by J. M. Porup
The stairs! Where were the stairs?
LIE DOWN! ten billion minds thundered at him, so loud his head throbbed. YOU ARE UNDER ARREST! THE CHARGE IS DREAMING! They entered his mind in a rush, and within a heartbeat pronounced judgment: GUILTY AS CHARGED! SENTENCE IS CHEMLOB! STAY WHERE YOU ARE!
Shade’s body wanted to obey this summons. He felt the weight of humanity’s condemnation on his shoulders, but that new, individual, irrational part of himself had gained mastery, and to both his own surprise and the Collective’s, he ran.
He charged through the stairwell door. Noises clattered above him. He paused on the landing. Bootsteps!
By instinct, Shade reached for his service automatic. A dozen bullets, plus a couple of extra clips. But what good were bullets against the Collective? More to the point, was he prepared to kill another cop?
Forget the gun, the Prime thought. Drop it. Leave it here.
But I—
Do it! Or they’ll kill you.
Shade let his gun clatter to the landing. Now what?
Go down. Go deep. Don’t argue. Just go. Now!
Shade took the stairs two at a time. Four thousand floors. No other groundscrapers for kilometers around. What was the point of running? He was merely delaying the inevitable.
A few more minutes with his brain intact. Enjoy them while you can, he thought.
The Prime said nothing, and Shade threw himself down the stairs as fast as he could go. The bootsteps followed, drew nearer.
NO NODE MAY DISOBEY! the Collective thundered. NO NODE MAY THINK FOR HIMSELF! OR HUMANITY WILL BE DOOMED AND THE WORLD WILL END!
But still Shade ran.
You want to cut me off! he pleaded with them, leaping to the next landing. He spun around the corner and flung himself down the next flight of stairs. The bootsteps above did the same. Shade caught a flash of trouser leg behind him. How can I let you cut me off?
WHEN YOU DISOBEY, YOU CUT YOURSELF OFF! the Collective howled.
I want only to be part of the whole, Shade whispered. Safe in the bosom of humanity.
He skittered around another corner and slid down a banister. Half a dozen Dream Police followed on his heels.
THE TIME FOR DREAMING IS OVER, the Collective chanted, so loud Shade thought his brain would burst. NOW WE ALL MUST WORK.
I agree! He thought. So let me work! Is that so much to ask?
He’d lost count of how many flights of stairs he’d gone down. Maybe thirty. Maybe forty, or fifty. Air rasped in his lungs. Twice he felt a hand grip his collar. Twice he twisted free.
Then he spun on a landing, jumped down half a flight of stairs, and found himself face to face with a wall. Another three thousand, nine hundred and fifty floors to go. How could the stairs just stop?
He turned and pressed his back against the cool metal wall, and waited for the end to come.
A platoon of Dream Police halted at the bottom of the stairs.
A door on the landing. Maybe he could—
Another platoon burst through the door and leveled their weapons at him. The two platoons merged and took up a classic prepare-to-subdue-and-ChemLob position.
He knew the formation all too well. How many times had he himself performed the same maneuver?
A ripple in the ranks, and a cop stepped forward.
It was his partner, Kann.
Shade gasped for breath. Kann. I can explain.
His partner sighed. Occupational hazard, Shade. You know that as well as I do. A bitter laugh. Could just as easily have been me.
Let me go, Shade whispered inside Kann’s head. But ten billion watchers heard it too.
Kann shook his head. What would you do if you were me?
Shade considered this. He had to admit he would do the same. He pressed himself tighter against the wall, wishing he could disappear, waiting for the end.
It’s not your fault, Kann said. I don’t blame you. I want you to know that. He motioned two policemen forward. They held their jabbers out, needles extended.
Please, Kann, he begged. Not that. Anything but that. Kill me before you ChemLob me. Please!
I am sorry, my friend. Kann reached out to squeeze Shade’s bicep, but then thought the better of it, and drew back. The two policemen took another step forward.
