by Gareth Otton
A lot has happened between now and then, my boy, Charles’ voice said in his head.
The Prime Minister looked about as shocked as Tad felt. He blinked a few times as he clearly hadn’t been expecting that, then sighed.
“Alright, I think somehow we’ve—”
Before he could finish there were two abrupt pops and Tad felt the usual tingling of Dream. He didn’t even want to look, but sure enough he discovered two puppies had appeared from nowhere and each were looking for attention.
“What’s this?” Norman asked, stunned.
“Sorry,” Tad said, quickly grabbing the little creatures who were animatedly sniffing their way around the room. “We couldn’t figure out how to get them to stop following us. I thought tying them up might work, but… well… obviously not. Frankly, I’m out of ideas.”
“Did they just dreamwalk here?” Amelia asked, and for the first time Tad had the pleasure of seeing her looking stunned.
“It’s why we’ve had so much trouble getting them to stay behind. I imagine there’s a third one driving Jen’s teachers crazy right now. But what can we do? They’re dreamwalkers and I can’t think of a way to stop them following us.”
“Dreamwalking dogs?” Norman asked, every bit as stunned as his aide.
“Yes,” Tad and Stella said together.
As soon as Stella spoke Freckles rushed over to her, immediately jumping up her leg and making it clear he wanted a seat in her lap. Begrudgingly giving in, she pulled the puppy into her lap but kept her attention on the Prime Minister.
“Tad found them yesterday,” she explained. “We never intended to bring them here.”
“Dreamwalking dogs?” The Prime Minister asked again, hung up on that fact.
“Yeah, it was news for us too,” Tad said as he collected his puppy. “I’m trying to get them back with their rightful owners, but they’ve started following us around. You want to hold one?” he offered, holding out the puppy towards Amelia who twitched like she was about to accept before shaking her head.
The Prime Minister just stared for a few more seconds, then erupted with laughter.
“Just sit down, Tad, please.” He cleared his through to get control of himself. “I think this meeting got off to a bad start. Can someone please just tell me what happened yesterday and why we weren’t ready for that nightmare?”
“I thought we were ready but—” Stella started.
“No one ever expected something this big,” Tad interrupted, coming to her defence before she gave the Prime Minister exactly what he was looking for, a person to blame. “The dragons were the biggest thing we’ve dealt with until now, but this was nature turning against us on a massive scale. The destruction it did as soon as it started was beyond imagining.”
“Well, there’s a coastal village missing right now and people don't want to hear that as an excuse,” Norman said. “It will hardly inspire trust, Holcroft. Remember, that’s what we’re going for here. I thought after what Ryan told you yesterday, you’d have a more firm grasp on that by now.”
“You spoke with Ryan yesterday?” Stella asked, and Tad didn’t need to look to know what her expression would be.
What’s wrong with me? Why do I keep forgetting to tell her these things?
“Tad pulled him out of an active war zone yesterday,” Norman answered, throwing Tad under the bus. “He was in Afghanistan confirming rumours we’ve heard about the Americans recalling pre-committed assets. We’ve also heard that military recruitment is on the up. Basically, it’s confirmation that they’re gearing up for something big.
“And that’s just the Americans. I don’t want to tell you the news from Russia and China. We’re sitting on the brink of World War Three, yet here we can’t even get a handle on one nightmare.”
“Just one little nightmare?” Tad questioned, his temper rising.
“I never said little.”
“No, but you’re thinking it. Have you even seen the footage? What the hell were we supposed to do against that?”
“I have no idea, that’s what you’re paid for,” Norman snapped, losing his cool again. “I have to give a press briefing later and they’ll ask what the hell I’m paying you for if you can’t keep us safe from one little storm.”
Tad opened his mouth to respond, but he wasn’t the only one in the room who didn’t like the Prime Minister’s tone. The puppy sitting on his lap growled. The sound sucked the tension from the room as all eyes turned to the bundle of fur who was looking at the Prime Minister like one of the rabbits he was chasing in Dream.
Tad stroked the little guy to calm him and the following silence gave Stella the opportunity to speak and salvage some of this meeting.
“Look. I get that you’re facing a lot of pressure, but last night was beyond us. We weren’t prepared for something like that, and that’s on me. But you have to be reasonable. Who the hell could have been prepared for that?” Stella asked. “So far we’ve stopped everything that’s come at us. It’s been a combination of working together, thinking outside the box, and expecting the unexpected. Last night was instant destruction and there was just nothing anyone could do. Hell, I nearly died trying to stop it.”
“People won’t want to hear that,” Amelia pointed out.
The Prime Minister slumped in his seat. “No, they won’t. But I get your point. So what do we tell people? We can’t just tell them this was too much for us or it will terrify people.”
“Why not?” Tad asked.
“I just said—”
“I know, fear. But is this any worse than what might happen in an earthquake, or a tsunami, or floods, or whatever?”
“Those are different,” Amelia explained. “They’re uncontrollable acts of nature. There’s no one to blame.”
