by Jody Wallace
“Do you know what wraiths do if they kill their creator?” As if they weren’t discussing something grisly and stomach-turning, he slathered honey on another biscuit. “They flee the alucinators. All alucinators. Unerringly. Once wraiths are in the terra firma and their creator is dead, there’s no way to track them beyond traditional methodology. Granted, that’s easier now than in my youth. But all this blasted technology has downsides. Cover-ups are ten times harder with all the camera telephones and the Internet and the Facebook.” He shook his head. “So yes, we believe wraiths can tell which humans are alucinators, trained to deal with them in their corporeal form, and which humans are not.”
Maggie’s mouth went dry. “My classes haven’t yet covered that.”
“They may never have, had you remained with a castrum. The things you’d have learned as a rank and file alucinator are only the tip of the iceberg. You’re lucky. As a scholar, Professor Mackey, think of the opportunities you’ll have to study original documents and theory.”
She knew the curators had secrets—and could admit to curiosity about them. Would she be taught what Adi had been trying for months to learn about dreamsphere healing? Would she get to read the Antipodes scroll?
She studied her fingers so the insightful old man wouldn’t notice he’d piqued her interest. “If the wraiths are so smart, why do they seek their creator in the first place? Why don’t they avoid the alucinators from the beginning?”
“Perhaps you’ll be the researcher who finally answers that question.” He smiled, revealing strong, rather yellow teeth that didn’t appear to be dentures. “I don’t see you as particularly martial, my dear. Though I must congratulate you. I hear you managed to dispatch several wraiths all by yourself during the code one.”
Surely he mention the corpses if he knew about them. “Zombies are easy. Comparatively. I killed one or two the night I awakened as well.”
“As long as they’re not the fast ones,” he joked.
When Maggie raised her eyebrows, he said, “What? You young people aren’t the only ones who stay abreast of pop culture.”
“When do you find the time?”
“Are you worried we’re all work and no play at the Orbis? We do manage some recreation. Vacations, too. There are even weddings and children born to our employees on occasion. I seem to recall the pitter patter of little feet at company picnics.”
She wondered if she should protest his assumption that she, as a female, would be reassured by the idea that marriage and children were still on the table for Orbis employees. “The Orbis has company picnics?”
“And bonuses and health and dental and a wonderful long-term disability policy. You won’t regret relocating, I promise you.”
She knew the Somnium had to operate as a business on some level, but the mind boggled. “I haven’t agreed to relocate.”
“You signed the contract, my girl. You did agree.”
Maggie had no response, since it was true. She’d read every word of her contract more than twice. She’d just never dreamed some of the more forceful clauses might apply to her.
“That doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.”
He took her hand. His skin, dry and raspy, was hotter than expected, like a reptile in the sun. “I know.”
“I don’t want to relocate. I know a lot of alucinators don’t have many relatives. But I do.” Humans with the potential to enter the dreamsphere rarely awoke if they were grounded into the terra firma by familial ties, and certainly by children.
“Your brother Hayden Thomas Mackey and your sister Allyson Jane Mackey.” He nodded. “Perhaps they would want to relocate with you? I would be glad to have them on my team.”
“Hayden’s happy with his current training program.” Not to mention winning the adulation of the entire division, plus Moody the curator, as he set records for neonati left and right.
The old curator patted her hand one last time and released her. “And your sister?”
“We don’t know where she is,” Maggie admitted.
“No word from her since you joined the Somnium?”
It shouldn’t surprise her that the curator seemed aware of her family situation. He had, after all, claimed to have been watching her. His kind brown eyes studied her with sympathy and interest, as if he truly wanted to hear her answer and discuss Ally with her.
She found herself telling him more than she usually confided in anyone but Zeke, Lill or Hayden. “I’ve called all the numbers we had for her. All our mutual acquaintances. We’re not going to find her if she doesn’t want to be found.” Ally had run away from home at fifteen. And at seventeen.
At eighteen, it hadn’t been considered running away anymore.
“I have faith she’ll crop up eventually,” the curator reassured her. “Perhaps she’ll want to relocate to the Orbis.”
“I doubt she’d want to live anywhere near me.” Her and Hayden’s relationship with their younger sister had always been difficult. Ally had done everything in her power to rebel against the expectations of their academic parents and overachieving siblings. She’d attended the funeral months ago, but Maggie and Hayden hadn’t seen or heard from her since.
What with all the changes in the Mackey lives, the situation had left Maggie and her brother regretful that they hadn’t tried harder with their sister. She hoped Ally’s itinerant ways meant she never woke into the dreamsphere, and all the perils and hardship that came with it. Potential neonati had to spend their sleeps in one area for a period of time before their nightmares broke through to the dreamsphere.
Maggie and Hayden had done that together, faster than they would have apart, because they’d lived in their parents’ house as they’d settled the estate after the funeral. Their combined grieving had burst the barrier between the terra firma and the dreamsphere, converting them to true dreamers on the same night.
Now, after two months of attempting to harness her powers with Zeke’s help, Maggie was being whisked off to the Orbis anyway.
