Dream Static

by Robert S. Wilson

  "Oh, wow. Okay. Thank you for letting me know."

  "If it is Dream Static that you’re experiencing, you could eventually begin to remember things in a conscious state. We can discuss that some more at your next session."

  Angela nods, gets up and shakes Dr. Nolan's hand and, after getting her contact information and the two exchanging a few pleasantries, Dr. Nolan hands Angela a release form to give to her nurse.

  Though the situation is odd and she worries just who's behind the whole ICL business, Angela is too happy, too excited to let those things get in her way. She's getting out of this place. She's going to be free.

  She's going home.

  ***

  The sky looks at least three shades darker over the city as the Autocab takes Angela home. She recognizes many buildings and immediately notices how they've aged since she last saw them. She also notices new structures rising up to the sky like arms reaching for the heavens. She fights the urge to weep when she sees the smog line hanging just over the top of the Atlas building in the center of downtown. Twenty-two years that she could have been making a difference for the better had been wiped away just like that. That old part of her that wanted to change the world perked up inside and took hold of her heart. But this new Angela feels most things with a distant sort of numbness that keeps her guarded even from herself.

  For the first time in her life, though it is now her second chance, she feels a void of hope, a void of any sense of control or ability to change the vast landscape around her. She is too small now. Too small in too large of a world that has more than doubled in size since she was last in it.

  The condo comes into view above her, inviting in its familiarity. And yet, ominous too.

  She thanks the cabbie and gets out, just her and the clothes on her back. The Autocab zips off and she stands there alone staring up into the dim grayed glow of the sun seeping in through the clouds just over the roof of the building.

  ***

  The door opens just fine after scanning her left retina, just like always. She steps inside and looks around the living room. Everything is just as she remembers it the last time she had been here. All of her photo screens are still in place on the walls, family members smiling back at her through even more of a time warp than before. Some long gone now, others still so recently passed and even more recently to her. She walks around the room, trying to connect with that sense of home that it had once so easily snuggled her into. But it's cold now. Empty. Just another shell in a world without substance.

  She sits down on the black leather sofa and closes her eyes.

  "You could've told me they were letting you out, you know." Jordan's voice stops the air in Angela's lungs. She opens her eyes and there he is standing over her, that same broken, furious expression on his face.

  Chapter 8

  "What are you doing here, Jordan?" She hopes the fear isn't coming out in her voice.

  He turns away from her and paces around the room. "I thought about what you said, and I'm sorry, Ange, but you owe me more than that!" His feet stomp against the hardwood floor in rhythm with the emphasis of his voice. "Eh? Don't you think? Don't you think I deserve better?"

  Angela hides her clenched fists under her arms and stiffens, her body pressing more firmly to the couch. He's blocking the door and there's nowhere else she can run. She takes a long deep breath and decides to try and talk her way through this. And if he won't listen to reason, maybe she can distract him, get away long enough to...

  "I don't see it that way, Jordan. You definitely deserved better than the way I treated you, the things I did before. But I'm not that person anymore. I'm not even sure who I am now."

  Jordan's face grows more and more crimson with every word that comes out of her mouth.

  "Oh? You don't see it that way? Really? You fuck another man and now after all this time, I'm just supposed to understand that you're not the SAME?"

  Angela flinches as Jordan's voice echoes off the wall behind her. "I..."

  "You what?" He bends down, his eyes boring into hers and whispers, almost hisses, "You what?"

  "I'm sorry, Jordan. I'm so sorry." Tears stream down her face and although they're real, coming from sincere emotions, she's not letting them fall to relieve herself. His eyes soften and he stands and turns away.

  "I have to pee, Jordie. I'll be right back and we can talk about this some more, okay?" He doesn't answer, just stands there, trembling. Angela rises on shaky legs and walks as steadily as she can toward the bathroom. Once the door closes behind her, she locks it and takes a deep breath. When she manages to keep her breathing from one step above erratic, Angela sends out a message from her Synapath. She creeps over to the toilet and sits down, eyes locked on the crack beneath the door.

  The floor creeks and footsteps echo in from the hallway. "Angie? You there?"

  She squeezes her eyes shut, hands shaking in her lap, and holds her breath. The tips of his brown leather shoes press into the crack beneath the door. She can hear his breathing through the thick wood.

  Silence walls between them as the air grows heavy. "Honey, what's wrong? I'm sorry I lost my temper. It's been so long, and it was so awful finding out what you did and then you were gone and..."

  Something slow and writhing grows within the terror Angela’s struggling against.

  "Angie, please." There's a tinge of ice in his voice that she isn’t sure he meant to let out. "Angie, I don't want to hurt you but—" There’s a slam against the door from the outside and Jordan’s shoes scuff the floor.

  "But what?" A male voice. Deep, authoritative. It takes a minute for Angela to recognize it, to realize Jordan isn’t busting down the bathroom door to come after her.

  "Whoa, whoa, what's going on?" Jordan says.

  Sounds of a struggle muffle in from the hallway and then silence.

