The Dream Jumper's Promise

by Kim Hornsby

  The upside was that his ability to enter their dreams for information was an alternative to torture techniques. During his tour, Freud helped locate American prisoners, mine fields, caches of weapons, an enemy general’s hideout, and innocent children who were being used in the trade for weapons. True, the dreaming prisoners had to be drugged, but it was safe, and still better than water boarding as a technique for extracting information. Sixth Force used a secretive compound of truth serum that was similar to sodium pentothal but with much better results. The drugs ensured a much clearer picture of what the dreamer stored in his mind. Even Jamey didn’t know the exact combination of drugs administered. The trick was to get to the targeted information, and then get out quickly to relay the information without the prisoner’s knowledge. And so far, they’d been 100 percent successful. “A phenomenal track record,” his team always said.

  But jumping took a lot out of him. One dream, every few days, was all he could manage. The kind of dream he encountered with war prisoners was totally different from the friendly ones and left him drained. Four bodyguards took care of his security needs, with two constantly in his company. Those burly men rarely left his side, including when he’d fly to Germany to decompress for a few days after a traumatic jump.

  The trauma and subterfuge wore thin after a while, though, and Jamey began to question how much longer he could prostitute his abilities, even for the good old USA.

  On his last jump in Afghanistan, he’d been led to the prisoner’s cell—a stark twelve-by-nine space with a cot on the left side and a toilet on the right. He’d seen worse. In cells, and in prisoners. The drugged young man lying on his cot held the lives of thousands in his thoughts, they’d said. If Jamey could find the location of the weapons, children would grow to see adulthood and families would be reunited. This was the payoff for what he experienced in Afghanistan—months of living the soldier’s life, waiting for their compound in Kandahar to be bombed, existing on the other side of the world from his children while they reached milestones.

  Jamey had named his guards No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4. On this particular day, No. 4 accompanied Jamey into the cell and stood watch. No. 2 waited outside the cell. Once the doctor checked the prisoner’s heart rate, he nodded to Jamey, who flashed a look at his commanding officer. “Ready.”

  Nods were exchanged and a chair was set beside the Taliban youth’s head. Jamey had the best results with touching the back of the neck. He laid his hand under the prisoner’s thick black hair. Jamey closed his eyes and matched the breathing rhythm. In…hold slightly…and out, out, out, pause. Slumber breathing was much slower, and it took a moment for Jamey to match the pace. He was aware of being watched by his support team, but after almost forty jumps, he wasn’t bothered by the audience anymore. It was understandable to be curious.

  The process took a count of ten, from the time he started to fall, to arriving in the dream. He didn’t play along the way anymore. Not in the army. With friends and girlfriends, he used to somersault and then try to stand, only to arrive on his butt. But now, he focused on the task and prepared for whatever might come. It’d be stupid to risk arriving unprepared. Especially with a young member of Al Qaeda who was trained to kill first and never ask questions.

  On this particular mission, Jamey dropped into the dream quickly. The soldier was maybe late teens, and in the dream he was kneeling on the floor beside a bed, struggling to help his mother. A mother was a good start to ensure Jamey’s success. The boy feared for his mother’s life. More good news. Soldiers pounded on the hut’s locked door.

  Jamey kneeled beside him and spoke in Pashto. “It’s okay. I’m your friend, here to help you.”

  The boy looked immediately relieved to hear that help had arrived. He lifted the covers to show his mother’s life-threatening wound. Blood pumped from her abdomen.

  Mother, wound, desperation. The opportunity seemed too good to be true. Jamey put his hand on the wound and spoke again. “You are healthy and strong.”

  The blood-soaked dress became clean, whole, and the wound closed. The mother opened her eyes and smiled at her son. Jamey nodded to the boy, whose name he knew to be Atash, and glanced at the wooden door that was vibrating with the soldiers’ force. “Go away!” he said. Immediately the pounding stopped. Jamey’s ability to turn the dream to his advantage was something he didn’t take lightly. After a year of being in war-torn dreams, he had to use what he had to get in, get out, and expend as little emotion as possible. Atash spoke. ‘Who are you?”

