Dream Walker

by Shannan Sinclair

  She held on to her mom tight, wishing she could just sit down and tell her everything and have her reassurance that everything was going to be fine. But her mom had spent her whole life protecting and caring for Aislen. It was time for Aislen to return the favor.

  “No, Mom. I really don’t know what’s going on or what these people are talking about.” It was no lie. She really didn’t understand any of it. But she could. She just needed to talk to her dad now to find out. His presence whipped in close behind her, practically pushing her to move.

  “I’m really beat, Mom. I’m just going to head upstairs and go to bed.”

  “Okay, hon. But know that I’m here if you need to talk about anything?”

  “Yes, Mom. I will. I love you.” Aislen gave her an extra squeeze.

  “I love you, too,” her mom said, kissing her on the forehead. “Sweet dreams.”

  Fat chance, Aislen thought to herself as she turned to head up the stairs—the cold breeze following hot on her heels.

  CHAPTER 35

  Raze followed Aislen up the stairs, drifting on the tantalizing tendrils of her wavelengths. When she reached the top she turned and walked into a bedroom, pausing a moment at the threshold to allow him inside. As if that made a difference. She shut the door behind them and whipped around to face him.

  “Holy shit, Dad! This is crazy!” She began pacing quickly back and forth across the floor. “I didn’t really believe what you told me last night, but it’s all true!

  “People are looking for me. That Blake kid remembers me from the dream, and now this person in some video game is asking about me and getting the police involved. None of it makes sense and I don’t know what to do.”

  She stopped pacing and looked around the room. “Dad, are you still here?”

  Raze did a quick scan of the room for any other signatures, but there was no one else there. Just him and Aislen, alone for the first time.

  “I need you,” she pleaded. “I need you to help me understand—tell me what I should do.”

  Raze realized that if he was going to do anything, now was his moment. Aislen was at her most vulnerable, every guard was down. She was allowing him practically unlimited access to her mind and space, and it was no wonder, she thought he was her dad. She thought she was safe. She was open and completely his for the taking.

  The Raze of two days ago would not have hesitated. He would have slipped in for the kill, sucked the very energy out of her flesh, and left her an empty bag of bones on her bedroom floor. That Raze would have relished the triumph of this occasion.

  But standing there watching Aislen flounder, drowning in her own helplessness like a frail bird in an oil slick, he was immobilized. Foreign amplitudes and frequencies moved through him. Every emotional response known to destroy an operative had broken free from the mew he kept them locked down. Emotions he didn’t have names for. In her presence, he was just as helpless as she was.

  “Please talk to me,” Aislen said softly.

  The static hum of her voice sent ripples across the room that penetrated his space with a buzz even more intoxicating than it had been on the dance floor at the club. Her allure dislocated all remaining resolve and wrenched him from his place across the room. Under no volition of his own, he found himself moving closer and closer to her. The utter lack of dominion of his own will perplexed and frustrated him. He was better than this, damn it—stronger than this. He struggled against the riptide of her energy, but to no avail. Soon they were face to face.

  Aislen sucked in a shallow breath when she felt his presence brush up against her flesh.

  “I’m scared,” she said in the barest whispers.

  Raze could taste her words in his mouth. Her chest rose and fell rapidly. He could feel each sigh as if they were his own. The rhythm of her heartbeat pulsed through the atmosphere around them, the composition of her shifted from double to triple meter, creating an irresistible baseline.

  Disconnected from his own will, his essence reacted in opposition to all his intentions and he watched helplessly as his etheric hand reached up and traced the contour of her cheekbone. The fine, downy hairs on her skin rose up to meet his apparitional fingertips, igniting them with gold and sending an exquisite torrent tripping through the band of his spectrum. Aislen gasped as though she felt it too, and looked directly at him with unseeing eyes.

  Like gravity, her field tried to pull him even closer, demanding that his energy coalesce into her own. It took all of his endurance to keep himself from melting completely into her.

  “Who are you?” he said, a rhetorical question not meant for mortal ears, but Aislen jumped back.

