6

by James Phelan

  ‘You’re working with the Hypnos?’ Sam asked Hans.

  ‘Sure, why not?’ Hans said. ‘What’s important is that while we temporarily lost you there, we have captured you yet again inside of an hour.’

  ‘German efficiency, I suppose,’ Sam said.

  Hans chuckled.

  ‘You’re kidding yourself, Hans,’ Sam said. He could see that the security guys were in fact German Guardians—the traitors who’d turned on Sam and his friends way back in Italy, now dressed as Kremlin guards. ‘It’s sloppy work, letting one unarmed teenager get away from you. And it’s not the first time I’ve outsmarted you.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Hans said. ‘Not sure if I’d put it that way. But let’s just say that it will be the last.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I do.’ Hans looked behind to the wall of German Guardians. ‘We do. And once we’ve spent some time together in Siberia, I will know you, well, the inside of your mind, very well.’

  ‘Oh,’ Sam said, ‘you planned all this I suppose?’

  Hans strode across the dark room to stand in front of Sam.

  ‘You see,’ he said, ‘in the time that you have been here in Moscow, under our care and study, and your firecracker has been raiding our safe houses to try to find you, we’ve been, well, rather busy. Not only were you kind enough to bring me the last three Gears, but …’

  He turned around and clicked his fingers, one of the German Guardians coming forward with a timber box, which he handed to his boss. Hans opened the lid—

  Sam was transfixed by the disc gleaming in the light—a Gear from the Bakhu machine, from the prophecy itself.

  ‘You found the eighth Gear …’ Sam said, looking up to see the glow from the Gear reflected onto Hans’ round, greedy face. He glanced to Arianna, and could see the devastation in her eyes. ‘So Arianna was right?’

  Hans’ smile spoke of evil. He simply nodded.

  Arianna looked to Sam—hot, vengeful tears trickling down her face.

  ‘Arianna can’t remember her dreams, but she’s still been having them,’ Sam said. ‘And you’ve been watching, haven’t you, Hans?’

  She knows for sure now.

  Sam turned away from the Gear, anger welling up inside him like a tidal wave.

  19

  EVA

  ‘I’m so going to win a place on the team,’ Xavier said.

  ‘Even if I have to compete in a game to face my fears and steer dreams, I’m going to demolish these other guys. Demolish!’

  ‘And girls?’ Eva added.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ Xavier said. ‘Guys is, like, guys. Like, you guys, that’s all of you—guys and girls.’

  ‘If you say so,’ Eva said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Xavier said. ‘And they are going to be devoured like … plankton … by a big … robot whale. That metaphor sort of unravelled as it went along, didn’t it?’

  ‘Kinda,’ Eva said. ‘I can see that a guy like you might struggle with that kind of thing.’

  ‘So how do we work this?’ Gabriella asked, interrupting their banter.

  ‘We dream, we see, we conquer,’ Xavier said. ‘Piece of cake.’

  ‘OK,’ Rapha replied. ‘Well, excuse my doubting mind, but you will be up against three groups of Dreamers who have been doing this for a lot longer than you have. I believe you have about a sixty-six point six per cent chance, repeating, of course.’

  ‘That’s not so bad,’ Eva said.

  ‘Not of winning, of failing,’ Rapha said, clarifying his reckoning.

  ‘Oh,’ Eva said. ‘But that still leaves a thirty-three per cent chance of success?’

  ‘It’s probably about zero. I was being kind,’ Rapha smiled apologetically.

  ‘You think one of us will be in the final three to represent the school in the Doors?’ Gabriella asked.

  No-one answered.

  ‘We are part of the 13,’ Xavier said. ‘It’d make sense.’

  Maybe not all of us.

  ‘There’s far better Dreamers here than us,’ Maria said. ‘We may have dreamed of Gears, but steering dreams better than all the senior students who have been going to classes for years?’

  ‘We’ll be OK,’ Xavier said. ‘Got a third of a chance!’ He grinned.

  ‘Whose turn is it to host?’ Gabriella asked.

  ‘China,’ Xavier said, ‘representing the North-East quadrant. And reading the Dreamer news site, they’ve been preparing pretty hard.’

