The War for the Waking World

by Wayne Thomas Batson

  After a quick search of the upstairs, he raced down to the basement zoo, but the zoo wasn’t there anymore. In its place was a magnificent and very futuristic laboratory. No test tubes and beakers sitting on Bunsen burners—it clearly wasn’t that sort of lab. Instead, there were banks of slender computer servers, touch screens, tablets, styluses, and a vast array of flat-screen monitors, the smallest of which had to be at least ten feet wide. Those were just the things Archer could identify.

  More amazing still were massive rolls of fiber-optic lines that reminded Archer of gigantic bundles of glowing yarn. Up above, thick tubes formed a dizzying labyrinth. Some were clear and full of bubbling liquid; others were more metallic. On the far side of the vast laboratory was what Archer originally took to be a kind of vault door. Full of chrome and brass components and thick circular slabs, it looked like something out of a federal bank. Archer stepped a little closer and noticed it was in motion. The centermost circle, where the spindle on a bank vault would be, was a radial dial turning slowly clockwise. Not clockwise, but oscillating. Large screens flanked the strange apparatus and showed various digital views of the earth.

  “This place is crazy,” Archer muttered. “It almost looks like—”

  “Dream Inc.”

  Archer whirled around to find Rigby had appeared on his right.

  “It’s very close to the original blueprints, along with a few upgrades we observed at Kara—”

  With will-augmented speed, Archer flew into Rigby and pinned him against a pillar of concrete and steel. “Where is she, Rigby?” he demanded. “Where’s my sister?”

  “I’m right here, Archer,” Kaylie grumbled. “Put him down. We’re friends again.”

  “Friends?” Archer barked. “Friends? Kaylie, don’t you know what Rigby was going to do . . . to you? Don’t you know what happened at the hospital?”

  “I know,” Kaylie said. “Rigby and Uncle Scovy told me all about it. But Kara lied. Did you know that? Rigby never pulled out that plug.”

  “What?” Archer gasped.

  “It’s true, Keaton,” Rigby said through clenched teeth. “Now, be a good lad, and set me on my feet.”

  Archer lowered Rigby to the floor. “I don’t believe you,” he whispered. “I saw it. I saw it in your eyes.”

  Rigby stared at the floor. “I’m not proud of that night,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically shaky. “I was desperate. All my plans, everything and everyone I ever cared about seemed to be slipping through my fingers.”

  Archer tightened his fists on Rigby’s jacket. “She’s a little girl, Rigby.”

  “No, I’m not,” Kaylie insisted. “I am a Dreamtreader and a strong one too.”

  “Anyway, Keaton, like I told you. I never pulled the plug. I went there in a fit of madness, and I almost did . . . well . . . I almost made a tragic mistake. I guess you wouldn’t know about that, would you?”

  Archer released Rigby and wandered a few paces away. He remembered being in this very basement, albeit before it had become a space station. He remembered staring at Doc Scoville’s comatose body, his shriveled form kept alive by a dozen machines. One flip of the master power switch. That’s all it would have taken.

  “I know something about tragedy,” he whispered. The Dreamtreader turned on his heels and went face-to-face with Rigby once more. “Swear to me, Rigby,” he snarled. “Swear to me you never pulled that plug.”

  “Okay, okay, Keaton,” Rigby muttered. “I swear, okay? Good enough?”

  “For now,” Archer said, but he was far from certain. He’d be watching Rigby carefully. And he’d be ready if Rigby showed any sign of treachery. He stepped away and gestured to the machinery and electronics. “So what’s all this? Had to take a lot of mental energy to build something so huge . . . and so advanced.”

  “Wasn’t so tough, Keaton,” Rigby said, “when you’ve got three of us working on it.”

  Kaylie nodded. Archer sniffed the air. “Where’d all the critters go? I can’t even smell ’em.”

  “They’re two levels down, Archer,” Kaylie said. “It’s like a great big terrarium down there. We built that too. You should see it. The animals are much happier now. I think Dr. Who misses you. And did you know Old Jack is back? Weird, he only has six numbers—”

  “Where’s Doc Scoville? Where’s Nick?”

  “We ’ave a lot to talk about,” Rigby said. “Good news and bad.”

