Dreams Must Die

by J. M. Porup

  What insanity had made him think this would work?

  Look at all he had lost—his love for the Collective, for his wife, his friendship with Kann, even his love for Maude. All that he had left was this stupid song.

  Stupid.

  All of it.

  The song hummed inside his head once more. It was—it was a lullaby. Like the one Maude had sung to him. An ancient song to put a troubled child to sleep.

  Sleep!

  The song caressed his soul, soothed his shattered nerves. He would live or he would die. He would win or he would lose.

  But not right now. Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would confront the Collective. Once he’d had a chance to rest.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  A hand caressed Shade’s cheek. He woke with a start.

  A familiar face peered down at him. He straggled up onto his elbows and blinked, squinting to focus.

  Linda?

  She sat back on her heels. “Hi, Jimmy.”

  “But—what are you—I mean, I saw you, you died—”

  Her bright laugh tinkled in his ears. “You mean the shootout. In the King’s Chamber.”

  “I saw you,” he said again. “You died in my arms.”

  She nodded, her smile unwavering. “They fixed me up.”

  A faint glow of light seeped in through the curtains. He jumped to the window and peered out. They were alone.

  “Who did?” he whispered. “When? Where? How?”

  “The Collective.” Still that unceasing plastic smile. “A second Dream Police unit went down there with Kann. They had a portable med unit with them. They fixed me up, made me as good as new.” She giggled. “They even replugged me. It’s fabulous!”

  Shade scrambed to his feet. He peeked out the window. The streets were empty.

  “Replugged you? How?”

  “With Ennst’s replugger,” she said. “He left it in the King’s Chamber. Don’t you remember?”

  He did remember. “But where did they get a spare implant?”

  “They brought it with them,” she said. “And can I just say—wow! It is so good to be part of the Collective once more.”

  He looked at her in growing horror. “But what about your dream?” he said at last.

  She laughed again. But the sound seemed mechanical to him, a shadow cast by a lifeless statue.

  “Oh that,” she said. “Playing with paints, how stupid could I be? Ever since the ChemLob—”

  He grabbed her arms. “They ChemLobbed you?”

  Her laugh was like a death rattle in his ear. “Of course they did, silly!” An expression of ectasy contorted her face. “To be a useful member of society once more…” She took his face in her hands and kissed the tip of his nose. “You too can have that joy.”

  Shade nodded, and pulled away. He flung himself back onto the bed. “This is a dream, isn’t it?” he said. “A nightmare. I’ll just close my eyes, go back to sleep, and you and all this will go away.”

  “You don’t think I’m—I’m a nightmare?” She looked like she about to cry.

  “I saw you die,” Shade said. “There’s no way you could still be alive. A second team? That I didn’t know about? A portable med kit? An implant they just happened to have with them?” He shook his head. “I don’t believe it. Any of it. This has to be a dream.”

  Linda cocked her head, as though listening to something, or someone. She went to the window.

  “Are they part of your nightmare?” she asked.

  Shade closed his eyes, made himself comfortable on the bed. “I’m sure they are,” he said wearily.

  “I didn’t even know there were that many Dream Police,” she breathed.

  Ignore her. She’s a figment of your imagination. A nightmare. Don’t let her get you riled.

  But his curiosity got the better of him. He heaved himself from the bed with a sigh and went to the window.

  “Let’s see what my nightmare looks like,” he said. He pushed the curtains aside and leaned forward, both hands on the window sill.

  Shade stifled an intake of breath. He had never seen so many Dream Police before. Officers must have flown in from all over the planet.

  The streets, empty only moments before, were now full—shoulder-to-shoulder with Dream Police in double, triple, even quadruple dream shields. They stood on the rooftops opposite, they hovered in police cruisers, their searchlights turning the scene into one blazing patch of light.

  Linda ran a palm up the base of his spine. “They’d like a word with you,” she said. “But I asked them to let me talk to you first.”

  Shade drew back. The Dream Police were heavily armed, bandoleers of bullets and ChemLob jabbers over their shoulders, rifles all aimed at him.

