As more bots streamed into the Dome, Cal turned away from Kelna to face them. "Take cover, Professor, things are about to get messy. Get to the transport, I'll join you in a moment."

"Oh boy," said Kelna again. Grabbing his bag, he made his way to the transport in the centre of the Dome, crabbing along as swiftly as he could on old knees. Cal walked backwards in the same direction, facing the rising tide of bots swarming toward them.

Kelna made it to the transport. A door slid open silently and he stepped inside. Cal still walked steadily backwards, and glanced over his shoulder to make sure Kelna was safe. Seeing the old man standing in the door of the transport, Cal stopped.

The bot with a needle held steady in an armature rolled ahead of its colleagues on liquid metal tracks. Cal made a motion with one hand, and it stopped, dead. A pool of liquid metal spread from underneath the machine, and the bot collapsed in on itself, dissolving before his eyes until just puddle remained.

Cal spoke clearly into the silence. "I do not want to destroy any more of you, it's pointless and wasteful. Go away now, and no more of you will be harmed. I need to talk to my friend. Come against me again, and you will join the remains of this med bot."

Power crackled from Cal's fingertips, static electricity sparking the air between his fingers. He rose up from the floor, his hair standing on end as the static charge built further.

The Mind's voice rippled from the walls - You need to calm down and let us help you, Cal.

"It would help if you weren't trying to stab me with a sedative!" he shouted. The first of the bots tried to grab him and lightning exploded from his fingertips, arcing into the swarm. As the bots were hit, they exploded in fragments of white hot metal, and once more Kelna dived for cover. The bot swarm surrounded Cal, then arced over him, building a dome of skittering metal above him. Cal stood in the centre, a crackling hemisphere of energy keeping the bots away from him. He bowed his head, sending out tendrils of thought into his surroundings. As the last of the bots piled on top of him he mentally reached out to Kelna.

Be ready, Professor.

As the comment whispered into Kelna's mind, Cal raised his hands in a circle to meet above his head, and the dome of skritching electronics around Cal folded in on itself in a shriek of grinding metal. Electric light fused and flashed amidst the maelstrom, and a mental scream of rage threw Kelna to his knees clutching his head in agony. Cal roared into the metallic storm surrounding him, and the entire bot swarm balled up into a glowing mass of defunct metal above Cal's head. Cal took a deep steadying breath, and with a surge of mental energy made a throwing motion with his hands, the metallic mess slamming into the entrance to the Dome.

There was silence.

Kelna sat up as Cal approached, and the younger man proffered a hand, hauling the professor to his feet and dusting him down.

"I'm sorry, Professor, are you okay?"

Kelna pulled Cal into a hug. "I'm fine, Cal, thank you."

"May we talk for a moment please, sir?"

"Sir?" Kelna moved to a seat in the transport and gestured to Cal to join him. "Why so formal?"

"I don't know, I'm just confused as to who I am now." He paused, thinking, and closed his eyes for a moment. Holding out a hand, but with his eyes closed, he spoke. "Please give me your hand, Professor."

Kelna placed his hand in Cal's, the wrinkled and weathered skin of his palm resting against Cal's smooth unblemished one. Cal tilted his head to one side, opened his eyes and smiled.

"You're real. Well, in a way."

"As I said to you, lad, trust your heart. What else have you worked out?"

Cal waved a hand at the surroundings. "None of this is real. We're in a Mindscape, a simulation, but it's a far more real version than anything I've ever experienced before. You are here with me, inside this construct, so your mind is real, but your body is not."

Kelna beamed at him, smiling broadly. "And?"

"Nothing I've experienced in the last few days has been real. I think something did go very wrong with the pod, or the biogel, or something, and I'm still in there. Were you sent to get me out, Professor? Are you my only link to the real world?"

"Yes," said Kelna. "And no."

Cal kinked a questioning eyebrow at the old man, and Kelna continued, automatically dropping into the voice he used to teach students.

"With our most promising students, we wait until they're of age, and then we put them through a few tests. These tests are designed to find the brightest, most capable, and innovative minds of each generation. You are now in that test.

"The biogel pods are seldom used, as they are too real. Those hedonistic fools in the Cities would kill themselves in short order if they were introduced to a near perfect simulation like this. They would spend their entire lives plugged into their ideal fantasy, rather than living a real life. While you lie in that pod, your body is very slowly dying. It can last for weeks in there, but the human mind needs reality to survive."

Kelna sighed. "In the early days of the Cities, people went mad inside the worlds they had created, they were too real, too much for most humans to maintain for long. So the decision was taken to make the simulations less real, just like the rooms you used for your mathematical journeys. But a few were kept functioning."

"So this is all just a test? A test for what?"

"To see if you could cope with leaving the City."

"What?"

"Give me a moment to explain, Cal, bear with me here." Cal nodded mutely, and Kelna continued. "I have been connected to this simulation from the outset, as has Takei. But with every connection, there is a risk of information transfer. You have done something no other person has done before, Cal, you have rewritten the simulation from the inside out. You have drawn on your own mind power to pull in information from any available source; your own experiences, my connection, Takei's connection, even the library of the Mind itself. So, as you have had glimpses of information, your brain has tried to make sense of each bit. But, as you were in a state of some emotional turmoil, your emotion and newly awakened powers affected the simulation. And so we are where we are now.