“The same is true here,” Tad said. “Just because someone’s nightmare started that uncontrollable act of nature, doesn’t mean we need to accept any more blame. If people ask why we weren’t prepared, ask them why no one has figured out how to stop earthquakes. Then point out just how many people could have died if we didn’t intercede and mention all the lives we did save. The vast majority of the deaths happened before Stella’s team arrived. As for other countries being able to use this against us, well, I don’t see how anything would have gone different if they were here to help. It’s one thing if there’s a monster their military could intervene with, but it’s something else when it’s a natural disaster.”
Norman was silent as he processed that, then looked at Amelia who for the second time in this meeting looked stunned.
“That might work,” she begrudgingly admitted, before looking at Tad with what on her amounted to amazement.
“Don’t get too excited, he does this from time to time,” Stella said. “He’s so ignorant of how things work that he just looks at it differently to everyone else. While your brain was set to spinning things in our favour, his brain was asking why can’t people just accept the truth? He’s not nearly as brilliant as you think he is right now.”
“Hey,” Tad protested.
Looking him in the eye, Stella answered with only four words. “Afghanistan. Active war zone.”
“Oh.”
Shaking her head like she couldn’t believe him, Stella turned back to the suddenly more animated Prime Minister whose customary smile was returning.
“Okay, we can work with this,” he admitted. “However, I still want to talk about what we can do to mitigate the losses should something like this happen again. What have you got in mind?”
“We’re still looking for investigators who would hopefully help find dreamers in real time. At the least we’ll be looking for the dreamer after the fact to stop repeat performances. I already have people on this, but I’m lacking staff in that area at the moment.”
“Why, you’ve had months.”
“It’s been pointed out that I’ve been a little picky. I’ll have Denise make it a priority.”
“Do that,” Norman answered. “I wa
nt to hear good news by the end of the week. What about dreamwalkers, could we use more of those?”
“Always,” Stella said. “But that’s a harder ask. We’ve made it clear we’re want more dreamwalker help, they just need to come forward.”
“Surely you could help with that,” Norman said, looking directly at Tad. “You could convince them to—”
Tad cut him off.
“We’ve been over this so many times it’s getting insulting. I’m not forcing anyone to do something they’re not comfortable with. I have made it clear that we need help, but I have also left it open to them to decide whether they’ll offer it.”
“That’s not good enough,” Norman demanded. “Give me a list of names and I’ll do the asking if you don’t want to—”
“I already said, that’s a nonstarter. The only reason I have met the dreamwalkers who have come forward is because I promised to protect their anonymity. You won’t win any of them to our cause by putting their names in a database and hounding them with government assets.”
“Then what do we do, Tad? Because you and me keep getting stuck on this point. We need more dreamwalkers, and you won’t help.”
“I’m already doing all I can. I’m providing them a place to meet weekly so I can help with problems and earn their trust. I’m also telling them of the work we do, of how important that is, and trying to get them to come work with us. But people are just too afraid of coming forward.”
“What do they have to be afraid of?” Amelia asked. “If you or the three we already have are anything to go by, they’ll be met with instant fame and adoration.”
“It’s not all fun and glory,” Tad said. “Putting aside the dark side to notoriety, there are a lot of people out there who hate dreamwalkers. These protests, these Children of ADaM… Then there’s people who just don’t know what to think about us. A lot of dreamwalkers aren’t willing to risk coming out to their communities. Finally, there’s the physical danger, people looking to kill them. Have you heard about the killings in America?”
“Killings?” Stella asked in a tone that made Tad wince. He was due another talking to about not telling her things after this meeting.
“It was a topic in last night’s meeting. Dreamwalkers are being murdered in America. Each time it happens, they burn the home of the dreamwalker down and there are strange symbols found at the scene.”
“Symbols?” Stella asked. “Like a ritual? Like what King was doing?”
“No,” Tad said. “They’re not trying to open a new Dream Gate or the deaths would be in the same place. King never needed that sacrificial table or a ritual, he just needed to kill Dreamwalkers in the same spot over and over, weakening the barriers.”
Turning back to the Prime Minister, Tad said, “I’ve promised I’ll look into these. Is there any way you can help with that?”
“You’ve got to be kidding. We’re talking about how you’re already overwhelmed and how America is getting more aggressive, and now you want to take time out to go over there and investigate murders. Absolutely not,” Norman argued.
“It would go a long way towards recruiting dreamwalkers,” Tad said. “We help solve those murders, make it safer for them to come forward, and we’ll show they can trust us.”
“I’m not buying it,” Norman said. “Keep your nose out of America. We don’t need to give them another reason to hold something over us.”
“But dreamwalkers are dying—”
“British people are dying faster,” the Prime Minister snapped. “Including your team members. We lost over forty lives last night and it’s likely we’ll lose more before the day is out. Focus on this country, which is what you’re being paid for.”
The puppy started growling again, and Tad couldn’t blame him. This time, rather than de-escalate the situation, it only made Tad more angry. If Norman was so hostile that even a puppy took notice, then Tad wasn’t crazy in feeling attacked. The old Tad would have shrunk from such things, but as his inner Charles said earlier, he’d been through a lot since then.
