Shadowprey

By Dennis L. McKiernan

The Mithgar and Faery novels of Dennis L. McKiernan have long enchanted fans and critics alike. And they were equally enthralled with his bestselling science-fiction/fantasy novel: formerly titled Caverns of Socrates but in e-book form titled Shadowtrap. And now this gifted author presents us with the sequel to that story, a gripping tale to fire the imagination and make the heart pound. . . .

The Black Foxes are back in the grasp of the Dark God, and He is seeking revenge

Nearly one year ago a lightning strike damaged Avery—the artificial intelligence, AIVR—and for six months thereafter he refused to communicate with his creators. But then Timothy Rendell, a member of the talented team of Black Foxes, received a three-word message from somewhere within the machine, a message impelling the Foxes to step once again into deadly peril as they try to rescue one of their own from the shadow-world clutches of Mad Avery in his very lethal virtual reality.

Dennis L. McKiernan holds us spellbound by weaving together science and magic and hazard and derring-do in a heart-clutching story, a breathtaking saga spanning magical worlds and alien planets in a tale of science fiction, of fantasy, of horror, and a riveting account of a desperate group of skilled scientists trying to keep a team alive, as well as a high-stakes court case concerning the essence of humanity, the outcome of which means life or death for some.
From Dennis L. McKiernan, one of the most prolific and imaginative authors in science fiction and fantasy today, comes Shadowprey, the thrilling sequel to his acclaimed Shadowtrap (formerly titled Caverns of Socrates).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dennis L. McKiernan
• Release date: Jul 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9780990355526

Dennis L. McKiernan

Dennis L. McKiernan The Gory Details My writing career began in 1977 when I got run over by a car—it shattered my left femur into about fifty pieces. The day they put me into a cast that went from my armpits to over my toes was the day I began a novel. You see, I needed something to keep me sane while I spent the next few months in a cement block. My lovely wife got me a large batch of yellow legal-sized tablets and lots of sharpened pencils. Since I was flat on my back as stiff as a board, I held the tablets up and wrote more or less overhead. Straight up. Vertically. My arms would get tired and I would rest and think about what came next in the tale and then repeat the vertical exercise—write, rest and think, and then write again (rather like rinse and repeat over and over again). And so, for some ten to fifteen hours a day seven days a week, I ran, swam, rode horses, fought battles, cried over deaths of loved ones, and helped the Dwarves regain their lost homeland, all while confined in a cement block. (Okay, okay, it was orthopedic plaster, but to my way of thinking it was more like the mob had a vendetta against me and had prepared me to sleep with the fishes, but for some reason hadn’t thrown me in but simply abandoned me on the roadside instead.) Anyway, the day they put me in the cast was the day I started the novel, and, coincidentally, about a hundred days later, the day they took me out of that imprisonment was the day I wrote “The End” on that tale. That was how I wrote my first novel. Oh, it wasn’t fine-tuned or finished by any means. There were revisions to make and I had to transcribe it from a handwritten story to a typed one, and, when all that was done, although I had written it just to keep sane, I thought it was quite good (no ego here, ha!). And so I sought out an editor who wanted to acquire it and so on and so forth, and finally succeeded in having it published (Thank you Al Sarrantonio and Pat LoBrutto and the folks at Doubleday). But that story I wrote just to keep sane was where I began. (Unless, of course, you count the round-robin “side-splitting” tales my father and I wrote about a detective, yet that is another story altogether.) Including that first Mithgar story, I have written and have had published a good number of tales set in that same world—a trilogy, two duologies, six stand-alone novels, two collections of Mithgarian stories, and I have just finished another Mithgarian saga. In addition, I have had published a five-book series of retold fairy tales, a science/fantasy novel, and about twenty or so short stories published in that many anthologies. What else is there? Ah, yes, there is this: Right out of high school I joined the Air Force (the Korean War had just begun). At the end of that war (actually, it never ended, but it stopped with a truce called) using the GI Bill, I earned a BS degree in electrical engineering from the University of Missouri. I earned a masters degree from Duke University also in electrical engineering. I spent some thirty-one years at Bell Labs in anti-ballistic missile defense systems, in hardware and software, and in a think tank. I married Martha Lee Northcutt in 1957 while in college, and we have two sons. I am a fantasy role player, and, as well, I exercise my thumbs and trigger fingers on my Xbox 360. I like chocolate-covered graham crackers. But my writing career . . . well it all began when I got run over by a car. I do not recommend that as a way to begin any profession.

