Dream Static

by Robert S. Wilson

  She walks over and pulls a tray up to Angela's chest and sets the cup of water down.

  Angela tries to connect to the internet then. If the nurse won't offer up any answers, maybe she can find them on her own. Her Synapath replies to each of her online commands with the same two-word reply: Connection blocked. She messages the nurse. Uh... Why can't I get online?

  The nurse looks away from Angela, flits her gaze between down at her feet and up toward the door. "I'm afraid the doctor has restricted your internet usage until you're able to see a certified psychologist. He just wants to make sure you can handle the... you know... A lot's changed since..."

  Angela looks blankly at the nurse, unable to speak and unwilling to reply with her Synapath.

  "The doctor should be able to answer any other questions you have." And with that she gives one last plastic-faced grin and flees the room.

  ***

  Several naps, both voluntary and involuntary, later, and Angela finds herself half awake staring up at a face both familiar and not quite right. The old man smiles, takes her hand in his, tears racing down his face, and sits down.

  "I can't believe it." Jordan, or at least, this much older version of Jordan, closes his eyes and takes Angela's hand. Angela stiffens, the familiar cold chill of her own tears simultaneously stings and overwhelms her. Everything is too foreign.

  She looks up as best as she can manage and follows the thin lines of wrinkle crossing, crisscrossing, and stretching across Jordan's face. Where before only facial hair was peppered with gray, now, the entire beard borders that dull line between white and black, and the wavy once-brown hair on his head is stricken with it in swatches. The room becomes distant and unstable around her. What felt like only hours to her has been decades to him and he has the scars to prove it. She can see the physical ones for herself and she can sense the ones unseen that cling desperately to his heart. She sobs soundlessly and Jordan immediately takes her in his arms. "I don't want to hurt you or mess up your tubes or anything." He chuckles then swallows.

  They hold each other for a long while before Angela finally pulls away.

  Jordan sighs. "You probably need your rest. I... I should go."

  Angela sits silent, staring at the wall.

  "Angela?" Jordan's voice is calm but beneath its steady foundation, Angela can hear something else. Something frightened and vulnerable.

  She looks at Jordan and opens her mouth, words caught somewhere in the genesis of her thoughts. She isn't even sure she can talk yet but she opens her mouth and gives it a shot.

  "Twenty-two years, Jordan... Why—how?" Her throat is raw but the words croak out nonetheless.

  "They told me it couldn't be done... They told me your body was beyond repair."

  "What about Dad, Jordan, can you tell him I'd like to see him?"

  Jordan looks at her, mouth open but silent for a long moment, hesitating to say something.

  "What is it?"

  Jordan turns away. "I didn't even know they were planning to do this. They never told me. The last I knew, they fulfilled their part of the contract by storing your body for five years." He chokes back a sob, takes a deep breath, swallows, and then smiles. "But none of that matters now, Angie. Don't you see?" He hadn't answered her. Why?

  He reaches out for her hands but Angela pulls away and turns on her side in her bed. "I'm sorry, Jordan. I think I need to get some rest after all. Why don't you call me in a couple of days and see how I'm feeling? I have a lot of physical and... mental... therapy coming up and I..."

  "It's okay. I understand. I'm just so glad to be near you. But I'll give you your space. Better to give you space for a time than forever."

  After a long silent moment, the door closes and she knows he's gone. She lets out a long anguished breath.

  Something isn't right.

  Sure, she just came back from the dead and there's nothing natural about that but this is something else altogether. She didn't just come back from the dead.

  She was murdered.

  Someone wanted her dead. Bad enough to act upon that want, and they were successful. And whoever had done it... if they find out she's alive...

  Then she remembers the courthouse that day just before she went in for her backup. Did Barton recover? She hopes so.

  And her father... What isn't Jordan telling her?

  Angela squeezes her eyes shut and tries like hell not to think about the way her life has cascaded out of control.

  Chapter 4

  Physical therapy proves to be a gruesome experience like no other Angela has ever gone through. Though her limbs work, they don't quite work as well as she thought. Every day she finds a new muscle that either won't do what she wants it to or won't do anything at all. To make matters worse, Teri, her physical therapist, is one hell of a tough bitch. No matter how tired Angela gets, the woman pushes and pushes and pushes her well beyond her limits. One week in and Teri has her sitting on a large plastic ball and making her bend her knees further than they have gone since her Resuscitation. As she pushes down, the ball giving gravity the upper hand over her legs, the tendons and muscles behind her knees stretch and the pulling of it feels like tearing, ripping.

  But Teri won't let her stop until she's at least managed to push farther than she did the day before. Even if she has to grab Angela by the back and push her herself. Those times are the worst. And every night, the nurse wheels her back to her room and she collapses into the bed and immediately goes into a deep dreamless sleep. She goes so long without dreaming these days that she begins to think that dying had killed her dreams. After all, she hasn't had a single one since waking up in that operating room.

  But having no dreams, she learns before long, had been a blessing.

  ***

  Dawson sat leaned back against his chair, legs crossed on his desk, hands behind his head. The grin on his face seemed like it could reach around the entire world. Angela laughed.