So this was it. Shade closed his eyes. It was over. His life. Everything. From now on he would be a drooling hydroponic farmer or a garbage collector, just another ChemLobbed node.
The Prime spoke inside Shade’s head once more. There’s an air duct at your feet. The screws have been removed. Wait until the two policemen are close enough to block the line of fire. Then kick backward. Knock the screen free and jump down the vent.
Shade opened his eyes. I’m sorry too, Kann. He shrugged. I guess this is goodbye.
ChemLob, as they both knew, erases not only dreams, but also memories. When next they met, his partner would be just another node. If they succeeded in ChemLobbing him, that is.
Kann raised a hand in salute. Goodbye, old friend.
The two jabber-wielding policemen drew nearer, nearer.
Shade tensed.
Now! the Prime shouted.
Shade kicked backward, and just as the Prime had promised, his boot mashed against a loose air vent cover. It bounced free. He turned and leaped feet-first down the vent.
Hands grabbed at him, plucking at his jumpsuit, a ChemLob jabber grazed his scalp, but he shook himself loose.
Then he was falling.
Gunshots echoed in the narrow space, sparks flew around him, but he turned a corner and accelerated out of harm’s way. His back scraped painfully against the dusty walls of the chute—better than a bullet wound, anyway—and the pain ended only when, without warning, the vent ended, and he fell into complete darkness.
And as he fell, he screamed.
The fall lasted an eternity, or so it seemed to Shade. A single streak of light flickered far above, and he caught a brief glimpse of a giant cavern with tunnels leading off in all directions.
Air became water, and he floundered in cold liquid. The fast-moving current took him he knew not where. For long minutes he struggled to stay afloat, splashing and flailing to keep his head above the turbulent waters.
The current slowed. He was caught in an eddy. His elbow banged against something solid. He reached up, found a handhold. He pulled himself out of the water.
He lay on some sort of smooth platform. He rested there for a moment, panting, catching his breath, retching up water.
Where was he?
A storm drain beneath the city, he supposed. The reservoirs extended hundreds and more floors beneath the surface of the Crust, surrounding the groundscrapers where they plunged toward the radioactive terrain below.
He peered around him in the dark, trying to get his bearings, and failed. Now what was he supposed to do? Hide out in the sewers until he starved to death? Where was he supposed to go?
To the City of Dreams, the Prime replied inside Shade’s head.
The City of What? the Where?
Where all true dreamers must go. It’s the—
But a mental scream of agony tore through the Prime’s thoughts, and then the voice was gone.
THE PRIME IS DEAD, the Collective said, without emotion.
You—you killed him?
But they ignored this.
NODE SHADE, YOU ARE GUILTY OF DREAMING AS CHARGED. THE SENTENCE IS CHEMLOB. RETURN TO THE SURFACE, OR WITHIN THREE DAYS YOU WILL BE DELETED.
Deleted!
Every implant inside every node’s head contained a small explosive charge. Shade had seen thousands of them. He routinely used them to destroy unplugged implants…but they had another purpose. Nodes who strayed below the Crust for more than three days would self-destruct, their brains turned to mush.
No! Not that! Please, no!
YOUR INFECTION COULD POISON US ALL. WE CANNOT ALLOW THAT TO HAPPEN. THREE DAYS, NODE SHADE.
A clock appeared inside Shade’s head, a timer counting
down.
71:59:59.
71:58:58.
71:58:57.
Please, not that! Please!!!
But the Collective said nothing more. No Prime, no Kann, no other voice intruded in his consciousness. Utter silence filled his skull.
Except for the sound of the clock:
tick
tick
tick.
Chapter Eight
Soaked to the skin by the radioactive acid rain he’d been swimming in, Jimmy Shade curled himself up against the wall and went to sleep.
Guilt haunted him. He knew he should go back to the surface and take his medicine, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so.
He would sleep, he decided. A few hours of forbidden bliss dreaming of Linda, and he would be ready to die, alone in this interminable darkness.