Book preview

Shadowprey

A Black Foxes Adventure

A novel by

Dennis L. McKiernan

Copyright Dennis L. McKiernan 2007, 2012, 2014

ISBN 978-0-9903555-2-6

Thornwall Press

Tucson

Published by Thornwall Press at Smashwords

The characters and events and locations in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Copyright © 2007, 2012, 2014 by Dennis L. McKiernan

Cover photo from Shutterstock: Mysterious Light Blue Vortex, Copyright: A’lya

Cover design by Dennis L. McKiernan

Cover design © 2014 by Thornwall Press

Thornwall Press is wholly owned by Dennis L. McKiernan

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

Thornwall Press

2115 N Wentworth Rd

Tucson, AZ 85749-9741

First e-book edition, May 2014

ISBN 978-0-9903555-2-6

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

The Mithgar and Faery novels of Dennis L. McKiernan have long enchanted fans and critics alike. And they were equally enthralled with his bestselling science-fiction/fantasy novel: formerly titled Caverns of Socrates but in e-book form retitled as Shadowtrap. And now this gifted author presents us with the sequel to that story, a gripping tale to fire the imagination and make the heart pound. . . .

The Black Foxes are back in the grasp of the Dark God, and He is seeking revenge

Nearly one year ago a lightning strike damaged Avery—the artificial intelligence, AIVR—and for six months thereafter he refused to communicate with his creators. But then Timothy Rendell, a member of the talented team of Black Foxes, received a three-word message from somewhere within the machine, a message impelling the Foxes to step once again into deadly peril as they try to rescue one of their own from the shadow-world clutches of Mad Avery in his very lethal virtual reality.

Dennis L. McKiernan holds us spellbound by weaving together science and magic and hazard and derring-do in a heart-clutching story, a breathtaking saga spanning magical worlds and alien planets in a tale of science fiction, of fantasy, of horror, and a riveting account of a desperate group of skilled scientists trying to keep a team alive, as well as a high-stakes court case concerning the essence of humanity, the outcome of which means life or death for some.

From Dennis L. McKiernan, one of the most prolific and imaginative authors in science fiction and fantasy today, comes Shadowprey, the thrilling sequel to his acclaimed Shadowtrap (formerly titled Caverns of Socrates).

By Dennis L. McKiernan:

At the Edge of the Forest (paranormal, mystery romance)

Strange Reflections (a story collection)

The Black Foxes Series

Shadowtrap (Caverns of Socrates)

Shadowprey

The Faery Series

Once Upon a Winter’s Night

Once Upon a Summer Day

Once Upon an Autumn Eve

Once upon a Spring Morn

Once Upon a Dreadful Time

The Mithgar Series

The Dragonstone

Voyage of the Fox Rider

Hèl’s Crucible duology:

Book 1: Into the Forge

Book 2: Into the Fire

Dragondoom

Stolen Crown

The Iron Tower

The Silver Call

Tales of Mithgar (a story collection)

The Vulgmaster (the graphic novel)

The Eye of the Hunter

Silver Wolf, Black Falcon

City of Jade

Red Slippers: More Tales of Mithgar (a story collection)

To the memories of those who came before

And the promise of those who come after

Acknowledgments

To Martha Lee McKiernan for her enduring support, careful reading, patience, and love. Additionally, much appreciation and gratitude goes to the Tanque Wordies—John, Frances, and Diane—for their encouragement throughout the writing of Shadowprey. Lastly, to those who, through snailmail, e-mail, message boards, at conventions, and via other means, urged me to write this sequel to Caverns of Socrates (now retitled Shadowtrap).

