Dream Walker

by Shannan Sinclair

  Dookie never flinched. “Here, here, Raziel. Let me clarify things for you.” His dangling legs began elongating, stretching obscenely until two normal-sized feet, wearing a nice pair of leather loafers, planted themselves into the ash. The burlap sack Raze gripped in his fists crumbled between his fingertips, the molecules of the coarse brown fibers refashioning themselves into a pressed blue dress shirt.

  Raze watched as the protruding eyes contracted back into Dookie’s skull, his green tint paled into natural, human skin tones, and a perfectly tousled mop of golden brown hair sprouted from his head. In a matter of seconds, Raze was no longer staring at a vile ogre.

  He was standing face to face with Mr. T.

  Raze released the shirt and stepped back. Stunned. Speechless. Of all things, he didn’t see this one coming.

  “Apparently, you know me already.” Troy said, raising an eyebrow at him. “Stalking me, are you? Well, allow me to introduce myself anyway.” The handsome therapist extended his hand toward Raze. Raze looked at it, then back up at Troy. He had no intention of shaking his hand. Troy dropped it, unperturbed.

  “My name is Troy Kellen. Mr. Parker was hoping we would be introduced properly, under different circumstances. Unfortunately, the situation took a turn for the worse and an intervention was necessary.”

  Raze did his best to keep his confusion, and his burgeoning rage, hidden behind a stone expression.

  “Mr. Parker has told me a lot about you, Raziel. None of it good, I might add.”

  “How do you know Grant?” Raze asked, his voice laden with derision. Troy addressing Grant the respect of “Mr. Parker” was getting on his last nerve.

  “We’ve been working closely with each other for quite some time, actually. We met while I was writing my thesis on gaming addiction. I had been playing Demesne as part of my research and became pretty accomplished. You may remember…I played under the tag MUTEnt. I’ve been told that it was you who brought me to Mr. Parker’s attention.”

  Raze did remember. It had been over a year before. A player named MUTEnt had risen quickly through the Octaves of Demesne, figuring out the most complex tasks and objectives and breaking long-held records one after another. He was on track to achieve inclusion on the list of invincibles, which would allow him near unlimited access to the game.

  Per protocol, information about any player who performed so well was to be passed on to Grant to begin a vetting process. If all went well, the player could be recruited into QGS. If he was a dud, he would be booted and blocked from the game for some trumped up terms of service violation.

  MUTEnt had disappeared from the game, so Raze assumed he’d been booted. Obviously, Raze was wrong and he realized that Troy was the protégé Grant had been talking about all along.

  “Mr. Parker may hate your fucking guts, Raziel,” Troy said with a sly smile, “but he listened to you. We met under the guise of me becoming a consultant for the company, but he ended up having bigger plans for me.”

  Raze narrowed his eyes at Troy. “Bigger plans, huh? Such as?”

  “Aw, I’m sorry,” Troy said, his smile fading into a mocking pout. “That’s classified.”

  Raze blood rolled to a boil. Troy hadn’t been around QGS or Infinium long enough to pass any training levels in the operative program. He hadn’t shown any quantum awareness or used any techniques during Raze’s viewings. Troy was 3-D all the way.

  “What do you mean? Classified?” Raze asked. “How do you have clearance for something I don’t? You couldn’t even get into The Stratum without my visors.”

  Troy smirked. “I dunno. I’m thinking it may be because I have skills you lack, Raziel. Self control, maybe? Consistency? Uh…people skills? Hello?

  “Not everything needs to be handled from your little ghost world here, you know.” Troy flicked a dismissive hand at the surrounding city. “In the real world, I’m a sure bet. I deliver solid, tangible results.”

  “I deliver untraceable, tangible results,” Raze argued, hating himself for feeling defensive.

  “You’re a last resort, Raziel. Face it. And you are completely unnecessary if I deliver. I just so happen to be delivering a lot more than you lately, I’m afraid to say. And it has been noted. I’ve got everyone eating from the palm of my hand. Grant. The 8. And especially that sweet Aislen Walker.”

