Sydney watched him carefully, looking for any sign that he was purposefully being obtuse. She could swear that one corner of his mouth twitched and the glimmer in his eye was mischievousness. But, since she had no proof, she told herself to let it go.
“I have a headache and I woke up starving. I don’t think I slept very well.”
He tilted his head. “You still have a headache?”
“Yeah.”
“Have you taken anything?”
“No, I didn’t bring anything with me.”
“We’ll stop and pick something up.”
Sydney wanted to argue, but she realized that his worry was valid, and his concern was causing her to be more worried even though she tried not to show it. “I’ll be fine,” she said, wishing her voice was steadier.
Xander let the conversation drop. “So, do you think we should agree to meet Pandaren87 where he wants to meet? Or should we throw him off? Suggest meeting somewhere new?”
“I don’t know. Do you think we can name a time but get there early and stake the place out? Make sure he doesn’t bring anyone with him?”
“It could work. Or he could already have people there watching.”
“Shit. How do the spies on TV do this?”
“I guess we just have to take a chance. He doesn’t know I’m with you, right?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Well, I can go early and keep an eye on the place and then you can show up on time. If anything looks weird I can give you a signal.”
“What signal?”
“Uh, we can get another pre-paid phone when we stop for your headache. I’ll call.”
“Then what?”
“You make an excuse to get out of there?”
“And if he tries to stop me?”
“I’ll come. Save the day and all,” he grinned.
“You are enjoying this too much.”
Xander shrugged. “Do you have a better idea?”
“Not really. But I don’t think you should rush in if it looks like he has backup. Like, if he’s brought the cops or who or whatever They are.”
“Why not?”
“I’ll probably need you to help me on the ‘outside.’”
“Outside?” he raised a brow.
“Yeah, of wherever they take me. Jail or...worse.”
He looked doubtful, but eventually he nodded. “OK.”
Sydney didn’t admit that her request was two-fold. If he held back he would, hopefully, not be taken when she was. “Thanks.”
Xander ignored her gratitude and got dressed. Once they were both ready to leave, he handed her his phone. “Go ahead and email him,” he held the door open and she stepped through, blinking at the bright desert sun.
Sydney waited until they were inside the truck before she brought up her email and sent off a quick message.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
I’ll meet you at 1:00pm.
“Done,” she handed him the phone. “Wait,” her eyes went wide. “What if they can track us by the emails I’ve sent?”
“Is that possible?”
“I have no idea. I’m not that good at computer stuff. I would imagine it’s not that hard to do, though.”
“Well, it’s too late now.”
“Fuck.”
“I think we just need to keep going, see what happens.”
“Fine. You’re right.” Sydney’s unease grew as Xander put on his sunglasses and started the truck.
***
Thirty minutes later, Xander and Sydney were seated in a bar across the street from The Perk-o-Later, the coffee shop Pandaren87 had directed them to. His response email agreed to the one o’clock meeting and indicated he would be wearing a red hoodie and black pants. Normally, it would feel weird to be in a bar at eleven in the morning. However, considering it was half-full and at least half of the patrons already seemed on their way to being drunk, Syd felt normal, which was saying something.
She turned her beer in circles and watched the crowds walking towards the Strip. No one stood out as being nefarious. No one other than ordinary tourists passed by the large bar windows. Xander’s movement drew her attention and she glanced towards him. He leaned back in the booth and rested his arms along the back. When he also stretched his legs out his boots brushed against her calf and he left them there. Maybe he can’t tell his feet are resting against my leg. He might think it’s just the table. Bullshit. To make a point she tucked her feet back only to scowl at the smile that spread across Xander’s face. Too late, she realized he had been playing a game—and she had lost. She sighed and rolled her eyes.
“Do you know what you’re going to ask him yet?” he turned away from her to keep an eye on the people outside.
“Not really. I guess ask him for his version of what’s going on. See if he has any missing time or amnesia. I definitely want to ask him if he has talked to anyone else that he found, any of the other Dreamers.”
“Definitely. You should ask him if he has been having headaches or more nosebleeds.” Syd wanted to ignore his suggestion, but instead she just nodded. “How is the headache?”
“Better,” she assured him, and it was only a little lie. She returned her attention to the streets, not even sure what she should be watching for. A part of her kept looking out for another Short Man. A clone of the crazy man who had stalked and attacked her. But reason tried to argue that would be too crazy. Is there even such a thing as too crazy at this point?
“I think Mr. Pandaren87 decided to be early too.”
“Huh?” Sydney shook off her thoughts and studied the people. “Where?”
“There,” Xander nodded in the direction of people coming from behind her. She half turned in her seat and spotted him immediately. He was tall and impossibly skinny. Even in his baggy black, cargo pants, she could tell that he was a beanpole. He wore a plain red, hooded sweatshirt zipped up and pulled over his face. The bit of his face she could see was smooth and hairless. Even though she couldn’t get a good look at him, she got the impression he was young. “Not too good at inconspicuous, is he?”
