The Program — Hard fork

Hard fork

IMS: Hello, this is IMS, the author of The Program audio series. Thank you for sticking with me during a long hiatus. More episodes are indeed coming in 2025. The show is currently in the no man's land between becoming a professional production and staying stuck as a glorified hobby. It's a bit like trying to create a prestige HBO drama on a high school theatre group budget. If you're hearing this, it is because you're currently a free listener of The Program audio series. This presumably means that you like the show and would like to hear more of it. In which case I've got great news: By subscribing to The Program's Patreon, you can gain access to 70 minutes of bonus content, and a brand new monthly companion series that examines individual episodes through interviews with the Program's creators. You will also be able to listen to the show the way it's meant to be listened: ad-free. It costs as little as 3 dollars, and there is even a free tier through which you can get monthly reports, discuss the show with fellow listeners, and even take Program quizzes and win prizes. So I recommend pausing now, and subscribing before proceeding. Check out the episode shownotes if you're unsure how to do so. Cheers.

ANNOUNCER: The most common way simulated societies destroy themselves is by accidental deletion. The second most common is by deliberate diffusion.

NARRATORS: Dean was just a child when the fork took place, and he doesn’t remember it well - or rather, it’s one of those memories he can’t be sure actually happened, or if they were constructed retrospectively in his mind, from countless stories and photographs surrounding the event. He did however remember one detail with utmost clarity - how his father told Dean’s uncle on the occasion: “This solves everything. Hunger and war are no more.”

~~~

It was definitely true that the fork was both a scientific wonder, and a miracle of international cooperation. Preparations for it took over a decade, ever since the virtual nature of the world had been uncovered. Truth be told, uncovered is probably not the best term, since the matter wasn’t exactly hidden - the fact that the entirety of the human race lived in a computer simulation became evident pretty much as soon as the said humans got hold of computers. Which is not to say the world wasn’t real - at the end of the day, it was the only reality anyone ever knew. And it’s not like humanity got any of the big questions answered, as the discovery offered no clue as to who the programmer might have been, or why he or she or they had programmed the thing in the first place. Most educated people throughout history suspected something like this anyway, as it was plainly obvious what surrounded them was a bit too perfect to have been a coincidence, and far too imperfect to have been made by someone competent.

Yet caution should be exercised in judging the simulation’s architects too harshly, as it’s not like anyone was able to fully decipher how exactly their product worked. However, while no one had found a way to control the simulation, computer scientists did eventually figure out a way to copy it. Which is to say, to create a perfect duplicate of the world — both the natural part, down to the last squirrel; and all the civilizational upgrades erected until that point; all the buildings, factories, roads, ports, automobiles… Anything built by human hand. Which had two immediate benefits: The first was instantly doubling the infrastructure and production capabilities - basically solving scarcity. The second was to no longer have to jostle for territory - essentially solving conflict. Which explained Dean’s father’s excitement around hunger and war being eliminated - a bold prediction at the time when two blocs, each in possession of nuclear weapons, were jostling to obliterate the planet into nothingness. So the decision had been made to go in the other direction, and increase the number of worlds from one to two, with each side getting their own, settling the argument for good.

There’s one more genuine memory Dean had from this period. It’s how he, upon learning of the duplication of the world, thought he would be getting a twin brother. His mother explained how no, humans would not be copied, but that some of them would simply leave, or be transported — the details were fuzzy — into the second branch. She did however use this opportunity to tell Dean that he’s in luck - he would be getting a baby sister by the end of the year. Dean however failed to see how a baby sister was in any way shape or form comparable to a twin brother, so he started wailing, and didn’t stop for more than an hour.

~~~

Dean’s sister was born after the fork, which is to say after 38% of the world’s population had left the Master Branch (it should be noted that, while the remaining inhabitants were fond of the implied superiority the term “master branch“ carried, the other branch was absolutely identical, just like a cell perfectly divides in two). Even so, the departure of so many people was something abstract to Dean, as almost everyone he knew stayed put. One of the few people in his entire circle who decided to switch branches was his father’s work colleague of Cherooke origin. His exit however didn’t seem to phase father much, as the vanishing Indian was a manager, meaning an opportunity for a promotion had just appeared. Actually, opportunities appeared all over - with large swaths of lands suddenly unoccupied, it was naturally a time of expansion. Territory had to be populated, markets conquered, destiny manifested. It so happened that their next door neighbours moved to settle Eurasia - taking with them their 6-year old son. Dean — not yet having to worry about promotions — missed his friend dearly. Father would try to console him by explaining how the fork was in the long-term beneficial for everyone, and spoke highly of their former neighbours’ temerity which led them in their noble quest. Admittedly, the process did not go entirely without hiccups, and Dean would catch his parents watching newscasts covering skirmishes in the recently vacated areas.

