Charlie~~
I take Tye's and Avery's hands as Ricky takes my sister's. My heart thundering, I nod to Raymond and Nora who I will be returning for and rift the four of us into a supply closet in the dream's headquarters. They let go of my hands, and I notice Tye's are shaking while he double checks that his mask is tight around his nose and mouth.
Before I leave them, I sweep for the auras of any cameras, destroying them for as far as my mind will reach. That's only a few halls over.
They each have their weapons ready, and I take a brief moment to commit the three of them to memory. I'm not close with any of them—I know Tye far better than my sister—but in the few days that I've been working with them, they've all become friends to me. They're the people I'm trusting with my freedom. "Raise hell," I say and rift back to the Den.
Nora's pacing across the room, wringing her hands, Raymond no longer around. Seeing me, she stops. "Ready?"
In answer I hold out my hand, and she adjusts her mask before placing her palm in mine. My fingers tightening around her hand, I pull her close. "Let's see the world, Nora."
I rift us into the hallway where the control room is located. We're about twenty feet away from the room. The fabricated reality wouldn't let me get any closer. As Nora disables any cameras that aren't in the bounds of the fabricated reality, I head for the door and punch in the code needed to gain access.
From another part of the building, I hear shouting and gunfire.
It's just a dream, I tell myself. They can't be killed.
The door slides open, and Nora heads for the wall to the left where the holoscreen that houses the programs we need is located while I close the door. The holoscreen is as tall as her, and there are smaller holoscreens lining the walls throughout the room.
She sets to work, and I feel utterly useless with my racing heart and shaking hands and arms. Until she unweaves the fabricated reality, I can't destroy the cameras and mics in here. The only protection we have are our masks, which won't stump Dad or his employees long. The only weapons I have until I can manipulate the dream are my hands and legs. Maybe my head if I'm feeling particularly masochistic.
Outside, the shouting grows louder as if it's getting closer, and there is the sound of boots thudding against the floor.
Nora's hands fly over the screen, she doesn't falter, she doesn't hesitate. She practiced again and again with Raymond and me for this exact moment. Even a lost fraction of a second could cost us everything. Our memories, our lives, our bodies.
The door starts to slide open, and I jam my fingers onto the keyboard, trying to halt it. The door pauses, only open a few inches, but through it is the face of a guard, his gun aimed inside the room.
"Now!" Nora shouts.
I imagine the ground opening up and swallowing him. He drops into it as he fires, the bullet missing me and ricocheting off a metal desk across the room.
Closing the door, I step to the side as Nora, gun in hand, runs over, ready to cover for me. There are crackles and zaps in the air as she destroys the cameras and mics observing us. I reach deep into my mind, pulling at the threads of the details for the loop that will wake the master dreamer. I've already created the loop in my mind. I just need to breathe life into it.
In my head, I can see the form take shape, tall, slender, but faceless. The clothes are simple, jeans, a t-shirt. I don't have time to put anymore thought into them than that.
Nora breathes in sharply, and my eyes fly open, thinking she's hurt, but my eyes land on the woman before me, and I realize the reason for the sound she made.
Before me is my mom, the face that my subconscious has always seemed to favor. Her long red hair hangs over her shoulder. Her green eyes seem far away, as if she's looking into another place, another time. She turns from me, heading for the holoscreen, starting the loop.
I hear the door open behind me, and it shakes me back to reality. Nora forces the door to close, and a desk, simple and unadorned, appears in front of her to block the way into the room. It won't stop them for long.
Replacing the desk with a bookcase that surpasses the height and width of the door and weighted down with books, I swipe the back of my hand across my forehead. That might keep the guards out, but at any moment, scientists will be falling asleep so they can appear in this room. Once they get a good enough look at us, they'll be able to report who we are and have their colleagues wake us up.
Nora's shoulders slouch for only a second before she straightens, her hand tightening around her gun in preparation for what's to come. I spare a glance at the anima of my mother working to wake up Nora's dad. What of Tye, Ricky, and Avery, my sister? Have they been woken up? Were they hit by the bullets that I heard fired? Are the guards watching them while they bleed? Neither Ricky nor Avery are Class Ones. They can't heal themselves. Tye isn't even Lucid.
