9

by James Phelan

  ‘The stairs!’ Sam whispered, and they tiptoed down the stairs, backs to the wall, warily checking around blind corners below as they descended to the shabby, unlit lobby. It was empty, but Sam could make out two security cameras at the exit—one watching out, the other watching in. The cameras looked old and neglected like the rest of the building, but he could see a tiny green light flickering near the lens.

  I knew it couldn’t be this easy!

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ Zara said quietly behind Sam, her hand on his shoulder to try to peer around.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Sam replied. ‘Let’s make for the doors and bolt.’

  ‘Bolt?’

  ‘Run. Once we’re out of here, we run, fast, and don’t stop until we’re a long way from here, someplace safe. Ready?’

  Zara nodded.

  Sam set off, racing across the tiled lobby and pulling hard on the handle of the big glass door—

  Locked.

  He rattled it, to no use.

  Smash the glass?

  Sam knocked on it—it was very thick glass.

  A buzzer sounded.

  Click.

  The door opened. Zara smiled at Sam, her finger still pressing the release button on the wall. They fled out into the cool of the early morning.

  They ran along the wet street, skirting around a team of street-cleaners. The rising sun was starting to fill the sky with a soft glow, but Sam didn’t know the time because his phone, watch, everything but his clothes, had been taken by Hans’ guys. He felt glad to still be wearing the Stealth Suit at least.

  ‘I’m not sure we are in France,’ Zara said as they ran.

  ‘Get back!’ Sam said, pulling her backwards as a garbage truck flashed by through an intersection.

  ‘Thanks,’ Zara said, pausing to look around more closely at a street sign.

  ‘Wait.’

  ‘What is it?’ Sam said, slowing and panting for breath. ‘Zara, come on.’

  She nodded and resumed running.

  ‘What was it?’ Sam asked her.

  ‘We are definitely not in France anymore,’ Zara said, running in step next to him. ‘We’re in Monaco.’

  ‘Stop there!’

  Sam turned as he heard the shout. Behind the group of street-cleaners were four of Hans’ German Guardians, running towards them. One of the bigger guys knocked over a cleaner, who shouted obscenities and waved his fist.

  ‘Faster, come on!’ Sam said, taking Zara’s hand and pulling her along with him.

  They turned left at the next corner, entering an empty shopping strip and running along the road.

  ‘Sam!’ Zara said, ‘Turn right!’

  He saw it too—a tiny walkway between the buildings and they zipped into it. It was barely wide enough for the two of them to fit side-by-side but no sooner had they entered it than the tiny cobbled path gave way onto another street.

  ‘There!’ Zara said, pointing to the warmly illuminated boutique hotel across the road, dwarfed by apartment and office blocks on either side.

  They ran in, Sam hurriedly shutting the doors behind them.

  Zara began talking animatedly in French to a sweet-faced old lady behind the counter. The lady looked from Zara to Sam, then waved them through the staff door behind the reception area. She followed them into a small office and busied herself putting on a kettle and making three cups of tea.

  ‘What on earth did you tell her?’ Sam whispered to Zara, smiling in what he hoped was a winning way.

  ‘That you’re my brother and that we are here with our family on holiday,’ Zara whispered back, ‘I said we were walking in the city last night and we saw something we shouldn’t have on one of the yachts and some dubious men have been chasing us since.’

  ‘She believed that?’

  ‘Crazy things happen all the time in this city. People on those mega yachts get up to all kinds of mischief.’

  ‘Pour vous,’ the lady said to Sam, passing him a cup of tea.

  ‘For you,’ Zara translated.

  ‘Thanks,’ Sam said. ‘Merci.’

  The front doors to the hotel opened, the small bell above the door ringing loudly.

  The woman’s expression changed and she stood straighter, suddenly not so friendly and slowly walked back out to the reception desk, closing the door gently behind her.

  Through the closed door, Sam could hear her arguing in French with the man questioning her—which he could see on a little closed-circuit TV was one of Hans’ Guardians. He saw her lift the telephone receiver, waving it slightly at the Guardian, before he abruptly turned and left.

