Sweet Dreams

by Tricia Sullivan

  ‘Bloody useless!’ I say to the display. ‘Fly!’

  ‘Maybe she’s kept that one too long and it’s getting homed to this building,’ Roman says.

  ‘It’s probably just lazy. I shouldn’t have fed them so much.’

  ‘Never mind. Let’s just track the others. Look at these two – they’re flying right over the Westway. I’ll get someone on them.’

  The excitement soon fades. It’s super boring watching the pigeons’ slow progress and my mind begins to wander. I check my news feed and the first thing I see is sponsored content.

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  I haven’t been paying enough attention to this stuff. We deny the things we can’t control, right? But right now with Sidney’s message so fresh in my mind, with O’s disappearance looming, it’s hard not to put two and two together. Reverse engineering. Intrusions. The medical trial that BigSky don’t want to let go of after all. Their new ‘liminal programming’ that is so close to what I can do . . . except they claim to be able to do it with software.

  What else might they do with software? If they have access to my Secret Diaries, they could reverse engineer based on me. . .

  Roman insists that the Creeper is a phenomenon, not a person. What if it’s some sort of bot?

  What if all of O’s paranoia about BigSky is perfectly well founded? What if they are using the Creeper to come after both of us? If I were them and I wanted to get rid of me and I knew O was protecting me, I’d go after her first. But that still doesn’t explain Sidney’s message.

  ‘Charlie! Touchdown in Dorking!’

  I abandon the search and rush to his side.

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Two. They followed the Westway and then the major roads. If I didn’t know they were birds, I’d have thought we were following a car. There’s another one going straight down the M23, and the four that went south-east are circling around Convoys Wharf. None of them has settled yet. So what’s at Convoys Wharf?’

  It’s clearly a rhetorical question – meaning it’s directed at one or more of his bots – but I hear myself answer it anyway. My voice sounds choked in my own ears.

  ‘Martin Elstree lives there. He actually gave me his keys.’

  Little bird

  ‘Tell me, Daphne, have you ever met a man called Martin Elstree?’

  I’ve left Roman scoffing sandwiches in the car, so it’s just Daphne and me in the exercise studio.

  ‘Doesn’t ring a bell,’ she says. ‘But then, my memory is rather a shipwreck.’

  Daphne hasn’t asked where O is or why I’ve come too late for lunch, and she doesn’t remember me as the copy centre girl any more. This time she seems to think I’m her yoga instructor. She insisted on wriggling into her leotard and going into the exercise room with me. I desperately try to remember yoga poses that I’ve seen Antonio do while I probe Daphne about O’s possible whereabouts. She doesn’t seem to know anything, and she’s not having one of her good days. I’m getting desperate.

  ‘I thought perhaps O had spoken of Elstree,’ I tell Daphne. ‘Or that he’d visited you here?’

  ‘Not unless he was selling something. You’d be amazed the amount of marketing bots I get. They home in on people who have money, and let me tell you, some of us who live here are loaded.’

  ‘Only I can’t find your sister,’ I tell Daphne. ‘I’m getting worried about her. Will you tell me if she contacts you?’

  ‘Of course, if you like. If I remember.’

  I help her stay in tree pose. She’s wiry and strong, but her balance could be better and the mat doesn’t help; it’s too soft. She grips my arm with warm, strong fingers.

  ‘OK, then. You haven’t received any . . . pigeon messages, from her? Lately?’

  ‘Come to think of it, two birds returned today. They had some sort of device in their pouches, I don’t know what they are. I put the devices on my nightstand if you want to see them.’

  Damn. Those are the birds that Roman and I released.

  ‘But any others? Besides those?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Oh, my dear. You look upset.’

  ‘I’m not upset with you, Daphne. I’m just worried for O’s safety.’

  Leaning on me and still standing on one leg, she grabs her big toe and tries to straighten her leg into extended hand-to-toe pose. The effort makes her pant a little and her tongue protrudes. I don’t want to upset her, but this hinting around is getting me nowhere.

  ‘Daphne, do you remember that I’m called Charlie and I work on people’s dreams?’

  She gives no indication she’s heard me at all at first. Then in a voice straining with effort she says, ‘I know what you saw must have shocked you, but it’s my job to remove targets, dear. I’m a professional and I follow my instructions. I told you that before.’

  I jerk away from her and she falls over in a pile of purple Lycra.

  ‘Oh god,’ I gasp. ‘I’m so sorry, let me help you up.’

  She isn’t even rattled.

  ‘Not to worry, it’s a soft mat. Let’s just sit on the floor for a moment, shall we?’ She folds herself into half-lotus and waits for me to sit opposite. Then she takes my hands. ‘I’ve been struggling to come to terms with the Agency’s brain implant. The device grows right into my skull. It’s like a parasite, I’m told, but it’s to help me remember.’

  I stare at her. ‘What? You have a brain implant? I thought you took meds.’