"But, that does not mean everything you have experienced is not real, just perhaps not entirely true. Your brain has given you an alternate perception of what is actually happening both within and outside of the City.

"This simulation is a test Cal, a test to see whether you are one of the few of the human race who could cope with not only leaving the City, but journeying to the stars."

Cal slumped back into his seat. "There's something I need to know, Professor. Am I the only one who can do things like this?" He waved a hand at the destruction outside the pod. "Am I the only person like me?"

Kelna looked troubled for a moment and took in a deep breath. "At the moment, yes."

"At the moment?"

"There have been a few who could speak mind to mind, without the Mind link, but your brain is slightly different again. But we appear to have more youngsters who display some early signs of being able to do different things."

"So I'm some sort of virus in the Mindscape? A freak?" Cal looked down at his feet, his mood darkening, his breathing quickening as panic gripped him.

"No." Kelna replied firmly. He gently lifted Cal's chin with his hand, looking deep into his eyes. "You are the first, but you are the first of many more like you. You are the catalyst to what follows. You are the beginning of the next evolutionary phase of mankind, Cal. But above all that you are still my friend and a remarkable young man."

Cal took a calming breath and bowed his head in thanks. "Thanks, Professor, that helps. But what now? I have created a mental picture of Outside the City, but is it correct? Is there life out there?"

"There is, but not as you pictured it. That's what we're aiming for. That's the end goal. Just as we have the bots in here, there are an army of bots Outside too. They're cleaning up the toxins, and now it is possible for humans to go outside again without dying horribly in a poisonous soup. But there is little in the way of vegetation or life other than in small pockets at present. But that will change over time. The 'window' you saw was an image I have long held in my mind. It's something I hope to live to see, and something we will achieve one day. But we're not quite there yet. There is, however, another world that does resemble it, and it's a place I'd love you to see."

Cal sat bolt upright. "We've colonised other worlds?"

"Yes. Humankind isn't all in one place anymore. The Cities, Towers and Domes house the vast bulk of the human population, but there have always been explorers in the human race, Cal. And we always need more."

Cal thought for a moment. "You say I've influenced the simulation with my mind." Kelna nodded. "In what way? When did I start?"

"Right from the outset. For example, your worries over being alone manifested themselves as the Ghost." Kelna stood abruptly. "Right, we need to find a way out of here. You now run this simulation, Cal, you need to find an exit."

"Wait."

The one word stopped Kelna in his tracks, and he bowed his head, knowing what was coming.

"You said I'd influenced this right from the start." Cal stood and faced his mentor. "Where is Helena?"

"We need to get you out of here, Cal, then we can discuss things more."

The air darkened around them, and Cal's expression changed. Static filled the space between them and Kelna placed a placatory palm on the younger man's chest.

"Calm yourself, Cal, please." He sighed. "Very well, but you need to sit down."

The two sat again, and Kelna spoke softly into the still air. "Helena nearly died."

"Nearly? I thought she was dead!" Cal shouted. "You lied."

"No, you lied to yourself, Cal. But it's not your fault, no-one understood the full potential of your mind. None of us, the Mind included, had realized what effect the simulation might have on you and those around you."

Kelna took a deep shuddering breath and carried on. "Helena lives, but is in a type of coma. When you both first entered the pods, there was a slight electrical charge build up. You panicked, and the mental blast from your mind knocked out a few of the fail safes on the two active pods. We managed to knock you out using a sedative, but the electrical charge in Helena's pod stopped her heart momentarily."

Kelna leaned forward and grasped Cal's arm. "You felt her die, Cal. The mental scream of anguish you projected as she died was felt by hundreds of people in the building. Takei didn't stop crying for days after the event, even though we brought Helena straight back to life using the pod's medical systems. The mental jolt you projected was that strong, Cal. We moved Helena to another place, as far away from you as we could to protect her, so initially you couldn't sense her. But subconsciously you knew she was alive.

"From that point on, we lost control of the simulation. Once you recovered from the sedative you unknowingly had near complete control. But your subconscious was still telling you she was alive. This is why your watch had a message, why the Ghost questioned whether you knew she'd died, why she appeared in your Mindscape, and sent you a box full of love and hope. You are not alone, Cal, Helena's still alive."

"She's alive?" Cal shouted jubilantly, his voice shaking with hope and suppressed emotion. "I need to see her, Professor. We need to get out of this right now. How do we get out?"

"I don't know," whispered Kelna.

"What?" Cal sank back into his seat. "What?" he repeated. "But you must know, Professor."

"I'm afraid I don't. Against Dr. Takei and the Mind's advice, I have joined you here, but only you can get us out, Cal. This simulation is now wholly in your control."

Kelna leaned back into his seat blowing out his cheeks in frustration. "But there's something else, Cal. Helena is still in here with us and is part of this world. She's alive, but she's in a coma: a coma of your devising.

"We have moved her pod into the same room as us, but we're all slowly dying, Cal, and only you can get us out."