The Empty Door

by E. R. Mason

The two lost travelers stood again at the top of the mirror ramp and stared apprehensively at their newest surroundings. They had emerged in still another SCIP lab. But this time Tel stood dutifully by the Drack computer and the droning hum of active power filled the room.

  “Oh, this is just great! We’re caught in some kind of loop,” Markman moaned. “Now every door leads to another lab.”

  Cassiopia ignored him and studied the room. “No, this is real.” She marched down from the ramp and leaned over the Drack station.

  “But how can you be sure?”

  “I know what happened. I was already worried it might. We went through a false SCIP door in the desert. The real one must have been nearby, probably right behind it. We wanted to see the door so badly; we must have created a false one with our subconscious thought. The false door took us to a new Dreamland reality, and since the SCIP system was still on, the real mirror appeared there also.”

  “Oh—sure. Of course. Well, now that that’s clear,” Markman grumbled. He opened his mouth to argue when the robot interrupted.

  “Cassiopia, your departure time approached SCIP limitations. During your absence, there were intrusions in the upper areas.”

  “This is it, everything’s fine,” she said, still absorbed by the display monitors. “Tel shut down the system.”

  Tel moved to the Drack and began entering codes to power down the hot transformer electronics. Markman came up beside and touched her on the arm. “Did he just say someone broke in here?”

  Cassiopia looked back at the robot. “Tel, when did the intrusion occur?”

  “Audible noise not associated with automatic household functions began at fifteen hundred Zulu and continued until fifteen-thirty Zulu.”

  “And do you detect anything or anyone in the upstairs right now?”

  “No evidence of unusual activity has been detected since fifteen-thirty Zulu.”

  “Mr. Markman, did you close the entrance to the lab when you came down?”

  He nodded, “You know me, security nut, remember?”

  “We’d better go up and have a look.”

  “How about if I go up and have a look, okay? It’s more my line of work, remember? Besides, I haven’t been killed or even in a fight for at least half an hour. I’m really starting to miss it, as you know.”

  Cassiopia placed her hands on her hips and huffed as she watched him leave.

  Cautiously he climbed the ladder and searched the house. There were obvious signs of intrusion in two of the upstairs rooms. Cassiopia’s bedroom had been partially ransacked. Various items from the closet had been emptied onto the floor, drawers were left open, and the bedspread was ruffled as though someone had been jumping on it. The contents of her purse had been poured out onto the bureau, but her wallet and money remained. Markman found himself confused by it. It looked more as though an ill-behaved child had been exploring than a burglar at work.

  The kitchen had a similar trail of disarray. The refrigerator door had been left open and strawberry ice cream was spilled across the hardwood floor. Chairs were overturned. A few dishes were broken. Hastily he completed his brief tour and returned to the lab. Cassiopia turned in her seat as he entered. “Are you absolutely sure we’re back?”

  “Yes, why do you ask that? What did you find?”

  “Someone was upstairs alright, but it doesn’t make any sense. It looks like the only thing they took was ice cream!”

  “They broke in to steal ice cream?”

  “That’s another thing. Nobody broke in. There’s no sign of forced entry. It had to be someone with a key to the back door.”

  “Or a professional, like a locksmith, right?”

  “Professionals rarely go for the ice cream,” he said, as he walked over to study the dormant SCIP doorway.

  Cassiopia guessed what he was thinking. “No way,” she insisted. “No one except my father could have come out of there.”

  “And how can you be so sure of that? Isn’t it possible someone or something could have? It’s a two-way door, isn’t it?”

  “Tel, has anyone or anything besides Mr. Markman or myself come through the SCIP transformer since Dr. Cassell left?”

  “There have been no other excursions of any kind observed.”

  “And that’s not the only reason I know nothing could have come out of there,” Cassiopia added and swiveled in her chair to look at him.

  “It’s about time you filled me in, wouldn’t you say?”

  Cassiopia hesitated. She rose from her seat by the Drack and went to Tel, touching it lightly on the chest plate. Markman took her seat and slumped back, waiting for answers.

  She stared affectionately at the loyal robot. “He was the first to go in you know. It’s why my father acquired him. My father hates doing trivia, but he’s not careless. He was afraid to go through the SCIP door himself, so somehow he got this TEL. I’m not sure I want to know how, but, of course, Tel was the perfect candidate. It made five trips inside before my father even considered going.”

  Pausing to take a deep breath, she pulled a stool up and sat next to Markman, facing him, with the robot waiting alongside. “It’s another dimension, Mr. Markman. My father’s eccentric theories were unbelievably accurate. He’s opened a door to a place no one knew existed.”

  “It’s a two-way door,” repeated Markman.

  “There is nothing of substance in Dreamland. Nothing goes in there but what you take with you, and so nothing can come out.”

  “Really? Then nothing grabbed you by the arm and intended to take you by force.”

