The Dream Travelers Boxed Set #2: Includes 2 Complete Series (9 Books) PLUS Bonus Material

by Sarah Noffke

  “I hadn’t decided yet who would take this case,” he admits. Trent will one day make a good Head Official for the Strategic department. That’s why I picked him. But he isn’t there yet. He relies on his confidence when he should be using logic. And sometimes he puts his heart into matters that should involve only reasoning. We all have an arsenal to use when dealing with things but picking the best weapon at the right time is key. Unfortunately for Trent, he’ll have to learn through trial and error because he wasn’t blessed with my talents and abilities. At times, I wished that I wasn’t either. It is an absolute burden.

  I snap my fingers. “Give. Me. The. Report.”

  He isn’t even good at pretending. His head toggles back and forth, but if I had Shuman’s ability of seeing the future, I’d already see clearly what happens next. A moment later he reluctantly pulls the piece of paper from his pocket and places it in my hands. “It’s rather complicated.”

  “I think I’ll survive,” I say, striding back for the exit.

  “And it’s going to require technology,” he calls at my back.

  I stop. Tense. Grimace. “That’s fine,” I finally say. “I’ve been looking for a reason to slam my head against something hard. Visiting the Head Scientist for the Lucidites will give me that much needed reason.”

  “What are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Trent asks when I continue my trek to the exit.

  I turn and face him, careful to avoid the eager eyes looking back at me from the agents who used to do everything I said. “Sounds like it’s time to take a holiday.”

  “But Shuman says we should remain here, just in case,” Trent argues.

  Again, the little witch is up to something. It’s not nefarious. If anything, I trust her implicitly. She’s trying to help in her own weird way. “Then stay here. Read a fucking book. Play cards. I suggest you, Trent Reynolds, take an online class on management.”

  He gulps. Nods. Gives the agents staring between us a reluctant expression.

  I shake my head, realizing that not until Trent can stand up to me, can he effectively lead the department that flourished under my reign. The serious expression in his eyes tells me he knows this all too well.

  Chapter Five

  Aiden Livingston is by far the worst human being to have ever lived. He’s a fucking scientist. That’s not why I loathe him though, although science is the very bane of my existence. Aiden Livingston is in essence too cheerful, too optimistic and too loud. It’s like God wrapped everything that I hate into one person and poof, the Head Official for the Science department of the Lucidites was born.

  As usual, the music in Aiden’s lab is blaring when I stride into the disorganized space. Wires and carcasses of projects gone awry litter the many workstations. I keep my eyes on the report I took from Trent, rereading it for the third time. It doesn’t make any sense.

  For being the only case that was reported, it’s trivial and yet complex. It only involves saving the lives of a few people. I’m not trying to trivialize the amount of human lives, but usually news reports involve major events. Earthquakes that effect hundreds of thousands. Terrorists attacks in large cities. Diabolical masterminds bent on world domination. Not six people locked in a bank vault. It seems like a waste of my time.

  However, Trey Underwood would disagree. He believes that every life counts, even if that “said life” is lived by a jar of mayonnaise with the inability to think for themselves. Unfortunately that comprises most of the individuals on the planet. Trey and I’ve been round and round on this and he is adamant about their lives being valued. I only ever argue with Trey about it anymore to try and get a rise out of him. It doesn’t work, but I’m confident I’ll catch him on an off day and the monk-like man will raise his voice or even use terse words. It’s a dream. We all need them to keep going.

  “There is my favorite person!” Aiden says too loudly when I halt in his lab, still reading the report.

  Somehow these six jack fruits were locked inside of an old abandoned bank vault in Minneapolis. The security system hasn’t been operational for decades. The authorities don’t know that they are there. Getting the system back up and overriding the old controls would take more time than the people have. Their oxygen is running out. A normal Lucidite agent wouldn’t even be successful at this case since getting to the vault would take time whether by traditional travel means or by using a GAD-C. I guess it will have to be me who saves the fucking day…yet again.