Except this time his dream had become a nightmare.
Nightmare.
If dreams are our hopes and longings, he mused between screams of anguish, then nightmares are our fears.
Linda came to him, entered his mind, while his body shivered in that storm drain. But this was not the Linda he remembered, either from their marriage or from dreams. This was a monstrous Linda, covered in slimy purple and green scales, eyes yellow, fangs protruding over her lower lip.
“I don’t love you,” she said, globs of spittle splattering his face. “I never loved you. You’re not worth loving.”
You—you don’t mean that, he stammered.
She laughed. “Why would anyone want to marry a diseased worm like you, anyway?”
She towered above him, and he groveled at her feet. No music enchanted him, no kaleidescope of colors painted the world with delight. Only the harsh grating and clashing of her words filled his ears, and an ugliness beyond description painted his inner eyelids long after he squeezed them shut.
Love me, love me, love me, he begged.
But her curses continued in an unbroken stream for ages of the world.
She broke off her harangue, shook him by the shoulder. “We have to go,” she said, her voice different, less grating, more masculine. It was the first time in the nightmare that she had touched him.
He blinked.
Her monstrous form had changed. A light illuminated her face from below. She had grown horns, the scales were now fur, and she looked like a—a—a—
“A goat?” a man’s voice suggested.
Shade sat up in the dark, gulping air. He looked around him, then cowered once more on the ground. The thing was still there, a light held under its chin, this monstrous form of Linda laughing at him deep inside his mind.
Won’t this nightmare ever end?
The words echoed in his ears, and he winced.
Fingers—hairy fingers—patted Shade’s cheek.
“You are awake, Jimmy Shade,” the voice said. “Let not the phantoms of sleep torture you. This is no nightmare. Rejoice! You are on the road to the City of Dreams!”
Shade blinked again, leaned back against the wall. The “City of Dreams.” Now he knew this was a nightmare.
The dim form, goat horns and all, hovered nearby. The new figure looked like a man who had grown horns and fur and hooves and a tail. What a bizarre-looking monster, he thought.
The squawk box translated all this.
The monster beamed. “Yes! I am a monster! Sharp of you to notice.” He laughed, and stuck out a hairy hand. “Name’s Buck, by the way. Pleased to meet you.”
Shade looked at the hand in horror, and did not take it.
Buck laughed, a high-pitched cackle that rang in the darkness.
But you’re a monster! Shade thought, how can this be real?
“All dreamers become monsters,” Buck said. “As you will soon be, too.” He turned to go. “Come along now. No time to waste.”
Boss’s words echoed in Shade’s head: Dreams make monsters of us all.
Shade covered his face with his hands, squeezed his eyes shut. When would he wake up? When would this nightmare end? He had never understood what the word meant before. Now it was clear to him why the Collective was so opposed to dreams—so easily they turned into nightmares! So easily the dreamer became monster! He cried out in agony, and this Buck nightmare flinched at the sound.
He gritted his teeth: Wake up. Wake up. Wake up!
But the nightmare continued.
Hell was a real place, and he was in it, and it was infinite.
Shade giggled and twitched on the ground. In the course of forty-eight hours—his life destroyed! Infected by a Dreamer Prime, on the run from the Collective, lost and abandoned far beneath the surface of the Crust, to die alone in a radioactive storm drain!
The Buck goat-man-monster continued to blink at him. The waiting was the worst, Shade decided. Why couldn’t this nightmare just get going already, torture him or whatever horror he was here to unleash, and be done with it?
Buck sighed. “I’m a monster, yes. A nightmare? No. I’m real. And we need to get going. We aren’t safe here.”
Was that even possible? Mutant creatures who live in radioactive storm drains, and that somehow the Collective knew nothing about?
Unlikely. No, impossible. But what if…?
Shade checked the timer: 71:27:14. Had he really only slept for half an hour?
The doubt niggled, and the uncertainty was the worst form of torture so far. Was this a nightmare? Or was this nightmare—real?
