Mel’s bot made an emoticon face that looked sly and pleased at the same time. Where does she get these emoticons? How does she find the time to search for cool emoticons and also keep her nails manicured and master the music of Debussy? I don’t even have time to buy new trainers. My left trainer’s sole is peeling off and keeps catching on the pavement, so as I lock up my bike and scurry through the crowd, I alternately trip and hop.
I think about what Stack said. Not about Internet cats conspiring against me. The other thing. He does have a point in that if I can dreamhack, surely so can others as well. In Melodie’s dream the Creeper was in full colour. At first I took this to mean he was a figment of Melodie’s imagination, but only because I wasn’t keen to explore the possibility that it (he?) could be another dreamhacker. The way it works in my own dream logic, greyscale people are asleep and the only person in colour is me – and I’m lucid – so by that logic all I really know is that the Creeper is conscious. It could be some part of Mel’s consciousness. On the other hand, using Dougal’s Head logic, the fact that the Creeper appears in colour could be my subconscious’s way of telling me it is some kind of AR intrusion – but it acts too smart to be a bot. I’m much more worried about the possibility that the Creeper is a person who has managed to crash Mel’s dreams. Stupidly, I’ve never considered the possibility of another dreamhacker out there.
‘Predators avoid each other,’ the Creeper said.
I’m not a predator. The Creeper obviously is. I should probably trace the other participants in the study. Shandy prodded me over this months ago, but I was too sleepy and depressed and I guess I had my head in the sand. I know I have to do something about it, but the very thought is exhausting.
Poor me.
When I get to the hotel, I’m sodden and out of breath. Desperate for endorphins, I plaster a big, fake smile on my face as I march through the hotel lobby. If you hold a smile for twenty seconds you get a burst of endorphins. Twenty seconds is a long time unless you work on a game show, plus I have a feeling there’s pesto in my teeth.
I get into a luxurious golden lift with three businessmen in Italian suits. A smell of wet wool is rising from me and I’m aware that the trainer with the torn sole is leaking. I also spot the fact that a couple of lavender post-surgical bras are tangled up with one another and hanging half-out of my bag. They are padded and enormous. Still grinning furiously, I shove them back in. The businessmen say nothing but look disgruntled at the concept that I am in their lift, which goes to one of the special floors that only has luxury suites – Mel’s new suite is even higher than the first. I sniff and fix my wet hair in the mirror. They murmur to one another in Mandarin. They get out at the same floor as me, and for a second I worry that they have something to do with the orchestra; but no. They carry on down the hall to the Rochester suite in a swish of expensive fabric.
The Windsor Suite has its own doorbell. Antonio answers it with that tousled, bedroom look. He’s wearing a silk shirt and posh tracksuit bottoms, and his feet are bare. Immediately I know that she’s taken my advice. He gets that soft, cuddly bedroom-eye thing going on right after sex. All that oxytocin.
‘How is she?’ I whisper. ‘How long is it since she slept?’
He takes a deep breath. ‘Not since you were here last. She has the concert tomorrow. The conductor has been to see her and now she’s upset about that. She got a prescription from the doctor but she won’t take it. I think she should take it.’
‘OK,’ I murmur. ‘Is that what you want me to tell her? Take her medication? None of this was my idea.’
He sags visibly. ‘I don’t know. She likes you, and she trusts you, and if you tell her to take the meds maybe she listens.’
‘OK, well, how about this. It’s only seven o’clock. Let’s see if she can get to sleep on her own. And if it’s one and she still can’t sleep, then she can use something. OK?’
He swallows. ‘OK. Thanks, Charlie. I . . . you know, when I first met her she really wasn’t this high-maintenance. It’s too much for me.’
High-maintenance? What man says that unironically any more?
I say, ‘Don’t be a jackass and spoil everything. She’s going through a lot. Sleep in the next room like before. And this time, if I call you, do as I say.’
He raises his eyebrows. This is not the ever-obliging Charlie he knows. Well, so what? I’m at work now.
