10

by James Phelan

  Time to go. Destiny is waiting …

  In the hallway outside his room the coast was clear. Sam knew that the Guardians in the adjoining room were there in case anyone made it up to the floor. The guys on look-out were downstairs, plain-clothed in their own Stealth Suits, keeping watch.

  He took the stairs instead of the lift, figuring there’d be less chance of security cameras. This hotel was owned by a member of the Dreamer Council, so no doubt the Guardians would have someone posted in the security room too, watching all the monitors.

  It’s all for my safety—so why does this feel like I’m breaking out of prison?

  In the lobby he kept out of sight, just inside the stairwell. Across in the lounge area he spied a couple of Guardians pretending to read newspapers. They scanned the lobby every few moments, more concerned with spotting people trying to sneak into the hotel than anyone leaving it. But he knew the Guardians would stop him from venturing out, for his own protection. He had to get out unseen … but how?

  A solution soon presented itself.

  Sam spotted a passing waiter and fell into step behind him, changing his Stealth Suit to replicate the guy’s black trousers and white shirt, black tie and golden vest. They walked through into the kitchen area, where Sam ditched the waiter to head for daylight—a loading bay out the back.

  Peering around the corner, he saw a Guardian out in the lane, standing sentry. There was a truck pulled up with its rear cargo door open to the dock, collecting laundry. When the guy turned to load another big-wheeled basket of dirty linen into the truck, Sam snuck into the next basket.

  Eurgh! It stinks in here.

  He shifted around on the load of damp towels and felt the basket being pushed across the load bay, jarring hard as it bounced over the lip of the truck and then rolling smoothly over the metal surface inside. Sam held his breath against the smell and waited, silent, until he heard the clang of the truck doors slamming shut followed by the sound of the big diesel engine coming to life.

  Sam waited until the truck had made a few short runs and stops before making his move. He crept out of the basket and made for the doors. The double-swing doors were sealed—locked—from the outside.

  Oh man.

  ‘OK, Jedi,’ Sam said, looking around the truck with the torch on his phone. ‘Didn’t give me an app to get out of this, did you?’

  Sam realised that the truck was not idling in traffic—its engine had stopped. The guy was at the doors, rattling the latches. Sam ducked back behind the big baskets of laundry.

  Sunlight blazed in as the doors opened. Peeking through gaps between the baskets, Sam could see they were in a laneway behind a restaurant, the truck driver walking through a doorway.

  Sam slipped out the back and jumped down to the road, his Stealth Suit changing to the casual outfit he’d selected back at the hotel. Behind him, the guy loaded more laundry, oblivious to his recent travelling companion. Sam smiled, put on his sunglasses, then used the street signs and his phone’s GPS to get his bearings. He headed for the Louvre, whistling as he walked quickly among the early evening crowd.

  Who needs a Stealth Suit to be invisible …

  12

  ALEX

  ‘This is the Enterprise’s “dream team”,’ Shiva said with a grin. The big stainless steel doors, like a bank vault, closed behind them. ‘Have you been in here before?’

  ‘Nup, this is cool …’ Alex walked closely behind his friend, seeing Enterprise Agents all around them stationed at computers. But they weren’t ordinary computers—each Agent had three huge screens. They all looked very young and seemed to be extremely focused. ‘They look like they should be working at one of those big shot companies around here in Silicon Valley. You know, the ones where they’re all on Segways and playing basketball at their desks.’

  ‘Them?’ Shiva said, slowing so that Alex and he were walking shoulder to shoulder. ‘Please! Those internet and social media guys are about ten years behind what we’re doing here. Most of the tech Agents used to work for one of those companies or another—but we pay more, a lot more, and have the real cutting-edge tech here.’

  ‘Yeah, about that,’ Alex said, seeing Agents huddled around a wall of glass that was covered in pictures and graphics, like the world’s biggest touch screen. They were manipulating images across the surface. ‘What are these guys doing?’

  ‘Let’s go see,’ Shiva said.