  “A friend.” Jamey watched the mother sit up, then fade away. “And now I need you to take me somewhere.”

  “Thank you for saving my mother.” It didn’t seem to matter that she’d disappeared. “Where are we going?”

  “You tell me. We need to get to the ammunition.” Jamey knew this next part was tricky and crucial. The prisoner could wake suddenly. Or, the dream might take a turn and they’d be on a picnic with zoo animals. Keep the dreamer focused. “Atash, take me to the hidden weapons.” The boy froze. “But…”

  “We need to go now.” Jamey drew upon his psychological training to choose his words with great care. Talking people off ledges was a fine art that worked only part of the time. “It’s your duty. The time is now.” He started for the door.

  Atash followed. “But what are we doing when we get there?”

  “We must fight for the cause.” This phrase often worked.

  They ran out the door. Bombs detonated along the street randomly and gunshots fired as they ran from doorways. Jamey knew they wouldn’t be hit because this scene was of his making. Still, he pretended the threat was real. They ran at an inhuman rate, down alleys, behind buildings. It never failed to excite Jamey that in dreams his level of fitness was beyond reality. Similar to an X-Box game all the soldiers at Kandahar played in the off time, HALO, Jamey Dunn got to live the dream, literally.

  They arrived at a bombed building, rubble blocking the former doorway. “Is this it?” he asked Atash. Jamey had been hoping to recognize something from his briefing on this mission.

  Atash pulled him inside a gaping hole in the wall of a giant warehouse. The place was stacked to the ceiling with boxes, all similar, marked with Arabic writing.

  “This is a front for the munitions storage.” Atash nodded and waved him on.

  Jamey followed along the rows of boxes until they reached the end of one row. Atash pushed aside a large bin, an impossible weight to tackle in waking life, and exposed a trapdoor in the cement floor. “Is this really what it looks like? When you’re not dreaming?” The answer was crucial.

  “Yes, it’s a warehouse in the south end of Kandahar. Just like this.” Atash did not seem reticent to give up the information. They never were in dreams.

  “What’s it called?”

  Once the location was determined, and Jamey verified that Atash was leading him into the munitions storage chamber, he had one last task. It wasn’t something he was ordered to do, but he could never leave these dreams without trying. He turned the young man, clutching his shoulders, and stared into his face. “You will be interrogated by some of the finest peacekeepers in the world and you must cooperate. Peace between us all is essential.”

  The boy in front of him closed his eyes and turned, as if to block out Jamey’s words.

  “Make sure that no innocent people are hurt to further this cause.”

  “People must die,” the boy said with eyes closed. “They will be rewarded.”

  “No one must die for this. Your mother wants your cooperation. If you tell the interrogators what they need to know, you will be rewarded with a life, not an afterlife. Not yet. You are needed here.” Atash stood frozen on the spot, hate spreading across his face. “Cooperate. They want to help you.”

  Slowly Atash evolved into an enormous monster with huge fangs.

  What the hell? Jamey had just enough time to take off running. How did the kid just do that? The dream never backfired this way. Bursting through the bu
ilding’s opening and out to the street, Jamey was tackled from behind and went down face-first in the dirt. He rolled free to the side and stood quickly but before he could take off again, a swipe from a scaly arm had him flying through the air. Willing himself to land safely, he fell in a pile of concrete rubble. Unhurt. What the hell had just happened? The kid had conjured up a monster, but how? This was his show. He had to get out of this dream. Pronto.

  Atash had somehow guessed Jamey was his enemy. Was he trained in resisting mind-bending techniques? God help him if Atash was the one in control of the dream. Jamey needed to return to the portal where he came in. He couldn’t count on the dreamer waking. Atash probably wouldn’t willingly wake up until he killed his enemy. Taking off at lightning speed, Jamey zipped through alleys and streets. The beast loomed overhead and took another swipe with its tentacle-like arms just as Jamey ducked behind a car.

