by Jody Wallace
Because he looked so exhausted, stalking around the room like a caged lion, arguing with her and growling.
“If they think I’m dragging it out, they’re idiots. I don’t like sleeping with you either.” Once she’d given up on a relationship with Zeke, she’d looked forward to being assigned to her own bunk after phase one. She’d share her space with others but not her bed.
“Then you should work harder.” He threw up a hand in disgust. “Nightly rotation is tying me down for field duty and other shit, and it’s causing problems. You’re L5, Maggie. You should be strong enough to hold a shield and ace any alucinator skill that exists, outside of whatever the hell curators do. We should be in the final phase of training like Rhys and your brother. You should be almost ready to contribute to the Somnium instead of restricting my ability to contribute.”
“Why are you complaining? You don’t want to mentor other people anyway.” Divisions all over the world, along with an uptick in wraiths, had experienced an uptick in neo awakenings. Most mentors juggled several students at once but could only handle one in nightly rotation due to certain repercussions of too much time spent in the dreamsphere. “As long as we’re in phase one, you’re safe from more students.”
He shook his head. “I don’t mean mentoring. God. They may never force me to take on another neo after this mess.”
“So that’s a benefit,” she said. “You’re welcome.”
“Be serious, Maggie. I need to go on more field assignments. I need to be scanning, not sleeping with you. I’m a sentry. I gotta be out there killing wraiths.”
The planet was divided into several divisions, and each area in those divisions had seven sentries, appointed by their vigils. Sentries handled field operations, base and waystation oversight, and scanned for dreamsphere disruptions. They directed the alucinators under them to cover the area. Sentries were hands on, doing all the jobs they asked others to do.
“I’m not stopping you from going into field. I’ve gone with you.” She’d been given the role of driver on missions, since it kept her safe in the van. Supposedly safe in the van.
“And you get in the way, like last week when you nearly got your arm torn off.”
They’d been collaring an L2 neonati in DC at the time. She’d remained in the vehicle, as ordered, but had still disrupted the mission. “I can’t help it if the wraiths come after me.”
“That’s why you need to learn to deal with them when they do. In and out of the sphere. I’m doing my part. Now do yours. Step the hell up. Right now that means take off your robe and get your ass in bed.”
“Fine.” She slammed the magazine on his desk and stomped across the cold floor. Her fuzzy pink robe fell to the tile in a heap. She should be better in the dreamsphere. She really should. But she couldn’t overcome her aversion to the sphere any more than she could her attraction to Zeke—and the aversion was easier to understand.
Dreamspace was formless, creepy and leaden. It wasn’t restful or right. Her unease remained despite Zeke demonstrating how to manipulate it, despite her devotion to book learning. It wasn’t enough to understand the sphere academically. Alucinators could protect themselves and others. They could communicate across the globe via the dreamsphere. They could scan for manifestations, they could find other dreamers, and they could assess mental stability. Some could erase memories of bystanders.
Maggie couldn’t even pretend to ignore the wraiths that swarmed outside the shields.
“You act like I’m going to let you get hurt,” he said, half turning away from her. “Is that your deal?”
“I haven’t been hurt yet. Much.” His shields weren’t as solid as they could be. They were perforated because of what had happened to him when his previous student had tried to destroy the entire town of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
His expression blanked. “The one time my shields ragged out on us, there were extenuating circumstances. When you and I train, we’re asleep, not tranced. We’re cushioned. Wraiths can’t hurt you in the sphere when you’re asleep unless they manifest in the terra firma and chow down on you.”
She climbed into bed. “Chow down. Your imagery astounds me.”
“It’s what they do, Maggie. But manifestation ain’t gonna happen. Even you can keep the wraiths from using you as an escape hatch.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. It’s good to know your high opinion of me is intact.” The waking dreamsphere—when an alucinator went into the dimension while in a trance instead of asleep—was more like hell than formless nothingness. Any damage that happened in trance translated to the terra firma. Alucinators could die if wraiths attacked them in there.
