The Dream Catcher Diaries

by Alexander Patrick

  ***********************

  They used Neil’s remote to enter the study and, when they were in, they used it to lock the door. Fly took out his sensor. There were four freelancers sitting on the desk, open and ready to use. Fly scanned them all then whistled gently. ‘I hope you believe in God because he’s smiling down on his little children now.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Alban.

  Fly pointed to the four computers. ‘They’re talking to each other.’

  ‘I’m an old fashioned sort,’ said Alban. ‘I still remember ink pens; tell me what you mean.’

  ‘Fuller’s freelancer,’ he said pointing to the one computer; then he pointed to another. ‘Harrison’s over there, and these two belong to Garfield and Cooper – the complete set! I can raid all four machines – and what’s really good is that they’re still talking, which means I can slip right in without anyone noticing. This is better than I could possibly have hoped for.’

  ‘Will there be any money there?’

  ‘Well, that’s the next question. The fact is most of their money is going to be in the clouds. What we want to try and catch is their out of pocket.’

  ‘Out of pocket?’

  ‘Yeh, you know, pocket money.’

  Alban stared aghast. ‘Are you telling me that we’re risking our balls for pocket money?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘But I want to save lives! How many safe houses is pocket money going to get us?’

  ‘Listen, pal, pocket money for the super rich is still going to be plenty for the likes of us. They’re not likely to keep their life savings on a freelancer, now are they? And no, I can’t hack into the clouds. I’m just a humble mechanic not a bloody genius; now stand guard and let me get on with talking to these babies.’

  Alban went over to the door and stood guard – as instructed.

  ***********************

  Time passed slowly for Alban; every noise from the corridor threatened exposure. Eventually he could stand it no longer; he went over to where Fly was standing, hands on hips, apparently deep in thought. ‘Are we done yet?’ he asked anxiously.

  Fly looked at him with satisfaction. ‘Just finishing off, making sure that it’s all seamless and doesn’t look tampered with.’

  ‘Did we get any money?’

  ‘Too soon to say.’

  ‘When will we know?’

  ‘By the time we get back, we’ll know.’

  ‘You will – what about me?’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll be told somehow.’

  ‘What do you think, though? You must have some idea.’

  Fly smiled. ‘Let’s just say, I’m quietly confident,’ he said.

  Alban knew he’d pushed it as far as he could. ‘Fly,’ he said tentatively. ‘I hope you’re going to go straight from now on.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Don’t sound so surprised.’

  ‘I’m not sure I believe you.’

  Fly turned to him. ‘Look, I promised Matrix and the General I would go straight. I’ve promised myself to the Brotherhood.’ He held out his arm. ‘I’ve given my allegiance. This may surprise you but that actually means something to me. They seem to think I’m somebody. No one has ever believed that before. I’ve always been less than important – well, nothing really – but not any more; now I have something and someone to fight for and believe in – and even more important, someone thinks I’m worth fighting for.’

  ‘But what about when it’s all over, what then?’

  ‘When what’s all over?’

  Alban smiled. ‘The revolution, when the revolution’s over, what will you fight for then?’

  Fly gave a knowing look. ‘You’re the educated one, you tell me about one revolution that really succeeded for people like me, one revolution that fixed all the problems.’

  ‘What are you saying ... not to bother with the revolution?’

  ‘We’ve no choice,’ countered Fly. ‘These bastards need to be taught a lesson. You only have to look at those poor kids tonight to know that. We have to carry on. Matrix is right, but that won’t be the end, it’ll just be the beginning.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Well,’ said Fly, moving his scanner across all the freelancers as he spoke. ‘I wasn’t at your fancy dinner tonight, but I think I can guess the sort of things you talked about.’

  Alban shuddered at the memory.

  ‘We’re done,’ said Fly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The freelancers are chatting to each other as if they’ve never been interrupted. Let’s get the hell out of here!’

