Sweet Dreams

by Tricia Sullivan

  ‘Horse! Horse, you idiot! Wake the fuck up! Horse so help me god don’t move, just wake up now before you fall!’

  Fall?

  I can’t see the tree. I can’t see anyone. I’m in darkness. I can feel the horse-tree moving under me, I can feel the wind and the cold, but I don’t know which way is up. A gust of wind hits me and I feel myself start to lift . . .

  I’m awake. I’m awake. Very cold, dark. Rain hitting my face. My fingers are curled around a metal stanchion, slippery and silvered with wet. I’m standing on the balls of my feet on a slim strip of horizontal steel.

  I can see the north side of the Thames lit up in the distance. The horizon is moving slightly, back and forth, as the whole structure that I’m holding on to shifts in the wind.

  I’m standing near the end of a crane arm, some twenty floors above the building site adjacent to Martin Elstree’s apartment.

  Unfair to snakes

  Uncontrollable shaking? Check.

  Elevated respiration? Check.

  Muscle weakness? – Hah! – Check.

  Getting dizzy? Of course.

  I have broken into a building site in my sleep and I have climbed a crane wearing heels and now here I am. Hacked. Lured. About to fall. Oh, Melodie. I wonder if you woke up as you were falling. I wish I’d stayed asleep.

  ‘Horse!’

  It’s Shandy. She’s down below, her voice faint and high-pitched.

  ‘Hold on! I called the police. Just don’t fall asleep again. Stay awake. Stay with me.’

  I don’t know if I can. This right here has got to be the greatest stress I’ve ever experienced in my life. Narcolepsy factor turned up to eleven. How am I supposed to stay awake?

  ‘Listen to me!’ She’s screaming to make her voice carry. ‘He can’t do anything to you unless you let him. You can stay awake. Remember the time we stayed up all night for tickets to meet Felix in person? I fell asleep four times but you didn’t. You can do this.’

  Felix aka PewDiePie. We were kids. That was before the drug trial. My teeth are chattering. Every muscle in my body hurts.

  ‘I need you to stay alive. You need you to stay alive. Somewhere in you there is a survival instinct, Horse. Stay the fuck awake. Donato is coming to get you.’

  I must have heard her wrong.

  Somebody is climbing up the scaffolding. At first I think it’s a bear, the way it moves. All burly and awkward. But it really is Donato.

  I don’t believe it. Donato hates me.

  He’s moving fast for a man of his size. He gets to the top of the crane and then prepares to tackle the arm, where I am. It will move if he climbs on.

  ‘All right, Charlie?’ He sounds casual, like we’re just meeting up for a game of snooker and a couple of beers on a Friday night because we’re mates. I see the whites of his eyes but not much else. He has a harness on and there are coils of rope and clippy things hanging from his belt. ‘Pretty impressive that you got all the way up here. We’re going to climb down now, OK?’

  My teeth are chattering. I shake my head.

  ‘C-c-c-an’t do that, Donato.’

  ‘Yeah, sure you can. I’m going to come out to you with a harness. You don’t have to do anything. Just stay where you are, hold tight, and I’ll get you clipped on.’

  ‘Tell Roman I’m sorry.’

  ‘Tell him yourself. He’s waiting for you down there. Here I come. You may feel a little wobble.’

  The whole crane arm lurches when he climbs on.

  ‘Ooh, that’s a bit sketchy,’ Donato says, chuckling.

  I’m going to die now. Love you, Mum. Sorry.

  ‘Stay with me, Horse!’ Shandy yells.

  I guess it takes about thirty seconds for Donato to make his way out to me and put a harness around me. Feels like a year and a half. He tries cracking jokes and saying silly things to distract me, but I don’t speak. My teeth sound like those wind-up mechanical choppers for practical jokes.

  When we finally reach the bottom and make our way back through the ‘maze’ of concrete barriers and temporary walls and finally over the fence surrounding the building site, I have lost both shoes and my tights are laddered beyond recognition. My legs are so wobbly that I fall into Shandy’s arms and cling to her like a baby monkey. She has to lead me over to a concrete barrier and sit me down while we wait for Donato to make some calls and put his equipment back in his car. I don’t let go of her even then.

