9

by James Phelan

  ‘Ta-da!’ Jedi said.

  ‘It doesn’t look anything like the map,’ Lora said, looking at it closely. ‘The rivers, the hills—’

  ‘Here it is without the trees,’ Jedi said, bringing up a new image.

  ‘Still looks nothing like the map,’ Sam said, seeing the rivers didn’t match up. ‘I mean, maybe that mountain range matches up, but that’s it.’

  ‘Well,’ Jedi said, ‘watch this, which I put together with Pablo using his university’s data.’

  Sam and the others watched as the projected images went through a time lapse, back in time, in fifty-year increments. Sure enough, ten images later, the rivers matched up—exactly.

  ‘This,’ Jedi said, ‘is the location of your map.’

  ‘Wait a sec,’ Sam said. ‘That’s five hundred years we’ve gone back, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tobias replied.

  ‘Then that’s the right time frame?’ Sam asked. ‘If da Vinci made the Gears we’re looking for, that is?’

  Jedi nodded as he brought up another, different map on the screen.

  ‘This is a famous map called the Cantino Map, which we know dates from 1502,’ he said. ‘Our map’s features bear a striking similarity to this one. We believe they were created around the same time and possibly by the same person.’

  ‘So you think da Vinci sent the Gear with some explorer halfway across the world?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Tobias said. ‘The dates would make sense.’

  ‘Cantino was not only an explorer,’ Jedi continued, ‘he was also suspected of being a spy for the Italians. Maybe he knew da Vinci.’

  ‘So the Gears somehow disappear around the globe,’ Xavier said, ‘and the last 13 find them through their dreams. Incredible.’

  ‘But we don’t have much hope of finding this Gear unless I can see who the Dreamer is,’ Sam said, before adding hopefully, ‘Are there any other leads from the map, or Pablo?’

  ‘A few,’ Tobias said. ‘Cantino left a diary and in it he mentions meeting a local tribesman, someone from the Cloud People.’

  ‘They believed that Cantino’s map would lead to a great treasure,’ Jedi added. ‘He just had to follow the clues to a city in the clouds.’

  ‘A city made of gold,’ Tobias went on, ‘the path to which is filled with danger according to the Cloud People.’

  ‘So what happened to Cantino and the treasure?’ Sam asked.

  ‘He went looking for it but never came back. We only have the remnants of the diary because one of his guides made it out of the jungle. He was raving with fever by then and no-one’s ever managed to piece together the information to find the city.’

  ‘So you think that our map will lead us to the city of gold and to the next Gear?’ Sam asked as Jedi brought up a sketch from the explorer’s diary.

  ‘A needle in a haystack …’ Eva said, looking at the current-day satellite image to one of the world, a blinking red dot of the location centred on the continent of South America.

  ‘We’ve narrowed our search to Rondonia, a state in Brazil,’ Jedi said, bringing up another image on the screen.

  ‘That’s the boat from my dream!’ Sam said.

  ‘Rondonia was named after Candido Rondon,’ Tobias said nodding. ‘He was the last to search for this lost city on an expedition with Theodore Roosevelt. He came back empty-handed.’

  Sam studied the image of the ferry carefully, his eyes locking on the life-ring with Roosevelt-Rondon clearly stencilled around it.

  ‘When was that expedition?’ Sam asked.

  ‘1913–14,’ Tobias replied.

  ‘So,’ Lora said to Sam. ‘The map and the name of the boat have given us our starting point. Go to Brazil and meet Pablo. Take the ferry. You’ll find the next Dreamer, Sam.’

  ‘And he’ll find the Gear,’ Sam said. ‘And Stella?’

  ‘Since you’re now steering your dreams and are conscious of them while you’re dreaming, more and more new elements will creep in,’ Jedi said, ‘such as when you felt the ferry passengers watching you.’

  ‘Those dream quirks are obviously not going to happen in real life,’ Lora added, ‘and it sounds like you manifested Stella in your dream through your fear or anxiety.’

  ‘So she might not show up there?’ Sam asked, silently willing them to give him the answer he wanted.