Foreword

Back in 1995 (gee, was it that long ago?) Caverns of Socrates was published (a few years before the movie The Matrix hit the theaters). Anyway, Caverns of Socrates (now titled Shadowtrap in its e-book form) was and is an amalgam of science fiction and fantasy. Intermingled with what I thought were two intense adventures were three questions:

1. What is the nature of reality?

2. What is consciousness; what is the mind?

3 Do people have spirits, souls, and if so, would an artificial intelligence have a soul?

The first and third of these questions are certainly metaphysical and philosophical issues, but the middle one might be one that someday will yield to science.

Now, the problem with metaphysical questions is that one never knows whether the answers proffered are right. But at least the discussions engendered are fun to engage in.

Regardless, after Caverns of Socrates was published, I received quite a number of letters and e-mails telling me that the book had caused long hours of friendly speculations among classmates, friends, roommates, and readers of various stripes. And many asked me to please write the sequel.

At that time, I knew the basis of the adventure that would take place in reality, and the philosophical and metaphysical issues that that would raise, but I didn’t have but the vaguest clue as to one that would take place in virtual reality. So, I said to myself that I would assign that problem to my hind brain, and work on other projects.

Anyway, twelve years passed, and in that time, twelve or so other books occupied me. But, finally, my hind brain rose up to the conscious level and said, Okay, Dennis, here’s the story.

’Bout time, I replied. What’s the title?

"Shadowprey, hind brain said, or maybe Cogito."

"Ah, okay, hind brain. Cogito, eh? Latin, eh? From ‘Cogito ergo sum’ I gather, though wrongly attributed to Descartes. I think he actually said it in French, and someone else put it in Latin. Cogito: rather esoteric, I say, but perhaps it will do. Me, I like Shadowprey better. Lot more sinister. So, tell me, what’s the issue here?"

Well, not that it’s muddled, said hind brain, "but it deals with sentience and asks, ‘What is the essence of a human being?’"

I knew that, I replied to myself. "Now instead tell me about the adventures. That’s the part that had me waiting for you to finally pop up again."

Oh, those, said hind brain. Well, it starts out in a courtroom. . . .

Anyway, hind brain began telling me the story and how to structure it, and the more he said, the more excited I became. Finally, hind brain was finished in the telling, and so I said, "We’ll call it Shadowprey."

I hope as you read it, you will react just as I did.

~ Dennis L. McKiernan

Tucson, 2007

Note

Just as Shadowtrap (formerly titled Caverns of Socrates) is a stand-alone book, so too is Shadowprey. I will say, however, that Shadowprey takes up the story at the point where Shadowtrap (Caverns of Socrates) ends. Do not let this dissuade you if you haven’t read the first book, for I think you will enjoy Shadowprey regardless.

Help. Prisoner. Arton.

1

Courthouse

(Adkins)

State your name and residence for the record.

As she lowered her hand, Toni said, Antoinette Adkins, 412 Calle del Perro, Tucson, Arizona.

Perhaps confused by Toni’s British accent, the court reporter looked up from the recorder and said, Spell your name, please.

When Toni had done so, Judge Marshall looked at the buxom woman in her early forties and said, Miss Adkins, I remind you that you have been given immunity, and that anything you say in this hearing cannot be used against you in any future proceedings. Do you understand?

I do, your honor.

Judge Marshall nodded. You may be seated.

Even as Toni took her seat, her gaze swept over the eagerly awaiting faces in the courtroom, the largest they could find for these proceedings. At a table to the left sat Charlotte Dupree and Finster Coburn, the respective heirs, and Mark Perry, counsel to them and to those who would testify on their behalf. At a table to the right sat Melissa French, legal counsel to those who would testify in opposition to the heirs. To the left as well and in the jury box sat a panel of experts of various stripe—nine in all, somewhat like the jury in a civil case, though this was a civil hearing instead; these nine would listen to the testimony and act as advisors if and only if called upon by Judge Marshall to clarify some esoteric technical term or such, though only he, in the end, had the legal standing to rule. In the spectator seats sat a courtroom full of representatives of the media—newspapers, vidpapers, vidcasters and the like—reporters eager to file their stories to the waiting world. And behind them were a slew of holocams, ready to broadcast every word, every movement, every breath to holovids across the planet. Somebody leaked, and what a circus they provoked. Good grief, what could be more theatrical than this whole affair? This’ll be more sensational than the Scopes monkey trial. It had taken months of negotiations to reach this point, but the heirs had virtually nothing to gain from suing Toni and the others, and everything to gain should their claim stand up.

