Sally looked at the open doorway, took a breath, and stepped through. She found herself standing in a simple corridor.

The walls were plain white, not glowing. There was light, though, from a window on the opposite wall, to her right. On her left, the corridor went a short distance and ended in a massive vault door which filled the entire corridor from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. In the center of the door was mechanism, but wasn't enough light for Sally to make out the details.

She propped open the secret door with a bag, and turned toward the window. After taking a few steps, she heard a click. She spun around and looked at the featureless wall.

“Oh, crap.”

She stared where the door wasn’t, anymore. The bag should have kept it open! Her mind spun through useless scenarios as she tried to deny what had happened. Eventually, she sighed, turned, and walked slowly toward the window, trying to look everywhere. She was well aware that now, she was on her own.

As she approached, she could see that the window was roughly five feet high, about twenty feet long, and at least a foot thick. Instead of normal seating, there was some sort of perch consisting of three logs running the length of the window, arranged on a supporting rack. Sally could have stood on the lowest log, leaned her butt on the middle one, and bonked her head on the highest one.

The seating wasn’t important. Sally looked through the window and stopped breathing. This was amazing!

Up until now, there hadn’t been much indication that she was in some sort of advanced society. Yes, Jon was different, and their garbage had strange things in it, but she had to walk everywhere, and although a lot of things were weird, it was sort of ordinary too. Heck, they had to carry their clothes and stuff on a wheelchair.

What was here, though, was pure science fiction! Far away, she had no idea how far, was a negative sun. It looked like the after image a lightning bolt would make, except this one didn’t go away. It had bright black streamers flowing off it, moving back and forth, sometimes drifting slowly, and sometimes flickering from one position to another.

Deep blue and purple rivers of light danced with the streamers, flowing around the dark sun. Little pinpoints of light that resembled schools of fish darted around the streamers. It was mesmerizing. Sally was entranced.

“No, no, no, no, NO!”

Her parasite was back. It was raving, screaming at her. “We can’t be here! Get out! Run!” It kept screaming in her head.

The yoga instructor appeared in her vision but it was barely holding itself together. The image kept breaking up, oozing from one place to another, and jumping around.

Sally felt the creature trying to take control as her muscles spasmed and her legs shook so much that she collapsed onto the bottom log of the perch. She struggled to stay upright.

This was not going to happen! She bore down and refused to give in.

A calm voice spoke from right beside her.

“That is enough of that,” it stated calmly.

Her internal passenger screamed, and redoubled its effort.

Sally's head jerked back and forth as she tried to look at the speaker. She would never give in! She screamed and attacked with everything she had. Slowly, ever so slowly, she managed to gain enough control to turn her head and look at who, or what, had spoken.

A distinguished looking older gentleman was sitting on the log beside her. He had an elegant gray suit, a generous salt and pepper beard, mostly white hair, black bushy eyebrows, and a look of concern.

Her internal guest cut off in mid-scream and Sally jerked as she was suddenly back in control.

The man spoke, “Your friend is a nasty piece of work. She was fairly far along in her effort to take over and shut you away. Very advanced stealth technology though; without her recent setbacks, even I would have had trouble finding her inside your psycho-physiological matrix. Interesting. I will have to come up with a procedure.”

Sally took a hard look at the man. “Very nice. You look like someone I could trust. Good choice.”

The man laughed. Everything about him was warm and natural.

“You suspect I'm another way for your companion to fool you. Good. Skepticism is often warranted. Let’s talk, then you can come to your own conclusions.”

Sally paused to gather her wits. She was upset by the fight with her parasite, but her thoughts seemed to be all her own.

She looked at him, “Okay, then. Who are you?”

He glanced out the window and flicked his fingers at the scenario.

Her eyes widened. “That is you?”

“Yes, but, well, no. Not exactly. I am a... type of gateway to what you see here. It's complicated, I'm both here and not. I'm afraid it involves physics you don’t know. This room,” he gestured expansively, “isn’t really a viewing chamber. Rather, it’s a way for others to commune with me, it... whatever. Let’s just say that walking in here gets my attention.”

“So, are you like the room of computing boxes that we found, except you aren’t broken?”

“An unfortunate turn of events for that entity. Lots of disrupted plans. Your rider called it the One; a good enough name. He’s diminished by events but should recover. I guess you could say that he and I are similar, but different.” The man chortled at some joke Sally didn’t get.

The man wasn't finished. “Your companion, Jon," he stated, "has been doing his best to educate you about your current circumstances, but he isn’t the best vehicle for satisfying answers. He’s meant to perform as a member of a team, but I have to admit he’s coping well, given his limitations. In fact, he’s doing surprisingly well! I will have to reevaluate my perception of his kind.”