  They walked over to the group. Alex could see that some images were pictures of cities, showing demonstrations and marches, disturbances taking place in the streets. The young Asian woman in charge looked at Shiva and smiled, then to Alex and frowned.

  ‘It’s OK, he’s with me, a new recruit,’ Shiva said. ‘What are you working on?’

  ‘We’re tracking anomalies in the Dreamscape,’ the woman replied. ‘There’ve been mass protests and unrest in various spots around the globe, we believe as a result of a widespread nightmare epidemic. People are afraid they’re being brainwashed in their sleep.’

  ‘You find a cause for it?’ Shiva asked. ‘The source?’

  ‘For the nightmares?’ she said. ‘No. But this is unlike anything we’ve ever seen.’

  ‘It’s because of the last 13, isn’t it?’ Alex said, seeing an image of Sam from a news report in the corner. ‘The race has changed the balance of things—in the dream world I mean.’

  ‘Yes, that’s correct, though it does not explain things fully,’ the woman said, then she turned to the screen and wiped away some of the scenes of destruction and brought up what looked like a sine wave.

  ‘This is how the dream wave for a normal night in a large city looks—for those asleep, there’s a mixture of happy dreams, sad dreams, nightmares and so forth. The full mixture, and it’s always in a proportion similar to this.’

  Alex and Shiva nodded.

  ‘This is what we’re seeing in these trouble spots as of last night,’ she continued.

  The results were extraordinary.

  ‘They’re all having nightmares?’ Alex said.

  ‘What could cause that?’ Shiva asked.

  ‘We’re not sure, that’s what we’re discussing right now,’ she replied. ‘We don’t really have a frame of reference for this kind of rupture in the Dreamscape.’

  ‘That will do for today’s lesson,’ a voice said behind Alex.

  The group seemed to startle, and everyone hurried back to being busy and working elsewhere.

  Alex and Shiva turned around.

  Matrix stood before them, his hair pulled back into a long, greasy ponytail.

  How did he know we were in here? That just good, or rather bad, timing?

  ‘Matrix,’ Shiva said, ‘you remember Alex, our newest team member?’

  Alex thrust out a hand, but Matrix kept his hands firmly clasped behind his back, his bulging stomach stretching his coffee-stained t-shirt.

  ‘He doesn’t like to touch other people,’ Shiva whispered out the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Member of my team, huh?’ Matrix said.

  ‘Yes,’ Alex replied nervously.

  ‘Well then, perhaps you should get back to work.’

  Matrix loomed in front of Alex’s console back in the computer lab, staring blankly at him. Finally, his eyes narrowed and he stepped closer to Alex. ‘Until you earn it,’ Matrix said, his voice quick, ‘I don’t trust you.’

  Yeah, right back at ya, buddy.

  ‘Matrix,’ Shiva said, intervening. ‘Alex’s good, he’s been going fine so far.’

  ‘I want to see what the kid can do,’ Matrix said, pointing at an old computer that had somehow materialised on Alex’s desk. ‘Hack into the Academy’s Swiss campus.’

  ‘OK,’ Alex said warily, before adding, ‘easy.’

  He switched it on. Nothing happened.

  ‘I think you’ll find,’ Shiva said, getting under the desk and coming out with a power lead, holding up the plug, ‘that you’ll need to plug this in first.’

  ‘Yeah, I h
eard that helps,’ Alex laughed.

  ‘I want you to isolate their communications systems,’ Matrix went on. ‘Phones, radio, all of it, get me access.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Alex said, his fingers drumming on the keyboard. ‘But why?’

  ‘Why?’ Matrix repeated, as though insulted that someone would question him. ‘Because I said so. Because it’s a test. That’s a five-year-old computer,’ he said, pointing to the the dusty machine in front of Alex, ‘and you’re a fifteen-year-old kid. Let’s see what you can do. You have twenty-four hours.’

  ‘I’ll do it in twelve,’ Alex said, his fingers already sending computer code flying up the screen.

  Take that.

  Matrix smiled, a thin smirk, then he turned and went over to his private, isolated corner of the lab.