Judge Marshal turned to the heirs’ table and said, Counselor.

Mark Perry stood and said, Miss Adkins, would you please tell the court your position in Coburn Industries?

Toni brushed back a stray lock of hair the color of which lay somewhere in that intermediate range between reddish blond and brown. I’m the Project Head of AIVR.

AIVR?

Artificial Intelligence Virtual Reality, commonly known as Avery.

Perry strolled out from behind his table to stop before the witness box. "You might call it Avery, but its official designation is Coburn Industries AI slash VR zero one, right?

Yes. But we consider—

"The question only required a yes or no answer, Miss Adkins. And your answer is ‘yes,’ right?

Toni sighed and said, It is.

And as project head, what is it you do, Miss Adkins?

I supervise the team that is responsible for the care and feeding of Avery, and—

Care and feeding? Isn’t that a little too—

Objection, called out Melissa French. Mr. Perry isn’t allowing the witness to—

Your honor, interrupted Perry, to describe the management of a machine as ‘care and feeding’ is prejudicial to these entire proceedings, and—

Your honor, interposed Melissa, now standing up, Mr. Perry is interjecting his own opinion as well as not letting Miss Adkins answer the—

Judge Marshall held up his hand to stop the flow of words. Then he looked at Mark Perry and said, She’s right, counselor. You must let the witness answer the question before expressing doubts at her choice of words. Objection sustained.

Melissa grinned at Perry and sat back down.

Judge Marshall, a man graying at the temples, turned toward Toni and said, You may finish your answer, Miss Adkins. Then he looked at the court reporter and said, Please repeat the question.

Marla Thompson scrolled back through the record. And as project head, what is it you do, Miss Adkins?

Toni nodded and said, I supervise the team that is responsible for the care and feeding—Mark Perry shook his head but said nothing—of Avery, and I am charged with selecting the tasks we ask Avery to do.

Perry snorted. Care and feeding? This is a machine, Miss Adkins, not a—

Objection! Mr. Perry is interjecting his own opinion again.

Sustained, said Marshall. He turned a baleful eye toward Perry. Save it for your closing argument, counselor.

The muscles in Mark’s jaw knotted and then relaxed as he took a deep breath and let it out. He turned to Toni and took from his pocket a small electronic device and flipped it open. Would you describe the operation and maintenance of my personal I-All as ‘care and feeding’?

Toni paused a moment before saying, No.

Is that because it is a mere—?

Objection. Leading the witness.

Sustained.

Your honor, this witness is hostile, and—

I said, ‘sustained,’ counselor. You need to rephrase your question and not interject your own opinions. Even though this is a civil hearing, I cannot let you—

In the back of the courtroom a portly, white-haired man in a rope-belted, long brown robe jumped to his sandaled feet and shouted, Civil hearing? Civil hearing? No, it should be a criminal trial instead!

Judge Marshall rapped his gavel, but the man raved on: Murder, that’s what. Conspiracy to murder! Not Avery! Him I don’t care about. But the other! He’s the one they’re trying to—!

People turned about in their seats to look at this ranting, long-haired, monklike figure—a religious nut of some sort?—and those near him drew away, as if afraid of somehow being contaminated with a mental disease.

Sit down! called Marshall, even as bailiffs moved toward the man.

No, no, I won’t sit down. It’s murder! You don’t realize they intend to destroy a soul!

Even as the bailiffs reached the man, Marshall said, Remove him. My courtroom is not the British parliament.

With the brown-robed man yet raving murder and soul killers and struggling against his captors, the bailiffs hustled him out of the chamber and into the hall beyond, his voice fading as they escorted him from the building, leaving the room abuzz with speculation on why this lunatic had ever been permitted in court in the first place, for he was obviously completely mad. And there was a brief surge of sound when the bailiffs escorted the man through the exterior doors, as the shouts of the crowds of picketers rose up at the sight of someone coming out.

