I fumbled for the car keys, started the engine, slammed the car into gear and was off with a jerk. Fortuitously, most of the hands fell or slid off the car and the ones that were inside I simply tossed outside. Pretty soon I was quite alone, driving across the grassy landscape, the only sound the wheels as they rumbled across the turf.
The temple took less than a minute to reach, and I pulled up, stopped the engine and climbed out. The hands that had remained stuck to the car seemed to have been stunned into inactivity by the sudden change in events, and were now silently observing me while rocking on their knuckles.
I walked towards the Morpheleum, which had been realised perfectly within my dream – lichen blooms had erupted upon the age-softened carvings, cracks had opened up in the masonry and ivy had locked the building in a tight death-grip.
‘Are you at the temple?’ asked Mrs Nesbit, who was still there, standing right next to me, shimmering softly.
‘I’m there.’
‘The first to do so,’ she said, ‘you are doing well. But there is no respite until you find the cylinder. Only death frees you from this dream.’
‘You’re a bundle of laughs, Goodnight,’ I said.
‘I am Mrs Nesbit,’ said Mrs Nesbit after a pause that was too long to mean anything other than that she wasn’t. ‘And if I was Goodnight – which I’m not – you should use the accolade “Notable”. I think she’s deserved it after a lifetime of selfless toil, don’t you?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Find the cylinder. Explore the temple. Go.’
I tentatively reached out to touch the building and with an almost seamless transition moved to a different dream. I was still Don Hector but it wasn’t high Summer any more, it was late Autumn, and a grey overcast portended of rain to come. I shivered, even though wearing an overcoat, and looked around. The blue Buick had gone but the Morpheleum remained, looking darker and more forbidding but identical and now in an overgrown wood with dead brambles, silver birch and saplings of ash, their branches bare, ready for the Winter. I knew where I was – in the overgrown gardens within the quadrangle back at HiberTech. This was the place where Don Hector went for peace and solitude. His and his alone.
But if I had thought I’d left Mrs Nesbit behind, I was mistaken. She was right there next to me in the Morpheleum. She wasn’t attached to the landscape, she was attached to me.
‘What’s happening?’ she said.
‘They’re not dead,’ I said in a state of confusion, airing my views about nightwalkers before I’d even realised it. ‘The catastrophic neural collapse brought on by Morphenox-induced Hibernational Hypoxia is not a collapse at all – it’s a state of displaced consciousness below the threshold of detection.’
I didn’t know what I was talking about; this was Don Hector speaking, not me.
‘We know that,’ said Mrs Nesbit, ‘hence the need for the cylinder. Now, let’s take this one step at a time. Are you still outside the temple to Morpheus?’
‘Yes.’
‘Go inside.’
I stepped forward and squeezed between the heavy bronze doors. The interior was the size of a badminton court and illuminated by narrow windows set deep into the thick masonry. There was a central aisle with two arcades running parallel on either side, separated from the main chamber by a series of arches that sat atop columns of a simple, unfussy design. I walked to the sanctuary at the rear, where a domed roof was centred above a dusty altar covered in offerings to ensure sound and safe sleeping. Mostly flowers and foodstuffs, they had rotted away many years before and were little more than desiccated scraps.
‘Don’t make us do anything you might regret,’ said Mrs Nesbit, who was now in the temple and casting a bluish glow onto the stonework, ‘because we can make our dreams into your nightmares.’
‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘you could make that your mission statement and company motto.’
‘Bravely spoken,’ said Mrs Nesbit, ‘but we’ll have the last laugh. You’re almost out of dreamtime. We’ll speak again.’
She vanished abruptly, and my ear twitched as I heard the scratch of a shoe against stone. Partially hidden in the shadows was a man dressed in a medical orderly’s uniform of a collarless white jacket with a flap buttoned diagonally up the front. I recognised him immediately: Charles Webster, my confident and distinctly unwonky sleep-avatar.
I had been him only two minutes before, now I was looking at him.
