Nobody panicked, which was the strangest part.
The paper had been published six months ago. The evidence was technical and the summary was simple: the distribution of certain quantum events was not random. It followed a pattern consistent with computational optimization. The universe, in other words, appeared to be saving processing power in ways that only made sense if it was running on something.
Professor Ito read the paper the day it came out. Then she read it again. Then she went to class and taught Introduction to Physics to twenty-year-olds who had already seen the memes.
“So we’re in a video game?” asked a student.
“No,” said Ito. “We are in a system. The system may or may not be a simulation. The paper demonstrates an anomaly consistent with one particular model. It is not proof.”
But it felt like proof. And the world, oddly, continued. People went to work. Traffic moved. The coffee shop on the corner served the same mediocre latte. The simulation, if it was one, did not appear to be in any hurry to reveal itself further.
Ito walked home in the rain and felt the water on her face and thought: if this is a simulation, it is a very beautiful one. And if it isn’t, then it is a very beautiful universe. And either way, the rain is wet, and I am here, and that is enough.