  A lot of hardware to take out one dreamer, he thought, even if he was the world’s last Dreamer Prime.

  “What do they want?” he asked. “What are they waiting for? Why haven’t the killed me already?”

  She turned to face him. “They want you to come home,” she said. “They want you to be happy.”

  She placed her hands on his chest, but he grabbed them, held them still.

  “Happy?” He cackled. “Is that what you call it?”

  “Don’t you want to be a useful member of society again?” she whispered. “To be part of something greater than yourself?”

  How tiresome, Shade thought.

  But, nightmare or no nightmare, he had to deal with this as best he could. Or things could get ugly.

  He pushed her away. “Not if it means killing my song,” he said. “I have a dream. And that dream is more important than anything else in the world.”

  “To you,” she pointed out.

  He considered this, then nodded. “To me.”

  “Even if that dream threatens to destroy the world?”

  “Especially then,” he said. “A world run by the Collective? Where my dream is not welcome? That is not a world I want to live in.”

  “Then die,” she said, and caressed his cheek. “But do not harm the Collective. Please?”

  Her eyes pleaded with him. Ten billion minds stared out from those beautiful orbs. Was the Collective afraid of him? He spoke slowly to make sure they all could hear.

  “I will bring my dream to every member of the Collective, or I will die trying. There can be no third way.” He clasped her hand in his. “I guess this is goodbye.”

  “Don’t say goodbye to me, Jimmy Shade,” she said. In her voice he heard the monotone of ten billion voices. “Say goodbye—to them.” She turned back to the window.

  In the center of the street a series of cages had appeared. Inside, flashes of color, irregular anatomy. Shade squinted.

  His friends! Maude, Ennst, Buck, Zama, and the other actors.

  Maude clutched the bars of her cage. Their eyes met.

  Sing! Shade begged her silently. Let me hear your voice. Your dream. Give me the courage to sing too.

  She opened her mouth, and Shade winced. Someone had cut out her tongue. Buck’s horns and hands and hooves were missing. The actors lay flat in their cages, arms and legs removed at the shoulder and thigh.

  Linda came up behind him, breathed in his ear. “Will you suffer as they do?” she asked. “Pointlessly?” She rested her chin on his shoulder. “Or will you take your medicine and be a good boy?”

  Shade pushed open the window and stepped out onto the roof.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. “Jimmy? Talk to me, Jimmy.”

  The police tracked his movement with their weapons. Thousands of safeties clicked off.

  I can’t do this! Shade thought. Don’t make me, please!

  Just open your mouth, his song whispered. I’ll do the rest.

  Open his mouth. That he could do. So, hands at his sides, the police tense, guns unwavering, Shade took a deep breath and opened his mouth as wide as he could.

  Song poured forth.

  Shade expected bullets to pepper his body, thousands of rounds of ammunition churning his f
lesh to pulp. But they let him sing, and the music that poured from his lungs was the most beautiful and most powerful of his life, and he wondered where it all came from, what it meant.

  When he was finished, he stood there, panting. The Dream Police had not moved, had not changed position, had not reacted in any way.

  After a long moment, a cop in the street stepped forward. Kann. His squawk box sounded.

  “Hi, Jimmy.”

  “Kann.” Shade managed a weak smile. “How you doing?”

  “Jimmy,” Kann said, “I can’t hear you. We’re all wearing earplugs.”

  Earplugs! Shade cursed himself. If only he had acted sooner…now all was lost. He hung his head.

  Kann’s squawk box screeched again. “Come down here now or we’ll be forced to shoot you.” A pause. “Don’t make me shoot you, Jimmy.”

  Shade nodded. He had no hope left.

  You forget, his song said. What about the rest of the Collective? Are they all wearing earplugs and dream shields?

  But they are outside of my broadcast radius, Shade objected. No dreamer can infect the entire planet.

  The voice chuckled. Have you tried?

  If it worked… An outflanking maneouvre, Shade thought. Interesting.