  ‘Good,’ Eva said. ‘Let them win this silly game.’

  There was a loud commotion inside the building. They all looked over from the lawn where they had been sprawled out under a large tree.

  ‘I wonder what’s going on?’ Eva said.

  Rapha ran inside and spoke to another student. When he came back he said, ‘It’s those Dreamers—Cody and his parents—who Sam was with in Denver.’

  ‘They got out?’ Eva said. ‘Then Sam might be out too!’

  ‘Then … you don’t know?’ Eva said.

  ‘No,’ Cody replied. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Eva was in the Professor’s office. Cody and his parents were there, along with the Director, the Professor and Lora.

  ‘And that’s the last thing you saw?’ Lora said. ‘The countdown ticking and Solaris with Sam?’

  ‘Yes,’ Cody replied.

  ‘Well, thank you for your honesty,’ the Professor replied, his tired face hopeful. ‘I’ve been told that you’re now willing to assist us in the race?’

  ‘We were foolish to believe Mac,’ Cody’s father said. ‘And we’d like the opportunity to work with you now, to make it right.’

  Cody and his mother nodded in agreement.

  ‘That is my understanding of the situation from our Agents who debriefed them,’ the Director said to the Professor.

  ‘Then you are most welcome to join us here at the Academy.’

  All three of them looked relieved, tension ebbing out of the room.

  ‘Thank you,’ Cody said.

  ‘Eva, can you show our new student to the spare rooms in the western dorm?’ the Professor asked.

  She nodded, looking at Lora with some fire in her eyes. Lora gave an imperceptible look that Eva read as ‘Cool it, now’s not the time.’

  ‘Follow me,’ Eva said, leading Cody out of the room and through the grounds.

  They walked in silence, but when they rounded the corner to the entrance, Eva waved to the others and they came over.

  ‘Everyone,’ Eva said, ‘this is Cody, the Dreamer who brought Sam to Mac, and Solaris, in Denver. The last person to see our friend alive.’

  Cody turned to Eva, stunned, but Xavier was already coming in close and stood toe-to-toe with him. They were about the same size, though Eva thought that Cody looked stronger and more used to physical work.

  But right now I’d put money on Xavier winning if it came to a fight.

  ‘Sam is a real good friend of mine,’ Xavier said. ‘So tell us, moment-by-moment, everything that happened at the Grand Canyon and in Denver.’

  ‘And why you sold him out,’ Gabriella added.

  Cody swallowed hard, then walked back out to the lawn and sat down. The others hesitated, then joined him.

  ‘Alright, so first,’ Cody said, ‘Sam turned up at my tour office …’

  20

  SAM

  Arianna can still dream—she just can’t remember her dreams.

  Sam felt exhilarated by the confirmation, and it gave him a sudden flash of clarity and purpose.

  We need to escape, get the Gears from Hans and somehow restore Arianna’s ability to dream. No sweat.

  Sam weighed up the options before him and came to the swift conclusion: not here.

  There were eight German Guardians present, dressed in the security outfit of the Kremlin Palace Guard that he’d seen outside in Red Square, pistols holstered by their sides.

  Everything’s changing. Or maybe there’s a different set of rules for these guys—they’re playing f
or keeps now.

  But they won’t kill me. Or Arianna. And if they don’t have dart guns, they won’t risk shooting us. So maybe we can outrun them, hide …

  Maybe.

  Sam stared at the two closest Guardians, one of whom looked somehow familiar.

  The Guardian caught Sam’s gaze and leaned towards him. ‘Oh, you remember me? I remember you from our meeting outside Rome. You got lucky then. Good fortune is not on your side now,’ he spat out. He moved his hand to the gun at his side, chuckling with menace as Sam fought to control the urge to punch him in the face.

  ‘You bang your head when you crashed in Italy?’ Sam mocked. ‘Because you don’t seem so smart these days.’

  The Guardian’s face turned to thunder. He muttered under his breath as Sam took a step back and turned to look at Arianna. Her eyes were still locked on the Gear.