Nora looks around, her face drawn tight. "Where are they?" She means the scientists.
"I don't know."
No matter where the trio is, they seem to have done their job, and created a damn good distraction.
The bookcase shutters as something slams into it, the books shifting forward, some falling to the ground, papers rustling. Nora reinforces it with another bookcase just as a female scientist appears beside her.
My heart skips a beat. Here they come.
Nora places her hand on the woman, and in a second, they both disappear.
She'll be fine. She'll be fine. Repeating that to myself, I cross the room toward the anima, her hands going through the loop as they tap the holoscreen.
Two more scientists appear, and I let the ground swallow them up.
Nora rifts back into the room, alone this time. "The void," is all she says before heading for the door where the bookcases shift with each hit from the guards. She keeps glancing at the two holes I created. No sounds come from them, and it's likely the scientists have woken themselves up and will be back as soon as they can fall asleep again.
And then Dad appears. Standing in the middle of the room, his eyes narrow at us. He looks haggard as if he woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Shaking his head, he steps forward, bringing himself closer to both of us. "Of course, it's you two." A mask can't hide a son from his father.
I start to imagine the floor opening up—
"So sorry I'm late," he says to Nora. "Your friend held me up." His words shatter the image I was conjuring in my mind. He swings his head in my direction. "Not your little sister," he says to me. "Rest assured my children are dealing with her."
Avery.
"Radia," Nora breathes.
"Apparently my son's been consorting with everyone behind my back."
I never told Radia what we were planning . . . The ground rumbles—Nora's doing—but Dad remains steady.
He smirks. "I spend so much time around people like you. Did you really think I wouldn't shield myself?" My eyes widen. He's programmed fabricated reality around himself. My mind racing, I try to pin down a way to delay him from waking us up.
"I've rifted with you," I say. If there was fabricated reality around him, I wouldn't have been able to rift him.
He shrugs, and in the corner of my eye, I see Nora raise her gun.
"I choose when I want to have it."
Five scientists appear in the room before Nora can fire, and two move toward her, forcing her to switch her attention from Dad to them.
Dad shifts his eyes to the woman beyond me, finally paying her attention. His brows drawing together, he takes a step forward. "Is that—"
"Mom? No."
"But . . ." He walks toward her, and I feel my heart lurch. If he gets close enough, he can push her away from the holoscreen, no matter that she's on a loop. "You created her?"
"You've been so focused on Nora and what she might be able to do that you seemed to forget to wonder what I can do." I create a gun and step between him and my memory of my mom. "Though I can't say I wanted for anymore of your attention."
"What is she doing?"
I remain silent, the gun trembling in my hand, as he studies the screen.
His eyes narrow, and he rubs at his wrist. "Step aside, Charlie."
"No." My finger hovers over the trigger. Can I really shoot him? It's only a dream. It's not permanent. "You know this will feel real."
The ground cracks across the room as it opens up, taking with it the five scientists. Their screams ring out as they fall into the pit. In seconds, they'll wake themselves up.
Nora looks as if she could collapse from exhaustion as she turns toward us just as Dad says, "You're waking her father."
I tense. The anima should be almost done inputting the commands to wake the master dreamer.
"Whose father?"
"Yours."
Nora blinks. "What?"
Dad smiles at me. "I think it's time you wake up, Charlie." It's only now that I realize what he's done; when he rubbed at his wrists, he was turning on his watch. And then he spoke my name, telling whoever is listening on the other side to wake me.
Nora fires her gun, hitting Dad with a bullet. He stumbles forward, falling onto me, which causes me to crash into the anima of my mother, knocking her away from the holoscreen.
I don't have time to right the loop as the room disappears.
My bedroom ceiling comes into focus as my eyes open.
Kyle hovers above me. "What the hell is happening?"
We're getting so close to the end. Thank you to everyone who has read this far. I can't even begin to tell you how much it means to me.