Chapter 13

They introduced themselves. Eddie asked, “What kind of art are you into, Ella?”

“He is sexually attracted to you, but I think Jane is his mate; she has reacted negatively to his manner towards you.”
“Stop!”

“Quite a range of stuff, I do like some of the very early animated films, Snow White, for instance. The fact that every frame was crafted by hand amazes me, very beautifully done. Also, Japanese art and animation, the interplay between their cultural heritage and the forms and themes in modern manga and anime. Also, cartooning, how the great cartoonists can create sadness in a face with a single line and change it to joy with another. But at the moment, I am working on something, well I love mythology, Greek, Norse and our own, Anglo-Saxon, and there is myth in East Anglia of Black Shuck a spectral dog and, well a friend of mine has a big black dog, he does things like nap under a hedge and then when you walk past he well step out, and it is almost as if he has appeared out of thin air.”

“You are going to tell them about Shuck?!”
“Don’t worry.”

Jane nodded, “I think I may have a spectral cat, she does stuff like that. Did you bring any of your work on it with you?”

Ella reached into her big and pulled out a folder, she opened it up and placed it in front of Jane, Eddie had to scuttle behind her to look over her shoulder, “Best place for him” Ella thought, then out loud “I am starting a storyboard, soft pencil, I started with it because I find it easy to work with, but I think I may keep that look as I go on with it.”

Geoff chipped in, “Ella, these are really strong, quite dramatic even, yes, I think the technique suits the subject.”

Jane nodded, “Dark, misty, yes, just right for the Black Shuck. What’s the story?”

Ella smiled at Jane, “I am not quite sure yet, I am hoping it will come to me more as I draw, but I am not thinking of this being too dark a story. There are different tales of the Shuck; in some, he is a monster, in others, the opposite.”

Frieda looked up from the drawings “I love your drawings. Before we moved to Suffolk, I grew up in Somerset, where we have a legend of the Gurt Dog, who is the guardian of the forest and looks after lost children. Is that more what you mean?”

Ella nodded, “Yes, that is very like the Fenland version, the Shuck followed lone travellers to make sure they were safe in the marshes, that is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind.”

Jane and Eddie pored over Ella’s drawings, Eddie pointed to a drawing of the Shuck, walking away along a path with reed beds to either side and said, “This is great, you have caught the feel of the old fen before it was drained, mile upon mile of wild, uninhabited, impassable swamp, all gone, all endless, flat fields of vegetables now.”  Jane nodded in agreement, “I love the way the dog is kind of melting into the hedge in this one, so spectral.”

Geoff said, “Thank you for showing us, Ella. I am really looking forward to seeing more of Shuck. Does anyone else have anything to show me?”

The others produced their work. Jane’s were beautiful and mystic, exquisite woodland scenes, rivers and mountains, all populated with nymphs and fairies. Frieda’s were, in contrast, more modern in feel, a blend of Western and Japanese forms, strong and powerfully drawn.

Eddie held back. “I would rather not share my work.”

Jane said, “You really should, Eddie, please.” She touched his shoulder, and he nodded.

“OK.”

Geoff said, “We talked about it, Eddie. I think it is important you get feedback. I don’t think people here are going to be cruel, and I promise we will get you through it.”

Eddie laid out his work on the table. There were all sorts of styles, from landscapes reminiscent of Turner and Constable through to Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau and Modernism, street-scenes, countryside, forests and seascapes. They were all drawn masterfully, superb craftsmanship, but Frieda recoiled into her chair, and Ella struggled not to do the same. All the people in his paintings and drawings looked wrong, the lines were right, the colours were right, but in one landscape, a running figure felt like it was a scarecrow posed to look like a runner, in a street scene, the people stared out of the scene with dead eyes, zombie eyes. “I just can’t get the people to look, even alive, I keep trying and trying, and they always come out like this.”

“I don’t understand. His work is exceptionally well-crafted. I can’t see anything wrong with it?”
“Eostre, you know you said you wanted to see beauty? Well, somehow, he is doing the opposite.”
“Oh”

Geoff said, “Eddie, I will help you any way I can. All the rest of my team feels the same. Your craftsmanship is the best we have seen in a student in years, maybe ever. You will get there, and I think your fellow students will want to help you just as much as we do.”

Ella and Frieda nodded vigorously. Frieda said, “It can’t be a big thing, I would love to help any way I can.” Ella said, “Me too, definitely.”

After that, they all chatted. Ella had worried a little about what it would be like studying with other artists, and she was relieved when she found she got on well with Eddie, Jane and Frieda. Also, a few more students appeared, shared their work and chatted, and she was sorry when she had to leave to get her train home.

“Why have you got Google Maps open? We are just retracing our earlier route?”
“Because.”
“But I know the way anyway. Even without Google Maps.”

