After taking care of his most urgent needs, Marcus examined the compound more closely, purposefully staying away from that room though. Something deep inside of him screamed to leave this place, to climb that ladder back up and never look back. But, at the same time, he was curious. Curious, what that ‘thing’ in this strange room really was and what it wanted. It seemed friendly, but Marcus had been around long enough to know, that ‘friendliness’ was more often than not a mere ruse to get people to lower their guard. As he explored the place, slowly came to realize that this once had been a completely self-sufficient base of operations. People had set this place up to house them in the long run, completely isolated from the outside. But the tooth of time and the lack of maintenance had done their part. The sizable hydroponic garden was still recognizable, but a malfunction in the distribution system spelled the end of all that once had thrived in here. That the UV lamps have been disabled didn’t help either. He also found a bunch of rooms, which seemed like living quarters. A lot of the setup reminded him of his homestead, yet it was still distinctively different. For once, there was no ‘sleeping hall’, but much rather everyone seemed to have their own room with plenty of personal space. The mass hall was significantly smaller than what he knew, as were the gardens and everything else that related to ‘keeping people alive’. On the other hand, there was an ample number of rooms with derelict equipment Marcus had absolutely no idea about what they could be. The digital plates identifying the rooms had long since stopped functioning, a thick layer of dust covering everything. What he thought most interesting was, that most of those ‘other rooms’ seemed to have the same basic layout, but the equipment was vastly different, each obviously serving a different purpose. He also came across a metal door, which did not budge, try as he might. In the end he decided that it might be best to leave the door alone. After all, for all he knew there was something dangerous sealed within.

After he had toured the entire facility as far as he could reach, Marcus picked on of the sleeping quarters and laid himself to rest. He did not know the time, but his body was drop dead tired and he couldn’t really think straight any more and despite all kinds of thoughts running through his head, it was not long until he fell into a dreamless sleep.

Upon waking, his body was sore from sleeping on the decayed remainders of what once had been a bed and it took him a moment or three to realize where he was and why everything was dark. He fumbled around until he got a hold of his flashlight and only after turning it on, his bearings slowly returned to him and his heartbeat slowed down again. He checked the remaining energy on the flashlight and, upon realizing that only half was left, he started to wonder what he should do now. This was, without a doubt, not the Garden of Eden. It did not promise salvation from the storms that made living on the surface so very difficult. It was just another bunker, much like the one he originally came from, just in a significantly worse condition due to the lack of care. If he went home now, he would just have to face an earful for running away in the first place. Assuming he managed to make it back, that is. But what if he stayed here instead? The flashlight only had 50 % of its charge left and it was bound to run out fast. There was no food and no water to be found here. No, it was obvious that he couldn’t stay here. Yet still, there was Ede. This friendly ‘ghost in the machine’. If he left now, would he ever be able to return? Would Ede be waiting? Or would the gateway to this strange world close forever? Marcus let the cone of light dance over the walls of the compound. So many questions...and this Ede claimed to have the answers. But if Marcus really went back, would he be able to leave ever again? Or would he remain a prisoner of this entity?
Marcus closed his eyes and recounted the reasons why he sought out the Garden of Eden in the first place. The land was barren and it was difficult to make a living. The villages were constantly under the threat of being attacked by raiders and the weather was hazardous. He set out to find a better tomorrow. And if he went back now, it would have been all for naught. He would return to a life, which consisted mostly of ‘waiting to die’. And this was not the life he wanted. Neither for him, nor his brethren and most definitely not for the children he one day might have. With a big sigh he muttered, “I must be completely crazy…” before making his way to Ede’s chamber.
Upon entering, he heard Ede’s voice in his head, “Welcome back. To be honest, I thought you’d run.”
“...I thought about, to be honest. But I still have questions.”
Marcus turned off the flashlight and sat down cross-legged in the dust, putting the rifle next to himself, before asking, “And I hope you will answer them.”
Within the blink of an eye, the surroundings changed again, and he was back in that cozy and well-lit library, where Ede was already sitting in his chair, waiting for him.
“What is this place anyway?” Marcus asked after sitting down.
“The library in a manor. Or at least the way I imagine it. Never been to one myself.”
“So...this is all...in your head?”
“Technically speaking, it’s all in your head, but yes, I am generating these images using Ede’s processing capabilities and feeding them to your visual cortex.”
“...why? What do you want from me?”
Ede sighed and replied, “Is it so hard to believe that I just enjoy some company after having slept for like 200 years?”
“I...guess not. Still, is that really all you want? Some ‘company’? If you can make this place, why—”
“Why not just make some company too? A good question, although I wouldn’t have put it very high on the list. But then again, I didn’t exactly limit the number of questions you can ask, so sure, let’s make some small talk first before we get to the important stuff. I’ll keep an eye on your body, if you don’t mind.”
“An...eye on my body?”
“Yeah, your vitals. Wouldn’t want you to drop because you forgot the time in here, right?”
“...about that...why don’t I feel thirst or hunger in here?”
“Because your brain is busy processing all the information I am feeding it. A rather regrettable side effect. Why, that one time they had to link me up to an IV, so my body wouldn’t end up failing. You probably can’t even imagine my surprise when I woke in a bed instead of the stupid chair. It took me three full days to recover from my state of exhaustion. After that, we enacted strict limits on dive lengths, forcibly severing the connection if the diver took too long. But I think I forgot to answer your question about the companion. Tell me, do you masturbate?”
“...occasionally, but I don’t see—“
“And have you ever had real sex before?”
“...I still don’t know—“
“Okay, that’s a ‘no’, then. No biggie, you’ve still got plenty of time to find someone.”
“What’s my sex life got to do with anything?!”
Ede smirked and said, “Because it’s the same thing. If you do yourself, it’s good for some stress relief, but it simply doesn’t compare to the real thing. In the beginning, I made my own companions. In all colors, shapes and sizes. After figuring out how to, I lived in a whole town of my making. But it was all fake and I knew it. I mean, it was good for a while, but knowing that you can control everything that happens...it gets hollow really fast. And thus I abolished the town, all its denizens and laid myself to sleep. I had given up that anyone would ever come back down here ever again at that point. That I would have ‘real’ company ever again.”
“I don’t know, having people do everything you want sounds like pretty dreamy to me.”
“Uh huh, you live that way for 20 some years and then come talk to me again, Marcus. Tell you what, being a God sucks. Immortality already sucks, but being a God sucks even more.”
“But...I thought you said you weren’t a God…”
“Depends on your definition, really. In this realm, I am God as in I can determine what happens and what not. In the outside world? Not so much. I cannot shape mountains, I cannot let fire and brimstone rain from the heavens or send a flood and make people turn to pillars of salt upon looking back to the burning city of Gomorrah or whatever else is attributed to ‘God the Almighty’.”
“...I guess it is hopeless then.”
“What, were you looking for God?” Ede asked, mildly amused.
“...sort of, yes. I was looking for the Garden of Eden, so me and my people—”
“My people and me.”
“...pardon?”
“Oh, sorry, it’s an old reflex of sorts. You always state the others first and yourself afterwards. Stating yourself first was perceived rude back in my time.”
“...you are so not what I imagined.”
“And yet you are still here, talking to me. No, not just that, putting yourself at my mercy again, despite almost wetting yourself just...yesterday.”
“What was with that pause just now?”
Ede reached behind his head, apparently a little embarrassed, “Yeah well, ‘time’ is a rather abstract concept in here. If I want to know how much time has passed, I have to look at the timestamp and convert it to days, hours and minutes. And that tends to take a moment, because the timestamp exists outside of Ede’s framework.”