After nearly being slain by wraiths two months ago because Zeke had been forced to piggyback her in while awake, he hadn’t pushed her into phase two, where alucinators learned to trance. He said she wasn’t ready. Adi agreed. Maggie didn’t argue.
Zeke stalked to his own side of the bed but didn’t look at her. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Maggie,” he said in a low voice. “I’m not a total bastard.”
“I know.”
Zeke, like many alucinators, sported a touch of hero complex. His protective instincts didn’t mean he needed anything from her, though, besides her cooperation as a student.
It rankled. They couldn’t be friends, much less lovers.
She punched her pillow and tugged the fuzzy blanket to her chin. Her sore muscles ached in a good way as she stretched. She’d gotten into the habit of wearing T-shirts and PJ bottoms to bed since that exposed enough skin for them to maintain contact without being provocative. Zeke, who wore boxers, clearly didn’t care if his body provoked her. He probably assumed it didn’t, since he was no longer on that page himself.
He scratched his chest and sighed. “Your brother isn’t giving Rhys this kind of grief. When I first met Hayden, I pegged him as the troublemaker. Drunk, disorderly, antagonistic.”
She rolled to her side, her back to him. “Guess you picked the wrong Mackey.”
“There wasn’t a choice. You and I had a tangible as soon as we met.”
Zeke had been the area scanner on duty who’d pinpointed her initial manifestation. The mental contact between them had forged a rare tangible bond. Unfortunately, they hadn’t realized Maggie’s brother had woken as a dreamer that night too, since Maggie’s presence had blurred Hayden’s.
The dual manifestation had confused the field team for several crucial hours. It had been straightened out, but people often compared the two siblings. Hayden had been rated L5, like Maggie, but he was nearly ready to matriculate instead of stuck in phase one. Hayden was kicking ass in combat training. Hayden had ideas for some revolutionary computer simulation of the dreamsphere that had the vigils excited and had earned him a visit from one of the curators, the mysterious heads of the entire Somnium.
Hayden was the golden child of the current influx of students.
Maggie was the embarrassment.
She was happy for Hayden. He’d exploded out of the vicious funk he’d been trapped in since their parents’ deaths. He’d found a new lease on life with the Somnium. But if Zeke compared them one more time, she might have to disembowel both men. And Rhys, for good measure.
It was a skill she was supposed to be learning in blade work, after all. She needed practice.
“I don’t want to talk about Hayden,” she said. “Though if you have any news of my sister, that you can share.” It stood to reason that, if Maggie and Hayden had woken the same night, their younger sister Allyson was a potential dreamer too. But all the resources of the Somnium hadn’t been able to locate Ally. If she maintained her itinerant habits, her nightmares would never have a chance to manifest, but that didn’t mean Maggie and Hayden weren’t worried about her.
“I got nothing about Allyson,” Zeke said. “Somebody would have told you.”
“Unless I did
n’t have clearance.”
“You don’t need clearance to find out about your own family.”
She just needed people willing to talk to her. Which she didn’t have. Rather than point that out, she changed the subject, twisting enough to see him. “Are you going to get in bed?”
“Wonder what’s keeping Heather anyway?” Zeke checked his alarm clock again. Their door guard had arrived before they’d started squabbling over bedtime. The guard was prompt. Heather, their chaperone, usually was. If she’d been on time tonight, maybe they wouldn’t have argued.
“You’re the one who said we didn’t need a chaperone,” she reminded him.
Zeke slid across the mattress toward her, his expression the opposite of romantic. She squeezed her eyes shut. When he grew close enough that she could sense his body heat, he stopped.
Every sleep period, they went through this. The tangible shivered inside her, luring her toward him. Pulling her skin against his, insisting she touch him everywhere she possibly could.
Maggie pressed her thighs together and refused to make a sound. God, she needed to touch him. Did he know she still felt this way? First, she’d rip off his boxers. Then, she’d lick and fondle every inch of him before wrapping her legs around his hips and screwing him out of her system.
