Uprising

by Gareth Otton

  “And he understands?” Leon asked in surprise, looking at Freckles again like he was seeing him for the first time.

  “They’re not quite your average dog,” Tad said with a proud smile. “The point is, he should be able to keep her safe until she can see reason.”

  “It’s better than nothing, I guess.” Stella said. “But now who’s going to watch your back?”

  “Tony got hurt today, so I’m sure he’ll be home soon needing to merge for the night. I’ll ask him to stick around for a while.”

  “Good idea. Get that Rodney guy to hang around too,” Stella suggested.

  “I was going to get him to watch your back, actually. Its you they’re coming after.”

  “I’ve got Freckles, he’s good enough. And of us both, you’re the one with the history and doing stupid things when no one’s watching. At least Growler had some sense.”

  “He’s just a dog,” Leon said again, looking at Stella and Tad like they were crazy. Freckles chuffed again, the look on his face expressing his opinion of Leon’s statement.

  “Enough. We’re going round in circles,” she said. “Leon, do you want Tad to take you back to Hydra?”

  “Not right now. I’ll think about it tomorrow and let you know if that changes.”

  Stella sighed, but accepted his decision. She’d feel safer with him back on Hydra, but her track record wasn’t great at convincing people to her way of thinking. She was about to say something else, but was interrupted when an alarm sounded, one she was hearing less of recently.

  “What is that?” Leon asked, flinching from the sound.

  “Nightmare alarm,” Tad said, looking alert like he was about to do something stupid.

  “Let Trevors’ guys handle it. Nightmares are the one thing I can rely on them for,” Stella said.

  Tad looked like he was one step away from rushing out the door. It proved yet again that him running would never work. It would take one supernatural disaster and he’d be right back in the thick of it. Feeling a headache form at the thought of that, she decided the best course of action was to take him away from his temptation.

  “We’re done here. There’s nothing we can do tonight. Let’s go home and regroup tomorrow. Hopefully Lizzie will have come to her senses by then.”

  She turned out the lights and stepped around the desk so Tad could take them first to Leon’s place and then back to his. All the while she remained calm and collected for their benefit, but inside she was panicking. Over the last year she had seen enough craziness that she knew things came in waves. With what was happening with Tad and Jen, her own troubles with the Dream Team, and now this Eidolon stupidity, her sense for danger was going into overdrive. The mounting pressures kept building, and she suspected it was only a matter of time before it exploded.

  With everything that was happening, she feared just how big that explosion would be.

  17

  Sunday, 27th November 2016

  16:33

  Tad shielded his eyes from the scorching sun as he looked at the giant pyramids, not even trying to hide his awe. He had seen photos of the great pyramids along with everyone else in the modern world, but this was his first time standing in front of one of the wonders of the world and marvelling at the impossible scale of the pyramids of Giza.

  “Can you believe people built this in a time before power tools,” Jacob asked, sounding just as awed as Tad.

  “No,” Tad answered.

  Jacob had invited Tad out for another meeting after their last catch up had gone well. After Tad’s week, he looked forward to a friendly distraction.

  Unfortunately, their meal had been more uncomfortable than last week’s as Tad got more attention at the restaurant they chose. They’d made it through their lunch, but the constant stares and pestering from people who wanted to talk with Tad and get their photo taken proved too much. That was when Jacob came up with the idea of going somewhere a little different.

  Looking at the enormous pyramids and the huge statute of the Sphynx, Tad decided it was just what he needed.

  “This was a good idea, I don’t know why we don’t do more stuff like this,” he said, mad at himself. There was so much to see in the world, so many wonders, and he could get to any of them with just a thought. He should have taken advantage of that.

  “It’s a hard thing to adjust to,” Jacob said. “You’ve come further than most with these powers, but our people have so much growth and discovery ahead of us. We’re caught up in the limitations of normal people. It never occurs to us that visiting places like this is not only within our means, but is no more work than a five minute Google search. Imagine what else we’re capable of when we learn to free ourselves.”

  “I supposed you’re right,” Tad said after a slight hesitation. Sometimes he found it hard to keep up with his friend. Jacob looked at the world through a lens Tad wasn’t comfortable with. He insisted on seeing himself as something other than normal, using phrases like “our people” and “normal people” like they weren’t the same. Tad knew he could do more than the average person, but he was not so willing to separate himself from humanity just yet.

  “You think dreamwalkers built this?” Jacob asked after the silence lingered.

  “What do you mean? We know human slaves built this?”

  “Do we? This place mystified people for thousands of years. For such an ancient society to build something like this is mind boggling. I heard somewhere that if these blocks were so much as an inch too big or too small then they wouldn’t have been able to form a pyramid because they wouldn’t have met at the top.”

  Tad looked up at the giant structure, doubting that but not willing to call his friend out on it without knowing for sure.

  “The tolerances were minuscule and in the time when these were built… Surely no group of normal people could have built such a thing.”

  There he went with the normal people talk again, making Tad’s skin crawl.

  “People do amazing things all the time, Jacob. Don’t write them off just because they can’t use Dream.”