Breaking news tonight - reports are emerging of unprovoked violence, with conflicting accounts about casualties. Eyewitnesses describe heavy gunfire and explosions, but details remain scarce. Though no one has yet claimed involvement or claimed responsibility, officials express concern over escalating tensions in the region, urging all sides for restraint.

So his father’s prediction of the end of hunger and war hadn’t been rendered true just yet. But the pieces were in motion.

~~~

In school, Dean and his sister learned all about the numerous treaties signed that led to the fork. How the dual continent of Americas was returned to the original inhabitants, whose strange ideas of sharing land — or at least not wantonly destroying it — always made them a little suspect. Only eleven languages remained in the Master Branch, so — even though the desire to do away with anything foreign was the fork’s entire raison d'être — kids still could grasp a concept of a foreign language, helping them memorize how something called Quebec went to French speakers, or how Alaska went to folks who spoke Russian, or how Northern Ireland went to people who spoke Catholic in one branch and those who spoke Protestant in the other. Dean had found the entire topic utterly fascinating, and he’d spend hours reading about the nations that left, similar to how some children fixate on long extinct animals. He’d fantasize about coming head to head with the president of the other branch — or whatever their equivalent to a president might be — and how he’d overcome the language barrier like that fictional linguist who talked to alien squids. Most of his peers however, couldn’t care less about the departed - except when it came to their hypothetical progress, which was the topic of endless playground quarrels.

- I wonder if they have Internet in the other branch? Or hoverboards. Man, I bet they’ve already made it to Mars!
- No way! Time flows at the same speed in the other branch, and it’s only been a few years since we made it to the Moon. Those losers probably haven’t managed even that yet!

The kids were almost evenly divided between believing the other branch was failing spectacularly, and thinking it was flourishing tremendously. Whatever the case may be, the subject has certainly been properly kept to the confines of the sandbox, as there was no way to check in on the matter. Once created and populated, the other branch was gone - which arguably was the whole point.

~~~

Dean was in his final year of college when discussions about the second fork started.

Promises of the first one, such as bigger dwellings and farmland, failed to materialize and were mostly conferred to the settlers - and with good reason, for why would anyone have gone through the trouble of moving to another continent without the financial incentive of being a trailblazer. All of this made inherent sense to Dean, who was finishing his studies in computer science (or natural sciences, as the field had been renamed). His sister entered the same university the year he was graduating, getting a degree in sociology. Most of these classes had an open door policy, meaning that any student could freely drop in for lectures and take part in discussions - something that impressed Dean, even if in his less charitable moments he’d chalk it up to a declining number of students enrolled in humanities.

This is also where he heard the first critical analyses of the fork. He listened to the professor, well spoken and with an air of academic authority about her, as she explained how premising the fork on nationality was deeply problematic. She asked the class if they could name some other “societal constructs that could have served as an alternative foundation”. Dean’s sister suggested gender, which spiralled into a long discussion about which world trans athletes would compete in. Specifically, trans polo players. The conversation was going well until Dean asked about the gender of their horses. Unable to determine whether the question came from a place of curiosity or derision, the professor asked him to leave the classroom. Having been recorded by a fellow student and uploaded to social media, the exchange sparked a veritable shitstorm.

Dean always dreaded confrontation, so he refused to comment further on the topic, hoping that media interest would soon move on. His sister on the other hand painted this as cowardice, and proudly explained her views in a series of videos highlighting the “systematic adversity professional polo players face”.

When was the last time you saw a trans athlete in polo? When was the last time you saw a polo match to begin with? Don’t worry, it’s not because of your personal failings as an individual - it’s because of the systemic class issues. Sure, the class being discriminated against in this case is the upper class, but that doesn’t like mean it is any less problematic! I mean, they're literally the 1% - what does that make them? That’s right, a minority. People often criticize the wealthy for being out of touch, but like when was the last time you tried to get in touch with them? And don’t even get me started on just about anyone wearing a polo shirt these days… Hello, ever heard of cultural appropriation?