Having the curator across a table from her, eating biscuits, made the reality of Maggie’s entire situation both less intimidating and more real. The old man wasn’t some brooding, frightening mystery figure who terrified everyone into silence like the curator he’d referred to as Moody. His explanation for why reassigned neonati didn’t return to the field was reasonable, though in the computer age, she would have thought some might have remained in touch with their original mentors and coworkers.
Then again, perhaps other reassignments leaned toward unpleasant, initiated by personality clashes and hostilities, instead of her situation, allegedly conduit blindness.
Though if the others realized—as Lill seemed to—that she and Zeke had slept together, that would create hostilities of its own.
“The Orbis has considerable resources we could extend to locate your sister. More than an area castrum, for certain. Once we find her, you can extend my offer to young Allyson. I have room on my staff for any number of Mackeys.”
The curator seemed to take it for granted Maggie would remain on his staff after training. No matter how fascinating the Orbis was, no matter what she learned, could she give up Zeke to keep it?
“We don’t know if she’s an alucinator,” she demurred.
“We don’t know she’s not.”
“It’s my understanding it’s rare for the ability to run in a family.”
“That’s a topic of some debate.” He finished the last biscuit and folded his paper napkin neatly instead of wadding it up. “We don’t have reliable data from many historical periods. Frankly, when dreamers used to awaken, our historians think the wraiths rampaged through their families before any alucinators could arrive on the scene. We have no way of knowing whether the strain would have run in those families or not.”
“Logical,” Maggie said, “but gruesome.”
The curator s
poke of the horrific possibility as if it were academic, which it was, being so far in the past—and incidental. She supposed heading up the entire Somnium did tend to lend one a different perspective on the trials and tribulations of the common dreamer.
“Of course,” he continued, “since the invention of modern transportation, we’ve put a cap on that degree of infestation.”
Finally finished with his meal, he set his plate away and dabbed at his mouth with his napkin. “I don’t suppose you could direct me to an empty bunk?” He smiled wryly. “I’m not as young as I used to be, and jet lag is weighing upon me.”
“Yes, of course.” Maggie stood, politely helped the curator to his walker, and assisted him in finding a place to rest. He released her after a final warning not to enter the dreamsphere without him and that they would discuss her regular sleeping arrangements after his nap.
“No more code ones,” he said jovially. “Tomorrow or the next day, we’ll be out of everyone’s hair and they can return to business as usual.”
Maggie smiled but didn’t concur. If she had to go with the curator—and it was looking like she would—she’d never return to business as usual again.
Chapter Fifteen
Maggie didn’t rest well, tossing and turning and afraid she’d accidentally pop into the dreamsphere after an all-too-brief explanation from Lill about sleep barricades. The curator’s orders that she not enter the sphere without him superseded Adi’s orders that she visit the sphere nightly.
Every time Maggie reached out a toe or a hand across the mattress, expecting to brush against Zeke’s reassuring warmth, all she got was a cold cinderblock wall. Zeke was sleeping with Karen—in the bed he and Maggie had used the first night, and made love in the next morning.
She wondered, rather spitefully, if the sheets had been changed.
Though who would do it? She’d seen soldiers, alucinators and a doctor, but no one who looked like housekeeping. At the base, they looked after themselves for the most part, and a specialized cleaning service run by members of the fundi, alucinators who didn’t want to be involved in the Somnium directly, scrubbed the place down about once a month.
After they parted ways that morning, they hadn’t spoken. She’d seen Zeke—the outbunker was too small not to have seen him—but getting him alone had proved impossible. Karen clung to him like plastic wrap. He seemed tired and dazed, as gruff as usual but failing to hear questions directed at him and disinclined to participate in conversations. He poked at his smartphone and pretty much ignored everyone, like a sullen teenage boy.
Maggie hoped he and his student had slept like shit on the dirty sheets.
She hoped he’d missed her, because she missed him more than she ought to. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been in love before. She’d had a few decent relationships in her past and a few lousy ones, like anyone. She’d had decent sex and lousy sex.
But Zeke wasn’t the only one reverting to adolescence. What she had—what she wanted—with Zeke felt like a relapse to her angsty teen years, when being separated from her long-distance boyfriend was a searing pain in the heart combined with the end of the world. Watching him with Karen turned her stomach.
It was slightly gratifying that he was as gruff with Karen as he was with everyone else. Maggie assumed things would improve between her and Zeke after he’d promised to quit being such an asshole. Or was he trying to hide their indiscretion by being grumpier than usual and pretending Maggie didn’t exist?
“Zeke. Zeke. Earth to Zeke.” Lill, in the mostly empty common room, threw an empty water bottle at Zeke’s head. It bounced off and hit the painted gray floor with a hollow clatter.
Zeke cast Lill a disgruntled glance. “What the hell was that for?”
Normally Zeke’s reflexes would have enabled him to catch something thrown at the back of his head, or so it seemed. Maggie wouldn’t know anyone who’d tested that theory with wadded up socks or maybe bo sticks.
“Don’t be rude. She wishes to speak with you,” Karen told him, smiling at Lill.
Maggie avoided looking at Karen, afraid they’d make eye contact. She didn’t know if Karen had been watching her, but she’d felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle numerous times. It could have been a reaction to the chilly temperature in the outbunker.
