ADAW 13/52 - Choice
This follows directly after the snippet over here, from “Shatter.” It’s long enough that it didn’t fit on Flickr, so it is over on my Livejournal. I don’t want to break it up any further because I want to force myself to write more! ;)
Also please note: trigger warnings for violence and fake suicide.
John woke in the dream to a white-gray sky, the wind buffeting his coat collar against his face. Alan stood next to him, hands in his pockets, his own coat whipping around his knees. John realized they were on a rooftop.
“In a dream, there is the dreamer and the subject. For leisure dreams, the person paying us is occasionally the dreamer, if they’re experienced and trusted and just want to do crazy worldbuilding stuff. If we’re doing an extraction, the person we’re fooling is the subject, and one of us is the dreamer,” Alan explained. He seemed impervious to the chilly breeze shifting John’s hair in and out of his face and stinging his eyes.
“What’s the difference?”
“The dreamer makes the world, which for extractions is usually some type of maze or obstacle course. The subject populates it.”
“Populates?”
“They fill it up. So if we make a maze with a safe in the middle, they put their most secret, private knowledge in the safe, since it’s the safest place. And they create the people. Which aren’t really people.”
“So the people who go into the dream are real, and the other ones aren’t?” asked John.
“Yes. The subject’s mind creates projections. Images of who their subconscious thinks should be in this area, whatever it is. Bits of their own subconscious, really. You could talk to them, if you wanted.”
“Why aren’t there any here?”
“We’re on a rooftop,” Alan said, painfully flat.
“That’s true. And, if you’re the dreamer, you made this rooftop?”
“Yes. And you’re not populating it, since you know that, logically, people aren’t supposed to be on rooftops. There are probably people on the street, if we looked down. And if I started to do strange things, alter the dreamscape, your projections would attack me, as your mind started to realize that you were dreaming.”
“What could you do to alter the dreamscape?” John asked.
“I could make this building taller, or shrink it, or build a bridge from here to the building across the road. That would gain the notice of the projections. I could imagine a zip cord and a harpoon gun, and shoot a line into the other building, which might not attract projections. I could invent flying cars or unicorns, but again, that would bring the projections.”
John stared out around him. The city seemed completely real. He could see cars in the streets below, yellow taxis and black sedans, junkers, every average type of car. He stepped nearer to the edge, though remaining a solid eight feet back, and peered down. A vendor was selling roasted nuts in front of the building across the street, and a woman in a brown jacket was buying some. She’s me, John thought, or a part of me. What would she say if I talked to her? Another gust of wind shoved his hair into his eyes again. “Why did you make it so cold?” John asked.
“It isn’t cold. You’re dreaming.”
“No, it’s cold. It’s windy and we’re thirty floors up at least. Even if it were hot it would be cold here.”
“Sensory perceptions are in your mind. Here,” Alan said, drawing a long, white paper package from his pocket. “Eat this.”
John took the package and opened it. It was a popsicle, bright red. “I’m already cold.”
“Bear with me a moment.”
Thinking perversely of high school, when popsicles had been an extremely popular thing to buy for girls at lunch, John stuck the end of the popsicle in his mouth.
“What flavor is it?” Alan asked.
“Cherry.”
“Do you like watermelon flavor?”
“No.”
“That’s why it’s cherry. I made the popsicle red, but your mind filled in cherry because you like it. Taste it again, and expect it to be watermelon.”
John gave the popsicle a tentative lick. “Ugh.”
“Taste it again, and know that you are dreaming.”
John shoved the end of the popsicle into his mouth. It tasted like cherry again. He felt himself frown around the stick as he looked at Alan.
“You are dreaming.”
As John sucked the popsicle, the color leeched out of the tip, just as it did in reality. But, slowly, he discovered that the taste didn’t exist anymore. It wasn’t water, or ice, or cold, and it certainly wasn’t cherry or watermelon.
“Are you still cold?” Alan asked.
John stood. His cheeks were cold. No, he thought, I am dreaming. He felt the weight of his coat on his shoulders, the hem flapping against the small of his back. He felt his watch band, snug around his left wrist. He felt his hair shifting against the back of his neck. He felt the wind on his cheeks again, but it wasn’t cold.
