16. Jungle fever.

  Towering trees loomed overhead, their trunks gnarled, and vines hanging in loose curtains. This was definitely not where we’d entered. It was panic. Everyone was talking and shouting.

  “What the hell Winsford?!?”

  I tried to will myself out for the tenth time, it didn’t work. Trapped! We were trapped in the subconscious!

  I closed my eyes. Insects buzzed around my head, beads of sweat formed on my arms. I felt the carpet of ferns shin deep on my legs. I couldn’t focus. Think. Just think.

  A bird gave a single, sharp cry and flapped away overhead.

  “Nonononowe’reallgunna die”

  “QUIET!” Winsford shouted. “Just… everyone be quiet for a second.”

  “Sophie” he continued. “Just what the hell is actually going on here?”

  “I… I don’t know Mr Winsford! We should have emerged at exactly the same point!”

  “What do you mean you don’t know? You’re frigging AI. Tell me what the HELL is going on!!”

  “Waitwaitwait… did you just say Sophie is AI?”

  “What is your problem Ross?” Winsford said.

  “What’s my problem? What’s my problem!?! My problem is that you’ve trapped us in some digital nightmare jungle under the pretense that our expert assistant was an actual person, when in reality she’s nothing but a glorified algorithm that probably didn’t even pass a beta test!!!”

  “We don’t have time for this. Sophie, drop character protocol psychologist abnegation. Adopt clinical analyst protocol” Winsford said.

  The look of strained concern on Sophie’s face dropped instantly to be replaced by an expression of serenity.

  “I do not yet have a verifiable explanation, Mr Winsford. The most probable possibility is that our exit vector from the pre-conscious VR layer misaligned. Instead of returning to the designated anchor point, we appear to have transitioned into an adjacent region of the subconscious construct. This suggests a previously undocumented instability in the interface linking pre-conscious cognition to the subconscious VR architecture” it said.

  “In other words, you have no idea what the hell is going on” Ross said, throwing his hands in the air and turning away in disgust.

  “Did you know that the human race is still completely unable to fathom the mysteries of paracetamol?” In surprise, everyone turned to look at Simon who, unusually, had opted to speak.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “We swallow it without a second thought,” he went on quietly, “but after two centuries of study we still cannot fully explain why it works. We can’t even rise to the level of understanding the most basic thing in our medicine cabinet. This was never going to work.” He turned casually to meander about in our clearing.

  That pretty well shut us all up, no one quite knowing what to say next.

  After a few moments, Winsford again spoke up. “Listen,” he said, eyes narrowing, “We are not stuck. We are not doomed. We took an unexpected turn in the subconscious VR layer, that is all. We always knew that this was going to come with risks and unexpected situations. But we already know that there are exit points out of the subconscious, we just have to find them. We’re not in any danger.”

  He glanced around at us, lips lifting in a half smile that was equal parts reassurance and challenge. “So here is what is going to happen. We move. We keep our heads. We travel through this subconscious realm until we find the next exit point. Simple. It is here. It exists. And we are going to reach it. I did not come this far to lose, and I am not starting today. Get it together people, and let’s move out.”

  Gotta hand it to him, the guy knows how to command a room. Ok. Makes sense, this is not the worst thing that could happen.

  “Mr Winsford,” Sophie broke in, before everyone had gathered themselves together. “There is one other thing that we need to do before we set out.”

  “And what is that, Sophie?” he said, with a polite smile and cold eyes.

  Her eye flickered for a second.

  ““Pursuant to the relevant operational compliance mandates governing immersive neuro-simulative frameworks, and in accordance with statutory disclosure obligations applicable to entities navigating unforeseen scenarios in the pre-conscious and subconscious virtual cognition layers of thought-casting technology, we are required to issue formal notification that, within the current deployment parameters of this system, no analgesic, nociceptive-mitigation, or discomfort-attenuation subroutines are instantiated, accessible, or functionally supported at any tier of the present stratum; accordingly, all participants should proceed under the explicit advisement that neuro-sensory agonyth suppression mechanisms are not presently engaged in a normal operational sense, nor are they to be currently inferred, assumed, or retroactively implied in accordance with the aforesaid parameters of all and any presigned agreements.”

  “Thank you, Sophie” Winsford said with a tight smile. “Unless you’ve got anything else to say, I think that it’s time to get moving.”

  “Wait” said Chen, “What was that, what does it mean?”

  “I’ll tell you what it means” chipped in Simon, with the same cool, collected voice he always had. “It means that Winsford is now legally obligated to tell us that there are no pain dampeners down here.”

  “Wait… as in, no pain dampeners… at all?”

  “No pain dampeners at all” Simon replied.

  “Hang on, Winsford, is that true?” Chen asked.

  Winsford’s smile was gone now.

  Winsford lifted his chin to a point just short of arrogant, smoothed his tie, and said, “Look, let’s not get dramatic. Pain dampeners or no pain dampeners, it changes nothing. We hit an unexpected glitch, that’s all. Happens to the best systems. Happens to the best people. What matters is how fast we adapt. And I adapt fast. There is no reason to think that pain will be any kind of factor down here.”

  “Just give me a straight answer, Harvey, are we stuck down here with no pain dampeners?” Chen asked.

  “I… yes” he finished. “But there’s no reason to think that this is a risk. We’ve already spent plenty of time down here, and it hasn’t been an issue. So let’s just pull ourselves together, get moving, and get out of here as quickly as we can.”