  Shandy and Roman look at each other. Shandy reaches up to my face, takes out my earring, and passes it to him. ‘We’re taking you home,’ Shandy says, untangling herself from me as Roman puts his arm around me. I stick to him like Velcro. I still feel like I’m going to fall fifty metres.

  ‘Come on,’ he says in my ear. ‘This is a building site. Donato’s going to talk to the construction company since they’ll have us on video, but the real police will be here soon if we don’t clear out.’

  That gets me moving. I haven’t even thanked Donato properly. I lunge in his direction calling out Donato’s name, but Roman steers me towards the Green Bus stop.

  ‘You’ll only embarrass him,’ he says. ‘You can thank him next time you see him.

  ‘I don’t want to go back to O’s.’ My voice is shaking. I’m so cold.

  ‘Shandy and I will be staying with you until this is resolved.’

  I lean into his warmth. ‘I’ll tell you how to resolve it. Arrest Martin Elstree.’

  ‘I’m not in a position to arrest anybody. We need to build a case before we can have him picked up.’

  We board the bus and stagger to the back. I see myself reflected in the bus window. Sporting that dead-fish look.

  ‘Come on, you’re shocky, bruv,’ Shandy says. ‘Take my coat.’

  * * *

  In the wee hours we find O’s flat occupied by Roman’s sister Elena, the bike messenger, and her partner Monk. It smells of fish fingers, possibly because their three kids are there, too, crashed out in sleeping bags in O’s sitting room except for the one sleeping against Monk’s shoulder.

  ‘There’s nothing more we can do,’ Elena tells Roman. ‘Unless you want one of us to get on a ferry and go to Brittany.’

  Roman shakes his head. ‘No, I’ve got Donato working on that end. I’m sorry it’s so late. Do you want help getting the kids home? I’ll call a car.’

  ‘Already done. We have a friend coming in five.’ Monk is packing bottles and toys into a nappy bag one-handed while Elena rouses her kids and shepherds them down the stairs. O would flip out at the thought of her privacy being invaded this way, but the domestic scene is exactly the kind of surreal I need to calm me down after everything that’s happened. I grab sleeping bags and stray toys and follow Elena and her kids downstairs while Monk and Roman talk about the practicality of tracing a pigeon in France. Elena is cool and efficient, getting the kids in the car and the bikes on the rack without any apparent effort. I find myself thanking her profusely for her help.

  ‘My brother likes to rescue people,’ she says. ‘You’re not one of those suicidal sleepwalkers, are you?’

  ‘Not suicidal, no,’ I say, handing her a partly chewed lion cuddly toy that she promptly passes to a crying daughter.

  ‘Good. Listen, my brother asked me to break into your friend’s filing cabinet. You might want to take a look at what he finds before he gives it all to Donato.’

  She gets in the car and buckles herself in just as Monk emerges from O’s building with the baby.

  ‘He what?’ I say.

  ‘You heard me. Listen, I have no clue what’s going on with all this, but I’ve listened to your ASMR and I don’t think you can be a bad person if you made those recordings to help people calm down. So I’m telling you straight – check the files. Once Donato gets them, you’ll probably never see them again. Good luck.’

  The car pulls away while I’m still processing this. Then I run up the stairs.

  ‘Roman, what the fuck—’

  Shandy and Roman already have
the files spread out on O’s desk.

  ‘Calm down, Horse. They’re dead boring. Come and see.’

  They are boring. It’s mostly financial stuff. Some of the papers go back to the 1970s, some are faded 1990s faxes on thin, shiny paper that can barely be read. I feel like a history student.

  ‘I can’t believe you just broke in like this. It’s unethical, not to mention illegal.’

  He shrugs. ‘Do you want to find her or not?’

  I can’t stand the smell of fish fingers. I throw open the doors to the roof and suck in the damp air.

  ‘You know, it’s not the murders, it’s not the uninvited tech growing in my brain, none of these things seem to matter. What matters is that I trusted her and she used me.’

  I prop the doors so they’ll stay open and sit down on the lintel. After a minute, Roman lowers himself onto the step beside me. He offers me a hand-rolled cigarette that looks like it’s been sat on. I just stare at it for about five seconds.

  ‘I don’t smoke,’ I say. Then I take it. He produces a lighter from his jacket pocket.