  We have to leave it with Hans. Fight that battle another day.

  Sam bumped Arianna and she looked across to him. Hans was still on the phone, talking in German. His tone was almost like a chastised child, as though he was being told off.

  Maybe he’s not such a big shot after all. Seems like everyone’s got a boss somewhere.

  ‘We have to get out of here,’ Sam whispered out of the corner of his mouth to her.

  She nodded.

  ‘I’ll follow you,’ he said.

  She looked at him like he was nuts.

  ‘We can outrun them,’ Sam said. ‘Trust me, they won’t shoot.’

  She looked from him to the Guardians, who stood before them, arms crossed, huge and intimidating, and Sam could see that she came to the same realisation as he had—that with the whole group in front of them, they’d made the tactical error of leaving them with an escape route.

  Slowly they edged their way back a few steps.

  Any head start is a good one.

  The Guardian nearest to Arianna finally noticed them sidling away and reached out to grab hold of her. But it was too late. With the elegance and nimbleness of a ballerina, Arianna pivoted and broke into a flat-out run.

  Sam was right behind her.

  21

  ALEX

  ‘Tesla really did all that?’ Alex said. They’d taken a break for lunch after clearing the room of dust and debris, and arranging the huge totems of Tesla’s Coils. Everything was prepped for the final power cable link up.

  ‘Tesla was more than just one of our most important Dreamers,’ Shiva explained as they ate a few hotdogs from the street vendor outside the building. ‘They thought back then that he’d find the Dream Gate, and man, did he try! He managed to learn so much in one lifetime, he almost gained back what he thought we’d lost over a couple thousand years.’

  ‘Lost?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Shiva said. ‘That was his belief, as well as that of many of the 19th century Dreamers. They thought that in ancient times, Dreamers had the ability to read each other’s dreams and then lost it.’

  ‘A casualty of the Dark Ages?’ Alex guessed.

  ‘Exactly. Here, I’ll show you a bit more …’ Shiva said.

  Shiva wiped the grime off his hands and used his tablet to patch into the Academy’s secure site and read:

  ‘Ah, electricity much, anyone?’ Alex laughed.

  ‘Yep. So, see here—it says he came to the US in 1884, where he worked for Thomas Edison, then established his own lab and obtained patents on his AC power system—including the Coils, with initial support of the Dreamer Council.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘Then he came up against it. He was locked in a battle with Edison to convince the public of the efficiency and safety of alternating current over direct current and he succeeded in getting AC accepted as the electric power system worldwide.’

  ‘And he designed these Coils to tap dreams?’

  ‘A happy accident, as it turned out,’ Shiva said. ‘He was building the Coils for wireless, free energy for the world when he stumbled across the Dreamscape.’

  ‘The electrical field that our dreams travel through, right?’ Alex said.

  ‘Yep. So he continued his dream work and returned to New York. With the encouragement and investment of a private backer, Tesla invented a new way of reading dreams via the dream waves in the atmosphere. In the end, he was moving too fast for everyone else—the Dreamer Council shut down his experiments pending further investigations. They wanted to be sure before rolling out his dream towers, before making them fully operational. Like the one at the Washington Monument and the Egyptian obelisk in Central Park.’

  ‘There’s an Egyptian obelisk in Central Park? Here, in New York?’

  Shiva nodded. ‘Sure, Cleopatra’s needle.’

  ‘Huh, of course. But I just don’t get why they’d shut Tesla down.’

  ‘He proposed something that was too advanced for the Council, especially at that time.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘He figured out a way to transmit dreams, not just receive them.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Alex asked.

  ‘It means,’ Shiva said, ‘that Tesla figured out a way to transplant dreams into other people. He could send energy into the wave and make whole cities have dreams—or nightmares. The Council was worried that in the wrong hands, that kind of technology could become a weapon.’

  ‘And that’s why he was shunned from the Dreamer world.’

  ‘Yep. He died an old, poor man, never seeing the true potential of his greatest invention. Pretty harsh stuff,’ Shiva sighed.

  ‘And what was he using as the antenna for these Coils?’ Alex asked. ‘Towers like the obelisk in Central Park?’