“Hey!” a voice shouted from the distance. “You’re not supposed to be up here!” A burly man in a navy jumpsuit was stepping out of the stairwell on the other side of the roof.
“Why did he show up?” asked John.
“By shutting down the sensory perceptions that your mind was automatically filling in, you’ve given your subconscious a clue that something isn’t right here.”
“What will happen when he gets over here?”
“Either we will convince him that we belong here, and he’ll leave, or he’ll attack me.”
“Why you?”
“It’s your subconscious. As the dreamer, I’m a stranger. Your mind will kick me out, sooner or later.” Alan paused. “This isn’t really much like the work you’ll be doing, though. Ideally, we should have a third person, with me as the dreamer and someone else as the subject. That’s more like what you’d be doing for us. But for now, I think we ought to switch to some situation where I’m the subject. That’ll give you experience with aggressive projections.”
“How do we get out of the dream?” John asked.
“We can wait for the timer to go off, we can be shaken awake by events in the real world, or we can die.”
“What? Die?”
“Do you ever die in a dream?” Alan asked.
John paused. “No, I suppose not.”
Alan reached out and handed him a gun, the same Beretta M9 he’d carried in the army.
“You know this is a bit perverse.”
Alan smiled, the first time John had seen him do so since he asked John if he had nightmares. “Do you ever have flying dreams?”
“No, never.”
Alan stepped onto the ledge of the building. The burly mechanic shouted, but John barely heard him. Alan stepped forward again, suddenly standing in thin air. John almost expected his legs to scramble, like Wile E. Coyote going over a cliff, but he remained perfectly steady, the wind stirring his tan trenchcoat just as it had when he’d stood on solid ground. Alan grinned again. “What I’m about to do, this is perverse.” He touched his forehead in salute to John, then dropped. John ran to the edge and stared down. The trenchcoat was on the sidewalk, surrounded by an expanding pool of blood.
“What the fuck was that?!?” The mechanic had finally reached John. “What the fuck are you doing up here?” John squinted, slowly perceiving that the man had the square, brutish face of his drill sergeant in basic training.
“Ha ha, subconscious. Very funny.” He looked at the handgun. “This is going to be awful,” he said, and shot himself in the head.
***
Ethan was playing a game on his phone as he sat over the silver machine that fed the IVs. “Back so soon?”
“I want to switch. Make John the dreamer.”
“Why don’t you hook Ethan up, and he can dream? You said three people is more like what the work would be.”
Ethan’s grin was sharklike. “You’re not ready for my subconscious, baby.”
“Ethan’s projections are… interesting. We think it’s a side effect of his previous long-term drug abuse, but we’re not willing to test on any other ex-junkies to find out.”
John stared. “This is what Claire did to you to get you off drugs?”
“People get high to escape, but who needs to escape when you can live for days in any world you can imagine for the low low cost of a few hours of sleep?”
“I see your point.”
“Anyway,” interjected Alan, “John. I want you to imagine a bank. Not a bank you know. One from a movie or something you made up. Picture the layout: where are the doors, the tellers, the safe and so forth.”
“Okay.”
“In a real job, we’d spend days, or even weeks, studying layout and architecture, and I’d be the dreamer, and we’d practice with Claire as the subject, or Jane.”
“Little Jane is in on this?”
“She only does practice runs and leisure jobs.”
“Oh, that’s clearly alright, then.”
“Anyway. Imagine the bank, and I’ll put something in the safe for you to retrieve. My subconscious will populate the bank, so it’s going to make guards and tellers as well as the customers in the bank. You have to plan a way to get to the safe and open it, without alerting my subconscious to the fact that I’m dreaming.”
“How far away from the bank can I go?”
“As far as you need to, as long as you’ve imagined it all out.”
“And if I imagine weapons caches, or trick stairs?”
“They’ll be there.”
