Martyn Vaughan - The Cave of Shadows

Looking around, she noticed an information panel not far from the door and activated it.

‘We need access to the High Official Generation Room,’ she stated in the most authoritative voice she could muster. The unblinking man stared at her out of the display.

‘Password?’ he said flatly.

Jon and Shana looked at each other. This was a new development: they hadn’t needed such a thing before now. How could they guess a password out of the infinity of possibilities? Jon was already turning away when an idea came to Shana out of nowhere in a way she could not explain, then or ever.

She looked the figure in the viewer with a gaze as unblinking as his own and said in a voice of authority: ‘Fatal Scimitar.’

The door opened.

It revealed a short passageway that terminated in another door. This one, however, opened as they approached. They came out into a room so vast that they could not see the far wall and which contained an uncountable number of transparent cylinders, filled with an opaque milky liquid. The cylinders stretched away like the columns of some vast underground mausoleum but four of them were detached from the others and would be the first to be encountered if people entered the room, giving the suggestion that they were more important than the others.

Jon stopped to look at the passageway they had just passed through. ‘This wall appears to be solid lead and very thick solid lead. What were they trying to keep out?’

Shana had carried on into the room and was studying the transparent cylinders. The liquid within was in a constant, gentle motion, currents rising lazily to the top of the cylinder and then slowly down. There were illuminated display panels in front of each one showing a list of compounds with percentages next to them.

‘Iron, calcium, phosphate, adenine, guanine – Jon, do you know what these are?’

Jon crossed to her and looked down at the scrolling list. ‘No idea. Could be a recipe for a nice stew for all I know.’

Just then he felt something brush his thigh and turned around to see a squat metal object with multiple arms had come up to him without him noticing. It had basically a disc shaped body on segmented legs and from the disc a selection of appendages was protruding, some jointed and thick, some jointed and thin and two extremely flexible ones, like tentacles. It also had two red eyespots with which it was studying them.

‘You are too close to the Generation Tubes,’ it said in a high-pitched, emotionless voice, ‘you may not approach within two metres.’

Jon studied the various appendages which had now been raised to the level of his crotch and decided not to argue. ‘Of course,’ he said and moved away. It was then he saw that the entire room was filled with at least a dozen of these mechanical things.

‘What are they?’ Shana whispered as she joined him.

‘They seem to be a higher grade of arachnoid, which suggest they have a more important job to do.’ He turned back to look at the cylinders with their gently stirring contents. ‘Look there’s something written on them.’

Shana scanned them from left to right, reading out the words that she saw: ‘Rocha. Maroun. Gang Jianguo and … and …’ Her voice faltered.

‘And?’

Shana turned to Jon, her eyes wide and staring: ‘The last word Jon! It’s Korok! Korok!’

They were back out in the endless greyness of the endless corridors.

‘He’s here! Somewhere in this building!’ Shana said, feeling the first tendrils of hysteria beginning to invade her mind.

‘Stop it!,’ Jon snapped, ‘we don’t know that! All we saw was a name, just a name!’

She calmed herself and stared directly at him, blue-grey eyes holding Jon’s brown in a steady grasp.

‘In our previous existence – whatever that was – he was just a name, a curse, a figure of speech. But if this is reality and we are real beings in it – then so is Korok. And where else would he be but here?’

Jon grasped her shoulders in a grip of steel and looked deeply into her eyes. ‘Shana stop thinking of Korok as some kind of demon, some kind of god. If he’s a man he can bleed, if he can bleed he can die. And if he can die I will be the one who kills him.’

‘You promise?’ said Shana, feeling – to her amazement – the beginnings of tears at the back of her eyes.

Jon stared at Shana and had the sudden feeling that whatever it took he would save this woman from whatever threatened her, even if he had to rip up the universe to do it. But despite that sudden blast of emotion he was still absolutely unsure of what to do next and said so.

‘We will go to the Education Room,’ was Shana’s reply.

‘Why?’

‘Because at the moment we’re helpless little creatures scurrying around a big building, knowing nothing about where we are or what we’re supposed to be doing. If that place lives up to its name it should provide us with some answers.’

Jon looked unconvinced but Shana pressed her case. ‘Look Jon, remember how much I learned when I was wearing that cap thing on the hill. How I learned about the Cave of Shadows. If I hadn’t gone in we’d still be there or maybe slaughtered by – by Korok.’

Jon finally agreed and having checked its location on another schematic set out for it. They passed several bands of toiling arachnoids who as usual totally ignored them. The second one appeared to be dealing with a particularly bad problem insofar as huge showers of blue and yellow sparks were issuing from a rip in a wall along with crackling bolts of electrical energy. It looked so dangerous that the pair were forced to find another way.

But find it they did and gained access to the room without further trouble. The Educator Room was comprised of an antechamber which had an open door in its far wall. Through this could be glimpsed a much larger room. Shana wanted to go straight through to that part of the room but Jon advised caution.

‘Let’s see what’s in here first,’ he said.

The answer was, apparently, not a lot. There was a continuous bench running three-quarters of the way around the room on which sat devices which would have reminded the pair of old-fashioned TV sets, if they had ever seen one. In front of each device was a chair. And that was all.

Jon sat on one of the chairs and inspected his immediate surroundings. He noticed a red button on the shelf in front of the device, which from its design must have been some kind of viewer and pressed it. Immediately a portion of the bench swung up revealing a vertically stacked collection of thin sheets of metal. Jon took one out: it was indeed metal and extremely thin so it bent like paper as he held it by one corner. He studied it intently and thought he could just make out extremely small marks upon its glistening surface. But they were far too small for him to be able to determine what they were.

He put the sheet back in its drawer and stood up.

‘Whatever they are, they’re no use to us,’ he decided, ‘let’s see what’s in the main room.’

Inside the larger room, they were confronted with row after row of long couches, at one end of which was a device that looked strangely familiar. Shana picked one up.

‘Look Jon, it’s like the device in your house.’

Jon studied it. Indeed it was similar to the object from his time on the Hill, possessing a curved section that terminated in two soft pads as before; but the material it was made from looked much more impressive.

‘So what do we do?’ he asked Shana.

‘I think it’s pretty obvious,’ was the reply, ‘we lie on the couches and put these things on our heads.’

Jon looked around at the huge number of empty couches that completely filled the entire room. ‘It looks like we are the first to arrive. The others will be late for the party.’