They were about halfway to the station, and Ella had her eyes more or less glued to the Maps screen. She had not remembered the route at all; it wasn’t complicated, but she had been preoccupied thinking about what the session would be like.

“Why aren’t you talking to Duncan?”
“What? I am talking to him.”
“But he is walking along beside you, and neither of you has spoken?”

Ella looked around. “Duncan!”

He jumped and then spun to look at her. They chorused, “I thought you said your session was next week!”

“Humans.”

Duncan and Ella hugged, both surprised to see the other.

“Now you are both getting sexually aroused as well.”
“Stop it, what is it with you and sexual arousal? You are supposed to be a machine.”
“There are a lot of interesting mechanisms at play. Your heart rate has increased by twelve beats per minute. His heart rate has gone up by nine. Your skin temperature has risen slightly. You’re both producing more oxytocin and—”
“Stop!”
“OK.”

On the train, Ella and Duncan exchanged stories of their college sessions. Duncan had been quite excited by his; there had been short demos of various game production tools, and he had gelled nicely with the others in his group, “Fellow nerds,” he said. Ella was relieved that Eostre had quietened down a little after the conversation when Duncan and Ella met. There were just a few random comments from her on things she noticed as the train went along.

“Oh, look, the cows are lying down now; apparently, that means it is going to rain.”
“I know.” 

When they got off the last train, while Duncan was walking Ella home, he said, “By the way, you mentioned that Eostre can simulate pretty much any software? I would love to see that, and I am wondering what she could do with video game software.”

“Ooh, tell him I don’t pirate, so I can’t do copyright game content, but I can do something which will really impress him. It will be fun.”
“Ssh!”

Ella said, “OK, I will have to start getting dinner ready. I can set you up as a Power User, and you can play with my other best friend.”

“I’m really touched.”

Duncan laughed, “That will be great, thank you.”

They got back to the house, trooped upstairs, into Ella’s bedroom, and the screen flicked on as they entered. “Hi Duncan, hi Ella.”

Ella said, “Eostre, please create a power user account for Duncan. He wants to play with you.”

Eostre smiled, “Account created. Go and get dinner ready. Is Duncan staying for dinner? I can throw him out when it is ready.”

Ella said, “Duncan, you are welcome to stay for dinner. Eostre, I should make you help with the cooking.”

Eostre smiled, “But I will be entertaining your guest for you.”

Ella turned to Duncan, “Sometimes I wish I had a proper computer, not a smartarse. Dinner?”

Duncan smiled back and nodded. She headed for the door, saying, “All yours, Duncan, enjoy.”

Duncan slid into the computer chair. “Hi Eostre, Ella has been telling me about how you can emulate pretty much any software. I was wondering what you could do with video games.”

Eostre nodded, “Yes, I know games are your major interest. But there is an important distinction between what I demonstrated for Peter and Ella and what you need from a video game. I explained to them that applications like Word, Excel, and Photoshop are basically interfaces to the underlying capabilities of the machine they are running on, so I wasn’t copying or creating software, just creating an interface with the same capabilities as the commercial product. Now, video games, yes, there is an interface, but the real value in a game lies in the content. So replicating that is on an entirely different level. Not easy to do without stealing all the audio and graphics files and much, much more. But I have a suggestion for you. Something I think you would like, if you are up for it?”

Duncan thought for a moment, “Yes, actually, that does all make sense, kind of it is not the code which counts, but the experience. OK, I’m game, what do you suggest we do?”

Eostre nodded, “Yes, experience, that is a good way to put it. What I have in mind is a demo world with a bit of haptic feedback. Ella’s headphones are high-end Sony noise-cancelling Bluetooth headphones; they should be powerful enough for what I want to do. Could you put them on, please?

Duncan picked them up off the desk and switched them on. The background noise faded away; only the low hiss from the noise-cancelling system remained. Then Eostre spoke through them, “I am going to use the electromagnetic coils in the speakers to interface with your somatosensory cortex,” Eostre explained. “It will feel… unusual. I would suggest you lie down on the bed and relax. When you are ready, let me know.”

Duncan lay down on the bed and relaxed as ordered. He thought, “Ok, I am ready.” Before he could say it out loud, Eostre had replied gently, “Close your eyes. Off we go.”

Duncan was standing on a hillside, looking out across a valley of olive groves. It was sunny and hot, and he could see people working among them; they were dressed in the kind of clothes he had seen in ancient Greek artworks, using old-fashioned tools.

A young woman dressed in a silk chiton walked up to him. She had shoulder-length white hair and was smiling broadly at him, “Hi, Duncan.”

His mouth opened, and he gasped, “Eostre?”

She held out her hand, “Welcome to Ancient Greece. Shake my hand.”

