by Sarah Noffke
“Then why are you even talking to me? Why are you coming to me for answers, which is how it appears,” he says, and I want to slap the smug look off his face.
“Call it a shortcut. Finding information in the universal mind isn’t always fast or easy,” I say. And it’s true. I can search for the how, but Aiden will know it without me digging on my own and I strangely know that.
“Okay, so tell me about science,” he says.
“You know as a Dream Traveler that there’s this world,” I say, pointing to the ground, meaning the physical realm.
“Right,” he says, already shaking his head. “And then there’s the dream travel realm. The dreamscape.”
“Good job, monkey face,” I say. “There’s rules for each realm. Here we’re entitled to the physical and consciousness. In the dreamscape we only have our consciousness.”
“Are you saying there’s wormholes between the physical realm and the dreamscape?” he says.
“Yes, probably. Most likely. There’s all sorts of remnants of relativity,” I say.
“Did you just say the term relativity?” he says, boasting his big attitude.
“Shut the fuck up. I had to learn about science for this. I’m already angry about it and looking for someone to unleash my hostility on. Anyway, we don’t need to find wormholes in the physical realm because they would just lead to the dreamscape, which I can already get to,” I say.
“Wait, how do you know they’d lead to the dreamscape?” he says, looking honestly curious now.
I sigh heavily. Stomp over to the whiteboard sitting against a wall and pick up a marker. The smell of the ink tinges my nose when I snap the lid off it. I draw a single horizontal line.
“This is time,” I say.
“Yes, it’s linear,” he says.
“The reason I know that there aren’t portals to different time periods is because of how it’s set up. Wormholes aren’t what you think they are,” I say.
“You mean they aren’t doors into another place that’s possibly light years away but can be accessed through a single portal?” he says.
“Yes, they are that, but you think you can find one in 2017 and it will stick you in 1981,” I say, ticking two separate places on the line.
“Right. That’s the common assumption. And that I can find a wormhole in the main hall of the Institute that will put me in outer space,” he says.
“Where’d you thankfully die. But wormholes don’t really exist—”
“Well, I know that, it’s just cool science fiction,” he says.
“You didn’t let me finish. I was going to say, wormholes don’t exist like you think they do.” I hold the pen up. “Everything is grounded in an archetype and wormholes do exist but they aren’t doors to things millions of miles apart or time periods decades apart. They are just doors and they open into the space next to them, which is how passages work, if you remember,” I say.
“So that’s the reason they wouldn’t work with time, because it’s linear?” he says.
“Good job, dumbass. Now before I said there are only three dimensions in this world we live in. There’s the physical realm,” I say, drawing a rectangle. Then I draw under it a matching rectangle. “This is the dreamscape.”
“And you suppose there’s doors between those realms because they are touching, is that right?” Aiden says.
“I presume, yes. But that’s not what I’m after. I want to find the door to the third realm, which I assume is located here,” I say, drawing a matching rectangle under the dreamscape realm.
“And that is?” he says.
“The place where there’s no physical bodies and no consciousness, only the subconscious,” I say.
“You mean the Underworld?” he says.
“Exactly,” I say.
Chapter Fifteen
“Fuckity fuck,” I say, slamming my open palm on the conference room table.
Trent stares back at me with a look of uncertainty. Not only does he never know how to respond to me, but he’s more on edge due to my recent loss. If fuckers like him don’t stop looking at me like I’m a fragile little puppy hopping around on three legs, then I’m going to hypnotize them all until their heads explode. I’ve had enough of everyone’s worthless sympathy. They aren’t even giving it because they want to help me. They want to help themselves. They want to feel better about themselves. In my situation they’d need someone to hold them up and they think they can do that for me. But they can’t because I don’t do pity. I’m fucking allergic to it.
“I realize that we didn’t see this coming but—”
“I did see this coming!” I yell, now slamming a closed fist on the table.
Trent pulls back, looking shocked. “You did…?”
“Yes, but then Dahlia had to poorly time her death and I got overly distracted,” I say, remembering connecting the pieces of the massive theft on the optometry offices.
The whites of Trent’s eyes when they widen are a stark contrast to his dark skin. “Ren—”
“Don’t Ren me,” I say. People don’t like how flippant I am about everything that’s happened. It makes them uncomfortable, but I’m so bloody tired of worrying about how other people are dealing with the way I’m processing my situation. Fuck them and their selfish hearts. They use them to feel all right, feeling scared and reluctant to actually experience life.
“I connected that the retina scans taken at optometrist offices were going to be used to steal yet more information,” I say, remembering the epiphany but then getting pulled away before I could put an agent on the case.
“How could you have possibly known that the retina scans would be used to gain top-level security to the Pentagon?” Trent says.
I drop my chin and regard him behind a repulsed expression. “I’m Ren-Fucking-Lewis and it’s not my first day on this job, as it appears it is for you. For God’s sake, Trent, you’re going to have to get a whole lot better at this job and quick. I’m not always going to be here to think for you.”
