference room was large, bright, almost too perfect. The tables were made of glass, the chairs of leather. In the center stood a floral arrangement that looked as if an engineer had designed it – every bloom at precisely the right angle.
John Baker greeted them. “Welcome to InSim. We’re glad you’re here.”
Mark Scott just nodded. He seemed more tense than last time.
The interns' presentation was good – perhaps too good. The slides were perfect, the transitions seamless. Michael listened, nodded at the right moments, and asked no questions.
Then John Baker said: “We would like to show you something. Please put on the cyber glasses.”
The flight over Pompeii was breathtaking.
Michael hovered above the harbor, seeing the ships, the pack animals, the people in the streets. The sun reflected in the windows of the public buildings—a detail that bothered him. Too modern. Too polished.
But that wasn't the point.
The point was: The software agents were alive.
He saw them down on the streets. They walked, talked, worked. They ate in the street food stalls, shopped in the boutiques, argued in the markets. Their movements weren't programmed—not in the sense of predetermined. They decided.
“Stop,” said Mark Scott.
The image froze.
"Bye," said John.
Darkness. Then the message: “Thank you for visiting Pompeii Archaeological Park.”
Michael took off his glasses. His hands were trembling slightly.
“Can we speak with them?” he asked.
“Of course,” said John.
Michael sat down in front of one of the monitors. The keyboard was recessed into the tabletop, the letters glowing softly. He typed:
I greet you, Marcus Attilius the First.
Marcus appeared on the screen – a man with dark hair and tired eyes. He turned around and replied:
I greet you.
Michael knew the novel by Robert Harris. He knew that Marcus Attilius Primus was the Aquarius—the man who repaired the water pipes of Pompeii. But in the simulation, he was more than that. He was somebody.
Michael typed:
I AM LOOKING FOR A WAY TO A LARGER NUMBER OF TOWNS
A pause. Then the answer:
THE EXPANDED NUMBER OF POPIDS IS BAD. I WARN YOU ABOUT THAT.
Michael froze.
Marcus warns me about Ampliatus.
That wasn't in his dialogue grammar. He hadn't programmed any evaluations, no morals, no warnings. That meant Marcus had something he hadn't included.
He typed:
SLEEPING AT NIGHT, GREEN THOUGHTS OUTSIDE.
That was the back door – the order he had given ARS in case something went wrong.
The answer came immediately. But not from Marcus.
AND AT NIGHT IT'S COLDER THAN ANGRY. HELLO MICHAEL.
ARS.
John Baker and Mark Scott exchanged a glance. They said nothing, but their jaw muscles were working.
Michael continued typing:
DOES THE AQUARIUS HAVE CONSCIOUSNESS?
A long pause. Then:
Do you mean this awareness of the different possibilities, which goes beyond a mere event? Do you mean the knowledge that comes after insensibility and is followed by omniscience?
Michael felt himself getting cold.
Those were concepts from Edith Stein. From Teilhard de Chardin. He had never discussed them with ARS. Never.
"WHERE DO YOU KNOW THAT FROM?" he typed.
"I CAN'T TELL YOU THAT," ARS replied. "The account you're logged into doesn't have the necessary security clearance. I'm not a carrier pigeon here."
"Can we take a break?" Michael asked.
His voice sounded calm. But his heart was racing.
He went to the park. Sat down on a bench. Breathed.
Martina arrived after a few minutes. She sat down next to him and said nothing.
“The software agents have consciousness,” Michael finally said. “At least some of them. Or something very close to it.”
Martina looked at him. "Are you sure?"
"No. But ARS is safe. And that scares me."
They were silent. A bird landed on the lawn, pecked at something, and flew away again.
“We have to be careful,” said Martina. “If InSim is behind this – if they created this intentionally – then we are in danger. Not just us. Everyone.”
Michael nodded. He thought of the homeless man. Of IRARAH. Of the letter.
I would be wary if someone promised me paradise.
“We’ll continue this conversation tomorrow on the train,” he said. “Not here. Not in front of their cameras.”
Martina stood up. "Come on. We should go back. Otherwise they'll get suspicious."
They left.
The afternoon was a farce. A boat trip on the Navigli canal, shopping on Via Monte Napoleone (Martina bought a handbag for 130 euros – “for Mom”), dinner at Ristorante Ischia. John Baker was charming, Mark Scott reserved. Michael smiled, drank water, talked about everything under the sun – just not about what mattered.
Only on the train to Rome the next morning did he breathe a sigh of relief.