The Dreams of the Eternal City

by Mark Reece

  After he had gone, Ethan felt that he was being swept along by events. Max’s aggression passed into him like an infection and he turned to the man and said, “I’ve had enough of this, I want to know what’s going on. Now. Why did you manipulate me into coming here?”

  “I’m sorry… I know they can all be… It must seem like there’s some kind of… conspiracy against you, I’m sorry things have happened like they have…” The man held his arms out with an ambiguous gesture, and was so reasonable sounding and apologetic that Ethan felt soothed.

  “Who the hell are you anyway?”

  “Well… it’s a bit embarrassing. They call me the Professor. I used to work at a university, you see. You wouldn’t believe how funny everyone thought that was when I first mentioned it. Anyway, I’ll tell you about it later. Have a seat.”

  Ethan did as he was told, bewildered. It seemed as if the only way he could disregard his instructions was by being absurdly perverse. The moment he was seated, he felt so drowsy that he had to concentrate to speak. He felt as if he were being massaged, and it was so easy to go with the flow…

  “What’s… all this about…?”

  “We don’t need to go through that stuff now. The main thing is to help you with your problem.”

  “You’re going to help me?” Ethan could not keep the sneer from his voice. The Professor looked away.

  “Sorry… yes… I know it sounds strange but… your problem is that you’ve been shoehorned into an unnatural sleep pattern. Humans aren’t meant to have all their sleep in one go like you’ve been forced to do. Like we’ve all been forced to do.”

  “Oh?”

  “Before the studies were suppressed, research showed that when people don’t know what time it is, most will sleep in two four and a half hour blocks a day, with a few naps in between. Electricity has proved to be the invention that’s caused more disruption to sleep patterns than any other in history. Before electric lights were invented, people would sleep as long as it was dark. They’d sleep longer in the winter and only get out of bed when it was light outside.”

  When giving his speech, the Professor seemed confident for the first time since he had met him, not looking away or touching his face. Ethan felt unequipped to respond, his knowledge of the investigative and administrative procedures of the SDMA now seeming startling parochial and inadequate. He jumped when feeling someone stroking his arm. He looked around to see the couple hugging in the corner, too far away for it to have been them.

  “But what’s any of this got to do with me? Why did you have to threaten Aislin to get me here?”

  “People go… overboard. But let’s not discuss that now, just lie down.”

  Ethan’s initial reaction was to resist what the Professor was saying by any and all means. However, the urge to rest his head, to free himself of exhaustion in an environment where he would not get punished, was overwhelming. I suppose I’ve got to see what it’s like if I’m going to go properly undercover… He stretched his legs on a purple sofa.

  Ethan was soothed by the warmth and heavy ambience of the room. He thought he heard music but could not be sure whether it was only part of his drowsiness. He closed his eyes and let his mind drift, as if he were floating towards an embracing heaven…

  Ethan slept so deeply that he was reluctant to wake, and when he did, he pressed his face into the sofa. After remembering where he was, he heard the soft rhythmical sound of sleep breathing. The room was almost completely dark. From what he could hear, there had to be a dozen people around him. The communal nature of dreaming in a crowd felt shocking in a way that he could not understand.

  A moment after he had managed to sit up, he felt a gentle touch on his shoulder, obviously from a woman’s hand. Ethan wanted to throw it off, acutely aware of his vulnerability. He could not bring himself to move. Suddenly, he felt a piercing pain in his arm, as if he had been injected with a needle. His legs jolted and he rasped. He clutched the air desperately. He fell and felt himself twitch before falling unconscious…

  Ethan was next woken by a low hum. The room was light and there was no one else there. The sound increased almost imperceptibly, such that it made him concentrate to convince himself that he was not imagining it. It seemed to seek him out as inevitably as water pouring into a container will find any holes. He sat up and the sound stopped. Ethan stretched and yawned, shaking the last dregs of weariness from his limbs as concretely as if he were wiping dirt from his shoes. There was a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” he said, feeling ridiculous.

  The Professor stepped inside, his head lowered and a hand over his eyes. “Are you… decent?”

  He said the word ‘decent’ tentatively, as if it were obscene.

  “Yeah.”

  Ethan felt embarrassed, as the man’s every gesture suggested that he was worried that something could go wrong, as if he were talking to a violent criminal.

  “I thought you’d need to get up soon. Did you hear the tone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Research has shown that the body responds better to being woken gradually, by stimuli that gently rouses one from REM to stage one, then consciousness. Harsh sounds, like those made by modern alarm clocks, disturb sleep too rapidly and lead to a groggy sensation that—”

  “What time is it?”

  The Professor had been gazing dreamily into a corner of the room and reddened when interrupted. “Well… it’s seven o’clock.”

  “In the morning?”

  The Professor nodded.

  “Shit.”

  Ethan paced around the room before sitting back on the sofa and rubbing his eyes. This is it then. Despite knowing that he could not go on forever, he had never thought about when it would actually happen.

  “Ethan, I hope you don’t mind… I took the liberty of getting you a new shirt. Sorry, I know how strange this must be for you…”

  “For the last time, why the fuck am I here?”