‘Don Hector?’ he asked in a nervous voice.
‘What do you want?’ I asked.
‘I’m a friend of Kiki.’
I beckoned him closer and gave him a plain cardboard tube, the same one that Webster would hide up the chimney, moments before being arrested. It was all backwards, but dreams, I learned, were rarely linear.
‘Look after the cylinder as you would your life,’ I said, ‘and get it to Kiki. We’ll not speak again.’
Webster understood the gravity of the situation and swiftly departed. Within a few minutes there were criss-crossing flashlights outside and The Notable Goodnight entered, followed by Hooke and several other people I presumed were HiberTech Security. They were one step behind both of us. Right now, Webster was on his way to hide the cylinder.
‘Where is it?’ said Goodnight, striding towards me. ‘What have you done with it? Who did you give it to?’
I gave her a smile, then the middle finger.
‘All our work,’ implored Goodnight, ‘everything we stood for, everything we built. Please, Don Hector, do the right thing.’
I smiled. Don Hector didn’t have to justify his/my actions to anyone.
‘We’ll squeeze it out of him,’ said Agent Hooke. ‘He might resist out here, but not in his dreaming mind. We’ve drawn worse secrets out of better people than him.’
‘Blue Buick,’ I said.
‘What?’ asked Goodnight.
‘I said, “blue Buick”. Because it’s all you’ll get from me. A picnic I once had, on my own, in a field overlooking the Wye where there’s this glorious oak that has large stones piled up around the trunk. I used to sit and read, the car parked close by, some wine in a cooler, cheese. That’s what’s in my mind, and that’s all I’m going to dream about. I’ll be adding a few guardians of my own, too. Severed hands like hairless mole-rats, just in case you decide to go in, or send others in your place. You’ll get nothing from me.’
‘Take him,’ said Goodnight, but I was already gone – back to the pile of boulders around the oak, the blue Buick parked close by, the picnic half eaten. I knew the dream was about to end as the carpet of rippling hands flooded towards me, across the ground, over the boulders. I didn’t struggle as they ran up my body. I didn’t care when their combined weight toppled me and I felt a tooth break as I hit the rock below me; didn’t care as I felt myself being pulled through the gaps in the stones; didn’t care as I felt myself once more suffocating beneath the soil, the damp earth pressing heavily on my chest. I didn’t care because—
Dawn and the dead
‘ . . . Average temperatures across Wales are a balmy sixteen degrees, but with seasonal highs and lows of plus thirty-two and minus sixty-eight. The residents are well adapted to the climate, being generally impervious to hardship, more hirsute, and with a propensity to minimal weight loss during slumber . . . ’
– Handbook of Winterology, 4th edition, Hodder & Stoughton
My eyes flickered open, my temples throbbed, my mouth felt dry. For the briefest of moments I thought I was once again safely back in the Melody Black, but no. Clytemnestra was staring down at me with a look that was beginning to feel increasingly oppressive, and next to her, the portrait of me wearing Birgitta’s husband’s body seemed also to have changed – he was looking less like someone in love, and more like someone with severe wakestipation.
I stretched, downed the glass of water I’d left for myself, then sw
ung my legs out and lowered my feet to the soothingly cold boards of the floor. Regardless of the weirdness, I’d enjoyed the dream. It looked as though I had created a narrative that had all the ingredients of a thriller: a good-looking young couple in love and working for a shadowy organisation, an agent in peril, a missing recording cylinder, an interrogation, loss, betrayal. And all with me centre stage. Perhaps this was subconsciously what I saw for myself, my dream-fuddled mind generating a sense of excitement and drama that so far had been absent from my utterly conventional life. If I had another life, I’d dedicate it to non-Morphenox slumber, with all the dreams that come – and the attendant dormelogical risks. Perhaps Shamanic Bob and his dreamers had something after all.
