Dreams Must Die

by J. M. Porup

  All the same, ten billion minds cheered inside Shade’s skull, celebrating the elimination of the Dreamer Prime, possibly the last Prime on Earth. With no more Primes to originate dreams, dreams could be fully eradicated, and humanity freed from this scourge.

  With this tantalizing thought in their minds, the two men summoned a moving box and rode together to the flying train station. There they parted, and Shade made his way home, alone.

  The sun shone in through the leaded glass window on Shade’s tired features. It was not often he saw the sun—that anyone saw the sun, for that matter. The nuclear winter cloud layers covered the entire globe. The other passengers gaped out the windows, startled at the burning orb’s appearance.

  The Collective became aware of the situation, reached a decision, and ordered them to look away. The others obeyed.

  Shade did not. He continued to stare at the sun, unable, unwilling, even, to look away. If the glass was leaded, he wanted to know, why was it so wrong to look? Doesn’t the window protect our eyes from any harmful rays?

  The question dropped into a void. Nobody answered. Still he stared. The burning star seared his brain with light.

  How could the Collective tolerate such…deviance? Please, he begged. Come back to me. Make me once more part of your unity.

  I am We, he chanted. We are…All. We-we are…

  But instead of a reply, all he could hear were the words of the Prime in his ears:

  “Do you love her?”

  Tormented by this question, he returned to his bunk and the dormitory snorers. Lying in bed, he tried to join his thoughts to those of the Collective, but the words of the Prime rang again and again in his head, severing him from humanity with each vicious word:

  “Do you love her?”

  He closed his eyes and tried to sleep. Love! Love who? Linda? Who else could he mean? But how did he know? Or was it just a lucky guess?

  And what will the Collective do when they find out?

  Still the Collective did not answer. They must be punishing him, Shade decided. It was the most frightening experience he’d ever had. He could hear the hum of humanity in the back of his head, but something barred him from taking part.

  A horrible thought: was he infected? Had the Prime done something to him with his voice? But his dream shields had not been breached, not even a scratch.

  He’d call for a doctor in the morning, he decided. As a member of the Dream Police, he was screened bi-annually for traces of dream infection. Maybe if they caught it quickly enough they wouldn’t have to ChemLob or unplugg him.

  The odds of that were slim, but then, Shade had never heard of a case like his before.

  “Do you love her?”

  In the silence of his brain, the words boomed, four monstrous syllables.

  His eyes flew open. Linda. Where are you? Will I ever see you again?

  Knowing the answer was no.

  Unbidden, he found himself calling up a memory. Memory was dangerous, forbidden territory. Data was one thing. But memory? Almost as bad as dreaming.

  Yet he summoned the memory, and no one complained. No one said a thing. He assembled the memory from the billions of minds where the pieces were stored. The Collective did not intervene, did not even seem to be aware of his actions.

  When the memory was complete, Shade stepped into her mind—or rather, his memory of her mind—and there she was. Ravishing in a scarlet negligée.

  She crooked a finger at him. Hey lover, she said. It’s been too long.

  As a married couple, they were allowed mental conjugal visits once a week. Physical union, of course, was permitted only for purposes of procreation. The Collective had not yet approved such contact at the time of her infection, and they had never laid eyes on each other in person.

  The came together in the boudoir of her mind, Shade reliving the memory as though it were real and now. Their minds merged, their bodies came together, and when they were finished, Shade’s body, back in his bunk, twitched and stained the inside of his jumpsuit.

  Afterward, they snuggled together on the satin sheets. He stroked her back. She nuzzled his neck.

  He said, We caught a Prime today.

  Odd. That’s not how it happened. This wasn’t part of his memory.

  But she replied, Well that calls for a celebration, don’t you think?

  That’s not what she said! He sat up on his elbows, bumped his head. That’s not how it happened!

  Tell me how it happened then, lover, she cooed.

  Her mouth was on him then, and he spoke, unable to stop the flow of words.

  It was dangerous, he said. The Prime almost got me.

  She continued her ministrations, and he groaned.

