The Dreamer Chronicles Trilogy Boxed Set Vol I - III: A Sci-Fi Parallel Universe Adventure (The Dreamer Chronicles - Science Fiction For Kids And Adults)

by Robert Scanlon

  He paused, struck by a thought. How he wished his great-great-grandfather was here, right this very moment. He’d been a dark-energy specialist. He would have loved this!

  “Am I on track?”

  “Yes, impressive, Nathan. One more leap, and you’re there.”

  Nathan nodded. He already knew the connection. “So you thought initially it was the Chameleon Particle you were looking for, but it didn’t make sense because it was strongest in extreme outer space. Then Professor Malden made a genius breakthrough. He hypothesised that there might be another particle, also connected to dark-energy. And also chameleon-like, because it changed its behaviour and power depending on where it was ... ah ... ‘located’.”

  The Professor was smiling. “Do go on. It sounds fascinating.”

  Nathan grinned. This was the good bit. “The new particle would change behaviour because, where the mind’s creative power was already strong, it could be detected. But when the thoughts were not densely-packed, it would have no power. Close?”

  “Excellent summary, Nathan. That is exactly what led us to study exceptionally creative people. We needed examples of extreme brain activity. Like many great discoveries, this one came completely by accident. We had a pretty smart musician in the chair one day. She was renowned for her ability to improvise with multiple instruments. Simultaneously. Then afterwards, she was able to write out the whole score. Note for note. That day, she’d been improvising for around 20 minutes and was tired, so we left her to rest before writing her score, and we nipped out of the room to grab a coffee. Malden got back before me, and when I arrived he glanced at me, with that mad grin on his face, and told me to go and look at the monitor. Specifically to review the last few minutes’ activity. So I did. It was incredible, Nathan. The poor woman was so tired, she’d immediately drifted off to sleep. But something must have kept her in light rapid-eye-movement-sleep. I think her dream-state was amplified because she was interrupted mid-task; in her mind, she still had the score to write out. Only now she was writing it in her dream. That’s when we discovered the particle.”

  Nathan nodded. “And why you called it the rem-particle.”

  “Yes. What we didn’t predict was its elusive and unpredictable nature. Fortunately for us, our efforts to understand it led to us discovering something else: The existence of a group of super-dreamers. Those for whom the rem-particle is in a state of hyper-excitement. Possibly allowing the parting of dark-energy and the creation of portals.” He fixed his gaze on Nathan. “And now you know how you and Sarina fit into the picture, and how you can help advance the project.”

  “But, Prof, I don’t get it.” Nathan rubbed his chin. “Isn’t the rem-particle supposed to be connected with our super-creativity? If that’s the case, then why does a sudden spike cause a black-out, similar to what just happened to Lena? Shouldn’t she have just become hyper creative?”

  “That’s why the machine is stabilised and protected in this room, Nathan. And it is precisely why I have to keep the project going. Since Malden’s accident we are no closer to understanding why it is sometimes unstable, and why a perfectly natural phenomenon such as a rem-particle can cause these issues if it suddenly spikes. I suspect at the time of the accident, a rapid build-up in dark energy occurred in our galaxy. Think of it as a storm, or concentration of power in one spot. I believe it took Malden by surprise and generated unpredictable and additional power in his rem-particle production settings. Maybe he managed to make some kind of super-charged rem-particle by accident. A more refined, laser version. Maybe he inadvertently caused a chain reaction. But I’m only speculating. That was five years ago now, and it still doesn’t explain why we’ve seen more activity in the last few weeks. But we have to find out, for all our sakes.”

  Nathan’s brow creased. Something was missing from the Professor’s explanation. What did they have to find out? And how did he think he and Sarina could advance the project? “How did you find us?”

