by J. M. Porup
Ennst picked up a strange apparatus and put it on his scalp. Two black circles covered his ears, and a loop over his head held the black circles in place.
“What does that do?” Shade asked, pointing at the metal-tipped bones on the desk.
“By pushing these two pieces of metal together,” Ennst explained, tapping at the hinged bits of bone, “I close an electrical circuit. That sends a signal along the wire.”
“So this requires energy to work?” Buck asked.
Ennst nodded. “Let’s hope they haven’t cut the power.”
“Do it quick, then.”
We need the Collective for energy, for everything, Shade thought. We are all parasites. Even me.
He asked, “How does this help us communicate with the other cities?”
Buck pointed to the sheet of paper. “The number, frequency and length of the clicks represent letters, words, ideas. It’s primitive, I know,” he said, “but it’s all we have, I’m afraid.”
Referring to the notes on the desk, Ennst tapped out a message. When he was finished, he sat back in his chair. Waited.
Silence.
“How long does it take for a reply?” Zama asked. “What if they’re doing a show? Does it go to all of the other cities at once?”
“Ssh!” Ennst held a finger to his lips, pressed the circles tighter against his head.
“What?” They crowded around. “Did they reply?”
“I thought I heard something.” He paused. Sat back. “Must have been static on the line.”
They huddled around Ennst as he tapped out the message one more time. They could hear the beeps and clicks spilling out from around the ear contraption.
When he was finished, they waited.
Half an hour passed. An hour. Ennst repeated his message, varying the speed, the length and loudness of the clicks. They stood there, sweaty, hungry, thirsty, battered and bruised and, in Buck’s case, shot, waiting for a word of reply.
After a long while, Ennst took off the circles and put them down on the desk. He sighed.
“Well?” Zune demanded.
Ennst scratched his wild hair, let his hand fall to his lap.
“No one?” Maude whispered.
Ennst hesitated. “No one.”
“All gone?” Linda pressed herself against Shade.
“So it would appear. I—”
Without warning, a flurry of rapid clicks came from the apparatus. Ennst spun around, put the circles back on his head.
“What is it?” Shade asked. “What are they saying?”
“Ssh!”
With a sharpened yellow twig, Ennst wrote down the letters one at a time. They watched in growing horror. Finally, Ennst threw off the earphones, the message unfinished, the clicking still going, and they ran from the room.
This is the message he wrote:
“JIMMY SHADE THE COLLECTIVE WANTS YOU JIMMY SHADE YOU ARE UNPLUGGED JIMMY SHADE YOUR DREAM STILL LIVES JIMMY SHADE WE ARE COMING TO KILL YOU AND YOUR DREAM JIMMY SHADE WE COME TO KILL ALL WHO AID YOU JIMMY SHADE ALL MUST DIE JIMM—”
Chapter Twenty-One
Dreams exterminated. Forever.
For all of Shade’s adult life, that had been his goal. He had fought hard, put in sixteen-hour days, seven days a week to end this menace.
And now?
He was a dreamer, on the run, unplugged, the very thing he hated. The Collective wanted to kill him. The right thing to do, it occurred to him, would be to commit suicide. He was Dream Police, was he not? His first loyalty was to the Collective. For the good of the humanity, he would be better off dead.
But then the song—his song—rose once more in his soul until his chest ached, and he knew that he would fight to keep on dreaming until his dying breath.
Bones crunched underfoot. They traipsed through the darkness, with only their head lamps to guide them. Few dreamers ever ventured this deep into the catacombs, Buck explained, and no electric lighting had ever been wired.
They had fled from the Wire Room, at every moment expecting to hear bootsteps behind them, a burst of gunfire that would kill them all.
Shade’s strength returned, and he was able to walk again on his own, even help carry Buck. The goat-man’s wound had stopped bleeding, but he was too weak to do more than limp by himself.
The deeper they travelled into the catacombs, the more monstrous the bones, the more ancient and intricate the sarcophagi.
