Martyn Vaughan - The Cave of Shadows

He decided to risk a question.

‘When I was – unconscious – I thought I was in a forest surrounded by dangerous animals. Then I met strange creatures that wanted to kill me. Was that all a dream?’

‘Not exactly a dream. You and all the other warriors were embedded in a digital simulation of an environment that we had designed. Your individual minds were linked so that you could interact with each other. What one saw, the others saw. The simulation was not perfect due to the extremely large number of variables but it was basically consistent.’

Basically consistent , Jon thought, just a few errors like Shana’s green sky and my red one .

‘And why was it necessary to put us in that simulation?’

‘Your brains could not be shut down completely whilst you were in stasis. They would have slowly decayed. Therefore we provided them with a minimum amount of stimulation to keep them healthy. And we set challenges to eliminate any soldiers who were not adequate for our purposes.’

Akraz and Zarka. The Lords of the Sands thought Jon. While Maroun had been speaking he had discovered that he was now fully immersed in the strange environment and now understood what it was. Somehow he was linked into a kind of neural net that included the minds of the people who were still in stasis; a hangover no doubt from the time when they had thought they were all on the Hill. And he was also aware that there were files of records which showed the detailed actions of the Protectorate from the time of these “synthetic humans” (what other description could there be?) up to this exact moment. Just as Shana had proved to be a natural adept on the hill in this virtual world it seemed that he possessed similar abilities in this true, master version of that system. If only he had more time…

‘Soon all the warriors will be awake and we can begin new conquests,’ the dread voice continued, ‘but you have now learned all you need to know to be an effective soldier. You will be called when you need the Educator again.’

And this time it did end. Once again there appeared to be an audible snap! inside his head and his eyes opened under their own volition and he saw Shana looking down on him with concern written on her features.

‘At last!’ she said, ‘I thought you were going to stay in there forever.’

‘No such luck for you,’ he grinned and tried to rise from the couch.

And collapsed on the floor. Instantly it was as if someone had driven a rapier through his head. As he tried to rise his vision was suddenly filled with dancing blue and yellow zig-zag lines, overlaying an abstract pattern of squares within squares within squares. With his new knowledge, he realised that he was having a migraine. A very bad migraine.

Shana helped him back onto the couch.

‘It will pass soon,’ she said, running soothing fingers over his temples, ‘I had it too. It will pass.’

His eyes had been shut but that only made the zig-zag lines even more vivid. He opened them again and looked at Shana, trying to ignore the visual disturbances that overlaid her.

‘Shana,’ he finally whispered through his pain, ‘I saw so much! Learned so much! And I could see your mind! Read your thoughts! It was incredible, frighteningly incredible!’

She nodded. ‘I felt your mind come into – well, come into view I suppose you’d call it. I could see all the information pouring into you. And,’ she concluded, somewhat bitterly, ‘you were getting a lot more than me. It seems that the Protectorate doesn’t want its women warriors knowing too much.’

Jon gave a weak smile, trying to ignore the fact that Shana’s face was now embedded in an infinite series of ever-decreasing rectangles. ‘That fits in with their world view, I guess. I saw what you had seen and much more I think. I saw the overthrow of the people they call the Degenerates and their state of oppression. The Protectorate is a terrible threat. And it seems its lust for conquest is far from satisfied. We are meant to be its new shock troopers.’

She nodded again. ‘Yes, I know what we are. We are synthetic humans, built from improved versions of proteins and genetic materials. Meant to wear out much more slowly so we’ll be as useful as possible to the Great Khan.’

‘Now we know why things seemed wrong before; all those little details that didn’t make sense. All because the simulation was not perfect. And it didn’t need to be, of course – because we had no life before the simulation. All the things make sense now, like – like your hole…’

Shana smiled, a smile that was subtly different from those he had seen before. ‘No need to be coy, Jon. I know what my new holes are for. Just as I know what your new appendage is for. Maybe we’ll try a practical lesson one day instead of all this theory. We might even have better luck than we had the last time, we certainly couldn’t do any worse.’

Jon was so taken aback that for a moment he failed to realise that the visual disturbances had ended and he was now the possessor of a mere headache.

She pulled him upright. ‘There, there. The worst should be over now. ‘

He nodded and gingerly placed his feet on the floor.

‘Yes, I’m alright now. I think we need to eat again after all that.’

She shook her head. ‘Not yet. We will need to eat but we need something else first.’

‘And that is?’

She climbed back onto the couch, lay on her back and closed her eyes.

‘Sleep.’

And they did.

Jon did not know how long they had slept; they were in an environment in which there was no way of measuring the passage of time. The Education Room looked exactly the same as it had before. The only difference was internal; his hunger was even more urgent now than it had been before sleep.

He roused Shana and they went back to the food dispensing room which was as generous and accommodating as they remembered. When they could eat and drink no more he turned to his companion and said, ‘We now know most of what was hidden before.’

‘Most,’ she replied, ‘there are still mysteries.’

‘Yes, of course,’ he replied, somewhat irritatedly, ‘but we have to deal with what we do know. And there is something very big about to happen.’

She waited.

After a tension-filled pause, he continued. ‘Jarz said that soon the army would enter the Gate of Light. We now know that was just the simulation’s metaphor for awakening from stasis. But it means that all the bodies in the caskets will soon be awakening and awakening as fanatical warriors of the Protectorate. But there is something different about you and me. Something happened to us which gave us independent thought, so we were never just loyal clones of the Protectorate.’

‘In which case our time of freedom will be coming to a very premature end,’ Shana said and gave a shrug of resigned acceptance.

‘There is a possible way that we can prevent that happening.’

‘And that is…’

Jon leaned forward with a strange light in his eyes. ‘Remember when we were in the Educator we could look into minds. I could see your mind but more importantly, I could look into the sleeping minds of the people in the Stasis Room. If we can get into those minds before they wake, perhaps we can influence them to have independent thought.’

‘And how will we do that?’

Jon’s smile became grim and resolute. ‘They gave me huge amounts of knowledge. Knowledge only to be used in the unthinking service of those monsters. It was never intended for beings of independent thought. But I am independent.’

He stood up and pulled Shana to her feet.

‘And I will use it.’

Concern was written all over Shana’s face as she stood before Jon. ‘If you go back in you’ll be at the mercy of that Maroun-thing. You can’t risk it!’