System Seven (33 page)

“Pons, those are
thoughts
.
Hardly the same as
dreaming.”

“You think not? Many
of the same components are in play. People interact with their meta store and
throw things on the stage, in a bubble. They are lucid dreaming without
realizing it. I am going to teach you to hijack the stage.”

He stumbled over the
implications until they culminated in one unavoidable realization: he was
talking mind control.

“You’re going to teach
me? Now?” he asked.

“I am going to try.
You must make the proper leaps.” Pons blinked several times before continuing.
“Now, there is a benefit to being right next to someone you want to drag into a
dream. It takes most of the work out of it, provided you know what you are
doing. Distance is a factor for most. For me it is.” A butterfly flew in the
window, fluttered in a circle, and left through the doorway. “You extend right
into their meta flow, but quietly. Do a little number with the local loop, at
the brain stem. Some call it ‘planting the tree’ or ‘setting base camp’. Then
you enter the droichid and follow their flow into Saoghal.”

The window panes
seemed more orange than yellow. Probably the angle of the sun.

“Once there, you spawn a dream via their meta,
one that perfectly matches the grid around them. You do this by using fresh
physical data from the meta stream in the local loop. Their eyes, their ears –
every sense flows in meta, giving you the ingredients to create the stage. You
can imagine the dexterity this involves, yes? It takes practice, lots of
practice. You must be careful, so they don’t detect it, so they are not
distracted by the act of constructing it.”

The drapes began to
sag, lengthening on the rods.

“And then once built,
once synchronized, you will have slipped your dream over the top of their
reality. A joining. A merging.” He paused, eyeing him. “You are doing quite
well in the realization that you’re now dreaming lucidly. At this point, most
people become emotional. They feel disconnected from their body and are scared
to death of me or thinking they’ve lost their mind. But not you. I am
impressed. I should probably thank you for your restraint, because I imagine
you are holding back.”

“I am.” Glued to the
druid’s every word, he resisted trying to take control and focused instead on
what he’d just sensed. Just like
that
,
they were dreaming the druid’s dream. “How is this possible?”

“We daydream.”
Together
. Pons’ voice resonated in the
center of his mind. He resisted blocking it out.

“You’re not holding me
in this, are you?”

I was, but you feel it now, of course. You
could break it if you wanted but please don’t, not yet. I’ve wonderful teaching
tools here. Get comfortable now, and relax. Trust me.

Pons proceeded to
describe the technique to initiate dream control, coupling his words with
concepts born from thought. Learning this way made the knowledge familiar and
easier to transfer.

It is like a mini-dream unto itself, Johan. A
dream inside a dream. You form it and trust its validity, trust your sense and
the intended outcome. With practice, it will drive any dream. You understand?

He nodded.

Satisfied, Pons
continued aloud. “Now you have the concept of the local loop and how to
manipulate it. What I’m curious about right now is if you can break from this
dream. I’m going to harden it, clamp down as much as I can, and then see if you
can shake it off. Are you ready?”

He tried to nod but
couldn’t. The same paralysis from the cave dream had suddenly set in.

“Try to stand.”

Nothing responded from
head to toe, save for his eyes. His heart began to pound madly. Seconds passed.
Pons watched him.

In the cave, he’d
found an edge which led him to an entirely different scene. Such a move might
be dangerous here, considering the Comannda’s interest in him – plus, it was
too much like running away.
This
was
the dream he had to control. Instead of looking for an edge to tear at, he
searched for what was driving the dream: the spout, the source.

Under intense
scrutiny, a difference between waking and dreaming became apparent. Aside from
the melting curtains, the color changing windows, and now the thousands of ants
burrowing up from the flattened carpet, the dream version of the old man’s
house held an underlying evanescence, as if the room might shift under the
right circumstances, might
give.

But how to push?

Edward’s insistence on
imagination’s importance led to the solution. Pons had explained exactly how to
drag someone into a dream: extend across the grid into their meta stream and up
to their meta body to spawn a dream. That meant
he
was the inadvertent dreamer in his own meta body. That fact
revealed a transcending lucidity that he snapped to instantly. A veil lifted
and he woke from the dream. The windows were a proper nicotine yellow, curtains
at normal length, the carpet free of insects.