  I desperately want there to be some other explanation that doesn’t involve O being a complete bastard and me being a complete tool. Maybe she decided to go and see Daphne without me and something happened before she got there. Maybe she’s fallen or fainted and hit her head and can’t remember who she is. Maybe Martin Elstree tricked her and used her—

  Ah, fuck. Nobody tricks or uses O. Least of all a prat like him.

  I take a drag on the RYO.

  ‘What’s in this?’ Coughing, choking. Roman slaps me heartily on the back. ‘I thought you were on the side of the law.’

  ‘I’m a scientist first. Smoke up. You’ve had a shock.’

  ‘No, I can’t, I might fall asleep.’ I hand it to him but he doesn’t take a hit.

  ‘Looks like you could use a good night under your ear.’

  ‘Don’t be a fuckwit, Roman. I go to sleep in my bed and wake up under a bus. Sounds like a great plan.’

  ‘I’ve got your earring.’

  ‘Right.’ I doubt the earring matters any more if my whole head is a fucking receiver but whatever.

  ‘I’ll watch out for you. I told you. I won’t let anything happen to you.’

  I cough again, and my face goes hot.

  ‘I’ll sleep on the floor where you’ll have to step on me if you want to get out of the room. I’m being serious.’

  I lean my head on his shoulder. It’s a good shoulder. I don’t know why I find the idea of Roman so silly. Maybe if he had a real office instead of a kebab shop.

  He says, ‘You reckon O has been looking after you. Protecting you.’

  ‘I know it sounds absurd, an old lady in a wheelchair protecting me. But she was.’

  Roman turns towards me and takes my hands in his. His eyes are very green but I can’t stand looking into them because there’s so much I haven’t told him.

  ‘Charlie, she’s not your friend. She never was your friend. The sooner you understand that, the better.’

  ‘I know. But I can’t forget how she was good to me at a time when nothing was going right for me.’

  ‘Nothing was going right for you because she caused it. I checked up on the litigation between BigSky and Little Bird. It’s in O’s interests for Zborowski to disappear because it was his work that was stolen from BigSky; if he’s gone, he can’t be compelled to give evidence. It’s perfectly possible that O brought him to Meera to get his idea, then turned around and killed him. We’re looking into Meera now.’

  ‘And you knew this all along?’

  ‘It’s been unfolding. I tried to talk to you about her but you were completely in her thrall.’

  ‘Thrall? Don’t be insulting.’ But I’ve stupidly burst into tears.

  ‘Roman,’ Shandy says, laying her palm on the top of my head. ‘Why don’t you make like a detective and find where O keeps her spirits?’

  He springs up in a hurry and Shandy takes his place. She dumps Edgar in my lap and I give her the cigarette, which has made me feel weird.

  ‘I hate it that I thought I was someone to her but I was only ever her prey,’ I tell Shandy. ‘I hate that I was so dumb. I thought I was safe in the consciousness community. ASMRtists and such, we aren’t in it for money or glory and I thought she was one of us. But she’s a snake. No, that’s not fair to snakes. Poor snakes, so misunderstood. Also rats. My point being: how could I get it so wrong? How can I trust anyone now?’

  ‘She’s a right shit, Horse. She’s a ratsnake. Thanks, Ro.’ Shandy takes two glasses of vodka from Roman and hands me one. ‘Cheers.’

  I clink glasses with them and sink the vodka. I’ve avoided alcohol ever since the narcolepsy started, but I have to admit it has an immediate steadying effect.

  ‘I feel like I’m playing that pub game where you put a sticky note on your forehead with someone’s name and everyone can see the name but you, and you have to ask questions to find out who you are. And my sticky note says “Fucking idiot”. That’s how I feel.’

  ‘That’s because you’re lovely and you think everyone is the same.’

  Edgar keeps putting his tail in my face. From the flat behind me I can hear Roman talking to someone. Sounds like Donato.

  ‘Donato rescued me,’ I say to Shandy, pathetically. ‘Who knew?’

  She shrugs. ‘There’s always a use for the rough-and-ready type, I guess.’

  ‘Who can I trust? I’ve seen all this evidence against O, and if I accept it at face value then I’ve been taken for a fool nearly a year gone now.’

  ‘You have to face the truth, Horse. That’s the only way you’ll ever get on top of it.’

  ‘But that would mean I’m a complete fucking idiot.’

  She pats my hand. ‘Ro, love, pass us the bottle, will you?’