  "Okay, okay. I know you've got something for me, and judging by the smug look on your face, it had better be on fucking fire."

  Dawson jerked forward, plopping his feet on the floor and reaching his arms up in the air in a long exaggerated stretch. "You bet your ass it's on fire. You called me to do a job and I did my fucking job. Since when have you known me to fuck around?"

  Angela paused then took a deep giddy breath and sat down in the chair in front of Dawson's desk. "Okay, enough theatrics, whatta ya got?"

  Dawson grinned again. "Enough theatrics, you say? Well, I'm the keeper of the keys and I say let the theatrics goddamn well commence." And with that he was up on his feet and headed for the small fridge sitting against the far wall.

  Angela waited, trying to be patient. She'd been through this song and dance with Dawson more times than she could count. He came up from the fridge with a huge bottle of champagne in hand.

  "Oh shit!"

  "Uh-huh!"

  He set down a glass in front of her and popped open the bottle. The cork burst down to the floor and bounced somewhere under his desk as the bottle bubbled over and they both laughed. He poured her a glass, winked, and handed it to her, then turned and poured his own.

  "To Tom Stanley, Wyatt Energy's former network support technician!"

  "What?"

  "Ol' Tom had an axe to grind and just the right tool to sharpen it."

  "What?"

  "Here, just drink and then I'll show you." Dawson held his glass up waiting for her to toast it. She gave him one more unsure grin and then clinked her glass against his. She took a quick gulp. Dawson guzzled his until he finished the glass and then slammed it down on the desk, the grin on his face near to bursting open.

  "Tom Stanley just happened to have a backup copy of every Wyatt Energy internal log dating back to June of '22. I did a comparison search and it didn't take long to find the right file."

  "You're fucking kidding me?" Angela stared at Dawson in disbelief. She'd known whatever he'd gotten would be good, but she hadn't dreamed it cou
ld be this good. "You've got to be absolutely fucking kidding me!"

  They both laughed so hard and for so long they were in tears and nearly out of breath when Dawson came up for air and poured himself another glass.

  Something skipped in reality then and Angela was no longer in Dawson's office.

  "He knows!" Dawson stood before her in the darkness of an old abandoned concrete bridge covered in graffiti. "You have to get out of here before—" There was a crack like thunder and everything went black.

  ***

  Angela wakes up with a start in her bed. It was a dream, only a dream. But part of it had been real, she was there. The other part... It was so disjointed, so distorted. It hadn't been like the rest of the dream. What she knows for sure is memory. But in that moment when that loud crack had exploded, she was sure then that something happened to Dawson. She sobs at the thought of it. She hasn't heard a word about him since she was brought back to life. It's been Twenty-two years now. He's probably moved on with his career, with his life. But... Maybe not.

  She has to find out. Someone will be able to get her in touch with him if he's still alive. Oh God, I hope he's okay.

  Angela takes a deep breath and wipes her eyes and lies back down. Whatever happened she won’t be able to find out now. No. Not without internet or phone access... For now she will have to rest and sleep and hope that maybe her dream was nothing more than that and Lucas Dawson is still alive out there somewhere in the world, charming the pants off of every DA within eyeshot, catching bad guys in the act, and making one hilarious spectacle of bringing hidden knowledge to the forefront one case at a time.

  She lies there for what seems like hours just staring at the ceiling. She knows she needs sleep but after the dream she had, she's afraid of what will come next once her mind drifts off to that other place. When time fades inside itself and her thoughts fold outside of that threshold of consciousness, she unknowingly falls into another deep sleep. This time she is granted the good fortune not to have any dreams.

  ***

  The next morning, Nurse Kelly walks in pushing Angela's wheelchair, ready to take her to physical therapy. Angela lets the woman help her into the chair and when she's fully comfortable and ready to go, the nurse informs the guard at the door that they will be leaving. The guard, a tall muscular man in thick black padded body armor, nods and lets them through. Nurse Kelly thanks him and then they start off down the hall toward the elevator. "Miss Kelly, can I ask you a favor?"

  "Sure, hon. What is it?"

  "I need to get in touch with a colleague of mine. His name's Lucas Dawson, he's a freelance investigator I used to work with on cases."

  Nurse Kelly stops the wheelchair for a moment and pulls out an archaic cell phone and begins typing away in it. It's been a long time since Angela saw someone without a Synapath. And a nurse no less. The nurse puts the device back in the long pocket in her smock and grabs hold of the wheel chair. "There we go. I jotted myself a note down so I can make sure and remember to do that. I'll see what I can find out, okay, Sweetie?"

  Angela nods. "Thank you so much."

  "My pleasure, honey. My pleasure."

  Chapter 5

  She has the dream again. Only this time the thunder cracks off a moment sooner and just before everything goes black, blood splatters against the concrete floor. She knows it isn't hers. Somehow she knows this beyond a doubt. And yet it doesn't give her comfort. No matter what she learns from the dream otherwise, she’s still sure deep in her heart that something bad happened to Lucas. She fears Dawson hasn't had the second chance that she has. And having had that chance and being almost completely sure he had not, a heavy guilt resonates within her.

