by Jody Wallace
“They can gross you out but they can’t hurt you. Get over it.” When wraiths attacked in the sleep sphere, they did no damage as long as the alucinator wasn’t scared to death…and didn’t allow them to manifest. That didn’t make wraiths pleasant. Their odor was akin to sun-heated road kill. Their signature of greasy wrongness was like rotten bacon. Their texture was pus and ooze and tendrils of god-awful, rip-apart webbing.
Little girls? Sugar and spice.
Little boys? Dog tails and video games.
Wraiths? Rot, stench and evil.
“You’ve got to be getting used to it by now,” he continued. “You’ve always got a lot of wraiths hanging around.”
An understatement.
“There’s no getting used to that.” She shuddered.
“You have no choice. This is your life now.”
She brushed her hands together as if wiping away the last bits of wraith. “Some life.”
They didn’t have to touch to communicate anymore, and she was careful to stay behind his shields. Her shields weren’t strong enough for the onslaught, but it wasn’t like he could test her under normal circumstances. He had no idea how Maggie would rate as a student under normal circumstances.
She might not be half bad. There were a number of skills she excelled at already. Just not shielding, and it was the basic ability every single alucinator had to ace.
“This life is better than being dead. Let’s try shielding again. If you can’t handle that, Maggie, nothing else matters.” He couldn’t let up on her, not for a minute. She was a risk to herself and others without control of the dreamsphere and too likely to attract unwanted attention.
“Not yet. I need a breather that doesn’t include wraith pong.” She zipped to the edge of his shield, staring out at the murk. It wasn’t supposed to be murky. The sleep sphere was supposed to be pale gray with the occasional streak of smoky wraith.
Except when Maggie was present.
She cruised the shield’s edge, her figure curvy against the wall of hate outside. Her geolocation skills were impressive. He could take her anywhere, and she could identify the terra firma approximation with ease and find her way home.
Her talent may have been enhanced by the fact he locomoted them during training to hide her gruesome fan club from casual observers.
Then again, her skill could come from that cultural geography mumbo jumbo she used to teach. Geography, right? He didn’t know why she wanted to be a coucher.
“Do phase one students normally manage to orate with other alucinators?” she asked suddenly.
She wasn’t looking at him, but he shrugged anyway. “Every dreamer’s progress is different.”
“In theory class, we learned that the ability to orate signals a disciple’s readiness for matriculation. It means an assessor can link in and evaluate the student’s condition.”
“I don’t think you want Adi to test you yet, Mags. Your shields are shit and you have to pass your final eval in trance. Which we ain’t learned yet.”
Not only did he not want her—or Adi—to realize how wonky her dreamspace experience was, he didn’t want her to get full of herself like her brother. Rhys’s protégée was cruising for a damn fall. Too bad. Zeke had gotten to where he kind of liked the guy. Hayden threw himself into his work in a way that the Somnium could utilize.
And none of what Maggie had accomplished would matter if she couldn’t conquer shields. He didn’t even want to think about exposing her to the trance sphere.
The wraiths would eat her alive like a chocolate bunny, starting at the head.
Once she finished a complete circuit of their enclosure, Zeke offered Maggie a little encouragement. Maybe it would help.
“But you’re getting better. You held out five minutes longer before you went bust that time.” In the dreamsphere, because he didn’t have to touch her or swing weapons at her, they got along better. The relationship dynamics settled into teacher and student. In the terra firma, though, the tangible and everything about Maggie was an infuriating distraction.
He—well, he hadn’t been sociable. It was for her own good.
“Call the curators. It’s a miracle,” she joked.
He sensed her shields go up, then down, then up, then down, alongside his barrier. Her response time was decent. Her shield form was too. The thing was, he wasn’t sure any neo’s shields could handle what waited out there, not even Hayden’s.
According to Rhys and everyone, the sun shone out that guy’s bunghole.
“Shield me too,” he said to Maggie. When alucinators could link, they could combine their efforts at various tasks.
She wrapped him up snug. The double layer of protections almost erased the wraith stench. Inside her walls, it seemed lighter too, like she glowed.
He studied her. She didn’t glow. Same Maggie. Pretty, determined, smart, great tits, and a mouth on her that didn’t need to be egged on by Lillian. He’d never known any alucinator besides Lill to give a curator crap. He didn’t want to think of Maggie pulling stunts like Lillian did. Ranting and raving to anyone who’d listen. Endangering herself.
He didn’t want—he really didn’t want—Maggie coming to the notice of the curators. She was the kind of powerful, unusual L5 they liked to…engage.
And then he’d never see her again.
He couldn’t want her. Couldn’t have her. He’d gotten over that fantasy real quick when a couple vigils had chewed him out after he’d collared her. With the tangible—and his history—they intended to place her far away after she graduated. He’d been not so politely requested to forego any ideas about romancing her.
Ever.
He hadn’t told her. She didn’t seem like she cared anymore, anyhow.
“Not bad,” he told her after she’d held the shield ten minutes. He wished there was a way to let a few wraiths into his outer shield. Would a limited number of monsters freak her shit out, or could she swing them? “Expand your barrier edge to mine and we’ll locomote. See what you can sustain.”