  ***********************

  They were soon out of the study and back upstairs. Fly dressed in his black clothes again and slipped out of the window. Alban watched him glide down the wall. He released the rope, and both rope and man became memories.

  He then made his preparations. He closed the window with the remote, dressed for bed, made himself a sleeping draught, placing the package carefully on the side table for everyone to see. When the house was being turned upside down, he wanted to be fast asleep. An old man couldn’t hope for a better alibi.

  He needed to give Fly the chance to get away, but he couldn’t afford to leave it too long. Neil’s body may be found before he had the chance to return the remote, and that could prove difficult.

  At last he could wait no longer; he took the sleeping draught and steeled himself for the trip back to the entertainment room. He opened his door and checked the corridors then stepped out and across. Soon he was in the entertainment room. He placed the remote in Neil’s pocket; now for the tricky part. During his visits he had been careful to watch how the security system worked. It was similar to his own at home. It was more elaborate and costly but worked to the same principles. According to his calculations, he’d have just about enough time to open the window and get back to his room before the alarms would go off. Well, that was what he was relying on. He walked across to the window; he stared at it for a moment, summoned his courage and quickly pulled it up and open.

  It was nothing like his system at home. He had been wrong.

  The alarms rang out instantaneously across the house, resulting in complete and immediate shut down. All doors and windows were locked shut – and he had closed the door behind him. He spun around as the alarms shook and reverberated through the house. He was standing dressed in his pyjamas, locked in the entertainment room, with a dead body – and the sleeping draught was already taking affect.

  ***********************

  Ramon was content. He lay next to the man with yellow eyes, with his head resting on the man’s chest, and Janney was tucked into the other side. He had found his god; he was safe and nothing else really mattered. He looked up and the man smiled. ‘Go to sleep, Ramon; when you wake up you’ll be in a safe place again – this I can promise you.’

  Ramon smiled back and snuggled in closer. They had given him something to help him sleep. He held out his hand across the man and felt Janney’s fingers entwine themselves in his. He held on tight. He was never going to let her go again; then he fell asleep.

  ***********************

  Alban slammed the door shut behind him, his eyes wide open with fear. He had locked himself in his own bedroom, and that was fine. He felt as if he must still be standing in that dreadful room with that dead body feeling trapped and terrified.

  With nightmare clarity, he relived the moment he had raced to the door in a blind panic, expecting nothing but resistance, only to find he had failed to shut the door properly – something his wife was always complaining to him about. He had yanked the door open, leapt out into the corridor, shut the door behind him again and raced across to his bedroom. He didn’t bother to check to see if anyone was about.

  He had been lucky.

  Once in his room, he had flushed his gloves away, stripped and jumped into bed. Now the sleeping draught was taking its effect. He crawled further into bed and pulled t
he cover over him.

  All around him chaos had given rise to panic as reality seeped in.

  Chapter 59

  We sat in the back of the van holding the children. Andrew had sedated them; they were all fast asleep. I had Ramon and Janney tucked into me. Ramon seemed content now, after his first shock at seeing me peering down at him. Fly held Taz, and Andrew held Lincoln. Lincoln was the one we were most concerned about. He was the youngest and in the worst condition. Someone had been hacking off the toes of his right foot and his foot had started to turn black. Andrew had been in touch with a friend who specialised in gangrene – hopefully she would be there at the safe house when we arrived.

  ‘Do you think she can save the foot?’ asked Fly, glancing down at the small boy.

  ‘If she can save his leg, I’ll be happy,’ said Andrew.

  ‘Or his life,’ I said.

  Out of the four of them, Ramon alone had been able to speak. The lock had silenced the others and Ramon’s voice was a bare croak, just enough to tell us their names.

  Fly sat looking miserable.

  ‘You’ve done well,’ I said. ‘You’ve saved four lives tonight and perhaps netted us a fortune – whatever happens, you’ve been successful.’

