The Whisperer in Dissonance

by Welke, Ian

  Worry and frustration cross his face before he relaxes and his smile returns. “Sometimes all you can do is try. And what else can I do? I am here to help. And if you come back, perhaps I can still help you.”

  He switches off the lamp, and I leave him there, sitting alone in the darkness.

  ~

  I stop at the end of the hall. I don’t know what’s next. The blueprints on my magic-phone don’t go past the edge of the building. I bring up a city map, and compare the blueprints with the street-view. There has to be a parking lot between this door and the street, but I have no idea where I’ll find the doctor’s car.

  My phone beeps an alert. I swipe the screen back to the guard tracker. Two red dots head my way.

  Deal with getting out of the building, then you can worry about what’s outside.

  There are no dots ahead of me, so I walk fast toward the security door. I get within five feet of the door and a magnetic lock pops and the door swings open. My phone beeps when the door opens, but it’s too late.

  The man coming through the door is six-feet tall and at least two hundred pounds. I’m sure I’m not getting past him, so I turn and run the other way.

  “What the…” His words are replaced by heavy footsteps coming after me.

  Not wanting to turn the direction I already know the orderlies are coming from, I take the left instead. I push through swinging double doors into a kitchen/break area for the staff. I roll a condiment cart in front of the door and brace it by sliding a table up against it. The guard on the other side tries pushing, but can’t move both. By the time he gets the door gripped to pull it outward, I’m already on my way down the hall on the other side of the room.

  I do a double take as I pass an exterior window. Daylight isn’t a shock, but snow? It’s falling in small flakes and has caked on the window-ledge.

  There’s a crashing sound from behind me. Probably the guards knocking the table over. I run down the hall. Looking at my phone for the layout, I pray for another exit, but see none, just a dead end in the hallway up ahead. At least there’s just the one red dot near me. The others haven’t gotten to the hall leading to the kitchen yet. I keep running. This area is for the staff members. Locked rooms. Offices. Pharmacological. Janitorial. I stop at the janitor’s closet. Loading my lock app, I hesitate.

  Distance?

  What the hell, free some people and give the guards something to worry about.

  I put in five hundred. The hall echoes with all of the electronic locks opening at once.

  I move quickly into the janitor’s closet. On my phone display, all of the locks in the building show green. I switch to my layout app. The red dots representing the orderlies stop moving toward my location, turn back and twist in circular motions, probably dealing with loose and manic patients.

  All except for the dot now in the hall outside the janitor’s closet.

  Looking around, I don’t see much that could help. As big as he is, I don’t think I could beat him with a mop handle. The dot comes closer. It stops halfway down the hall to the closet. I grab a glass bottle of cleanser and step into the hall.

  “Miss, I don’t want to hurt you,” the man says. He looks like he might’ve played football when he was in his prime, and although that time has passed, he’s athletic enough to wrestle me to the ground.

  I scan my phone display hoping to find whatever Michael used to zap the creature at the mall. One icon shows a human silhouette with an anti-mark over him. “I don’t want to hurt you either,” I say. I hold the phone up, and press the button. The modem handshake sound screeches out of the phone, but the man doesn’t react. “I guess you’re not wired up. I thought that might happen. Here, catch!” I toss the cleanser at him in an arc to his left side, and run past him to his right while he moves to catch the bottle.

  His potential football past left him big, but he’s slow. I put distance between us as I race through the kitchen. I make it through the security door, still unlocked from when I hit my anti-lock button earlier.

  Shouts ring down the hall behind me. I sprint through the door and vault the reception desk and don’t stop running until I get to the parking garage. Clicking the alarm button on the doctor’s keys, I hear the Jaguar chirp from down a level. I run around the corner and down to the next level, finding the Jag.

  I’m out of the garage and I have the car pointed to the exit when the guards come pouring out of the building, two then four. I put my foot down. There isn’t enough time to fumble with the phone to try to raise the parking gate. I aim the Jag at the gate and keep my foot on the gas.

  White flakes fall onto the windshield as I come out from under the shelter of the garage.

  The arm of the gate cracks hard against the hood, but breaks off, freeing the car from the garage. I make a quick right onto Katella, putting two blocks between me and the hospital before I even look back.

  The streets are still empty. Either it wasn’t a hallucination before or I’m hallucinating now. I slow the car on a street running parallel to a residential neighborhood near the horse track. I stop and get out. There’s no sense letting them track me through the car’s GPS. I lean in through the driver’s window, put the car in drive and let it roll east on Katella. With any luck they’ll think I’ve gone to Disneyland.

  The air is desert hot. The Santa Anas are still blowing strong, carrying the smell of smoke in the air. I put my hand out and catch falling ash, not snow, in my hand.

  I watch the Jag roll off into the distance, then head down a side street into the residential neighborhood. It’s early. The sky has just started to lighten, but there are no lights on in the neighborhood. There isn’t anyone out picking up the paper or walking a dog. It’s all empty and every bit as deserted as the neighborhoods I drove through with Michael.