  Raze restrained the reflex to punch Troy in his pretty-boy mouth. He needed to keep it together long enough to figure out what kind of game Troy was playing and how much he really knew about Aislen.

  “Who cares about her?” Raze said throwing down the bluff. “She’s nothing—a nobody.”

  Troy wasn’t buying it. “Oh, you care alright. I have no doubts about that.” Troy began to walk a slow circle around Raze, watching him with amusement.

  “You have been a very bad boy, Raziel. You didn’t tell anyone about her, did you? Grant? The 8? About how she slipped through all your so-called “impenetrable” defenses and showed up here the other night? Or about how Blake remembers her—and Sergeant Mathis is asking about her? Or about how Ichiban wants to find her? All of that would make you look bad. Real bad.

  “So because they can’t track you here and find you out, you withheld that juicy tidbit,” Troy licked at his bottom lip and pulled it between his teeth. “And she is a juicy little tidbit, isn’t she?”

  Raze squeezed his hands into tight fists. A searing pain burned through his body as his muscles went rigid with restraint. He so wanted to rip the vile smirk off of Troy’s face.

  Troy stopped walking and leaned in toward Raze. “Well, thanks to that dumb bitch, I know all about it. She practically told me everything. I know about her being here and seeing Scott Parrish die. I know that she saw you, and boy, that made an impression.” Troy snickered.

  “She keeps trying to convince herself it was all just a bad dream...but did you know, she keeps having these so-called dreams? Dreams about her dear, old, dead-beat daddy? Telling her she has a gift? Did you know about that, Raziel?”

  Raze clenched his teeth together until he thought they would crack and swallowed the violent desire to kill this ass-wipe. He said nothing.

  Troy continued circling him, talking to himself as much as to Raze. “Ichiban really has a jones for her, too, which is amazing. It would take a year’s supply of Viagra to arouse any life in that man—but she was able to do it. I wonder why?” Troy stopped and looked at him. “Do you know why, Raziel?”

  Raze looked toward the space where Ichiban was last standing. “Do you know him?”

  Troy feigned surprise. “Why, yes. Yes, I do. You don’t?”

  It killed Raze to have to admit that he did not. “I thought he was Grant, possessing Blake’s consciousness so he could get in here because he can’t do it himself.”

  “Grant!” Troy hollered and let out a loud hoot. “Hell, no! Mr. Parker is far too squeamish about killing people. He wouldn’t want the blood of Scott Parrish on his hands!”

  Raze wanted to kick his own ass for thinking that Grant was behind all this, but who else could it be?

  “That guy, on the other hand,” Troy pointed to where Ichiban had been, “is not squeamish about anything. Twisted fuck, that one is. In fact, if he wasn’t Infinium’s enemy numero uno, he’d be my hero.”

  Raze was astonished at Troy’s sociopathic tendencies. He disguised it so well under his great looks and all that magnetic charisma—something Raze had never been able to do. “Who is he, then?” Raze asked. He knew of no enemies other than Preston Reed and he knew Reed was not Ichiban.

  “Sorry,” Troy said with another condescending snarl. “That’s classified.”

  Troy changed the subject. “So Raziel, what’s really going on here? What’s going on with you? From what Grant has said, you are a ruthless, stone cold killer—and don’t tell him I said this, but I could get behind someone like you, over him, any day of the week. But from what I saw just now, I’m disappointed. Why did you stop me from killing the sergeant? And how come Blake isn�
��t tits-up by now? And what’s the deal with Aislen?”

  Raze swallowed a hot retort and thought for a moment before answering him. Troy knew who Ichiban was, but not why he wanted Aislen. Raze knew who Aislen was and why everyone would want her. She was his ace.

  As far as he could tell, Grant and The 8 didn’t know about her yet and Raze needed to make sure he was the one to inform them, before Troy figured it out and did it himself.

  “It’s really none of your business,” Raze started. “But before you go and screw things up any further, I’ll tell you. During the course of this project, I discovered something...valuable information that The 8 will be extremely interested in. But I didn’t want to take it to them until I was completely sure of its validity.”

