‘You’ll be sure and be discreet?’ O reminds me from the sofa, where she is lying on her back with Edgar reclining on her chest.
‘I’ll be sure. Er . . . O?’
‘Yes, Charlie?’
‘Shandy and I went to see Bernard and she more or less accused him of being the Creeper.’
There’s a small sigh.
‘I had a feeling the two of you might do something like that. I think you’re on the wrong track. How did he take it?’
‘He didn’t turn himself in, let’s put it that way. He had a fencing mask on the wall with the same symbols as the Creeper.’
‘Did he, now? What else?’
‘I asked him to introduce me to Meera Bhango. He refused and warned me not to harass her because anti-science activists aren’t tolerated by the law. What should I do?’
I can’t see her face; Edgar is blocking my view. But her snort is audible, and it ruffles Edgar’s fur.
‘Just contact her in the normal way. Tell her who you are and what it’s about. You’re not an anti-science activist. Assert yourself, Charlie!’
Ick. She can’t know how weak the narcolepsy makes me feel.
But I do it. I Spacetime the Little Bird office. The system routes me straight through to Meera, which I wasn’t expecting. She is standing at a desk in a sunlit room with a view over the Thames beside another person who she has edited out of the frame. I tell her the basic deets of my situation.
‘Can you meet me in person?’ she says.
‘Uh . . . yeah. When?’
‘I’m in a meeting in the City, but I have to pick up my daughter at her nursery in Kentish Town this afternoon.’
‘I’m going to Highgate anyway,’ I tell her, and we arrange to meet in Kentish Town. I decide to cycle; I can use the exercise. She names a cafe.
I bounce out and tell O. Suddenly I’m full of positive energy. I clean the pigeon cage, quickly brush my teeth and go to get my bike off the rack outside the building. The tyres need pumping, but I have time. I leave my bag and high-vis vest on the floor while I do that.
I’m not tired. I’m not stressed, or not unusually stressed, anyway. I’m actually looking forward to this.
So how it is exactly that I fall asleep, I don’t know. But apparently I do, because the next thing I know, I’ve been hijacked by a dream.
Secret Diary of a Prawn Star
Entry #53
Codename: Chaplin
Date: 24 September 2027
Client: en route to client
Payment in advance: Yes
Session Goal: Involuntary
Location: Pavement outside O’s flat
Narcolepsy status: Thought was OK but apparently not
Nutrition/stimulants: Coffee, chocolate muffin
Start time: 2.17 p.m.
End time: 2.24 p.m.
After I pump the tyres, I jump on the bike and set off towards Finsbury Park. Everything feels normal, and it takes me a while to work out that I’m asleep, by which time I’ve forgotten the circumstances under which I fell asleep because it feels like I’ve always been in this dream.
Soon the familiar shopfronts of Finsbury Park give way to the futuristic towers of the Dream City, and I find myself riding along canalside. The river reminds me of the Seine; it even has the same graceful bridges every so often, the same sort of street lamps. But everything is coloured in neon, and there are brightly painted and carved canoes on the water tonight.
Why is it always night in the Dream City? Even in the day, it’s night. Weird.
I huff and puff, pedalling. The Dream City is greener than London. It’s got more cyclists than Copenhagen, but fewer than Hong Kong. Most of them are much faster than I am and they overtake me. Soon I find myself in a peloton of cyclists, all helmeted and anonymous – I can’t even see their faces through their visors. Suddenly I feel threatened. There’s no railing, and if someone ran into me I’d go right over the edge of the canal. The riders crowd close around me and I begin to wobble. I look for a way out of the peloton, but I’m totally surrounded.
Then I see that one of the riders is different. A woman comes alongside me in an evening gown, no helmet. Her long, black hair is elaborately plaited and flies behind her in beaded chunks, and her hands are ungloved. The nails are painted. She is wearing heels. She keeps riding too close and trying to talk to me.
‘You aren’t on your bike,’ she says in a deep voice that reminds me of O’s friend Lorraine. ‘You’re asleep.’