  ‘Same thing! It starts as a med and implants itself. Oh, and it’s working! Sometimes my mind comes back to me so sharply! I’m blurry and then suddenly I snap into focus and I remember how I used to be. And then it goes again. Right now I’m not too bad. Later I’ll probably have a lapse. Very frustrating. But I never fail to discharge my responsibilities, even if what I have to do is unpleasant. Loss of life is always regrettable but in this line of work one must act on behalf of the greater good.’

  ‘Well, here’s the thing, Daphne.’ I’m trying to choose my words carefully.

  ‘Go on, I’m listening. What are you afraid to say to me?’

  ‘The thing is, you can’t just go around killing people.’

  ‘Of course I don’t. My, you are a greenhorn. I only act on specific instructions. I work for the Agency and I am a professional. Whereas you . . . well, there’s nothing professional about you, is there? You need to learn to protect yourself. What if the Agency decides you need to be removed from play? Or perhaps an enemy operative will come after you – they’ve taken out a number of people who were in your study, you know.’

  ‘They? Who are the enemy, then?’

  She winks. ‘I think you know. Their initials are BS.’

  It takes me a moment. Not Bernard, he’d be BZ. Does she mean BigS
ky?

  ‘Oh, Charlie, but there are all manner of dangers out there in the city of dreams. I’m glad you finally came to me. I just hope I can hold it together long enough to be of use to you. I forget so easily, you see.’

  ‘OK, so, you said you act on instructions. How do you get these instructions? Are they recorded somewhere?’

  ‘Yes, but they are in code and I always destroy the evidence.’

  ‘Ah, well, but it’s hard to destroy something permanently in cyberspace.’

  She leans towards me, whispering, ‘Who said anything about cyberspace? Whenever I do a job, I do it because a little bird told me to.’

  And she winks.

  ‘A little bir— Oh crikey, Daphs, do you mean the pigeons?’

  ‘Shhhhh! Of course that’s what I mean. My sister and I have been exchanging birds for years.’

  ‘But these Agency messages . . . they aren’t from O?’

  ‘I’ve never told her. I’ve never told anyone. You’re the first. Because you’re special.’

  Bloody hell. She has too told O. She’s pulling my leg.

  ‘I’ve been trying to help you,’ Daphne insists. ‘You know, the first time I hacked you, it was by accident, but the second time was on purpose.’

  ‘The first time you hacked me? When did you hack me, Daphne?’

  ‘It was only the two times. You thought I was a man! That was me! I was trying to find you in dreamspace, but I didn’t want you to recognise me so I disguised myself as a man. I think I’d have made a good man, you know. We didn’t have the options in my day, not like the young people do now.’

  ‘I thought you were a dead body! Were you trying to scare me?’

  ‘Not at all, darling, not at all. I was trying to warn you. This is a much larger plot that we are both a part of, you know. We aren’t allowed to know everything, for our own protection.’

  ‘But I was nearly killed the other day. I rode my bike into fast-moving traffic because I thought it was all a dream. I was nearly killed. Were you trying to kill me?’

  ‘Oh dear, oh my, no, of course that wasn’t me. I wish I knew who had targeted you. I told you – I’ve been trying to protect you.’

  There’s a beat, then she adds: ‘If I had been trying to kill you, you wouldn’t be here now.’

  She pats my hand reassuringly, and completely without irony. This is a dream. It has to be. I’ll prove it. I begin to pinch various parts of my body. I try to levitate, but I can’t. It’s not a dream.

  ‘But . . . but . . . what if the police find out?’

  Daphne is watching my face. Suddenly she throws her head back and laughs wildly.

  ‘The police! How you make me laugh. What are they going to do to me or anyone else my age? Throw us in jail? We’re gaga, all of us. That’s how we dreamhackers ended up in the situation in the first place – we all took the treatment.’

  Question: What’s more dangerous than a single psychopath killing people in their sleep?

  Answer: A team of mentally impaired dementia patients who think they are on a mission for some mysterious ‘Agency’.

  What the ever-loving fuck?

  ‘You see, I am sensible and take my responsibilities to the Agency seriously, but I’m afraid one can’t say the same for everyone I know,’ Daphne says. ‘Some of my colleagues wander around the Dream City in a daze. They’re unpredictable and disorganized, and they do silly things. I have to cover for the inept all the time. When I heard about the musician who walked off the hotel roof, I did feel that it had all gone far enough, and yes, I did blame Doctor Zborowski for running off to a new job instead of staying to deal with the consequences of his work. He blamed himself, too. He had a number of guilt dreams about it.’

  ‘What do you mean, running off to a new job? I thought the funding was pulled and he had no choice.’

  ‘I don’t know the details, but he abandoned the first study – your group – and went off with another company to develop the treatment that I take.’

  ‘Little Bird, you mean. Wait, you are taking Little Bird’s treatment?’ O has been omitting a lot of stuff from what she’s told me. She said she knew Meera’s work, but not that Daphne was involved with Bernard and Meera.

  ‘Daphne, would you be willing to talk to the Dream Police about this?’

  ‘Of course not. I’ve said too much already. If anyone pursues the subject I’ll just revert to talking about the benefits of flaxseed oil. Marvellous stuff!’

