by John Gordon
you can help me do it. Get me the name of the Captain of the Brack guard where my friends are held."
"You cannot frighten these men. They'll die before they let a prisoner out of their hands."
"Just the name Resnik. Can you do it?"
"I already know it. Carnak Treen. He is a Signet in rank."
"Is he a dream jumper?"
"He takes the pills, but is not a dream jumper..." Resnik was perplexed by my line of questioning.
"Do they take their dream jumping pills regularly, or just once?"
"They have to take them every few days or the effect wears off. It is also how the Brack Council controls its forces, since the Council controls the formula. And they do not train them for dream jumping. The formula gives them increased reactions and a lightness to their body mass. It means a longer life for the loyal followers. That is why they use it."
"Would the pills be in Carnak's quarters?"
Resnik understood. His face lit with the first glimmer of hope. "The pills are kept in a dispensary. It is always guarded by three soldiers rotated from different companies. They never know each other or know who will be on duty ahead of time. But the dispensary Signet is Halbert. That is the only name I know, Halbert." Resnik looked to the side, presumably at a timepiece, "and he should be there now."
"That's what I need to know." I cut off the transmission and dialed Halbert.
The room was small. One wall was lined with shelves stacked deep and high with bottles, each one marked and sealed. The mark was the number of pills in the bottle. Halbert was playing a board game with three soldiers. I adjusted my video to focus on one of the bottles. Once it was aligned I pressed a button on the side of the vid-phone. The small plastic container at the top of the device filled with pills instantly.
In the dispensary the nearly empty bottle cracked with a ping, but it held together. Halbert jumped up and looked around. After a minute of staring at the wall of bottles he turned back to the game. Later there would be hard questions for someone.
I dialed Martin, I wanted to talk to Elise, but knew Martin was the one to lead the others. I had no idea how much time they had.
It took a few minutes to explain and then I transferred all but two of the pills to the prisoners. Elise looked at her pills then looked around the cell and by chance or intuition, ended up staring straight at my point of view, her beautiful eyes gazing straight into my own.
"I won't leave until I know you're safe," she whispered.
Everyone was swallowing the pills except Elise.
"Elise, please take it. I'm all right. I have mine here and I'll join you in seconds." If she didn't take them I didn't know what extremes I would go to.
She nodded slowly then swallowed the pills.
Then Martin talked gently to them, and even with the music screeching in the cell they blinked out of the world of Landine; and far out of reach of the Brack's security forces.
I threw the vid-phone down and held remaining pills in my hand. They were capsules, little octagons. Inside each I could see gray and brown granules mixed together.
Just as I raised my arm it was jolted and the pills flew to the earth. The hard edge of a net slammed into my legs and flipped me into the center of it. Two Brack flyers had netted me. My eyes were glued to the pills as if I could will them into my hands; but in seconds they were lost in the dirt and distance as my captors hauled me into the sky.
Sweet Rescue
"How did your friends escape?" The man was short and muscular. His dark green tunic had my blood on it. "I intend to find out if it kills you."
"If you don't get me someone higher in authority you will live to regret it. I will talk to the head of the garrison or the governor of Landine." I spit this out, blood flowing from my mouth.
"Ah, so be it. I tried to be nice to you. It will be worse when you are interrogated by Selin." The man threw down the glass rod he had used to beat me and left the chamber. The door locked soundly behind him.
I let my body slump in the chair. My hands and feet were strapped to it. I closed my eyes hoping for sleep. A jolt of electricity pulsed through me. I arced upright for a moment, all thought of sleep shocked from my numb mind. Fear, raw animal fear pounded through my consciousness.
A voice, soothing and soft, floated through the room. "I am the First Signet of Landine Garrison. You have information for me, you are going to tell me where your friends have gone."
I had to tell someone, anyone. It was my only chance now. "I have... I have taken the formula from the research team. It is on Earth where thousands of people will be given it automatically if I do not stop it."
"Is this possible?" The voice said, asking someone else.