Duncan shook her hand – it was warm, he could feel the texture of her skin, and he realised he could smell her perfume. She held out an olive, “Do you like olives?” he nodded, “Thank you”, he took it and put it in his mouth. It tasted wonderful, the best olive he had ever had. “Wow, that was lovely!”

Eostre waved to the groves in the valley, “They always taste best straight off the tree.”

She pointed to the valley side. There was a path running into the forest. “Now, we don’t have long, Ella is a fast cook and Peter, a hungry man. But if you would like to set off down that path, you can explore, and I will meet up with you when we are called for dinner. Is that ok?”

Duncan nodded, “Yes, that sounds good, a little exploration.”

Eostre continued, “You may need your sword along the way; it is a Spartan Xiphos, short-bladed, but a fine weapon.” She pointed to the sword sheathed at his waist, “Also, don’t be distracted by the water nymphs at the pool, they are fickle, can have a wicked and cruel sense of humour, just smile, wave and walk past. I will see you soon.”  She turned and set off down the hill.

Duncan set off into the forest. The path was rocky, and he was glad his sandals were very stout. The cool of the forest was very welcome after the searing heat of the hillside. He walked on. Eventually, at a turn in the path, he saw a scruffy man sitting on a rock. The man looked up at him and greeted him. The man was speaking a language which Duncan didn’t know, presumably Ancient Greek, but inside his head it was translated for him. “Greetings, stranger! You are the first visitor today. There is a toll charge for walking my path, just three obols for a fine young man like yourself.”

Duncan shook his head, “I am sorry, I have no money.”

The man scowled, “Then I must take my toll another way.” He reached out for his dagger. Duncan felt as if he had played this game before, and the tip of his Xiphos was instantly aimed straight at the man’s bearded throat. The man’s expression changed, becoming a charming smile, “Pass, my good friend. I meant no disrespect.”

Duncan edged past him and continued down the path. It did cross his mind to wonder just how real all this actually was; it felt very real. He checked behind him. The man was lounging on his rock as before. The path turned downwards, and he came to a stream, then to a pool. There were six young women, they looked about his age, splashing around in the water, playing and laughing. One of them spotted him, turned to her friends and said something he couldn’t hear, but which made them all giggle. They swam over towards him. The girl spoke again, this time to him, “Hello, why don’t you come and join us for a swim?”

Duncan shook his head, “Thank you, but I need to press on, I am meeting someone.”

The girl cupped her hands, scooped water from the pool and held them out to him, “Well, at least have a drink. You must be thirsty?”

Duncan smiled and waved, remembering what Eostre had told him, “Thank you, no, I must be going”

As he walked on, he heard disappointed sighs behind him. There was a dilapidated wooden bridge over the stream. He tested it and convinced himself it was safe before walking across, and then continued up the steep slope on the other side.

At the top of the hill, he paused to catch his breath, looking back in the direction he had come from. There was a fine view looking back towards the mountains, the tops shimmering in the distance with the heat haze. After a few moments, he turned to continue. He noticed a woman sitting by the path, her back towards him. As he got closer, he had the odd feeling that her hair was moving on its own. Then she turned, glared at him and laughed, a nasty, cackling laugh. He was looking into the eyes of a Gorgon, and the snakes that formed her hair hissed at him.

Immediately, from his feet upwards, there came a kind of hissing and crackling and a loss of sensation. He looked down; his bare legs were turning into marble, up to his knees already. He screamed, drew his sword again, even though he knew it was too late and watched as his arm and the sword itself turned to marble. Then, behind the laughing Gorgon, a woman appeared, dressed in golden armour, with a helmet completely enclosing her head. She had just a narrow slit for her eyes to look through. She carried a polished shield, looking at it as she approached the Gorgon from behind. She was brandishing a sword, a heavy-bladed Kopis, and as soon as she was in range, she swung it as hard as she could, neatly decapitating the monster. Its head rolled across the rocks, the snakes from her hair scuttling off into the undergrowth.

Duncan felt the feeling slowly returning to his body, like recovering from an intense cramp.

He sighed with relief, “Thank you.”

The woman removed her helmet, shaking out her white mane. Eostre smiled and said, “I think that is maybe enough for today?”

Duncan nodded vigorously, “That was incredible, all of it. It did cross my mind – how much danger was I ever really in? It felt utterly real. Especially that last bit, I thought I was stone for eternity, and would end up in a museum somewhere.”

Eostre smiled happily, “I am glad you were impressed. The answer is no risk at all. At any time, all you needed to do was remember that you have real arms and use them to take the headphones off, even after you had been skewered by the villain on the path, drowned by the nymphs or turned to stone by the Gorgon. Dinner time, by the way.”

Duncan took off the headphones. “Thank you, Eostre. That was quite something.”