“The great dreamers of past ages came deep to build their final resting places,” Buck said, gesturing at a row of tombs. “Few of their caliber are alive today.”
“Try none,” Zune said. “Everyone else is dead.”
They continued in silence.
After many hours of shuffling along in the near-dark, Zune called a halt.
“Where are we going?” he demanded.
“Wherever we have to go to escape the Dream Police,” Linda pointed out. “Or would you rather they killed us?”
“Maybe we’d be better off if they did,” Zune said, and threw up his arms. “We’ve got no food pills. No water pills. And no way of getting any. What good does it do to escape the Collective only to die of thirst down here?”
Buck cleared his throat. “When dreamers enter the City of the Dead, they bring provisions.”
“What are you—?” Zune said, and gasped.
The goat-man nodded. “The king gives dreamers a month’s worth of supplies. Look!” He nudged an ancient set of bones.
Shade squatted. Half a dozen food pills and a couple of water pills spilled from a fraying jumpsuit pocket.
“I didn’t know that!” Maude said.
“It is a secret given only unto dreamers when they venture into the catacombs to die.”
Shade furrowed his brows. “I don’t understand.”
“When a dreamer feels himself weakening and is no longer able to fulfill his dream, he comes down here.”
“Then…why a month of food and water?”
At their feet, Zune was cramming pills into his mouth. The other actors raided nearby skeletons.
“To make their Death Dream,” Buck said. He panted for breath. His wound had begun to bleed again. “To sing their Death Song, or create a Death Painting or Death Sculpture, perform a Death Play. Whatever their dream was.”
“But what’s the point of that?” an actor called out. “A Death Play with no audience!” He made a rude noise.
“Dreams fade,” Buck said. “dreamers, too. We all lose our powers eventually.”
He gestured around them at the works of art on the walls, the carved sarcophagi. They were different from what Shade had seen above in the City of Dreams. Where every work of art on the surface was a delight, here the enchantment had, indeed, faded, the brush strokes clumsy, the work of an inferior standard.
“The purpose of a Death Dream is not the audience,” Buck said. “It’s to help the dreamer accept their failing powers and the ultimate blessing of death. A dreamer must make the decision to die without knowing they have a month’s grace down here. The king informs them only when they say goodbye.”
“What do they do when the month is up?” Shade asked.
Buck took down an axe from the wall. He struggled with the effort. The edge gleamed in the head lamp’s beam. “When they are ready—and many are ready before the month is up—they cut off that portion of themselves they used in service to their dream,” he said. “Fingers, or lips, or tongue, or feet.”
Shade gaped at him. “Doesn’t that hurt?”
“Of course it hurts. Death hurts. Death is meant to hurt.” Buck mimed drawing the axe across his throat. “And then, when they have felt their final pain, and endured as much as they can—sometimes days of agony, the longer the better—they end it with one swift stroke.” He tapped a loose skull with a hoof.
The actors returned from their scavenging with pockets full of provisions. Shade realized that he was hungry and thirsty, too, and he joined the others in an impromptu feast. Soon they all s
at against a wall, luxuriating in full stomachs.
“Well,” Zune said. “It looks like we aren’t going to starve to death. But now what do we do?”
“Yeah,” Zama added. “The Collective has resources. They will find us eventually. It’s just a matter of time.”
“Shouldn’t we be glad that we’re still alive?” Linda suggested. She snuggled against Shade’s shoulder.
Zune’s double mouths grimaced. “Don’t you understand? Everyone is dead. We’ve got no audience!”
“Of course I understand,” Linda said. “I am a dreamer, same as you.”
Buck held up a quavering hand. “We go…to the King’s Chamber. It’s our only hope.”
“The king’s what?”
The goat-man’s head drooped. He clutched his wound. The bleeding had worsened. “So…tired…”
Zune slapped Buck across the face. “Don’t die on me now! What’s the King’s Chamber? Why would we want to go there?”
