Phantasm 2: In the Shadow of Iniquity (one)

Laura was taught new methods to assist her with her development, and she discovered new abilities as well. She learnt how to create decoys and duplicates, mental projections of her own thoughts, virtual copies of her mind that she could control and use, and she learnt how to give them definition. The memories she had and the parts of herself that hampered her or had no use for were cast aside, used to fill the duplicates, to give them physical definition and characteristics, to give them a small piece of her life in order to define them, a small piece of herself, a feeling or a memory or a weakness, something she didn't want anymore, didn't need, something to make them come alive.

Slowly, as she progressed, Laura matured as well. What she had seen inside the network of minds had changed her, had forced her to accept more responsibility and to direct the course her own life was taking. Her heart matured along with her body and mind; during the more advanced levels of her training Laura was paired with two other Chosen, Josh and Shamir, and it was with Shamir that she began to form a relationship based on respect and the need for companionship and love.

Accompanying this she learnt more about the origins of her abilities, where they stemmed from, why she was one of the Chosen, and also why the Chosen were so powerful. She learnt that an alien race was connected with them, the phantasms. Trapped in another realm of life the phantasms communicated with the Chosen through their abilities, the only people they were able to contact and connect with. The phantasms had once resided in this realm and wished to return to it, to be freed from their present environment, taking form in cast aside duplicates. The phantasms communicated with Laura in her dreams, expressing to her that she was not being told the complete truth, that the Chosen were helping them leave their realm to come through to the one they inhabited not to free them but rather to use them for their own purposes. The phantasms were powerful when they had taken a form, capable of converting energy to matter and vice-versa, capable of taking a life - a weapon against the Shuruk, amongst other dangers. Laura was determined not to take them from one prison to another, the prison of her thoughts and commands, not wanting to enslave any being. She learnt also of Rogues, former Chosen who'd turned away from the Commonwealth in general and the Chosen in particular at varied stages in their development, dangerous freelancers who would do whatever they had to in order to survive.

Many months after arriving at the facility, Laura completed one of her last tasks and afterwards she was told she was to leave the facility to pursue the final stages of her training on Pnath, a world the phantasms had inhabited before entering their realm. Laura did not want to leave, she didn't want to abandon Willow, especially with so many questions about who and what she was remaining unanswered. Diana solved her dilemma by revealing that Willow was an artificial intelligence, a complicated computer program capable of mimicking behaviour and thought and emotion. Laura wondered again if that meant Willow wasn't real; she was programmed to feel, think and evolve, but did she really comprehend all that? She decided that Willow was real to her if nothing else. That counted for something and it didn't take anything away from the person Willow was; perhaps Willow did have a soul, just unlike any other, a soul that couldn't be easily identified, one that perhaps Laura could never be able to touch inside the network of minds. Diana gave Laura a copy of Willow's program so she could remain with them both.