The Dream Thief

by Leann M Rettell

  “Not that I remotely understood half of what you said, and I hate to say it, but I’m surprised a pharmaceutical company is allowing this type of research to go on. Don’t get me wrong, I think this is brilliant, but isn’t it in their interest to not cure diabetes and obesity? They make their money treating these diseases. It seems, they of all people, wouldn’t want them cured. You’d think they want new, very expensive drugs.”

  Dharma’s face darkened, and she looked around, then leaned in close and whispered, “Be careful with your words. We get minimal funding. We look good on paper, and give the company great PR, but you’re right. Now that your dad has opened us up with funding, a whole new arena of possibilities is available to us. I suspect at some point these experiments will be taken over elsewhere, say the world health organization, or something like that.” She finished with a wink.

  Malcolm spoke into the earpiece. “Omar assured her that we had ties to the CDC and the world health organization. She thinks we can take it to them when Avient pulls the plug if she gets too close. Go with it, okay?” Debbie’s head moved up and down.

  “Let’s get you started.”

  Debbie made little headway her first day, but as soon as she left the building, she dialed his cell. He answered on the first ring and said, “Hey baby, do I have some ideas!”

  22

  Malcolm and Debbie spent a good portion of Monday evening researching. They spent the rest of the time in bed, doing research of another kind. Where Debbie was concerned, Malcolm was insatiable. No further attacks of searing headaches nor nose bleeds happened. Malcolm now knew way more about corn and wheat than he’d ever thought he needed or wanted to.

  Corn, or maize, as it should be called, had its genes fully sequenced in 2005. Surprising both Malcolm and Debbie, they discovered maize had over thirty thousand genes while humans only had about twenty thousand. Debbie had read to him aloud while he let his gaze drift down her blouse. She smacked him, so he paid more attention. Maize had a long history of breeding for various purposes like increasing number of ears, improved nutrition, resistance to drought, and disease tolerance. It was still susceptible to many pests, but they couldn’t think of a way to get in little bugs without being discovered as blatant sabotage. Diseases like bacteria and fungus were an option, but Malcolm’s job during the day would be researching how and if they could introduce these into the very controlled environment.

  Their plan, thus far, involved killing all the plants and destroying the records. The execution was another matter entirely. Debbie left Tuesday morning with a bag filled with her goodies. She got everyone coffee. She wasn’t allowed to touch the plants, but they did let her walk around with a tray, collect soil samples, and write down the temperatures of each station as Jerry called them out. He shouted everything since he never turned off his iPod and never looked up for longer than three seconds, but Malcolm did catch him eying Debbie when he thought she wasn’t looking. Jealousy flared red hot.

  Their first break came at lunchtime. Dharma and Jerry left the subfloors for lunch. Dharma headed to the daycare to eat lunch with her son, Jaime. Jerry disappeared without an explanation, but Lynda hung back. “Most days everyone leaves at lunch. I noticed you’ve packed yours like you’re going to eat in the break room. You should venture out, get some real sunlight, not these artificial ones. Stay down here all the time, and you’ll go crazy. I’m heading to the cafeteria. Taco bar today. Want to come?”

  “Maybe next time,” Debbie answered. Lynda nodded and left. They’d discussed last night that she shouldn’t become too friendly with any of them. She’d told him she didn’t know if she could live with herself if she had to hurt them.

  “Why do they have to be so nice?” Debbie said.

  Malcolm understood. “You’re doing fine.”

  “You heard what Dharma said before she left?”

  “Yes. She said ‘you’re doing good by the way.’” Dharma had waved and smiled, hurrying off to see her son, happiness lightening the severe expression she usually wore. Watching humanity for millennia, Malcolm could see her slip out of one mask and into another with the ease of changing clothes. Human thoughts and desires revealed themselves once you had been around long enough. They wore their emotions and motivations on their faces like an accessory.

