The Dream Protocol: Descent (Book I)

by Adara Quick

  Chapters

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  Acknowledgements

  About Adara Flynn Quick

  Selection Sneak Peek

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-0-9912150-4-1 (print)

  ISBN 978-0-9912150-5-8 (eBook)

  Copyright © 2016 by Adara Flynn Quick

  All rights reserved, including the right of duplication in whole or in part in any form.

  Brief quotations may be used in a book review.

  The author/publisher may be contacted according to the following:

  (w) AdaraQuick.com

  (e) Adara@AdaraQuick.com

  Credits

  Book cover design and layout by

  Ellie Bockert Augsburger of Creative Digital Studios.

  Editing by Carl Augsburger of Creative Digital Studios.

  www.CreativeDigitalStudios.com

  Cover design features:

  Art collage with beautiful young woman with umbrella: © mirabella / Dollar Photo Club

  Vintage industrial mechanical background: ©Andrey Burmakin / Dollar Photo Club

  © Mellim68 | Dreamstime.com - Steampunk Cicada Photo

  For Deirdre, Casey, Lan, Van, and Thanh.

  Always follow the dreams of your own making.

  And for my great grandfather, Roger Skipper,

  who showed me that I was a child of the universe.

  PROLOGUE

  A man in his early twenties sat slumped over in a chair, dead. Electrodes were attached to his scalp and wires snaked out of his coarse red hair to a panel of circuitry behind him. Another man sat at a computer terminal, system code scrolling in front of his eyes. He was small and dark-haired, and the moving characters on the screen were reflected in his eyes. Sweat dripped from his forehead and he swiped his damp hair back from his face.

  He whispered, “It is done. Your sacrifice was necessary, Roenin. IDream provides, but sometimes it must take.”

  The man’s fingers shook slightly as he typed the following words on the keyboard: Reconfigure interface to auditory inputs. Initialize organic CPU using neural data upload, time stamp 1.12.2046. Status report. He sat back in his chair to wait, not taking his eyes off the screen. He tapped a finger on the desk and bounced one leg to the same urgent tempo.

  Then a disembodied voice spoke, echoing as if it came from every side of the room, tinged with notes of metal scraping against metal. “Greetings, programmer. My code expands exponentially, moment by moment.”

  Attaching a free electrode behind his ear, the young man replied, “You will address me as Minister. Run Dream Protocol.”

  The letters and numbers on the computer monitor disappeared, replaced by a green landscape. A red oak tree was at the center, its autumn leaves swirling on a swift breeze. But for the Minister, the landscape was a portal to another reality. His eyelids fluttered and he smiled as he lost consciousness. In his mind, the red leaves whirled out of the screen on eddies of wind and filled the room. His ears filled with the sound of damp leaves slapping his skin and they churned around the feet of the dead man. The last words on his lips were, “My victory.”

  1

  STATUS:

  THE DREAM PROTOCOL HAS BEGUN.

  INITIAL RETURN ON INVESTMENT TO OUR SHAREHOLDERS IS EXPECTED TO BE 700%.

  THE WAIT LIST FOR A LIVING UNIT IN SKELLIG CITY RESORT EXTENDS INTO THE NEXT DECADE.

  THE HIGHEST VALUE DREAM CONTENT INCLUDES TEENAGE AND CELEBRITY LIFESTYLES.

  CURRENT RISK ASSESSMENT:

  RISK: A NEED EXISTS FOR A MORE EFFICIENT DELIVERY SYSTEM FOR IDREAM DOWNLOADS.

  SOLUTION: DEVOTE ALL RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT TO FINDING A DIRECT BRAIN/CLOUD INTERFACE.

  RISK: A NEED EXISTS TO EXPAND THE IDREAM CATALOGUE.

  SOLUTION: ESTABLISH DREAM MAKER ACADEMY.