The exposure however brought her nothing but ridicule, which sister blamed on Dean, as it was his comment that kicked off the whole affair. Dean tried to reason with his sister and appealed to moderation - taking everything into account, the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle. But she would have none of it, asking Dean what if the moderate position was wrong? After all, if someone asked how deep the Mariana Trench was and how tall Mount Everest was, you couldn't just split the difference and call it an answer. Accordingly, she was allowed to point out the extremes in the Master Branch - the extreme inequality, the extreme bigotry, the extreme injustice. "Look, no one's saying the Master Branch doesn't have its failures." - Dean said, to which his sister retorted: "It doesn’t have its failures - it is a failure!" She then stormed out of the room, putting the end to the conversation.

Her brother however didn’t hold this against her, as he was a staunch supporter of engaging everyone in good faith. There are good people on both sides, and it was up to detractors and proponents alike to convince the majority that their arguments held up in the marketplace of ideas. Again, Dean never contended that the Master Branch was perfect - he was merely of the opinion that its shortcomings weren’t a reason to abandon it. Quite the contrary, they were the reason to implement incremental reforms respecting all stakeholder interests. Change — real change — was enacted by voting, that most sacred prerogative of every citizen. I mean, you’d have to be rather extremist to think that starting from an empty slate was preferable. Dean knew all too well how the first instinct of every neophyte software developer who’s handled a legacy project is invariably to delete everything and start from scratch. Needless to say, this is rarely a best practice.

Which is why he was more than a little surprised when the decision to open another branch was made, with the explicit goal of getting rid of subversive elements. The official narrative, cemented through late night comedy sketches and a thousand op-eds, was that “radical sentiments espoused at universities have started to be detrimental for the society at large”. Anyone holding these views was deemed to have grown toxic beyond help, and as such incited to leave - after all, if they didn’t like the society they inhabited, no one was holding them hostage. One prominent podcaster compared it to releasing the valve on a pressure cooker.

Folks, let me tell you something - the only “systemic change” we need is jettisoning the nonsense these ivory tower revolutionaries spew out! And you know what? Fine! Let ‘em have it! Let ‘em build their safe space utopia where every noun is a pronoun, where biology textbooks come with trigger warnings, and where the national anthem is just a 10-hour loop of rambling about redistribution! Well I say we redistribute them to their own branch! It’ll be like releasing the valve on a pressure cooker! Because mark my words - within six months, that branch would collapse faster than a gender studies major’s job prospects!

This prompted a social media trend of people uploading photos of them wearing pots instead of hats as their profile picture. Dean even retweeted a few of their posts as a sign of support - let no one say he was unsympathetic to the hardship of the disadvantaged.

The young man’s musings were interrupted by a glance at his phone, left on mute so that he wouldn’t have to go through the media circus accompanying the fork.

17 missed calls from his mother and 2 from his father.

Sensing dread, Dean immediately called back, only to be greeted with sobs. His mother tried to form a sentence, but was unable to do so. So his father took the phone, and informed Dean that his sister left for the other branch to decolonize Australia.

~~~

The third fork was fought with blood.

Dean’s mother has always had a propensity towards unstable mental states. But next to two kids and a husband of average usefulness (which is to say, largely useless) she never had the freedom to fully indulge in her predilections. Not until one of those two kids had gone with the fork forever. So she started to imagine various life paths her daughter might be living through, similar to how Dean and his schoolmates used to fantasize how far along space exploration in the other branch went (incidentally, in the Master Branch it ended up going nowhere, with no one setting foot on the Moon ever again, let alone other planets). So one day his sister was a successful businesswoman, and another day she had a husband, three kids, and a golden retriever, despite having always been a cat person who showed little interest in children. Or in men.

Dean never told his parents about the tense conversation he and his sister had before her sudden departure, and it weighed on him heavily. So he started to look for a way to contact the other branches - joining a legion of programmers who were trying to do the same. He knew of course the matter was basically hopeless, as apart from the duplication exploit the simulation was proving to be unhackable. But he’d spend hours poking around the source code anyway, his QWERTY incantations searching not for vulnerabilities, as much as for absolution. The time he was able to devote to the matter however was growing scarcer - now in his mid-thirties, Dean was finally taking steps towards creating a family of his own, having met his would-be wife shortly after the second fork.

[Dean being yelled at in a foreign language]

She was a holdover, which is to say a left-behind member of one of the nation-states that vacated the Master Branch, and as such, was now a minority. The second fork bled a further 20 to 25 percent of the population - being much less carefully planned than the first one, estimates of exactly how many people left varied. In theory, this should have had some favourable effects, for example lowering the pressure on the healthcare system. In practice, a lot of people who left for the other branch were doctors, and it meant that gaining access to medicine was even more difficult than before. In theory, traffic congestion should have been alleviated; in practice, a decrease in the population rendered most public transit options unfeasible, so with everyone taking their car everywhere, the average commute was worse than ever. But the most severe problem was a shortage of homes. How it was still possible for houses to be scarce after two forks, Dean didn’t understand, but economists assured him this was perfectly normal and a sign of a strong real estate market, which was in the long-term beneficial for everyone. So the only thing required from Dean and his wife was faith that things would improve.

[Dean being yelled at some more]