  I ring the doorbell on a house I pick at random. It’s a two-story suburban tract home. It reminds me of my mom’s house. There’s no response. I turn the knob. It’s unlocked, and I go in. My first thought is, I hope they have my size shoes.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It takes me four houses to find what I’m looking for, a pair of running shoes in my size. A picture of the woman who lived here sits on top of the dresser next to the closet. She’s about my height, but heavier. At least she was running. Before everything went to hell anyway. Sort of a moot point now. I should’ve been running instead of sitting at a desk all day, maybe I wouldn’t be so out of breath now.

  I wander through the rest of the house. There’s a pile of bills and loose mail on the counter in the kitchen. The mail is addressed to Robin. Learning her name it hits me that I’m in someone’s home, someone that for all I know is gone and not coming back, and that there are thousands or possibly millions or even billions of someones who are no longer themselves. I wonder if they’re all in those meat drawers at that warehouse, or if there are other warehouses full of drawers stuffed with brain-like meat vats.

  I decide that it’s too much, and I’d do well just to focus on what I can actually affect.

  What I expect to be a junk drawer contains a nice set of acrylic inks. I haven’t found any other art supplies in the house, and the set is unopened. A gift? I feel guilty about taking it, but I have no idea if it will just sit unused forever if I don’t, and if I accomplish nothing else, I plan on defacing some of the dream sigils I’ve seen painted around the city.

  The kitchen opens into a den at the rear of the house. An L-couch creates a half ring around the television. A mantle over the fireplace is covered with knickknacks and figurines. The most comfortable-looking beanbag I’ve ever seen sits on a rug covering the hardwood floor between the couch and the TV. Next to the television a DVD tower holds Robin’s DVDs.

  Yoga, Everybody Loves Raymond… Different strokes for different folks I guess. Okay, I could sit in that beanbag and watch Little House until they come and get me.

  I shake off the temptation, but out of curiosity, I pull the remote control out of a basket next to the televisio
n and turn it on. To my surprise, it’s not all static or dead air. The channels I surf through have programming, but they all have that dream symbol in the bottom right hand corner of the screen like a channel logo.

  Maybe that’s all it takes now, just the logo in the corner will wash your brain if you’re not resistant.

  I keep flipping channels. There’s a definite shift of programming emphasis. The new programming leans heavily toward Home Shopping Networks. I hit the guide button on the remote to get a channel listing. The shopping networks are divided into categories, jewelry, home, and recreation. I switch the TV off and put the remote back in the basket.

  It’s like they’re rebooting reality. I wonder when they’ll return people to their homes to take this garbage in.

  I go through Robin’s hall closets. It’s mostly shoes and sports equipment, a tennis racket, a baseball mitt, golf clubs. I find a duffel bag, and I take this to the kitchen.

  Take food or leave it? How long will this last? If it goes on indefinitely, I can always come back.

  I can’t make up my mind. There’s bread and cheese in the refrigerator. I figure it won’t hurt anyone to eat the perishables, especially with no guarantee the power will stay on. I pack a lunch.

  There’s a rumble in the distance, like a far off earthquake or a truck driving by that’s large enough to rattle the windows.

  Rotors.

  A helicopter is circling the neighborhood. I peer through the shutters into the early evening dusk. The street is lit orange by the setting sun. One then two then four squad cars roll past the house. Search lights shineto the sides as they patrol.

  Crap. They’ve guessed the neighborhood I’m in.

  I eye the back door, then start looking for places in the house to hide, before peering back out the window. Two squad cars stop, one a few houses to the right, the other next door to the left. The car doors open and dogs leap out of the car.

  Or they’re not dogs.

  The animals are hard to look at. They’re the size of German Shepherds. They have metallic antennae on the tops of their heads, but their faces defy explanation. They’re black. There is empty blackness where their faces should be. Light seems to disappear into the hole where there should be a snout. The closest one to the house I’m in rears back and howls. The sound is distorted, metallic, and grating. Its cry is a melding of noises that don’t mesh well together. A combination of a wolf’s call to hunt prey and the pained misery of a tortured beast filtered through something grating and mechanical.

  I run out the backdoor, pass the pool and hop the brick back wall, before I hear the series of barks that signal that they’ve picked up my scent. As I put a leg over the wall to climb down, I hope the wall is tall enough to stop the dogs.

  Metal trashcans are stacked in the side yard. Through the front yard, I cross the street and keep running through the yards perpendicular to the streets. I keep going this way for blocks.

  I hide behind a tool shed. Out of breath I bend over, hands on my knees shaking my head.

  Rotors thunder overhead. I squeeze against the shed wall, hoping the edge of the roof covers me and wait for them to pass.

  The rotors circle back and the noise fades. I cross through four more sets of yards before I realize I’m no longer being chased. There are no more robotic dog barks, and the rotors are far off.

  ~

  The sun is just starting to rise before I feel safe enough to give in and let my eyelids shut. The fact that I’ve wanted sleep so badly for so long and now I’m fighting against it is more annoying than amusing. The helicopters have long since faded, but at every sound I jump to my feet thinking it’s one of the dog things barking. It’s probably just the shifting of a strange house, but with each noise I have to wake fully and assure myself that there’s no immediate danger. Enough time passes and I’m so exhausted that I can’t stay awake any longer.

