Wild-born

by Adrian Howell

  Our connection was complete, and I was finally ready to send my first message.

  Later in bed that night, I had Alia ask Mr. Koontz to send a dream to Cindy and Ralph, telling them that we had gotten their message, we were well, and that we were ready to help in any way we could. Also, that Mr. Koontz was coming with us, and possibly Janice as well.

  Mr. Koontz wouldn’t be able to send the message until Cindy and Ralph were asleep, and then they would have to respond through their dreamweaver, so there could be no return message until the next night. The following day was a day off for us, and I waited restlessly with Alia in our room. I didn’t want to meet with Mr. Koontz, fearing that we might accidentally say something that could give away our plan.

  It took some time getting to sleep that night, partly because I hadn’t had any exercise, but mostly because I was so nervous. What if we had just missed them, and the Guardians had already given up and left us? Even assuming they were still camped up there, could Mr. Koontz really get through to Cindy and Ralph? Would they respond tonight? What would they say to me?

  I remembered my desperately foolish plan back at Mark’s place to catch a random psionic for the minuscule possibility of getting information about Cat. Was our plan here any less hopelessly optimistic? Cindy was the optimist. I had nothing but doubts.

  Alia was already sound asleep, and I heard her murmuring incoherently in my mind. Despite the clear advantage of dreamweaving in long-distance communication, I decided that I still preferred straightforward telepathy. The problem with dreams, I thought as I closed my eyes, was that there was no way to know you were in one until after you woke up. That, and the fact that they were so hard to remember…

  Staring blankly at the wall made of small black stones, I wondered where Cindy and Ralph were. They weren’t sitting there this time. Suddenly, the wall rose higher out of the ground, stretching up toward the murky sky until it was towering over me. The little stones started to move around until they formed a giant face on the wall.

  It spoke.

  “Greetings, Adrian Howell,” the face said in a booming voice. “My name is Derrick. Since you obviously know what these dreams are, I see no reason to continue pretending to be Cindy and Ralph for your sake. And in case you are wondering about this face,” – the stone face frowned – “I am the dreamweaver, this is my dream, and I will present myself to you in any which way I please.”

  I took a step back from the wall, looking up at the massive face. It was so utterly absurd that suddenly, for the first time in my life, I actually realized that I was dreaming! Even as I stood there, gaping up at the face, I knew that my real body was still sleeping beside Alia. It was the strangest feeling, being in two places at once, but somehow I had woken up inside Derrick’s dreamweave.

  “Your message has been received, and Ralph thanks you,” said the giant dream-face. “It is fortunate that you contacted us when you did. We had nearly given up on this attempt, but with your help, there may yet be a chance of getting you and Alia out.”

  I was all ears now. I forced myself to stay calm, fearing that if I got too excited, I might physically wake up and exit the dream before it finished.

  The face grinned manically once, and continued, “Ralph wants you to tell us as much as you can about the inside of this facility. Specifically, we want to know how deep you are, how many floors there are in between, and how strong the military presence here is. We want to know about the security systems, what kind of weapons the guards have, and the general floor plan of the installation. Ralph says that you should start acting your age and help us solve the mess you have made of things. Cindy asks that you assist Ralph only so long as it does not put you or Alia at risk. As much as she appreciates our need for information, she wants you to stay safe and remember your promise to protect Alia. She says that under no circumstance are you to risk your life gathering information for us. She adds that if it becomes too dangerous to continue sending dreams, you should immediately stop doing so and wait patiently for rescue. Message ends.”

  The stone face grinned again, and then faded away.

  I woke up, breathless. Not only had the message come through, but because I had been mentally awake when Derrick gave it to me, I remembered everything he had said. The plan had worked!

  I thought back to my past life as a normal kid and the telephone game we used to play in elementary school, where we whispered a message from one ear to the next to see if we could get the message to the end of the line. Now we were playing that game with our lives. Me to Alia to Mr. Koontz to Cindy and Ralph to Derrick the Dreamweaver and back to me.

  That day was a testing day for Alia, and since I was just the tagalong, I took the opportunity to ask Dr. Kellogg more about the facility. I didn’t want to arouse his suspicion, so I tried my best to keep my questions conversational. I asked about what kind of entertainment facilities were on the other floors. I pretended to be worried about what might happen if the power failed so deep underground. I asked what would happen if someone, such as the crazy pyroid, were to get loose in Level 10. Whenever I could, I deliberately let Dr. Denman overhear me asking these questions. I knew he could never resist an opportunity to get my hopes down by telling me how secure this place was.

  I learned that there were primary and secondary power generators, in and below the facility. I learned that the guards worked in three shifts, and since I knew that the only place where guards were really needed was on Level 10, I could get a rough idea of their total strength by multiplying their usual number by three. I learned that the Central Control Room was not on Level 10, but up on Level 2, where it was too far away to be tampered with by psionics down below. Level 2 was where the military commander worked, and also where everything from the surveillance cameras to…

  “…the nuclear auto-destruct system is operated from,” Dr. Denman said with his usual sneer. “You’re actually standing right over the bomb, which is on Level 11. You see, Psionic, they may have given you a card to let you in the lounge, but no one gets out of this place alive. They’ll turn this place into hot metal soup before they let you escape.”