  Aiden is standing squarely in front of me, waiting for my attention. He can wait a bit longer though.

  I flip through the report, deciding exactly how I want to handle this case. Sometimes when things are overly simple, that means they need a complex solution. The opposite is usually true. But something in this particular situation doesn’t add up and I don’t know why, which is infuriating.

  “I heard a rumor that you might be working the bank vault case,” Aiden says, teetering back and forth on is feet like a chimpanzee at the zoo who can’t figure out how to stand properly. “You need my help getting it opened? I’ve got a couple handy dandy options for you.”

  Unrushed, I hold up a single finger to pause the scientist from polluting my brain any further with his useless chatter.

  Why this case, I wonder. Usually the news reporters get a dozen cases every single day. Now only one. But why this one?

  When I finally pull my gaze up, I grimace more than I would have expected at the scientist. It isn’t because he’s wearing a repugnant grin. He is doing that. It’s like his face is stuck with a dumb smile plastered across it. To make him appear even more like a wanker, he’s wearing a small human attached to his chest in some sort of baby carrying contraption. The child has Aiden’s same spikey black hair and Roya’s eyes.

  “What is that?” I ask, pointing at the boy.

  Aiden laughs like I’ve told a joke. “Roya is busy working on something and so I have Max today. Since he started walking he’s—”

  “Don’t care,” I say, cutting him off.

  “But you did ask why I had Max,” Aiden said, thrusting a victorious finger into the air.

  “No, if you were paying the least bit of attention rather than lactating like a female gorilla then you would have heard me clearly ask ‘What is that?’ I was referring to your offspring which you appear to be wearing because your penis obviously has fallen off.”

  Aiden covers the drooling child’s ears, like it matters at all. “Roya and I believe in co-parenting, which means I take on half the respon—”

  “Do you want me to kill myself?” I asked, quite seriously.

  Aiden slams his mouth shut. Gives me a look of confusion. Shakes his head. “Well, no. You’re a wonderful person, who may have a tough exterior but I believe—”

  “Then stop telling me about your family dynamics or really anything about your personal business. Knowing the details of your life sends me into a downward spiral of depression that will surely only end with sucicide.”

  Aiden salutes like the moron that he is. “You got it, Captain. So this bank vault business, eh? It’s sort of tricky, don’t you think?”

  “No, I don’t, but that’s because I do think,” I answer in a dull voice.

  “Well, I only meant because we don’t know if there are explosives linked to the trigger for the unlocking mechanism,” Aiden explains. “It was brilliant for this person or group or whatever to use this particular vault because—”

  “What is the solution for freeing these people?” I ask, my patience gone.

  At first Aiden appears a bit deflated that I won’t let him drag on about science. Unfortunately it’s nearly impossible to break his spirit. I’ve tried countless times. He recovers quickly, flashing a smile. “So, my first idea was to override the—”

  “I don’t care how you got to the solution,” I interrupt. “I’m not one of your nerdy friends who you play Dungeons and Dragons with on the weekend in your parent’s basement. I’m
a man with a case to solve and unfortunately because God has it out for me, I’ve been forced to rely on you for a solution. Tell me what it is so that I don’t have to look at your face any longer.”

  Aiden chuckles. “I was just thinking that it’s been a while since we’ve seen each—”

  “Unless you want that child of yours to learn some new vocabulary then give me the repulsive piece of technology I’ll need to free those people,” I threaten. “Otherwise, little Billy is going to learn new names to call you.”

  Because he wants me to kill him, Aiden laughs again. “His name is Max actually. He’s named…”

  Thankfully the chimp can be taught. He straightens, grabbing a small black device off a workstation. “As I was about to say, this is probably the most effective and safest way to free the hostages.”

  I’m about to grab it but hesitate. “Will is give me cancer or fry my brain?”

