As Mark sat up the man handed him a dressing gown. He could see pods being opened all around him and in each his colleagues for the last week, or was it only a day, were sitting up. None of them were clothed and Mark could not in all honesty say that he immediately turned his head to avoid seeing the unclad ladies nearby. He wasn’t sure that he would have done even if he was more aware of himself as some things are pretty much hard-wired into the human brain. Mark remembered a TV program he had watched a few years back that said that even the ladies had an automatic response to check out the size of the crotch on first meeting a new male before looking at their face. Mark wasn’t going to argue about automatic responses.

He got out of the pod and put on the dressing gown. He then followed instructions as they were directed through a double door that led to a pair of changing rooms, complete with showers and towels and hanging from a labelled peg a set of clothing for each of them.

After dressing they were led upstairs and through the internal door into the room where they had first met Dr Adham. When they had sat down the Dr again walked into the room from the same door they had used.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I know that you will have some questions as none of you remember getting into the pods that you found yourself in today. The simple answer to this is because we drugged you when we were testing you on the first day and then all your pods were linked so you all could interact over the next few ‘days’”. He signed quotation marks as he said days.

“You will be wondering firstly why we didn’t just let you know what we were doing rather than drugging you and the answer is that we currently have a problem switching between reality and pseudo-reality. We’ve found that if people are awake when the transfer happens that it can cause major stress problems not unlike PTSD amongst other problems, all of which are nullified if the person concerned doesn’t know it is happening.

Another question you may be asking is how you can be experiencing multiple days in one day. This is because you are undergoing direct neural stimulation. We can let you experience things at a faster rate than reality. In this case everything was five times faster. Your next question is going to be about your body feeling like it has done five days’ worth of exercise and again this is explained by our technology. Direct muscle stimulation forces your muscles to grow quicker, a diet specially created for your body allows you to build muscle at an increased rate and further physical stimulation whilst you are in the pods creates the aching muscle feel that otherwise require days of work.

Finally, you are asking why we didn’t tell you about all this before. The simple answer is that we wanted to impress you with the quality of our virtual reality. How many of you noticed that you were no longer in reality? I’m guessing nobody did. There are only very subtle indications that you are under VR, and we want your VR experience to be as real as possible.

Now you get to have breakfast before we get to run you through the same sets of exercises as you were doing in VR so we and you can tell how much progress you have made. There will be another meeting this evening where we will let you know the preliminary results.”

Dr Adham walked out the room and the group were ushered to the refectory.

Mark joined up with Dan and casually said “Diamond Miner.”

Dan turned to look at him and replied, “What’s up?”.

“Nothing much, just checking that you were you. What do you think of our VR experience?”

“As far as I could tell it was real. If we believe the doctor, then it was all fake, but I chipped a nail yesterday and it’s still chipped now. How would that work?”

“Are you suggesting that the good Doctor is full of shit?”

“Well, the evidence is against him so far. By the way, where are we?”

“Somewhere in Scotland.”

“Yes, I thought that to start with but now I’m less sure. There are many more planes flying overhead than I expected. Also, whilst I’m no Scotland expert don’t the mountains seem a bit too high?

Mark looked around him with a more suspicious eye. Dan was probably right. It was June and some of the distant mountainside looked like it might have a snow line. It was too far away to tell for sure with the naked eye.

“OK, so why would they want us to think we were in Scotland and part of a game?” Mark asked.

“I have absolutely no idea but if we are not in Scotland there are some important people involved because we’ve been smuggled out the country.”

Mark felt like he should be worrying more than he was. As it was, he felt more like he was trying to solve a puzzle. He stopped talking as they passed one of the instructors but didn’t stop thinking.

“What’s a good way of proving you are in a VR or not?” Mark asked the table as he sat down.

One of the others proclaimed “If it’s done properly there isn’t any way to know. Did you ever see the film The Matrix? Everyone was in pods their whole lives and never knew, apart from the ones who were able to break free. We could be in VR now and not know it, whatever the doctor said.”

“What do people think about them knocking us out?” Mark asked.

The general feeling around the table was that had been a shitty thing to do even if it was necessary. They weren’t sure just how believable the stated reason was anyway and several of the others questioned whether if they had actually been in a game or whether if SnowStorm were in some way fooling them. The over abiding feeling was that people were a bit upset but were still willing to give SnowStorm some leeway as long as they didn’t keep pulling stunts like that.