There was a knock at the door. I guessed it must be Aurora, and I was correct. Her left eye was staring off and up to the right, while the right fixed me with a keen sense of clarity. The abrasively offensive Toccata part of her was gone; she was back to her more ebullient self. I actually felt quite relieved to see her.
‘I was passing,’ she said cheerily, ‘and I wanted to check you were okay.’
I didn’t know what to say, so said what I was thinking.
‘I didn’t realise you and Toccata were—’
Aurora glared at me with such a look of hurt, anger and confusion that I stopped mid-sentence.
‘I was about to say,’ I began again, ‘that I was unaware you and Toccata were . . . so alike.’
She stared at me for a while, her good eye unblinking while her unseeing left eye twisted in its socket in a disturbing manner.
‘We are not alike,’ she said finally, ‘not even the slightest bit. Does that woman think we are?’
‘Well, no,’ I replied, truthfully enough.
‘Exactly. And that’s the way we’re going to keep it. Understand?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
I filled the empty pause that followed by offering her coffee.
‘You have some?’ she asked. ‘The real stuff, I mean?’
‘Sadly not,’ I replied with some regret. ‘Nesbit Value Brand.’
She shrugged, told me it couldn’t be helped and then walked in, quietly closing the door behind her. She took off her coat, dumped it on a nearby chair and jumped up to sit on the kitchen counter.
‘What do they call this?’ she said, tapping the work surface.
‘A peninsula, I think.’
I was no expert on kitchen furniture and was still confused over Aurora and Toccata’s insistence that they were two people.
‘Free-standing, it would be an island.’
She nodded thoughtfully.
‘I have one that connects from one side of the kitchen to the other,’ she said. ‘Would that be a kitchen isthmus?’
‘I’d say a counter.’
‘That’s what I thought. Isthmus would be more logical, though, don’t you think?’
‘I suppose, yes. Milk?’
‘You have some?’
‘Only powdered,’ I said, staring into the empty fridge.
‘That’ll do. Hey, listen: I heard you told the Chief we’d bundled.’
She said it as if it were possibly the funniest – and unlikeliest – thing she’d ever heard.
‘I had to say something,’ I replied. ‘She knew we’d met in the Wincarnis when I said we hadn’t, so I needed a good reason for lying.’
‘Did she believe you? I mean, did she think that the whole you and I scenario was plausible?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘Ah,’ she said, deep in thought, ‘that says a lot about how she views me. But you kept your oath to me?’
‘I did. She had a message for you: Queen’s rook takes bishop’s pawn two – check.’
I didn’t think I’d repeat the rest of the missive.
‘What?’ exclaimed Aurora, and she reached into the folds of her jacket to produce a travelling chess set. She opened it, placed it on the counter and moved the pieces.
‘Damn and blast that woman to hell,’ she said. ‘Foiled. I think I may have to concede.’ She showed me the game. ‘What do you think?’
‘I’m not very good at chess.’
‘Nor me, it appears,’ she said, and snapped the set closed. She looked at me and raised an eyebrow. She could tell something was troubling me.
‘What’s up, Charlie?’
‘Did you engineer the meeting with me in the basement yesterday morning?’
‘What possible reason could I have for doing that?’
‘I don’t know. Also: the lines were down to Cardiff so the stationmaster must have heard from someone on the train that I’d delayed it. Was that you?’
‘Is Toccata messing with your head?’ she asked. ‘Because she does that. Divide, cast doubt, dissemble. No, I didn’t tell the stationmaster anything. And strictly off the record, I understand that Toccata and Logan’s association went beyond intimacy – and into illegal activities. Farming, the unlicensed sale of body parts. We think that was the true purpose of his visit; nothing to do with viral dreams. We don’t trust Jonesy either. I’ll tell you why: do you know what happened to nightwalkers Tangiers and Glitzy Tiara? I left them tied to the back of my truck, and now they’ve gone.’
‘Jonesy retired them.’
‘Yes, I heard. But if so, then where did she dump them? There’s nothing in the night pit or the morgue. We checked. We’re not sure where they’ve gone – or why.’