  “It’s difficult to explain everything. Let me just say this. With what’s happened while you’ve been here, you’ll be able to function on six hours’ sleep a night without any impact on your performance for… probably a week. Not that that’s ideal of course, but… If I can say, the most important thing is for you to get yourself to work. I’ve left everything you need in the bathroom, so if you get moving, you can be there well before eight.”

  The Professor had become confident again, speaking as if reading from a script. Ethan was infuriated by his evasion and wanted to argue further, to put an end to this once and for all. Given how weedy he was, with his thick glasses and paunch, there was nothing he could do if Ethan grabbed and shook him, even if his associates were waiting nearby, as he suspected. Nevertheless, he knew that what he said about getting to work on time was right. Am I really going to walk into the SDMA headquarters straight from an Iklonian safe house? Then again, was it any worse than the SC breaches, the deterioration in his work, and everything else? Without replying to the Professor, Ethan went through the door behind him into a bathroom.

  The flat was much more prosaic than he remembered from the previous night, to the extent that he thought they must have changed things while he slept. The lounge was definitely less purple. He obssessed about what had happened so intently that he did not notice the clothes hung over a bath rail until after he had brushed his teeth.

  When he had dressed, he thought there might be listening devices hidden in them. He patted himself down but could find nothing obviously out of place. He knew that he should search them properly, but when he checked his mobile, he saw that it was half seven. Ethan felt as if he had been transformed into an animal, that he no longer thought through his actions but only moved from one set of stimuli to the next, blown between different scenarios without control.

  He suddenly remembered the pain in his arm from the previous night and his fingers te
nsed as if he had just heard a piercing scream. He peeled the shirt back to check himself. There was a slight discolouration on his skin. What does that mean? Was it a drug to knock me out? Or a hallucination? A dream? He was unsure of his memories and tentatively explored his back as if expecting to find a new limb growing there…

  When he returned to the lounge, the Professor was sitting on the floor eating toast. He stood hurriedly and wiped his mouth, leaving most of the crumbs in place.

  “You should have something before you go.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Okay, okay. So… you’d better be getting off then. Erm… try not to, you know… worry about anything.”

  “Right.”

  “Someone might be in touch at some point, but…”

  Ethan again felt tempted to hit the man. However, the need to get away was still more pressing.

  “Never contact me again.”

  “Here, get yourself something to eat on the way. You can’t go twelve hours without eating.”

  “Are you taking the piss?”

  Nevertheless, when the Professor stepped forward and pressed some coins into his hand, Ethan remembered the importance of time and did not want to argue.

  As he walked down the endless stairs, which were as dark as the night before, he thought about throwing the money away out of principle. However, no one would ever know what he had done, making his stand futile. What difference does a few quid make?

  Walking to work from that part of the city felt surreal, as if he were watching video footage of himself. Several times, he thought that he should sneak through alleys rather than take the quickest route, but there were so few people around that there seemed no point. Anyway, it would look more suspicious if I did. And I don’t have time. He moved as confidently as he could but his legs were tense.

  When he reached the lobby of the SDMA building, Ethan felt as he had many times in recent weeks: that one of the guards would be sure to think that there was something suspicious about him and draw him to one side for questioning. He could not help but glance at the supervisor behind the counter and the plethora of cameras surrounding him, which flickered between people walking along corridors and the concrete vista surrounding the building. When their eyes met, he nodded and Ethan returned the gesture, before hurrying to put his identity card against the lip-shaped security barrier. Dots of light danced frantically across his back.

  “All right?” he said to Mohammed when reaching their office.

  “Hi ya, how you doin’?”

  “Good. You?”

  “Can’t complain.”

  Ethan switched on his computer. He stretched while waiting for it to load, and it was only then that he realised what a difference his long sleep had made. The weariness in his limbs and the heavy feeling behind his eyes had gone, but more than that, his perception had sharpened. He could hear his computer humming beneath his feet and the tone of Jo’s voice as she whispered at the other side of the office. Colours seemed more vivid than before, as if he had ignored the world his whole life. Now, he saw a fuller truth and was taken aback by the variegated greys of his desk and the unevenness of its texture.

  When he opened his report and started writing, Ethan swum through the words like an eel wriggling around rocks. Previously, he could only concentrate by willing himself to focus on a few relevant facts in the great sea; now, he could look at everything around him and write while barely conscious of what he was doing, simultaneously arranging the next paragraph in his mind. It was as if the barriers that surrounded him had suddenly become soft, allowing him to move at will.

  Life was so much easier when he was rested and Ethan wondered whether this was why people were willing to risk associating with the Iklonians. The common response from an SDMA agent investigating a professional was astonishment that anyone would risk their career and everything they had for the sake of a few hours of illicit sleep. Ethan realised that the creative potential it unlocked had to be part of the draw. Perhaps everyone who’s successful is secretly an Iklonian, or at least uses their techniques. Of course, when you get rich, you’re not monitored as much and can get a decent lawyer, so you’re above the law. That had to be be how people got on. It was certainly the case for Ethan, as by eleven, he had finished the draft presentation that Daniel needed for the next day, and had started planning the next section of Hypnos.