  “Dad? Is that you?” she asked, reaching her own hand up, trying to feel for him like a child lost in the dark. When her fingers connected to his incorporeal body and brushed lightly down the front of his chest, another kick of bliss shuddered through him. She must have felt that too, because she jerked her hand away.

  A sudden riff scorched through her space, reversing the pull of the tide and pushing him back several feet as she attempted to put a boundary between them. She definitely knew he was there now—and she definitely knew he was not “Daddy.”

  “You have to tell me,” she tried again. “Give me a sign. Are you my dad?”

  She paused, waiting for an answer. Raze dared not move, dared not think, in case she amped up the anionic vibes and tossed him out of the viewing arena, or worse, demolished his transmundane integrity altogether, sending him into the ethers permanently.

  When she didn’t get any response, Aislen became more demanding. “Dad, is that you?” she asked with a harsh whisper. “Tell me now! Is this Preston?”

  A concussion of cold voltage inundated him, snapping him fully conscious and throwing him further outside her boundaries. Had he heard her right? Did she just say Preston? The name set off alarm bells in his brain.

  Raze slinked back even further giving himself more space to regain his composure. She couldn’t be talking about Preston Reed, could she? The Preston Reed?

  Reed was a legend at Infinium, a talent beyond compare, able to go places beyond the Fourth and bring back advanced information and ideas that were revolutionary.

  But at some point, like his father, Thomas, before him, he would not do what Infinium wanted and knowing what they had done to his father for noncompliance, Reed had disappeared without a trace.

  Infinium had been searching for him for years. It was a component of every operatives training to try and find Reed’s signature on the grid. But every time anyone got close, he slipped out from under them, evaporating into thin air. The last person ever to get near him, was Grant Parker...almost twenty-five years ago.

  Raze looked at Aislen. Understanding began to fully dawn. Stunning clarity swept away the muddy interference and confusion that had been stupefying him for days. It couldn’t be! She couldn’t be! But it was the only thing that made sense. Preston Reed had a daughter and she was standing there right in front of him.

  If it was like Blake said and Grant had broadcast a signal in Demesne, trying to lure Preston Reed there, it was completely possible that the signal could hook a genetically similar signature and pull its owner helplessly into The Stratum.

  It explained everything, but it was only speculation until he could prove it beyond a doubt. And there was only one way to do that.

  Raze accessed his database of signatures, pulling up Preston’s last known frequency equation and quickly created a signal line based on its values. Instantly an orb began to manifest in front of him, a sphere of gleaming, molten gold, so pure and dense it seemed almost physically tangible.

  He gently took the orb into his phantom hand and slowly approached Aislen with it. If he was right, the orb would act as a skeleton key. Not only would it open the doors through her harshest defenses, it would protect him in the process. If Aislen’s field responded to the sphere by going into resonance with it, Raze would own the truth.

  He easily slipped through the
jagged grid of protection she’d thrown around herself without so much as a flicker of resistance and Raze smiled with the first taste of validation.

  “I know who you are now,” Raze taunted Aislen in a telepathic sing-song, making no attempt to conceal himself.

  Aislen’s eyes opened wide. “Who are you?” she whispered.

  There was no mistaking it now; she could actually hear him and she began a slow retreat backwards.

  “Clairaudient, are we?” Raze said, as he continued stalking toward her. “You know, people who hear voices are considered crazy in this world. You better keep that to yourself.”

  “You aren’t my father.”

  “Well, you’re right about that. I am definitely not your father.” Raze laughed softly.

  What do you want from me?”

  “I just want to know you, Aislen—to know the truth about you. Once I know, then I can figure out what I am going to actually do with you. There’s nothing to be scared of...yet.”

  Aislen visibly shuddered, continuing to retreat until her back was pressed against the wall and she could go no further. The ultraviolet foundation of her signature bruised into a dark purple as fear turned to horror.