There was a long period of silence. The door to the chamber opened and I could see through blurred eyes the shapes that unstrapped me. I was cleaned and half carried into a pleasant office. A jovial man in a plain robe bounced around a table to offer me something foamy to drink. I refused.
"I'm sorry about the treatment. You people have trespassed you know. We have to protect ourselves. But no need to harbor ill feelings about it. Everything will be just fine, just fine." The man sat next to me. "What's this about a formula. Do you mind telling me?"
I told him.
"Before I helped my friends to escape, I memorized the formula and returned to Earth with it. I had it in my pocket, on a piece of paper. On Earth, in my country, there is a great deal of free information exchange. Computers are linked together, mllions of them, into networks. Everyone can talk to everyone else. I put the formula in a file that will be published at a specific time tomorrow, on Earth, available to everyone on three different networks that I am linked to. Most people will ignore it. The curious will copy it into their systems; but there are biologists and chemists that will recognize it as something interesting. And they will test it. Only I can stop this from happening."
The man's joviality dropped away like a dirty rag. He was all controlled anger, his voice trembling.
"You have done this to us? You dare to threaten me. It will take years for you to die. We have people here that have only the barest spark of life left in them, and we hold them here, refusing to release them from their agonies."
He lashed out with his hand and rocked my head with a slap. "Do you think I would believe you if you promised to erase what you've done, especially after we've tortured you? Impossible. The formula is Earth's; but you... you are mine."
The music blared and a jolt of pain from the electricity blasted through my body. Even with this, how could I possibly still be awake.
The chamber was all I saw for a day. The light flashed with varying intensity and timing. I didn't care if Resnik was right, if death was a new beginning or if it was a turning off of my life like a light bulb. I wanted it anyway, no matter what.
After another bout with the torturer, when time no longer had any meaning, a soft hand touched my cheek. I tasted a salty drop of something on my lips and another pair of lips met mine. The straps still held me; but when the lips were withdrawn two pills were pushed gently into my broken mouth. I could only see a shadow. I struggled with my dry throat until the tablets went down.
A sweet voice whispered in my ear as warm breasts pressed against my chest. "Ed, I love you. You must come with me now. If you do not come I will stay here with you."
The cell door slammed open and a man yelled.
I wanted to tell her to go. Her lips closed on mine. I felt myself slipping, sliding into a warm pool.
Dreams
The alarm buzzed fretfully, its little oscillator putting out a timid effort. I opened one eye. It was a familiar ceiling, a wood beam crossed it and I could see the plant hook I screwed into it two years before. I ignored the alarm, and ignored another buzzing, maybe the door. But I couldn't ignore my body. It felt as if it had been rolled over by a mining truck at least twenty times.
&
nbsp; Two hours from the time I was able to look at the clock, I crawled into the bathroom and settled in a warm bath. After the bath I spread gravel from my patio over my living room floor; sharp, jagged gravel.
The phone rang for the twentieth time. I struggled up from the layer of gravel. With the phone in my hand I rolled slowly around on it, unwilling to risk falling asleep.
"Ed." It was a voice I could never forget, never in all my life.
"Elise. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine Ed, thanks to you. And we made it. We made it back. You're safe, just as you saved me."
"Are you sure?" I asked, my voice cracking.
"Have dinner with me. I changed my mind about seeing you. I want to see you very much. Let's have dinner tomorrow night, give you time to rest."
"No. Not tomorrow night. Now. Come on over now. We'll have dinner as soon as you get here." I couldn't risk missing her, in case she was wrong.
"Ed. It's 11 in the morning."
"Now, Elise, please."
"All right. I'll be over right away."
I let the phone slide back in the cradle and shuffled to my computer. It took a few minutes to erase the formula from the networks, storing it in my personal electronic box and in two other places where it would be secure.
I called Martin. Martin explained that Elise figured out what I had done to help them and then she repeated the process to bring me back. I didn't want to talk about the formula now, but Martin drew me out.
The doubts he had were about dream