On the other side of the room the discussion had not been quite as quiet and in particular a lady called Kaz was getting louder and louder. “I’m going to see Dr Adham and tell him what I think!” she exclaimed loudly. “Who does he think he is and what right does he have to drug us?”. With that she stormed off out of the canteen and was loosely followed by a couple of others.

She confronted one of the instructors who was on the way to start exercise class and demanded that he take her to see the doctor. “I want to see him right now!”

“No.”

“What do you mean NO?” her face getting redder as her voice got louder. “I insist you take me to him.”

“No.”

No matter how she shouted and demanded the instructor refused her in a quiet and calm way. Eventually she had worked herself into such a state that she decided to take a swing at him. Before the audience, which by this time had grown substantially, could blink, Kaz was lying on the floor with her arm behind her and a knee in her back.

“I said no.” The instructor repeated calmly and then standing up stated “exercises start in two minutes, make sure you are ready.”. He turned his back to Kaz and walked towards the centre of the exercise yard.

Dan, who was behind Mark whistled low. “That was cold man.”

Tellingly nobody helped Kaz as she struggled to stand up and clean the dirt from her clothes.

>>>

All through the exercises Mark was wondering if there was anything actually different between what he had experienced over the last few days and today. Everything looked just as real. The sights, sounds, smells and feel of everything was the same. The food at breakfast has tasted the same as far as he could tell. In fact, nothing stood out as being in anyway different. He tried to determine if there was anything subtly different like a regularity in the way the wind moved that would indicate a computer-generated effect or a repetition within the grasses and trees. However, if there was anything to suggest he was currently in a VR he couldn’t find it. He resolved to check everything that he could whilst exercising each day as it required little other thought.

The teamwork puzzles were similar to the ones they had been given over previous few days. The one Mark enjoyed the most was a recreation of the Picard manoeuvre from an episode of Star Trek he had seen when watching re-runs. There didn’t seem to be any downside to having the background knowledge to solve the problem easily. Although it was hard to tell with the instructors as all they did was take notes as the exercises were happening.

At lunch Mark was sat with Dan and eating when Dan quietly spoke to him. “Have you noticed some people are missing?”

Mark looked around and initially didn’t notice much difference in the group. Then he noticed that there was no sign of Kaz. A quick head count suggested that there were less than fifty of the group still left when they had started with just over that number. He couldn’t place anyone else in particular who was missing.

“I hadn’t but I’d say we were missing half a dozen.”

“That’s my count. I just haven’t worked out what the criteria is for who has gone. Clearly it isn’t just being obnoxious as you’re still here!” Dan said with a grin.

“Thanks a lot dung monkey.”

“You’ve been saving that one up haven’t you.”

“Would I do a thing like that?” Mark tried to adopt a hurt expression but failed completely, partially because he had indeed been saving that name.

“Just keep an eye out and see if you can spot who disappears, when and where. Also, we might want to think about doing a Doug.”

Doug was another member of their D & D group. He played a Rogue and was notorious for not being anywhere to be seen when fighting was happening yet always around when there was loot to be awarded. Doing a Doug was their phrase for running away.

“We might want to investigate the possibilities when we get a break this evening.”

“Maybe a stroll to get away from people then.” Dan said.

Mark got the impression that Dan didn’t want to say too much even in the noisy environment of the mess hall.

At that moment instructors started appearing and they knew they had no more time.

“Catch you later.”

“Have a good one.”

>>>

The afternoon was just like the previous afternoons even if they were now in reality and hadn’t been before. The only slight difference was that during the medical tests they weren’t given any injections. Mark still had blood drawn to be tested and had to undergo a different battery of tests. At one point he had sensors fitted onto his head and he was plugged into a machine for some tests whilst he was asked to watch a screen which had different coloured moving dots moving seemingly randomly across it. Mark had no idea what that was for. He tried asking the staff but they were just as uncommunicative as they always were. Only speaking to give instructions and showing minimal emotions to any interactions.

Nothing productive was said during the evening meal. It still seemed like they had the same number of people as before and nobody had anything interesting to add to any of the debates that had been generated in the morning.

After eating they were immediately brought to the same class room where they had always met Dr Adham. After they were seated he again walked in through the back door, closing it behind him.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I hope you’ve had a stimulating and thought provoking day. After my talk this morning I expect you to be trying to prove to yourself that nothing has changed between the days you were in VR and today when you left it. I imagine that you have convinced yourself by now that you were never in New World. I have a confession. I lied to you this morning. When I said that you had been in New World and now weren’t that wasn’t true. In fact you are still in New World.”

With that Dr Adham vanished.