  “Anything can do that depending on how it’s used,” he says with a dumb laugh.

  “What does it do?” I ask.

  “Since I can’t ascertain that unlocking the main door is safe, I think that cutting through the vault is the best way,” he begins. “Now you might be saying to yourself, but Dr. Livingston, that will take forever.”

  “I’m not,” I say dully.

  “Or you might be wondering how much equipment you’ll need in order to saw through at least two feet of steel,” Aiden continues.

  “Still no,” I say.

  “Well, thanks to some mind-blowing technology, all you have to do is draw the perimeters of what you want to cut out with this.” Aiden pulls a simple piece of chalk from his lab coat. “Then you stick this device as close to the center of whatever you’ve drawn.”

  He hands me the device and then eagerly rubs his hands together. “Now here’s the most exciting part! You don’t even have to back that far away. Once the count down finishes, a spark of light will run along the chalk line that you’ve dawn. It won’t make noise, odor or give off heat. Isn’t that great?”

  “I guess,” I say with zero inflection, turning around and making for the exit. I’m already looking forward to not being in the bright lab with music shredding my eardrums when I come to an immediate halt. Standing in the doorway are two people. One I can’t stand, but respect greatly. The other one I can stand, but she needs to keep bending over backwards to try and earn my favor.

  “I told you that he’d be here,” Roya says a sullen expression on his face. “I figured he’d need Aiden’s help with the case.”

  I roll my eyes at the young woman with long blonde hair and a probably enough psychic voltage in her head to light up the state of New York. Trey’s daughter had to go off and marry Aiden, making them the most annoying couple to have ever existed. That’s how people match, I guess. They have to be compatible on the same level of awfulness.

  “I don’t need that lab rats help,” I say, a bite in my tone.

  Roya points at the dumb device in my hands. “Then what’s that?”

  “Something I’m thinking of using to kill you with,” I say.

  She bats her eyelashes and scowls at me. “No, you’re not because you need me.”

  “To do what?” I ask. “You’re pretty worthless at giving news reports lately.”

  “We’re stalled,” she states. “That’s all. The news reporters will be back in action soon.”

  “Not if you keep standing around here wasting space you won’t,” I fire back, sliding between Roya and the other girl standing beside her, not making eye contact, although I sense she’s trying to bore a hole in my brain with her electric green eyes.

  “Well, I delivered that report that you’ve got now,” Roya says at my back as I trot down the stainless-steel hallway. “You’re welcome!”

  “Get back to work, Roya. The future isn’t going to save itself, you know,” I say.

  I know that getting away from the girl who Roya told about my whereabouts is futile. She’ll follow me to the ends of the Earth. Not out of love or loyalty but rather because before she was born she signed a contract with God promising to try my patience at every single turn.

  I’m almost to the elevator when she yells out, her cockney accented words cutting straight through me. “I deserve to go on this case with you,” Adelaide says.

  I turn and face my only offspring…that I’m aware of. “No, Addy, that’s not how life works. You aren’t entitled to fresh air, food, shelter or love. If you have any of that it is simply a gift that you should be grateful for. And this case, it’s mine because well…I fucking want it.”

  Adelaide, who is in her early twenties, inherited my red hair, bad attitude and all of my psychic powers, stomps over to me, looking up, fire in her green eyes. “This isn’t fair. I’ve been sitting around this underwater freak show for weeks, waiting for a case. Trent promised me that I’d get the very next one since my training was about to end. Then you waltz into the Strategic department and take it. And you didn’t even acknowledge that I was in the room when you did it!”

  “You were there?” I pretend to ask with mock astonishment. “I didn’t see you, but now that you mention it, there was a strange smell.”

  “Ren!” she yells because no one took the time to teach her any manners. I would have, but I didn’t even know she was alive until a year or so ago when she showed up at a restaurant and ruined my lunch…and my life, at least for a little while. Yes, I’ve grown to appreciate the fact that I have a daughter, but only also with a great deal of remorse. She’s absolutely just like me in every way. Well, without having a dick…and good parents.