This suite is even fancier than the other one. There are vast expanses of carpet and I leave damp footprints. I find Melodie sitting up in bed drinking chamomile tea from a glass teacup. She gets up and hugs me. Dark circles pool on her cheekbones and her mouth sags. I give her my new card.
‘I like it!’ she says, putting it on the nightstand. ‘Thank you so much for coming. Please don’t insist that I take the meds. They will only make it worse.’
I can hear Antonio in the next room, jumping around playing video games. At least he’s staying out of my way. I sit on the edge of the bed.
‘I don’t know who the guy in your dream is,’ I tell her, ‘but I don’t think he’s part of you.’
Her eyes are shadowed. She sips carefully, not looking at me.
‘Neither do I.’
‘What did the doctor think?’
She shrugs. Her voice is dull. ‘It hardly matters. It’s become a crisis. The anxiety meds made me sleep, and then the Creeper tortured me for hours.’
I don’t know what to say. She’s more intelligent than I am, she’s an expert in her field, she’s sitting in a £5,000 per night hotel room. I am dripping on her fancy carpet. Who am I?
‘It’s possible this person is a dreamhacker,’ I tell her. ‘Like me, only not very nice.’
Now she’s looking straight at me. ‘I’m listening.’
‘Can you think of anyone who would have reason to stalk you? An enemy? A rival?’
I feel idiotic saying it. She’d be a difficult person to hate. I ought to be intensely jealous of her . . . but I really like her. It’s hard not to.
‘Not off the top of my head, no. So you’re saying that this guy in my dreams is a real person?’
I make an uncertain shrugging motion. ‘Maybe. But I’m not saying that he – or she – is who they appear to be in your dream. You saw me change form, right?’
She grins suddenly. ‘You were the Hulk. It was great.’
‘So, this person could be someone who can enter dreams like I can, and for some reason they’ve targeted you. What you need to do is think through what he’s actually said to you. Are there any clues? Is there something that he wants? He keeps telling me to get out of the way. But what does he say to you?’
She leans back against a mountain of pillows. Her eyes half-close.
‘That’s just it. He says my life is a waste. I’m not married, I don’t have any children, I’m failing as a soloist, I’m never going to be well-off.’
Her eyes open.
‘When I say it to you, it sounds like all the worst sexist crap, but when he says it to me in my dreams it feels true. I feel like I take up too much space and I’ve let everyone down. The biggest favour I could do the world is to die. And I almost feel . . . like killing myself is inevitable. It’s just going to happen one day, and I won’t be able to stop it.’
I hold her hand. I say, ‘You are brilliant and talented and kind. Don’t listen to anything he says to you. I’m going to get him away from you.’
Even with my best ASMR tricks, it takes Mel a long time to fall asleep. While I wait for her to drop off, I start reading the links that O sent me.
BigSky Makes Sweet Dreams Bigger
A new expansion pack for Sweet Dreams has been announced. The Dark Side is expected to be available to a limited subscriber base as soon as the end of the year. BigSky spokesperson Emilie Vasquez commented, ‘The Dark Side will merge the best of our Sweet Dreams ASMR environments with The LateLateLateLateLater Show, which is specifically designed to be used during sleep. In response to an ever-growing demand from our c
lient base, we offer an alternative to the hyperstimulation of daytime life with its multiple stressors. The new mod pack will offer faster fall-asleep times, deeper and more restful sleep, and the latest advances in power-dreaming.
Damn. Power-dreaming! Why didn’t I think of that? I can’t possibly compete with BigSky. You know, it would be just like them to develop the stuff they infected me with to work on this new platform. Maybe their next upgrade will be an ingestible piece of tech enabling people to cross into other people’s dreams. I can see it now: everybody else gets the good, clean version, but I get my life ruined. That would be about par for the course.
The thought is so stressful that I pass right out.
Secret Diary of a Prawn Star
Entry #51
Codename: Chaplin
Date: 20 September 2027
Client: Melodie Tan
Payment in advance: Yes
Session Goal: Second attempt to evict Creeper
Location: Hilton Excelsior Windsor Suite
Narcolepsy status: Fair
Nutrition/stimulants: Tea & biscuits
Start time: 8.31 p.m.