  “Before Malden’s accident, in parallel with the development of the collider, we were working on the rem-intensifiers. You’ve seen the current version of them—what the kids call the yellow hats. The idea was, maybe we could amplify the rem-particles artificially, giving us a chance to open up a world of creativity for those who had never experienced it; and increasing the capabilities of those who were already creative. Not long ago, I had an idea that the same device could be modified, and used to scan for rem-spikes.” He looked embarrassed. “That’s how we discovered you and Sarina. I, ah, had you ‘monitored’ for some time. As you know.”

  “Yes, but ... why the rem-particle collider? What’s the point? If you can already amplify rem-particle activity with the Intensifiers?”

  “Nathan, think. Why do you think it’s called an ‘Intensifier’? It’s because that’s all it can do. In the same way that a kettle can only make water hotter, but not make more of it; all an Intensifier does is make the rem-particles more excited.”

  Nathan rubbed his chin. “So these headshields”—he tapped the device on his head—“are like umbrellas. They protect us from sudden downpours—or rem-particle spikes. Hot or cold.”

  “Very good expansion of my analogy, Nathan. And to continue the analogy, neither device help us make more water. We wanted to see if we could manufacture rem particles. Similar to the way the sun makes power by atomic fusion. Very efficient, few side-effects. Not like atomic fission—splitting the atom was never a smart idea, in my opinion. So if we could collide the rem, to make more rem, or even a super-rem particle, then we’d have a—”

  “A what? A bomb?” Nathan was aghast.

  “No, Nathan. A solution.”

  “To what?” Nathan was now very confused. “To help dumb people be creative, and creative people be smarter?”

  “Your choice of words is prophetic—and very close to the truth, not that I like to use the word ‘dumb’. But you are not quite correct.”

  He looked directly at Nathan. “You see, we also discovered something extremely upsetting. As you know, the universe is expanding, and along with it, dark-energy is increasing—and the Chameleon Particle is getting stronger.”

  “Which means?”

  “We think that the rem-particle and the Chameleon particle are inversely related. As the Chameleon Particles grow in numbers, so do rem-particles diminish. In simple terms, we are slowly losing rem-particles.” The Professor paused. “And since we rely on rem-particles for our creativity, our innovation and our inventions, the future looks bleak. According to our research, Nathan, our universe has destined us to become increasingly less intelligent. Possibly rather quickly.”

  ~ 4 ~

  Missing

  The bird-man was asleep on his perch, high in the rafters of the warehouse, when the disturbance hit. Caught off-balance, he fell, and narrowly avoided impact with the hard floor by opening his large wings and swooping to a halt.

  “What magic is this? Surely it functions not in this world.” His wings still held wide, he turned slowly, and looked around for any evidence. Finding none, he retracted his wings and took a deep inhalation.

  “Master?” he called into the space around him. “If you can hear me, I need your assistance. When the Orange Witch struck me with her power, she banished me to this world. I am stuck here, with no magic to assist me, and cannot transform to my man-like form. I have discovered my bird-form is unpalatable to the humans who occupy this ... world, wherever it may be. I cannot easily move around for fear of capture, yet I must somehow find my way back to the valley. Your Greatness, I am certain I felt magic, yet as far as I am able to ascertain, that is not possible in this world. It reminded me I might yet reach you.”

  He flexed his wings and stared into the air.

  “If, by some means, you are able to provide a sign or an indication of my task, then I will gladly risk my life to accomplish it.”

  The silence greeted him.

  He scowled and strode to the wall of the empty warehouse, where he placed
both talon-equipped hands against the wall. He stared at the wall a moment, leaned his head against it between his hands and closed his eyes.

  After some seconds, his eyes flicked open, and he looked down at the small crate to his left. Scratched into the top was a drawing—albeit a highly unsatisfactory one—which Lena had asked him to draw for her. In one of his dream-sessions with the girl, she had shown him one of her pictures to copy, and demanded that he reproduce it as her prize for winning a guessing game.

  He had struggled to draw anything with his talons and only managed to scratch a poor facsimile of what she had held up.

  But looking down at the crate now, he remembered her picture clearly, and smiled.

  “Thank you, Sire. You are indeed mighty, even in this world.”