  “You are only Atash!” Jamey shouted before he sprinted across the street to the alleyway that connected to the mother’s house. The roaring behind him confirmed it didn’t work. Fuck. He’d lost control. This was beyond anything he’d ever experienced. The young soldier no longer existed. Atash was now a killing machine. This took lucid dreaming to a whole new level.

  Jamey turned and held up his hands to the approaching beast. “You are a mouse!” he shouted above the earth-shattering roar, but nothing changed. He had to make a run for the hut.

  The monster followed, jumping over houses, squashing everything in its sight. “You tricked me, Dream Man,” it roared. Jamey took off for the door he’d left minutes before. But the monster materialized in front of him, its slimy fangs dripping with yellow pus.

  Okay, this was bad. He had to come up with something better if he was going to get out of this dream alive. Maybe he couldn’t stop this monster, but what if he could still summon his own?

  “Kraken!” Jamey yelled as he bolted to the safety of an alcove. What the hell was a kraken? It was the first thing he thought of and it turned out to be much larger than Atash’s monster. Jamey willed it to attack. As the kraken towered over its prey, Jamey made a dash to the door. This was his moment. Summoning all his focus, he made the door open and ran through. Squeezing his eyes shut, he jumped into the room, imagining himself back in the prison cell. He was sucked backwards as the sounds of the monster fight faded to eventual silence. Within seconds, words from the Sixth Force doctor broke the silence. “The prisoner is awake! Cover Freud!”

  Jamey woke up laying on the floor outside the cell, with an oxygen mask on his face, a defibrillator beside him. Whose heart stopped? If he had to take a guess, he’d say it was probably his, seeing Atash was being restrained by the guards. How the hell did Atash wake up?

  “The kid had control.” Jamey ripped off the oxygen mask and attempted to lift his head. A lightning bolt split his head in two. His vision went black, but not before he heard Atash scream, “You were tricked, Dream Man. Not me.”

  Jamey had the faraway feeling of being lifted onto a stretcher as people scrambled around him. They hurried him down the hall and into an elevator. He could hear the kid still screaming in Afghani. “You will die for this.”

  The oxygen mask went back on Jamey’s face. He must have passed out when he jumped through, flatlined, and in the commotion the prisoner woke from the drugs and nobody noticed. But dreamers never wake after the drugs. Not for at least an hour. His head threatened to burst wide open. He saw only blackness in front. The pain had robbed him of vision. The rolling gurney bounced along before he was lifted onto a bed, and then jostled and poked. Medical questions, answers and commands were tossed back and forth over his head like a game of monkey in the middle. He was the monkey. The last thing he remembered before he passed out was Sergeant Milton’s voice. “The Al Qaeda knows about Freud.”

  ***

  The octopus was not in the aquarium. It was there an hour ago, but now it was gone. Dave had forgotten to return it to the ocean before he’d left for the mainland. Damn. Tina’s immediate reaction was to search the floor to see if it was slithering towards the door in an effort to find the ocean. They could exist in air for a short while. “Katie!”

  Katie and Megan ran into the shop from talking to the parrot guy outside.

  “The octopus has gone AWOL. Help me look.” A heaviness pressed against Tina’s chest.

  Searching the floor, shelves, cubby holes, boxes, behind tanks, aquariums, even the back room did not produce an octopus. The creature must’ve slithered through a one-square-inch hole at the top and made a run for it. After days of watching people in the store, determined to escape its prison, it finally chose a hostile environment over imprisonment. Shit. Everyone was trying to save itself but her. She had to take some control of her life. She needed to get back in the water. If the octopus was found alive, she’d release it herself. I’ll get my sorry ass in the ocean and watch it swim away.

  The shop’s doorbell chimed. A moment later, Jamey called into the back room. “Tina, come here.” He stood by the same aquarium the octopus had occupied until recently.

  She knew he’d be upset they’d lost the octopus. He’d been feeding it bits of chicken for days. “What is it?”

  “Here’s your octopus.” Jamey pointed to the tank. “Chameleons of the sea—octopi.”