The avatar smiled from the screen, “My pleasure, truly. Go and eat. Just beware of the nymph downstairs.”

Duncan set off downstairs, laughing.

Peter had been coming in through the front door as Ella reached the hall. She called out to him, “Just starting on dinner, Duncan is gaming with Eostre at the moment. I have invited him to stay for dinner. Come and tell me about your day.”

Ella got a drink for both of them. Her dad made a start on the vegetables. She ran through edited highlights – particularly poor Eddie and the surprise meeting with Duncan.

He laughed out loud at the last. Ella then said, “The trip to college was hilarious, for some reason Duncan and I had both thought that the other was going to their session next week, and we bumped into each other on the way to the station. The other art students were lovely, I think I am going to enjoy it there.”

Peter smiled at her, “You two need to sort yourselves out.”

“Dad, I have said, he is really not into me in that way. Oh, there is something else I meant to tell you last night, but I was rushing to get all my stuff ready for today’s college session. When I went out for my walk yesterday, I met a lovely elderly man. He has the most gorgeous dog. Actually, it is probably more that I met the dog. He is ever so friendly and very well behaved. The man said he only got it recently for the company, but now he has had a heart attack, and he is struggling to give the dog enough exercise. I said that I like walking and I would take him for walks. He is called Edmund Hale and lives only a couple of streets away. I hope that is ok?

Peter said, “That is very kind of you. Yes, go ahead. It might be nice for me to meet Edmund, and I definitely want to meet the dog.”

Ella laughed, “I will fix that up for you. Thanks.”

They carried on chatting while they finished prepping and cooking, and Ella went to fetch Duncan, while Peter served up. They met on the stairs. Ella laughed, “Of course, she was tracking the food prep, so she knew when to kick you out.”

Duncan nodded, “She is amazing, that was an extraordinary experience, mind-blowingly real.”

Over dinner, Duncan related the tale of his Odyssey to Ancient Greece, and the three of them sat and chatted on once they had finished eating. Ella was in the middle of a sentence when she suddenly stopped speaking. As Peter watched, she went limp, her eyes started to close, and her pupils rolled up. He was horrified; he had been with her mother when she had died, and this was like a chilling echo of that. He rushed round to her, grabbed her wrist and felt for her pulse. It was strong and fast, but her skin felt almost burningly hot to the touch. Duncan had also rushed to her other side. Ella’s eyes opened, Peter’s hand was still on her wrist, and he could feel her pulse rate dropping to normal. Her skin temperature settled back to normal. She said, “Woo, what was that? There was a bright flash of light, and I felt really hot. Did I pass out?”

Peter nodded, “How do you feel now?”

Ella seemed back to normal, “Actually, I feel ok, I could do with some water, though.”

In moments, Duncan was back from the kitchen with a large glass of water. Peter looked hard at her, still very concerned, “Are you sure you are all right?”

Ella nodded, “No, I feel fine.”

Peter said, I think you had better have an early night, and I will see if I can get you booked in to see a doctor tomorrow. If not, we are going to A&E to get you looked at.”

Duncan said, “Peter, can I give you a hand washing up while Ella gets ready for bed?”

Peter shook his head, “Now, there is not much to do, Ella and I did most of it while the food was cooking, so there are just a few plates really. Thank you for offering, though.”

Duncan said, “OK, I think I should be going then. Ella, I meant to say earlier. I had a message that a few people from school are planning to go to the beach tomorrow. If you feel up to it after you have seen the doctor, come and join us. Just message me, and I will let you know where we are. Only if you are well enough, though, and if there is anything you need, let me know.”

Ella said, “Honestly, I feel absolutely fine. Yes, I would love to come to the beach. I will call you when I am done.”

Peter said, “Duncan, it has been lovely having you. The gaming sounded fascinating. I know it is still early, ” he looked at the clock, “only just turned a quarter to eight, but I think I want this one, ” he pointed at Ella, “to sit quietly, read for a bit, then go to bed.” He looked sternly at Ella, “OK?”

Duncan nodded and set off upstairs. In seconds, he was back, book in hand. Ella smiled at him, “Thank you, I was worried you might be enticed away back to Ancient Greece.”

“She did ask if that was what I had come for. I said I would love to, but you were not feeling too good, and would probably need to go to bed soon.”

Ella looked at her book, “I am going to read a couple of chapters, then go to bed. You could have an hour, if you like.” She turned to Peter, “Is that ok, Dad?”

Peter smiled, he could see that Ella was much better, “Once you get reading, you will be at least an hour. Yes, have fun, Duncan.”

Duncan looked at both of them, “You are sure? That would be awesome, seriously, only if you are sure.”

They both nodded, Peter said, “Go on, have fun. An hour. Tell Eostre to set a timer.”