“Give me a minute.” John closed his eyes. He pictured the bank in The Dark Knight. No, better not he thought, lest Alan’s subconscious recognize it and send in the Joker. There had been a commercial for TDBank that had Regis Philbin in it, when his grandmother had been in the hospital, every half-hour or so during the soap operas. A long counter of pink marble with tellers behind glass edged in gold. And a smaller desk in front, off to the side, with Regis and no glass. He put the safe behind the tellers, across a little hall from the bank manager’s office, and he decided the bank manager’s office had a front wall of glass, with the manager’s name and title in gold filigree. He put roads around the bank, and a Dunkin Donuts across the street, and a bag in the bathroom at the Dunkin Donuts. “Where will I start?”
“Wherever you put yourself, more or less.”
“Alright. I’m ready.”
***
John was in the bakery of the Dunkin Donuts. Oops. He turned around to face a short man in an orange and pink polo shirt. “Sorry! I thought this was the bathroom!”
“No, the bathroom has a picture of people on it. Like how bathrooms normally do. It even says RESTROOM. Go back out, it’s on the left.”
“Thanks!” He headed into the bathroom and bolted the outer door. The bag was just where he’d pictured it, under the sink, and everything he’d thought of was inside. He changed out of his clothes and into the jumpsuit in the bag, brown, with a logo of three red locks over the yellow text TRIPLEBOLT. He left the bathroom with the bag over his shoulder, and stood in line to get a coffee. Ugh, he thought at the first sip, completely tasteless and not even warm. I guess knowing you’re dreaming isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. Then he realized that the counter staff were all staring at him. And the man behind him in line. “Hot!” he said. Coffee tastes good. Coffee tastes good. The next sip tasted like coffee. Bad coffee, but coffee.
He exited the shop, and the bank was across the street where he’d expected it to be. He checked his watch. It was a few minutes after ten, so the bank would be open already. He headed in.
A pretty blonde stood at the side desk formerly manned by Regis Philbin. “Morning, miss. I’m here about the safe deposit boxes?”
“I’m sorry?”
“I spoke to the manager yesterday afternoon. Something about the guard key on the safe deposit boxes not functioning properly?”
“Oh. I don’t think he mentioned… hang on.” The woman picked up a phone on her desk, and John looked around. He could see the manager’s office, and the name on the window read, “Phil Regis.” Nice to know Alan caught on… though I pity him for having watched that amount of TV… But the lights in the office were clearly out.
The blonde looked up from her phone call. “Mr. O’Brian says he didn’t hear anything from the manager about the safe deposit boxes…”
“It might have been a bit after closing. Perhaps Mr. Regis didn’t have the chance to let his assistant manager know?”
She resumed her conversation quietly and, after a few more words, hung up. “Mr. O’Brian will escort you back.”
A redheaded man in a beige suit emerged from the back of the bank. “Good morning. I’m not sure what the problem was with the boxes, but we can walk back and take a look.”
“Sounds great,” John said, masking his concern. He’d hoped to get back to the safe deposit boxes without an escort. Normal safe deposit boxes required two keys to be opened, the bank’s and the owner’s. But he’d imagined safe deposit boxes that could be opened in large batches, by pulling the front open, like the cramped little mailboxes in an apartment building. Alan’s subconscious would surely recognize that the boxes weren’t normal, and John wasn’t sure how he was going to convince the assistant bank manager that this different system was all fine and dandy. Furthermore, if Alan’s subconscious knew that the boxes weren’t really safe, it might not have deposited there whatever John was supposed to be stealing.
“We keep boxes 515 and 516 for the bank, so I’ve got the owner’s key for those.”
“Let’s test those first,” John replied, following O’Brian back to the vault. He smiled at a young woman, who, at O’Brian’s word, hopped up from her desk and approached the vault door. Together, she and O’Brian spun the combinations on either side of the wide metal door. A heavy thunk indicated the successful entry of the combinations, and O’Brian pulled the door open.
Inside the vault was just as John had imagined it, wide enough that the near corners couldn’t be seen from outside the door. O’Brian drew out a long chain bearing three smaller keys and walked toward the middle of the wall of boxes. “This is 515,” he said. “What did you say the problem was?”
“I think it had to do with the master security lock.”
“The what?”
“Let’s live 515 a try. I’ll work the owner’s key?”