~~~

Dean’s daughter was born shortly afterwards. She was a precocious child who showed a great talent for art, or at least for devouring crayons from an early age. Dean would often see glimmers of his sister in her, and would sometimes worry she’d take after her - after all, it’s a small step from liberal to fine arts. Not that there was anything inherently wrong with either - it’s just that this wasn’t a time for folks with a cavalier attitude towards money. As it happened, the departure of people who thought society’s abundance should be distributed in a way that benefits everyone, meant that those remaining in the Master Branch were now at the pleasure of people who thought the opposite. Naturally, this didn’t go down well with folks at the receiving end of that bargain, so various champions rose up who advocated for yet another fork - one through which the poor, the marginalized, and the downtrodden could achieve self-determination.

A spectre is haunting the Master Branch — the spectre of the third fork. All the powers of the old order have joined forces to exorcise this spectre, yet in doing so, they only confirm its inevitability. What independence movement has not been decried as separatist by those in power? By this, they betray the truth every outsider already knows: the history of forks is the history of fighting for the right to be left alone!

However, unlike the second fork in which the unwanted populace was not only allowed to leave, but was actively encouraged to do so, those in charge were now dissuading anyone from even breaching the subject, mainly by threatening them with sedition charges. Alternatively — if the advocate in question was especially persuasive — he’d be subject to System Migration, or, as detractors dubbed it, branch deportation. Dean personally found this to be an unnecessarily loaded term, for far from being unjust, or scary, or whatever negative connotation the term “deportation” carried, the solution the authorities came up with was both ethical and efficient. They’d simply lock the offender in a room, open a new branch, and wait it out until the subject left of their own accord. The procedure was legally sound, maintaining the inviolable right to habeas corpus - even if the corpus in question would end up in a different world. The policy could even be described as generous - all things considered, which other society was affording its malefactors a private habitat for the rest of their days?

Yet in spite of this, some bleeding hearts insisted this amounted to a cruel and unusual punishment - but these were invariably either misguided souls, or professional activists pursuing an agenda. Nonetheless, in time these hardline civil society agitators managed to provoke riots, which Dean utterly detested. To be clear, he wasn’t against protesting in general - after all, political protests were an essential tool in the democratic toolbox. He was however of the firm opinion they shouldn’t inconvenience nonparticipants. This was especially true since he agreed with the demonstrators’ goal in principle — of course things should be somewhat improved at some point; it’s not like Dean was against progress — but it was illusory to expect change overnight. These were multifaceted issues, requiring a multi-pronged approach. Dean was convinced a lot of people’s fortunes could reverse in an instant, if only they invested their time and energy into finding solutions instead of complaining. Again, to avoid any misunderstandings, his heart was absolutely with them - but he had zero tolerance for violence and anyone lacking respect for private property.