  “We’re onto something, Archer!” Kaylie squealed. “Something big. And I mean really, really, really, really, really, really—”

  “I get it,” Archer said, putting his hands lightly on her shoulders. “Something big, but what?”

  “Nothing certain yet,” Rigby explained. “Promising, but not certain. We ’ave more research to do, more tests.”

  “This is torture!” Archer grumbled. “Research and tests for what?”

  “Magnets!” Kaylie squeaked. She bounced up and down so much her pigtails did a little dance.

  Archer frowned. “O . . . kay, magnets? For what?”

  “Silly,” Kaylie replied. “For fixing the Rift!”

  DREAMTREADER CREED, CONCEPTUS 15

  If your Master should present to you a Dream creature, think of it as more than a pet. For really, the creature can be a very able assistant. Whether as a messenger, a breach-spotter, breach-stitcher, or even for entertainment, these mercurial creatures will make your Dreamtreading less of a burden.

  What sort of creature, you may wonder? It is different for each Dreamtreader, but you will likely find the creature suits you in some way. Often, the creature will help cultivate a character trait you are currently lacking. They may even try your patience, but remember: they are there for your own good.

  That is, of course, when they choose to come at your call.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

  “SNOT ROCKETS, KAYLIE!” ARCHER EXCLAIMED. “THAT’S the best news I’ve heard in a long time.”

  She leaped into his arms and squeezed like a grizzly bear. Well, like a grizzly cub. “Isn’t it great?” Kaylie asked, snuggling under Archer’s chin. “We’ll have Dad back and Buster and Amy and—”

  “Didn’t you ’ear me, Keaton?” Rigby asked. “I said it’s not all good news.”

  Archer put Kaylie down. “Kaylie, I want to hear all about the magnets and Rift-fixing, but uh . . . maybe I should hear the bad news first.”

  Kaylie stuck out her bottom lip. “Kara took Nick,” she said.

  “I tried to get ’im back,” Rigby explained. He stared at the floor. “But Kara was too strong.”

  Archer’s eyes narrowed. He’d heard stories like this from Rigby before. “You mean you conveniently left Nick?”

  “That’s not fair, Keaton,” Rigby growled. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see what Kara could do.”

  “Rigby took on Kara so Uncle Scovy and I could escape,” Kaylie said. “If it weren’t for Rigby, I’d have been caught too.”

  “Kara’s that strong?” Archer asked, blinking. “Even compared to us? Even with all the extra power we have due to the Rift?”

  Rigby sneered. “It’s galling, actually,” he said. “I don’t know what she’s gotten into, but she’s ten times stronger than she ever was.”

  Ten times?The thought hit Archer like an ice ball to the temple. How’d she get so strong?

  Doc Scoville darted out from a corner of the lab. “Ah, Archer’s back at last!” he said. “You couldn’t have come at a better time. We’re about to run the test!”

  Archer was lost again. “What test?”

  “Well, Anchor Protocol, of course,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “The test of tests, heh-heh.”

  “I helped name it,” Kaylie said, beaming. “C’mon.”

  As Kaylie led Archer into another wing of the lab, Archer couldn’t help feeling a little surreal. He and Kaylie were walking side by side with Rigby Thames and Doc Scoville, known in the Dream as the Lurker. Betrayals, failures, lies
, destruction—so much of it due to the actions of these two. And yet here I am playing friendly again,Archer thought. I won’t get fooled this time. Never again.

  In the next room were more monitors, these humming with graphical motion. Servers lined the right-hand wall, with some kind of glassed-in workshop on the left.

  “Take a seat,” Doc Scoville said.

  The four of them rolled their chairs over to the center monitor. It was running some kind of split-screen application, but Archer couldn’t make heads or tails of any one of the screens.

  “Ready for the test?” Doc Scoville asked anxiously.

  “Wait,” Archer said. “You need to catch me up a little bit first. All I know is that it has to do with magnets.”

  Doc Scoville looked crestfallen. “But the test?”

  “It’s okay, Uncle,” Rigby said. “We just need to back up a little for Keaton ’ere.”

  Doc Scoville frowned and nodded reluctantly.

  “Okay, Keaton,” Rigby said. “So this started when Kara and I were running Dream Inc. out of the Antietam Creek Building . . .”

