An Incredible Simulation

io9 has a regular feature they call Concept Art Writing Prompts. They post a piece of art and invite readers to submit stories based upon the illustration. I've started writing short—often aiming for very, very short—stories as a warm-up to my real writing. 

This one is based on a piece by Vincent Cacciotti. 

An Incredible Simulation

Q-36 ran through all 7, 308, 573, 926 possibilities one final time but was forced to concede he was ultimately left with the only realistic conclusion: he'd been duped. No matter what he tried, none of these (extremely expensive) replicas—not even, heart-circuit-breakingly, the Kissinger—came close to being "so real you'd swear they were!" as the ads had all claimed.