  “Stop!” she shouted loudly. Then looked to the door, possibly hoping her mother couldn’t hear. She looked back toward Raze and switched to telepathy. “Please, I’ll tell you anything you want to know!”

  Raze was taken aback. “My, my, you are a quick learner. I’m impressed. I really am. Not only can your mortal eardrums hear me, you speak without a tongue as well.”

  “I will,” she continued. “I’ll tell you everything I know—on one condition.”

  Raze snorted derisively. “That’s very sweet of you, but I can find out well and good all on my own, thank you. And, besides...I don’t negotiate.”

  The deep purple haze of her space warped and distorted as her fight-or-flight response ignited. Before she could make a run for it, Raze used his free hand and threw a cord of control at her, effectively roping her down and freezing her in her place.

  “Ah, ah ah...not so fast, sweet thing. I’m not done with you, yet.”

  Aislen looked toward his invisible presence, eyes like an insect trapped in a web. “Please,” her voice begged in his head. “I’ll do anything you want.”

  “Anything I want, huh? You have no idea how tempting that is. But unfortunately we have to do this my way.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes and her body began to tremble, frozen to the bone by terror. “Please—whatever you do to me, I don’t care. Just don’t hurt my mother. Leave her out of this. She doesn’t know anything.”

  “It’s okay, butterfly,” Raze said with a voice a smooth as honey. “If it makes you feel any better, I have no interest in your mother.” Raze took a final step toward her. “Nope. Just you. Only you. Oh! And your father, of course.”

  Aislen’s face blanched. She opened her mouth as if to say something, thought better of it and shut it again. But she didn’t have to say a word. Raze could read the truth all over her; her face, her body, her aura, all sang the truth. He was right. He knew it. But just for shits and giggles he decided to continue with his little experiment. There was no use wasting a perfectly good signal line.

  “Don’t be scared,” he said as he released the orb from his palm and slowly projected it deeper into her field. “This part shouldn’t hurt a bit.”

  He stepped back again to enjoy the show, watching as the orb floated forward, bursting each membrane of her aura like fragile soap bubbles as it penetrated the layers of her field.

  The sphere took on a brighter glow as it moved closer to her, morphing the hues of her field, breaking down and disintegrating the amethyst overtones and revealing her matching gold undertones. In but a moment, her entire field had spun into pure gold and pulsed in perfect synch with the sphere—exactly as Raze had suspected it would.

  Raze began to laugh, the rush of victory full upon him. This was his proof positive: Aislen was Preston Reed’s daughter. A priceless treasure, indeed.

  But his glory was short lived. A deep bass roared in the room, so loud that all four walls of the room creaked and snapped audibly. A brilliant beam of golden light serpentined from above Aislen’s head and down through her spine, grounding all the remaining high-band fear frequencies. Simultaneously, each energy center in her body burst open and showered the room in a deluge of liquid gold raindrops.

  Aislen closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath and Raze watched as her signature cycled down, down, down into the lowest levels. When it hit Theta, another loud percussion shook the room, sucking out all sound and flatlining all modulation. Aislen and Raze stood in a complete vacuum.

  Aislen took another breath and opened her eyes. They met his directly.

  “It’s you,” she said.

  Raze was speechless. She could see him! It was a rare medium that could physically see the unseen, but what happened next shocked him even more.

  A mirror image of Aislen stepped forward from her body, a ghostlike duplicate peeling away from her substance like a sheet of summer skin. The eidolon took two steps forward before Aislen realized what was happening. Both faces registered an identical look of surprise just before her flesh and bones collapsed in a faint at her gossamer feet.

  She glanced down at her crumpled shell, then looked back up at Raze. The gravitational forces around her amplified once again. Raze, once again tethered to her by an invisible rope, began moving uncontrollably toward her. Surprisingly, Aislen moved toward him as well. When their etheric bodies met in the middle of the room, both of their essences sizzled with the proximity, like fire meeting ice.

  Aislen raised a hand up as if to push him away, but Raze reached up and grabbed it. Their fingers met with an auriferous explosion and a shrill screech pierced the silence as their palms merged together as one.