  Scratched in the surface was a clear drawing of a man, wearing a dome-like device on his head.

  Underneath it was one word. ‘Daddy’.

  He waited until dusk before venturing outside on the roof. Across the buildings he could see the extent of the world’s ‘township’, which surpassed anything he had witnessed in his own world. He flexed his wings.

  Tonight he would have to risk flight in public again. The last venture had not ended so well; frustrated by his inability to exercise any of his powers, he had attempted a frantic search for any landmarks or signs of magic that would show him the way back home.

  He had become disoriented with the sheer size of the township and surrounds, and had flown for hours searching for the warehouse.

  The sun was peering over the edge of the world when he spied the familiar green building from a distance, and began the descent.

  A group of working men, pouring some black liquid paths onto a trail between the buildings, spotted him and raised the alarm. They man-handled a giant light previously pointing at the road, and directed its beam into the sky, marking him out. Several of them shouted after him and a couple tried to follow his flight, but he was too fast for them and disappeared over the rooftops.

  Shaken and frightened, he huddled in the warehouse, sure they would attempt to track him and capture him.

  When no-one came, he relaxed enough to approach a dirty window and peer out.

  A terrible rapid-fire thumping in the air startled him and he fell backwards. A metal-monster was flying through the sky at great speed around the area. Had they discovered him? The noise from the multi-spinning-winged beast was deafening and he assumed they were intent on shaking the building to the ground, but in a few minutes, it passed by.

  He held his breath and waited, but the noisy beast did not return again.

  He shook his wings free of tension and exhaled. He vowed not to fly again during daylight and cursed the Orange Witch who had banished him to this world.

  One day, he would exact his revenge.

  But first he needed to find a way to return to his world and discover if his Master, Makthryg, had survived.

  And now, according to the sign on the crate, he would need the girl’s father.

  He stood on the roof in the dark, scanned the other buildings, and looked for clues. The girl’s dreams gave no indication of her living arrangements, or the geography of her township. He assumed she was too young to know these facts, and all he could do was to try to infer details from the brief flashes of her life she shared in their dreams.

  There were few of them.

  A shiny new building.

  A red-roofed house, with a grassy area at the back perhaps.

  A place where lots of children congregated.

  It was all he had to go on, and now the sky was fully dark, the search would be harder, but he could think of no other course of action. For now. He would fly around this massive township all night if he had to, and attempt to piece together the whereabouts of the man with the device by using the very spare details from a six-year old girl.

  He wondered again why the young girl had chosen to reach him in her dreams, nonetheless he was grateful he’d had the presence of mind and sufficient power to enchant her and enlist her help. His thoughts returned to the more practical task at hand.

  With an economical sweep of his wings, he ascended gracefully, and spiralled high above the huge township until it was a circle of pinpoint lights.

  Slowly, he started to circle each sector. Taking in clues, markings—anything that might unlock an image or impression he had gained from the girl.

  After many hours of flight, he was exhausted and no closer to his prey. Resigned to his fate, locked in a strange world and defeated by insignificant humans, he made his way back to his lair.

  Valkrog folded his wings as he landed running across the roof of the warehouse, tired, but not so tired to make certain he had not been spotted. He remained stock-still for many minutes, and listened for any air-thumping, any shouts, but he heard nothing.

  He climbed in through the roof and down into the huge empty space, and he felt his exhaustion turn to rage. Curse this world and its metal-monsters!

  He paced the floor of the warehouse and picked up anything in his way, and threw it across the room, letting his anger lead his actions, until he arrived at the end wall. He picked up the crate with the drawing, and, seeing the scratchy picture and feeling the frustration mount, was just about to hurl it at the wall for the satisfaction of watching the box smash and splinter, when he stopped dead.

  He held the box in front of him, staring at the marks once more.

  ‘Daddy’.

  He hissed loudly. How stupid could he be.

