5

by James Phelan

  He got a sparring dummy out of the equipment room.

  Over the next half hour, he worked through a series of throws, escapes, take downs, reversals and joint locks. He worked, moving fast and furiously, stopping only when his body ached and he felt as though he could now have a shower and sleep soundly.

  “You’re pretty handy against an opponent who can’t fight back,” a voice said.

  Sam spun around, alarmed, searching the shadows.

  Stepping from the darkness at the end of the stairs, a familiar figure emerged. He had a scruffy beard and dishevelled hair, and he was the most welcome sight Sam could imagine.

  “Tobias!” Sam said, running over to hug his old teacher and friend. “Where have you been?”

  “Here and there,” Tobias said.

  “He was on a mission for me …” the Professor said, entering the room. “And he’s back to embark on another.”

  “Another?” Sam said, his voice crestfallen. “You have to go again?”

  “Yes,” Tobias said, “with you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” Tobias said. “Change of plans. We’re leaving now, under the cover of darkness, to head for Japan.”

  “Where’s Lora? Is she ready?”

  “Sam, we think it would be best if we changed the details of your dream,” the Professor said. “Instead of travelling with you to Japan, Lora will remain here. There are important preparations to make before the Four Corners Competition. Tobias will now accompany you—he has contacts in Japan.”

  “So we run away during the night?” Sam said. He looked from Tobias to the Professor, seeing that the decision had already been made. “Does Lora even know?”

  “No.” The Professor looked pained as he spoke. “Sam, you are always being cornered and captured wherever you go by enemies who seem to be aware of our plans,” the Professor said. “We need to take every precaution we can—even here.”

  “You’re not suggesting Lora is …”

  “Of course not,” Tobias said. “We just need to change things up. It can’t hurt to catch everyone by surprise, even if that includes a few of our own people.”

  “OK,” Sam said, seeing sense in the plan, but still feeling somewhat disloyal to Lora. “How soon do we leave?”

  Tobias grinned and handed Sam his backpack, which Sam had packed hours earlier and left by his room door in readiness. “Now.”

  “Can I say goodbye to the others?”

  Tobias chuckled and said, “That kind of defeats the purpose of us slipping off secretly, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, right …” Sam said. He changed his Stealth Suit’s appearance from the jujitsu outfit into dark-coloured street clothes. The three of them climbed the stairs and stopped outside the main doors of the gymnasium. Four Guardians stood, guns drawn, next to two sleek sports cars.

  “Our ride to the airport,” Tobias explained.

  “Nice,” Sam said.

  “Goodbye, Sam, until next time.” The Professor shook Sam’s hand and then pointed to Sam’s hair. “This all the rage these days?”

  “Ah, yeah, you could say that,” Sam said.

  “Well, you be careful out there,” the Professor said. “And stay close to Tobias.”

  “Will do,” Sam said as he headed for the nearest car. He stopped and turned around. “Oh, one more thing, Professor? What’s the championship you mentioned?”

  “That, Sam,” the Professor said, “is probably the only chance we have of finding the Gears that Solaris has taken from us.”

  10

  Sam boarded the Boeing 787 with Tobias. They were directed to their seats in economy class.

  “No private jet this time, huh?” Sam said, buckling in. When he looked across at Tobias he laughed—his disguise was hilarious. Tobias was wearing a thick moustache, large square glasses, and his Stealth Suit was transformed into an old-fashioned brown suit.

  “Just blending in with the masses, Master Hawks,” Tobias said, referring to Sam’s false name on his false passport—John Hawks. Tobias’ own passport was in the name of Peter Hawks, John’s uncle, Tobias had explained.

  “Blending in?” Sam laughed. “With what decade?”

  Tobias rolled his eyes and pretended to take offence.

  “And when we touch down in Tokyo?” Sam asked, this time in a whisper.

  “We’ll go to the gaming tournament to find Issey,” Tobias replied quietly. “It’s on tonight, and we’re on the guest list.”