  Cassiopia felt a chill as she remembered the seriousness of the recent incident. “Yes, and I believe that probably could have happened, except...,” she left the remainder unspoken. “It was a nightmare, but that’s all it was.”

  “Starting to lose me.”

  “Dreamland is what we make it. It forms itself out of our subconscious. Somehow, when we enter, our presence influences the formation of the environment. That’s why my father nicknamed it Dreamland.”

  “Are you trying to say that your father has opened a door to the place where we dream? I mean, you’re saying that dreams happen in a real place?”

  “Certainly not real by our standards, but if I’m correct, yes, that’s a fairly accurate description. Everything you’ve seen there is generated by subconscious thought. My father calls it ‘thought-matter,' and when we went through together, a common environment resulted. Nothing there has substance. Subconscious thought cannot manifest in our world, only in there. That’s why nothing could have come out of that door but us. Even the tape recordings I made are blank, and I’m already sure the film is exposed and useless. Until now there was only one way into Dreamland, and that was sleep. My father has changed that.”

  “I have to tell you; I know something about the realm of dreams. What you’re saying doesn’t exactly fit. And what about the sword strike that should have killed me?”

  “Nothing in Dreamland could harm us, except maybe emotionally. The attack on you frightened us so badly that a new, scenario formed, just as if you had actually had a bad dream.”

  Markman pondered the absurdity of her theory. He sat up and leaned toward her. “Show me one thing that proves what you just said. Give me just one example of how it works.”

  She smiled knowingly. “That’s easy. How about if we start right at the beginning—that first time you went in. Just before you so carelessly went through the door looking for me, what were you thinking? ”

  Markman leaned back and looked at her with skepticism. He sat quietly for a moment and remembered. “I was angry with you. I thought you were the one that had gone through. I tromped around here until I couldn’t stand it anymore, and then went after you.”

  “Yes, but what were you thinking during that time?”

  “That people will walk all over you if you let them. That I should have taken a real job in Long Island instead of freelancing.”

  “Long Island? You mean New Yo
rk?”

  A look of shock came over Markman. “I was thinking of New York!”

  “And what was that about people walking all over you? Could it have been, running all over you?”

  Markman nodded. “Maybe it was. I thought of that twice. Once before I went through, and then again just after I went into the alley. That’s incredible. Things I was thinking did happen in there. That’s unbelievable!”

  “In Dreamland, Mr. Markman, you must be careful what you wish for. You may very likely get it.”

  “What about the rest of it. The carnival, the desert, the forest?”

  “All things from within us. Symbolisms, secret wishes, inner fears. The possibilities are endless.”

  “So I guess your father is lost in there, like we might have been if the homing beacons had failed.”

  “A frightening thought, isn’t it. I’m still not sure the homing beacons were really functional.”

  “They worked, didn’t they?”

  “We believed they worked, and that may have been the only reason they did. Were we to go in doubting them, they may not work next time.”

  “And can you tell how big the place is? How much area is there to search?”

  “That’s another thing.” She turned and addressed the robot. “Tel, what dimensions have been recorded on your excursions into Dreamland?”

  “No perceivable boundaries of any kind were recorded in Dreamland. Professor Cassell’s analysis indicates a finite, but boundless area of manifestation.”

  “Definitely lost now...,” quipped Markman.

  “It’s quite an old theory, applied to several different aspects of the universe, Mr. Markman. As the theory goes, if you walk in a straight line long enough in such a place, you will wind up back where you started.”

  “So then, what’s that make the chances of finding your father?”

  “A moment hasn’t gone by that I haven’t thought about that. We must find him quickly. I don’t think someone lost in Dreamland could survive long. If you managed to find food or water, it wouldn’t be real. You would think you had eaten, but be just as hungry as when you started. But there may actually be a way to find him,” said Cassiopia and she eyed him suspiciously.

  “Oh boy, here it comes.”

  Cassiopia smiled. “I think there might be a way to control what environment forms in Dreamland—that is if you’re willing to give it a try.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “It’s quite simple actually. I want to implant an idea in your subconscious that will manifest itself when we enter Dreamland.”

  “You want to what?”

  “Hypnosis, Mr. Markman, subconscious suggestion.”

  “How would you do it?”

  “It would be a simple procedure, using a mild hypnotic. The subconscious suggestion would be activated by a keyword before you went through the door.”

  “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You want to drug me, mess with my mind, and then send me back in there.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t interpret things so...so radically, Mr. Markman.”

  “By the way, that’s another thing. What was it you called me after our little adventure with Lawrence of Arabia?”

  “I don’t understand, what do you mean?”

  “Oh come on. You must remember. When you thought I was blocking sword strikes with my head, there were a couple of times there when I was no longer ‘Mr. Markman’. What was it you called me?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “But you do want me to be your guinea pig?”

  Cassiopia balked. “Um, do you mean; did I address you by your first name or something?”

  “And that was?”

  “...Scott?”

  “Just wanted to hear you say it again, that’s all.”

  Chapter 17