  When Aislin rang, Ethan grabbed his mobile with a compulsive movement.

  “Morning! All well?”

  “Good thanks. Sorry for not ringing earlier, I wasn’t ignoring your message. It’s been mad here. Dad’s hard work, I’ll tell you that for nothing. I don’t know how mum puts up with him. I’d have grey hair by now if I were her. In fact, I’d probably not have much of anything left, my teeth would’ve fallen out by the time I was twenty-five.”

  “Why, what’s been going on?”

  “Nothing really, it’s just how… intense he is all the time. He can’t just do something, he’s got to do it to death. Like the other day, when we were in Tipperary. He grew up near Lake Derg, and he got it into his head that he wanted to walk round it. Well, it’s miles all the way, so we had to get a tent and some boots. Actually, I’m not going to go through it all now, suffice it to say that it involved lots of mud, lots of walking, and getting knackered. I thought I was going to fall off the end of the world by the evening. It’s good exercise though. I’ve not had time to do much running lately so it’s got me back into the swing of things.”

  “Are you okay, you sound out of breath?”

  “Yeah, I’m just… it’s just the memory of it all, probably.”

  She laughed in a somewhat manic way, making Ethan shift in his seat.

  “Ash… this is the last time this is going to happen. He sounds like he’s getting… strange. We can’t have our lives disrupted like this. I know where you’re coming from, but… we need to sort something out.”

  “I know, I know…” Aislin sounded deferential in a way that surprised him. “Anyway, have you had chance to look at any houses?”

  “Erm… yeah, I’ve gone through a few websites and just had a basic look so far. What we need to do is to find out how much we can borrow. You can go on a site to estimate it but we’ll have to do it properly. When you get back, you can look at the houses I’ve found.”

  “What areas have you been researching?”

  “Within ten miles of my house, for a starter. There’s loads on the market at the moment so it’ll take a while to go through them all. Look, are you sure you’re all right with all this, with your dad, I mean? I’ll be honest, I’ve never known a situation like it. It’s pretty unusual you know.”

  “You’ve told me this. This is the last time it’ll happen. It’s just… well, what he needed to do, I suppose.”

  “Right, okay.”

  “Anything else been happening then, what you been up to?”

  “Just the usual really. Work work work. I’m going to have most of this finished by the time you get back so we can concentrate on houses.”

  “It sounds like you’ll have got some lined up soon so that’s no problem.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Talk more about this later then. Love you.”

  “Love you. Bye, bye.”

  Ethan made a note to himself to do some property searches when he got home that night. The prospect of taking action to actually move in with Aislin, as opposed to accepting to do so in principle, made his stomach churn such that he could not sit still.

  “How’s she getting on?”

  “It’s all very odd. You know what her dad’s like, it’s like having to look after a child. It’s hard to say anything ’cos what can you do? Tell Aislin not to listen to her dad? But I’m going to have to think about it. We can’t go on like this when we’re living together. Do you think I’m being unreasonable?”

  “No… no…”
>
  “You see, the problem is, I’ve never really said anything to her. I didn’t know how to go about it, you know what I mean? Now though, I think I’m gonna have to, but I don’t know how to start the conversation. It’s different when you’re going to live together, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, yeah. It’s just how you phrase yourself. You need to wait for the right moment then say it like you’re not having a go at her.”

  “I suppose. I don’t think it’s gonna go down well though, however I put it. I still think it’s a very funny situation. I don’t know anyone else who suddenly decides that his twenty-eight year old daughter has to go on a pilgrimage to his home town with him.”

  Mohammed smiled wryly. “I don’t know about that, mate. There’s always something weird going on with any woman.”

  “Sometimes, I wish I had one of those jobs where you don’t carry things over from one day to the next. With us, there’s no end to anything, is there? The more you do the more there is.”

  “Yeah right, you wouldn’t last five minutes living any other way.”

  “Maybe.” Ethan rested his head in his hands, for a moment wishing that he could have a view of something other than the partitions that divided them from the neighbouring workspaces.

  “Hasna’s just as bad you know, sometimes…”

  “Oh?”

  He looked around his computer at Mo. Ethan’s ears suddenly felt red and he realised that he might have compromised himself by talking about personal matters at such length.

  “It’s all stuff about the baby. She’s having a hard time of it, and making sure that my life’s a misery as well. I mean… it’s getting hard to talk to her at the moment. She’s said a few times now about getting fat, then she has a go at whatever I say. So when she was on about it the other day, I just listened. Then she called me a whole load of names, saying that I looked like an idiot sitting there nodding at her.”

  “What do you think’s the matter?”

  “It’s hard to know what she’s thinking. I reckon she’s just worried about things in general. The problem is, you know she believes in the religion and all that…” Mohammed rolled his eyes. “Well, it makes her funny about going to the doctor too often. Don’t ask why, I can’t explain it. Her mum and dad don’t help either. She usually just humours them about their ideas of things, but now, it’s like they’ve drugged her or something, she takes it all in. They’re on the phone giving advice everyday, they’re loving it.”