  "It's okay, Miss Bane, it's safe to come out now, I have everything under control."

  Angela opens the bathroom door. Jordan lies on the floor, his hands cuffed behind his back and Detective Maddox standing over him, flustered.

  "What the fuck is going on here?" Jordan yells.

  Angela has to hold back the fury threatening to claw out of her. She takes a deep breath. "Like you don't know, Jordan. Just what in the hell were you going to do?"

  "I wasn't going to hurt you. I just wanted to talk. I just wanted to make you understand. I didn't want to hurt you, I wanted you to understand."

  Maddox buds in, "Is that why you killed them?"

  Jordan’s head jerks up, sending a line of spittle into the air and across the floor. "What?"

  Maddox pulls him up to his feet. "You have a right to remain silent—"

  "What the fuck did I do? I didn't even do anything? I was just talking to—"

  "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law—"

  "Wait a minute, are you even listening to me?"

  "You have a right to an attorney—"

  "I... Angela, tell him! We were just talking—"

  "If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you..."

  ***

  "I'm afraid we don't have enough to hold him more than one night. But I have some tests going and some other queries I should be hearing back from soon."

  Angela nods. All around them police officers and various other people, from handcuffed criminals to business stiffs and the like, scatter about the precinct. "I don't even know what to think now. He was so angry and I remembered Dawson saying those words, 'He knows,' and I just panicked. And when he came to the door I was sure he was going to kill me until... until he started talking."

  "Angela, he was right up against that door ready to break it down. I heard him say, 'I don't want to hurt you but'—trust me, in my line of work when someone says something like that to a spouse or family member it's because they are about to hurt them."

  Angela sighs. "Yeah, I don't know what else he could have meant."

  "I think it's safe to say what
ever it was, it wasn't good. Look, I'm sorry it took me so long to get there."

  "No, don't be. You got there just in time. I need to get out of here, though. Could you take me home please?"

  "I’m not sure..."

  "Please... I just need to get out of here."

  "Why don’t I call you an autocab instead? I can cover the tab—"

  “Please…”Angela watches him for a long moment, waiting.

  “Okay. Give me about ten minutes to finish up some paperwork and then we can get going.”

  ***

  Maddox brings the car to a stop in front of Angela's building and the two sit in silence for a long time. Outside, billboards light up barely visible through the lowering smog. The night sky is pitch black and starless and Angela can't imagine sleeping in her bed alone tonight.

  "You want to come up for a drink or something?"

  Maddox looks over at Angela, his expression lost in thought. "I really should probably be going."

  "Please, Detective?"

  Maddox sighs, gives a curt, polite smile and then kills the engine. "Yeah, sure... why not? But please. Call me Johnny."

  The condo is just as alien to Angela as they enter. Just as alien as every movement she's made since Maddox arrested Jordan. It's as if a tether’s been holding her to her old life this entire time but now that tether has been cut and she is free to move forward. Without another thought she turns and puts her lips to Maddox's, pressing her tongue into his mouth and grabbing hold of his body and pulling it to hers. She feels the pressure of him against her and the return of his soft kiss then he pulls away, deliberately, suddenly.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Bane, I shouldn’t be… we shouldn’t be… I really have to go—”

  Chapter 9

  Angela lay on the concrete floor, Dawson's blood on her hands, when the man stepped forward, his face coming into full view. Something inside her unconscious body jerked as she realized she still couldn’t make out the man’s face. He stepped up to her, slowly reloading his weapon, smiling that same sinister smile as he had in her last dream. He laughed, "I’m not very happy with you, Miss Bane. You see, you and your boyfriend here have been sticking your noses in the wrong fucking place looking for this Nashville Bomber. It was starting to be a real problem. Well, I'm here to make sure the problem is solved." His grin grew and he lifted up the loaded gun and the last thing Angela saw was the dark cavernous hole in the barrel of the gun before everything flashed away into nothing.

  ***

  Angela wakes up sobbing and near to screaming, pushes herself up in the bed. That face. She still can’t make it out, but she knows now.

  It wasn't Jordan.

  Near to hyperventilating, Angela bursts up and struggles to put her clothes on.

  ***

  "All right, first thing's first, I need you to focus on the face you saw in your dream, can you picture it in your mind?" Maddox asks Angela in a calming voice.

  She nods. “Yeah, but it’s blurry…”

  "That’s okay, as soon as you have the memory clear in your mind, I need you to send it to my Synapath and I'll see what I can make of it, okay?"

  “Yeah, I appreciate it.” Angela sits up, still shaking, stares off in the distance.

  ***

  Angela sits at the kitchen table, hair everywhere, clothes in a mess on her body, trying once again to get a response from Jordan's Synapath.

  "Are you sure he got out this morning?"

  Maddox sets the coffee mug down in front of him and swallows. "Yeah, I'm sure. He should be back out on the street by now."

  Angela's face is contorted with emotions as she tries again.