  Before Raze could figure out what was happening, the golden orb exploded, opening into a huge aperture that filled the entire room. Aislen was ripped away from him into a gilded tunnel of light.

  The opening immediately collapsed into itself, vanishing from the room and leaving Raze standing alone with Aislen’s lifeless body on the floor.

  “Oh my god, I killed her.” It was the last thing he thought to himself before he was snapped backwards into his own vortex of pitch black.

  CHAPTER 36

  Mathis flopped down in the Lazy Boy. His fact-finding mission at Miss Walker’s house did not go down like he’d hoped—at all. He’d gone there to get some answers and, damn it, all he had was a shit-load more questions. And a phone number. Sabine’s number.

  Mathis reached into his pocket, pulled out the thin slip of paper and contemplated the neat and deliberate numbers. Maybe it wasn’t a complete loss. In fact, depending how he looked at it, it could have been the only reason to have gone there in the first place. What were the odds? Stray bits and random pieces of life all lined up in just right in order and handed him something he had been wishing for all along. Maybe that was the only thing that mattered.

  He pulled out his cell phone and carefully punched the numbers into his address book. The Great Whatever had gifted him with the digits. Now it was up to him. He needed to make sure he dialed the damn thing and asked the lady out.

  Of course, now was definitely not a good time. He’d basically just accused her daughter of being associated with a murder. She was probably wishing she’d never written down her digits after all that. It was certainly not going to get him very far. No, he would probably need to give it a few days before he called her. Even better, he really needed to get this murder shit solved. Sabine would be hell of a lot more open to having dinner with him if he could exonerate her daughter.

  But that may be easier said than done. Aislen Walker appeared to be a smart, upstanding, young lady, but she didn’t seem at all forthcoming with the truth. She may have been adamant in her claims of ignorance, her tone of voice and demeanor incredulous, but Mathis could see a certain know
ingness behind the eyes.

  Her only saving grace was that along with that bright glimmer of cognizance, was also a very healthy dose of fear. It wasn’t the type of fear that guilt brings when one’s about to get fingered. She was just plain ol’ scared. There was a difference.

  Mathis didn’t know what Aislen’s story was, but she definitely had a story to tell.

  He looked down at the obsidian game cube sitting on his living room carpet. It had stories to tell, too. Sure as shit, somewhere within that box and the world it created was an answer. And Mathis was going to go in and find it.

  He was a cop for Christ’s sake! A professional investigator, an expert interrogator. He was capable of squeezing some little, video game geek for the truth—and he didn’t need to give anybody any God-damn information to get it, either.

  Come hell or high water, Ichiban was going to give him the nitty-gritty and take him to that “place where the action happens.”

  Mathis snatched up the gun, slipped on the glove, and turned on The Q. He grabbed the visors and slid the shades over his eyes.

  It was game on.

  CHAPTER 37

  Raze fell wildly through the darkness, thrashing and churning in every direction. He no longer felt the distinct harness of the signal line that connected him to his body. The silvery thread that was ever attached to the viewer as they travelled was nowhere to be found around him. He was severed and disconnected from 3D. This was a bad sign.

  He was not traveling the signal line he’d created for Preston Reed either. A good signal line was a direct and instant pathway through space/time. There was no chaotic tossing hither, thither and yon in a clear line. Aislen had entered that signal line and Raze had been sucked into a wormhole of unknown origin and destination—a really bad sign.

  As Raze tumbled further through the melanoid tunnel, images began flashing across his mind. Snapshots, stills and animated clips replayed with a rapidity faster than light: the sterile palate of The Womb, all white and sterling silver; the rust red of the Golden Gate Bridge against the clear, azure sky; and the dry, ochre landscape of The Stratum. Faces appeared before him: Grant’s pasty mug as they walked through the halls of Infinium; the grim faces of The 8 hovering above him; Blake, the innocent; Blake, the corrupted; and Scott Parrish, dead in the gray ash.