Episode Twenty-One: Deception

When Elizabeth awoke the next morning, she stayed rolled up in her blanket on the cabin floor pretending she was still asleep. All that day, William and Jim ignored her. They never entered the cabin and she never left it. Feeling betrayed by Elizabeth, William felt used. He had given her the benefit of the doubt and even allowed himself to believe that she was just another victim like they were, but now he new better. Both men wanted nothing more to do with her and would have set her on the first land they saw, but they didn't see land all day, and were unwilling to turn back: they had to keep pushing the horizon.
Elizabeth was miserable. Moving as little as possible, sleeping whenever her mind would calm down enough, then waking in trembles, she hated her predicament. Sometimes she would let herself fantasize about punishing them all, finding a way out of the Endless Frontier then trapping Dean in it before he could stop her, but the dream just made her feel worse. Over and over she now realized she had rationalized wrong into right and pretended that everything was okay, that she was innocent. William's sharp words shifted something deep inside her, forcing her to see who she had become.
Perhaps when Dean let her out she could run away from everything. She escape to a foreign country and live under an assumed name. She would get a common job, she had all the skills needed to be a secretary, and spend her free time working in a garden like her grandmother. Then, if she could only forget, life would be bearable again. Her grandmother had always had a quite smile and sure confidence about life, and Elizabeth envied her for it.
The day passed without incident, William and Jim took turns on watch and slept on the boats deck under the stars. Late that night, while William was on watch, he peered into the stars. To his surprise he saw the silhouette of a plane cross in front of the moon. The urge to signal it for help swelled with amazing force within him, but in only lasted a moment. The full moon and all the stars where just a illusions, and he—more than anyone—knew it. The distance involved made it totally impractical to actually simulate the moon and stars. The sky was simply an image, or more accurately a movie, added as a background to his vision. Somewhere in the many thousands of hours of film he had used to create a lifelike vision of the sky, a camera had recorded a plane crossing the sky. He thought of the thousands of errors like that he had found over and over again. Then he had a wonderful idea.

Please with himself, Dean threw the last few cardboard boxes into the trash. That should take them awhile, he thought. In the portal he looked at the four bodies that appeared to be sound asleep, each breathing slowly and rhythmically. William was the only one he cared about, but he cared about the others. That was the whole problem. He needed some way, any way, to get William to work for him.
The computer rang, signaling an incoming call. Hoping that it was William, finally giving in to his demands, Dean pushed the button on the keyboard to answer the call.
“Hello, Dean.” It was Elizabeth's voice.
“What do you want.”
“I need to talk fast. William and Jim are off the boat, but could be back any minute. This morning they finally told me what they are looking for. A few days before they were trapped in here, William was working on a papaya tree, but it still isn't finished. The last time he loaded the program with it, it crashed leaving a hole in the landscape. The hole has a funny effect on the physics that makes it is emitting light. They are on the boat sailing, hoping to find a tropical region where the computer will put a papaya tree and give them a way out. All we have to do to stop them is put them all to sleep again and I can remove the papaya entry from the landscape database. After we tell them what we've done they won't have a hope of getting out!”
Dean just smiled. “Elizabeth, do me a favor.”
“What?”
“Tell William the memory is at fifty two percent.” Before she could react, he pushed a button and closed the call.

“What did he say?” asked Jim. For the first time he was beginning to understand Elizabeth. After William explained the plan to him, he didn't think Elizabeth was willing to try it, but he'd been wrong. When William told her that if she was willing to help they had a good chance of getting out, she had accepted eagerly. Jim now realized that Elizabeth wasn't evil like he thought, just weak. Doing whatever she could to try and save herself.
She had looked pretty sorry that morning when she finally came out of the cabin after a whole day without food or water. Jim guessed she had cried most of the time. He still had a difficult time tolerating her, but after that phone call she had firmly committed herself to there side, and they needed all the help they could get.
If William's plan worked, Dean would reset the Endless Frontier again, giving them another full valley worth of landscape, and think he had them trapped. He would also probably pull Elizabeth out and hopefully this time she would really go to the police.
Elizabeth slowly put the phone down. She new something must be wrong. “I don't think he even listened to what I said. He just gave me a message for you William. He said the computer's memory is at fifty two percent. What does he mean by that?”
William and Jim both suddenly looked crestfallen. “It mean he knows,” said William, “and, we don't have time, even if he didn't.”