“Well, I guess I could see making the connection now, but… Wait, what did you just say?” he says, the last part of my statement finally sinking in. God, he’s so fucking slow.
“I don’t repeat myself. You know that,” I say, and now drum my fingers on the conference table, trying to figure out the next ten moves.
“Are you quitting? I mean, if you need some time off then it’s perfectly understandable after every—”
“I’m not a fucking quitter,” I say.
“Oh, then why are you saying you won’t always be around to help me?”
He’s bloody confused and it’s kind of cute to watch his dumb brain try to piece together the fragments of a riddle I’m constantly swinging in front of his face. “Let’s just say that I’m relocating.”
“Oh, well, but you’ll still be able to work for the Institute, right?” he says.
“The commute would be a bitch, so no. I’m guessing that this will be one of my last cases,” I say, and enjoy the look of horror that springs to his face before he washes it away with something a little less pathetic.
“But Ren,” he says.
“Don’t worry your ugly little head about that now. I’m here to hold your hand for a bit longer. Right now we need to focus on these current case details.”
He nods, trying to muster a new confidence. “Yeah, of course.”
“So the security cameras were disabled when the breach happened at the Pentagon? Can we get agents to time travel to get a glimpse of the perpetrator?” I ask, running over the details I memorized from the case file.
“Uhhh… Yeah, I tried that but it didn’t work,” he says.
“Why?” I say with a growl. I’m certain I’m not going to like the answer.
“The person appears to have been invisible,” he says.
“What? Are you fucking kidding me? The thief has the skill of invisibility. Brilliant.” I throw my hands in the air. “Yes, now I officially quit! Fuck this job,” I
say. Invisibility?! Really? I’ve seen it all, or at least I thought I had, but now to have an adversary who is invisible. That’s bloody absurd.
“Yeah, it appears that’s their dream travel skill. That’s our best guess, that we’re dealing with a Dream Traveler.”
“Or someone stole that Potter kid’s invisibility cloak,” I say.
“I think it’s most likely that this is a skill, a unique one,” he says.
I narrow my eyes at the dumbass wasting my time. “Thanks, genius. I wasn’t being serious about the cloak.”
“Right,” he says, covering his long forehead with his hand.
“So the invisible man used a retina scan he stole to gain access to a top-level area of the Pentagon. Then the fucker did what? I didn’t have a chance to read the entire file,” I say, remembering seeing it come through on my phone, but deciding to only scan the first page.
“Well, you were a bit distracted. I wavered on if I should send it over to you on that day, but I didn’t want you to be mad that I left you out,” he says.
“Funeral. You are referring to sending me the report while I was at Dahlia’s funeral,” I say, and run my hands through my spiky red hair, which makes my hand sticky from the gel. “You know, Trent, you’re going to have to be a real man and say things directly. Stop pussy-footing around the obvious. Dahlia died. I went to her funeral. She’s gone. Deal with it as I have. I know you lie on the floor of your room crying and listening to her music for most nights of your lame life, but you’re going to have to move on now. No more sugary-sweet ballads. No more crying yourself to sleep to the sound of her voice. You will survive. God, I hope you can fucking survive after this because I don’t have the time to find your replacement.”
Trent doesn’t look as shocked as he should and it kind of pisses me off. Actually he looks curious. “How do you do that?”
I yawn loudly. “Do what?”
“Cut off the emotions,” he says.
“I’m a man. I don’t cut off emotions. I quarantine them. I process when appropriate,” I say and then pause, considering whether to continue this lecture or not. He may not be ready. “Trent, at the end of the day, this is just fucking life. We live. We die. Shit happens. It’s really not as big a deal as everyone likes to make it. The worst thing in the world can happen and guess fucking what? It doesn’t really matter. The world goes on. You only think things will break you. That you’re vulnerable, but that’s a bloody choice. If you knew what I know then you wouldn’t look so pathetic. You wouldn’t act so pathetic.”
“What do you know?” he says.
“That we’re all bloody gods, capable of extraordinary powers. Life is limitless to those who believe this,” I say.
“Well, that’s an incredibly hard reality to fully digest,” Trent says, but I can tell he wants to believe me.
“That’s because you’re a failure. Those who can’t believe in their full greatness will never experience it. You have to believe it to see it, not see it to believe it,” I say.
“Right, I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks,” he says, but this isn’t something he can easily digest. “So the perpetrator stole records on civilian and military individuals.”
“Any correlation with the stolen data?” I say, having suspected that there would be a crime using the retina scans, but not knowing what it would be. It seemed obvious that it would be on a high-security place like the Pentagon, especially since that security is brand new as it’s a part of the current President’s legislation.
“We’re looking into correlations, although a huge database was accessed and the files copied,” he says. Trent has no idea what’s going on here. And even worse, he doesn’t know what to do next. Thankfully for him I know exactly what to do. I turn for the exit.