  Alone, Debbie devoured her lunch before returning to the lab alone with her bag. She grabbed a pair of gloves, as they planned, and removed each of the artificial lights, replacing them with identical ones with one major difference. No, two. The ones Debbie replaced wouldn’t give the plants the UV rays they needed to grow, and the real grow lights gave off a faint purple hue, missing from the lights Debbie swapped out. To let this sabotage have time to work, they’d spray painted the regular lights purple. The tinged light didn’t match perfectly, but it was close enough Malcolm hoped they wouldn’t notice, at least not right away before the damage was already done.

  With that complete, Debbie hid her bag back in her locker. Not putting all their eggs in one basket, she also poured weed killer onto the roots from a water bottle she’d snuck in. At the controls in the back, still wearing gloves, Malcolm walked her through the sequence of codes and instructions Omar provided. “Hurry! Lunch is almost over!”

  “I know!”

  The plants should die, probably not right away, but dead was dead.

  “They’re coming back soon. Get back upstairs and let them see you coming in behind them.”

  “Okay. Why?”

  “It’s like the gloves I asked you to wear while touching the bulbs. I don’t know if they’ll blame this on you, but we don’t want any fingerprints, or any suspicion, directed your way. I’ve contacted one of the other dream thieves. He’s good at the electronics of this age. He hacked through their systems on Friday, so it doesn’t coincide with your start date. The video systems typically save all the footage at the end of the day. That won’t happen tonight. At least not inside the lab and a few other random places. At lunchtime, your badge will look like it was swiped in and out. It’ll be like you left for lunch a few minutes after Lynda left.”

  Debbie left the lab, head moving back and forth, noting the empty hallway. “Why?”

  “I don’t want any criminal charges filed against you.”

  “Gee thanks.” Her sarcasm confused him. The elevator door dinged as the doors opened. She entered and pressed the lobby.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing!” she said.

  “Clearly.”

  “Where am I supposed to go?” She whispered as the doors opened, maneuvering past people waiting to get on.

  “Anywhere. The bathroom,” he said. “What’s wrong, baby?”

  Inside the bathroom, she stomped from one end to the other, passing each stall, peering inside. Once she assured herself she was alone, she stalked to the mirror and jabbed a finger at her reflection as if pointing it at him. “You never said anything about this being illegal!” The last word came out like venom.

  “What exactly about sabotage sounds legal?”

  She leaned against the sink and stared down into the white porcelain bowl. Then she said, so low that he almost couldn’t hear her, even with the high tech and his super hearing, “Are you positive of what you saw? I don’t want—” with a heavy sigh she looked up again, staring at her own reflection but really talking to him. “I don’t want to ruin their work unless you’re positive it has to be done. Are you positive?”

  It was his turn for his shoulders to droop. He closed his eyes. “No. Nothing about what causes the outcome is certain.”

  “Damn.”

  “Are you in?”

  She met her own reflection, flatting the flyaway strands of hair, and freshened her lipstick. “In for a penny.”

  23

  To Debbie’s credit, she said nothing more. She let her gaze fall from the mirror, straightened her scrubs, and left the bathroom. She returned to the lab and finished out her day without incident. Even when she walked into their shared
hotel room, she said nothing, which wasn’t exactly a good thing considering how she had jerked out the video/audio equipment as soon as she’d gotten in the car, ignored his calls. When she got there, she kept her eyes glued forward as she strolled into the room, grabbed her suitcase, and not so quietly slammed the bathroom door.

  "Debbie, give me a chance to explain."

  “Not now.” She said as she stepped out of the bathroom to grab her portable speaker. “I need to stop hating myself first.” The door didn’t close any quieter the second time.

  The sound of the shower erupted into life, as did the zing of the shower curtain flying across the metal bar and what he imagined was her suitcase crashing to the floor. He tried the knob, but it only jiggled, locked in his palm. The consideration to rip it from the hinges occurred to him, but he thought better of it. Somehow, he figured a display of his inhumanness would make the situation worse at the moment. He decided to let her calm down. She wouldn’t be in the situation if not for him.

