Episode Eight: A Way Out

“There is one way out,” said William Kilgore, his moment of excitement faded and his voice turned dull,  “but we probably don't have enough time.  Dean will kill us before it works.”  He stood up and turned to walk back into the lodge.
“Stop,” said Jim also getting to his feet.  “I don't care if we have a million to one chance, we have to try.”
William sighed.  He walked back onto the balcony over to the railing and pointed east where a line of mountains made the horizon.  “Do you see those mountains?”
“Yes,” said Jim.
“Do you know what is on the other side of them?” when Jim didn't respond he kept talkin, “A void. Nothing.  There isn't even a slope down the other side.  If you step into that void the program will crash; but it isn't that simple, because as soon as you look over that ridge the computer will generate a new landscape and fill in the void.  The horizon will extend and the void will once again be just out of sight.  That is why it is called The Endless Frontier,  the horizon just keeps moving away always out of sight.”
“Then where is our chance?  You said we had a least a small one.”
“Although the program can generate an endless landscape,  the computer has a limited memory.  I just now realized that if the horizon was pushed back enough it would fill up the entire hard drive on the computer and  stop.  Someone could then step over the horizon and into the void.  That would cause an error in the programs logic triggering an emergency termination of the program.  In the emergency termination code is a line that cuts power to Dean's machines cutting all connections to the brain.”
“How far would I have to go to reach the horizon?”
“I don't know, some landscapes take more memory than others.  If you walk in a canyon it would take a long time because the only thing calculated is the canyon walls,  on a prairie you can see farther so more memory would be used.  Standing on a mountain top, or any high place, will force the program to generate a lot of landscape.  Even if you see it from miles away, the computer generates in great detail.
“To be honest I'm not even sure how much memory the server we are running on has.  I altered all the CPUs and the main infrastructure, but I left behind all my hard drives when we moved it to a new building.  Dean bought all the hard memory and had his assistant install them.  As far as I know there might be enough memory to generate the equivalent of the entire earths surface and more.”
“But you don't know.  Which gives us a chance.  Where can I find equipment?”
“There is more than you could ever want in the basement.  What you can't find there is in the shed outside—what do you plan to do?  It could take years to find the horizon.”
“You see that mountain peak, I'm going to climb it.  Then I will head east into whatever land the computer makes for me.  I will travel along the highest routs I can find viewing as much land as I can.  And when I reach the horizon I will escape.”
“Your chances of succeeding are a million to one.  Dean is likely to kill us any day now.  It will take you months at lest to find the horizon.”
“At least I will have a chance.  By sitting here you are willfully choosing to die.”  Jim turned in anger from William and stormed away.
William remained on the balcony.  Jim's words stung him.  The worst part was that he knew Jim was right.  He had given up and was waiting to die.  That is why he never really made progress on the water wheel.  That is why he didn't go out into the wild himself.  He was angry at himself for not caring, but still he sat there on the balcony, doing nothing.
About an hour later he watched silently as Jim appeared on the trail below and marched into the woods.  It was almost dark, William thought he would have at lest waited till dawn, but there he was full of energy and determination facing the unknown.  Jim never looked back. Never looked up to see if William was still on the balcony.  Envy welled up inside William, for a month now he had sat practically idle at the lodge.  He had taken a few walks in the woods and canoed on the lake a few times, but every evening he returned feeling trapped.  Everything felt useless and hopeless.  He envied Jim's courage and determination and was angered at his own inability to do anything.
    He returned to the room he had made his own and climbed into bed, but that night he couldn't sleep.  He lay awake looking at the ceiling made of wooden logs knowing the too were part of the digital illusion that had become his world.  For years he had worked day an night on computer simulated reality.  Time and time again people had hailed him a genius.  If only they saw me now, he thought, they would know how weak I really am.  
Out under the stars, Jim walked swiftly down the trail.  A full moon shown down through the pines and gave him enough light to avoid roots and rocks in the path.  He knew that he couldn't sleep even if he stopped and made camp, so he continued walking.  Over and over the events of the past day paraded through his mind.  Over and over he saw the look in Dean's eyes when pushed him into the room called The Portal.  Jim liked to think that he was a calm man, but he felt anger now like he had never felt before.  Fueled by fear and a sense of betrayal that anger propelled him onward.  Even when the trail ended and he had to weave through the trees and brush, he pushed onward.