She nodded. He felt her shields supplement his. They had more harmony in here—the harmony Adi wanted them to have out there. But how could he be mellow and teacherly around a woman he frequently imagined taking to bed? The best remedy for his situation was being unfriendly to her. It didn’t cool his jets, but it pissed her off enough that she was more likely to punch him than kiss him.
He just wished he was a better teacher. Or something. His mixed feelings about Maggie—wanting her for himself yet not wanting to screw up her training yet not wanting anyone to know he might indeed be screwing up her training—were probably causing as many issues as her fear.
Zeke mentally sped them through the dreamsphere on a path that kept their psychic presence far from base. Dreamsphere travel was a hell of a lot faster than terra firma travel. Too bad you couldn’t pop out wherever you wanted and drag your body with you. That would cut the Somnium’s gas budget exponentially, and maybe he could get some new damn equipment.
Gorgets. The teams really needed fang-proof gorgets.
The wraiths tried to keep up with Zeke’s pace and failed. The black swirls next to his shields dissipated. The faster he went, the more the dreamsphere lightened. Many alucinators couldn’t maintain a shield at this pace.
When the sphere looked normal—pale gray and cloudy—he slowed. Wraiths gradually congregated around them like iron filings to a magnet, cutting off their window to the outside.
Maggie pulled a face.
“Where are we now?” he asked her.
She’d remained on the other side of the bubble from him. Since the shield covered three hundred square feet, it wasn’t so dark that he couldn’t read her expression. The illumination came from the watery gray of the ground, where wraiths didn’t appear. She glanced at her feet, at the paleness there, as if it would display their coordinates.
“One hundred and ten miles south-southeast of base,” she said after a minute. “In the same remote area in the mountains we used last week for training.”
Time for another head pat. “You’re good at that.”
Her lips quirked in a smile. “I’m glad I’m good at something.”
“You can also lock your conduit as tight as a cat’s ass.”
“Lovely imagery.” She smiled fully instead of just the corner of her mouth.
Had he been taking the wrong approach, not wanting her to get a big head? Compliments earned him smiles. Maybe they’d earn him some better shielding.
“You’re good at arguing too. You have a lot stamina for it. Your brother can’t hold a candle to—”
She held up a hand, palm out. “This is a Hayden free zone.”
He could respect that. “Ready to shield solo again?”
“No.”
He couldn’t respect that. “Want to make your shield small or keep it large?”
She scooted over to him. “I’ll shield, but I want to hold your hand.”
She should be past the need for link enhancement—in and out of the dreamsphere. He should have been a good enough mentor to help her get past it. “I won’t always be available.”
“You’re available now.”
He considered it. It had been a rough night. Why the hell the wraiths wanted to eat Maggie so bad, he had no idea. When she was in the dreamsphere, the bastards practically ignored everything and everyone else.
This hinted wraiths might be finite, which had always been a subject of debate. Not that he could broach the topic with anyone besides Lillian. He suspected Adi knew some details about the situation via the counseling sessions, but perhaps not the extent of it. Besides, as the vigil in charge of the coma station, where the Somnium’s specialized medical patients were tended, she was used to more wraiths hanging around. It was believed the monsters could sense where there was likely to be a breach in the barrier caused by the vulnerability of an alucinator trapped in a dream coma.
Maggie wasn’t a coma patient…but her crappy shield was a huge vulnerability. He couldn’t have her weak, defenseless, in danger. He was determined to toughen her up.
“Try one more shield alone,” he insisted. “Maybe you’ll do even better.”
“I’ve done it ten times alone tonight. I’m tired. Hayden says his shield walls don’t turn black like mine do. He thinks I’m exaggerating.”
“You’re L5,” he hedged. He hadn’t exactly told Maggie how disproportionate her wraith experience was. “That makes you magically delicious. High levels have to deal with more of the bastards than the rest of the Somnium.”
Zeke couldn’t keep a lid on it forever, but he could try—at least until she mastered shields. He needed to be able to defend her with, “Sure, she attracts a lot of wraiths…but she can handle it. The curators don’t need to be involved.”
Maggie’s lips twisted. “Hayden’s L5 too.”
“I thought this was a Hayden free zone?”
“Would you just give me your hand?” She reached for him. “I’ll do another solo after this one.”
He hadn’t elaborated to Maggie about the unease her delayed training was causing in much of the East Coast base. The suspicion she was going to turn out as psycho as Karen, paired with him and his dented brain and his stupidity. She probably knew something was up—she was smarter about interpersonal relationships than he was, that was for damn sure—but they didn’t discuss it.
He decided to cut her some slack.
“All right.” He slid his fingers through hers. The sensation wasn’t as intense as it was in the terra firma, but he enjoyed the contact. “Say when.”
She exhaled like she was exasperated. Her shield tightened around the two of them. “When.”
He dropped his barrier. The wraiths swarmed, splashing against Maggie’s smaller bubble like busting paint balls. They clung, denser and denser, until the space around them darkened to ink. Because her shield was so small, they swamped the normal lightness of the sphere that emanated from the ground. It became difficult for them to see one another.