  ‘Yes, at first, but then he found that he needed to use the tallest structure around,’ Shiva smiled.

  ‘Tallest? Like a skyscraper?’

  ‘Yep. These Coils here were hardwired into what was the tallest building in the world at that time.’

  ‘What, is it gone now?’

  ‘No. It’s still standing, it’s just taller ones have been built now.’ Shiva ate the last of his hot dog and tossed the wrapper across the room into a trash can in a three-pointer. ‘In fact, it’s in this very city … it’s the Empire State Building.’

  ‘Try again!’ Alex called out from Tesla’s lab.

  Shiva threw the switch.

  Alex stood up and watched the towering Coil.

  Nothing happened.

  ‘You sure you connected it?’ Shiva called down.

  ‘Sure. You sure you flicked the right switch?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Try again,’ Alex said, wiping his grimy hands on a rag.

  FLICK.

  Nothing.

  Damn.

  ‘And you definitely reversed the polarity?’ Shiva called.

  Alex looked up and saw his friend’s head and shoulders looking down through the trapdoor that led to the big, old vaulted lab above. He pulled a face at him and Shiva laughed. Alex wiped off the sweat trickling into his eyes. It was hot and humid, and he was covered in black grease and grime.

  ‘Maybe Tesla wasn’t such a genius after all,’ Alex said. ‘Or maybe we need to fuel up the flux capacitor.’

  ‘Ha ha.’

  ‘Check everything and we’ll try one more time,’ Shiva said. ‘Then we’ll call it impossible and move onto the next option—a full rewire.’

  ‘Nothing’s impossible,’ Alex said under his breath as he crouched back down, then stopped himself from disconnecting the thick power cables.

  Nothing’s impossible? Where’d that saying come from?

  He closed his eyes a minute. It was a phrase seared into his psyche, a distant long-term memory stored away for some specific reason.

  My mother? Did she ever say that? Maybe.

  No.

  Then who? My father?

  No. Couldn’t be. I couldn’t remember anything about him.

  Could I?

  ‘Alex?’

  He looked up and saw Shiva looking down at him again.

  ‘Are y
ou OK down there? Or have you succumbed to your own putrid fumes?’

  ‘What putrid fumes?’

  ‘Don’t think that I can’t smell what that breakfast burrito and four hot dogs has done to your digestive system.’

  ‘Ha, right,’ Alex said, snapping out of his reverie and double-checking the power cables and the polarity—

  Which he hadn’t reversed.

  Oops.

  Alex switched the cables around. ‘Try again!’ he called out.

  ‘Stand back,’ Shiva said for the hundredth time, the warning near-redundant as nothing had happened yet.

  This time there was a low but distinct whooping sound. It went on for about five seconds.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ Alex shouted, jumping in excitement. Shiva looked down at him, incredulous. ‘It switched on!’

  ‘I know!’

  ‘It sounded like the Millennium Falcon, trying to get to hyperspace—but failing!’

  ‘I know!’

  ‘Why’d it not stay on?’

  ‘We tripped the circuit breakers. We need more power.’

  ‘Where are we going to get that from?’ Alex asked.

  Shiva looked blank and then his white teeth flashed in a blinding smile. ‘I think I know just the place!’

  22

  SAM

  Sam could hear the commotion among the Guardians as they reacted.

  Back at the pantry, they raced through the corridors between stacks of boxed food, racks of wine and seemingly endless shelves stocked with all kinds of jars.

  Sam could hear footfalls on the stone floor. It sounded like a herd of buffaloes was stampeding behind them.

  And closing in.

  Sam glanced behind, just in time to see—

  WHACK!

  Sam reached out and pulled Arianna around a corner just as a net was fired by one of the German Guardians. The wire mesh and weighted perimeter slammed into a barrel of borsch, the wood shattering and the purple-coloured pickled cabbage erupting like a volcano.

  Sam saw most of the Guardians slip over and get tangled in a huge pile-up among the mess.

  One Guardian was at the back, bringing the net-launcher down from his shoulder and grimacing as he saw his friends slip and slide their way on the floor.