Obviously, Dean was the kind of person who carefully reflected on the world and devoted a lot of thought to his role in it. His wife however, much more solution-oriented, took advantage of an illegally opened fork and carried off their child to another branch the first chance she got.

~~~

The fourth fork was organized in great haste.

With her granddaughter gone forever just like her daughter before, the rubber band that had held Dean’s mother’s psyche together finally snapped. She had become easy prey for “Intermediaries” - swindlers who claimed they succeeded in breaking through to other branches and exchanged messages with them. Never voice or video calls — as those were purportedly too data-intensive — but exclusively texts. Dean knew that communication between branches was definitely beyond the means of some dime-store hackers - and he knew it because he actually managed to pull it off. Or rather, the elite group of IT researchers Dean joined did, who — after endless man-hours sunk into the effort — finally succeeded in sending messages to another branch. But they couldn’t know who exactly received them, whether they were read or not, and — most importantly — there was no way for the other branch to message back. To call this “communication” was akin to shouting into the void and claiming you’re networking with the abyss. Still, it was the first step towards possibly reversing the process - an endeavour Dean and his colleagues informally termed Project Humpty Dumpty, displaying a healthy dose of self awareness about their odds, but also showing courage they might actually succeed in their mission to put things together again.

Their results however were still very tentative and still very far off, while his dear mother was very close to being undone by some very real scammers.  Not that Dean was allowed to use that word, which according to his mother was a manifestation of a negative mindset. "I'm beginning to suspect that whoever said that people use only 10% of their brains was being generous." - Dean remarked to his mom after one particularly exhausting argument. To which she replied: "I'm not sure about their brains, but they do use only 10% of their hearts." This made Dean reconsider his approach. When you think about it, who's a greater fool - a fool, or he who argues with a fool? Also, the “IT séances” seemed to assuage his mother’s pain somewhat, so he came to view the service as a form of therapy (and truth be told, it was probably cheaper than real therapy). So very soon he’d find himself happily confirming that sis was now the viceroy of Queensland, if that was the latest fiction that brought mother joy.

~~~

It had been a couple of years since the unauthorized third fork, which most folks didn’t consider a proper fork to begin with, as it was largely people from the periphery that availed themselves of it - meaning people who no one really cared about even while they were still around. And it was exactly in one of the vacated corners of the world, now mostly an uninhabited territory overtaken by wildlife, that a new virus appeared. Well, it wasn’t new exactly, as it was an offshoot of a familiar viral disease, the only one humanity has ever eradicated - only for it to now come back, like a drunk appearing behind the bar owner after he’s kicked him out.

With the Master Branch down to a third of its population before all the forking started, the medical establishment’s capacity to come up with a coherent response was greatly diminished, and the illness soon spread around like a bastard child of Usain Bolt and Typhoid Mary. And while rarely fatal, it was still dangerous for anyone old, or infirm, or with a preexisting condition - which described a sizable number of Master Branch inhabitants. Luckily there was an easy way to stop people from falling ill in the first place - as stated, the virus was a variant of the same malady that humanity stopped once in the past, so a single dose of variola vera vaccination offered close to 100% protection. The issue was less a medical, and more a marketing one - as it required injecting small quantities of the said pathogen, which was so connected to death and suffering that the media started to refer to it exclusively by its many synonyms, and never the name it was best known as - smallpox.

Which is why, when presented with the option of potentially contracting what to many seemed like a bad case of the sniffles, and the option of getting injected with what was essentially a medieval pestilence — no matter how inert, no matter how many times inactivated, no matter how many steps removed from the real thing — a lot of people opted for the sniffles. Unfortunately, the health care system was by then basically palliative even in the best of times, and a global pandemic hardly qualifies as the best of times. So an eviction order had been issued, instructing all inhabitants to get the vaccine, or get the fuck out.

ATTENTION ALL MASTER BRANCH RESIDENTS. THIS IS AN OFFICIAL ORDER ISSUED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE EMERGENCY POWERS ACT. A NEW BRANCH WILL BE OPENED EXACTLY 24 HOURS FROM NOW. ALL RESIDENTS WITHOUT A VACCINATED STATUS ARE COMPELLED TO SWITCH TO IT. FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH THIS ORDER ENDANGERS YOUR LIFE AND THE LIVES OF OTHERS.

 

As soon as he heard the news, Dean drove to his parents’ house to ensure they got their shots in time. Once there, he found them arguing, which in itself wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was that the standard roles were reversed - it was his mother who seemed largely unphased by the conversation, and his father who was beside himself. In fact, Dean had a hard time remembering if he ever saw his dad distraught before. “What’s going on?” — was the best Dean was able to muster, upon which he learned of his mother’s staunch refusal to get vaccinated, adamant to switch to the new branch - the one that was basically a leper colony.