The old druid smiled.
“Bien. Très bon! The best kind of student. Now, I will do it again but then I
will go a step further and bridge to another dream hosted by an associate. A
transfer, you see? You will then be a guest in
her
reality and when she hardens it, you will become twice the
prisoner. Try to wrest control from her.”

Johan nodded and
studied the carpet. A chance to beat him at the game
.
If he could detect the druid’s initial incursion into his
awareness, there’d be a chance at figuring out his entire method.

It came as a delay, a
ripple in time. Tiny, subtle, and nothing after – it had to be the druid.
Locked onto the knowledge of an intrusion, just the fact of it, he became
supremely lucid in the moment, waiting to act.

Pons’ expression grew
serious. He rolled his toothpick idly between his teeth but otherwise sat
still, pensive. The surf crashed beyond the yard, a punctuation in time. A
breeze stirred the chimes and swirled dust motes through sunbeams. The moment
drew long with all the elements of a standoff.

Pons nodded in a
gesture of acquiescence. “I think I need my pipe.” He stood and walked to his
desk.

The druid remained
there in his flow. Without knowing what to feel or what to look out for,
instinct led the watch.

Pons loaded his pipe
and tamped the tobacco. He appraised him with a critical eye. “You know, if
everyone had the uncommon awareness you do, we would either be well on our way
to a brighter future or digging our own graves. Of course, it is the former we
aim for.”

“How many can do
this?”

“At this level? Only a
handful. Until now, perhaps.”

“Why? And why can I?”

Pons shrugged. “It is
what makes us different.”

“Did they think you
were the Change?”

“At one time I was
considered a candidate, yes. Same with the others.”

Johan looked around
the room. “You don’t leave this place, do you?”

“Rarely. I am all too
familiar with our beloved space rock. Dreams, now, they are worthy of
exploring. New and meaningful. Tied to the underpinnings of mankind and thus to
the future.”

Johan nodded,
unwilling to relinquish his post. Something began to reveal itself. A sense of
otherness.
Too nebulous to isolate, it
sought to bury itself in his common, everyday sense of self – he would soon
lose track of it. Pons was on the move.

A memory surfaced of
gold panning in Switzerland with his parents. Sifting out ordinary rock in the
hopes the heavier gold would remain. Still bearing strict attention, he did
just that and let the ordinary fall away, as he had when fleeing Amsterdam.

Like a tiny hidden
nugget, Pons’ awareness was revealed within his own, the druid’s meta stream
waiting to be followed. He wasted no time and shot straight into it, a nearly
instantaneous trip into Pons’ local loop. There he found a busy junction of
energy, thought, and emotion – a truly well oiled, if chaotic, machine.

Three things happened
almost at once: Pons raised a block, Johan effectively denied the block, and
then Johan stalled, an oversized sumo sitting atop his opponent without
knowledge of the rules of the game.

“Are you sure you haven’t
done this before? Please be careful.” Pons sat down at his desk and slowly lit
his pipe.

“How can this be?” he
asked. “We aren’t daydreaming now, and we’re not asleep.”

“There are levels of
consciousness that most people keep, or acknowledge. A convention, if you will.
You and I are breaking from that convention. ‘Heavily blurring it’ is a better
description because reality is anamorphic. We’re raised to experience it in
linear, unimaginative ways because that’s the most effective and comfortable means
to build and tightly control societies. As you can see, there is so much more
to life and perception.” Smoke streamed from the pipe. “Now, since you’re here,
see if you can trace to my core. The meta flow might seem thicker the nearer
you get, if that helps.”

That he’d managed his
awareness so long and even held the druid at bay felt like an accomplishment,
as if he’d beaten a wizard at a game of spells. Still so much to learn, though.
The druid’s meta stream flowed more dense in one direction, awaiting only his
intention to join it. He hesitated at the thought of crossing into Saoghal.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained...

Arrival happened as a
gunshot – in an instant, hundreds of years of memories and emotions assaulted
him, a vast catalog of human knowledge and wisdom bound by an overwhelming love
of existence and thirst for survival. One could easily drown trying to absorb
even a portion of it. However, a sense of duty stood out powerfully; a duty to
the Family first, then to all of humanity, to the entire planet, and to –

“Okay – deep stab,
that. Quite piercing. That’s all you need right now,” Pons said quickly,
jolting him back in a one-two punch of unexpected imagery and bland, blocking
emotion.

He went to catch a
glimpse of what else Pons was duty-bound to but the druid was in the way,
protective and defensive of those memories, of something bigger. He yielded in
respect.

