by Gareth Otton
1
Wednesday, 16th November 2016
16:26
“Please, I don’t want to go.”
The words echoed through Tad’s mind as they had for nearly four months. The desperate cries of his little girl as they dragged her away. Despite all his power, he was helpless when they took her from him.
Not helpless, a dark voice whispered. Cowardly. You could have stopped it easily.
Every day that voice grew harder to ignore, and his reasons for letting them take Jen were harder to remember. No matter how much he spent on solicitors, nor how many Borderlands Council and dreamwalker meetings he missed preparing for the custody battle, he felt no closer to bringing his daughter home than the day they took her.
Add the stress of his own battle to escape jail for Jen’s illegal adoption, working with politicians he didn’t understand, the day-to-day struggles of the Borderlands, and Ryan going radio silent for two months, and Tad felt like a pressure cooker waiting to explode.
More than anything, he was tired. The last year felt like one long battle, and he couldn’t see an end in sight.
“Tad!”
He blinked and looked around, surprised to find himself sitting behind a large, semi-circular desk. Bright lights shone in his face and there were three cameras pointed at him. On the other side of the desk, Lizzie stared at him, her green eyes wide with panic. When she looked away Tad followed her gaze to a seven foot tall, green monstrosity, covered in muscle and scales. Beady black eyes stared back at him as it snarled, it’s lips pulled back to reveal six inch teeth and jutting, white tusks.
It was a nightmare as gruesome as anything he had faced before, but for once he wasn’t worried.
“Aren’t you going to do something?” Lizzie hissed.
“It can’t hurt us,” he said, remembering why he was here. Before he’d zoned out, he’d called that thing over himself, all to prove a point. “The new dreamcatcher is doing a great job of holding it.”
Sure enough, though the creature was straining to get at them both, it looked as though it was pressed against an invisible barrier, one created by a small, glowing design that hung from the front of the desk. In fact, it was so secure that even though Tad could see Growler’s enormous shape past the glow of the near blinding studio lights, the dog wasn’t bothered. Ever since he got those triple scars on his flank, Growler harboured a special hatred for nightmares. Now he just watched, head on his forepaws and looking like he wanted to go back to sleep.
The ghost next to him was another matter. Tony was scowling as he looked at the trapped nightmare, and he had taken a step forward to put his body between the nightmare and the teenage ghost behind him. Wherever Tony was these days, Amber was never far behind. It almost made Tad smile before he remembered where he was. He turned back to Lizzie.
“This new design doesn’t just block nightmares, it traps them. It’s like a spider web, holding them in place until either a dreamwalker can arrive or the dreamer wakes up.”
“Impressive,” Lizzie said, her voice tight. “You made your point. Can you get rid of it now?”
Recognising her fear, Tad acted. He’d come here today to spread the word about Mitena’s newest dreamcatchers. Those already spread throughout the Borderlands were doing an amazing job, but this one promised to help reduce the impact of nightmares even further. Tad wanted to show the world that they didn’t need to be afraid, and hopefully stop nightmares all together.
The snarling nightmare glared at him like it was ready to rip his head off. Tad ignored it, turning his focus inward, searching for his connection to another reality. He could sense this nightmare, knowing where it was without needing to look, and visualising its core. It was like a battery, filled with Dream and topped up by fear so it could stay in this world. To send it home, Tad just needed to overload that battery.
He imagined pulling power through the door in his mind, channelling it into the nightmare. With a wave of his hand, he unfolded Dream onto reality.
Power rushed through him, warm and exhilarating. The nightmare’s hateful eyes widened in surprise and the black in them fled, chased away by the light that grew from within and soon blazed from its open mouth and eyes. Its muscles locked up like it was being electrocuted, and soon the light became too bright to look at.
That light exploded outward, then vanished.
Silence followed its destruction as the world darkened. Even Tad, whose eyes were protected from the supernatural light, had to readjust to the mere daylight levels of the studio lights. When Lizzie could see again, she stared at him with an open mouth as she struggled for words.
“What?” he asked, self-conscious.
“You destroyed it.”
“Wasn’t that what you wanted?”
“But you didn’t touch it. You just waved your hand and it was gone.”
It was Tad’s turn to be speechless. He hadn’t even thought about it. He just reached out and did what felt natural.
The fingers of his fire damaged left hand, all but useless thanks to the injuries he sustained when dealing with a fire nightmare that consumed half of Swansea, twitched as he thought of the consequences of that action. Did he need to touch that molten stone to end that nightmare? Even now the frustration of never again being able to play the guitar haunted him. Could he have avoided that?
“How did you do that?” Lizzie asked.
“I… I don’t know,” he admitted, knowing it wasn’t the right thing to say on her show but unable to think of a better answer.
Again Lizzie was speechless. As the silence stretched, never a good thing for a TV show, she looked down to her notes and changed the topic.
“So that’s further proof we’re making progress against nightmares. But what about progress with other aspects of the Borderlands? What can you tell me about the bill that is being discussed in parliament this week? The one put forward by the Borderlands Council?”