  Maddox looks at the floor awkwardly. "Look, about last night—"

  “I’ve just…”—Angela reaches across the table and takes his hand in hers, Maddox doesn't pull away or object but his face flushes—“…been feeling so alone.” She pulls her hand away gently, tries to hide the flash of rejection that just pulsed through her. “But right now I just need to tell Jordan I’m sorry."

  Maddox looks at her, nods then takes another gulp of coffee.

  Angela gives a sad smile, face stained with tears and makeup and worry. After a while she comes back to the real world around her and looks up at him. "All right, I sent Jordan a message. Maybe when he cools down he'll read it." She sips her own coffee and takes a deep breath. “Will you promise me something?”

  Maddox sits quiet for a long moment. “Depends.”

  “Help me find the motherfucker.”

  He doesn’t speak at first, but when he does his words come out steady, careful. “Listen, Angela. I’m not even supposed to be working your case. I probably shouldn’t even be here.”

  “But you are here.”

  His shoulders droop, eyes downcast. “I am…”

  “All right then. It’s settled. We both want to find this guy, we both work together. Partners?” She reaches out her hand for Maddox to shake.

  He laughs. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Not even a little bit. What can you tell me about the Nashville Court Bomber?”

  ***

  Angela waits in Maddox's cruiser in the parking lot of the local station. She studies the cracks in the interior, the mess of papers on the passenger floorboard, follows the digital characters on the LCD with her fingers. Maddox walks up to the car, smiling. He gets in and closes the car door, starts the engine, stares forward for a long moment, savoring Angela's suspense.

  "Well?"

  "Well, I have it."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah."

  "Every last bit of it?"

  "I think so. But there's really no way to know for sure. We'll just have to take what we can get and hope something turns up."

  Angela nods. "I'm surprised you didn't have to get a court order or something."

  "Yeah, about that. I know a guy... Owes me a favor or two." He gives Angela a shy side glance and she grins.

  "Well, thank goodness for small favors."

  Maddox laughs, puts the car in gear. "Small. Right."

  "So, let's go take a look."

  ***

  Every note, every picture, every lead, every file that Dawson had stored on his Synapath sits, represented on Angela's wall screen by silver icons. She stands up close to the screen gesturing through files as Maddox sits back on the leather couch and puts his feet up on a matching footstool. "Maybe it would be easier if you searched by keyword."

  Angela turns and gives Maddox a death look. "You think?" Maddox raises his hands in a defensive gesture and Angela's frown melts into something like a smile. She turns and focuses on the screen and then the words, "Nashville Court Bomber" pop up on the screen and a progress wheel begins to turn.

  Searching...

  Strings of letters appear creating sentences and paragraphs and before long a huge list of files and folders sits in the results box.

  "Okay, looks like he has a number of files and folders with reference materials, news clippings, police statements, and what not, but I don't see anything here that looks like something Dawson found on his own."

  Maddox gets up and walks over to the screen and fingers down the list one item at a time. "Yeah, I remember a lot of these articles. Nothing original here, looks like. Let me try..." The search stops and a new one is initiated. "Leads."

  Searching...

  Searching...

  Searching...

  Searching...

  Searching...

  A single folder pops up in the results box: Leads.

  Angela and Maddox share a glance of excitement. The folder opens and a long list of files covers the entire screen then a scroll bar appears to the right and shrinks.

  "This may take some time." Maddox squints as he leans closer to the screen.

  ***

  Several hours and two hundred and eighty-seven files later, Angela steps away from the screen, exhausted, and collapses into the couch. "Maybe we should call it a night for now?"

 
Maddox continues poring over files, carefully notating potential candidates as he goes. "If you need to get some sleep, I can go and work on this at home."

  Angela looks up at him, thinking for a long moment. On one hand, she's afraid of being alone tonight, on the other, she doesn't want him to think she needs somebody to protect her... even if right now, she kind of maybe does.

  "Or you could just stay here, come to bed with me, or if you'd rather keep sifting through that mess tonight, you can do that too." She lets out a long sigh. "Listen... I don't want to come on too strong. I don't typically do this. It’s not like I’ve ever come back from the dead after twenty-two years and found myself at the center of a murder case before..." She looks away. "I like you. I don't want to be alone and everything is crashing down on me right now and I don't know how to deal with it all."

  Maddox stops what he's doing and stands there a long moment, taking in her words. "I know. I couldn't even hope to imagine what you're dealing with."

  "Stay then. I don't want to be alone tonight."

  Maddox gives a sheepish smile. "I will. But I think, if you don't mind, I'm gonna keep looking at this for a while and then I’ll sleep on the couch when I'm done..."

  Angela nods, gets up. "Goodnight," she calls out down the hall when she gets to the bedroom doorway.

  "Goodnight. Get some rest."

  Chapter 10

  Angela wakes up the next morning alone in her bed. The sense of disappointment mixes with an odd sense of relief and all the previous night's conversation comes flooding back. She feels so separate from the person she was before she was murdered, she often wonders to herself What would Angela do? The real Angela...

  She smiles.

  Right now Angela would have a hot cup of coffee.