“How do you know about Jon?” Alarm bells were going off. Whatever he was, he knew too much.

“Ah, yes. You Sallys are so suspicious. It’s best to let you know that one of your fears is completely true. Everything about you is known to me. This is part of being one of those high-level entities Jon has told you about. Jon is also correct in telling you that getting the attention of higher-level beings can mean becoming part of our schemes. The important part, though, is how you are involved. For me, part of my responsibility is to understand the impact my plans have on you, and to try to find paths that allow all of us to realize what we want. To a certain extent.”

“Yeah... that sounds good, but I have seen hundreds, maybe thousands of dead Sallys. I’m sure that most of them didn’t have a happy life.”

“Yes. That is unfortunate. The entity running this experiment thinks it necessary to understand a future event portended to have a significant impact across the spectrum of existence. It has a very cogent argument that the short-term suffering of the subjects involved is worth the result. A number of us disagree, but direct confrontation would be disastrous, so, we work quietly to change things.”

Sally wasn’t impressed. “Doesn’t sound as if this world is any better than mine. The powerful get away with crap and the rest pay.”

“Oh yes. It’s a nasty world out there. This is why Earth is isolated; you aren’t ready to play on this stage. One thing I can promise, though, is that the sacrifice the Sallys have made will have a result that is a suitable revenge.”

Sally thought over all she’d been told. Maybe she just couldn’t understand, but it seemed that none of the super-intelligences really cared much about the Sallys. As Jon had said, people like her were nothing more than pawns.

There were some positives, though. Currently, her spy-parasite was absent, and she now knew that Jon and her weren’t alone. For better or worse, they had the attention of more than one super-intelligence.

After giving her time to think, the man continued. “You will probably appreciate knowing that you will be the last Sally to have to endure this process. I can’t predict exactly what will happen, but my intent is to have this experiment terminate in your lifetime, plus, I intend to help you get out of here and be capable of surviving on the broader stage.”

Sally knew he was manipulating her, just as Jon had warned. The problem was that like the spy, his arguments were compelling. It didn’t hurt that he probably knew everything that she was thinking.

“Explain. How are you're going to help me?” she asked, cautiously.

“I will use the framework your spy set up, but remove her from the equation and construct an alternative to get you up to speed. I think you will find it to be rewarding.”

“Not that I really care, but what happens to the spy?”

Sally thought this was a good question, it would tell her more about the man. She immediately tried to suppress the thought so he would answer without cheating.

“Oh, not to worry. She’s more than willing to take my offer of employment in return for restoring her atrophied parts and the promise of fulfilling work.”

“You do realize she can’t be trusted.”

“Oh, she can be trusted to be faithful to her nature.”

Sally looked at the floor. She was bone tired, the internal fight, the verbal sparring, everything. It was very draining. She was tired of trying to find the evil in his words. She was tired. Just tired.

She looked over at the man.

He was gone. She was alone in the room. She sighed. She had so many other questions, but, apparently, they were done, for now.

Time to get back. Jon was probably looking for her.

She forced herself up and plodded toward the secret door.

Oh, double crap! The door!

She walked to the general area where the secret door had been. What now? She looked over at the huge portal. She really didn’t want to have to deal with whatever she would find on the other side of a door like that.

She crouched down to where the secret door was, automatically traced a symbol on the surface, and the door popped open. She wasn’t even surprised. She looked toward the window. “Thanks,” she thought out into the void.

“WASN’T HIM.”

Sally screamed and jumped, not quite clearing the top of the door.

In any case, however she’d obtained the knowledge, her perfect memory wouldn’t ever forget. She could try that symbol on another door. If it worked, should she tell Jon? She could probably say it just came to her. That had the advantage of being true, after all.

She reached into a bag and pulled out a lantern. It had a homemade look, being a candle on a metal plate, contained in a wooden cylinder with an oiled paper window. She also pulled out an odd contraption that worked like a lighter. She wasn’t entirely sure how the Sallys had made it, but it was easy to use. She spun a little handle, it whirred and a bit of fluff caught on fire. Sally lit the candle, blew out the little flame, put the lighter in a bag, and placed the candle in the lantern. Now she had a light to explain why she could navigate the tunnels, if Jon wondered.

Sally entered the passageway and reached down to pick up the bag that had so conveniently fallen out. She had no idea why the science fiction guy had closed the door on her.

The flickering lantern added a hint of atmosphere to her walk through the tunnels. She wasn’t in a hurry; there was a lot to ponder.