‘Farming?’ I asked, knowing that Foulnap was up here too – and that Toccata knew he was. Glitzy Tiara certainly looked of childbearing age, and Tangiers, well, if they wanted to flog healthy offspring by post, they could farm him too.
‘It’s a strong possibility,’ said Aurora, ‘although we have no proof, as yet. Life in Sector Twelve is never what it seems, Charlie. Keep an eye out for me, would you?’
I told her I would, the kettle boiled and I poured the water onto the coffee granules.
‘So,’ she said in more friendly tone, ‘is the retrospective memory theory helping with the narcosis?’
I explained that it was, bizarrely.
‘I can feel a lot more relaxed knowing there’s a twisted logic behind what’s going on,’ I added, ‘but being narced and not knowing it is strange. The hectoring Mrs Nesbit no longer seems as fearful as she once did.’
‘What did she want?’
‘A wax cylinder – y’know, of the recording sort.’
‘What’s on it?’
‘According to my seriously overdramatic imagination, something that could seriously damage HiberTech – and I think I dreamed where it was . . . That’s what Mrs Nesbit wants. Only Mrs Nesbit doesn’t sound like Mrs Nesbit – she sounds like The Notable Goodnight.’
‘That sounds quite trippy.’
‘The dream is like that. Complex, confusing and as real as real gets – sometimes, more so.’
She took the coffee I’d made for her, and I tasted mine. Musty walnuts.
‘Okay, then,’ said Aurora after she’d taken a sip, grimaced, then tipped the remainder down the sink, ‘just remind yourself that dreams are nonsense, an overactive cortex attempting to connect the random meanderings of the mind. The cylinder seems to be highly central, though. Where did you say it was? In your dream, I mean?’
‘If dreams are nonsense,’ I said, ‘how could it matter that I saw where it was hidden?’
Aurora stared at me for a moment.
‘It doesn’t matter at all. I was just thinking that talking it out might help.’
‘They’re just dreams,’ I said, ‘as you stated – nonsense and random meanderings.’
She stared at me, cocked her head on one side and narrowed her eye.
‘Do you want to come and work for me at HiberTech?’
This was unexpected, and I asked in what capacity.
&nb
sp; ‘General duties,’ she said. ‘You seem like a bright kid and it would be good to have you around. Standard WinterPay Level III, but a five-thousand-euro handshake, unlimited pudding and a weekly Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut allocation. HiberTech Security have their own residential block inside the facility; very nice – faces the quad. The rooms are twice as big as these and you have your own redeployed valet. There’s real coffee and sushi on Fridays. We don’t like to slum it. Just resign when you see the Chief; I can have the paperwork completed in a jiffy – so long as you’re not working for RealSleep or any of their affiliates?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Is there anything embarrassing we might find in a background check? And we will do one, so no holding back.’
‘I did six weeks’ community service for Incitement to Deprive,’ I said. ‘Sleepy phone tennis that went wrong.’
‘Small beer, Charlie.’
‘ . . . and bit off Gary Findlay’s ear.’
‘Biting off ears and stuff totally counts in your favour at HiberTech. You’ll take the job?’
I thought about Birgitta and her need for food.
‘Is the five grand in cash?’
‘Yes, if you want it, sure.’
‘I’m kind of settled here in the Siddons. Can I think about it?’
‘Sure,’ she said, surprised, I think, that I didn’t leap at the offer, ‘but don’t shilly-shally. There are others in the frame.’
She looked at her watch, then at me again.
‘That’s me done here,’ she said. ‘Agent Hooke was covering for me last night, and I need to unravel any problems he’s stirred up. His anger management issues actually have their own anger management issues.’
I waited for ten minutes after she’d left, then washed and dressed and made some sandwiches of whatever was left in the picnic basket. Taramasalata and toothpaste weren’t my first choice for a snack, but Birgitta wouldn’t complain and it was food, first and foremost.
Early Riser Page 29