  Fly nodded. ‘We’ll see,’ he said darkly.

  ‘Was it easy?’ asked Andrew. ‘To hack into their accounts, I mean.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Fly. ‘People are lazy with their freelancers. They rely on external defences to protect them.’

  ‘Like security guards,’ I said with a smile.

  ‘Yeh, that sort of thing; as well as that, we caught them when they were vulnerable. They’d been activated for dialogue so I was able to slip right in. It could’ve been a lot harder – but we’ll see.’

  I thought Fly was feeling more confident than he dared admit.

  ‘Could you go for something bigger?’ I asked hopefully.

  Fly screwed up his face. ‘How big?’

  ‘How about the power grid?’

  He laughed.

  ‘The media network?’

  He went pale. ‘You’re joking!’

  ‘I need to be in control of power and communication, and to do that I need to hack into some heavyweight Corporates,’ I said easily.

  He laughed again. ‘For a moment there I thought you were being serious.’

  ‘He is,’ said Andrew.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ returned Fly quickly.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You can’t hack into Corporates. They’re heavily guarded. They’re tagged, loaded and monitored. It’s known as the Triple Application. Serious people have been employed to put in defences that are nearly impossible to break. That’s why we went for the freelancers tonight. They’re relatively easy because people want quick access and mobility. The price they pay for that is a system that cons like me can hack. Generally that doesn’t matter because people tend to use them for trivial or temporary stuff.’

  ‘Then how come you think we might have stung Fuller and Harrison for some cool millions?’ asked Andrew.

  ‘Fly neglected to mention that freelancers are also useful for illegal stuff,’ I said.

  Fly laughed again. ‘Yeh, that too.’

  ‘You said nearly,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said it was nearly impossible to hack into Corporates.’

  ‘Well, if you know any geniuses with brains like computers then it may be possible, but your genius has got to be willing to break the law and risk twenty years.’

  ‘Twenty years!’ spluttered Andrew.

  Fly shrugged his shoulders. ‘Serious stuff breaking into Corporates – twenty years is the minimum.’

  I was silent. Fly continued. ‘I knew a guy once, Paul Murphy; he was a mathematical genius – a serious Asperger too.’

  ‘And ...’ asked Andrew hopefully.

  ‘He wouldn’t help you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he’s dead.’

  ‘Fly!’ Andrew sounded as exasperated as I felt.

  ‘He was a target in the nick; the NF screws went for the poor bastard. He didn’t survive.’

  I felt sorry for the unknown man, but I also felt sorry for me. I needed a mathematical genius, one who would risk imprisonment for me. I knew one person who could do it, who would do it, but I also knew I would never ask him.

  ***********************

  Galmpton Court

  When the alarms sounded off across Galmpton Court, there was an immediate shut down – standard procedure until the security guards found out what the problem was. Fox was in his room, waiting to see what would happen next. He had been startled to see Alban and Fly wandering the corridors but quick to guess who and what they were – especially when Fly had signed the Matrix Salute to him; then he cursed his bad luck. He had not told the Brotherhood he would be at this dinner tonight. His invitation had come late and he had decided to go – that was his first mistake. He shouldn’t have been around for the freelancers’ raid. He was supposed to be far away, with a nice safe alibi, close to wherever Matrix was, so that he could decode the Centurion virus.

  He had received the coded message to contact the Brotherhood but had been in too much of a hurry. He had meant to return the call but had forgotten – that was his second mistake. He could guess what the message had been: instructions to be somewhere at some time to decode the Century – and because he had failed to follow basic Brotherhood procedure, he was here at Galmpton Court, possibly implicated, and not with Matrix ready to prevent any damage.

  He sat on the edge of his bed, cursed his own stupidity and fretted.

  It didn’t take long, soon he heard his door being unlocked – his, no one else’s. He had no idea whether that was a good or a bad sign. He stood up and took a deep breath; there was only one way to find out.