  ‘Well, we can’t say that for certain,’ Lora sighed. ‘But it is possible that she won’t turn up, at least not as you foresaw it.’

  ‘We know that she has tapped into your dreams before, Matrix enabled her to do that somehow,’ Jedi said. ‘But even if she has, she can’t know who the next Dreamer is if you don’t. She may well think that we won’t make a move until we know for sure.’

  16

  RAPHA

  Half a world away, fifteen-year-old Rapha Miguell was in his bedroom, a small space above a mechanic’s garage, where he worked to earn his board.

  He lay on his slim mattress and, like every night, he said goodnight to the photo of his parents and switched off the light, falling asleep listening to the sounds of the night outside his window.

  RAPHA’S NIGHTMARE

  The thrum of a powerful outboard motor echoes around us.

  ‘You feeling OK?’ I ask my companion. He looks about my age but taller, bigger than me in most ways. He’s got sandy hair and clear blue eyes, and light skin as though he rarely sees the sun.

  ‘Fine, thanks,’ he replies, catching his breath. ‘Thanks for pulling me out of the water.’

  ‘Your ferry sank?’ I say.

  ‘It was attacked,’ he says. ‘I’m Sam, by the way.’

  He holds out his hand to shake mine.

  ‘Rapha.’

  We continue along in silence for a while, until the sound of a boat behind grows louder and louder. We both squint against the bright sun to see.

  ‘Great,’ I sigh. ‘We have company.’

  Shouting, behind us. Then shooting into the air.

  ‘Damn it!’ Sam says. ‘That will be Stella …’

  The old junker of a putt-putt gets closer, belching out blue smoke and we can see there are five guys shouting furiously.

  ‘OK …’ Sam says, confused, ‘it’s not who I thought. Friends of yours?’

  ‘Ah, Sam,’ I say. ‘About this boat …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, I, ah, technically, I don’t really own a boat.’

  ‘Right …’

  ‘Right,’ I continue, pushing the throttle full open. The engine sputters and then gives some extra power. ‘So I, well, I borrowed this boat.’

  Sam raises his eyebrows at me.

  ‘Borrowed, stole, you know, just for a little bit. I left them a note though, saying it’d be back by tomorrow with a full tank of gas.’

  ‘And you think those angry-looking armed guys want it back about now?’

  I nod. ‘I’d say so.’

  ‘Great,’ Sam says. ‘Well, let’s hope you can make a highspeed getaway better than you can sneak away.’

  I give the boat everything its engine has—and it’s clear that we are quicker than our pursuers, but not by much.

  ‘Think they’ll shoot at their own boat?’ Sam asks as they level guns at us.

  PING! PING! PING!

  I do a double-take and see that we’re in the clear, as though time has skipped a beat. We are in the boat, floating through a village made up of timber jetties with buildings on pylons, built around a tiny harbour. I am flooded with relief to see we are no longer being followed by our pursuers. I guide us through the throngs of tiny canoes and boats trading fruits and vegetables with the passing commercial traffic.

  ‘There is my uncle,’ I say over my shoulder to Sam, pointing to where he stands on the jetty. ‘He’ll hide this boat for us.’

  ‘Hide?’

  ‘We will travel differently from here on,’ I explain.

  Sam follows me along the rickety wooden passageway that winds its way through mazes of timbe
r buildings. Kids run about, laughing and playing games, joined by yappy little dogs.

  ‘This way,’ I say, leading us onto land. Finally, in a clearing of jungle we come to a tiny dirt landing strip with a few tin-shack aircraft hangars.

  ‘We’re flying?’ Sam asks me as we stop by the aircraft.

  ‘Yes. Where we need to go is too far by boat—it would take us days.’

  ‘So we’re going in that?’

  ‘She’s solid and true,’ I say. ‘She’ll get us there in one piece.’

  ‘My mother,’ I shout to Sam over my shoulder, the sound of the wind and the engine in my ears as we soar over the jungle below, ‘told me that some day you would come!’

  ‘She was right!’ Sam replies. ‘Are you sure you know where you’re going?’

  ‘Yes!’ I reply, checking the fuel gauge—we’re nearly on empty after a few hours of flying. ‘It’s just up ahead!’

