As Jason and Danielle talked, Rufus's hands moved over the engravings on the stone block like he was playing a theremin. On the other side of the window, the chaos of light was slowly moving towards order.

“Is he alright in there?” Jason asked.

“He has experienced this many times,” Danielle said.

“Sorry this is taking so long to get in place,” Rufus said. “I need to get a handle on the nuances of your chamber design.”

“What exactly are you planning for Humphrey?” Jason asked.

“We need to motivate Humphrey to act boldly. I have an exercise designed to instil that mindset.”

“You think this new addition to our mirage chamber will do that?” Danielle said.

“In my family’s academy,” Rufus said, “I’ve seen plenty of people with Humphrey’s issue. Good people, heroic, even. You can't motivate them with glory or power, not if you want to really move them to action. It has to be with consequence.”

The light inside the dome suddenly vanished. Even Jason’s dark sight power couldn’t penetrate the immediate darkness. Then daylight illuminated the space beyond the window, which was no longer the inside of the dome. Now it was a wide desert gorge, with Humphrey standing at the bottom, near a shallow stream. Sunlight came down from a clear blue sky. Humphrey looked around, finding a small, adorable child standing next to him.

“Holodeck,” Jason whispered in awe.

Rufus tapped a rune on the control table.

“Humphrey,” he said. “Can you hear me?”

“I can,” Humphrey said, his voice emerging from the control table. “Why is there a little girl here?”

“That’s Ellie,” Rufus said. “You have to protect her from the monsters.”

Rufus’s hands moved over the runes again. A half-dozen monsters appeared from further down the gorge, running towards Humphrey. They looked and moved like leopards, but were the size of full-grown tigers. Behind them, their tails were long and thick, each ending in a huge, talon-like claw.

As Humphrey took a stance in front of little Ellie, armour formed around his body from thin air. It looked to be made of scales, mostly sandy yellow but flecked with other colours, like rainbow droplets. In his hands, a huge sword appeared. As it was absurdly large and shaped like an extended dragon wing, Jason couldn't help but question the practicality.