‘I know I’m asleep,’ I shout back. ‘This is a dream.’
But she doesn’t seem to hear me.
‘Girl, are you high?’ she says. ‘I can’t keep up with you much longer. Just come inside.’
‘I can’t. Look – the others are blocking me off.’
There are dozens of other cyclists. They make an enormous noise, and a wind. It’s like a racetrack. I wobble, trying to stay out of the river.
‘You’re going to get hit. Charlie, come on! Come inside!’
Behind me, there is a big noise, a sound of booming and squealing and a blast of half-music. I turn and see a battleship coming out of the river, its hull looming over me. I’ll be crushed.
My fellow cyclist leaps off her own bike and tackles me. We fall in the water, together, and the ship rides up onto the pavement, and I hear the sound of breaking glass.
Stack
I’m on Seven Sisters, my face in a cold puddle. Someone is lying on top of me, their displaced hat obscuring my view of the lorry that has missed us by centimetres and crashed into a parked Peugeot instead.
‘You all right, love?’ the person pants, clambering off me. It’s the same voice as the woman in the evening gown in my dream. ‘Are you hurt?’
That’s when I realise that my saviour is Stack.
‘Stack, you sound just like your grandmother.’ My voice sounds blurry.
‘What’s wrong with you? You were riding half-asleep. I ran after you but I couldn’t get you out of the road.’
‘Soz, mate . . .’
He’s very annoyed. ‘You were riding that bike like a drunken sailor – are you high? Did you even look where you were going?’
My chin is quivering like I’m a little kid. I grab him in a bear hug. His body’s a wall of muscle.
‘Sorry about the rugby tackle,’ he adds.
‘Thank you, Stack,’ I say into his chest. ‘Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.’
‘No worries. You wait on the pavement, I’ll talk to this dude.’
The lorry driver is coming over, glowering and swaggering; Stack greets him with a big, white smile and outstretched hands. I watch him steer the driver away, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet at the same time. The lorry doesn’t look much damaged, but the same can’t be said for the Peugeot.
I try to go towards them but can’t seem to stay on my legs. I end up sitting on the pavement. Something’s wrong; I feel like I’ve been drugged. I’m not sure if my body even belongs to me or not. People stop and offer to help but I wave them away. I’m still groggy, annoyed and on the verge of tears.
Eventually, the lorry driver backs up with the aid of Stack directing traffic. After that’s sorted, he saunters over to me.
‘I can’t let you pay for this, Stack,’ I tell him. ‘You already saved my life.’
‘You’re covered,’ he tells me. ‘O is taking care of it. You can go home now. Should I call someone to come and get you?’
‘You talked to her already?’
‘She asked me to watch out for you. She says you’re accident-prone.’
Or attempted-murder prone? She didn’t say anything to me. I can feel myself lifting out of my shoes as I say, ‘She paid you to protect me? How many people has she got working for her?’
I’m swaying, not really in control of my body. Blood is springing up from the abrasions on my knees and forearms where they struck the pavement.
‘Nah, mate, relax. No main event, OK? It’s all discreet. Let’s
not make a scene like a couple of tossers. People are recording us.’
Damn. That kind of attention is the last thing I need right now.
‘We have to wait for the police,’ Stack says. ‘Then I’ll take you home. O will reschedule your appointments.’
The word ‘police’ hits me with a thump. I don’t want to talk to the police! Then I remember Meera. I’m late for the meeting. I try to Spacetime her but she’s offline, so I leave a wobbly message telling her what’s happened. But I sound so pathetic I can’t stand to listen to myself. So I tell her that I’ll be late but I’m on my way. It’s a good excuse to avoid the police.
‘I have to go, Stack. Thanks for everything.’
‘What? You can’t—’
He tries to stop me getting on the bike, but I’m not having it.
‘I’m fine. I need to be somewhere now. I’ll call you later.’
‘This is a bad idea!’ he shouts after me as I ride off wobbling towards Kentish Town. But I’m not going to flake out on my commitments, I’m not going to be intimidated, and I’m not giving up a chance to get better.