  The little aircraft’s engine fights for air as we climb, and heads straight into the white-grey of the cloud cover.

  We burst through the clouds and the cliff face of the table-mountain looms ahead of us.

  ‘Pull up!’ he shouts.

  ‘I am!’ I lean back on the control stick, the engine biting at the thin air as we climb higher.

  ‘We’re not gonna make it!’ Sam yells.

  I flick a switch behind my head and the engine roars with a new, louder intensity and we just make it over the lip of the mountain.

  ‘Easy!’ I say, laughing at the look on Sam’s face.

  ‘Rapha, you’re either a genius or—’

  CRUNCH!

  We’ve hit something below!

  ‘Hold on!’ I say, fighting with the controls. I level out our flight. ‘Oh boy …’

  ‘What?’ Sam says.

  The aircraft seems to be in perfect flight now. I dial the engine speed right back and we glide around in near silence.

  ‘We’ve lost our landing gear,’ I say, looking under our seats.

  ‘But—you can still land, right?’

  ‘I’ll try,’ I reply, though I don’t feel confident. ‘We need somewhere nice and slick, with nothing to snag on which might make us tumble apart.’

  ‘Tumble apart?!’

  I can see the top of the mountain is vast but made up of many differing types of vegetation—definitely a hostile landing.

  ‘Down there!’ I say, pointing down where the water rushes below. He sees nothing but thick foliage, but I know for sure now. It is here—at the waterfall.

  ‘What’s there?’ Sam asks.

  ‘Our landing site.’

  ‘What? Where, I don’t see it.’

  We come in to land, hard, loud and too fast—

  We are in a city. It is an old city, made of stone. We are atop the highest structure. I look around the ornate carving of the altar and marvel at its beauty.

  ‘Where’d you get that?’ Sam asks as he climbs to join me.

  He points to a small brass gear in my hand.

  ‘I found it, up here.’

  I twirl the mechanical-looking device in my hand, its toothed edges catching the dull sunlight through the clouds.

  ‘We should go,’ Sam says. ‘I have a bad feeling that we’re not alone.’

  Before we can climb down, I hear them. Then I see them. Hundreds, no thousands, of people materialise from nowhere and are climbing towards the altar where we stand. Warriors from a time long ago. We’re trapped up here. They are yelling and screaming war-cries as they charge.

  In the middle of the swarming mass stands a man in black—he raises an arm to point at me. I cannot see his face.

  Who is he? Why am I here?

  I shrink away from the rushing crowds, swelling like an angry ocean.

  They’re coming for us.

  17

  ALEX

  ‘How are you getting on?’ Phoebe asked Alex as they walked down the hallway of the new Enterprise headquarters. ‘I feel like I hardly see you these days.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘I’ve been helping Shiva set up the computer systems here. Anyway, I like being in Amsterdam.’

  ‘You just focus on keeping yourself safe,’ Phoebe said.

  ‘Yeah, right. Ah, Mum, I’ve been meaning to ask you something … I want to go out there, you know?’

  ‘Out?’ Phoebe stopped walking and turned to look at her son. ‘You mean out in the field? On a mission?’

  Alex nodded. ‘With Sam. He’s going to Brazil. I could help him.’

  His mother shook her head and looked sick with worry.

  ‘Not after last time. It’s bad enough that Sam has to go,’ she said, ‘but he has no choice. You do. This is not an adventure, Alex, this is serious, and deadly.’

  ‘Well, what if I ask the Director instead?’ Alex challenged.

  ‘He will agree with me,’ she said, now equally forceful. Then she added softly, ‘I’m sorry, Alex. It’s just too dangerous. I won’t let you go on your own again.’

  Alex could tell by the look in her eyes that it was useless to argue.

  But why is it such a big deal? I’m not a kid anymore.

  ‘Someone has to do it …’ Alex said. ‘Why not me?’

  They walked together in silence until Alex came to the door of the computer lab.

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ he mumbled, ducking through the door before she could reply.

  Inside, Alex found Shiva had been up through the night, writing new layers of code to protect the Enterprise’s computer systems. A few other techs wandered past, looking as dishevelled as Shiva, mountains of fast food wrappers and drink bottles amassed in a corner. The room smelled of sweat and pizza.