  ‘Please, no, Daphne. Just tell me one more thing. How do you do it? How do you make someone sleepwalk?’

  ‘Oh, it’s easy. You just open the dreamer like a wind-up toy and step inside, you know. That’s how I do it, anyway. Did you see who was controlling the harp girl?’

  ‘No. I didn’t.’

  I can’t help it – I launch myself to my feet and begin to pace. There are mirrors along one wall of the yoga studio and I can see my own face. I look like I’ve been hit by a bus. What is happening?

  ‘It’s too bad. Because if you had witnessed it, you could run the hack on them in reverse. Push through them in the dream and go back to their point of origin. Find out who they really are and do to them what they did to their victim.’

  Everything Daphne just said runs around in my head, connecting and disconnecting and getting tangled up.

  ‘O got hacked,’ I blurt, still pacing. ‘Yesterday. She got hacked, I’m sure of it, and she fell. Who was that, Daphne? What’s the deal with this Agency? I mean, seriously, to give a brain-altering treatment to a group of dementia patients and then turn them loose on the population—’

  ‘I’ve already told you. The Agency is the Agency, and BS is BS, and they are fighting for control of the thing in your head and mine. You need to wake up. You have everything to lose, my dear. Your life is just starting. But I’ve nothing to lose. I was wandering in a fog, in a darkness, and I’m ever so much better now. I don’t want to descend to a dribbling mess, I don’t want people to pity me and wipe my bottom out of kindness, I don’t want to forget how to speak or think. I’ll deal with any devil you like to avoid that fate. I expect that’s a problem for you and I’ll understand if we can’t be friends any more. I’ll find another dog-groomer, and you, well, you’ll be fine without me. You only ever came to see me because of my sister, and I don’t blame you for that. Let’s shake hands and be done.’

  I stop and stare at her. She is trying to get up off the mat, but it’s a wobbly surface and she’s having trouble finding her balance. Instinctively, I step forward and give her a hand up. We stand looking at each other. There’s a rumpus in my head. My loud heart. But she has tears in her eyes.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I say faintly. ‘I’m not angry with you, it’s fine, I get it. Just tell me one thing. What did you mean, it grows into your skull?’

  ‘The treatment. It’s not a drug, it’s a therapeutic engine. After it implants itself, it grows across your skull. Your whole head acts like a receiver and your thought patterns can be accessed remotely. It’s how we do what we do, my dear. You and I.’

  For no rational reason, I put my hands to my headscarf.

  ‘It made my hair fall out.’

  ‘It grows back, Charlie. It grows back.’

  ‘What about O? You don’t seem worried. Why are you not worried?’

  ‘My sister can take care of herself,’ Daphne says, and a kind of bleakness passes across her face. ‘I’ve never known anyone to get the better of her. She’s probably just lying low.’

  I don’t like the sound of that. Lying low, or lying horizontal? A chill goes down my neck. I’ve dreamed with Martin Elstree. I know what he’s capable of. The woman he butchered in that dream was his boss, and he used power tools to get power over her.

  Well, if there’s one thing you can say for sure about O, it’s that she’s bossy.

  * * *

  It’s almost three by the time I leave. Roman is waiting for me outside in the hire vehicle. He’s spoken to the staff but got nothing of
use, or so he says. I’m not at all convinced he’s telling me everything, and so I don’t relay any of the juice that Daphne told me. None of it. It’s not even a calculated decision – I’m terrible at keeping secrets – it’s more that I’m in shock and need time to process it. Anyway, he makes it easy because he’s preoccupied checking on the progress of the pigeons on his various maps, and I guess he doesn’t expect anything earth-shattering to have happened between Daphne and me. When I tell him that she made me do yoga he takes it in stride, completely missing the fact that I’m staring at the dashboard blankly as I try to remember everything that was said. Not least of which: there’s something growing into my skull.

  ‘Donato had to go to his other job, so he hasn’t been able to trace the hog yet,’ Roman tells me. ‘But he will get on to it.’

  ‘What other job does Donato have?’

  ‘He’s a personal trainer.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘You can’t think we’re breaking even with this gig? It’s not like you’re paying us.’

  ‘So who is, exactly?’

  ‘Come on, Charlie. You know what it’s like starting a business. I run drones for extra cash and live with my sister and her family. Being the Dream Police is a labour of love at this stage. But someone’s got to do it.’

  He’s not blushing. Could he be telling the truth?

  ‘So hey, you know my dream records that you wanted?’

  ‘Are you going to give them to me?’

  ‘Maybe. Where is Pigeon Number Seven?’

  ‘Brighton,’ he says lightly. ‘But it hasn’t landed. It’s gone out to sea.’

  ‘For real?’

  ‘I know, I know. I didn’t think of that possibility and I’m using the wrong system to track it, but I’m in the process of cross-coordinating with the Coastguard. We haven’t lost it, we just don’t know where it is.’

  ‘You lost it.’

  ‘I just said we haven’t lost it!’

  He takes me home. He says he’s going to do his research on Martin Elstree and get back to me. I don’t tell him that I have plans to do research of my own. He wouldn’t approve.