She looked at the woman now. Then looked again. Unless she was mistaken, Karen was thicker than yesterday. Her pale hair had some curl to it, and her cheeks some color. Her eyes were brighter. She no longer looked like a famine victim.
“Don’t mind him,” Karen continued. “We were up half the night talking. Seems like it, anyway. Right, Zeke?” She leaned against him, flipping her hair behind her shoulder.
“Yeah, whatever.” Zeke wasn’t particularly kind or nice to Karen, but he didn’t shove her away. Adi would have flayed him alive if he’d done that. “What do you want, Lill?”
“I asked if Adi’s told you when I can go home?”
The vigil had been closeted with the curator most of the day. Maggie wondered if Adi was monopolizing the curator in a feeble attempt to keep him from finding out about the corpses or her investigation into dream healing.
“Don’t ask me. Adi’s your friend,” Zeke said. “I don’t even know why she called you in. Our area’s short on sentries since I got dragged here.”
“What do you mean? You were there when Adi offered to summon Lill.” Maggie shouldn’t have to remind him—but she did. Lill’s eyes narrowed. “She was intended to orate with me so I wouldn’t be completely adrift my first night in phase two.”
“I agreed with that?” Zeke’s brow furrowed. “Well, I was an idiot. It clearly didn’t help. Lill should be in Virginia.”
“You’re not an idiot.” Karen stroked his arm. Maggie couldn’t help but notice Zeke squeezed his eyes shut, as if he didn’t want to see his companion. “You always do what’s best for your students. You brought the girl here at Adi’s request and then saved me from the Master. At last. Now she’s going with the curator and I’m staying with you.”
Maggie regarded Karen and Zeke and tried not to scowl. Either Karen liked to state the obvious or liked to hear herself talk. Why was she telling Zeke things they all already knew?
Lill leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “I’m going to barge in on Adi and the curator if they don’t come up for air soon. I can’t wait around any longer.”
Karen straightened—for the first time in fifteen minutes, not that Maggie was counting—and disconnected herself from Zeke. “You can’t leave.”
Lill gave her an incredulous look. “Why not? I don’t have a history of murderous manifestations. I can go wherever my job takes me.”
Karen’s thin face half-turned to Maggie. “It’s sad, but that’s why the girl has been reassigned to a curator.”
Lill snorted. “I’m not talking about Maggie. I’m not convinced she’s responsible for the chaos over the past couple days.”
It was the first Maggie had heard about it. Zeke was the only one who hadn’t immediately blamed her for the manifestations, especially after she’d explained things to him yesterday morning. Since then he seemed to have forgotten. Now Lill claimed she wasn’t sure Maggie was responsible when she’d acted sure yesterday.
Perhaps Lill had needed more time to make up her mind—and Zeke had needed more time to change his.
“You’re right. I’m not responsible for the code ones,” she said to Lill. She’d focused her efforts on getting Zeke alone. Perhaps it was Lill she ought to speak with in private. Did Lill notice how oddly Zeke was behaving? She’d known Zeke longer than Maggie had. Perhaps she could shed some light on the subject.
Was this how he’d always been when Karen had been his disciple? Hostile, forgetful and sullen?
“The curator agrees with Adi, Zeke and me,” Karen said. “The neonati is responsible.”
Zeke’s gaze met M
aggie’s for one long, hopeless, bleak moment—and didn’t defend her. “I don’t blame Maggie for what happened.”
“Of course you don’t,” Karen said. “The girl has a weakness called conduit blindness and needs to go to the Orbis for proper training, where they can treat the handicapped.”
“We already know that, Karen. Don’t be a broken record. And you can say Maggie’s name, you know. It won’t poison you.” Lill shot to her feet and paced across the room, switching the channel on the fuzzy TV set. “This is a waste of my time.”
“Why are you in such a hurry to leave?” Karen asked. “We need as many L5s as we can get for protection from the Master. Surely you realize that.”
Lill’s face twisted and she sat back down. “I’m not saying I believe your shit about the Master, but I have to arrange Constance’s funeral.”
“Who’s Constance?” Zeke asked.
Lill’s mouth dropped open—a very uncommon expression on her face. “The hell?”
“He’s joking,” Karen said hastily. “He’s never been much of a comedian, has he?”
“No.” Lill wiped a hand over her mouth and jaw. “He’s never been this dense either.”
“Exhaustion.” Karen patted him. “He works so hard.”
“I can answer for myself.” He jerked away from Karen and stalked to the TV set, changing the channel back. “I was watching that show.”
Lillian threw up her hands. “You were watching your phone.”
“I multitask. You should try it. Maybe you wouldn’t feel like you’re wasting your time.” Insolently, he returned to a seat and stuck his nose in his phone again. His seat, this time, wasn’t beside Karen, whose expression turned sour. “God, my head hurts today.”
Lill raised an eyebrow. “Headache, huh? Got any blurry vision?”
Zeke shrugged. “That tends to happen when I read on my phone too much.”
Maggie considered changing the channel on the TV to make Zeke acknowledge her. Could she piss him off enough that he’d chase her if she stormed out of the room?