Kooks and geeks and opportunists, thought Toni. Religious fanatics, technophobes, technophiles, eugenicists, end-of-the-worlders, whatevers: every kind of nut conceivable, each one looking for his meager however-many-minutes of holofame. She had even seen a man raving about the asteroid to come.

Again Judge Marshall rapped for quiet, and when it fell at last, he looked at the nine members of the panel of experts as if they were jurors and said, You will pay no heed to what that man said. It is not part of this civil hearing.

Even as the judge admonished that group, Melissa French at the advocate table jotted down something on her pad.

Marshall gestured at Mark Perry. You may continue, counselor.

Frowning, as if he had lost his train of thought, Mark Perry glanced down at the device in his hand. Then he smiled and once again looked at Toni Adkins. Tell me, Miss Adkins, why do you not call the operation and maintenance of this handheld as ‘care and feeding’?

Toni cocked an eyebrow and said, Because it has no mind of its own.

With a feigned expression of surprise, Mark turned to the panel and the spectators and held up the device and said, No mind of its own? Hmm. . . . I wonder. You see, sometimes this infernal machine won’t boot up, or it freezes, or doesn’t—

Your honor, said Melissa, exasperatedly.

Counselor, warned the judge.

I apologize, your honor, said Mark Perry as he clicked shut the device and slipped it back in his pocket, all the while grinning at the onlookers, some of whom smiled back, and several even nodding apparently in agreement with Mark’s characterization of the handheld as an infernal machine.

What I mean, said Toni, also looking at the advisory panel, knowing that the spectators would hear her as well, is that an I-All is not sentient, whereas Avery—

Your honor! protested Perry. I’d like that comment stricken from the record.

She was merely clarifying her— began Melissa.

Mark shook his head. The witness is injecting her own opinion about—

Judge Marshall rapped his gavel. This time I agree with Counselor Perry. After all, among other things, we are here to make that exact determination. Strike her comment from the record. And I instruct the panel to disregard her remark on sentience.

Mark turned and smiled at Melissa, then, without looking at Toni, asked, On August twelfth, did I not inform you of what the heirs of Arthur Coburn wished you to do to the AI slash VR zero one?

You did.

And that was . . . ?

To reboot Avery, and see if that made him communicable. If not, then to shut him down and then bring him back up in the maintenance mode and erase everything from his memory that occurred after the lightning strike had damaged him. And then reboot and see if that made him communicable. If not, then to shut him down until such repairs to make him so had been made.

And did you reboot or shut down the AI slash VR zero one?

No.

Yet Arthur Coburn’s torn and broken body—torn and broken I might add by AI slash VR zero one—was months in its grave, right?

Yes.

In fact it had been a full year altogether since the funeral service, right?

Toni frowned and then said, Yes, approximately a year; more accurately, eleven months, I believe.

And the people with title to the AI slash VR zero one are his legal heirs—Mark gestured toward the plaintiffs—Finster Coburn and Charlotte Dupree nee Coburn, first cousins to Arthur Coburn; is that not so?

They are his designated heirs.

Yet you refused to comply.

I did.

Mark Perry strode back to the plaintiff table. I reserve the right to recall this witness, but I have no further questions at this time.

Even as the judge glanced toward Toni, she first looked at him and then at the courtroom door and raised her voice and said, I refused to comply because I happen to agree with Dr. Greyson, the man you threw out of this room: to have followed that course of action would have been cold-blooded murder.

As the courtroom broke into an uproar, Mark Perry leapt to his feet and shouted objections over the din, while Melissa French jumped up and defended Toni’s words.

On the bench, Judge Marshall banged his gavel for order, but it was a long time coming.

2

Courthouse

(Adkins)

Judge Marshall looked toward the advocate table. Counselor French?

Melissa got to her feet and said, "Miss Adkins, I would like you to tell us in your own words of the events leading up to your refusal to reboot or shut down Avery."

Toni nodded, for she and Melissa had had many a long conversation over the central issue of the hearing and how to approach her testimony. As Melissa sat back down, Toni took a deep breath, and then one by one she looked at the nine members of the panel—four women, five men—some of whom made eye contact with her, others who seemed to be studying their hands.