  Raze faked a sigh of exasperation. “You have no idea how hard it has been—not eliminating these maggots as I would normally do. But I have to get a lock on this. It could be the biggest find of all time for The 8.”

  “Really?” Troy said, his interest peaked. “What is it?”

  Raze mirrored Troy’s pompous smirk right back at him. “That’s classified.”

  Troy’s demeanor blackened. He glared at Raze and stalked up to him until they were chest to chest.

  “I suggest you get on that then,” Troy seethed. “Figure it out—before I do. Because if Aislen has the answers, it won’t take me but a shot of Scotch and a couple of come hither twitches of my fingers and she’ll be moaning it to me as she’s calling my name.” Troy put two fingers in Raze’s face and wiggled them.

  “You won’t get to her before I do,” Raze hissed back, eyes narrowed. “I’m already there.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Troy laughed and stepped away from Raze again. “You go ahead and do your thing. Stay in this little cage that Grant and Infinium has put you in and do what it is you do best. Be the last resort. In the meantime, I’ll be handling reality.” Troy turned to walk away, but turned back to say one more thing.

  “You know, Raziel, I pity you. You never get the pleasure of seducing your young, virginal targets—suckling their juices dry and then slitting their supple throats. It’s so much more satisfying then your invisible mind-fuck.

  “Hurry along now,” he said, shooing Raze off with a flick of his fingers as he backed away. “Because if I give Grant and The 8 what they want before you do, you’re going to need to find a place to hide.”

  Troy reached up, lifted the visors off the top of his head, and severed the frequency modulators from his brain.

  ∞

  Raze watched helplessly as Troy began to evanesce from Demesne. His last threat was the final straw and the rage Raze had swallowed down throughout their encounter reached its tipping point. He charged toward the disintegrating body, wanting to rip Troy apart himself but grabbed a hold of nothing but a billion splintered particles.

  He bellowed, a roar so loud it rattled the glass throughout the towering skyscrapers that surrounded him—like a cage, he thought to himself.

  Troy was right. Raze was just a pawn on the board, pushed around by the unseen fingers of Grant and The 8. Their go-to boy when they couldn’t handle something themselves, yet constantly pinned under their thumb.

  It never bothered him before. He enjoyed what he did. He got off on using his ability to push people around, punishing them for all their stupidity...and cruelty...and sins. And he had everything he really wanted, didn’t he? He’d been given every worldly possession. He had been living the dream.

  Now he was waking up to his nightmare.

  Fury, like bile, rose up from deep in his belly. Raze let out another long, primal scream that sent a powerful shockwave through the atmosphere of Demesne. All of her buildings responded by spontaneously exploding, propelling razor sharp shards of glass, brick and mortar across the horizon faster than his eyes could entertain. Her remaining foundations collapsed and melted into the earth.

  Raze watched as his creation atomized into nothingness. When the dust cleared, he was standing alone in the desert of The Stratum.

  He had managed to destroy one prison only to find himself within another, incarcerated in a nested box of hells, forever doomed to solitary confinement. Raze was more a hostage then any of the maggots on Earth. At least they were blind to their bars. At least they had the illusion of freedom.

  On the verge of madness, Raze roared again, this time he spewed the wrath out of his body. Fiery rays and molten orbs exploded from the palms of his hands and with rabid ferocity, Raze hurled them in every direction, hell-bent on destroying The Stratum once and for all.

  Soon it was completely ablaze. Raze stood on a bubbling bed of lava, surrounded by a new cage of flames. He wished for the walls of the inferno to close in on him, to devour him. He longed to feel the blistering of his flesh and the incineration of his bones. But he could not. His form lay cool and safe within The Womb, while his phantom soul stood in Purgatory unable to destroy itself.

  Raze leaned his head back, raised fisted arms at the sky and attempted to scream again, but something cracked inside of him and his wail came out a whimper. He had nothing left. Broken, he fell to his knees and dropped his head into his hands.

  Raze watched as a single drop of water fell and hit the liquid fire of the ground. The tiny puddle boiled in the lava coagulating it to ash. He watched as another, and then another, fell to the enflamed earth, dousing it back to its original state of dry, ochre dust.

