Awake

Chapter Twenty-One - Combat Training

Before Jonathan watched the latest recording of his past self, he got Natalia to explain how to work the machine. Now he had the image paused before John started talking, so that he could look at himself and speculate about what would come next.

  There was nobody watching with him this time. He wanted to be able to analyse what was said on his own first, before he let them know what was going on. He felt that they, as he, held no love for the boy of two years ago and he wanted to protect himself, and his past self, from such an attack as they might give.

   The boy's face gave nothing away. He looked much as he had in the last video, though perhaps slightly less calm. Jonathan figured it was maybe a day or two later, perhaps more. The room behind him had changed very slightly, in almost indiscernible ways, marking the passing of time.

"Hello, Jonathan," John said, taking a deep breath. "By now, you must be starting to hate me. Maybe you hate everyone here. I hope you haven't changed too much, though. I hope you're still loyal to the people who matter. I hope you can judge who those people are."

Something about that statement stumped Jonathan. Could he judge who those people were? It had never occurred to him before that his ability to select his loyalties might be in any doubt.

"Subterra matters, John," John said, urgently. "Because it's everything that these people have, that we have. People really care about each other here, even if that's not obvious at first. Go into the sub-dwellings and you'll see. They look out for one another."

Jonathan thought of the tightly-knit groups he'd seen in the mess hall or walking side-by-side down corridors and conceded that John may be right, though he couldn't prove it.

"I expect you'll know the history of this place by now," John continued, "or at least a garbled version of it. Maybe you're starting to get your memories back. They said it could take a week before they began to resurface. I don't know how soon you're going to get this video. You could remember me by now."

Past-John rubbed his nose and paused, almost as though he didn't know how to say what was coming next and was building up to it slowly.

"You need to make sure Edward's ok," John announced. "You need all of them, actually. You need them completely committed to you. In fact, you need to start waking up the youth corps. They'll have been stagnant while you've been sleeping. You need to revive them."

Revive them? Jonathan had no idea what he meant.

"Reawaken the groups," John urged. "Make promotions. Start up council meetings again. Increase the training schedules. Push them. Make them learn things you remember from your dreaming. Don't ask me why, just do it. You're going to need them more alert than they are now."

"I am?" Jonathan asked, forgetting for a moment that the picture-self couldn't reply. "Why? What for?"

"There's a war coming," John said, seriously. "But it's not the war you think it is. Talk to people. Talk to everyone you can find. Everyone knows something else or has heard a different rumour or has their own suspicions. Find out everything you can."