O’Brian gave him one of the small keys, still attached to the chain, and inserted another of the keys into the box. John put his own key in as well, and they turned both at the same time. The box opened. “So, what was the problem?” O’Brian asked.
“Well, the bank’s key is working well here. But Mr. Regis was having a problem with box…” he glanced toward the bottom of the rows, in the corner “One-thirty something. Could you try the bank’s key in a few of those locks?”
“Without the owner’s key, that won’t matter.”
“See if the key jams or anything. Perhaps some of the locks have been disturbed somehow.”
O’Brian looked skeptical, but moved down the row. “One-thirty, you said?”
“Yes,” John replied, reaching into his bag.
O’Brian had to kneel down to see the boxes clearly. “And I should just insert the bank’s key?”
“See if it will go in.”
As O’Brian inserted his key, John stepped behind him and slid a thin, silky cord around his neck. John tugged on the loose end, pushing the small loop almost into his hairline. O’Brian’s hands flailed at John for a few seconds, then he crumpled, soundlessly. John held the cord taut for almost a minute, kneeling over the body. “Sorry,” he said.
He didn’t have long before O’Brian’s absence was noticed, so he took his own set of keys and began unlocking the fronts of the boxes. Most of the boxes contained items that were patently irrelevant, like jewelry. But Alan hadn’t said what the hidden item would be. John assumed it would stand out, but he wasn’t sure how. He scanned each box, left to right, from the top row down, and didn’t locate anything out of the ordinary in the first set of boxes. He moved on to the second. Nothing again. In the third set of boxes, halfway down, he found an 8x12 color photograph of his own arm, wearing his own brown leather watch. That’s odd. It was what he’d seen when he’d pulled the IV out of his arm, but from a different perspective. The perspective of someone sitting across the room from him. Alan’s perspective. He flipped the photograph over, and on the back it read, HI JOHN. HAVING FUN?
John took a Beretta out of his bag and tucked it into the baggy pocket of his jumpsuit. O’Brian’s body was sprawled backwards on the floor. John moved one of the hands onto the stomach, and stepped out of the vault. “The assistant manager!” he said breathlessly to the woman outside the vault. “He just collapsed!” The woman didn’t reach for a phone, but rushed in herself, and John turned calmly and walked to the front of the bank.
Alan was sitting in the lobby, thumbing through a magazine, as calmly as if he were waiting to refinance his mortgage.
“Is this it?” John asked, holding up the photograph.
“No?”
“What! What the fuck?” John hissed.
“Wait, what’s on the back?” Alan asked.
“It says Hi John, having fun?” John said, passing it to Alan.
“That’s it then.”
“Good, because we need to get out of here.” Already a few customers were shooting John nasty glances. He started to make for the door, but Alan stopped him. “What?”
“We don’t actually need to leave.”
“Oh. Right.” John pulled the gun out of his pocket. “You first?”
“I’ll take care of myself.”
John rolled his eyes and put the Beretta to his head. Alan was staring at the picture as John pulled the trigger.
***
Ethan was bouncing in his seat like a kid on his parents’ bed Christmas morning when John opened his eyes. “How did it go?” he demanded.
“None of Alan’s projections killed me,” John replied.
“Good! That’s a good start,” Ethan said.
Alan opened his eyes as well, and pulled out his IV. “Not bad. You made a few rookie mistakes, but that’s to be expected.”
“Like what?”
“The safe-deposit boxes. Besides not having them work the way they’d work in life, there were too many of them. It could have taken you much longer to locate the correct one. A single safe inside the vault would have been better.”
“Oh,” John said. “I didn’t think of that.”
“Don’t worry about it!” Ethan said. “I’m sure you did great otherwise.”
“He did. He took out a projection in the middle of a crowded bank so smoothly none of the other ones even noticed.”
“Nice,” Ethan grinned, thumping John on the shoulder.
“Ow.”
“Shut up, that didn’t hurt. So is he hired?”
Alan looked at John. “Are you hired?”
John rubbed at the stiffness between his shoulders. “I guess…”
“Awesome!” Ethan shouted. “Let’s drink to that.”