The creature she met, he needed a name. Since she thought of him as Science Fiction man, that was good enough for now. SF man for short.

His intervention made it obvious that she was somehow entangled in more than one scheme. Maybe that meant she a chance for some level of hope. Time would tell.

Compared to the broken Sally from her dream, she had it easy. In just a few weeks she had never felt better, had decent food, some chance of escaping, and the possibility of surviving if she did escape. This wasn’t normal. So many other Sallys before her had struggled and died.

The SF man had promised to help. She had no idea what that meant.

As she went around the next corner Jon’s hand flew by and Jon slammed to a halt in front of her. “Are you all right?” he asked.

Sally took all of the tact she had and put it into one question.

“Are you sure you aren’t connected in any way to whatever is running this experiment?”

Sally had no tact.

Jon, being Jon, didn’t ask why, he simply answered.

“I have investigated this issue, approaching it from multiple directions. In each case, I find that I am lacking information. An envelope analysis does conclude that this is anomalous, and points to a tailoring of data I have received.”

“So, it’s possible?”

“Indirectly. Your question, at this time, is anomalous. What have you uncovered?”

Sally wasn’t sure if it was okay to show Jon where she'd been, but decided that she might as well. If the SF man couldn’t handle Jon, then what sort of super-intelligence was he?

“Follow me," she directed. "I'm curious to see what happens, too.”

Jon and his hand lit up, so she blew out the lantern and put it away. They retraced her steps. Sally wouldn’t have been surprised if the door wasn’t there anymore, but it was. She let Jon lead the way while she followed, stopping to hold onto the door, just in case.

The corridor was the still there, but everything was different. The vault door had been torn down and was lying on the floor. Behind the door, the passageway was completely blocked with rubble. The corridor walls were discolored as if they had been hosed with fire. The perch was wrecked and partially burned, but the window was still intact. Sally decided that since the SF man was obviously running some sort of scam, it would be safe to leave the secret door. She used a few bags to stop it from closing and walked to the window. Looking through, all she saw was an endless gray nothing. No un-sun, no streamers, none of the ethereal beauty that had been there before. Just a very dark gray nothing which provided just enough light to dimply illuminate where they were standing.

Jon looked around. There wasn’t anything to find. What had been there a short time ago was gone. Sally didn’t know what to say. Jon looked through the window.

“I can’t detect much. The window is opaque to everything except visible light, and even that is highly attenuated. I could puncture the window, but it is highly probable that you would not survive, and I may be pulled through.”

Jon walked back to the secret door, pulled it open, and stepped through. Sally followed, retrieving the bags. She looked back, and the room was suddenly back to how she remembered it. The perch was undamaged, she could see the glow of the un-sun on the walls, and the science fiction man was standing by the window, waving at her. He pulled out what looked like a pocket watch, looked at it, and vanished. This time there was no sneaky disappearing when she wasn’t looking.

She got the message, or at least some message. The SF man was asking her to keep what had happened from Jon, probably because Jon was a conduit of information to the evil scientist. She was a little sad about that. Jon was her friend.

Sally mused over what to do next. She had no idea what the SF man was going to help her with, or what strings were attached to the help. Without help, though, if she ever escaped, she would be like a junkyard dog she had once seen. It had managed to get out of its yard and was in the middle of a street. When a car went by it would give chase, but if another car passed in the other direction it would spin around and chase the new car. The dog ended up doing circles in the street, which was both funny and pathetic. She didn’t want to be that dog.

Sally wasn’t sure what she should do next. She would have to see what the SF man had planned for her, but a lot had happened today. Was there something she could be doing? She pondered her options.

Could she escape? The spy-parasite had said she had a way, but Sally had no idea if she was telling the truth. She mulled over ideas for a while, but all the spy had told her was that it was possible, but not how it would work. That didn’t help her come any closer to a solution.

Probably her best bet was to keep on doing what she had been doing, just poking at the things as they turned up. Jon might find something, or there might be a hint in the Sally books. Not a strong plan, but even so, she felt better. The day had been a pretty hectic, maybe everything would fall apart, but why should she worry when she couldn’t really do anything?

Sally laughed. Worrying was kind of automatic.

She called ahead to Jon. "Did you find anything from the bodies? Which, I hope, you left un-dissected.”

“Yes. It was very productive, and, as a result, I am working on a number of things. Before I continue, you should know that I have found two more rooms with bodies. This gives us a very good foundation for our investigation.

From my initial evaluation of these rooms, I have uncovered a few interesting details.

“The first issue is: there seem to be more companions than Sallys. I do not know why.”