Maggie muttered in her mind, gibberish he couldn’t catch.
Her conduit, the exit from dreamspace that wraiths mindlessly sought, was shut like a vault door. In the sleep sphere, that was the best wraiths could hope for—escape. They couldn’t hurt alucinators in this phase. However, when Maggie’s shields fell, which they would, the smell and feel of the wraiths was going to suck.
Zeke scruffed his hair with his free hand and braced himself for the inevitable.
“Why don’t you widen it up some?” he suggested.
“I’m practicing shield longevity. Size matters.”
The bubble barrier extended several feet in every direction, a nice, unbroken oval. Consistent instead of blobby. She could hold a small shield longer, but the ominous blackness and hints of sparkle deep in the wall of wraiths were starting tense Zeke’s ass up.
Tension begat fear. If he got agitated, how would he keep Maggie calm?
“They’re really fucking close,” he said. “It’s claustrophobic.”
“You’re not claustrophobic.” Even in his mind, it sounded like her teeth were gritted.
Enough of this and he would turn claustrophobic.
“I was thinking of you,” he lied. “If their proximity bugs you, it’ll funk your shield.”
“Funk my shield. I don’t recall that technical term from class.” She took a few deep breaths. Her fingers tightened on his. “I’m okay for now. The odor’s not bad.”
“We’ll drift, then.” He tugged her hand. The shield bulged as they moved, contorting around them. There was an art to maintaining a shield during locomotion. Maggie’s textbook oval lost its artistry but stayed whole.
“I hate this. They’re pushing at me like a reverse tug-o-war.”
Everyone had noticed the increase in the wraith numbers in the past couple years. The assumption was that it was due to global overpopulation. He’d locomoted to the coma station a few times to orate with Adi, where the wraiths had clustered in record numbers as well, though not in Maggie numbers. Coma patients like his ex-student Karen attracted them.
Maggie wasn’t Karen.
Maggie had no control over this.
Maggie couldn’t shield longer than ten minutes without holding his hand.
“If I screwed up and manifested,” she asked him, “would hundreds come through? How many are out there?”
Great, that meant she was thinking about Karen too. She didn’t mention his former student often. But the rest of them—the sentries—mentioned Karen a lot. They compared. Everyone but his dumb ass had gotten wicked vibes off Karen, and he’d ignored their advice.
Luckily, nobody got the same vibes off Maggie, despite her difficulties. Otherwise his fellow sentries would have been insisting on a curator, not wanting the East Coast base to be the site of the next Harrisburg.
“One wraith, a hundred wraiths. Who’s counting?” Zeke wrapped an arm around her, giving her more than his hand to show his support.
She wasn’t Karen.
“You’re counting.”
“Technically, I can’t count them. Too crammed. Can’t see edges. And you’re all over conduit lockdown. You aren’t going to let one through.”
“But if something happened to me,” she persisted. “If I fell into a coma, I—”
He cut her off.
“You’re picking nits. Don’t buy trouble—it costs too much. Hell, there could be no more than thirty of the bastards.” He didn’t believe it, but it was important to keep her spirits up as the weight of their escort beat at her shields. “They might be, I dunno, squooshing on the shield to block our view.”
In the dimness, he could barely see the mulish set of her chin. “That
sounds deliberate. Current research indicates wraiths have minimal sentience and wouldn’t be smart enough for that.”
He floated to a halt. “Widen your shield and find out. Stretch it way out, so they can’t cover it.”
“They cover yours.”
“Try it anyway.”
She sniffed. The carrion odor had increased.
Shit. That meant her shields were about to fail. He’d have to let them. He’d have to give her a chance to reestablish it herself, as wraiths battered her from every angle. She had to know how to keep her conduit lock impassable no matter what. It was the most important thing alucinators learned, with shields being the second.
If an L1 or L2 could learn conduit locks and shields, they could survive without disrupting the world. They could even barricade themselves out of the dreamsphere and sleep like babies.
L3 and up? Not so lucky. High levels showed a decrease in stability of many sorts—mental, physical, emotional—if shut out of the sphere for long. They had to visit, preferably daily. So they had to master the skills.
Maggie glanced up at him. The swirly ground, where the wraith mass didn’t extend, was their main illumination.
“I’ve got an idea,” she said. The shield fluctuated a little more.
“I don’t feel reassured by that.” Though she’d absorbed her academic studies of the sphere like a sponge, she questioned everything they told her and insisted on trying things a thousand alucinators had proven you couldn’t or shouldn’t do. “If you want to exit through a new conduit again, I’d rather eat sh—”
“Not that. I know we’re too far from the original conduit.” When they dove in together, he paired his conduit next to hers. “That’s a malingerer waiting to happen. And it hurts. I’m not a fan of pain.”
“Then what’s your idea?”
“I want to deepen our link.”
The waft of carrion increased. Her idea literally stunk.
“Nothing’s wrong with our link,” he said. “You can hear me, I can hear you.”
“It could be deeper.”