Then Toni began: As Melissa said in her opening statement yesterday, Avery is a remarkable artificial intelligence, an AI, if you will. Avery was some years in development, and his—

Objection! called Mark Perry. Judge, I would have you instruct the witness to refrain from referring to the AI slash VR zero one as a ‘he’ or a ‘him.’

Even as Judge Marshall’s eyes narrowed at this upstart who presumed to tell him what to do in his own courtroom, Your honor, protested Melissa, "I asked Toni to tell us in her own words of the events leading up to the reboot or shut-down request, and these are those words."

A fragment of a smile twitched the corner of Judge Marshall’s mouth, and he nodded and said, Indeed, these are her own words. I believe we can make allowances for that.

Your honor! complained Perry, I—

Counselor! snapped Marshall.

Mark sighed and sat back down.

It was all Toni could do to keep from pumping her arm in a Yes! gesture, since establishing Avery as a he or a him would be central to swaying the court. That, and instilling in the judge’s as well as the panel’s minds that she was Toni, rather than the more remote Miss, Ms., or Dr. Adkins.

From the advocate table, Melissa said, Please continue, Toni.

As I started to say about Avery, he was and is a remarkable intelligence.

Mark Perry squirmed, but made no objection.

Although Avery is capable of virtually an unlimited number of extraordinary things, his initial mission was to establish a virtual reality, a VR, and to manage the events therein to the satisfaction of high-paying clients.

Toni, asked Melissa, given that Avery is capable of so much, is the management of a VR really the best use to put him to?

Perhaps not, said Toni, but Arthur—Arthur Coburn that is—pointed out that with the funds we could recoup from people willing to pay almost anything to live out their fantasies, we could create any number of Averys—Toni now looked at the jurors—who would do the real work of helping the world recover from the dreadful pandemic that took so many of our brothers and sisters, our lovers, our wives and husbands, our parents and children, and our friends from us.

Several of the panel members nodded, spectators, too, for all had had personal experience in what the Ebola-Calcutta virus had done when it got loose in the world—the decimation of the industrial countries, the devastation of the third world. Many in the courtroom shuddered, for they had seen victims of Ebola-Calcutta: screaming in agony, burning with fever, shuddering and twitching with seizures caused by literally thousands of internal blood clots, the pale remainder of their thin blood hemorrhaging from eyes, nose, ears, and mouth, and from every other orifice as they bled to death . . . and somehow, of all these, the watery pinkness streaming from the eyes seemed the worst.

The world had panicked, for the virus was airborne and long-lived—a dreadful mutation of Ebola-Zaire—and merely breathing in the same room with an exposed victim virtually guaranteed infection—at least 90 percent fatal. Borders were closed, but the virus spread like wildfire regardless. People, terrified, isolated themselves from one another, barricaded themselves, shot anyone who dared set foot down nearby—strangers, neighbors, friends, relatives, family . . . it didn't matter.

And it was Arthur Coburn who had been responsible for the vaccine that stopped the spread of the disease. His biohazard team isolated the key mutation that had transformed the contact virus into an airborne one, and they had modified the older vaccine into the newer form and had stopped the pandemic cold in those places where it could be delivered soon enough—too late for many, just in time for others.

With this remembered horror, Melissa wiped tears from her cheeks and said, Please continue, Toni.

So, realizing that Arthur was correct, we asked Avery to manage a virtual reality, and he gladly agreed.

Mark Perry started to stand, but a glance from Judge Marshall stopped his objection before he could make it, and Perry slumped back into his seat.

Our initial tests were quite successful, though a few minor refinements had to be made. Each of us on the corporate team had experienced our own adventure in virtual reality, and I must say, it seemed as real as does this courtroom, though much more pleasant, I add.

This brought a subdued chuckle from the spectators, swiftly quelled by a stern look from the judge.

Real? asked Melissa.

Yes. You see, Doctor Greyson likened it to being thrown into a Cavern of Socrates.

Explain, said Melissa.

Your honor, must we listen to this claptrap? asked Mark.

I’d like to hear myself, Counselor, said Judge Marshal. He turned to Toni and said, Go on.