  Zara translated for Sam, ‘She told him that she hasn’t seen anyone this morning. She says the police are her very good friends and that they will be here within one minute.’

  The lady came back into the office, once more grandmotherly and smiling. She sipped at her tea.

  ‘Thank you,’ Sam said. ‘Merci beaucoup.’

  The lady replied, speaking so quickly in French that Sam couldn’t even make out one familiar word.

  ‘She would like to know if we want to use the phone to call our parents,’ Zara explained.

  ‘Sure,’ said Sam. ‘Oui, merci.’

  The lady nodded, passing Sam a cordless handset. Sam was about to dial Lora’s number, but noticed that the lady was staring at them both quizzically, as if searching their faces for something. She began speaking quickly again.

  ‘Funny,’ Zara translated as the lady spoke, ‘she says when she slept last night, she had the strangest dream that two teenagers would come to her for help and that she would care for them until all was safe.’

  Sam grinned, waiting for the call to connect. ‘I’m not sure that is so strange.’

  07

  EVA

  Eva and Tobias didn’t have to wait too long to get off the mountain. Shortly after sunrise, the weather cleared to a sunny day with a brilliant blue sky, and with that came help in the form of the Swiss Mountain Rescue. They, and the two dozen or so people still on the mountain, were transferred via helicopters to the main terminal of Geneva airport, where they bought onward tickets to London.

  It had seemed easier, perhaps safer, after the events of the last twenty-four hours, to fly on a commercial flight than to have an Academy jet to pick them up.

  Hide in plain sight.

  She watched the faces streaming by, all of them oblivious to what had happened so close by.

  Keep walking, nothing to see here.

  Tobias ordered coffee and breakfast while they waited for their boarding announcement.

  ‘Tobias …’ Eva said.

  ‘Yes, Eva?’ he said, glancing around the airport cafe.

  ‘I’ve been wondering, why does Sam have the dreams he does?’

  ‘You mean, why do his dreams lead him to the other Dreamers?’

  Eva nodded.

  Tobias added sugar to his black coffee. He took a sip, then leaned back, scratching his chin. ‘The truth is I don’t know, and I don’t think anyone really does. His ability is quite astonishing—we’ve not seen this kind of thing in our time. But I have some ideas as to why.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well, he was the last of the Enterprise’s Dreamer program, and that may mean he’s the last of the last 13, if you like. These 13 dreams may be happening in some kind of specific order that only Sam can determine. Or, perhaps, as the very last of the Enterprise’s engineered Dreamers, Sam could have been given that little bit of something extra.’

  ‘Extra?’

  ‘Maybe the genetics team took his enhanced DNA dreaming genes to another level,’ Tobias said, ‘as one final gesture.’

  ‘One final test, you mean.’

  Tobias nodded and said, ‘Or, it could all defy explanation completely and just be who Sam is—his destiny is to be the only one who can bring all the 13 together.’

  ‘This is so confusing …’ Eva said, pushing her breakfast away untouched. ‘I mean—why did the Enterprise pick me up i
f I’m not even one of the 13? I’ve not dreamed of Solaris, or of finding a Gear from the Bakhu machine. Sam has never dreamed of me either. Actually, I haven’t had a decent dream since that first one where I was aboard the helicopter and met Sam and Alex.’

  ‘Didn’t Lora mention that you dreamed about my camp fire across the Alps?’ Tobias inquired.

  ‘Oh, yeah …’ Eva said absentmindedly. ‘I did dream that.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter if you are or if you aren’t one of the last 13, Eva,’ Tobias said, his tone reassuring. ‘You clearly have a lot to contribute. But if I were a betting man, I’d put my house on you being one of them.’

  ‘Really? Why?’

  ‘Well, the Enterprise did pick you up. Alex, you and Sam. And, as the last of the engineered Dreamers, the Enterprise kept a very close eye on the three of you—that suggests they thought there was more than a good chance you would be in the last 13. Not all of the engineered Dreamers from the program’s previous years appear to have been monitored so closely. And it definitely proved true in Sam’s case.’

  ‘And after Sam the program was shut down?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So,’ Eva said, ‘how many Dreamers did the Enterprise make all up—how many people are walking around with engineered DNA or whatever?’