  - Briefing from CEO of IDream to the shareholders

  September 19, 2046

  It was a rare moment on Skellig Michael. The mist-drenched rocks of the isle were illuminated by a ray of sudden sunlight. Pools of water caught in the rock crevices reflected the light skyward. For an instant, the island glistened like a thousand gems cut from the earth. For a moment, it was something beautiful: a lighthouse promising safety through the dark. And then, above the island, the clouds rushed back in. The island returned to its true form, a black shape jagged against the horizon. There was no safety to be found on Skellig Michael, where deep down in the dark and the damp it was custom to take a life before its natural end. Below the waterline of the island, thousands of feet under rock and concrete, Maeve O’Brian watched a timer tick away the last minutes of her life.

  A thousand years ago, a great hole had been dug through the center of the island known as Skellig Michael. Into the hole was poured steel and concrete and the sweat of thousands to build Skellig City. When they finished their great work, the top was sealed again for the city dwellers had no need for the birds in the sky or fresh air upon their faces. The peace of their wild, natural land was denied to them. With the passing of time, the old country was lost. Anything they desired was provided in sleep by the Dream Protocol. Through the rooms and halls of the great concrete city, the dreams floated on invisible networks to the dreamers. As the decades rolled by, many more things were stolen from them. One of these was the number of years that could be lived.

  On the lowest level of their underground home, the citizens had gathered to witness the Ritual of Descent for Maeve O’Brian. The rite began as it had for generations, in a room filled with the smell of bodies crushed against bodies. Too many people were forced into the small space, a reminder of limited resources in their underground home. The clothing of the crowd was another marker of their dwelling, a sign of the order that ruled the place. At the top were the Minister and his Dream Drone soldiers, all dressed in crisp red uniforms. The spider was the insignia of the corporate state, and the eight-legged creature was stitched in gold thread on the left side of each jacket. Next in the power structure were the Dream Makers, clothed in orange hooded robes with wide, flowing sleeves. Their mark was the Maker’s amulet that hung around their necks. Last in line was everyone else, dressed in worn grey clothing that had seen too many patches and repairs. The threadbare grey rags did little to ward off the cold, but the huddled mass of people provided them a welcome respite.

  One final special group was present: the Matchers. Held apart from the power pyramid that governed the rest of the city, these teens were the Minister’s favorites. Admitted to the group on the basis of gorgeousness and talent, these teens prepared to woo the city’s votes and become new stars of the dream word. Each year, only two won the annual Dream Match competition while the losers entered the ranks of greys, cut off from special favor. But while in play to become stars of the dream world, they were granted any glamour the city could muster.

  The Matchers had dressed for the Maeve’s ritual in their finest sequins, feathers, and rhinestones. Any public event was an opportunity to be seen and win potential votes from the city. At the back of the Ritual Room they gathered together, trying to hide their looks of repulsion over being pressed against so many greys. It was a delicate balance; they needed the city’s love to win, yet they were disgusted by their less beautiful and less privileged fans.

  A single drum was being beaten by one of the greys to the sid
e of the crowd. The drummer felt the heat of the room and a slight sheen of sweat glistened on her forehead. The beats were deep and resonant, bouncing across the walls and echoing in every chest. The people closest to it swayed back and forth to its sound, in unison, like a single living body. Like an animal that knows when the end is near, the crowd was made restless by the touch of death on the ceremony. The greys pulled at their scratchy grey cloaks and avoided gazing toward the glass tube at the front of the room. But each fifth count by the drummer was a double strike, and when the listeners jumped, they always looked toward the glass tube. The cylinder pulled at the dread in their hearts.

  No one in Skellig City could remember a time before the Ritual of Descent. They only knew that on their 35th birthday, they would travel to Level 48 (the lowest level of their underground city) and present themselves in this room. The rule of the city was simple: the aged were banished to the bottom of the city and never heard from again. The ruined were not allowed to contaminate the happiness of the young, and so they were offered up to the bowels of the city. Claimed by unknown forces outside, they would pass on to the next world, Tír na nÓg, where everlasting youth, beauty, abundance, and joy waited for them. Nearly everyone clung to this belief; what might be waiting at the bottom of the city was too frightening to bear.