  “Of course we are,” Sam said. “But I won’t need to convince Issey that he’s a Dreamer and part of the prophecy?”

  “No, not this time. Well, not completely,” Tobias replied, as the aircraft began taxiing to the runway. “Issey’s Enterprise parents have been quite open about who they are, much like Cody’s parents were with him.”

  “Open? I didn’t think the Enterprise would allow that, you know, especially with how they used to be at the start of all this.” Sam thought of his own surrogate parents.

  “Well, I don’t think it was the recommended course of action, but it doesn’t seem to have been forbidden. In any case, Issey knows all about Dreamers and true dreams. Although his parents have not been informed by us that he’s one of the last 13. We couldn’t risk alerting them ahead of time just in case. That will be down to you.”

  “Well, it’s an advantage not to have to start at the very beginning,” Sam said, tightening his belt for takeoff. “I found that out with Arianna. I wonder how Issey will take it?”

  “Oh, something tells me he’s going to take it just fine.”

  Sam sat back in silence as the aircraft took off, the force pushing him back in his seat. He was tired now, his eyes heavy, finally wanting to sleep.

  Sam startled.

  “Sam?”

  He looked across to Tobias, who had his reading light on and was sitting there next to him with a book open and a cup of coffee curling steam around them. The window shade was half-open and the sun shone brightly outside.

  Sam stretched out, yawning. He still felt wrecked. “How long was I out?”

  “For a few hours.”

  “I was so tired. Still am …” Sam looked around the dimly lit cabin. Most of the other window blinds were down and nearly everyone was still asleep. “I was just thinking back. I was watching a scene play back, just like when Jedi records it. Reliving it. That’s happened before.”

  “That’s how your dreaming works, when you’re steering it,” Tobias replied, sipping his coffee. “You’re learning, even without lessons.”

  “But—I wasn’t steering anything,” Sam said. “I was just thinking back to when I was in Russia, a tiny moment.”

  “You went back and saw things from a different perspective,” Tobias replied. “Soon you’ll be doing that more and more—just as you have your dreams of the last 13 that turn out to be real, after this race you will have everyday dreams where you are able to see things from any vantage point, well before they actually happen.”

  Sam nodded, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and clearing his mind. He pressed the call button for the flight attendant. A friendly man in a crisp uniform came quickly. “A coffee please, and maybe some cookies?”

  The attendant nodded and left.

  “I’m done with sleep for a while,” Sam said to Tobias, who chuckled and folded away his glasses and book.

  “Fine,” Tobias replied. “Then I will teach you what I know about dream steering for the next few hours. But be warned, just like my science classes back at school, you may just be bored back to sleep.”

  They chuckled and Sam listened as his old teacher spoke of dreams and Dreamers who had achieved so much, and the art and science of steering dreams.

  Sam and Tobias drove through the streets of Tokyo in a rental car.

  Tobias looked anxious. Jedi had sent a message saying that Stella’s Agents had been seen in Japan. “It would seem that our stealthy departure was not as effective as we would have hoped it to be,” he said.
>
  “At least we have people watching over Issey, though,” Sam said.

  “True, the Guardians following him are good,” Tobias said. “But they’re still only twelve people.”

  “How does Stella always seem to know? No matter what we do?” Sam asked, exasperated.

  Tobias shrugged. Sam could tell by his distant look that he was turning the question over in his head.

  “So what’s our plan?” Sam asked after a while.

  “Same as before. We go to the tournament and we get Issey out.”

  “And if it’s not that easy?”

  “Well, let’s hope it is. Then again, if it was easy, there’d be no fun in it, right?”

  “Yeah, I know,” Sam said laughing at his attempt to lighten the mood. “But seriously though, how am I going to get him to just walk away from such a big moment? Not to mention the million-dollar prize and the sports car.”

  “For Issey, it’s all a game,” Tobias said, slowing the car as the traffic began to back up on the highway. “He’s been aware of Dreamers his whole life. He’ll understand what you’re telling him. It’s just making him understand the urgency.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see,” Sam said, watching the bright lights of the big city all around. “And you’re sure we can’t just call the Guardians to get him out?”