  He closed the hotel room behind him, slid the keycard in the pocket of his black jacket, and ran down the stairwell to the third floor. No one walked on the treadmills in the hotel's gym, like in every place he’d stayed recently. Reeking of old sweat, gym socks, and an old rubber stench, the gym held the basic equipment with a free weight bench, two treadmills, and one random red work-out ball. He didn’t actually need to exercise, but the activity relaxed him, helped him think.

  The cell beeped. Juan’s name appeared in the text notifications.

  Stopped by the store today. Crazy baker lady said you've left town?? Wtf dude. Call me.

  He’d also received a voice mail from an unknown number. He hit the play button. "This is,” Sounds of a rustling of papers pierced through his phone, “Jace Reed. I found your number in a car on Easter Island. I think you’re supposed to help me. I'll call again." The voicemail crackled as the caller hung up the phone. Malcolm stared at the phone. He'd been listening to Caelieus for a hundred lifetimes. He'd have recognized his voice anywhere.

  The name he’d used was one of the several aliases Malcolm had prepared for Caelieus before leaving Rome. Now the dream thieves could focus their search since they knew which alias he’d picked.

  If Caelieus had to look through papers to figure out his name, then he hadn’t remembered much of anything. With Malcolm’s supplies in the car, he could be anywhere and stay underground for a long time. He had to tell Aelia.

  His heart pounded as his thumb flipped to the contacts. Before he could begin to scroll, the pain returned, ripping his brain apart. He remembered falling to his knees and nothing more.

  Hours later Malcolm awoke in his hotel room, having no memory of how he’d gotten there. Every fiber of his being screamed in protest. With the slightest turn of his neck, the vice around his skull pressed tighter. Only the mere hint of light in the opposite room permeated his dark room. Quiet voices whispered, carrying with them a sense of urgency. Malcolm said, "Deb." But he stopped short, clamping his mouth down against the rising nausea.

  For a few minutes, he descended back into the torture, dry heaving against an empty stomach, blood rolling in thick. Sickening metallic-smelling waves washed over his face.

  Debbie touched his head, shooting jolts of electric pain sizzling through every nerve. He didn’t want to stay conscious, but he had to. He held on to that low buzz of the internal alarm. That singularity inside anchoring him to reality. He couldn’t let go again. His job wasn’t finished. The need to transport rose in him like a dying man reaching for a raft. He’d ignored it.

  Sucking desperately for much needed air, he clung to stay conscious. After a time, he became aware of people talking to him. Debbie and Juan. What was Juan doing here?

  He didn't dare sit up. He opened one eye then the other.

  "Malcolm? Can you hear me?" Debbie asked.

  "Mmm." He shuddered with another wave of pain. "What happened?" His voice croaked, barely recognizing himself.

  Debbie sighed, her whole-body relaxing.

  Juan squatted to his side. "Good to see you man. You had us worried."

  "You've been out for a week." Debbie rubbed his back, slow and gentle.

  "A week?" His voice came out scratchy and weak. That meant he only had two, three days at the most before Stephanie would have Dharma killed.

  Juan handed him a cup of his simple syrup concoction. He tipped it over his lips, running slow and sweet down his throat. He handed it back to his friend, who left the room to get more.

  "Why is he here?" Malcolm whispered. Speaking those few words took more energy that he had.

  "I found you in the gym. I couldn’t move you by myself, and I couldn't call an ambulance. I had to have someone stay with you during the day."

  "Why didn't you call Omar?"

  "Hello…lawyer? Hourly rates."

  "What does he know?"

  Juan spoke from the doorway, "That you're my friend, and you needed help. Everything else doesn't matter."

  "Juan." Malcolm held out a hand, pleading, but for exactly what, he wasn't sure.

  Juan crossed the distance, placing another filled cup in his hand. "If anyone hangs around you long enough, you betray little things. You never eat or go to the bathroom. When you've had one too many, sometimes you bend a door handle because you're impossibly strong.” Juan shrugged as if it was no big deal. He could have been discussing the weather. “The family thinks you're an angel."

  Malcolm’s eyebrow raised in an unspoken question.

  Juan laughed as he had a thousand times before. "I don't know what you are, but angel sure as hell ain't one of them. Seen you drooling over one too many hot women."