“Look,” Buck said. “Take my light stick. Alright? See for yourself. This is real. I am real.”
Shade felt a light stick thrust into his hands. He fumbled it, then held it out at arm’s length, darting the beam around the dark space.
The storm drain ran beside them at their feet, just as he remembered it. Tunnels branched off in every direction. He turned the light on Buck, and scuttled back against the wall.
The man had horns alright, and growing out of his forehead! Twisty little things, just like a—
“Goat. Yes. You said.”
One of the ancient animals, he remembered, like a dinosaur. Long since extinct.
The thing had a face of leather. Tufts of patchy fur covered most of his face. A long, thin beard dangled from his chin. His body was covered in fur, and instead of feet, he had hooves.
Buck cackled. “I love meeting first-time dreamers, they are such a hoot!”
What? How often do you meet first-time dreamers? And what does that mean—”first time”?
The goat-man seized Shade by the wrist and pulled him to his feet. “More often than you think. Now we have to hurry. They are coming!”
Who are?
“The Collective! We must get you to safety.”
Shade let himself be dragged along. If this was to be his nightmare, so be it. He preferred this goat-man to the Linda-monster any day.
Shade flicked the light stick around the cavern. The goat-man led him into a tunnel, and they began to descend.
Where are we going? he squawked.
“The City of Dreams, of course!”
Please. There’s no such place. A myth to scare young nodes with, nothing more.
Buck spun on his hooves, held Shade’s hand aloft. The light stick cast dark shadows across his face.
“Every city has one,” the monster said. “An under-city. A City of Dreams. What was here before, and still remains.”
Here before? Before what?
“Before the War, of course. Before the Collective came into being.”
If that’s the case, Shade demanded, how come the Collective knows nothing about it?
Buck’s countenance took on a solemn expression. “The Collective sees everything it wants to see, and nothing that it doesn’t.”
That’s ridiculous, Shade replied. The Collective knows everything.
Far above them, a splash of water. Bootsteps.
The goat-man lowered his voice. “Come on, we have to go!”
Shade resisted. What does it matter? Let them find me.
“They are coming
for you. Don’t you get it? The Collective. You cannot stay here. They will kill your dream if you do.”
Shade lifted his arms above his head. Let them. My dream? You mean, my nightmare? Come and get it. He let his arms fall, buried his face in his hands. Bring on the ChemLob. Just let this nightmare end.
Buck tugged at his elbow. “This isn’t a nightmare. This is real, and we need to go. Now!”
Shade cackled. Where? The City of Dreams?
“Yes,” Buck said. “There are many people there who want to meet you. Now come on!”
The goat-man grabbed Shade’s wrist with both hands and dragged him down the tunnel. After a while Shade stopped resisting, and ran alongside the monster. What did it matter? What difference did anything make at this point? Fighting the nightmare would only make it worse.
They ventured deeper and deeper into the Crust. The bootsteps grew fainter, and stopped.
The goat-man halted after half an hour. They rested against the wall, panting for breath.
“We’ll be safe soon,” Buck said. “The Dream Police will not follow where we’re going.”
I’ve never heard of the Dream Police chasing a dreamer into the sewers before.
The goat-man’s eyes swivelled to look at him. “You are special, Jimmy Shade. You have been chosen.”
That’s the same thing the Prime said.
“Indeed.” Buck got to his feet. “Not too much farther now. Then you can decide for yourself if the City of Dreams is a myth.”
So who lives in the City of Dreams? Shade asked. This was a strange nightmare, but no longer painful. Might as well see where it led.
“Why, other dreamers, of course.”
What? Shade laughed. What other dreamers? Do they live here in the sewers? He swept an arm at their surroundings. Because I don’t see any.
“We live below,” Buck said. “On the surface.”
But it’s radioactive down there! Shade said. No one can live on the surface. Not since the War.
The goat-man shrugged. “It’s the only way to keep our dreams alive.”
