What am I? Am I real?

How can I know?

I saw myself in a machine. I saw Husband steering me around in a machine. I steered myself around. I made myself walk through familiar halls, places where I had talked to traders, places with sounds and smells and textures in the floor. Real places.

Are they real?

Am I real?

When Husband first told me in Eorzea about seeing me with a machine, he spoke of "sponsoring" me and "guiding" me. That was not sponsoring and guiding that I saw. That was making me walk and making me do things. That was me being a puppet or a mammet. Though even mammets seem to act on their own.

I know I am not the person in the machine. I know I am in Earth, and that I was not walking through Limsa hallways when Husband steered the person in the machine. But Husband says we may be mere copies of ourselves in Eorzea. Does that mean the me in Eorzea was running through Limsa then because Husband was telling her to?

Have I ever done anything because I wanted to? Have I ever thought for myself, acted for myself, liked or disliked or loved because of myself?

Am I real?

I thought those things as I watched Husband play his game. I kept thinking them in bed. I am still thinking them now.

Husband gave me an answer of sorts when I demanded it of him. He fell asleep holding me. For the first time since getting here sleep was not coming to me.

"Husband."

"Hm."

"Tell me a story."

"Hm?"

"You tell so many stories. You tell people stories of me being a fangirl and being a combat veteran and being a baker. Tell me a story of me being real."

"You're as..."

"Do not tell me that. You sat at that computer and pushed buttons and made me do things. I need to know that is not me. I need to know that I think, that I do, that I am, that I...have..."

"Agency."

"Whatever. Yes. I need something to believe. Tell me a story."

He was quiet. His breathing told me he was awake. I waited.

"Okay. This is a story about quantum mechanics and happentracks and Roger Zelazny's amber stories."

I waited.

"Quantum mechanics has to do with breaking down everything into pieces that can be observed mathematically. This includes pieces that are too small to actually observe. So quantum mechanics has to allow for uncertainty, and sets of possibilities for the conditions of things. You can look up something called 'Shrodinger's cat' for an example of that. The idea is that if there are multiple possibilities for the state of a thing, they're all equally possible and have to be treated as a set until you actually observe the thing and determine which possibility is true."

"What does this have to do with..."

"I'm getting to that. 'Happentrack' is a term from a set of stories, and relates to the idea of multiple possibilities and the multiverse. At any given time you're doing something, even if it's standing still. At that moment there's a set of possibilities for what you're going to do next. Each possibility is a happentrack. Each happentrack represents an entire universe in which you did in fact do a particular thing as opposed to some other thing. So from any given moment there's more and more of you spread out over more and more universes, all of whom did something different. So there's you who went to bed after seeing the game. There may be another you in another universe that went to a bar to get drunk. There may also be another you in yet another universe who stayed and played the game some more."

"Which one of all of these me is real?"

"For me, the one that's real is the one I'm holding right now."

"And the others do not exist?"

"Not here, no. But in other universes, other Steves observed them doing whatever they did."

You're as real as I am. That was starting to have new meaning. "But how does all this relate to the game?"

"Almost there. See, Roger Zelazny wrote a series of stories about the Princes of Amber, who lived in a palace at one end of the entire multiverse. At the other end were the Courts of Chaos. If you had a portal or whatever you could teleport around to individual universes, but you could also get to places the long way, by changing one detail at a time, which took you to some universe with that detail. You could narrow in on a particular universe that way by supplying enough details. Like, switch to a place with a pink sky, then a place with purple daffodils, then a place with giant snails and so on.

"So don't think of the game as something that controlled you. Nothing controlled you. You are a result of all the decisions you made in your life. The game just helped me select a Tsu'na that made all the decisions I wanted made. When I created a blonde miqo'te as a character I was selecting a Tsu'na who'd decided to take a boat to Limsa to make her fortune. When I moved her to the Bismark I selected a Tsu'na who went to the Bismark. Each move I made in the game meant narrowing down on a particular Tsu'na who had done all those things. So when I stepped into the Circle and met you, you were the Tsu'na who had done all the things I was looking for one to have done."

"I would not have met you if I had done anything differently?"

"Possible. Possible you would have met a different Steve who'd selected differently."

"Is this what really happened?"

"I don't know. I thought I was just playing a game until I met you. I didn't know you existed until you were in front of me. But it makes more sense than me just creating you."

I tried to think about it all. It was much to consider.

"Thank you, Husband."

"You like the story?"

"Yes. It gives me something to believe in."

I lied. I do not know if I believe it, or if I can. It is something like religion.

I have since looked up quantum mechanics and Schrodinger's cat and happentracks and the Princes of Amber. All of them, especially quantum mechanics, are more complicated than Husband said right then. But I had in fact just woken him up.

I asked him to give me something to believe in, and he tried. He held me and he tried to help me. I will believe in him for now.

I was able to sleep afterward. It was at least a bedtime story.