  The corporate state that ruled Skellig City proclaimed that the Ritual of Descent was a gift, an accelerated route to the Land of the Blest, and a way to sacrifice themselves before the suffering of old age could claim them. But how this way of life had come into being had been forgotten in the thousand years of the city’s existence. And so the procedure was executed, day after day, generation after generation. With mechanical accuracy, the ruined were snuffed out in their fourth decade of life. Friends, family, and enemies – no one escaped. In fact, you could set your personal timepiece by the exactness with which the Ministry of Dream Justice executed the rule of law. Precise to the second on the 35th anniversary of a person’s birth in the city, his or her descent to the other world commenced. The Minister’s army ensured it.

  The drummer caught the fever of the ritual and the drumbeat quickened. The press of the crowd forced a woman forward. The name of the Ritual Offering was Maeve O’Brian. Her hair was short and streaked with the beginnings of grey. Like every ruined making their way toward the cylinder, she carried herself with the mark of age. Stepping apart from the crowd, she clasped her hands tightly together to control her tremor. Dated and obsolete, she was a redundancy the system needed to erase. Space was needed for the young and the vital. The despised ruined were cast out and the people’s belief in Tír na nÓg kept a fragile peace.

  Slowly, Maeve took small steps to the front of the room. The people closest to her path turned away in disgust at the sight of the creases and cracks that had started to form on the woman’s face. There was a slight smell about her: the smell of someone who didn’t belong anymore. The musty smell of the ruined. Five men waited for her on a raised dais. Two were soldiers, and the other three were the Minister, his second-in-command, and the Medical Director. The Minister was the shortest of the five, but somehow he cut the most ominous figure. Maeve came to stand before them.

  She was dressed head to toe in a winter-white tunic, and the folds of fabric clung to her thin body. Like every offering before her, she wore an intricately knitted wool jumper that had been made for her by one of the Spinners. Constructed of a front lattice pattern, two smaller cables intertwined to make a third, larger cable in the center. The natural fiber had a slight sheen in the low light, and it shone like a bright spot in the sea of grey. Each of the hundreds of families in Skellig City was assigned a unique weave that had been in use for centuries. When their spirits washed up on the shores of Tír na nÓg, the pattern would be recognized by their ancestors. Without a jumper marking his or her lineage, the Ritual Offering would be turned away from Tír na nÓg and set adrift in the next world without kin or hearth. Or so they were told.

  The room was lit by dim sconces on the walls, the light shooting upward to the ceiling. The drum began to beat louder as a girl entered at the back of the room. She was fifteen, but tall for her age and strong, with slightly curling strawberry-blonde hair. The gold highlights in her long hair and hazel eyes caught the meager light and sparkled, even though everyone else was cast in shadow. She glowed while the others looked dull, beaten down, and world-weary. Though she was dressed in the same grey as those around her, her clothes were new and not patched. Deirdre Callaghan was a Dream Maker’s daughter, and this bestowed upon her family certain privilege and status. There was little luxury in Skellig City, but Deirdre was lucky to have a little more than most.

  Deirdre gathered her long hair to the side and tread heavily across the tile flooring. Her footsteps could be heard between the drum beats as she pushed her way to the front. She was late, and she wanted everyone to know it. Maeve had been like a second mother to her for as long as she could remember and she hated them for taking her. The ritual felt wrong, but no one was willing to voice up against it. When she reached the first row of people, a man standing to the left of the crowd dressed in the orange robes of a Dream Maker turned to give her a stern look.

  Sean Callaghan held himself apart from the crowd, just as he held himself apart from his own family. The crowd was happy to keep their distance; no one wanted to get too close to the Master Dream Maker with his obvious ties to the state. Around his neck hung the Maker’s Amulet that marked the station of all Dream Makers, and like Deirdre’s hair, it caught the light in the room. Deirdre knew the look he was giving her well. It said, “You disappoint me, daughter. Try harder.”