  The only reason that I’m not defiling all the world by abusing my powers is because my mum and pops taught me right. Unfortunately, poor Addy didn’t have that. She had a crazy Middling mother and a father who didn’t know she existed. And like I said, she’s just like me, which means she’s more powerful than ninety-nine point nine percent of the population. And that means, that just like me, she’s destined for great things and also a life of misery. That’s plainly and simply, how it goes.

  “I want that case,” my ungrateful child says. “Trent was about to give it to me before you walked into the Strategic department and strong armed him.”

  “That’s not what happened,” I say casually.

  “I was there!” Addy yells. “You don’t even show him any respect in front of his own agents. How do you expect him to lead the department when you treat him—”

  “The way I treat Trent shouldn’t affect the level of respect he gets from the agents,” I countered. “Actually, the way he responds to me might be the only way he’ll get real respect from them. He could have stood up to me. He could have faced me as an equal. Instead, he cowered. I can’t blame the department for doubting him.”

  “We know full well that if he stood up to you then you’d make him dry his hair while standing in a running shower.”

  I smile. “Would you like to dry your hair in the shower? I can make that happen.”

  She shakes her head, knowing that I won’t use my mind control on her. Actually, I won’t use it on anyone in the Lucidite Institute because I’m a kind and just man. Well, and also because Trey Underwood asked me not to many years ago and I do things he asks…sometimes.

  “My point is,” Addy says, seeming to try and regain her composure, “that case you’re going on, the only one available, well, it’s supposed to be mine. My first big case. My first chance to prove myself. Please let me have it.”

  I draw in a breath. “There will be other cases.”

  She sighs loudly. “I know that! But I want that one.”

  “We don’t always get what we want. That’s why I’m standing here putting up with your abuse when I would rather be sitting in my armchair and doing pretty much anything else.”

  She rolls her eyes because she’s an irritating little brat who needs to be sent to finishing school. I keep threatening to do it but she’s got that whole free
will thing. “We both know that you’d rather work a case any day than take any time off. That’s why you stole the only case available.”

  I shake my head. “No, Addy, I took the case because I’m the best agent for the job.”

  “I’ve got all your powers,” she argues. “I can do everything you can.”

  I disappear and then teleport on the other side of her. “Oh, can you now?”

  Addy whips around and huffs. “Okay, fine! I don’t know how to teleport yet, but I’m working on it. Still I’ve harnessed my mind control.”

  I wave my hand in the air and a duplicate image of me pops up from the floor behind Addy. It then speaks. “Oh, and what about your ability to create illusions? Have you mastered that yet?”

  She shakes her head radically. “No! That’s really hard. It’s taking some time.”

  I allow my illusion to disappear as I sigh. “Then may I suggest that you stay here and practice while the experienced agent takes care of this case,” I say, stepping around my daughter and heading back for the elevators.

  “When are you going to stop ruining my life?” the little heathen yells at my back.

  I tap the button for the elevator and casually turn and face her. “Never. Ever. That’s what parents do. We make it so you never wished you were never born.”

  “Mission accomplished,” she says in a hot whisper.

  I step onto the elevator when it arrives and face my daughter. “Practice Addy. You never know when the next case is coming or when you’ll need the full extent of your powers. Life won’t wait for you to be ready for its challenges. Instead, you’ve got to be one step ahead…always.”

  Chapter Six

  I know as soon as I’ve teleported to Minneapolis, Minnesota that something isn’t right.

  There isn’t anyone shooting at me. In front of the bank vault is nothing standing between me and the ones I came to rescue. That’s highly bizarre. Usually there’s a deranged gunman who I have to wrestle and then bore into his mind and subdue him. But all there is here is the ever-quiet silence, reminding me that I’m alone, besides from the six hostages on the other side of the steel door.