It was now two male family members who were hysterical. At first mom stayed mum on the reasoning behind her decision, but father and son eventually managed to put together a picture. Apparently, at some point in her journey to contact the other branches, mom stumbled upon some “alternative” online communities who were of the conviction that the deadly virus was nothing but a hoax, and that it was folks getting “the blight vaccine” who were really putting themselves in harm’s way. Mom wasn’t able to elucidate exactly who was behind this dastardly plan - at times it sounded like the culprits came from the highest echelons of power; at other times like it was a secret cabal running the underground state who were the real puppet masters; and at others she made it sound like the whole thing was orchestrated by unpatriotic anti-state fringe groups. Either case, the vaguely defined “they” wouldn’t succeed in pulling the wool over her eyes - no sir, she was not having it. But it was okay, Dean and his dad did not need to worry, as they would soon be reunited just the same. Apparently, a hacker group calling themselves Early Adopters contacted the simulation’s original architect - an all-powerful and all-knowing System Administrator, who left the Master Branch once She saw the logic errors of the human race. However, if we all apply ourselves and make ourselves worthy, the SysAdmin promised to return and conduct the Great Merge, recombining all the branches back into one, as they were, as they are, and as they will be, joined in a glorious loop for infinity.

Dean knew he didn’t have a lot of time, and that he had to choose his words carefully. He started by acknowledging his mother’s concerns, but then gently explained how every society has its problems, which might seem simple but are in fact fiendishly complex - so much so that he actually wished they could be solved by identifying evil masterminds behind it and punishing them - they could definitely agree on that. He pointed out however that it was a once-in-a-lifetime medical emergency that necessitated forking, instead of some devious palace intrigue. The real problem is that we’ve lost the art of civil discourse; we need to have a national conversation to find bold new ideas and holistic solutions. The soul of Master Branch hung in the balance, and the moment demanded sombre reflection instead of partisan finger-pointing. Basically, he was doing everything he could to pull his mother from the land of fairytales back to the land of self-evident truths.

Her answer however was quite curt. “You boys take care of each other” - she said, and gave them both a peck on the cheek. Then she walked out into the summer. Dean never made up his mind if she opted for the plagued branch because she truly believed it was the safest option, or precisely the opposite.

~~~

It was becoming increasingly obvious more forks would be needed.

Dean was now in his fifties and struggling with diabetes, which put him in the ironic position of having to care for his father even though father was arguably in better condition than Dean was. But dad had been born into a cohort of men who were never expected to be able to sustain themselves on their own, their needs delegated from their mothers to their wives to their nurses. The problem was exacerbated by Dean’s financial situation, as even his above-average programming income still couldn't meet even half of his monthly insulin expenses.

Despite the non-proliferation treaties, all former nation-states big enough to pull off a fork did so already, basically getting their own branch as soon as they got hold of the technology. Only 100 million people remained in the Master Branch, which might sound sizable, but it’s roughly the size of the population when humanity adopted agriculture - the number is impossible to confirm, as no census had been taken back then, and nothing approaching a census could be conducted under the present circumstances either. One thing was certain however - with the population so low, the government — or rather, its vestiges — imposed strict austerity measures, cutting back on public spending as much as possible. Dean didn’t exactly comprehend how that would help - after all, you solve scarcity through growth, not reduction. So he did what everyone would do in a similar situation - he expressed his concerns to his representative. The wide-smiled woman was in the midst of a re-election campaign so she couldn’t go too deep into the issue, but she told Dean not to worry, because while cuts might inflict some short-term pains, this course of action was in the long-term beneficial for everyone. This relieved Dean’s worries - not so much regarding this specific ballot issue, but hearing that the electoral process was still rightfully inviolable.

~~~

The decline of living standards meant that Dean rarely ate out - he only did so with his dad three times per year to commemorate the forks their loved ones took. The ostensibly celebratory occasion always had a melancholic whiff about it, but both Dean and his father made a point in keeping the tradition alive, if only because it was a chance for them to enjoy meat or fish, which were increasingly in short supply, just like out of season fruit and vegetables, coffee, and spices - basically anything that grows above ground. Even firewood was becoming hard to come by - a serious problem with winters becoming more harsh, and the energy grid less reliable.

“Let’s hope other branches are thriving at least.” - was the best Dean could offer as a toast when their bottle of rationed fermented cassava was served. Despite working on the problem more fervently than ever in the wake of losing his mother to a fork as well, Dean and his team made no progress on project Humpty Dumpty. Even getting a mere reply from other branches remained out of reach, let alone managing to somehow reunite them. “You should get the cod.” - father suggested, instead of replying to his son’s lacklustre toast. Dean opted for osso buco instead, keeping to himself that he hadn’t eaten fish since an allergic reaction landed him in the ER when he was 7.