  No! the voice said. Don’t overthink this. Just open your mouth. That’s all you have to do.

  Kann lifted his rifle back to his shoulder, aimed it at Shade. “You coming down or aren’t you?”

  Shade did not reply. He closed his mouth and sang again—this time in his mind. His implant thrilled inside his skull at the unexpected power coursing through it. Shdae reached out to the nodes a few blocks away, two streets away, until he was head-hopping, a million nodes a second, spreading his dream to every node in the city.

  He had never known what he was doing was even possible. To broadcast a dream at such great distances! Thoughts spread around the world at the speed of light, but dreams oozed their path from mind to mind…what he was doing was extraordinary, and he knew it.

  Quit patting yourself on the back and sing some more, the voice inside his head commanded.

  So he did. With every last gram of strength he possessed, he sang. He sang of the Collective, of his love for the Collective, and the voice swelled inside him to encompass nearby cities, the entire continent, the hemisphere.

  The world.

  In less than a fraction of a second, Shade entered the minds of ten billion people, skipping and jumping through their heads, and he sang for them, sang of his love and his hope and all that being human meant.

  The Collective realized what was happening an instant too late—it takes time to pull a trigger, an eternity compared to the speed of thought—and ten billion newly-anointed dreamers invaded the minds of the Dream Police, their thoughts passing through their dream shields, overwhelming them, shouting them down—

  Then it happened. The police froze. They threw their guns on the ground, ripped off their dream shields and pulled out their earplugs. The police began to dance.

  Kann danced too. He waved up at Shade, then turned and unlocked the cages.

  Maude held her scaly arms above her head in triumph. With time and a med unit, she would be whole again. They would all be whole again.

  And not just the other dreamers. The world could now heal, the worlds of Work and Play united once more, forever, Worker and dreamer living together side by side, hand in hand, happy together.

  Shade’s song encompassed the Earth and reached out to the hidden sky, to the universe itself, and it seemed to him the stars themselves began to dance.

  A dance of joy.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Kann spat on the dusty floor of the garrett. Is he dead?

  Blood pooled on the dirty mattress.

  Bark, his new partner, checked the dreamer’s pulse, then holstered his weapon. His dream no longer threatens the Collective.

  Kann laughed, clapped Bark on the back. You realize this makes us heroes?

  Bark gazed down at the corpse in awe. Was he really the last Dreamer Prime?

  Kann spat again, this time on Jimmy Shade’s cooling body. The time for dreaming is over. Now we all must work.

  They about-faced and left the garrett. The same day, the Collective disbanded the Dream Police and re-assigned the two nodes to Information Factory work.

  And it seemed to Kann, when he was allowed to think about it—which wasn’t often—that the Earth sighed with relief at the extermination of dreams. The Collective could now devote all its energy to the salvation of mankind.

  THE TIME FOR DREAMING IS OVER, boomed the Collective, NOW WE ALL MUST WORK.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  On the other side of the planet, in another city, far beneath the Crust, at the bottom tip a groundscraper that plummetted to the surface, a node was born.

  The child was plugged with an implant at birth. The Collective cared for the child as it would any other node. Untouched by Shade’s dream—or any other dream for that matter—the child’s many gifts indicated a bright future in Information Factory work.

  But this child was different. Deep inside his brain, in a lobe untouched by the Collective, his thoughts were strange and disturbing.

  He had a dream…

  Note from the Author

  hi there!

  Did you enjoy Dreams Must Die? If you did, why not leave a review? Reviews help other readers discover my work.

  Thanks!

  J.M. Porup

  About the Author

  Former Lonely Planet author J.M. Porup now spins a tale or two for his daily crust. He has lived on three continents, speaks six languages, and has worked as a kelp harvester, apple tree pruner, goatherd, cowherd, computer programmer, copywriter and journalist. American by birth, Australian by choice, Colombian by marriage and Canadian by accident, he now lives in the Oriental Republic of Uruguay. His first editor—way back in the mid-90s—called him a loose cannon. Ever since, Porup has done his best to live up to that high standard.

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