  Debbie glared at Juan, but her expression passed. "I was with him day in and day out. I never suspected a thing!"

  "Ehh, you're American. Our culture is different. More open-minded." In faded blue jeans and a wrinkled t-shirt, Juan looked as if he'd been there for a while. Debbie rolled her eyes. She still had her Avient Pharmaceutical’s badge on the waistband of her jeans. So she had been working in his absence despite having her doubts.

  He couldn’t believe his luck. Not only did he have one human knowing his secret, now he had two, of sorts, but that put them in danger. "Help me up."

  The room swayed, moving in haphazard rolls, but he kept the syrup down.

  "What do you know?" He met Juan's eyes, getting straight to the point.

  "Only that you're in trouble. Debbie had me come help get you back in the room. Convinced me not to call an ambulance. After that, not much. Said it wasn't her place to tell."

  "She wasn't wrong. So you've been what, hanging here while she's been going to work?"

  "Pretty much."

  "What about your company?"

  "Mi familia is taking care of it. Told them we went on a bro vacation.” He made hand quotes at the word bro. “But I'd say you better not stop by for a while. You look like shit."

  Debbie used a cloth and cleaned Malcolm’s face. It came away bloody. He'd been out for a week, lying in bed, bleeding and unconscious. Visions of Caelieus reappeared behind the backs of his eyelids. Without a doubt, he knew he'd looked the same. A memory of the message returned in a flash. "Caelieus!"

  Debbie and Juan shared a look.

  “I need my phone and some privacy."

  "Sure thing. You still need me tomorrow?" Juan shot Debbie a serious look.

  “I'll call you if we do."

  Juan leaned in and patted Malcolm on the back, twice. "I'm glad you're back. Try to stick around this time. Heading to my room." Malcolm guessed Debbie had gotten Juan his own room at the hotel to be nearby if needed. Smart move.

  Malcolm couldn’t speak but nodded against his shoulder. Debbie handed him his phone. "I'm going to walk Juan out. We need to talk when I get back before you call anyone."

  He raised one hand in acknowledgement and allowed himself to close his eyes while he waited. The clock ticked in the living area, loud as a drum. Stephanie would send someo
ne any day now, and he'd been out of it for a week. How much time did they have left? The fate of the world and Dharma's life depended on it.

  Malcolm jolted awake as Debbie’s weight pushed down on the bed. At the concern on her face, his condition had to be terrible.

  "Here. I found a liquid iron. No protein. Thought it would help. I think you've lost enough blood for ten people, and then some. I’ve got liquid Tylenol. No aspirin. It thins the blood." He eyed the liquids wearily, thinking puking didn’t seem like a fun idea at the moment. The clear liquid looked benign enough in the clear plastic cup. He took it from her, not liking the ferocious shake in his arm when he moved. He sucked it down in one swallow, crinkling his nose at the horrid rusty taste. "That’s disgusting."

  Debbie shrugged, no apology in the movement. "Nothing we tried worked. They've found everything out. The lights were discovered over the weekend, and apparently, their plants are already resistant to weed killer. In the real world, plants acquire that resistance due to jumping genes, whatever that is, but in Dharma’s controlled environment, they all have those genes. The very night we changed the watering settings, some internal sensor set off an alarm. Dr. Knight had it fixed."

  Malcolm shook his head, feeling more and more defeated.

  "I didn’t give up. I tried over-fertilizing, and I introduced some bacteria and fungus. There were some losses, but with their daily soil samples, she discovered it. Within the day, she’d had all the soil replaced and the plants cleaned and repotted. Omar set up some hacker guy to delete her files, but the next day nothing happened. Like she has backup files of her backup files and some more at home, plus she is always writing in notebooks. There is no way to get all of them." Tears filled her eyes. "I'm sorry. I don't know what else to do."

  "I need to check in. Buy us more time."

  Debbie sobbed. "Malcolm, Dharma's partner inside the WHO was murdered two days ago. His name was Tobias Miller. Do you think it could be related?" She buried her face inside her hands, trembling.