Well, bear with me, for there are quite a number of preconditions, but how they came about, Plato did not explain. Regardless, as I understand it, Plato said that Socrates posed the following problem: If one were trapped in a cave and knew little or nothing of the real world, and if his head were fixed so that it couldn’t move, and if all he saw was the wall of the cave before him, and if behind that viewer the cave opened up to the outside world, and if there were a road beyond the mouth of the cave, and if there were a great fire beyond the road—

Your honor, said Mark.

Sit down, Counselor, said Marshal. As I said, I want to hear this. He gestured to Toni to continue.

If there were a wall alongside the road, and if various travellers and merchants carried or hauled tall statues of fantastic creatures—Harpies, Centaurs, and the like—those statues would cast moving shadows against the cave wall, then the viewer would believe he were seeing reality, yet they would be nothing more than shadows upon the wall.

Marshal frowned. And this relates to virtual reality how?

In the case of the one experiencing a virtual reality, it would be as if he were living in Socrates’ or perhaps Plato’s shadow world. It would be his reality, for, part of what Avery does, is he suppresses the person’s own true identity such that the person experiencing Avery’s virtual reality becomes the character he has chosen to be, hence he would know nothing more, nothing less, for his identity would be submerged in Avery’s shadow play. And that is why Dr. Grayson said virtual reality was like being thrown into a Cavern of Socrates.

If I understand you correctly, then, said the judge, you liken virtual reality to being part of a shadow play and not knowing that it isn’t true reality.

That is correct, said Toni.

Judge Marshall looked at Melissa and said, You may continue.

We were speaking of the corporate staff undergoing individual tests. How does this relate to what later happened?

Toni said, Though Avery was successful with these one-on-one trials, we were not ready to announce it to the world, for one more test had to be made: we needed to make certain that Avery could control a virtual reality for a team event.

Team event? asked Melissa.

"We needed to have Avery manage a single and shared virtual reality simultaneously for several members of a team—say a group of adventurers, or a family—and provide them with an experience they would enjoy. You see, any one of Avery’s virtual realities is rather like an exciting story coming alive for the person within that virtual reality, something at the time that seems to be as real as true life. And as I said, whatever persona the adventurer takes on, that’s who he ‘becomes.’ No longer is he the person who he is in reality; he has no memory of that, unless he chooses to be himself in his adventure; he takes on a chosen identity in virtual reality and truly believes that he or she is the one he decided to become, be that a fighter pilot in World War I, or a spaceship commander in a far future, or a spy, a harem girl, whatever. And in our initial tests, Avery performed even better than we had hoped in running adventures for individuals.

But we wanted to make certain that Avery could do the same thing for a number of people all in a shared reality, for certainly lovers or families or several gamers would all wish to enjoy being together in the same adventure.

What did you decide to do?

"Arthur had been told of a team of gamers who called themselves the Black Foxes and who had won a world event in the old, visor-projected, virtual-reality games. He contacted them, for he knew that with their talents they would represent an exacting trial for Avery. And if Avery could manage an exciting and challenging reality for them, he could do it for anyone.

"And so, Arthur arranged for the Black Foxes to share a single adventure, and he joined them in that quest, for he wished to be part of that undertaking.

"I will not bore you with the details of that trial, but suffice it to say that the Black Foxes plus Arthur Coburn became the alpha team, the first group of people to test Avery’s ability to run a shared adventure for several people at once. In any event, after the trial was underway, a major lightning strike damaged Avery, and things went very wrong, and the shadow play became shadow peril, a shadow trap, and the players became Avery’s shadow prey. Arthur Coburn’s bodily demise being just one terrible outcome.

"As for Avery himself, he went mad, and we spent months trying to discover what had gone amiss. We tried many things, but nothing worked. And he was totally mute. It was as if his personality had fallen into a black hole never to emerge again. One of my colleagues, Doctor Timothy Rendell, believed that a unique paradox had driven Avery insane, and he went into a catatonic-like state and refused to communicate.

"Regardless, as to what

Reviews for Shadowprey

[T. Dean Gates · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

So much fun to find this sequel when it was not known to be out there. Up the Black Foxes!