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“So, how does it work?”
Finn had assumed he’d already had dumbed down everything far enough, but apparently, that wasn’t the case. After all, he had explained his machine to his friend twice now, and he still didn’t seem to understand.
“Evan, come on, you’re just as smart as I am, possibly even smarter.”
“Not just possibly. But what you’ve been telling me is absolute bullshit, so I assume you haven’t told me the truth yet.”
“Are you serious?” Finn pushed back his chair, smashing the palms of his hands on the desk, which made Evan flinch. “You think I’ve been lying to you about this? About our whole universe being a simulation? About me finding a way to manipulate it? Why would I make this up? You’ve seen the apple float!” 
“Come on, man! You’ve had this theory since forever. I get that you really want to prove it, but you don’t have to resort to cheap magic tricks. You’re better than that.”
“Cheap magic …” Finn interrupted himself, gasping for air. “You can’t be serious! You think I’ve been faking this?”
“Look, I admit that it’s a great trick. I can’t see any strings. How are you doing it, mirrors? Some kind of hologram? I know, a magician never tells his tricks, but I’m your best friend, you can be honest. Why are you doing this? Is your funding running out? Need something astonishing to present to the investors?”
“No. None of that. I’ve been telling you the truth. I’ve been showing you the truth. But you obviously refuse to acknowledge it. Why is that? Why can’t you at least attempt to believe me for a moment?”
Finn’s heart was pounding in his chest so violently, that he felt it beating in his throat. Suddenly, he noticed that he had been grinding his teeth for the past few minutes, whenever he hadn’t been talking. Closing his eyes, he took several deep breaths and consciously unclenched his jaw.
“What”, Finn slowly said, trying to keep his voice calm, “what if I am right? Can you please just put your doubts aside for a moment and act like I am? Humor me.”
“You’re crazy, Finn. But alright, I will pretend to believe you. You’ve discovered that our universe is just a large simulation, yes? And you’ve found a way to manipulate it with mathematical formulas, using them as an overly complicated programming language?”
“That’s one way to put it, yes.”
“And how is it possible that you can access the simulation from the inside of the simulation? That sounds like a pretty shitty design if you ask me.”
“Well, I was always opposing the whole intelligent design theory anyway.” Finn attempted a smile, and Evan let out a laugh that quickly turned into a snort.
“You’re a buffoon.”
“Buffoon? Really?”
“Ah, leave me alone. You didn’t answer my question.”
“The one about how I accessed the ‘code’ of the simulation?”
“Yeah.”
Finn rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“That’s hard to explain”, he said.
“Right, because it’s impossible.”
“No, that’s not it. I … the explanation will just make you believe me less.”
“I already don’t believe you at all. Try me.”
“You’ve heard of gravitational waves, haven’t you?” Finn watched his friend’s face, looking for, hoping for the smallest sign that Evan started believing him. Without success.
“Yeah, the physicists keep rambling about them. Something about merging stars and shit, sending ripples through space-time. Deforming mirrors here on Earth, causing laser beams to not be reflected properly. Something like that.”
“Yes, something like that. I assumed that these waves aren’t necessarily created the way the physicists think they are. After all, they warp something that shouldn’t possibly be warped. Space? Time? Sounds like there’s something more going on.”
“Naturally.” The sarcasm that resonated in Evan’s voice prompted Finn to start clenching his teeth again – and his fists too. Regardless of that, he continued. He needed to make him understand.
“I thought, what if these waves come from the outside? What if they’re not part of the simulation, but something controlling it? I then started to collect all data available on gravitational waves. Honestly, it was a mess.”
Evan chuckled.
“Yeah. It’s a bunch of scientists from several countries, working together. It’s hard enough to work with and share data among the people from your own lab.”
“Exactly. It took me a while to get everything together. And the data didn’t tell me much. The calculations that had already been done were based on a completely different theory. I needed to start from scratch. And then I found a pattern.”
“A pattern? One that has been overlooked by everyone else so far? Sure.”
“Nobody was looking for this pattern! You wouldn’t notice it if you weren’t looking for it! But there it was, hidden in the waves, in each and every single one. A pattern. Ones and zeros. A language that I couldn’t understand at first, but after breaking it down, trying to combine it with what we know about mathematics … I realized it’s a way in. I just needed to give the correct input back.”
“And that’s what your machine does?”
“That’s what my machine does.”
Did he get through to Evan? Explaining how he had made this discovery had filled Finn with a rush of adrenaline. Mentally reliving these exciting moments. The sleepless nights during which he redid every calculation. The first formula he had decided to feed the program, improving it until it had finally produced an undeniable result …
“That’s bullshit.”
Finn’s heart sank, there was absolutely zero warmth in Evan’s voice.
“Evan”, he said, struggling to keep his voice from breaking.
“No. Your story is fun, I give you that. But you can’t sit here, lie to my face, and think I will believe you. At first, I assumed you were just trying to prank me. But this is going too far. You sound crazy! All of this is crazy! If you really believe you’ve tapped into this simulation, then you need help. Professional help. And maybe you need to go outside more too.” Evan stood up, grabbed his coat and walked towards the door.
“Evan, please”, Finn whispered, while his friend let the door fall shut behind him. The silence that followed was deafening.
Finn looked at his watch. It was 19:22. He flipped the switch that turned on the machine.
“Load formula Rewind Time. Set parameter to 120 minutes.”
Blue light filled the room.
There was a knock on the door, and Evan stepped in.
“Hey, Finn!” He said. “Long time no see!” Finn gave him a smile, suppressing the stabbing pain of sadness in his chest.
“Evan, thanks for coming by. We really need to hang out more. It’s so frustrating to spend my time alone with experiments that don’t work …”
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