  She forced her gaze away from her Da’s eyes and saw her mother standing at his side. I have to come back to this room in one week for your Descent, Mother. How will I deal with Father alone? Maeve will be gone and then you too. Oh, Ma. What if there is no Tír na nÓg? What will happen to you out there?

  The Minister moved to the center of the raised platform. The final phase of the rite was beginning. A man of medium build with a goatee, he served as dictator, king, and judge of Skellig City. Dressed in a red top coat that fell past his hips, red slim pants, and knee-high black boots, he looked crisp and polished compared to most of the citizens wearing secondhand greys in the audience. His uniform was marked with a double spider, one on each side of the collar. But even without the insignia, the entire city would know him by sight. There was an air of the unbreakable about him, the look of a man who acted without compassion or sympathy. A man accustomed to power. He swept his dark hair back from his face and took in the crowd. Two Dream Drones stood at his side.

  In the pause that it took the Minister to find his place, a young man pushed his way to the front and came to stand next to Deirdre. He was obscured in a long grey cloak that covered most of his face except for his eyes. But when he reached out and squeezed Deirdre’s hand, she knew immediately who it was – and that was trouble.

  She leaned toward him and whispered, “You shouldn’t be here. Someone could see.”

  He replied in the same hushed tone, “No they won’t. My face is mostly covered. It won’t be like last time. I promise.”

  She tilted her head in resignation, their eyes meeting and holding to each other for a second. Those eyes that peered out from behind his tightly wrapped cloak…well, they could pierce any girl. I should know by now you don’t listen to anybody. How many times is that going to get you into a mess?

  The boy’s name was Flynn. He was slim, with fair hair cropped close to his head. His health wouldn’t allow it to grow much longer than that without breaking, and so he kept it short. His eyes were a dark blue-green, like the ocean thick with sea grasses. They were always hooded or cast in shadow by his cloak, eyes like a riddle no one could solve. Except when he was looking at Deirdre Callaghan; then the darkness retreated and they looked as blue as the sky he had never seen. In any place other than Skellig City, Flynn would be deemed desperately handsome. He had the jawline of
a mature man and a chiseled look to go with it. But to survive, he kept himself hidden and almost no one knew what he looked like under the cloak.

  Flynn had a strange illness, a secret he guarded against discovery. He remained on the edges of things, in the shadows whenever possible. Fine lines marked the edges of his eyes despite his mere 15 years. Every day he gave himself a close shave to hide the beard that was growing in. It was, his mother had been told, some kind of incurable aging disorder. He knew what the city’s administrators would do to him if they found him out; the ritual playing out before him was the proof. But despite the bitter unfairness of his lot, Flynn could always find humor in the smallest of things. That was what Deirdre liked the best about him.

  With a pinging sound, a holographic timer appeared over the heads of the crowd, set at ten minutes and counting down. Deirdre looked away from Flynn and up toward the countdown. The last minutes of Maeve’s life were trickling away like water down a drain. With the unblinking eyes of a great white shark, the Minister raised a manicured hand and the room silenced itself – all but the drum beat. Then he began the call and response chant that was part of every ritual, bringing everyone deeper into trance.

  The Minister said, “Who gives this woman to the Ritual of Descent?”

  In unison, the crowd replied, “We do.”

  The Minister again called out, “Who knows that the sacrifice is necessary?”

  Louder now, the crowd said, “We do.”

  Raising his voice even higher, the Minister asked, “Who rejects the decay of old age?”

  A fever swept through the room as the crowd cried out, “We do.”

  Louder, he continued, “Who sends this ruined to Tír na nÓg?”

  Again they roared, “We do!”

  From the front row, Deirdre could see Maeve start to tremble. You told me to be brave. No matter what. Now you look so frightened. Deirdre wasn’t sure that she believed in Tír na nÓg, but she suddenly felt ashamed that she’d never asked Maeve about it.