She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding. The kid looked harmless, more than a little paranoid and naive, but he didn’t look like he was capable of killing or kidnapping her. “No. I’m thinking this guy isn’t working with Them.”
“At least not knowingly.”
“Right.”
“Let’s give it a little while,” he cautioned.
They waited for fifteen more minutes to see if anyone else noticeable was going to appear. No one else entered the shop alone. No one arrived or left wearing black suits. “What do you think?” she asked.
“Shit. I don’t know. Nothing looks out of the ordinary.”
“Yeah. OK. Let’s do this.”
“Got the phone?”
Sydney ran her hand over her pocket to make sure. “Yup.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?”
“No, no. I’m going in alone,” she couldn’t hold back her grin and Xander snorted in amusement. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”
Sydney hurried from the bar and crossed the street, merging with a group of people. Slipping inside the coffee shop, she scanned the crowd for Pandaren87. She spotted him right away in the back of the shop and she hurried towards him. Since he was waiting for her, he spotted her just as quickly. He sat up straighter and fidgeted with his coffee cup. Alternating between looking at her and down at the table nervously until she was standing directly over him. “Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
Up close she could see that he was older than she had first thought. He was probably in his early to mid-twenties. “You’re early,” she smiled.
“So are you,” he croaked.
“Can I sit down?” she swallowed the lump in her throat.
“Oh, yeah! Sorry,” he waved at the seat across from him.
Sydney slid the c
hair around the table until she was at an angle where she could see the front and the back of the shop. Pandaren87 seemed to realize the wisdom of this move and did the same until he was opposite her again.
“So,” she said. “What’s your story?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Well, you don’t waste time, huh.” Pandaren87 stated.
Sydney. “Someone tried to kill me three days ago.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Your name’s Sydney, right?” he asked, as if small talk would make their situation less weird.
“Yeah.” Stupid email, Sydney muttered to herself. She realized, too late, she should have made up a new email.
“You can call me Pan,” he offered.
Sydney was relieved to realize he must have assumed the name was fake. And technically it is. “OK.”
“Well...you saw my posts. I had that really weird ass dream.” Pandaren began.
“Right. How did you realize others had it too?”
“It was such a weird dream that I decided to see if it meant anything. You know. I don’t usually believe in that kind of stuff.”
Pandaren had soft grey eyes and hair only a few shades lighter than her own. Sydney, despite herself, wanted to like him. She wanted to be able to connect with someone like herself. But something stopped her from feeling too comfortable with him. She couldn’t pin point exactly what it was, but her gut told her to not let her guard down with him. “That’s kind of how it happened with me too. That’s how I found your blog. Well, my roommate did.”
Pandaren nodded. “Yeah. Well, I didn’t actually find a meaning for the dream.” Sydney tilted her head. “It wasn’t easy to search for ‘I dreamed no one could understand me even though I was speaking their language.’”
“Good point,” she scowled at him.
“So,” Pandaren finally continued. “I gave up. Decided I was being stupid. I was making my usual rounds on the web. Checking out articles, blogs, reviews, and stuff.” Sydney must have looked confused because Pandaren paused. “Sorry, I’m a software designer. I work online all day.”
“Oh!”
“Anyway, I was checking out my friend’s blog. He lives in England. It was in the middle of the afternoon there. He had been working on an accounting software that is being developed by a competitor of my employers. So, periodically, I check in to see how he’s doing. Friendly rivalry. Anyway, he was saying that he wasn’t able to concentrate on work because of a weird dream he had had the night before, and that he had a migraine ever since waking up.” Sydney’s heart beat harder. “I started telling him I had the same problem. It wasn’t long before we realized we both had almost identical dreams.
Pandaren gulped at his cooling coffee before he continued. Sydney, for the first time, noticed the dark circles under his eyes and his chapped lips. As he fidgeted with his cup more she watched his hands. Several knuckles on his left hand were scraped and when he caught her looking he transferred the cup to his right hand and moved his left into his lap without explaining the abrasions. Her nerves over there meeting were turning into real worry.
“So, anyway, that’s how I found out someone else dreamed the same thing I did. It got me to thinking and I did more searching. Looking on social media and blog sites. As the day wore on I realized that more people were in the same boat. I found about ten people by the end of the day.”
“Sydney nodded. “Yeah, I saw those.”
“Well, a couple of people private messaged me but asked that I not share their info or post about them.”
“Really!”
“Yeah. Three more actually.”
“How much variation have you found in the dreams?”
“Not much. What was your dream?”
Sydney hated the idea of giving him any information about herself, but she needed to at least give him enough to keep him talking. So, she described her dream in detail.
“Yeah, your dream fits in with everyone else’s. Mostly the differences have been people’s reactions to the person dreaming. Whenever they ask for help some people dreamed the crowd ignored them. In other dreams they got violent.”