Tad wasn’t sure what she was talking about. If the council had put through a bill, this was the first he was hearing of it. Something in the way her expression morphed into a disapproving frown told him he wouldn’t like this.
“Come on Tad, considering what’s in this bill, it’s hard to imagine you’re supporting it.”
“Remind me what’s in this one,” he said, fishing for information.
Lizzie’s frown deepened and the danger sense that was missing with the nightmare returned.
“Come on, Tad, don’t play coy with me. There’s no way you don’t have opinions on this, especially with what it will mean for dreamwalkers if it’s passed into law.”
There was another pregnant pause before she realised he didn’t know what she was talking about. She didn’t hide her surprise well.
“You can’t be serious. How the hell did this slip past you?”
“Maybe if you tell me what’s in the bill, it might jog my memory,” he suggested.
“Tad, this is about the rights of dreamwalkers in the eyes of the law. How can you not have been a part of drafting this?”
Tad knew exactly how, but couldn’t bring himself to admit it. The fact that he missed more council meetings than he attended wouldn’t go down well with Lizzie’s audience.
Not willing to let the silence linger, Lizzie continued talking.
“The largest controversy surrounds the response to criminal dreamwalkers. If this becomes law, it will empower authorities to treat any crime committed by a dreamwalker as a capital offence. They recommend that police respond to all incidents with overwhelming force, up to and including lethal action. That is for any crime committed by a dreamwalker, no matter how small.”
“You can’t be serious,” Tad said, sure she was joking. She looked at him like he couldn’t be serious asking that question.
“This has been in the news for weeks. If this bill passes, then if you so much as park on double yellows you could be met with deadly force.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Tad said, suddenly angry. �
��No one in their right mind would pass legislation like that. You must be mistaken.”
Face turning red at being called out, Lizzie started typing on her laptop. Within seconds the large television off camera, which showed Tad and Lizzie what the viewers saw, split in half with one half showing Tad and the other half showing a legal document.
Tad read through what he could see, his mood darkening with every line.
“This is ridiculous,” he repeated as he continued reading, unable to believe the content of that document. It wasn’t so straightforward as Lizzie said, but she’d caught the essence of it. “How could anyone expect this to pass?”
“They’re saying every dreamwalker has the potential to be more dangerous than an armed criminal. Police dealing with dreamwalkers are placing their life at risk. The likelihood of subduing a dreamwalker is slim without the Dream Team’s help. So what’s stopping dreamwalkers from deciding they’re above the law and acting how they please? They might not kill people or commit the worst crimes because the Dream Team will come down hard on them, but what about the minor laws that keep our society running? How soon before dreamwalkers ignore those inconveniences because no one wants to risk their life enforcing the law. I mean, think about it, who wouldn’t pay their taxes if they didn’t have to?”
Lizzie paused to let Tad absorb that, then finished by saying, “Their argument is that they need a better deterrent to keep dreamwalkers in line. If you fear that the slightest infraction might be met with lethal force, then you’ll be less likely to break the law.”
“You sound like you support this,” he accused, earning the darkest glare from the young reporter yet.
“You should know better than that,” she replied, sounding hurt.
“What am I meant to think when you say things like that?” Tad snapped, letting his anger slip. “What you just described is more likely to make dreamwalkers dangerous, not less likely. If dreamwalkers have to fear for their lives whenever they see a police officer, then every dreamwalker in the country will be living in fear. That’s a disaster waiting to happen.”
“You’re preaching to the choir,” Lizzie said. “If you watched even one of my shows over the last week, you would have seen me covering this. The leading rationale is that they need to protect the masses from dreamwalkers, and these changes are for the greater good. But I have always said this will do more harm than good.”
Lizzie took a deep breath to control herself and when she spoke again her words were more reserved.
“Tad, this hasn’t come from me and I don’t support it, but it’s doing the rounds as we speak and the House of Commons will vote on it the day after Merging Day. That gives you two weeks to figure out how this bill even saw the light of day.”
Not giving Tad a chance to respond, she turned to the camera and started wrapping up the show, thanking Tad for coming on while not sounding like she meant it.
Tad sat back in stunned silence. For the first time in months his thoughts didn’t turn to Jen as he was thinking about this bill, what else it contained, and what else he might have let slip by him while he was preoccupied with other things.
As Lizzie finished her sign off and the stage lights went out, Tad’s anger was long gone and in its place was a sinking feeling that he’d seriously dropped the ball.
2
Wednesday, 16th November 2016
16:55
“Congratulations. I didn’t think you could top your first interview as the worst interview of all time, but boy did you prove me wrong,” Tony said.
The thirty-year-old ghost, with the appearance and personality of a fourteen-year-old boy, wore his customary grin until another ghost smacked the back of his head.
“Don’t be mean,” Amber scolded, her words having more effect than the smack.
Showing his support, Growler nudged Tad’s thigh with his enormous head. He had grown so tall Tad barely needed to reach down to scratch behind his large, floppy ears.
“We got the message about dreamcatchers out, that counts for something.”