  Dreamers, he panted. Primes! To challenge the Collective! Only a fool would do such a thing. He faltered. Her tongue slithered in circles. He let his head fall back.

  He said something to me, he continued. The Prime, I mean.

  A wet plop. What’d he say?

  No, I mean he said something to me. Out loud. With his mouth.

  She kissed him once, twice, three times more, and he writhed.

  What’d he say?

  “Do you love her.”

  She laughed. I’m sorry?

  That’s what he said. “Do you love her?”

  She mounted him then, and asked the obvious question, the question Shade had been avoiding. Why is it so wrong to love?

  BECAUSE LOVE, the Collective replied, IS A STATE OF SELFISH PREFERMENT FOR ONE INDIVIDUAL OVER THE COLLECTIVE.

  Wait a minute, Shade thought. This is a memory. How can the Collective be answering my question?

  The utter silence that came by way of reply terrified him.

  “Do you love her?”

  The Prime’s voice echoed once more inside his head.

  Yes, he panted, struggling toward mental union once more. Yes, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do.

  She quivered, and they twitched together in spasms, and she lay still on his chest.

  After a long moment, her hot breath panting on his neck, she lifted her head. Gotta go to work, lover, she said. Got dreams to kill.

  The only way for us to save humanity, he agreed. Go give ‘em hell.

  But something about the words felt hollow.

  He lay there in his bunk long after they had parted, feeling the self-cleaning jumpsuit dry his skin.

  Do I love her? he asked the Collective. No answer. They heard him before, could they not hear him now? Or was his memory—not a memory? Was it, in fact, some kind of waking dream? If so, how could the Collective respond inside a dream? Or was that simply what dreaming meant—seeing and hearing things that weren’t really there?

  Do I love her?

  He tried to form the words with his lips, the way the Prime had, to speak them out loud. Maybe they would make more sense that way.

  “Blowawaowoawaowaowawowoawao.”

  The node in bunk twelve above him shifted in his sleep. And woke.

  What’s the big idea, pal? he asked Shade. Humanity is on the brink of extinction. I’ve got work to do. A planet to save. That alright with you?

  Sorry, Shade said. I am You. We are All. We are the Collective.

  Darn tootin’ right, buddy. The man snorted, rolled over and went back to sleep.

  Shade lay there for a moment in the ensuing silence, punctuated only by soft snores.

  The insistent thought came again: Do you love her?

  Ten billion minds either ignored him or simply did not hear him. Shade was not sure which option was worse.

  It baffled him. Scared him, terrified him. It was like his connection with the Collective had been shaken loose. He could still hear the steady, comforting hum of billions of human beings in communion. But another force, sinister, painful, unwanted was talking now inside his head.

  Who are you? he demanded. Who’s there? How did you get inside my head?

  Was it the Prime? But that was impossible. He was well-trussed in a dream jacket,
and locked up in the Hall of Dreams, hundreds of kilometers away. The building itself was dream-proof. No way the Prime was somehow projecting into his head.

  Shade turned over and covered his head with a pillow. Why couldn’t he sleep? The pain in his head had not subsided, and the worry in his gut grew worse by the minute. It was beyond anything he’d ever known, had ever experienced.

  He searched the Collective’s data banks, all known human history for a similar experience. Again, he found nothing. He was part of the whole, but a damaged part, a severed arm dangling from a pulsing artery.

  Again he confronted the presence in his mind: Who are you? What do you want?

  This time the voice in his head answered. I am You. You are Me. You are Alone.

  Alone?

  An illegal, immoral word, long since outlawed, banned by the Collective since its inception.

  An earthquake shook his brain. Something shifted, collapsed, and Shade felt himself break away from the continental shelf of humanity, onto an island not of his choosing. The gulf widened, and in his mind he cried out in wonder and fear.

  But the Collective did not reply. The sleeping dreamers continued to snore. And the comforting hum in the back of his skull faded and disappeared.

  He gasped. What does this mean?

  But Shade already knew the answer.

