Free The Pattern Ship (The Pattern Universe) by Tobias Roote

in that hypothesis, the table and chair.
    They were as equally formed as any part of the room, but were not present before he slept.
    He mentally chewed over that one while he dealt with the secondary, but in reality the deeper concern. The lack of a door.
    He had to have been put in here, as did the furniture. While he slept.
    Yet here he still was, in a rectangular room, and still no evidence of a door.
    Standing up he walked to the open wall space where he would have put a door if he was building the room. He then proceeded to minutely examine the surface looking for a seam which just had to be there.
    He noted the fact that his eyes, a growing problem recently with the metal plate, were now of perfect vision and he marvelled at his new ability to see clearly without squinting.
    That set his mind roaming off on other aspects of his new found health and on impulse he rushed over to the mirror and opened his mouth wide. Nope, no fillings. Hah! Whatever removed the metal plate took all the metal in his body. Interesting.
    Going back to the walls he slowly and meticulously circuited the whole room. There was not a single seam anywhere, not even where anything intersected with it, or where floor and ceiling met up with the wall.
    He returned to the washbasin, something was nagging in his memory, but he couldn’t dredge it up. Turning on the tap he watched the water. It went down the plughole, but there was something weird about it. He couldn’t fathom it yet. He knew it was important and when he realised what it was, he would have an answer, he was sure.
    Then he realised that there was lighting in the room, with no apparent light source evident. The illumination seemed to be everywhere, and yet there were no shadows.
    He decided it was time to try for explanations. He called out and banged on the wall, a little tentatively at first, where he hoped the door would be. He couldn’t hear anything on the other side, and the sounds he made seemed very muffled. He decided that the room must be soundproofed. Oh! ominous, or what!
    He persevered deciding to shout to add to the effort of gaining attention from someone.
    “HELLO?”
    The sound of his voice seemed good after so long a silence.
    “HELLO? IS ANYBODY OUT THERE?”
    He banged on the wall again for emphasis in case anyone could hear on the other side.
    “Hello, how can I help you, Human?” a mechanised voice queried.
    It seemed to squeeze itself out of the wall, Zeke couldn’t detect a single location or a speaker.
    Zeke couldn’t decide if it was male or female. Someone on the other end was monitoring him. Hidden cameras?
    “Where am I?”
    “In a room designed specifically for your needs,” the mechanised voice replied.
    “What do you mean ‘for my needs’?”
    “You are human, you require facilities that provide for your necessary functions, to survive.”
    That got him concerned. Referring to someone as human implied the mechanised voice wasn’t, or viewed ‘humans’ as something separate to itself. Zeke’s head was buzzing with the possibilities, he decided to get it to qualify his thoughts.
    “Why do you refer to me as ‘Human’? Who are you?”
    “You are what your race refer to as a human being. I am not a ‘who,’ I am a ‘what’ and ‘what’ I am is an Artificial Intelligence,” the voice responded almost with empathy.
    Zeke had cottoned onto this fact already, his mind had speeded up somehow and he was making the connections, but hadn’t figured it all out, but he was trying hard. This artificial intelligence seemed an affable character. He decided to talk to it and find out more information.
    “Do you have a name?”
    “I am called ‘Ship’ by my Maker.”
    “Ship, where is your Maker?”
    “The Maker is presently reconstituting. I have instructions to make you comfortable, it was not anticipated you would be asking questions at this stage. I am not able to provide you anything further than food and liquids.” Ship