“Where kings…go to die. To create their Death Dream.”
“How does that help us?”
“The king feared this. An…invasion. It was part of his dream, too. He prepared the chamber…for us as a refuge.”
“Where is it? How do we get there?”
A forefinger pointed down. “The lowest level. At the bottom of the City of the Dead.”
“Is it far?”
Horns nodded. “A day and a half…non-stop from the surface.”
“Convenient,” Ennst said, and grinned.
“What do you mean?” Zune asked.
Shade had seen it too. “The Dream Police can only travel beneath the Crust for three days. After that their brains blow up. The implant. Remember?”
“So, in theory,” Zune said, “we could stay there forever, out of the Collective’s reach?”
Buck nodded again. “That’s the idea, anyway.”
“But if they really wanted to kill us,” Zama pointed out, “couldn’t they just send down a suicide squad of Dream Police?”
Shade clucked his tongue. “The Collective would never do that. Every node is precious. What Is Good For All Is Good For the One. Remember?”
Zune threw up his arms. “And the Collective is forbidden to come down here, yet here they are!”
Buck’s face was ashen. “We’ll just have to take that chance,” he said. “The king’s dream did not mention suicide police.”
“And how do you know so much about the king’s dream, anyway?” Zune demanded.
The goat-man closed his eyes, rested his head against the wall. “The king confided in a handful of other dreamers. He wanted to make sure his dream…came true, even if he did not live to see it himself.”
“But how do we know you’re not just making this all up?”
“Why would he make it up?” Maude asked. “Look, if you’ve got a better idea of where to go, I’m open to hearing it.”
Zune opened his mouths, closed them again. He nodded. “Alright,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“No,” Linda said, stroking Buck’s forehead. “We need a rest. The Collective may be searching for us, but I think we’ve lost them for now. We can chance it. And we all need rest.”
They lay down amidst the bones, and slept.
Except for Shade, who felt alive and awake in a way he had never felt before. He agreed to take the first watch. While the others snored, he wandered about the catacombs, marking his path with rocks and shards of bone so he wouldn’t get lost.
The City of the Dead was unlike anything he’d ever seen. For one thing, it wasn’t a city at all, more like a maze of twisting tunnels, filled with tombs, the floor strewn with bones, even full skeletons, knee deep in some places.
How strange to die and leave behind a skeleton! In the world above, when a node was no longer able to fulfill his duty, he was euthanized and recycled, and his body ground into paste to fertilize the hydroponic gardens. In this way a node was useful, even in death.
Shade stepped over the skeletons, not wanting to disturb them. Flesh and hair still clung to the newer arrivals. They had traveled deep to die. In one instance, he found a dreamer who looked like Maude. As he watched, a stream of white maggots trickled from her mouth and latched onto the dreamer’s glassy eyes.
He fought down an acid taste in the back of his throat.
“They lie where they fall,” a voice wheezed behind him.
Shade spun, grabbed for his weapon, but his hand fell to his empty holster.
Buck leaned against a wall, panting for breath.
“Then what are the sarcophagi for?” Shade asked.
“So future dreamers will remember them.” Buck said. He lifted a hand, waggled it from side to side. “It is foolishness, in my opinion. Who cares how you’re remembered when you’re dead? All dreams will be forgotten eventually.”
Shade traced a finger across a dusty tomb. “So dreamers make them and lie down in them to die?”
“The stronger ones, yes,” Buck said. “Those capable of leaving a physical mark in this world. But not all dreamers want to be remembered. Or can be remembered. Take the actors.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
The actors’ snoring echoed in the tunnel.
“Their art is a temporal one. When it is over, it is over, and so are they. What point would there be? And even those who create more lasting art…” Buck shrugged, winced in pain. “We do not create for posterity. We create for now, for here, not for any other time and place.”
“So why do they come down here? I mean, when do they decide it’s time?”
Buck plucked at his bandage. “They have nothing more to say.” The bleeding had stopped.
