“I need a mirror, he urged. “Get me a mirror. Now.”
The woman pulled a compact from her pocket and held it up. Sherman peered at his refection. A short, broad face with cropped hair, not ugly, but with grey stubble and heavy bags under crinkled eyes. Apart from an old scar on his forehead, however, the reflection was unmarked.
“My eyebrows are still there,” he said with obvious relief.
“Sherman. You deliberately blew yourself up.” The woman snapped her compact shut. “Eyebrows being intact are the least of your worries.”
“I like being able to frown.”
“The Colonel wants to see you in his ready room,” she said in a business-like manner. “Right away.”
The Colonel appeared to be in his mid-thirties, very young to hold such a rank. He was tall and fit with cropped grey hair and held himself ramrod straight, even sitting at his plain wide table. Sherman plonked himself in a smaller chair near the window. There was no other furniture in the room.
What the hell just happened to me?” He didn’t bother to salute. Despite his military demeanour, Sherman wasn’t a soldier.
“Get a bit of a shock?”
“I’ve tested plenty of virtual simulations before, but absolutely nothing like that.” Sherman looked down at his body as if he couldn’t believe he was still in one piece. “Not even close. I don’t even know where I was supposed to be.”
“The wilderness of Alaska, around the year 1745,” the Colonel replied. “It’s pretty authentic too◦– there was a freeze on that year.”
“How do you know what Alaska was like in 1745?”
“I read a lot.” The Colonel took a sip of water. “The Alaska simulation is designed to place combatants in totally unfamiliar situations to see how they react, like fighting a bear in sub-zero temperatures using only antiquated weapons.”
“The technology is stunning.” Sherman was impressed, despite himself.
“It’s still being improved but its good, isn’t it?”
“Are bears really that smart?” Sherman shuddered at the thought. “It drove a moose into the clearing before it attacked, just to fool me.”
“Yes, the bear.” The Colonel stroked a long chin. “The bear is a new aspect of virtual programming altogether. It… eh… learns from previous encounters, just like a real creature would. You might say it gets smarter with each simulation.”
“It just learned a new way to get beat,” Sherman said nonchalantly.
“Sherman,” the Colonel snorted. “You blew yourself up along with it.”
“You told me that my mission was to kill the bear. I killed the bear.”
“You killed yourself too.”
Sherman looked evenly at the officer.
“That’s what it took,” he said.
The Colonel shook his head in exasperation. He opened a drawer in his desk and brought out an electronic chart. Sherman stayed silent. Eventually the uniformed man spoke.
“There’s a new simulation we’ve been developing,” he said. “A new concept entirely. Makes Alaska ‘45 look like a PlayStation. We’re talking a scientific breakthrough of astonishing proportions.”
“What’s a PlayStation?”
“Before your time.” The Colonel made some notations on his chart. “I’ve been recruiting a team to test this new simulation,” he said. “Now I need a leader with an… innovative approach.”
“You want me to test this new simulation?” Sherman goggled.
The Colonel put his hands on the desk and leaned forward, narrowing his eyes as he spoke.
“I won’t beat around the bush, Sherman,” he said coldly. “You certainly weren’t my first choice. Or second. Or third.”
“Right. Don’t spare my feelings or anything.”
“Let’s just say that unforeseen circumstances have forced me to go ahead with the test immediately.” The Colonel pursed his lips. “And you’re all that’s available at such short notice.”
He gave a disapproving grunt.
“You do have experience of unusual virtual situations.”
“Yeah. I get stuck with all the wacky ones.”
“You also have a low rank among testers because you’re not serious about what you do.”
“That’s because none of it is real,” Sherman protested. “No matter how loud the gunfire is or how many bombs are going off, you can’t react the way you would in battle if you know you’re in a simulation.”
“Really?” The officer folded his arms. “Then you might be in for a shock.”
“What do you mean?”
The Colonel looked uncertain for the first time.
“This new experiment isn’t like anything that’s ever been done before,” he admitted. “There are certain characters in the simulation that learn and develop, just like the bear. They were designed to rise above their programming, if you like. To reason. To have independent thought. They don’t even know they’re in a game….”
He was momentarily at a loss for words, as if the concept was almost too great for him. Sherman shared the feeling.
“That’s impossible,” he said.
“Not any more.”
“You mean, once we’re inside the simulation, there’s no telling how these characters will react?”
“Exactly.” The Colonel sat back.
“They’re not bears are they?”
“No.”
“Then what will I be up against? German Stormtroopers? Terrorists?” A quizzical smile played across his lips. “Space Aliens?”
The Colonel didn’t return the smile.
“Teenagers,” he said, shutting the chart.
16.30
Cruickshank sat in the briefing room with Major Cowper and Lieutenant Dunwoody. He had reluctantly taken off his headphones, although nobody was actually talking. Cowper’s disapproval of the situation, however, was written all over his face.
The door opened and Commander Saunders, head of the base, entered along with a balding, pale faced man in a lab coat. Cruickshank had never seen him before. The Commander gave a perfunctory salute which was returned by Cowper and Dunwoody.
“Lieutenant Dunwoody, this is Doctor Monk.” The Commander indicated the man in the lab coat. “He’s in charge of Project Flower, down on level six, and he’ll bring you up to speed with what’s been going on there. The lad is James Cruickshank,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
“Glad to meet you all,” Cruickshank said agreeably, smiling around.
“Project Flower is highly classified,” Cowper said, glaring at the boy. “What we are about to tell you stays between us.” His eyes glittered with angry intensity. “If you talk about this to anyone, you will know trouble in a way your clever little mind cannot even conceive. Do you understand?”
Cruickshank nodded.
“Say it.”
“I understand. Sir.”
“That’ll do Major,” Commander Saunders said quietly. Monk put his hands behind his back and coughed.
“What do you know about genetics Lieutenant?” he asked Dunwoody.
“I’ve seen Jurassic Park.” The Lieutenant’s face was impassive. “I’m just a soldier, sir. But you tell me what’s going on in plain English and I’ll understand.”
The Commander and Monk exchanged a tense look. Cowper was still glowering at Cruikshank.
“Put simply, Lieutenant, all creatures evolve,” Monk said. “We evolved from apes, they evolved from lower mammals and we all evolved from single celled creatures floating in the sea millions of years ago.” The Doctor unclasped his hands from behind his back, warming to his subject. “Evolution takes a long time.”