  Were these tears? Was he crying? The idea that he could be crying crumbled the last bastion of his strength and Raze began to pound his fists into the ground. He would not be broken, damn it. Damn Grant, and Troy, and The 8 to hell! Damn all of Infinium! And damn Aislen for bringing him to this—bringing him to his knees—that she’d ever crossed his path, rearranged his circuitry or altered his frequencies. Aislen had ruined him.

  As Raze continued to exact his vengeance on the earth, the sizzling sound grew louder. More and more droplets of water fell to the ground. Steam and smoke billowed up around him. Raze looked up through the haze at the cool sprinkles of water falling from The Stratum sky, baptizing his face, and calming his rage. He reached up and wiped them from his cheeks, so relieved to realize they weren’t tears, he almost wept for real. Across the landscape, the massive flames surrendered to the gentle shower that was not his creation.

  Raze noticed movement on the horizon. A shadowy outline of a man walked toward him through the dying firestorm.

  What now? Who could that possibly be? Raze rose from the ground, gathered himself together and readied himself to confront another possible threat.

  “You can’t destroy this place, Raze,” he heard the man say telepathically. “At least not on your own. You’re strong, but not strong enough.”

  “Who are you?” Raze yelled at the figure across the desert.

  There was no answer. The patter of the falling raindrops silenced, the heavy globules crystallizing into flakes as the stranger walked closer. The prisms caught the soft light and danced with color as they floated to the ground, icing on the charred earth a frost white.

  “You are on the wrong side of this, Raziel,” the blond stranger said when he finally stood before him. “You have been using your gifts for evil purposes for too long.” The man’s familiar green and gold eyes bore into Raze.

  “Preston Reed.” Raze said with a growl that was both territorial and awestruck.

  “You allowed the circumstances of your life to turn you like a whipped dog, becoming vicious and rabid, attempting to exact revenge on humanity for the wrongs of a few. You think you were made stronger by all this? You weren’t. You were diminished by it.”

  “We have been looking for you.”

  “Is it really we, Raze? I don’t think so. I think you know this now. They may be trying to find me, but trust me, they won’t.”

  “You’re here, aren’t you? What’s to say I don’t seize your signature and start making you my mission in life?”

  “Don’t pull your bullshit with me, Raze. You
don’t think I’ve moved beyond that? I wouldn’t be here talking to you if I thought you were capable of tracking me. You aren’t. Give it up.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Because I need you,” Preston said. “To help Aislen.”

  “To help Aislen?” Raze was taken aback. “Why would I help her? She is responsible for the—”

  “She’s not responsible for anything,” Preston interrupted. “There was no intent behind her actions. She has no understanding of how her abilities work or how strong they are. You know that. But she needs to understand. She needs to learn. And now that I am being actively hunted again, I can’t get near her to teach her. Or protect her. I need you.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Raze scoffed. “You think I am the one to teach and protect her?”

  “I know you are.”

  Raze stopped laughing and stared at Preston. The man was serious. “You are out of your mind.”

  “It isn’t too late for you, Raze. You can get on the right side of things. Aislen needs you. I need you to help her. At least get her out of harms way, so she has a chance to discover and develop her gift.”

  “And why would I help her? Everything I know and am is barely hanging on by a thread. Why would I risk my—my life—for her. That’s what it would be you know, if I got between Infinium and Aislen. My life.”

  “I do know.” Preston nodded his head solemnly. “But I also know that you are her only hope.”

  Raze didn’t know what to say to that.

  “It’s not just Infinium that I am worried about. It is someone far worse.”

  “Someone worse than Infinium and The 8? That isn’t possible.”

  “Oh, but it is. And if he gets his talons into Aislen, you will see just how much worse it can be. You don’t want to see that, trust me.”

  “Who is he?”

  “My grandfather. The reason that Infinium exists.”

  Raze didn’t know what to say to that, either.

  “Raze, you can continue selling your soul to the highest bidder in order to cling to your perceived power or you can do the right thing for a change. It’s up to you. But I need to know. What’s it going to be?”