A tangible, she’d been told, created intimacy where none existed. All she knew was she wanted him so damn much it hurt.
She heard him inhale and exhale, as if the tangible sensation irked him. The truth was, tangibles had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with alucinator level. It flickered through her backside, her bare arm, a faint suction her imagination sexualized. She wanted to feel it everywhere.
Zeke would resist until it ebbed and then thread his fingers through hers. It was their only contact that didn’t involve him hurling her to the padded floor during hand-to-hand combat class.
“Maggie.” His voice sounded husky, but he often got husky at the end of a long day. “You gotta lie on your back. We’ve discussed this.”
“Just spoon me,” she dared him. Wrap your arms around me. Hold me. Since they weren’t in the dreamsphere, he couldn’t hear her mental speech.
His hand caught her shoulder. Cloth between them—the tangible didn’t sharpen. He shook lightly. “I don’t like to sleep on my side. Roll over.”
The tangible kept them physically linked while they slept. The chaperone kept them physically apart while they were awake. So the story went.
Where was the chaperone?
Maggie flopped onto her back. Her shoulder wedged against his chest. He inhaled quickly, as if the contact startled him. Her hip brushed his…
He slid away before she could tell what part of his body had been so hard. Bone or muscle, no doubt. The man was cut like glass. Most alucinators had better padding, their muscles functional yet less cinematic.
Zeke didn’t eat enough, for one thing. He forgot meals, and his metabolism was like a teenager’s. Maggie tried to keep him in sandwiches, but he complained that she wasn’t his fucking waitress and if she was so fucking worried about sexism, why the fuck was she serving him food?
Because she hoped he’d be less fucking crabby.
“Maybe the others wised up and cancelled the chaperone. ’Course you’d think they’d have told me.” He grabbed her hand. His fingers had the same calluses as always. His skin had the same heat as always. The tangible thrummed with the same pulse as always.
“We could call Heather,” Maggie said. No neonati was supposed to enter the dreamsphere without a door guard posted, at the least, and they did have one. Were their chaperone days over?
Before Zeke answered, a knock sounded at the door. It swung open. Locking was frowned upon except during a manifestation, when it dissuaded some forms of wraith.
“Sorry I’m late, Zeke.” Heather, a former student of Rhys’s who’d been a martial arts instructor before the Somnium, slipped into the room. She carried a tablet computer, a lumbar support pillow, and a set of headphones along with her sword, her walkie and her Kevlar vest.
“What kept you?” Zeke complained. “We have shit to do.”
Maggie didn’t particularly like this Heather. The woman had a crush on Zeke. He didn’t flirt, but he did tend to joke around with her.
Tonight he seemed equal opportunity cranky.
“Rhys and Hayden were tranced,” Heather told Zeke. She had on silk PJs under her Kevlar. Real practical. “I guarded them too and had to wait for them to come out before I switched posts.”
“Was there a problem?” Maggie asked. As a recent graduate, Heather received more busywork assignments like guarding than field assignments or area scanning.
“Not that I know of,” Heather answered.
Maggie read, “Not that I’d tell you,” in the subtext of her tone.
“You’re supposed to be here at oh sixteen hundred,” Zeke pointed out.
“I’m only thirty minutes off.” Heather arranged the lumbar cushion to her liking and settled into the old desk chair. The Somnium, despite having widespread fundi, had a strict budget. Nonessentials like ergonomic desk chairs received short shrift. “Set your clock for five point five hours. My sleep starts at twenty-two-hundred.”
Like a normal person. Lucky Heather.
Zeke shook his head. “Nuh-uh. Phase one sessions are six hours.”
“What difference is thirty minutes going to make with…” Heather’s gaze met Maggie’s. “Look, that’s what Rhys told me to do.” The North American division wasn’t as formal as a few of the other divisions. Nobody licked boots for anyone lower than a vigil.