  “No. If Stella’s men are on the move, it’s better if the Guardians are watching out for that,” Tobias said.

  “OK,” Sam said, watching Tokyo flit past outside the window, all lights and ads and people everywhere. “Aren’t you tired?”

  “I’ll sleep well when all this is over,” Tobias said. “I’ve been tired for years, why worry about it now?”

  There was a long silence. “I don’t like the idea of failure,” Sam admitted, absently gazing at the tall buildings as they drove by. “All that could go wrong. If I fail today, or tomorrow—or at the end.”

  “Focus on what can go right, and what you can do in this moment,” Tobias said. “If we let the possibility of failure stop us from even trying, then nothing would ever get achieved.”

  “Yeah, I know …”

  “Self-doubt is normal, Sam, and in some ways it can be a good thing,” Tobias said. “It keeps it real—isn’t that what you kids say?”

  Sam laughed. “No, I don’t think we do! But I know you’re right,” he said.

  11

  ALEX

  Alex and Shiva had rested, neither sleeping soundly.

  Alex woke first and looked at his wrist in a panic, but the wrist bomb was just as they’d left it, the cover off, the anti-tamper mechanism rerouted with wire, the red and blue wires from the detonator to the explosive still there, taunting them.

  Great.

  Alex stood up. “OK, OK, we have to do this, so let’s do it.”

  Shiva snorted awake. “Excellent. OK, I’m ready. Get the clippers.”

  “Here,” Alex said, passing them over and pacing on the spot, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he worked up the courage. “So, we said cut the blue wire, right? We’re agreed on that?”

  “I’m pretty sure we said red,” Shiva said, the clippers open in his hand.

  “What? No, like ages ago, we talked about it, right? We agreed blue.”

  “Ages ago I wasn’t captive in an unknown apartment, imprisoned by my former boss who’s since turned into an arch criminal hell-bent on taking over the Dreamscape.”

  Alex swallowed hard and nodded. “OK, fine, but not that ages ago. But, ah … hey, wait—why are we doing this to my wristband?”

  “Huh?”

  “Yeah, I mean, why can’t we start with yours?” Alex said.

  “Because … I can’t remember,” Shiva said. “But we already spent a few hours disassembling yours and pulling out the wiring, so let’s stick to the plan, OK?”

  “OK. Wait—we had a plan?”

  “Yeah, the blue wire,” Shiva replied.

  “Right. No, you said red before!” Alex said.

  “Blue, I meant blue. You said blue, we agreed on blue. Ages ago. Right?”

  “Right. I mean, I—I don’t know. Maybe we should wait?” Alex faltered.

  “Good idea. But wait for what, Christmas?” Shiva said. “For the battery in the mechanism to conk out?”

  “Will it?” Alex was hopeful.

  “Sure. Might take a year or two, though, like a watch battery,” Shiva replied.

  “Oh.” Alex looked around the bare apartment. “Hey, you know what, how about a drink break? Yeah? Maybe a snack?”

  “Relax, Alex. We’ll get this, no problem. One wire, one cut.”

  “What if it’s the wrong wire?”

  “Then the timer will start.”

  “A five-minute countdown?” Alex asked.

  “Five minutes,” Shiva said.

  “Then boom?”

  “Then boom.”

  “Great, just great.” Alex wiped sweat from his forehead. “Then we could just cut the other?”

  “No. That would detonate it immediately,” Shiva said.

  “Oh, right.”

  Shiva shifted, raising the clippers. “OK, man, I’m cutting—”

  “Wait!”

  “What?”

  Alex sat down next to Shiva, his face pained, his breathing short and sharp.

  “We do need a plan,” he said. “We got it this far, now let’s plan. If we cut the wrong wire, the timer starts. We need a plan B for that. Like, think about it—where do we go?”

  “To Matrix. He’s got the reset code.”