  Alex watched his back as he walked away. ‘I’ll show him,’ he muttered, cracking his knuckles and turning back to his computer.

  ‘Seriously though,’ Shiva said, ‘Matrix is hardcore. He works twelve-hour days here then makes a couple of million a year on the side through his own software business, not to mention his haul as a pro-gamer.’

  ‘What does he play?’

  ‘Everything. He was world champ at StarCraft when he was seventeen. Practically rewrote the book on how to slay at Guitar Hero. Now, I don’t know, I think it’s like pretty much any game out there—he enters tournaments and collects titles, just for fun. He’s a computer genius to the power of a million.’

  ‘Well, genius times a million or not,’ Alex said, opening up a new web browser, ‘the guy stinks. He may work and game all the time, but shower much?’

  Shiva cracked up laughing so hard that tears started rolling down his cheeks. Alex stared, waiting for him to stop but Shiva just waved him away as he doubled over.

  Sheesh, that’s not even my best stuff. This guy’s gotta get out more …

  13

  SAM

  ‘If only I could walk through walls …’ Sam said, looking in awe at the Louvre forecourt. The place was massive. And busy. Hundreds of tourists jostled one another as they headed for either the last hours of the museum’s extended evening viewing or the sunset that was not far off on the Seine River. Summer storm clouds rumbled overhead. Sam walked fast, only to be caught up in the museum’s entry queue.

  He shuffled through the entrance in the large glass pyramid. With the Professor still tied up with his business at the Council, he felt he had the time to find Zara—to warn her, protect her. He bought a pass to join the day’s final tour, and kept to the back of the group as they moved at a snail’s pace.

  On the way past the queues at the gift shops and food vendors, Sam felt several people stare at him.

  What are they looking at?

  It almost felt like he was in a dream. Then he remembered the news footage from Berlin.

  Has some kind of local police report gone out for me? Maybe there’s been a reported sighting of me here, now I’m a wanted fugitive.

  There were a couple of cops ahead, casting an eye over the tour group, mainly made up of Americans, as it surged forwards.

  Sam stopped at the gift store and whizzed through the carousel of sunhats, selecting a cap with the Eiffel tower on the front of it.

  By the time he’d paid and rejoined his group, the cops had moved on. No-one seemed to be taking particular notice of him anymore. Everyone was too busy looking at the amazing artworks. He was back to being one of the faceless masses.

  For now.

  After some fifteen minutes of ambling along, stopping every now and then to gather around a painting, Sam worked his way to the front of the group and said to the tour guide, ‘Excuse me, will we see The Raft of the Medusa?’

  ‘Ah, Gericault,’ the guide said, not breaking her stride. ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Different tour.’

  ‘Oh, OK. How about the Mona Lisa?’ Sam said, latching onto the name of the first famous painting he could think of.

  ‘Yes,’ the guide replied.

  ‘Cool.’

  The guide looked down her nose at him as they continued on. Sam drifted to the back of the pack, watching out for anything unusual.

  The space around him was vaguely familiar, but in his nightmare he’d only seen the interior of the museum in darkness. They passed a couple of security guards and Sam looked the other way as he and his group entered another gallery.

  The Mona Lisa.

  The crowd in the room was like a mosh pit, a crush of people holding their cameras high overhead, trying to snap a picture of the little painting, some jumping to get a better view.

  Wonder what da Vinci would make of this circus …

  There was a wait for a few minutes as another group were shepherded away, continuing to take photos over the heads of those who now crammed in for a closer look. The guide spoke to them in a hushed tone, and Sam looked up—straight into the lens of a security camera above.

  Oh no!

  Heat flared up Sam’s neck as he looked away.

  Down the gallery, the security guards’ radios crackled to life, and they both spoke into their handsets at once.

  Quick, think!

  Sam thought back to the dream, struggling to recall how he got from the galleries to the restoration room. He turned from his group, who were finally in front of the famous painting, and followed the other tour group out. All the while, he tried to get his bearings. As he did so, the two security guards entered the room—and he caught a few words of their conversation he recognised—look out … teenager … red coat.