“So, what’s happened since the dream?” Syd asked him. She almost expected him to demand more from her first. But, he seemed excited, almost eager to talk. And she realized that was probably the case. It was hard not being able to tell someone if something was eating at you. This was probably the first time he had been able to tell someone the full story.
“I’ve had nose bleeds. I’m constantly hungry. I keep having outbursts.”
“Outbursts?” Syd interrupted.
“Yeah…” He held up his left hand. “I’ve punched holes in the wall—scared my girlfriend half to death. What about you?”
“I’ve experienced some of the same. I’ve been really hungry and snappier than usual. Headaches. I’ve been exhausted for days but I thought that was just from the stress of being on the road.”
“I don’t think it is,” Pandaren stated the obvious. Sydney nodded but didn’t confirm or deny his suspicion.
“Has anyone else had similar...symptoms? Like your English friend?”
“I don’t know,” Pandaren’s voice softened.
“Why not?”
“I haven’t been able to reach him since. I even tried Skyping and calling him. Nothing. It’s like he just dropped off the face of the Earth.”
Sydney’s blood turned cold. “Shit.”
“Right. So when you said you had been watched, I knew that shit was getting real. That John’s MIA-ness probably wasn’t just a coincidence.”
Sydney sat back in her chair to consider what Pandaren was telling her. Someone had definitely tried to kill her, and there was a good chance someone hurt or killed Pan’s friend.
“Who tried to kill you?”
“I don’t know. This weird guy who had been following me. He was short and totally non-descript.”
“How did you get away?”
Sydney had no intention of telling Pan about Xander. “A fire extinguisher,” she explained, leaving out the details.
“Wow. Is he dead?” Instead of answering, Sydney just held Pandaren’s eye until he nodded and looked down at his lap. Letting the weighted silence go, she asked him if he had seen anyone like Short Man following him.
“I haven’t seen anyone like that—I don’t think. Not that I have noticed anyway.” After a brief search of his memory he nodded as if he had reassured himself. “So, what’s your story?”
She took a deep breath, undecided how much she should tell him. In the end, she told him where she was from and what she did for a living and gave him more details about her symptoms after the dream. She didn’t lie except by omission. Afterwards, she asked, “So, do you have theories?”
“Plenty.”
“Same here.”
“What’s your favorite?”
“I don’t know,” Sydney answered. “Virus maybe? That would explain us being kind of sick.”
“It could.”
“But?”
“But I’m inclined to go with government experiments.”
“How? Did they spike our water or something, but then wouldn’t more people be infected.”
“There are lots of ways they could be experimenting on us.”
“Well, if it’s not everyone, why us?”
“Haven’t you made the connection?”
“What connection?”
“The best I can tell is we all are into computers and technology.”
“Oh,” Sydney responded stupidly.
“As for what that means? I’m not sure.”
“How sure are you that all the people having the dream are techies?”
“Well, counting you and the three who messaged me personally, there are fifteen of us that I know about. Seven of us have jobs that require us to be skilled in computers in some way.”
“Damn. I really didn’t put that together.”
“I have more infor
mation than you do.”
“Well,” Sydney began after a few moments. “If that’s true, what do you think they are testing?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“And no idea what they did to us?”
“No. You have any?”
“Not really,” she hesitated.
“Meaning?”
She took a deep breath. “Have you had any missing time?”
“Missing time?”
“Yeah. Like, are there chunks of time you can’t remember?”
“Eh, well, I’ve been drinking a lot lately. Mostly due to the weird shit that’s been happening. And sometimes I black out.”
“And before the dream? Any memory losses from before?”
“I’ve blacked out at parties.” When she raised an eyebrow at him he got defensive. “Hey! I’m not an alcoholic or something,” he snapped.
She was surprised by how angry he got so quickly. “Sorry,” she raised both hands defensively. “I wasn’t implying that you were.”
Pandaren took several deep breaths before he spoke again. “No, I’m sorry. This is what I mean. I don’t usually have such a short temper.” He ran a hand through his shaggy hair.
“Well, the reason I asked about memory problems...is because I am missing a big chunk of time.”
“Yeah?”
“Yep?”
“How much?” he asked.”
“Oh, about twenty-some years, if I were to guess.”
“What?”
“I don’t have any memories until about four and half months ago.”
“Shit! Is it connected?”
“I can’t imagine that it’s not. What the hell kind of karma would that be?”
“No, you’re right. That would be stupid to assume they weren’t connected.”
“So, nothing like that for you?”
Pandaren thought for a few minutes. “Not that I know of.”
“Shit,” Syd muttered.
“Sorry.”
“Not like it’s your fault,” she shrugged.
“What’s the first thing you remember?”
Sydney gave him an edited version of the story. Explaining how she woke up with “DONT LET THEM FIND YOU” written on her arm and having no memory. She left out Don and that horrible experience. There was no need for him to know about that—at least not right now.
Don't Let Them Find You Page 14