  ‘That we do know,’ Tobias said, then took a bite of his bacon and egg sandwich. ‘Ninety-nine.’

  ‘That’s specific.’

  ‘They had approval for a hundred, in the current phase of testing, which spanned the last two decades or so,’ Tobias said, checking his watch. ‘Way before that, in the 1950s and 60s, when the Enterprise was a military operation, they had a couple of experimental programs. The first was an utter failure—the Dreamers they produced had nothing but terrible nightmares. The second gen, born in the late 1960s and early 1970s, fared better, but I don’t think any will be part of the last 13.’

  ‘You sure know a lot about this,’ Eva said, looking at Tobias carefully.

  ‘I should,’ Tobias said, standing up as their flight was called. ‘I’m one of those second-gen Dreamers.’

  08

  SAM

  ‘Welcome home, sort of,’ Lora said.

  Sam looked out of the window and saw that their helicopter had circled around into a landing approach in the middle of an impeccably manicured playing oval. It was one of many sports ovals, soccer pitches and running tracks spread out below them. Sam could see a rugby team going through their paces at training and another group of students on a black-watered river racing one another in sleek rowboats.

  ‘It’s huge,’ Zara said. ‘Sam, isn’t it amazing?’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ Sam said. He couldn’t help thinking of his school back home, when only a few weeks ago he’d been plucked out of class after he’d watched three helicopters land on their sports field. This school was far different. There were no less than twenty stone buildings set across sprawling grounds, the largest ones with medieval-like towers. One even had large gothic spires pointing jaggedly into the sky. ‘Lora, where are we?’

  ‘Our London campus,’ Lora said. ‘We have a building here, on the grounds of a regular boarding school. Usually just around thirty students. We’re moving all classes here for the rest of the Dreamer students. The Guardians are here too—it’s safest for us to stick together now.’

  ‘That is a regular school?’ Zara said. During the flight from Monaco, Sam had explained to her the functions of the Academy, how they taught new Dreamers ways to apply their special abilities—to steer and control dreams, to deal with nightmares and to reach their true potential. But she was clearly still unprepared for the reality.

  ‘Yes,’ Lora replied. ‘It’s called Knowinghouse. It’s one of the great historic schools of England.’

  ‘I’ve heard of it,’ Sam said, nose pressed to the glass. ‘But—but don’t the Academy students want to go back to their homes and families? Aren’t their parents insisting on them leaving the Academy after what happened in Switzerland, to get them as far away as possible from me and the others of the last 13?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ Lora said as the helicopter hovered to a touchdown on the lush green grass. ‘A few have gone. But most students, and their families, recognise that what is happening now is what we’ve all been working for, striving towards, for many, many generations. As dangerous as things may get, this is the race to the Dream Gate that every Dreamer, myself included, learned about in their first year of school and has thought about since. For so many, this is the adventure of a lifetime, no matter how dangerous.’

  ‘Fair enough, I suppose,’ Sam said, not convinced. He thought of the cost that came with this so-called adventure, none more obvious than the price that Pi and the others had paid.

  Stella better watch out the next time we meet …

  ‘So,’ Zara said unbuckling her seatbelt, ‘the Academy students will study beside the normal students here?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Lora said, waiting for the rotors to slow and for the all-clear to disembark to be called out by the pilots. ‘They will go to class with the regular boarders and we’ll add on extracurricular Dreamer studies outside of the school hours.’

  ‘What kinds of “extracurricular studies”?’ Zara asked.

  Lora smiled. ‘Oh, some of them you have to see to believe.’

  The building that the Academy used on the Knowinghouse school campus looked like a wing of an enormous medieval castle. Inside, as Sam and Zara walked quickly behind Lora, it was no less intimidating, with its vast stone halls, cold and dark. Their rapid footfalls were amplified in the cavernous space as they came to the dining hall.

  There, students Sam had known from the Swiss campus greeted them, crowding around to meet Zara and to ask about what had happened in Paris. Others told him tearful stories about the terrible attack in the Alps.