  Tina looked in the glass enclosure. There was an extra rock in the aquarium. The new rock had eyes that watched Jamey’s hand move a piece of chicken from right to left. “Oh, my God!” she said. “You’ve been watching us search for you, you little stinker.” Tears warmed her eyes and she didn’t question why. She clapped her hands and Obi wagged his tail at the commotion.

  “Would you like me to take him to Mala Wharf? Let him go?” Jamey dropped the piece of chicken into the tank and watched it fall on the gravel in front of the octopus.

  “Would you?” With all its hiding places, Mala Wharf would be a perfect habitat. “Thank you, Jamey.” Then she remembered her promise to release him. “I’ll come too.”

  ***

  As they waded into the ocean with the covered plastic bucket, Tina was holding her own. It actually felt good to be in the ocean. So far. She fastened her mask to her face and they took off for the wharf. Once in the shadow of the structure, she removed her snorkel and grinned. Let’s do it.”

  She opened the bucket’s top and they watched the octopus move into the ocean and pulse away to the closest hiding spot, spraying ink behind. “This has got to be better than the aquarium,” she said before putting the snorkel back in her mouth.

  They looked around the pylons for the next ten minutes, exploring the minute sea life that inhabited the smaller spaces and slim cracks in the cement. She could feel Jamey’s watchful eyes on her.

  When they reached the shallows and walked in to the beach, she smiled to herself. “That was actually enjoyable. I might be able to try diving soon.”

  Jamey smiled back. “I tell you. There’s something about me that brings out the best in you.”

  ***

  They hadn’t found the dream’s dive site after four afternoons of searching the Maui coastline. Today’s search had turned up nothing, and they both knew this was it. Jamey was frustrated. Tina’s newfound enthusiasm after the octopus release, was being challenged. Her dreams were coming almost every night, and she looked like her last good sleep was months ago.

  The only headway they’d made was that she was now entering the water. As long as they held hands, she was able to stay in the ocean. Jamey had no circulation in his hand after about ten minutes, but at least she was trying. Not sure what landmark to look for, he’d had to rely on her drawing of the dream site. She could do a lot of things, but drawing was not one of them.

  What he really needed was to see the dream site within the actual dream. Jamey wracked his brain trying to figure out how to jump in without giving away his ability. Assuming he still could jump. And even if he did get into her dream, he had to be prepared for the worst possible outcome afterwards.

&n
bsp; Pulling into the Kihei dock that afternoon, Tina leapt off to get the boat trailer. With all the turmoil in her heart, it was hard to think how that woman had any spring left in her step. She jogged up the paved hill while Jamey kept an eye out for incoming boats, ready to back away if he needed to move aside. He and Tina had this docking routine down to an art, even though the afternoons of searching were now over. Every inch of the coastline had been covered—even areas that held no possibility. “Maybe it isn’t a real place,” Tina had said earlier.

  “It’s possible it doesn’t exist in this world. If dimensions exist alongside ours, like Einstein suggested, anything is possible,” Jamey said.

  Goddammit. He needed to sleep beside her, which might be tricky because he had a feeling that Tina might have a boyfriend— probably a big, muscled boyfriend who hung out at her house. Jamey couldn’t pretend the idea didn’t irk him.

  With the boat out of the water, he hooked up a hose to flush the engine with fresh water. Tina just watched him, silent, distracted. What the hell was going on with Hank? If he didn’t get a grasp on things soon, she’d give up all hope. He was too far into it now to consider that. Not just the investment of his time, but the effort and emotion was adding up. And he was about to invest a hell of a lot more if Hank’s body didn’t turn up soon. Dead or alive.

  Chapter 14

  Tina was at the compressor changing tanks for refills when Jamey rounded the corner. Why was it he never came in through the shop’s front door? Was it because Katie was excited about all the time her uncle and boss seemed to be spending together? She’d overheard Katie the day before, telling Jamey to “make a move, old man,” but couldn’t hear what he’d said back.

  “Did you dream last night?” he asked. He tried to face her but she turned away, tired of having people witness these moments. “I hope you’re keeping a dream journal,” he said.