  And there's something else. Something deeper. But she buries it deeper still. Can't let it out, let it come to the forefront. Doesn't want to.

  Again that same question: Why me? Why not someone else? Why now? Why bother trying?

  She'll have to get through therapy and prove she has a full sense of independence again before she can truly answer that question. No one around here will give her a straight response, not even the doctor. Every time she asks, she's given some lame excuse about security or policy or some such. What's clear to her at this point is that someone at Immortal Coil Labs decided to make use of the latest breakthrough in Resuscitation surgery, even though they were no longer contractually obligated to try. Did that someone pick her for a reason? Or did she just fit some anonymous requirements?

  ***

  Walking into the waiting room of Dr. Nolan's office, Angela is grateful that she's now at the stage in her physical therapy that she can come here by herself and have some semblance of privacy. She muses that maybe now that the physical therapy has gotten her on her feet literally perhaps head-shrinker therapy can help her on her feet emotionally. Although that's the idea, she doesn't have much real faith or expectation in the practice.

  When she's through signing her name, she waits a moment for someone to appear behind the glass wall of the reception office. Nobody materializes so she takes a seat and tries to occupy her mind with what's playing on the local hub's mindstream player. She’s just getting sucked into some oddball talk show when the program is interrupted and a familiar face brings a wave of relief over her. She smiles at the crawl across the bottom of her Mind-fi screen: Senator James Barton passes brave new bill designed to crack down harder on climate crime.

  There’s a scar snaking up the right side of his forehead where the mortar had tried to pummel into his skull but he looks good, fierce.

  "I want to thank everyone who supported this bill even in the direst moments of this last campaign season. You are why this bill is moving on to the President's desk as we speak, so please, stop the applause and give yourselves a huge pat on the back."

  Maybe there's hope for the human race yet.

  Three-fourths into an odd '20s soap opera, Angela's name is called.

  She follows the nurse back to a cramped room where a couch, a desk, and several vividly green plants take up an otherwise sterile space. Angela wonders if the plants are synthetic or not. In her day and age, with all the damage rampant climate change caused, it had been unlikely enough to see such a natural site. The state of environmental matters has, of course, been burning in Angela's mind and tugging on her heartstrings ever since she woke up. What little she's found out hasn't been surprising to learn. The sea level has all but swallowed the southern portions of Louisiana, Florida, and Texas. New Orleans is now just a memory. No matter how prepared she might have been from all her years of fighting environmental crime, the impact of what human beings have done to their environment—are continuing to do to their environment—still tears at her heart nonetheless.

  A short dark-skinned woman with black hair and dark brown eyes—Angela wonders if she is of Indian descent—walks into the room and puts out a delicate hand for Angela to shake. "Hello, Miss Bane, my name is Vanessa Nolan, I'll be your therapist while you're here at Centennial Medical Center."

  Angela shakes her hand. "Please, call me Angela."

  "I appreciate your courtesy, Angela. Won't you sit down?"

  Angela takes her seat.

  "So, I know you've been waiting to get access to the internet and I can understand how important that probably is to you right now. I apologize for the good doctors upstairs for restricting your access for a time, but I believe it would be best to discuss some things that have occurred since your... time away... that will take some adjustment and could prove to complicate your physical and emotional rehabilitation."

  Angela nods. "I see..." The tension of not knowing what must have amounted to a metric ton that has happened since her unsuccessful demise is now tight as a twisted rope.

  "I'm going to just go ahead and get the worst out of the way. Angela... I'm afraid your father is no longer with us." She sits there watching intently as Angela takes in her words. She was prepared for them. They were the words, after all, she most expected when her father neither called nor s
howed up to visit since she was Resuscitated. But no matter how prepared she thought she would be, she isn't. There is no real preparing for the loss of someone so completely intertwined with your heart and your mind.

  After a moment of tear-filled silence, Dr. Nolan takes out a small box of tissues and offers it to Angela. Angela takes the entire box instead of bothering with just a few individual sheets.

  "I'm sure that's a rough thing to hear right now—or any time—but I want you to know that I'm here to help you through it in any way I can."

  Angela nods.

  "So, I thought we could do some exercises to help you create ways to cope with your loss, with your stress, and with the potentially difficult effects of your Resuscitation."

  After nearly an hour of discussing Angela's feelings about the passing of her father, Dr. Nolan confirms Angela's penultimate fears: Lucas Dawson had, in fact, been shot to death on the same night and in the same location as Angela. A chill blasts up Angela's spine and that lonely guilt follows it straight to her heart.

  "I can't believe they're both gone."

  ***

  Hours pass and the world around Angela moves on its own, gliding past her like the long ghosting of neon city lights. Without realizing it, she's managed to come back to her room and sit on her reclining hospital bed and stare into some random local mindstream. But now the world around her is slowing down and she's catching up. She wants nothing more, at this moment, than to go back to the dark abyss of death. At least when she was dead she hadn't known loss or fear or pain. But now she knows it well... All too well.

  She sits without moving for hours, pushing her mind deeper and deeper into the recesses of that emotional canyon that has become her heart.

  And yet, she feels detached from it all in a way she can't understand or possibly describe.