  “Back when you were selling Lucid Walking trips to the highest bidders?” Archer asked. “And tearing holes in the Dream fabric? Is that what you mean?”

  Rigby folded his arms across his chest. “Look, Keaton, are you just going to keep throwing cheap shots, or are you going to listen?”

  Archer didn’t answer but motioned for Rigby to carry on.

  With a slight shake of the head, Rigby explained, “Some of the customers tried to bring things back . . . back from the Dream. You know, a souvenir from the journey, that kind of thing? Thing is, whatever they brought back played ’avoc with our electronics. Didn’t matter if it was big as a pirate ship or as small as a gold doubloon, the thing was ultra-magnetized.”

  “Did anyone really bring back a pirate ship?” Kaylie asked.

  Rigby raised an eyebrow. “Uh, no, I was just saying . . . but they brought back plenty of other things. We didn’t know why they came out magnetized, but we were easily able to catch anyone who tried to smuggle something out. The magnetic field gave them away.”

  “So what’s this have to do with fixing the Rift?” Archer asked.

  “It’s all about electromagnetic fields,” Doc Scoville cackled. “I don’t know how we missed it all these years.”

  “Easy, Uncle,” Rigby said. He typed a few commands on the keyboard, and then took hold of something that looked like a flight simulator joystick. “Let’s prove we’re right first.”

  “Don’t you see, Archer?” Kaylie asked. “There’s a powerful magnetic force in the Dream.”

  “I get it,” he said. “But I still don’t get it.”

  “Don’t worry, Archer,” she said. “I didn’t get it either until we were snooping around in Kara’s research center. She had some machines and computer applications that I’d never seen before. But when I saw she was measuring magnetic fields, especially the strongest magnetic fields, I figured it out.”

  “Okay,” Rigby said. “So watch the screen.” Rigby’s fingers flew on the keyboard, and a wire-frame representation of the earth appeared.

  At least, Archer thought it was the earth. Dotted-line rings circled the planet, like the planet Saturn. But not quite, these rings passed in and out of the planet’s mass. Rigby kept typing, and two points appeared.

  “Know what these are?” Rigby asked.

  Archer guessed, “North and South Poles?”

  “Close,” Rigby explained. “These are the magnetic North and South Poles, distinct from the geographical poles, y’know, like the actual locations South Pole and North Pole on the map. Heh-heh. Santa’s place, right? The geographical poles don’t move, but the magnetic poles do. And these circles are the electromagnetic fields of the earth as they normally are. Now watch this.”

  He clicked a few more buttons. Archer blinked at the screen. There were a lot more dotted-line circles, but these were horizontal.

  “Now this,” Rigby said, “is earth after the Rift. Right now, as a matter of fact.”

  “I—I—I don’t understand what I just saw,” Archer admitted. “It looks like there are two more magnetic poles, only the two new ones are going east and west.”

  “No, no, you got it,” Rigby said. “Don’t you see? The Rift gave us new poles.”

  “Yes, yes,” Doc Scoville said. “And this is the very thing we need to test. We’ve just gotten the data in to run a simulation.”

  “What data?” Archer asked.

  “Fluctuations in the earth’s electromagnetic field. Fluctuations over the last two years, leading up to the Rift,” said Doc Scoville.

  Archer sat up rigidly. “You mean since you started Lucid Walking?”

  Rigby didn’t say anything, but he nodded slowly.

  “Run it, Rigby,” Doc Scoville urged.

  “Roger that,” he replied, his fingers rippling over the keyboard like a pair of frenzied spiders. He clicked once more. “And ’ere we go.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  THREE DAYS

  ARCHER STARED AT THE SCREEN. HE WASN’T ENTIRELY sure what he was looking for. The digital earth appeared once more, the magnetic North and South Poles looking pretty much as before, the rings circulating north and south. Then, just a few seconds in, the North and South Poles appeared to shift. It was more of a wobble, Archer thought, the rings shifting a little one way and then the other.

  “How much time is passing?” Archer asked.

  “A week per second,” Rigby said.

  The magnetic fields of the digital earth continued to waver. A few seconds passed. Then the whole screen flickered.