End time: 8.55 p.m.
I’m in Mel’s hotel room. There’s nothing to indicate it’s a dream except that the room has become really cold. I get up and go to the climate control, but it’s stuck. There’s a little handset and speaker next to the climate panel, and a sign that says, ‘Ring for assistance.’ So I do. I pick up the handset.
‘You don’t get it.’ That American voice again. ‘I control the parameters here. You don’t know what you’re doing. If you try to save her you’ll only make it worse.’
‘Shut up,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘Leave her alone. If you’ve got a problem with me, then you deal with me.’
‘Oh no,’ laughs the voice. ‘If I’ve got a problem with you, I can do whatever amuses me. And this kind of game amuses me greatly.’
The Creeper materialises from out of the shadows to loom over Mel’s bed. It’s wearing black Darth Vader robes that partly shade the white mask. Mel’s eyes are open now, black with fear. I can see the tendons in her neck stand out. It puts its hands around her throat and squeezes, then brings its face down close to hers.
‘Give me your breath,’ it says to her.
There’s a vase of flowers on the table. The card says, ‘Break a leg, kid! –Vazzie xxx.’ I pick up the vase – it’s heavy – and heft it to my shoulder, then go skipping towards the bed like a shot-putter placing a throw. I hurl the vase at the Creeper. The vase goes right through the Creeper and hits the pillow next to Mel. She sits bolt upright, covered in flowers and water.
I am an idiot.
The Creeper turns towards me and I’m confronted by the mask. Under my scrutiny the head seems to grow, and the surface of the white mask stretches and develops a red slash of a mouth, flat-lipped and much too big in proportion to the rest of the face. I always find caricature scarier than realism. I wonder how it knows that about me. Ugh. I reach out and tug at the Creeper angrily, trying to drag it away from Mel.
The Creeper’s arm comes off in my hand with a wet crunching noise. The arm is still moving and the hand grabs at me. Black fluid spurts out of the stump, and a smell of decaying flesh.
I hurl the arm across the room. The hand climbs up the wall and switches off the light.
‘Gotcha,’ says the Creeper, in the dark now. ‘Do you smell that? It’s death. You’ll find death everywhere you go. Beginning here, tonight.’
‘Fuck off,’ I say. I conjure up a bedside lamp and switch it on. The one-armed Creeper is lying on the bed, face down, covering Mel. I can’t even see her. Oh my god. This is awful.
I’m really mad but I don’t want to touch its body again, so I hesitate, looking for something to use as a weapon. The detached arm keeps crawling along the wall, heading now for the lamp I’ve just turned on.
‘Mel!’ I scream. ‘Wake up! Wake up! Terminate dream!’
I grab the lamp and swing it in an arc like a cricket bat. As it strikes the Creeper’s head, the bulb breaks with a pop and the room’s dark again.
‘Wake up, Mel! Wake up!’
A cold hand grabs my hair, then grips my face, dragging at my mouth. It tastes more foul than—
‘Ah, I can taste you. So alive. You’re on my list, my dear.’
It can’t taste me. I can taste it. Object relations are getting mixed up here; it’s as if I’ve mingled with the Creeper in some horrid way. I prise the hand off my face and throw the arm away in disgust. The voice is somewhere behind me. I turn toward it. Light from the main room of the suite illumines the Creeper’s figure – or most of it. There’s no head.
I must have knocked it off when I hit it with the lamp, because the detached head lies on the bed, face down.
I’m so grossed-out it takes me a moment to notice that Mel isn’t in the bed any more.
Where did she go? She must have left the bed while the lights were out. She hasn’t woken up yet or the dream would have ended. Where is she?
This doesn’t make sense. It’s her dream. She can’t leave.
Then I remember what happened last time I lost track of her. I rush to the bathroom, but she’s not there. Thankfully there is no window. I go into the other room, where Antonio is asleep on the sofabed. She’s not in the suite – at least, not in this dream version of it.
I need to wake up right now. Right now.
But I can’t.
‘You’re such a stupid person,’ says the Creeper.