  “So long as you’re by my side,” I retorted. I actually wanted to thank him. News of a nuclear bomb under our feet was not very encouraging, but at least now we knew about it.

  I relayed what I learned that night, and the next night I was visited in my sleep by Derrick again, this time in the shape of a giant yellow walrus. Again, I gained consciousness inside the dreamweave. It was easier the second time, not just because of Derrick’s crazy disguise, but because I knew it was possible to wake up in a dream now, and I knew that I needed to hear Derrick clearly and remember his words. Derrick told me thanks from Ralph, and requested more information.

  In the days that followed, I slowly gathered what I could.

  Everything I did was being monitored, so I couldn’t exactly sneak into the offices and steal blueprints like a trench-coat-wearing secret agent. Still, I realized that I had two clear advantages. The first was, of course, that I had help from outside. Though they were considerably outnumbered, the Guardians above were powerful psionics who also had the element of surprise. My second advantage was that, in the eyes of the researchers here, I was still just a kid. Powerful… obnoxious, perhaps… but just a kid nevertheless. I doubted even Dr. Kellogg, who treated me like a near-equal, could truly believe that I might be up to the challenge of undermining their security and of plotting an elaborate escape only months into my stay.

  I thought that perhaps many psionics had tried to escape within a short time of their capture, but those would have been desperate, frantic attempts without any real planning. The military guards would have been expecting it, and the psionics would have tried it alone. That’s why they failed. I did my best to remain patient. I had already been here three months. A few more days wouldn’t hurt. I needed to get Ralph all the information I possibly could, so I continued my cautious questioning.

  I learned that the guards were
armed not only with automatic rifles but also with knockout gas grenades. Many years ago, they had successfully used the gas grenades on Nightmare when he got loose in Level 10, but I doubted they would find gas effective against a windmaster like Ralph. Bullets were a greater concern, and I learned more about the automatic guns mounted in the elevator room and how they would shoot anything that moved if the facility was on security alert.

  I discovered that the nuclear auto-destruct system could be operated not only from the Level 2 Central Control Room, but also directly from the bomb’s location on Level 11. It was set for a fifteen-minute silent countdown. Once activated, only the top military people and a handful of trusted doctors could shut it off.

  I learned that the various security systems were not controlled by a single central computer. Instead, the Level 10 airlocks and security doors, the elevator, the cameras and microphones, the auto-destruct and the control bands were each operated by completely separate computers in the Central Control Room, so as to avoid damage to the other systems if one was disabled.

  I already knew from Dr. Kellogg that our control bands could be operated from either the Central Control Room or the little white remote controls that the doctors carried, but I further discovered that the remote controls sent out radio signals independent from the Central Control Room system. This unfortunately meant that even if the Control Room computer was shut down, the doctors could still directly operate our control bands. On the positive side, however, the limited range of the radio transmitters in the remote controls meant that they didn’t work through the walls.

  All this and more, I learned from carefully prepared conversations with Dr. Kellogg and Dr. Otis during our breaks between experiments and after meetings, as well as from provoking Dr. Denman.

  Occasionally, I might get a dreamweave back in the early morning after sending a message the night before, but usually it took two days for one complete communication cycle. Also, I often couldn’t get the answers to Ralph’s questions in only two days, which meant that many of the dreams we sent to the surface were just pleas for more time. Weeks passed.

  I knew that the more information we sent out, the better prepared the Guardians would be, but I was also eager to get out of here, and afraid that, sooner or later, someone would discover what we were doing. My active questioning wouldn’t go unnoticed forever.

  However, it turned out that I didn’t have to do all of the snooping around by myself. Mr. Koontz’s fifteen years of experience living in the research center was invaluable to my espionage effort. He had been down below Level 10 when he visited Nightmare once, and he had been above Level 10 several times as well, though hardly ever higher than Level 8 and never to the Central Control Room on Level 2. He had memorized much of the facility’s floor plans, so all I had to do was relay the Guardians’ questions through Alia and he would pass the necessary information back to the surface.

  Once, I even tried having Alia ask Mr. Koontz to properly introduce himself to Cindy, so that Cindy could then describe him to Derrick and establish a direct communication line between the two dreamweavers. In my next dream, however, an annoyed Derrick, taking the shape of a gingerbread man wearing a pink tuxedo, told me that dreamweavers simply couldn’t control each other’s dreams.

  Thus required to stay in the loop, I ended up learning a lot about the floors above me from what Derrick would say when he was passing me further questions about Mr. Koontz’s information.

  The entire facility was built around the central elevator in the shape of a giant concave cylinder, like a can that had been crushed around the middle. In terms of floor space, Level 10 was the most extensive, though Levels 9 and 8 were pretty large too. Above that, each floor was fairly small until Levels 2 and 1, which were wider.

  The middle floors didn’t matter too much because the central elevator went from Level 10 all the way up to Level 2. However, the elevator doors were well protected on all levels and, because Level 2 was the primary security gate to the rest of the facility, there was no easy access to Level 1 and the surface above it. If the Guardians could get in, fight their way through Level 1 and take control of Level 2, they would have free access to the whole complex. I took hope in the fact that this facility had been designed mainly to prevent breakouts, not break-ins.