  “Wait!” Archer said. “Did you see that?”

  “Back it up three weeks, Rigby,” Doc Scoville said.

  Rigby did. “Oh, now that is peculiar,” he said.

  There had been a rogue fluctuation. A new ring of electromagnetic energy had formed for just a moment.

  “Point of origin?” Doc Scoville asked. “Looks like the UK.”

  Rigby clicked away. “Glasgow, Scotland.”

  Archer frowned, something itching at the back of his mind, but nothing he could identify.

  Rigby pulled up a picture within the main screen. “This field,” he said, “will monitor for similar magnetic spikes.” He tapped a few keys. “Going forward now.”

  Archer lost count of the rogue spikes, but became mesmerized by the way the north and south fields were bouncing. One minute they were steady. The next, the graphic looked like a Slinky bent in half.

  “Getting into this past autumn,” Rigby said. “That’s . . . that’s just incredible. The movement . . . so far.”

  “There!” Doc Scoville said, pointing.

  The east and west fields made their first appearances. They flickered and were gone, but in a few seconds they returned . . . and they remained. More and more rings appeared. They too began to wobble violently. Then there was a flash, and the screen froze.

  Archer asked, “What happened?”

  No one answered right away. Doc Scoville knelt to give Kaylie a high five, and then he yanked Rigby out of the chair and hugged him.

  “What?” Archer groused. “You wanna tell me what’s going on?”

  “There’s still a chance,” Doc Scoville said.

  “I think Kaylie’s plan will do it,” Rigby said.

  “But we haven’t much time,” Doc Scoville said. “Reverse the algorithm. Reduce the frequency and go from the Rift to this very moment.”

  “Right,” Rigby said, leaping back into his chair. “On it.”

  Archer was fit to be tied. “Would someone please tell me—”

  “Shhh!” Rigby, Doc Scoville, and Kaylie cut him off.

  Another data field appeared on screen. As the digital earth’s EM fields jumped around, the numbers rolled on the new field. Then it all stopped again.

  The number field read:

  78:24:46:02

  “How long is that?” Doc Scoville asked. “
I’m too excited. I can’t think straight, heh-heh!”

  “It’s a little over three days,” Rigby said, his tone much soberer than a moment ago.

  “That’s a tight window,” Doc Scoville grumbled. “I still have so many tests. We’ll have to factor in travel. There’s so much to do, and just three days . . .”

  “It matches up with Old Jack,” Archer muttered, leaping from his chair and trotting to the lab’s nearest window. “Yup! Three days left, and it looks like to the minute.”

  “Old Jack?” Rigby echoed thoughtfully. “The clock tower you Dreamtreaders use, kind of like Big Ben in London, right?”

  “Yup, yup,” Kaylie agreed.

  Doc Scoville looked up from a notepad filled with calculations. “But I thought that was only in the Dream.”

  “It just showed up again,” Archer explained. “But it’s keeping time differently. Not hours, but days.”

  “How peculiar,” Rigby said, squinting. “And it’s at three days? Like the chronometer?”

  Archer nodded, returning to his seat.

  “Where does the clock—Old Jack—where does it come from?” Rigby asked.

  “I don’t know actually,” Archer replied. “Master Gabriel has never said.”

  “Not in the Creeds either,” Kaylie said. “Not the cause of it anyway.”

  Rigby shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Is it like Dreamtreader will, maybe something out of your subconscious?”

  Archer shrugged. “Like I said, I don’t know.”

  Doc Scoville looked up from his calculations. “Has it . . . has Old Jack ever steered you wrong? You know, showed the wrong time or . . . uh . . . put you in danger?”

  “No,” Kaylie said emphatically, drawing out the word. “Never.”

  “Why so interested in Old Jack?” Archer asked. “It’s harmless.”

  “Well,” Doc Scoville said, “whatever it is, it managed to survive the Rift.”

  Save for the quiet hum of the servers, the laboratory went silent. Archer had never really given much thought to Old Jack. The old clock was pretty much a part of the scenery of the Dream, a landmark like the Empire State Building or Mount Rushmore. The fact that Dreamtreaders could always see Old Jack no matter how far away it was—well, that was strange. But then again, so was most of what happened in the Dream.