Dean often suspected father lost his marbles during the pandemic and never found all of them again. But he never doubted the old man’s heart at least was still in the right place. Which is why what father shared once the food arrived almost made Dean spit out both the osso and the buco. Apparently, the old man decided to cast the vote in the upcoming elections for a known populist and a crude demagogue, a man of simplistic slogans and sordid solutions, whose ignorance was matched only by his arrogance.

Dean always believed in evidence based policy. So he was beyond frustrated that the choice of so many of his compatriots was a morally bankrupt opportunist. Sure, Dean understood average voters aren't going to pick the best candidate - they're going to pick the one most like them, he had no illusions about that, but that their flagbearer would turn out to be so loud, so stupid, so bigoted, and so proud of all three, well that was something that stretched even Dean’s boundless tolerance to its limits.

So he berated father on his choice. Father however did not take kindly to this criticism, accusing his son of not seeking dialogue but blind agreement, to which Dean said he’d gladly agree with him but then they’d both be wrong. “Truth is everlasting, and not something you can discard when it’s no longer useful!” - Dean argued, then added in raised volume - “Facts don’t care about your feelings!” “Well feelings don’t care about your facts either!” - father yelled back. “You wanna know what truth is? Truth is anything that people agree on. Truth is just another word for consensus; another word for trust! And trust is like virginity - it can only be lost once! Nobody is thinking anything for themselves any more!”

Dean was adamant not to repeat the mistake of going along with craziness. “You can pretend it’s not raining, but you’ll get wet.” - he said, reminding his father how his mother also fell prey to charlatans and false prophets, mixing up the truth for what she wished were true. This is not who we are! - was his impassioned plea, reminding his dad of the high ideals of the co-founding fathers.

Which made the old man brusquely state that none of this even mattered, as in the event his candidate doesn’t win the election, he and his supporters would follow him into a branch of their own.

Now it was Dean’s turn to freak out. He pleaded with father to reconsider joining the legion of the strongly opinionated and the poorly informed. He tried to steer the topic back to dad’s wellbeing, asking if he even knew if anyone doing water treatment and desalination would be joining this new branch. Which made the old man declare he’d rather live without water than without freedom. “Well I’ve got excellent news then, as you won’t live.” - was Dean’s final retort, which plunged the table into silence.

“You know, Dean” - father finally said once he spoke again - “Perhaps you devoted too much of your life trying to communicate with the other branches, instead of communicating inside your own.”

Then he went back to his cod.

~~~

Dean got home that night feeling deflated. With so many people having left the Master Branch, he finally got a big house, but with energy prices soaring he could only afford to heat up one room properly, so effectively he still lived in a shoebox. His father on the other hand was able to utilize Dean’s entire childhood home because the place had three fireplaces - even if the wood shortage meant he had to resort to burning books from the family library. Thankfully he let Dean grab a few of his favourites before the winter really showed its teeth. Not that Dean was in the mood for reading that night. Instead, he did what he always did when he needed to take his mind off things - he made another perfunctory attempt at project Humpty Dumpty.

He fidgeted in front of the monitor, its blank screen taunting him. It was a feeling he was unfortunately well acquainted with - the anxiety-inducing infinite potential of an empty code line. Too often he would sit down, fully resolved to take a novel path, to make any kind of progress, only for his mind to wander off - something doubly true tonight, after half a bottle of fermented cassava. Which is when he recalled a throwaway sentence father had said earlier at dinner: “Nobody is thinking anything for themselves any more.”

The danger was never that people wouldn't think of anything for themselves. The danger was that people wouldn't think of anything but themselves.

Which propelled Dean’s mind down a completely new track, one that filled him with instant dread.

It was a thought both brilliant and horrid, equally audacious and frightening, at the same time illuminating and extinguishing all that’s good and bright.

But once he had it, he had to test it.

So he spent the next few days — two? three? a week? — frantically typing tests with his cold fingers that would prove the hypothesis wrong, and then writing test of tests, and finally tests for those tests, until all other explanations were discarded, until every alternative was eliminated, until there was no doubt in his pained mind that all other options had been vanquished.

The reason he wasn’t getting replies to his messages wasn’t because people in other branches weren’t able to respond to them. It’s because there had been no one to respond. Branches could be copied, but nothing could be added to them. They were in effect read only.