  I am Me. I am All. I am Alone.

  Alone!

  Chapter Three

  Jimmy Shade didn’t dare sleep.

  The Dreamer Prime had done something to him, that much was clear. But what, exactly? Dreams could not spread by word of mouth. He knew that. Or…did he? What if he was wrong? What if—the Collective was wrong? Was that even possible?

  If he slept now, he might dream. He might wake up in the morning, his frontal lobes destroyed by ChemLob, and not even know it. Or find himself crazed out of his mind from being unplugged, trussed in a dream jacket and hauled off to spend the rest of his days in a padded cell, cut off from the Collective.

  Could he afford to take that chance?

  No. The only solution was not to sleep. It was the only way to avoid dreaming.

  But how long could he go without sleep?

  When the regular morning alarm went off in his head, Shade’s eyes were open and bloodshot. He sighed, and climbed down from his bunk. Around him, hundreds of other night workers did the same.

  Go to work, he told himself. In work there is salvation. The only way to save the world.

  The only way to save himself.

  Maybe Kann would have some idea what was happening to him. It he dared tell his partner.

  Shade found Kann down at Dream Police HQ, one elbow draped over the water pill cooler, the other resting on the butt of his gun.

  What’s new? Shade mumbled in greeting.

  You have to ask? Kann’s laugh echoed in Shade’s mind. Epidemic to clean up. That Prime infected most of the other factory workers. Just as we feared. Ready to go kick some dreamer butt?

  Shade grunted. Dreamer butt like mine? he thought. But Kann did not seem to hear. He sighed. To live is to work. To serve the Collective. Who’s first on our list?

  That’s the spirit, partner. Kann pulled the dossier from distributed storage and flipped a copy into Shade’s mind.

  A pretty girl. Young. Nineteen, twenty.

  What’s she done? Shade thought.

  Dangerous one, Kann thought. Premeditated.

  Shade whistled inside his head. A Helper?

  A Helper was one step below a Prime on the scale of evil. Like Primes, they knew they dreamed, and they dreamed on purpose. Unlike Primes, though, A Helper Dreamer did not originate new dreams. They just maliciously spread their dreams far and wide. Primes recruited Helpers, sometimes dozens of them. No doubt this one had been one of the Prime’s deputies. Cleaning up after them was going to be a pain.

  And check it out, Kann said. The Collective has caught her on multiple occasions. She managed to escape.

  Shade frowned. Escape? On multiple occasions? Is that even possible?

  First I’ve heard of it, Kann admitted. But she’s not getting away from us. Not tonight. Ain’t that right, partner?

  No, Shade thought without enthusiasm. Not tonight.

  He studied the image once more. She looked a lot like—like Linda, he admitted to himself. The kind of girl he could fall in love with.

  If only he could figure out what love was.

  They crept into the garret where the Helper slept. Dreamers on the run tended to hide out in alleyways, storm drains, and garrets of abandoned buildings. Although it puzzled Shade. The Collective used every free cubic centimeter of space inside the Crust. So why did it build—and abandon—houses, much less with garrets? It was almost as though the Collective wanted to create places where dreamers could hide.

  Although that made no sense to him either.

  They stood looking down at her unmoving body. Street light trickled in through a gap in the curtains. Her chest rose and fell. She lay on the bare floor, covered in garbage to protect her from the chill. Her hands were hidden under the trash.

  Shade rested his palm on the butt of his gun. It seems too easy.

  Agreed, Boss thought, riding in the back of Kann’s mind. Check your dream shields and proceed with caution.

  Maybe she’s a suicide dreamer armed with a knife, Kann joked. Wants to infect us both.

  Shade grimaced. Not funny.

  Kann drew a jabber from his bandoleer, prepared the ChemLob. You look beat, man, he thought. You want me to take this one?

  No, Shade thought. I’ll do it.

  He crouched beside the dreamer, squinted to find the vein in her neck. He pressed the jabber to her skin.

  That’s when the music began.