The Creeper has managed a wardrobe change while I was distracted. It’s no longer wearing black Darth Vader robes, but Mel’s PJs. And its head, lying face down on the bed, now has Mel’s hair: silky, black and long.
I turn the head over, very gently. Mel’s face, eyes open, stare back at me without sight.
* * *
I wake in a panic.
‘Mel! Mel! Wake up!’
The real-life hotel room is perfectly tidy, but it’s also empty. Of course it is. Again: the tangled bedclothes. Again: the closed bathroom door. When I wrench the real door open, there is nothing but a brightly lit luxury bathroom smelling of Melodie’s perfume.
I run out into the living room.
‘Antonio! Antonio?’
He isn’t there. The door to the hall is open.
I dash outside. The hallway is empty. I start towards the lift, but there’s no sign of anyone. I go the other way, but the hall comes to an end at the Rochester Suite, which appears to take up the better part of the floor. It has Grecian urns on plinths outside it.
I return to the suite and ping Antonio. ‘Where’s Mel????’
He Spacetimes me right back. ‘I can’t find her. I’m in the lobby now. There’s some commotion, hold on—’
I go and get the room key, then head to the lift and press ‘Down’.
‘Charlie, are you there? Something’s happening . . . Someone threw themselves off the roof. It’s a crowd, people are being told to keep back—’
Then the link breaks.
I run for the fire stairs. There are five flights of them to climb. Here are the thoughts that are running through my head:
It can’t be her. It’s just a horrible coincidence. The person who jumped is probably one of those businessmen with a guilty conscience because he swindled old people out of their life savings and got caught.
What if someone pushed her?
What if someone pushed her and they are still up there? What if I meet them on their way down?
What if I go up there to see if someone pushed her and I get accused of pushing her myself?
It can’t be her.
With that horrible chatter in my head, I take the steps two at a time. I really should exercise more. I’ll start tomorrow. I’ll volunteer for charity work. Also, I’ll eat kale. Please just let Mel be OK.
I call Antonio three times and leave increasingly breathless messages.
I am on the roof. The door is already open. It has been
wedged with a fire extinguisher.
I step outside.
‘Uh, Melodie?’
Nobody is here. Just wind and sky. The rain is chucking down. I can hear sirens. I can see cranes sticking up all over town and I can smell diesel. This isn’t the Dream City. Those sky bridges and luminous canals aren’t real. This darkness is real.
The sirens are coming this way.
My Spacetime pings.
Antonio is sobbing.
TRANSCRIPT
[continued]
CA: Are you blocking my lifi?
DC: They don’t have lifi here.
RP: There’s pizza, if that helps.
CA: Six-G, then. Phone, even. If I’m not being detained, why can’t I communicate with anyone?
RP: You can. We’re not stopping you.
CA: But I tried my AR piece and it doesn’t— Whoops! Sorry, I had it on airplane. My bad. Can I just check my messages— Oh, here’s O calling now. I better take this. She’ll be worried.
RP: Tell her you’ll call her back.
CA: O? I’m so sorry, I was on airplane. No, I’m still in London, I meant— Never mind. You what? Mel trended? Yeah, I’m answering questions. No, not Scotland Yard. Where? Um . . . dunno, somewhere in Stratford.
RP: [whispering] Should I turn off the recording?
DC: [mutters] Let it run. The mic will pick up the conversation, we can enhance it.
CA: It’s Kafkaesque, actually, if Kafka’s stories were set in chippies. No, I just keep falling asleep. Is Antonio still there? Can you tell him— Oh. When did he leave?
DC: Tell her you’ll call her back.
CA: Yeah, that’s the bad cop. He’s ugly, too. There’s a nice one but he’s not in charge.
DC: [unintelligible]
CA: K, laters, bye.
DC: As we were saying, let’s go over the events of the night itself. We need to build a timeline. You arrived at Ms Tan’s hotel at approximately seven p.m., is that right?
CA: Ish.
DC: Let the record reflect that the witness said she arrived at approximately seven p.m. And what time did Ms Tan fall asleep?
Sweet Dreams Page 10