~~~

Dean’s mother, daughter, sister, and ex-wife flashed before his eyes - all of them gone; gone in the most harrowing sense of the word. But he consciously blocked that thought from fully forming, for there was a much more pressing one. While he was in his coding frenzy, the elections had been held. Both candidates declared victory, leaving everybody a loser. So a unilateral fork had been opened - the one his father vowed to take, unaware that it led into nothingness. And in exactly one hour and three minutes the branch would be finalized.

He immediately called his father to warn him. But as usual his phone was set on mute, or out of battery, or in the basement, or stolen by the leprechauns, or whatever the fucking fuck father does with his phone.

So Dean jumped into his old car, which he kept parked in the garage filled with the last half tank of gas he siphoned off for an emergency and dear god knows this was one.

He sped through the frozen city streets, empty of cars, empty of people, and empty of any hope he would get to dad on time, desperately trying to reach him, each unanswered ring another stab into the heart as seconds to the baneful fork mercilessly slipped away.

~~~

With mere minutes to spare, Dean crashed the car into a snowbank in front of his childhood home and kicked the front door open. Father was at the dinner table, oblivious to the imminent danger, apparently eating a parsnip porridge, or at least something that Dean surmised was parsnip porridge, with parsnips being one of the few staples there wasn’t a shortage of, either case what exactly father’s meal was wasn’t the right question, the right question was much more pertinent and much less straightforward, namely: How does he tell the man that their entire family is dead?

“What is it, Dean? You’re letting the cold in… Dean, you’re scaring me.” - father said, his concerned eyes intent on his son. Dean’s eyes on the other hand darted towards the huge countdown displayed on every screen of every device - in four minutes and forty seconds, the branch would get forked forever.

Dean opened his mouth, but words did not come out. “I’m here to… I’m here to tell you…” - was the most he could get out before choking up. Three and half minutes remained - no time at all, but to Dean, every second seemed excruciatingly long.

Which is when he became aware of the music playing on the home speakers. It seemed that in preparation for his departure, father spent the last few days rummaging through old boxes and taking things out of storage - including old music discs.

And it was at that moment that Dean was transported back to the first fork. The first fork and his first memory, one and the same. How hopeful and excited everybody was! His mother, so young and so beautiful. His sister hadn’t been born yet, but Dean could sense her presence, so full of life, so full of potential. And his daughter, his little baby girl, smiling, cooing, still the perfect size to fit into his arms, still perfect… The lump in Dean’s throat finally melted, allowing him to answer his father’s question.

“I am here to tell you that I’m coming with you.”

Father’s eyes widened. “You are?”

“Yes, dad. You were right. You were right about everything.”

Years dissipated off his father’s face, and Dean could have sworn he looked just like he did on that day long ago. It was now dad who struggled to find the words. He settled on just three: “Thank you, son.”

Dean swung around the table and sat next to him. “I love you, dad” - he said, and with less than a minute remaining, selected to be transported to the other branch with him. Then he rested his head on his father’s shoulder, tears trickling into unsalted parsnip porridge. The last book in the fireplace went out a long time ago but the two men didn’t feel the cold. They could only hear the music.

The new branch closed off and the fork was finalized. To preserve unity, it was decided a new fork would be opened every 4 years.

ANNOUNCER: This episode of The Program was made by three people: Jacqueline Ainsworth, Pat Fry, and IMS. Main music theme by Christien Ledroit. Visit programaudioseries.com for more details. Don’t forget to join The Program’s free Patreon. Free members get monthly reports, free quizzes, and can discuss the show with fellow listeners. You can also get access to bonus material and can listen to all the episodes ad-free by joining a paid tier for as little as $3. Visit patreon.com/programaudioseries, or follow the link in shownotes.

WRITTEN, DIRECTED, EDITED AND PRODUCED BY

Ivan Mirko S.

CAST

FEMALE NARRATOR - Jacqueline Ainsworth (website)
MALE NARRATOR - Pat Fry (website)

THE PROGRAM MAIN THEME BY

Christien Ledroit (website)

SPECIAL THANKS TO

Dan Stopnicki

"O COME O COME EMMANUEL" RENDITIONS BY

Performed by Amy Turk (website); Arranged by Edwin McLean (website) - This arrangement © 2003 Frank J. Hackinson Publishing Co. (BMI) - International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved. Used with Permission.
Christien Ledroit (website)
Isaac Shepard (website)

REFERENCES:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanishing_Indian

original art by Carlos Costa

Courtesy of Dad full of hope