  “Right. How on earth do we find him?” Alex asked. “He could be anywhere!”

  “I bet I know just where he is,” Shiva smiled.

  “You do?” Alex asked.

  “Yep, he’s got a secret workshop and he’d need his equipment to work on the coils so it makes sense that he’d move them there,” Shiva said.

  “Great. Where’s that?”

  “It’s a disused subway station, downtown, in the financial district. He doesn’t know I know about it but I came across it in his files once. You know, when I was browsing …”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yep, it’s actually perfect. There’s still power from the subway grid running through it, which he’ll need for the coils.”

  “How far away is it?” Alex asked.

  Shiva attempted to calculate their current location from the tiny speck they could see of the blacked-out window—a sliver of Central Park.

  “My guess would be about sixty blocks south,” Shiva said.

  “Right,” Alex said. “Good. So plan B is that we go to him.”

  “In under five minutes,” Shiva said, his voice downbeat.

  “Is that not doable?” Alex hesitated.

  “Have you got a magic carpet? Or, better yet, a teleportation device?”

  “Hmm, let me check,” Alex stood and made a show of patting down his pockets. “Should be somewhere here … nope, you know what, I’m all out of those.”

  “Shame. Never around when you need them, right?”

  “Right. Let’s see … something fast. What about a cop car?”

  “Sixty blocks south in any car in Manhattan? Take a while. Longer than five minutes.”

  “It’s well after rush hour,” Alex said, looking out the window’s peek hole and seeing a bright day. “And we could use the siren.”

  “Even running every red light we’d hit a jam someplace. Cop car’s no good. How’d we steal one of those anyway?”

  “Right, forget that …” Alex sat back down. Then, panic spread over his face.

  “What is it?” Shiva asked.

  Alex’s face pinched, his eyes closing tight.

  Then he sneezed.

  A huge, violent sneeze. His whole body shook with the force.

  They looked down at the wristband. A wire had come loose from the timer mechanism.

  The red wire.

  The device did not explode.

  “Sweet!”

  “No …�
�� Shiva said, turning over the face of the wristband.

  The face showed the countdown had begun.

  4:59

  4:58

  4:57

  12

  SAM

  The tournament arena was exactly as Sam dreamed it, right down to the paparazzi pushing and shoving with camera flashes popping every second.

  Sam waited nervously for Issey and his entourage to arrive. When the limo car door swung open and Issey stepped out, he wore his best media smile but his eyes were searching, sweeping the faces in the crowd. Sam waved to him, hopelessly lost in the throng, but as soon as Issey saw him, there was a flash of recognition in his eyes. He turned to his assistant and within moments, Sam was waved through and found himself on the red carpet.

  “Issey, I’m Sam,” Sam said, thrusting out his hand.

  Issey clasped his hand and whispered in his ear, “I’ve been expecting you, Sam. It’s amazing to meet you. Now, smile for the cameras!”

  Issey navigated the photographers with well-practised ease and soon they were safely inside the roped-off area and able to speak freely.

  When Sam explained to Issey about why he’d come, Issey took it as well as Tobias had predicted.

  “No way! I dreamed of you, Sam, but I didn’t know what that meant. Me? Part of the prophecy!” Issey exclaimed.

  “It’s true,” Sam said.

  “No way! Like, no way!”

  “Well, yes, way,” Sam said.

  Issey jumped up into the air in excitement. “Sugoi! I mean, how cool is that?”

  “It’s pretty cool,” Sam said. “Though perhaps not quite as much as you’re thinking it is. It’s quite dangerous—”

  “I love danger!” He turned around, and pointed with his thumbs over his shoulders to the back of his leather jacket. It read:

  TEAM DANGER

  “Yeah, I don’t think you’re quite getting the level of danger that I mean,” Sam said, and he opened his jacket to reveal the grip of the dark pistol tucked into his belt.

  “Awesome! Is that, like, real?”

  “Yes—”

  “Can I have one?”

  “Well, maybe, but like I said, this thing we have to do, it’s quite dangerous—”