  ‘So, this is how nerds party,’ Alex said, trying to sound upbeat.

  Shiva didn’t respond, he just kept thundering away at his keyboard.

  Alex said, ‘Right, what can I do?’

  ‘How’d you sleep?’ Shiva asked, still tapping away at new lines of code.

  ‘Like a baby,’ Alex replied. ‘Though I can’t even remember a moment of my dream.’

  ‘You’re lucky,’ Shiva said. ‘You should see the dream waves from last night, check it out.’

  Shiva pointed at a large screen, which showed a map of the world, large red blotches over major city centres. Alex couldn’t count the numbers that were being displayed—maybe half the world had had nightmares the previous night.

  ‘Each of those represents the severe nightmares experienced last night,’ Shiva explained. ‘It’s a touch screen, so feel free to tap on it to get more data.’

  Alex touched on the patch around Los Angeles.

  ‘Over a million nightmares?’ Alex said, seeing the bar graph showing types of dreams broken down into categories. ‘You’re able to measure the entire population’s dreams?’

  ‘Not quite,’ Shiva explained, putting his feet up on a desk and sucking at a straw in a huge cup of cola. ‘It’s kinda like TV ratings.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘We’ve got a certain number of Dreamers who plug into dream recording devices, then we extrapolate that data to represent the city or town as a whole.’

  ‘Right …’ Alex said, tapping on San Francisco, then Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro and Brisbane. ‘I’m guessing these kinds of numbers aren’t normal?’

  ‘They’re so far from normal it’s insane,’ Shiva said. ‘You can read the previous stats on those tabs below—it’ll take you back week by week.’

  Alex did so, and watched as the screen changed each couple of seconds to smaller and smaller bubbles of red—going back a year, the red clouds were nothing more than tiny dots at the world’s largest cities.

  ‘So what does this mean?’ Alex asked.

  ‘It means the Dreamscape is being seriously affected by what is happening. More and more people are subconsciously aware that difficult times are approaching.’

  ‘What can we do to change it?’

  ‘Win the race,’ Shiva said. ‘If Solaris or Stella get the Bakhu
machine up and running? Well … that will lead them to the Dream Gate—and if they get to that first? I think it’s safe to say that we’ll all be enjoying nightmares after that. I mean, who knows what kind of sleeping and waking world we’ll find ourselves in, should they open the Gate and get the power that lies beyond.’

  ‘Great,’ Alex said. ‘And you and I are stuck here, watching it happen.’

  Shiva smiled and said, ‘Speak for yourself. It’s not all writing code and desk jockeying around here.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘You underestimate the Great Shiva, my friend.’

  ‘You’re the Great Shiva now?’ Alex said. ‘I’m so not calling you that.’

  Shiva laughed.

  ‘But, wait, what are you saying—there is something we can do from here, on our computers, about all these nightmares?’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Shiva replied. ‘Strap yourself into a chair, and watch and learn, my friend.’

  18

  SAM

  Sam flipped the Academy’s jujitsu instructor onto his back and the guy landed with a thump! Sam swiftly followed up with a compliance hold. The instructor broke out of his hold and flipped Sam onto his back.

  ‘Yield!’ Sam called after he knew he was pinned. ‘I yield!’

  ‘You’re getting better,’ the instructor said, letting go.

  ‘Nice,’ Sam said, getting helped up. ‘Again.’

  The two of them weaved around each other. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam saw that Lora and Eva had come into the dojo. His attention was momentarily distracted and the instructor easily flipped Sam onto his back again.

  ‘Argh!’ Sam got to his feet and went back to his position. The instructor looked ready to pounce.

  ‘Think you can take two of us?’ Lora called.

  ‘Bring it,’ Sam said, without looking at her—he knew she was still well out of reach, and he moved to his left, opening up the floor and getting them both in his sights.

  The instructor rushed at him. Sam sidestepped and tried a flip which was parried and redirected to flip him. Sam rolled over the instructor’s back, turning the instructor inside-out from his previous stance.