  He hadn’t needed to search for the girl’s father at all. He would use her to bring ‘Daddy’ to him.

  ~~~

  Professor Kingsley Harrison arrived early at the labs, as was his habit. Only this time, instead of lingering at the coffee machine and greeting the Dreamer Kids as they arrived in dribs and drabs, he took his coffee down the corridor, picked up a headshield and entered the collider chamber.

  Today he needed time to prepare before Nathan arrived. They had agreed: The collider needed to be placed in a more secure mode, the risks had grown too great. But first, he needed to reassess the information he should have analysed five years ago.

  He’d been reluctant to continue any further development of the machine until he knew exactly what Malden had initiated. A part of him also wanted to leave the data buried in the machine, untouched by any other human. But the incident yesterday with Lena had shaken him enough to face his fears and work through the data. He shuddered. Better that, than Lena losing another guardian.

  He glanced at the orange light daring him to put the device to use, and he pulled his gaze away.

  The world was losing rem-particles and draining away its intelligence along with it, and the machine might be their only hope.

  But it could also be their biggest downfall.

  Which way the dice fell seemed to have no science to it at all. He sighed. Perhaps that was the real problem. That over five years he had come no closer to understanding the true nature of the rem-particle and its place in humanity. Was he simply playing God in the vain belief one man alone could change the course of the earth by replenishing a particle? After all, look how that had ended for Ted. Badly.

  He puffed his cheeks and let out another loud sigh. The door slid back, and Nathan entered, headshield firmly in place. Harrison smiled at how Nathan could wear the device and still look jaunty.

  “Prof.” Nathan nodded at him. “Big sigh. Anything I can help with?”

  “Unless you have answers, Nathan, I don’t know. I thought I was getting somewhere with all this; with the discovery of you, Sarina, the other world, and the powers you two were able to wield in your dreams—and I’m almost forgetting the portals. Major discoveries. But now this. Lena. Strange and unexplained rem-events getting worse. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

  “Prof, I hate to say this, but—”

  “Go on, Nathan. Not much will shock me right now. Tell it like it is.”

  Nathan nodded. “Look. I get that yo
u’re tired and feel like you’ve run out of ideas. But it sounds to me like you’ve run out of something much worse.”

  The Professor raised an eyebrow.

  Nathan continued. “My Mum and Dad, are fond of quoting a particular phrase when they think I’m off on a trip to planet looney and won’t let up about a project. ‘Curiosity killed the cat, Nathan!’ I would answer back at them in my head: ‘Yeah, well it’s your lack of curiosity that’s killing you!’

  “I think that’s your problem, Professor. You’ve given up on curiosity. I think that you think if you get too curious, then, just like the cat, it could kill you, like it did Malden. Maybe kill all of us. But the truth is, when curiosity dies, so does science. And then we might as well give up.” He sat down and looked at the Professor.

  The Professor tapped his chin and began to nod slowly. No doubt the boy had hit the nail on the head, yet he hadn’t seen it for himself. Thank goodness for kids like Nathan. He looked up at the boy and grinned, and then broke out into laughter.

  “What’s so funny?”

  The Professor stopped and smiled again. “Not only are you spot on, Nathan, but in your incredibly intuitive manner, yet again you have pulled back the curtains on exactly what must be happening, and why we must act decisively and quickly. Think about it: What did I tell you happens when we experience rem-particle loss?”

  “We get more stupi—Oh!”

  The Professor nodded rapidly. “Exactly. Persistent exposure to rem-particle loss has also affected me. Over the last five years, I’ve been feeling less and less able to put together good ideas. But until today, I hadn’t put two and two together, even though it was right under my nose, so thank you. You’re right. To counter the rate of rem-particle loss, even as we stand today, we’ll need to be doubly curious. So ...” he frowned, “where do we start?”

  Nathan gestured to the machine. “With that thing. It’s been the cause of all our woes, so let’s unpack the data, see what data-settings Professor Malden was playing with, then shut it down until we are ready to reboot safely and restore the particles in a controlled manner.”