  ‘Sam!’ Eva came running over and grabbed Sam in a bear hug that nearly knocked him off his feet. ‘Oh, I missed you …’

  ‘Thanks,’ Sam managed to say as she squeezed him tight. ‘I missed you too.’ He stepped back to look into her eyes. ‘Are we—are we good? You know I didn’t mean …’

  ‘It’s forgotten,’ Eva interrupted him. ‘So much has happened since then, I’m just so happy to see you in one piece.’ Her eyes started to mist over, then she forced her chin up and turned to Zara.

  ‘This is Zara,’ Sam said, introducing them.

  Zara leaned in and kissed Eva lightly on both cheeks, exclaiming, ‘I am so pleased to meet you, Eva. Sam has told me about you.’

  The girls smiled shyly at each other. Then Eva turned to introduce Zara to the last 13 Dreamers. ‘This is Gabriella. You might know her from her previous, non-Dreamer life as a celebrity singer from Italy.’ She almost managed to keep the edge out of her voice. Sam nudged her.

  Gabriella beamed her superstar smile in greeting.

  ‘And this is Xavier,’ Eva continued, ‘who was the last person before you to turn up in one of Sam’s last 13 dreams.’

  Xavier turned red when Zara kissed his cheeks in greeting. Sam lightly punched Xavier on the shoulder, pleased to see his old classmate again.

  ‘So, that makes four of us now,’ Xavier said. ‘Nine to go.’

  ‘I just need to figure out who’s next,’ Sam said, turning to Lora. ‘I think it’s time to talk about my dream of Brazil.’

  09

  Sam glanced around the timber-lined office in the south tower of the Academy’s new residence. Out the window he could see a lush cricket oval and a thickly-wooded forest beyond. Everything here was so different, yet felt oddly the same. Lora, Zara and Eva sat together, discussing why it was so important for Zara to stay there with the others. Zara was relieved to hear that her parents were both safe and well.

  Sam paced the room, eager to get started, to work out a way to find the next Dreamer.

  If that was my dream about the next Dreamer.

  The room had several desks, some of which were threatening to fa
ll over from the amount of old books stacked on them. Sam turned when the door opened—a tall man in a neat three-piece suit entered, saw Sam, and smiled.

  ‘Professor!’ Sam said. Then, seeing who entered next, he nearly exploded with excitement. ‘Tobias!’

  ‘Ha!’ Tobias said, nearly bowled over by Sam’s embrace. ‘Easy there, young man.’

  ‘OK,’ Sam said, pleased to finally see his old teacher once more.

  ‘You’ve heard all about the attack, I imagine,’ the Professor said, sitting in the well-worn leather chair behind the desk.

  ‘Yes,’ Sam replied soberly. ‘Lora told me on the way here.’

  ‘And how things have changed with the Enterprise since their own misfortune,’ he added.

  ‘Yes, Lora told me about that too,’ Sam said, referring to the attack at the Enterprise’s headquarters in Silicon Valley. ‘That was Stella as well, right?’

  ‘Yes, she’s been quite busy, along with her tech ally, Matrix,’ the Professor said, struggling to turn on his laptop. ‘Hmm, I’m lost without my secretary. I insisted Mary take some leave after the attack in Switzerland—what’s wrong with this thing?’

  Lora stood fuming in the middle of the room, her anger at the attack still evident in her eyes.

  ‘There will be the opportunity to deal with Stella, I’m sure,’ the Professor said calmly, as if anticipating Lora’s thoughts. He was pressing the power button again, trying in vain to bring the screen to life.

  ‘At least now everyone sees her for who she really is,’ Sam said. ‘A murderous traitor.’

  ‘Yes, although it is such an extreme way to find out,’ Tobias said sadly. ‘And it would seem those at the Enterprise have been shocked into a more rational course of action.’

  ‘But how can we really trust an alliance with the Enterprise?’ Sam asked sceptically.

  ‘Well,’ the Professor said, rummaging in a drawer for a power cord. ‘Thankfully, their assistance in notifying the authorities saved many lives. And the Enterprise have been wounded by Stella’s actions just as much as we have. We are united by a common enemy—we have no choice but to trust them, and they us.’