This new voice belonged to a ghost in his early twenties. Rodney was six-foot tall with the build of an elite athlete. His head was shaved, and he had a permanent tan thanks to his mixed heritage. He stood as part of a trio clustered around a table near the wall of Lizzie’s studio. With him was another ghost and a petite woman with striking Native American features. She tied her black hair back, wore no make-up, and her white t-shirt and grey jogging bottoms were hardly the latest fashion trend. Considering Tad had borrowed her from prison, that was to be expected.
“He’s right, Mitena. You did an outstanding job on that new design, and it’s going to save a lot of lives,” Tad said. Her answering smile was shy, a strong contrast to the confident woman he met four months ago.
Despite everything she’d done, Tad was starting to like her. However, he couldn’t forget her actions, which was why Rodney was here, to make sure she didn’t escape. SAS trained and with the powers of a ghost in the Borderlands, he would be overkill for most prisoners. But Mitena was the undisputed queen of dreamcatchers. While other people were learning the art, they were like children with crayons compared to Leonardo da Vinci. They may never match her genius.
The last ghost was also becoming familiar. After promising Tony he would entertain the idea of Proxying again, Tad started spending more time with ghosts. He hadn’t taken the final step of merging, but he was enjoying the company. They’d never replace Charles or Miriam, but having ghosts nearby was like coming home after a long time away.
Thomas Farandon was a man in his mid-sixties when he died, and if anything he looked ten years older. His hair was so sparse he might as well give up the fight and shave his head. He was also so thin he looked sickly, even in death. However, he was immaculately dressed in a navy, pin-striped suit and there was keen intelligence behind his eyes. Most importantly though, he’d been a Member of Parliament for most of his life and knew that world inside out.
Seeing Tad’s attention, the ghost spoke before Tad could.
“I’ve been trying to tell you for weeks,” he said, his thick west country accent not at all fitting with his appearance. “But every time I open my mouth, your eyes glaze over. It makes me wonder why I stick around.”
“Come off it, Tom. You’re good enough at getting yourself heard when you need to be. What happened?”
“Nothing happened. You’ve barely spoken to me in weeks, and we both know why. You can’t be bothered with updates on the council meetings you missed, so you’ve been dodging me.”
Tad wanted to argue, but Thomas was right.
“Well, I’m listening now. How did this happen? Even if I wasn’t there to stop it, surely Norman could have done something.”
“Norman did a lot,” Thomas snapped, quick to the Prime Minister’s defence. Tom was interested in the political side of the Merging, especially when related to the rights of ghosts, and spent a lot of time watching Norman. Apparently the Prime Minister had been working even harder behind the scenes to help dreamwalkers and ghosts than Tad would ever know.
“He’s fought every step of the way,” Thomas continued. “But there’s only so much even a Prime Minister can do. If the bill didn’t go through his party, it would have been introduced through the opposition, so at least this way he gets some control over what went into it. Trust me, it could have been worse.”
“Worse?” Tad exclaimed. “It’s a disaster.”
“Then you should talk to him. But he’ll just tell you what I’ve been saying for months. You can’t ignore this stuff and hope it goes away, that’s not how politics work.”
Tad buried his face in his hands. This whole year had been one thing after another. A little over two weeks to the anniversary of the Merging and things weren’t getting better. He was going from one nightmare to the next, often literally, and the problems were non-stop. Was that what his life would be from now on? Always chasing to catch up, barely keeping himself out of the fire by the
thinnest of margins?
“You know, it seems like a lot of the problems this bill is trying to address were solved by dreamcatchers, weren’t they?” Amber asked into the silence. “I mean, isn’t that the point of giving the Dream Team dreamcatchers, so they can deal with supernatural threats like dreamwalkers?”
“It doesn’t help when Dreamwalkers can dreamwalk out of prison whenever they feel like it,” Thomas answered.
Amber hesitated like she was worried about asking a stupid question.
“But can’t we use dreamcatchers to keep them in prison? Mitena has designs to keep them out of secure facilities, can’t you design some to keep them in?”
Her question was directed at Mitena who wore a similar expression to everyone else, one that asked why she hadn’t thought of something so simple before.
“Yes. I already have the designs. It’s the same ones we used to trap dreamwalkers back when…”
Her voice trailed off and she looked away, not comfortable talking about a time in her life she’d rather forget. Unfortunately, the proverbial bull in the china shop that was Tony Suen, put his foot in his mouth yet again.
“Huh. If you could trap them all along, you could have worked with the police from the start and never needed to kill anyone.”
Mitena blushed and looked away as Tony received another smack to the back of his head.
“Ow. What was that for? I’m not wrong, am I?” he demanded of Amber, who glared at him.
“You don’t have to be wrong to consider people’s feelings.”
“No, he’s right,” Mitena said. “I… There are no excuses. If I had thought of this sooner, I never would have started down that path. Maybe Kuruk would—”
“There’s no point trying to change the past,” Tad interrupted before this conversation got self destructive. “Let’s think about the future. Can you create a prison for dreamwalkers?”