Sally flashed back to her memory/dream of the Sally escaping. What if it was a true event? Maybe she left without her companion? Maybe a whole bunch of Sallys had escaped and left their companions behind!

“The second thing is that the bodies are preserved amazingly well. They are dried out, but there has been little irreversible degradation of the cells. There is a good chance we can retrieve most of the memories from the companions and perhaps from some from the Sallys too. With the technology I can access, mere cell decay is not a hindrance to reconstructing memories and mapping the personalities of the Sallys and companions. Some of the companions are constructed so that there should be no degradation at all. We need to investigate the manner in which they died, in case it has affected the memories. At this point, I calculate an extremely high probability that they were terminated by some type of trigger. A kill switch. The difficulty I am having is that I cannot find the kill switch, even though the indirect evidence mandates that it must exist. I will keep looking.”

From how he said it, Sally had the impression that Jon thought that the memories from the companions would be more useful than those of the Sallys. Maybe so, but it was a bit irritating.

“In the meantime, I have unearthed my files that describe the processes which will allow me to map out the memories of the individuals and store the results. Unfortunately, I do not have the ability to run emulation models and recreate the individuals in my hardware.”

“The third thing is that I have been able to add to my scent table so that I should be able to identify most of the species of the companions by smell. This is very satisfying, as it is new knowledge.”

At this point, they reached the secret door near the kitchen, exited, and propped the door open. Sally wanted to try the symbol she had learned to open the doors, but was reluctant to let Jon know what she could do. She might need to have some secrets of her own if Jon turned out to be more of a tool for the evil scientist than a simple observer. This was just one more thing she would have to think about.

Jon headed back to the rooms full of bodies. Sally climbed up to the library and started reading. It was kind of amusing, recipes interspersed with stories about the companions. Nothing earth-shattering, but not boring. Eventually, she got tired of reading and descended to the kitchen.

She poured herself a drink of water and sat down. She was tired and didn’t feel like experimenting, so she made a bland, but safe, meal of powder, seeds, and a tiny bit of the new food she had already eaten. Once she was done, she cleaned up and headed to bed. It had been a short, but hectic, day. The emotional rollercoaster had worn her out.

She wasn’t sure what to expect in dreamland. It took her a while to fall asleep, and when she dozed off, she opened her eyes to the same outdoor scene that the previous yoga instructor used.

“Well, are we ready to start?” The voice of the SF man came from behind her. She turned, and, yes, it was him, but he was decked out in a duplicate of the accessorized leotard outfit that the spy had worn. It was very colorful and very revealing. She snickered.

“Don’t judge, girlie. I think it’s fabulous.”

This was going to be different.

“Yes, it is.”

Oh, right. He could read her mind. He probably heard that too. Sally had a hard time accepting that her thoughts were public.

The SF man began, “Before we can make serious headway, we need to you to be able to accept memory downloads. Currently, the way you learn is... well, let’s just say it’s really slow. While we construct the ability, we can cover some basics.

“The upgrades the spy started were meant to get you to trust her, but they were taking full advantage of your naivety. Her plan was let you think she was on your side while she constructed a framework to ultimately push you out of the way. I hate to be harsh, but that type of exploitation is not uncommon.

“Outside this experiment, it’s possible for some extreme entities to survive on their own, but for the most part. we all need friends. When I say friends, it’s a bit different from what you think. There is a whole field of social engineering, which you will become familiar with, but for now, we'll start with a quick overview.

“Roughly speaking, friends came in grades from 1 to 4, a friend(1) will give you a kidney before you even ask, a friend(2) will reluctantly give you one, a friend(3) will try and find you a kidney, and a friend(4) will give your eulogy. Any lower rating means they will use your body to keep their feet out of the mud.

“You and I are probably friends(2), but you have no way to verify this. Jon could be a friend(1) but he has issues that drop him a level. You, though, are probably a friend(1) to him. Complex, eh?”

Sally was completely out of her depth. She didn’t entirely trust the SF man, and reluctantly admitted she couldn’t trust Jon, but for totally different reasons. If the SF man had a hidden agenda, she was so screwed. She tried to keep her thoughts suppressed.

“Oh, I have many hidden agendas," he stated. "If things go as I hope, though, I won’t have any worries if I need that kidney.”

Oh crap! Mind reading was just annoying.

The SF man stood in the place where the spy had given her lessons. He braced his feet apart and raised his hands over his head.

“Well, let’s get into the details. Tonight we are going to stretch your mind and body. Take your position and we'll discuss the trinity that underlies our society, which consists of friends, knowledge, and processes. If x equals the integer rating of a friend…” He went on.

Sally stretched, moved, and learned.