Also: I’m not dealing with the police.
But pedalling hurts like hell. I get to the cafe and there’s no sign of Meera. I leave another message. When my Spacetime pings, I answer expecting Meera but it’s Shandy. She takes one horrified look at me and demands to hear the whole story.
‘It’s sheer luck you’re alive,’ she says. ‘This has gone far enough. Stay where you are, I’m coming over. I was calling to tell you we’re going on the offensive tonight, anyway.’
‘But I can barely work my legs.’
‘You won’t need your legs for this, Horse.’
* * *
‘Let me just tuck you in,’ Shandy says.
‘This is the worst idea you’ve ever had,’ I hiss, and she laughs. She’s put flowered sheets on Bernard’s neighbour’s sofa and tucked me in so tightly I can’t even move. ‘What if Mrs and Mrs Shoji come back?’
‘They won’t come back. I told you, they’re at the theatre. Do you have any idea of the price of tickets in the West End?’
‘But it’s breaking-and-entering.’
‘No, it’s not. They left their window open and we are looking for our cat.’
‘We don’t own a cat. We aren’t even a “we”.’
‘Of course we’re a “we”, and you don’t need to be a couple to have a cat together.’
‘I never really thought about it. Did you take off your shoes?’
‘What?’
‘Shandy, look around. See the photos? The Shojis are Japanese. Didn’t you notice the slippers by the door?’
‘They won’t know. And what if we have to run away? We can’t stop to put our shoes on.’
‘Just take them off. I feel terrible breaking in. Look how tidy everything is. Let’s at least keep it that way.’
‘Fine, I am taking off my shoes. Now just calm down and go to sleep. Look how droopy your eyes are already. Do you always fall asleep when you’re scared?’
‘Maybe.’ I yawn hugely. ‘How do we know Bernard’s asleep?’
‘We don’t.’
I yawn again. I’ve only gone along with this crazy scheme because I can’t bear going home to O and asking her how long Stack has been following me. And I don’t want to think about the very likely fact that the Creeper is trying to trick me into committing ‘suicide’ just like he did to Mel and all those other people Roman told me about. I can’t think about it. It’s too scary.
Anyway, the idea is for me to get into Bernard’s dreams and pursue him, to hunt the hunter, in other words. Shandy has used her connections at BigSky’s promotion department to lure the downstairs-flat Shojis out of their home for the evening with theatre tickets and a night at the Savoy that she convinces them they’ve won in a contest. She has settled me down on their immaculate sofa. It’s very comfortable, but it faces a wall completely covered with framed photographs of the Shoji family: baby pictures, graduations, picnics, holidays. They look like a well-ordered, sensible family. Wish they would adopt me.
Shandy is going to sit right here at my feet and make sure I don’t sleepwalk, just in case Bernard catches me sneaking around in his dream and tries to do away with me.
I’m petrified, and therefore barely conscious.
‘Imagine if Indiana Jones had narcolepsy,’ I murmur. ‘He’d be squashed flat by the big boulder in the first scene.’
She holds my hand. ‘You need to be more positive, Horse. Go and do your thing. Give Bernard hell. See if you can find out what he’s up to and how he does it. I’ll be right here beside you.’
‘No, you won’t,’ I moan. ‘You’ll be awake.’
And then I slip off because I’ve no choice.
Secret Diary of a Prawn Star
Entry #54
Codename: Chaplin
Date: 25 September 2027
Client: Bernard Zborowski
Payment in advance: He doesn’t know I’m doing this
Session Goal: Find proof he’s the Creeper
Location: Flat of Yayeko and Joji G. Shoji, downstairs
Narcolepsy status: Scared as a rabbit
Nutrition/stimulants: N/A
Start time: 12.01 a.m.
End time: 12.35 a.m.
We’re in my room. No . . . wait, that’s my frame. The walls and floors ripple and change as I adjust to Bernard’s frame of reference. We’re in his room. In his lovely flat that he owns because he has money and smarts and I do not.