Before either Stella or Amelia could take things down a notch, Tad joined his puppy in making his displeasure known.
“Is that really Tad and Stella shouting at the Prime Minister?” Harry grumbled as he stepped into the kitchen.
Trevors nodded over his coffee. “It’s been going on a while. It’s about time they started giving some attitude back to the prick. He’s been all over them since we started this thing.”
Harry huffed and walked to the coffee machine, grabbing a mug on his way.
“I take it you don’t agree?” Trevors asked, shaking his head while Harry wasn’t looking.
This again, he thought to himself.
“Not really. She at least deserves a telling off for what happened last night. Because of her we lost Nicky and Fredrick, and almost drowned. Then without even an apology, she has us go right back out there acting like search and rescue. That’s not who we are.”
After giving his coffee a final stir he deposited the spoon in the sink rather than the dishwasher, failed to put the lid back on the coffee let alone put it away, and carried his mug to Trevors’ table, reversing a chair and straddling it like it was the macho thing to do. Trevors struggled to hide his mocking sneer.
“Not who we are? You don’t want to save people, Harry? That beneath you? You just joined to shoot monsters.”
“Aw, that’s not what I mean, boss. You know me better than that. Of course I want to save lives. I just want to do it right. We’re a tactical unit. We’re best suited to keeping bad things away, not risking our necks in an environment we haven't trained for after nearly drowning. Speaking of which, if we’d driven there like I wanted, we’d have had time to properly assess the situation and come up with a plan of action.”
“You’d also have arrived after the nightmare ended and been too late to help anyone,” Trevors pointed out before taking a sip of his coffee.
Harry winced.
“Alright boss, you got me there. Mine was the wrong call, but I’m not wrong about her. She nearly got my whole team wiped out by rushing in, and I fully lay the deaths of Nicky and Fredrick at her feet. She deserves a bollocking for that alone.”
Trevors had heard enough and put his coffee down.
“Alright Harry, listen up. You’re a good team leader and you’re close with your men, that’s one reason I hired you. But this is a dangerous job, I made that clear. Every time we go out there we’re facing something we never faced before and we’re making this up as we go. Now, I’m not happy that we lost those guys and I can promise you it’s eating up Stella as well. Why the hell do you think she was so eager to get back there and save people last night? In case you forgot, she was the first person in every one of those buildings and she was still their helping long after you’d all been subbed out from exhaustion. The way Morris tells it, she was the last one out of the water, so she had as much cause as you to admit being exhausted and beg off.
“But she didn’t, she kept working like she was possessed. I guarantee that no small part of that was because of Nicky and Fredrick. I bet by the end of the day we’ll have new protocols for approaching nightmares, she’ll have organised aid for both their families, and she’ll still be here worrying about whatever it is they’re arguing about now.”
“Still think the woman did us wrong,” Harry muttered, though he wouldn’t look Trevors in the eye.
“Maybe, but keep that thought to yourself, alright?”
“I… Fuck it. Fine.”
“Something else to add?” Trevors asked.
Harry hesitated, glancing at the wall separating the kitchen from the conference room. At first Trevors thought he might say nothing, but finally he nodded.
“Yeah. Why aren’t you in there?”
“What? You saying I need a telling off too?”
“No, nothing like that. I want to know why you’re not included in their little management meeting. Last night could have been avoided if they
included you a little more in the decision making. At least half this business requires tactical training and thinking under pressure. You’re here because you’ve got the first in heaps and you’ve proved yourself plenty with the second. You should be in that meeting, not just an ex-investigator and whatever the fuck Holcroft is. Hell, you should be running this place.”
Trevors snorted. “Me run this place? I wouldn’t accept the job if they offered it to me.”
“Even if it meant saving lives?” Harry asked as he downed his coffee in one and climbed to his feet. “Think about that, boss.”
Without waiting, he walked to the sink, deposited his mug there rather than the dishwasher, then strode from the room.
Trevors looked at the mess the arsehole left behind. Harry was a problem. He was too opinionated for his own good and thought the world owed him something.
“Doesn’t mean he’s wrong,” Trevors mumbled to himself as he brought his own mug to the dishwasher and started cleaning up Harry’s mess.
He really didn’t want Stella’s job, but Harry was right about him taking a bigger role in decision making. He’d have to talk with Stella later. Knowing her, she’d probably agree… Wouldn’t she?
Now he thought about it, he didn’t know. He’d only known the woman for a few months and in that time she’d seemed like a team player. But they’d both been so busy and hadn’t disagreed much.
“You’re letting him get in your head,” he told himself as he slammed shut the dishwasher.
He’d talk to Stella and see what she said. Then, he’d think about what the hell he would do about Harry.
“It never ends,” he muttered as he stepped from the break room and got back to work.
7
Wednesday, 06th July 2016
23:44
The van pulled to a stop, and the side panel slid open.
Mitena put away the book she’d been reading to calm herself and climbed to her feet, ready to get tonight over with. Kuruk hesitated. It was so unusual for him recently that she was completely out of the van before she noticed he wasn’t with her.