  When I open my eyes again, I’m aware that I’m dreaming.

  My phone lights up with a text.

  Michael: There you are. Took you long enough. Meet me in the basement.

  The whole house is lit in a pale blue light from no visible source. The walls pulsate and fluid runs behind the plaster like veins. The blades of the ceiling fan flap up and down instead of spinning.

  Leaving the bedroom, I pass the den. The layout is so familiar I’m unsure if the house has the same layout as my mom’s house, or if the dream version of the house has adapted to my mind. As I pass the television, it switches on. The virus symbol flashes across the black screen.

  I stare at it. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’m immune.”

  A voice comes over the television. “Annie, dear.”

  I freeze. “Mom?”

  “Yes, dear. I’m here,” my mom’s voice says. The sound is clearer than her voice had been on the phone before, but a faint trace of buzzing feedback remains.

  “You’re not real.” Even though I’m dreaming, I have to fight back tears. I wipe my nose on my sleeve.

  “Of course I’m real. We’re all real. And we’re all worried about you. I’m sorry I couldn’t come see you when you were here earlier, but I was out of town.”

  “Where’s here? You never go out of town.”

  “That’s neither here nor there, dear. We need you to come back here, to the hospital.”

  I shake my head. I can’t believe I’m arguing with my mother in a dream through a television. I walk over to the wall and pull the plug.

  The television switches off, and back on. “That’s not real helpful, dear.”

  “Shut up, television.” I walk to the basement door, passing a computer that boots up on its own.

  A stereo powers up next. “Annie, we want to help you.” The combined buzzing of the multiple appliances bursts into a crackling static.

  I shut the basement door behind me. With the door closed, the buzzing goes away. The wooden steps creak with my weight as I walk down.

  “I’m down here,” Michael says.

  I get to the bottom of the stairs, but don’t see anyone.

  “Over here.”

  I run to find the source of his voice, an open laptop on a workbench. Michael grins at me from the laptop screen.

  “Crap,” I say, and turn to head back up the stairs.

  “I’m all right,” he says before I can leave. “I can prove it. I think. Not sure how. Huh. I should have realized this would freak you out. They’ve hacked their way into dreams haven’t they?”

  I nod. In a dream, how do I know what’s real? How do I know what’s real ever?

  I rub both temples and wince at the implications of competing dream hackers.

  “Yeah, I had a feeling they’d figure that out sooner than later.”

  “Okay. I trust that you’re you,” I say.

  “You do? That’s awesome. I don’t think I have a way to prove it. Why?”

  “No buzzing sound.”

  He pauses. “Great, but I wouldn’t go by that too long. It’s just a matter of time until they find a work around for that.”

  “What do I do now?”

  “Sleep in. Then have the best meal you can make. Traveling by day is rough, but my friends have a safe house you can get to tomorrow night.”

  “You were able to contact your friends?”

  “Oh yes. Big things are underway. You’ll be impressed.”

  “Then I definitely trust that it’s you. When they faked you before, they were trying to get information about you and your friends.”

  “That’s a good sign. We’re a threat to them.” That look of youthful enthusiasm, the one he’d had in college, crosses his face for a moment before being replaced with somber concern. “Or a sign that we’re in more danger.” He pauses, reflecting on that. “So with luck, I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  “I stay here for now. And then I’m going to your safe house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you be there?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Can�
��t you just transport me there like you sent me the phone?”

  He pauses. “Sending you the phone had to be done, but it was dangerous. It used a tremendous amount of power, and almost got us caught. Using the same technique on a person… I don’t know if it could even be done, and you’re too important to experiment with.”

  I want to say something else, but before I can speak I wake up back on the couch. The stranger’s couch, in the stranger’s house I’d broken into. I try not to think about it, but find myself staring at the numbers on the cable box.

  Great. Sleep in, he says. He assumes I can get back to sleep in the first place.

  ~

  My phone buzzes with a text message. Judging by the light coming in from the kitchen windows, it must be close to noon, and I still haven’t been able to go back to sleep. I roll off the couch and grab my phone. The ceiling spins like I’m hungover. It’s dehydration. I stand up to find a sink, but I look at my text before I go.

  Mom: Annie, we need to talk.

  I suppose it was just a matter of time until they found and called my cell number.

  I close my eyes, holding them shut while I rub my temples. The pain pounds into my head from both sides, piercing, but also blunt and rhythmic.

  The phone rings next. The call ID comes from work.

  “Annie, this is Pete.” The voice does not buzz. He sounds like he’s using his sympathetic tone.

  Wonderful. Just what I need.

  The urge to leave my phone and run is huge, before I remember that Michael’s security software should make it hard to use my phone to track my physical location. “What can I do for you, Pete?”

  “I was hoping you could come in today. We have a lot of work to do, and your mother is here. She says she’s worried about you.”

  I put my hand over the receiver to cover the sound of my sob. Fighting for composure, I take it away. “Can you put her on?”

  “Sure.”

  “Dear? Are you there?”

  Still no buzzing, but then Michael warned me there might not be.

  “I’m here, Mom.”