  And because the facility had been built so long ago and with such sturdy shielding, very little additional security could be installed in Level 10 since its original construction. Derrick had been worried that there might be some sort of high-tech mechanism to flood the corridors with poison gas or perhaps some kind of sticky foam, but as far as we could tell, no such security traps existed here. Instead, it was entirely up to the security gates, the control bands, the auto-destruct and the military guards to keep escape attempts from succeeding.

  The military guards, when not on their shift, rested in Level 9 or slept in their barracks on Level 8. Once Ralph’s team took the Central Control Room, both of these floors could be locked out from elevator access, which meant we would only have to deal with the one shift of guards on Level 10. That was still quite a few, but two-thirds less than we had originally feared.

  Some of the doctors also lived up on Level 8, but most, including the main research team, had their quarters on Level 10. I worried about that a lot because I didn’t want Dr. Kellogg to be hurt during the attack, but there didn’t seem to be any way to warn him without giving ourselves away.

  I also had two other major concerns at the time.

  The first was that, according to Cindy, I talked in my sleep. I didn’t dare ask the Central Control Room what I might have been muttering during the nights I slept waiting for Derrick’s messages. I started meditating regularly before bedtimes, hoping it might keep me from blabbing in the dark, but there was little else I could do. It was just another risk in a long list of risks, but one I couldn’t help now that we were committed to this plan.

  The other worry I had was that Alia was acting almost normal these days. The prospect of escape and of being reunited with Cindy had brought about a marked change in Alia’s attitude. She still followed me everywhere, but no longer cowered when around other people, even the guards, and she flinched only under the cold gaze of Dr. Denman. When I thought about it, Alia was doing much better around people than back when we were living at Cindy’s house just last year, and it had been more than a week since she last needed to take a silent break from reality.

  It should have been cause for celebration, but Alia’s recovery came with a hidden danger: I felt it was only a matter of time before Dr. Kellogg suggested we stop sharing the bed, which would destroy the communication line we had so painstakingly established. Alia certainly seemed more than ready to sleep alone, so I had long since stopped even pretending to want my own room. I restlessly awaited each new dream exchange, hoping it wouldn’t be our last.

  “Adrian, may I have a word?” I heard Dr. Kellogg’s voice say over the speaker one evening as I sat reading at my desk. Alia, who in recent weeks had resumed her habit of taking annoyingly long baths, was busy splashing around in the tub.

  “Come on in, Doctor,” I said.

  I was still waiting to take my bath so I wasn’t wearing my control bands, but I figured Dr. Kellogg probably knew that and didn’t care. I closed my book as Dr. Kellogg entered the room and sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked, noticing the concerned expression on his face and inwardly suspecting that I already knew. Dr. Kellogg had carefully timed his visit to coincide with Alia’s bath so that he and I could talk in private.

  Dr. Kellogg said gravely, “Dr. Denman has informed me of your whispered conversations to Alia over the past few weeks.”

  “Dr. Denman likes causing trouble for me. You know that,” I said in an indignant tone, but I knew Dr. Kellogg wouldn’t have come if it was just an empty accusation from someone who clearly hated, and was hated by, everyone. I shifted my weight uneasily on the stool.

  “I had some
trouble believing it myself,” said Dr. Kellogg, “but I must admit that it does look like your mouth is moving. What are you whispering to her?”

  Thinking quickly, I replied, “Alia wants me to tell her bedtime stories, but if I read them from a book, she keeps looking at the pictures and never goes to sleep. So I tell her to close her eyes and then I whisper them to her.”

  “I see,” said Dr. Kellogg. Then, stroking his beard, he asked quietly, “Do you know, Adrian, the easiest way to tell if someone is lying?”

  “Without psionics?” I deadpanned.

  “You look at a person’s eyes,” said Dr. Kellogg. “People usually don’t look directly at you if they are lying. If they are making up a story, they often move their eyes upwards. Where do you think your eyes went when I asked what you were whispering to Alia?”

  “I have no idea,” I answered, trying to keep myself from fidgeting.

  Suddenly Dr. Kellogg laughed merrily. “Why, you were looking directly into my eyes, of course!”

  He stood up to leave. I was pretty sure I hadn’t been looking at his eyes. Was he just trying to get out so that he could seal us in and get help? As much as I liked Dr. Kellogg, he was, after all, working for the research center. For a split second, I even considered blasting him and taking him hostage, but I knew that would only bring the whole place around me.

  Dr. Kellogg turned to me as the airlock’s inner door slid open. “I will pass my expert analysis of your sincerity on to Dr. Otis,” he said smilingly. “However, Adrian, I advise you not to do anything here that may bring further suspicion upon you, or Dr. Denman may manage to convince Central Control to revoke your control band privileges.”

  With that, he turned around and left the room.

  “Was that Dr. Kellogg?” asked Alia as she emerged from the bathroom a second later.

  Feeling myself break out in a cold sweat, I didn’t bother answering her as I hurried into the bathroom.