Shade thought of the many older nodes who’d gone to be recycled. “Just like with the Collective, then.”
“No,” Buck said. His nostrils flared. “Not like with the Collective. Here it is a voluntary decision. No one forces you to come down here.”
“But you just said—”
“A dream must not be allowed to wither and fade,” Buck said. “This harms all dreams. Out of respect and love for the Dream World, dreamers come down here to die.”
Shade considered this. “And those who refuse?”
Buck leaned against the wall. “Who am I to judge another man’s dream? Who am I to tell him that he has nothing more to say?”
“Alright…” Shade said. “But why can’t they keep on living without their dreams?”
The goat-man chuckled. “What would be the point of that? Without a dream—or worse, a dream you can no longer pursue—life is no longer worth living. Thirsty?”
Buck rummaged through some bones and came up with a handful of water pills, handed one to Shade.
The pill expanded in Shade’s stomach, flooding his insides with cool, refreshing liquid. He studied the many skeletons that littered the floor, jumpsuits in tatters, names forgotten, dreams unremembered.
“Who were they?” he whispered.
“Death comes to both dream and dreamer alike,” Buck said. “A dream may outlive its dreamer, now and then, and the dreamer may die satisfied. Or a dreamer may outlive his dream, and die in sorrow. But in the end, both dream and dreamer must die.”
Music swelled in the back of Shade’s skull. He closed his eyes, rubbed his temple. “And my dream?” he said at last. “My…song?”
Buck straightened with effort. “In the end, all is dust and ashes, Jimmy Shade. But that doesn’t make the now any less urgent.” He put a hand on Shade’s shoulder. “Your song can change the world. If you let it.” His hand fell to his side. “This world is all we have.”
They stood in silence for a long moment. A rat gnawed on a bone at their feet. Shade kicked at the rodent. It squeaked and scampered away, resumed gnawing the bones of a different skeleton.
Without a word, they returned to the others. Buck lay down and was soon asleep. Shade woke Zama for watch duty.
Shade made a space amidst the bones, rested his head on a skull. Sleep did not come. After a
while, he got up, offered to relieve the actor, but Zama declined. So they sat, back to back in the darkness, listening for the distant crunch of bootsteps.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Get a move on,” Zune shouted in Shade’s ear.
Shade woke with a start. He must have fallen asleep. A dreamless sleep this time. A strange feeling of peace crept over him. All hope was lost. He knew that now. The Collective was hunting him, and he would die soon. Even if he managed to find refuge in the King’s Chamber—what then? Trapped in a hole like a rat. The Collective would find a way to get him. They always did. He stood up and stretched. He was no longer afraid. What will be, will be.
The others looked terrible—battered and bruised, clothes torn, Buck weak and clutching his bandaged shoulder. The back of Shade’s skull itched where he had unplugged himself, and when he scratched, his fingernails came away full of clotted blood.
“So. The King’s Chamber,” Zune said. “Is it far?”
Buck lifted a knee and stretched, winced in pain. “We can get there before we sleep again.” He gestured at the bones around them. “Scavenge what you need for the trip. The king has stockpiled food and water pills in the King’s Chamber, but I don’t know what we’ll find along the way. Few dreamers go that deep.” He left unspoken the last two words: “to die.”
They filled their pockets with supplies, and Buck led them through the maze of tunnels deeper into the catacombs. They limped along, stopping often for brief rests, but continued for hours, well past their endurance.
When Shade felt that his legs were about to give out, they reached a narrow tunnel, so narrow that only one could enter at a time. He wondered how long they’d been walking for. He’d needed to pop a food pill five times. On a regular day topside he’d only ever swallow three.
Buck lifted his head. “Let me go first. Wait ten seconds, then follow me. Clear?”
“What for?” Zune demanded. “Why do you have to go first?”
“Because the passage is booby trapped. I need to disarm them. All right with you?”
“The king booby-trapped the tunnel?”
“As a defensive measure. Yes.”