  Shandy is refilling my drink.

  ‘I know, love. It’s always the way. Look at it like this: O is a real clever clogs. You’ve been deceived by the best!’

  She clinks glasses with me again. I drink again.

  ‘I could have been killed. What would she have done? Did she ever care about me at all?’

  ‘Horse. Horse. Listen to me. You have to forget her. Put her out of your mind. Move on. OK?’

  ‘She treated me like a consumable. Chewed me up and spat me out when she was done.’

  Roman pushes past Shandy and steps out onto the roof. He turns to face us, hands on hips, and tries to sound stern.

  ‘Speaking of O. Her motorbike has been found in a pond in Epping fucking Forest.’

  I give a little scream, Shandy gives a little scream. Like in primary school.

  We look at each other and at the same time we say:

  ‘What if she’s dead, Shandy?’

  And:

  ‘The old tart’s done a runner!’

  Then we punch each other.

  For real

  Shandy and I and Roman get super drunk. Well, I don’t know how drunk they get but I get legless. And that’s when I decide: I’m going to take Elstree out. I can’t risk being ambushed by him every time I fall asleep. I can’t risk him hurting the people I love, either. He has to go.

  I am very drunk but wide awake. Shandy falls asleep in my bed. At some point around four a.m., Roman brings me a cup of camomile tea while I sit on the sofa watching the room sway, then takes a handmade afghan from the back of O’s favourite chair and drapes it over my shoulders, reaching around me to tuck it in while I sip the tea. I’m surprised by the amount of muscle in his arm.

  ‘Nice bicep,’ I hear myself say, then drink tea to hide my embarrassment.

  ‘It’s my wanking arm.’

  The tea comes back out through my nose.

  ‘That’s better,’ Roman says. ‘We’re going to get through this, OK? I made coffee. I’ll stay awake so you can sleep. I have work to do, and if I run out of that I can mainline the latest season of Physics Goats—’

  ‘Spoiler: Episode Seven has dark matter monste
rs.’

  ‘Good to know. I’ll be here and I’ll watch you. Nothing’s going to happen to you. In a matter of hours, we should know where that other pigeon has got to. Unless it lands on a cruise ship heading for Barbados, it’ll end up somewhere in France. Donato will cross-reference the location with what we know about O and Elstree.’

  He thinks I’m afraid of being attacked. He has no idea that I’m really planning to hack Elstree and make him disappear for ever.

  No wonder I sometimes feel unreal. I can be thinking things and no one else knows what they are. That doesn’t seem right, somehow. It’s not like that in dreams. In dreams, my guts and heart are right out there in the environmental content. In dreams, I’m an open wound.

  I’m not even making sense to myself.

  ‘It was a robot, what built that dream,’ I tell Roman. ‘Martin doesn’t have the balls to stand up to me so he sent a robot to do his dirty work.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘It felt like being in a VR game, not a real dream. And the only person in the dream besides myself was a mechanical bird. It was nothing like the dream with Daphne or even the Creeper dreams, except that he used the Creeper to attack me at the beginning. I think it’s the way he disables the R.E.M. atonia. But the rest was different.’

  Roman smiles. ‘So you are coming around to my view that the Creeper is a phenomenon, not a person.’

  ‘Maybe. In the dream I heard his voice. He said something about being able to keep me sleeping. Like he had some mechanical way of doing it.’

  ‘The idea of an AI dream agent is right in line with what we know about BigSky’s ambitions.’

  ‘Yeah, but how would Martin Elstree get hold of that kind of tech?’

  Roman is shaking his head. He’s thinking about it. After a while, he says, ‘If an AI attacked you, it would explain how you were targeted in broad daylight riding your bike.’

  ‘I crushed that bird in my hand. Crushed it to bits.’

  ‘Good for you. Why don’t you get your head down? I’ll be sitting right here at the desk. There’s nowhere you can go without my knowing.’

  I pull the afghan right up to my chin and close my eyes.

  In general, I try to be a good person. But dreams are a medium where a person can act out power fantasies without being held to account, for real. So in a sense, I guess I hate and fear Elstree partly because he’s just a more extreme version of me. He wouldn’t hurt a fly in real life, but he’d take a power saw to his boss and get off on it in his fantasies. He’d make a musician walk off a high-rise and act like none of it was real – but it is real.