  “Maybe you’re right. Makes you wonder though, doesn’t it? Those ancient Egyptian gods they talk about, you think those were early dreamwalkers. That Mitena girl said there used to be a lot more of us and we used to be stronger than simple Proxies. You think they were more like us?”

  “We’re not gods, Jacob,” Tad stressed, truly getting worried.

  Jacob laughed. “I never said we were. I’m just saying that a whole religion sprung up around a guy who could walk on water, and I think that by using Dream that wouldn’t even be that hard. Imagine what a dreamwalker could do back then and what people would believe.”

  “I don’t think they would have been able to walk on water,” Tad said. “We could do it now by using Dream to augment the surface tension, but back then the Merging hadn’t happened. I’ve spoken with Mitena about this, and the kind of powers she described were the kind that Joshua King showed when he merged with hundreds of ghosts. I think Proxies of old were more like that.”

  “You’re missing the point, brother. I’m not saying they walked on water, I’m saying that even if you could only do what a powerful Proxy could do, you would still seem like Gods to these people.”

  Tad thought again of the Eidolon and what he knew about them. Jacob was assigning credit to the wrong group. But Tad didn’t correct him. When Lizzie’s video dropped last night, she included her speculation about supernatural people that had nothing to do with Dream and offered compelling evidence for their existence. But she hadn’t released the information Leon told her about the Eidolon, nor speculated about what these people were. She just told the world they existed and advised people to keep an open mind. Stella thought it was vague enough to keep her safe, but Tad left Growler with her for the time being.

  Not knowing what to say, Tad just kept silent, which made Jacob laugh again.

  “Stop taking things so seriously,” he said. “I’m just speculating. I mea
n nothing by it.”

  “I just don’t like when you concentrate on the differences between us and other people,” Tad admitted. “The last thing we need is people seeing us as anything other than human.”

  Again Jacob burst out laughing and Tad didn’t like his mocking tone.

  “It’s past time you saw the truth, brother. I’m not saying we’re better than normal people, but you can’t keep thinking we’re the same either. Look where we’re standing. Neither of us took a plane here and that incredible monolith, I bet between the two of us we could tear it down in minutes given enough motivation.”

  Tad stepped back, a disgusted scowl on his face even as he contemplated the thought.

  “Don’t look at me like that, I’m not saying we should do it, but that we could. You need to open your eyes. Ignoring the truth isn’t helping anyone and its time you realised that. You thinking otherwise is exactly whey they have the nerve to even think about passing a law that lets grown men point guns at little girls and think they’re in the right. How can any good man think of supporting a system where that sort of evil exists?”

  Tad struggled through Jacobs’ words, knowing there was something wrong with his logic but unable to point it out. Part of that was because of how quick Jacob spoke, but a larger part was consumed by the image of Jen facing down all those guns. His inner beast was waking up again, and it was hard to think for the rage that was building.

  You can’t confuse the actions of a few with the intent of the many, whispered the voice of Charles in his mind, and Tad silently agreed. There were six-hundred-and-fifty people who could vote on this potential law. No matter how the vote went, it was dangerous thinking to assume they accurately represented the views of the sixty-five-million people who lived in Britain.

  Trevors guys were in the wrong, as were the politicians trying to pass that law. But the majority of the people Tad met on a daily basis weren’t spouting hate like the Children of ADaM. People flooded to the Borderlands in numbers that were staggering because they all wanted a taste of this place where miracles happened. Those people weren’t afraid, they didn’t hate everything about Tad and his people; they were fascinated.

  However, when Tad expressed this to Jacob, he only made his friend angry.

  “What will it take for you to see reason? Does this bill need to pass into law? Do your fellow dreamcatchers need to be rounded up and registered like we were dangerous animals? Or does Jen need to get shot the next time she makes a minor mistake?”

  Again Tad struggled to answer as once more his monster raged. Such was the vitriol in Jacob’s voice that it almost sounded like a threat.

  “One day you’re going to wake up and realise you’re fighting for the wrong team, brother. You have it in you to be the best of us. You can do things the rest of us can’t replicate, yet you’re choosing to stand between two sides destined for war, rather than on our side where you should be. We should be united and—”

  “War?” Tad asked. “What are you talking about? There’s no—”

  “Wake up, Tad!” Jacob screamed so loud a group of tourists on the other side of the pyramids looked up in shock. Shaking with anger, Jacob pointed a finger at Tad and said, “The time is coming when you will have to choose. Them or us. No more sitting on the fence, you’re either with us, or against us.”

  “There doesn’t need to be sides,” Tad argued, but his friend just shook his head and stepped away.

  “Them or us,” he said, then vanished.

  Tad stared at the sand where his friend had been standing, shocked at how quick that escalated and his friend’s parting words. He knew Jacob wasn’t on the same page as him with his beliefs, but to think there was a war coming…

  He turned to look at the pyramids, suddenly immune to the awe of the place as his worry started to take hold. He thought of Jacob’s comment about being able to tear this place down and that worry gave birth to new, bigger worries. Most of all, he feared for his friend’s state of mind. He looked at these pyramids and was in awe of the effort it must have taken to get them built. Jacob looked at them and thought of how to tear them down.