  At first Shade wasn’t sure what the noise was. He’d never heard music before. He didn’t even know what the word “music” meant. It was only much later that he realized that’s what it was.

  The sound crashed over him in waves. It was the most glorious thing he had ever experienced! A kaleidescope of color and sound burst inside his brain, and he swore.

  Out loud.

  What is it? Kann asked.

  Can’t you hear it?

  Hear what?

  Shade looked around wildly. Where is it coming from?

  And then he knew. The Helper was somehow projecting the music—her dream—into his brain—despite the dream shield he wore.

  But how was that possible?

  He tried to resist, to shut his mind against the sound, but the melody drew him toward her. He pushed back the garbage and lay down beside her. She wiggled her backside against him, and he pressed in tighter.

  What are you doing? Kann yelled in his head.

  Shade! Boss shouted. Get up! Get up now!

  A rough hand shook his shoulder, but Shade ignored it. The dreamer was warm next to him. The colors, the sounds, the—the music—and now smells—and the music! Such music as he had never known. He didn’t have the words to describe it. The sensation was like he had been dead all his life, and now he was alive.

  He wanted more of this, whatever it was. It seemed to him to be coming through a filter, muffled somehow, weakened, deadened by something between her mind and his.

  The dream shield!

  He reached for it, flicked it off, and the music surged in volume, overwhelming his senses. In his mind he danced, spun on his heels by the—

  A loud blast crashed against his ears. The music stopped. The—the dream, if that’s what it was—was gone. He opened his eyes. A neat hole through the dreamer’s temple dribbled blood. As he watched, blood pooled on the pillow beneath her head. He jerked back. Cordite assaulted his nostrils. He sat upright.

  Kann yanked Shade to his feet by the scruff of his jumpsuit, held him against the wall.

  See this? His partner held up a pin.

  What—what happened?

  She breached your dream shield, partner. You know what that means.

  Shade gulped. P
lease. No.

  Do it, Boss ordered.

  Kann drew his unplugger, held it to the base of Shade’s skull. I convene a tribunal, he thought, and ten billion minds answered the summons.

  A tribunal? Shade thought. This is me we’re talking about here, Kann. Jimmy Shade? Your partner? Your favorite node? Your friend? Hello? Remember?

  Kann ignored him. I call on all the Collective as witness.

  But a trial? Shade pleaded.

  Do I have a choice?

  Shade considered. What would I do if our positions were reversed?

  Exactly, Kann thought. You understand.

  So this was it. End of the line. First the Prime, and now the Helper…he was clearly infected. He hoped they wouldn’t have to unplugg him. He hoped ChemLob would be enough to kill the dream. He hoped it wouldn’t hurt.

  Kann cried out, Let the trial commence!

  Ten billion minds waited.

  Has Jimmy Shade been dreaming? Is he infected?

  The Collective probed Jimmy Shade’s mind then, penetrating and judging every last molecule, every last synapse in his skull. He had never before been subject to such detailed scrutiny.

  Shade closed his eyes and trembled, waiting for the guilty verdict. Waiting for the unplugger to suck the implant from his skull. Forever.

  The minds withdrew. NO, boomed the Collective. JIMMY SHADE IS NOT A DREAMER. HE IS NOT INFECTED. VERDICT: NOT GUILY.

  Boss let out a sigh. Well that’s a relief.

  Kann grabbed Shade in a bear hug. Thank the Collective I shot her in time! he said. Close one there, bro. For a moment I was sure I’d have to unplugg you.

  Yeah, Shade thought, in a daze. I thought so too.

  Shade stumbled through the rest of the night, ChemLobbing and unplugging dreamers. No more Helpers, just hundreds of sleeping nodes who’d wake to find their frontal lobes missing. Yet each one proved more difficult than the last. It was like killing himself. He had been infected, that much was clear. Somehow, some way, he could hide his dream from the Collective.

  This scared him even worse.

  If he could hide his true thoughts from the Collective, how many more dreamers were out there, nodes just like him, poisoning humanity with their dreams, unknown to others around them, a menace to everyone they came in contact with?