“Wait! Where are you going? What do you think is going on?” Trent says at my back.
I pause and rotate around to face him. “I’m going to interrogate the one person who can identify our thief. The one who is potentially behind all this,” I say.
“Who?” he says.
“Oh, don’t you want to be surprised?” I say, and turn and stalk for the exit.
***
Just as I did on the night of the election, I teleport into Douglas’s office. However, now the fuckhead does all his work from the White House Oval Office, thanks to me. As I suspected, the President of the United States is hunched behind a desk, his face screwed up from almost thinking. He’s staring at several papers, flipping through them madly.
“Reading is tough for you, isn’t it?” I say and as I assumed, the knowledge of my sudden appearance makes him jump.
“Oh dear lord!” he says, clutching his chest. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”
“I have that effect on people,” I say, pinning both my hands on the front of the President’s desk. “Please know, if I so desire it I can do far worse than give you a heart attack.”
“I’ve been checking in every day. Reporting everything that comes across my desk,” he says, his voice frantic.
“That’s not why I’m here,” I say, and watch him visibly relax, his shoulders pulling down away from his ears.
“Oh good, because I was worried. I don’t understand half of what comes across my desk, so the act of reporting it is difficult,” he says.
“That’s because you have the IQ of a ferret and when I say that I feel I’ve actually insulted the little rodents,” I say.
“I’ve always liked ferrets. They’re neat looking,” he says, and then to my horror he snorts with a dumb laugh. President of the fucking United States. Americans are all brain dead.
With my hands still pinned on the desk I say, “Why did you push to have the retina scanners installed as the new security at the Pentagon?”
He tucks his large chin back and regards me with a batty expression. “Honestly, I thought it sounded like a cool idea when I heard about it. Like right out of a science fiction movie.”
I tap my fingers on the desk, impatience oozing from my every movement. “And where did you hear about this cool technology?” I say, a hint of condescension in my voice.
His eyes flick up to the ceiling as he fucking thinks, like a special needs ferret that ate rat poison. “Oh!” he says, the information apparently sawing through the thick walls of his dumb brain. “There was this dinner party a few months ago, prior to my election.”
“You weren’t elected,” I remind him and then wave him forward. “Go on, moron.”
“Well, there was a man there. An investor. He was willing to give me campaign money, but wanted me to hear his idea for a security upgrade. I heard the idea and thought it would be really cool. Upgrade the Pentagon in all the right ways,” he says.
“Name. What was the man’s name?” I say.
He scratches his wrinkled forehead, which is overly tanned from the dumb spray-on formula he no doubt uses as an attempt to cover his age spots. “Honestly, I don’t recall. That was a while ago, and I’d had a few martinis.”
“Send over a guest list for that party. I want it within the hour,” I say, pushing away from the desk and the disgusting ape’s foul breath.
“I don’t know if I can track it down that fast,” he says.
“You’ll do it, or you’ll be impeached for some heinous crimes. Do you understand me?” I say.
“Right. Yes, of course. I’ll have the list cross-referenced with the list of campaign supporters to help you trim it down,” he says, nodding his head now.
I give him a look of sudden astonishment. “Wow,” I say with no enthusiasm. “Look at you not being a complete dumbass, for once in your life.”
“Thanks,” Douglas says a bit sheepishly, sliding his hand along the side of his head.
Chapter Sixteen
The light from the banker’s lamp on my desk isn’t cutting it. Or maybe it’s my eyes, which have read thousands of words of text. Maybe it’s the reflection of the green glass shade off the stainless steel wall behind it. I twist around to rea
lize that the Institute staff took heart to what I said and removed everything from my room but my bed and dresser and desk. I had everything related to Dahlia emptied from the room, including the sunlamps that she had strategically placed around the space. Maybe a bit of a premature move on my part, but I’m trying to remain focused at this time and not get swept away by emotions. Everyone wants me to grieve. Needs me to. But what those imbeciles fail to understand is that the moment I do that then I’ve given power to the idea that Dahlia is actually gone and there’s no way to get her back. I won’t do that.
I twist back around, my eyes taking a moment to adjust from the dark at my back. Pulling the book in front of me closer, I squint at the sea of words. They blur before taking shape. With a quick glance at the text I then return to taking notes, my hand sketching out the words in long, flowing cursive, an art form that will die soon.
Consciousness constructs reality. Without that and there is no experience. Stars aren’t consciousness just light and fire and energy, just as souls are. But combine consciousness with a soul and you have a person.
I pause, my senses picking up on something strange. Turning my head to the side, I expect to see someone standing beside me, but the space is empty. Then I turn back to the book, but again, I get that impression that something or someone is lurking at the corner of my vision. Blowing out a hot breath, I return to my notes. The ballpoint pen makes a scratching sound as I write.