I’m not happy with Dr Zborowski, and now we’re in my wheelhouse. He won’t expect me to do something bold like this; it’s against my nature. Well, he doesn’t know everything about me. I may as well admit it: I can be a teensy bit passive-aggressive. OK, maybe a lot. I like everyone to think I’m nice, and I mostly am. But I’m a little bit tougher than I look. I’m also one of those people who would gladly hurt someone I didn’t like if I thought no one could ever find out it was me. Give me half a chance and I’ll stick pins in the dolls of my enemies rather than argue with them face-to-face. It’s not a very nice thing to have to admit to yourself, but when you’re getting your 2:2 from Excelsior-Barking Online, in the practical classes you do find out these dark truths about yourself.
The thing is, despite having this side to my persona, I’ve never used my dreamhacking powers for evil. And that’s why, faced with the scorn of Bernard Zborowski of the organic Swedish carpet, I find it hard to contain my rage right now. Coming here in my current state of mind was probably not a good idea.
In Bernard’s dream lounge there’s a party in progress. All the guests are dead. They don’t appear to mind being dead, even though some are in a fairly advanced state of decay. Ugh, what the hell is going on? Who are these people?
‘Bernard, where are you?’
I try to slip between the walking dead without touching anyone, but it’s a bit like a game of Twister. Eventually I find Bernard in the kitchen. It’s not a normal kitchen. It’s got one of those huge walk-in ovens, all brick around it and niches in the walls for bread or whatever. I remember seeing ovens like this on school field trips. But then I peer closer at the niches and they look like slots in a crematorium.
Bernard is measuring spices. Or something. The counters are white and clinical and there’s not the slightest whiff of food. I see computer monitors and labbish-looking things, like centrifuges and lasers and microscopes and other exotic instruments that I don’t understand because I never took classes with labs.
An elderly woman in black tights and a blouse but with no skirt wanders through. Her lipstick is askew and her eyes are too bright. One of her arms keeps falling off and she keeps having to stop and put it back in its socket. She approaches Bernard from behind. He doesn’t see her, and when she touches him he jumps and makes a hiccuping sound. I can’t help smirking.
‘You have some nerve,’ the woman says. ‘You can’t come into people’s dreams and terrify us half to death. Paralysing us
. Sucking the air out of our lungs. It’s sick. Get out of my head!’
‘I’m not in your head, madam. You’re in my head.’
‘No, that’s called feedback, you pillock,’ she says, poking him with a bony finger.
‘I don’t even know what you’re talking about. We’re just trying to improve cognition.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with my cognition! I have some memory lapses, that’s all.’
‘Actually, you are being treated for dementia, Gladys,’ says an upright old dead man in a chunky cardigan and red turban.
Bernard finds himself up against the brick wall with its ovens. The dead are around him, their rotting faces and drooping eyes and wagging fingers all trained on him. No one sees me.
‘You come into my room at night. You have a white face and a black cloak and you crush my chest and I can’t move and I can’t breathe,’ Gladys says. ‘Maybe I can’t remember what I had for breakfast but I remember that.’
‘I do nothing of the kind,’ Bernard says stiffly, trying to ward them off without touching them, which should be comical but is really just disturbing. ‘I assure you, all of you are very important and I have your best interests at heart, but I can’t work when you harass me this way!’
This crowd reminds me of the corpse I encountered when I tried to dreamhack the Creeper. And I am dreaming them in colour . . . are they all conscious inside this dream of Bernard’s? Is that even possible?
‘Who are these people, Bernard?’ I say.
He rolls his eyes. ‘Oh, not you a-bloody-gain.’
‘What have you been doing to them?’ I look around at the faces in the crowd, and that’s when I see a familiar face. O’s sister Daphne is here, and I realise that the man in the cardy and turban is an elderly soldier from her care home, what was his name? Captain something. Captain Singh!
‘I want to wake up now,’ Bernard says. ‘I know this is a dream because in real life people’s arms don’t fall off. Get away from me, you zombies!’
Sweet Dreams Page 18