  There was a lesson there that Tad needed to consider, but as with everything else this afternoon, his brain wasn’t working quick enough to figure it out. Yet again he was distracted, like he had too many things fighting for his attention, and he was quickly running out of bandwidth to assign to each of the worries he was juggling. With everything happening with Jen, Stella’s Dream Team, the coming World War, the Eidolon and now this, he felt like he was drowning.

  The sound of foreign voices made him look up, and he saw that soldiers had broken off from near the group of tourists and were headed his way. He and Jacob had chosen a spot that most people didn’t get to see the pyramids from so they wouldn’t have to deal with people, but now that Jacob called attention to them Tad realised it was time to leave.

  He took one last look at the pyramids and allowed himself to be awed by what people could achieve when they worked together, and wondered why instead they always worked against each other.

  Then, before the soldiers reached him, he too vanished.

  18

  Sunday, 27th November 2016

  20:12

  Jacob rushed into the forest, his brother beside him, and both of them alert.

  The trees atop the mountain blocked the moonlight and pitch darkness consumed them. However, Jacob called Dream to augment his night vision. The world didn’t get brighter, but his ability to pick out the variance in the shades of black and more intense black improved, creating details without colour. Suddenly he could see the root he was about to trip over, the tree trunk he nearly ran into, and the stone that would twist his ankle if he wasn’t careful. It was a world of shadow, but it was better than blindness.

  A creature leapt at him, its fur as black as the night. It was a great cat, like a panther, but larger. A silent hunter and one of the worst nightmares they could summon. More than once it had slipped through their defences and sent their people to the hospital. However, it was all in the name of making them stronger and Jacob judged that the losses were worth it.

  “Joseph, distraction to my three o’clock,” Jacob shouted as he reached into his pocket. Out the corner of his eye he saw his brother change direction, piling on inhuman speed as he tapped into abilities that only ghosts could access, charging at the oncoming nightmare. It wasn’t just dreamwalkers who improved from training.

  Joseph collided with the beast, tackling it to the ground and rolling with it before doing his best to disengage. His job wasn’t to hurt the nightmare, just to keep it occupied. Jacob didn’t need long, and as his brother climbed away from the surprised nightmare, Jacob pressed the small switch on the back of the tiny metal tube attached to a key ring.

  The small laser pointer came to life and with a quick call to Dream, a blisteringly hot beam of red energy blasted through the space between Jacob and the nightmare at the speed of light. Jacob swiped to the right then cut the power, just one quick burst, but it was more than enough to cut through the nightmare like the beam of a laser sword. The creature didn’t make a sound as it fell into two pieces, then disintegrated as the Dream that powered it vanished.

  There was a loud creaking sound followed by an enormous crash as one of the trees behind the cat was also sliced in two and started a slow fall to the forest floor. Jacob gauged the direction of its fall and dismissed it. It wasn’t headed for him, and he had a challenge to complete. This time when he ran, he kept his laser pointer handy for anything else that might come his way. They may not be able to recreate Tad’s success in summoning light from nothing, but they found their own way to replicate that trick and it was a handy one to know.

  “You’re going to burn the forest down at this rate,” Joseph complained after they dealt with a fourth nightmare that was yet another of the black cats. Someone had summoned an entire pack.

  “Focus,” Jacob replied as he continued through the woods, keeping his
attention on feeling for any other dangers that might come his way.

  However, for all that Joseph was supposed to be watching his back, it was Jacob’s Dream senses that alerted him to the next attack. He skidded to a stop and dropped into a crouch just in time to avoid a searing heat as it passed overhead. He looked up to find a bird made of fire, a true phoenix, swoop on by, its talons closing mere inches above his head.

  Such was the nature of this nightmare that the bird’s fire cast no light, nor was it setting any of the trees aflame. However, it was made of fire that would feel real enough to Jacob should it touch him. It was a nightmare designed to burn only human flesh.

  He abandoned the laser pointer, knowing heat wasn’t useful against this nightmare, and looked for a way out.

  With a cry like the greatest of eagles, it turned in mid-flight and came back for him. Ducking was no good this time, and Jacob was forced to dive aside, landing hard on the uneven floor and rolling into a puddle. The ice cold water shocked his system so much he lost the air in his lungs, but he was practiced enough to keep rolling and avoid yet another attack as the creature swooped on by.

  There was a fierce grin on his face as he rolled back to his knees as an idea struck. He didn’t move from the spot, instead watching the flight of the bird and waiting for the right moment.

  “Jacob, run,” Joseph cried from the darkness, but Jacob ignored him. He knew what to do and just needed to wait.

  Again the flaming bird cried out, screaming its outrage at missing him twice. It spread its wings wide and swooped down for one last pass, talons extended and flaming eyes focused on Jacob.

  Jacob’s smile never wavered as he counted the seconds, and at the last moment he slapped his open palm into the cold puddle and called to Dream. It didn’t take much to increase the pressure of his splash, not just disturbing the water, but throwing all of it from the ground like someone had thrown a bucket of water into the air.