  A security guard stood at his door. ‘Could you come this way, sir?’ he said. He was polite, that meant nothing; he would be polite even as he tortured you. Fox had come to know the way these people worked and thought; he found them some of the most frightening he had met. He followed the man out, his heart a large lump in his chest and his throat tight and constricted. He was afraid, more afraid than he had ever been, but he knew he mustn’t show it.

  He followed the man down silent, dimly-lit corridors; the lights were kept low as part of the security procedure. The house was evidently still in shut down. He was led to the entertainment room. He knew this room and he hated it. He dreaded to think what he might see in there. He walked in. The Inner Circle was already there, waiting. Garfield stood to one side smoking a cigar, and Cooper, who stood next to him, was drinking some malt from a large glass tumbler. Harrison stood staring out of the window responsible for setting the alarm off. He had his hands in his pockets and seemed deep in thought. Fuller was sitting on a low chair with his elbows resting on his knees.

  ‘Ah, the professionals!’ said Fuller. He didn’t bother to stand; no one moved. Harrison remained motionless by the window.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Fox, trying not to sound nervous.

  ‘You tell me!’ cried Fuller. He pointed to something on the floor. Fox looked and saw a heap of rags bundled up on the floor.

  ‘The discards?’ he asked curiously.

  Fuller laughed. ‘I wish! No, one of my best; take a look.’

  Fox moved across cautiously and peered down. He put his hands in his pockets and pulled out some surgical gloves, slipped them on, knelt down and turned over the body. ‘He’s dead – wire round his throat,’ he said.

  ‘Worked that one out for ourselves,’ said Fuller.

  ‘Have you called the police?’ asked Fox standing up.

  ‘Yes, you.’

  ‘Besides me.’

  ‘Not many people outrank you, so why bother?’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘The security guard charged with looking after the discards tonight – don’t you recognise him?’

  ‘Now you come
to mention it ...’ Fox felt he was not in control, not saying the right thing, not saying what was expected of him. He felt the situation slip from his grasp, and he didn’t know how to pull it back again. He had no idea yet whether he was here as a help or a suspect. He looked around him. ‘Where are the discards?’ he asked carelessly.

  ‘No idea! The old man has taken a sleeping draught and we can’t wake him up!’

  Fox looked puzzled and then remembered who the last man was to be with the children: the man he had seen with Fly.

  ‘I think you need to call in the police; a man’s been murdered. The murderer may still be in the house. We’re all at risk.’ The words came tumbling out. He was still not in control, and he knew he was sweating freely now. The room suddenly felt uncomfortably hot. He could feel his heart pounding inside his skull and his vision had become blurred.

  ‘Oh, we’ve checked the house; whoever did this has gone,’ said Fuller, obviously getting impatient with Fox.

  At that moment, Harrison turned around and looked straight at Fox. Fox moved from being too hot to icy cold as the bullet brown eyes bore into him. ‘I don’t think our police help is being very helpful, do you, Henry?’ he asked quietly. Harrison rarely raised his voice. He generally spoke quietly – but when he did speak, everyone listened.

  Fuller, the weaker man, always listened. ‘Well, now you come to mention it, Martin ... no, I don’t think he is.’

  Harrison moved away from the window. He walked slowly and deliberately. He walked with the ease and confidence of a man who knew he was always right and amongst people who believed in him completely. Fox stood motionless, transfixed, as Harrison came closer. He could feel those tiny brown eyes watch him, and he knew his limbs had become frozen and immobile. He could not move. He had nowhere to go. He was trapped. He was caught and, more than anything, he wished he was at home now, anywhere else now, anywhere except here, ensnared in this torture room.

  ***********************

  Back at the safe house, the children were taken into the small hospital section and Andrew set about giving them proper medical treatment. Gill had turned up and so had their specialist friend. She saved Lincoln’s leg but removed half his foot. It was the best possible result given the state of him. We were very grateful.