“Now I’m telling you to stick to regulation hours,” Zeke said.
“If you need to countermand Rhys’s orders, talk to him.” Heather waggled her walkie. While cellular phones were useful, the Somnium preferred walkies for short-range communication. Wraith manifestations could disrupt cell signals. “He revised the master schedule. I can’t touch it. The last time I did that for you, I got in trouble.”
Zeke’s fingers tightened the smallest bit on Maggie’s. Would he pick a fight with Rhys? Ever since Maggie had turned albatross, Zeke’s disputes with his fellow sentries—Rhys in particular—had increased. Not that Zeke had confided in Maggie, but Lillian, whom Maggie counted as a friend, had been a godsend in understanding the pecking order.
Maggie had hoped to escape the departmental politics at the university where she used to work, only to find the Somnium was a hotbed of wrangling about more serious matters. When you argued with coworkers about who deserved grants, it had little relevance to anyone but yourselves. When you argued with coworkers about saving the world from wraiths, the scale of importance shifted.
Zeke didn’t say anything—or switch his alarm.
Maggie closed her eyes and settled into the mattress. “Good night, Heather,” she said.
“Sweet dreams,” Heather replied absently. The desk chair creaked. “See you on waking, Zeke.”
“No doubt,” he answered.
One thing Maggie’s time with the Somnium had taught her—work hard, sleep fast, sleep naturally. Tranqs interfered with dreamsphere manipulation. She catalogued the aches and pains of her thirty-something, slowly-getting-into-shape body like sheep jumping a fence. Soon she drifted off and into the sphere.
Chapter Two
“Maggie, you have to concentrate.” Zeke snapped up his shields and held his student at arm’s length. The dreamsphere phased back to dull, gloomy darkness as his mental protections shut out the wraiths.
Were there more of them tonight than ever before?
And did he think this every night?
Yes, yes he did.
But he couldn’t tell her that. She needed to believe her circumstances were similar to other L5 neonati. Confidence was everything. Confidence and lack of fear.
And he hadn’t fig
ured out why she attracted more wraiths than a whole building full of dreamers in comas. What could he tell people that wouldn’t get her immediately shipped off to a curator, never to be seen or heard from again?
It hadn’t been easy concealing the wraith density. Tricky scheduling, smokescreens and lots of relocating during training. Two nights ago, he’d broken down and told Lillian the truth. Invited her to observe a session and Maggie’s swarm. Maggie had promptly detected, identified, and communicated with Lillian, but Zeke hadn’t complimented her. He didn’t want her to figure out how out of whack everything about her training was going.
Lillian, also surprised Maggie had orated, had been disturbed by the wraiths. He and Lill had decided he should keep doing what he’d been doing—concealing Maggie’s training sessions from onlookers—and pray she learned to shield soon so she could get back on track.
It wasn’t fair to Maggie. None of this. He considered giving her a hug. Her shoulders, beneath his fingers, were as tense as carburetor belts. She barreled straight for him whenever she felt threatened. He didn’t know if that was because of the tangible, her fearfulness or…other reasons. Other reasons that drew them together no matter how hard he tried to drive her away.
“I was concentrating. Unfortunately, I was concentrating on not vomiting.” She’d cut her hair after an incident in hand-to-hand combat. Chin-length, the wiry curls tickled his fingers.
“You didn’t barf, so I guess you succeeded, but you lost shield integrity way too fast. You gave me, what, eight minutes?”
“I wasn’t counting,” she said grumpily.
“You have to multitask. In the sphere, Mags, everything is mind over matter. You control the space. You control your body. You control your shield.” An alucinator could manipulate small things about his appearance in the sphere, so Zeke had on T-shirt and jeans instead of boxers. It wasn’t that it was cold. It was just…easier to be around Maggie in more clothes rather than less.
“Easy for you. You’ve been doing this nearly twenty years.” She shrugged off his touch and rubbed her cheek self-consciously with a thumb. “They’re disgusting on so many levels.”