Marcus rose from his chair and finally asked, “So...who are you really? You say you are ‘the ghost in the machine’ and ‘to call you Ede’, but you also refer to ‘Ede’ like it was a third person.”
Ede picked up his cup and took a sip, something that seemed rather pointless to Marcus at the time, although he figured that the gesture was more symbolic than anything else.
“You’re thinking for yourself. That’s good. Really good, actually. But please, take a seat. This is going to take a moment.”
Marcus did as he was told, while Ede leaned back in his chair.

The surrounding changed again, and all of a sudden, Marcus was standing in the middle of one of the main room again, however now it was lit up brightly and countless people in white lab coats were busying around. A large chair made of metal with quite a number of wires was the central object in the room and some of the wires lead up to the wall Marcus had seen earlier.
Ede’s voice said from seemingly nowhere, “I was part of ‘Project Ede’, of which you see one of the final stages here. After the grand Exodus left us with no real leadership, people started fighting each other over the dwindling resources, whilst nature had seemingly decided to declare an all-out war against all surface life. Whilst the cities were still burning, many clans of those who were left behind sought shelter in self-sufficient bunkers, where they wanted to wait out until everything calmed down. Phoenix from the ashes and all that. But it was very uncertain, whether such a time would ever come to pass. Many assumed, that humanity would not live to see ‘a better tomorrow’. But then something unexpected happened. Ede was discovered by some nutcase, who claimed that ‘the secret to salvation laid beneath Stonehenge’. A huge ass alien computer with vast amounts of reserve energy and an unknown capability. Whatever was left of the old governments shut the poor sap up and gathered the finest of those who were left from the bunkers all over the world, giving them a single task: Try to figure out what the hell this thing is and whether it is dangerous. In all secrecy, the base you are now in was constructed and we were all stashed down here. It took us a good 10 years to figure out that it was a computer and how to interface with it. Shortly after, the ‘diver’ program was enacted. See that chair that looks like the control panel of Cerebro?”
“Cere...what?”
“...never mind. Sheesh, don’t you people have comics these days? Anyway, it was found that Ede was far too powerful to interface with any of the existing computers...not like we had the best equipment ever to begin with, mind you, the universities and laboratories where the good stuff was kept were among the first to burn. Anyway, some nutcase figured, that we needed to use the most powerful computers known to man. The human brain. And this chair was the gateway into Ede. The first few attempts were...sobering, to say the least. Most of the volunteers who tried came out screaming in languages none understood and were a case for the loony bin from there on out.”
“That sounds...scary.”
“It was. Yet some of our linguists eventually figured out, what it was the people were screaming. It was a really, really old language, one of the oldest known to man. They really had to dig deep to figure out the meaning. Either way, it was really just a simple message. ‘Awaiting commands.’ And that was when stuff started to get really interesting.”