  Instinctively, Sam looked at the guy in front of him—wearing a dark blue blazer over a t-shirt, and his Stealth Suit changed to mimic it.

  A kid in the arms of a woman next to him started laughing and pointing at Sam’s trick.

  The laughing attracted the attention of the woman, who looked from the child to Sam, then back to the tour. She glanced back to Sam, as if something had registered.

  Sam backed away.

  Why is this bit always easier in the dreams?

  The kid’s older brother raised his hand to point at Sam.

  Sam didn’t wait to see what might happen next.

  He turned and ran.

  14

  Down the length of the Denon Wing, its imposing arched ceiling towering above, Sam flashed by a cop, no doubt looking for a teen in a red coat. Sam rounded a corner, his shoes skidding on the floor, and checked back over his shoulder. The cop had doubled back, but by the time he’d come around the corner, Sam’s Stealth Suit had changed again, this time into a tour guide’s uniform.

  He was no longer running, rather standing there and pointing down the hall.

  ‘That way!’ Sam said in just-passable French, and the cop blazed by without even looking at him.

  A few minutes later, Sam was standing in the main courtyard outside. He was frustrated that he’d been unable to find the way to the room from his dream. The gendarmerie—the French police—were at the entrance to the museum, searching the crowd. He adjusted his sunglasses and cap, making sure he kept hidden among the masses of people. He was now dressed in casual clothes, typical of the young Parisians he saw around him.

  Maybe the Professor was right—maybe I should have waited until tomorrow to meet Zara, to find another way.

  But Sam couldn’t shake the idea that he had to find her as fast as possible. The sun would soon set, and with it his chances of finding Zara would diminish.

  If only she had a dreamcatcher necklace on, then I could find her on my phone.

  Phone …

  Sam pulled out his phone and dialled Jedi.

  ‘Yo, waz up?’ Jedi said.

  ‘Any chance you can bring up the details we have on Zara?’

  ‘You and the Professor trying to find her?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Sam said. Well, technically, it’s not really a lie—we are trying to find her.

  ‘What kind of info you after?’ Jedi said.

  ‘Phone number.’
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  ‘One sec …’

  Sam could hear Jedi’s hands tapping at the keyboard.

  ‘OK, sending it to you now,’ Jedi said.

  Sam saw the number flash up on his screen.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘That it?’ Jedi asked.

  ‘Well, I was thinking,’ Sam said, wishing he’d thought of it before, ‘if there’s some way that you can track her location via her phone?’

  There was a slight pause. ‘If she’s on it, I can try, but I can’t be sure how accurate the trace will be—I mean, I can try to piggyback the emergency network, but for an exact location it depends on her carrier and her position in relation to the telephone towers.’

  ‘Right, well, get ready to track her location, I’m going to call her now.’

  ‘Alright then, let’s do it.’

  Sam hung up. The problem was, if he called her and Jedi tracked her location to somewhere back inside the Louvre, that wouldn’t really help. He assumed she was in there now, but there was no way he’d be able to get back inside to find her, not with all the guards now on high alert. He had to draw her out.

  ‘Bonjour?’ Zara said.

  ‘Hi,’ Sam replied. ‘Zara?’

  ‘Oui. Yes?’

  ‘My name’s Sam.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And …’

  And what? I need to meet you, so I can tell you that you’re part of the last 13 Dreamers who must take part in the most important race in history?

  ‘How, ah,’ Sam said, ‘how are you doing?’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Ahh …’ Sam looked around, swallowed hard. ‘Zara, I need to talk to you about something important.’

  ‘Who are you?’ she said, sounding annoyed.

  ‘Sam.’

  ‘Where are you calling from? If this is a prank, I am hanging up now.’

  ‘I’ve come to Paris to meet you,’ Sam said, cringing at how lame this sounded. ‘I have information that you need to hear.’

  ‘Please explain. I don’t understand. What information?’