Pons redirected the
moment into something positive. “Unless you care to try to spawn a dream from
my meta.”

The challenge eased
the moment and engaged curiosity. Several concepts of how to do it came and
went, all of which proved useless. Again, he remembered Edward’s discourse
about imagination. At once an idea came, simple and powerful:
start imagining
. Fully centered in Pons’
meta, he imagined a street in Berlin. A world flickered into being, was gone,
and then reappeared with a steady push. They stood on a snow-lined street
outside a bar, the night air biting-cold. Two women under a covered patio
smoked and talked. Music thumped from a nearby club. Pons looked around and
nodded.

“You have it. You are
a natural, Johan. There’s more to learn, but at this rate, you won’t have much
homework.”

To map out a course of action and follow it to an end
requires some of the same courage

that a soldier needs.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803 - 1882, American Poet, Essayist

An autumn-tinged
evening descended on the London burb of South Lambeth. Brick row houses lined
Killyon Street. Streetlamps reflected from shiny hoods and windshields of cars
parked along the curb. A half a dozen youngsters perched on a low wall. Their
voices rose and fell, lost in the sounds of traffic and trains running the
nearby line. The 8:45 from Brixton rumbled into Wandsworth Road station.

Sean sat on the porch
steps of the flat chewing jerky with a beer in hand. A couple walked a pair of
French poodles past. The woman gabbed of adulterous intrigue in the
neighborhood while the man looked as leashed as the dogs and far less enthused.
A cab drove by, too fast for the narrow lane.

A few minutes later
Sean stood, timing it. A swig of beer. A bite of jerky. Again a swig. He
glanced left and saw a second couple turn the corner. Austin and Anki arrived
right on time.

“Evenin’, mates,” he
said as they approached. “Party’s on the inside.”

Johan banked the cue
ball and struck the nine into a corner pocket.

“Well played.” The old
man shook his hand. “I suspected you
were a shark.”

“Thanks for not
cheating.”

Anki entered the
sunroom-turned-billiards hall and went directly to Johan. They embraced,
kissing.

Soldado looked up from
his notes. “Looks like we’re all here.”

Austin stood in the
doorway. “Bloody fine evening for a
shindig, but why the rat’s hole?”

The old man brushed
past him. “Blending, is all.” He wore an untucked dress shirt over jeans and
the face of an old Italian. It had to be Edward. “Congratulations, by the way.
I knew you’d push the boundaries.”

“I had a good coach,” Austin
said, indicating Sean.

“Just pointed you, is
all,” he replied.

After dinner, Sean
drew crimson drapes closed in the sitting room and turned up the radio. Anki
helped pass around glasses of wine.

The flat brimmed with
secondhand store furniture. A worn couch and mismatched Morris chairs filled
the narrow room. Poorly hung track lighting lit the room along with a pair of
buffet lamps on battered end tables. The stale odors of past fraternity parties
mixed with the berry-scented candles Anki had found in a hallway drawer.

A laptop rested on a
coffee table with a fist-sized cube plugged into it. Anki took a seat between
Johan and Austin on the couch.

“Thank you, Anki.” Edward
raised his glass. “Now, a toast to each of you, for the progress you have made
is historic.”

They all drank.

“Johan, your power in
the dream state has never been seen before. Austin, your affinity with the grid
will change things in ways we cannot yet imagine. We are grateful for your
alignment and have already learned much from you. Soldado, your insights into
frequency channeling and distributed associative encryption resequencing may
well be the breakthrough needed to gain a beachhead on their communications.
Mr. Lathrop has only the highest praise for the way your mind works. And Anki,
your finely tuned empathic sense will continue to guide us, your very presence
a reassurance that we are on the right path. Believe it.”

“Okay, Edward, why the
buttering up?” Soldado said, smiling. “What’s the meeting about?”

“Time is pressing on
an issue of great importance. Our immediate action is necessary. You may
consider this your first commission.”

Sean clicked the
lights off. The cube shot an image to the wall. The face of a Japanese man in
his sixties stared into the room.

“Yukitake Sakuma,
oyabun of the largest yakuza crime family in the world, the Ookami-shita. As
godfather, his expansionist policies brought him power and wealth far in excess
of any of his predecessors. They bring in billions of dollars a year from
extortion, gambling, guns, drugs, real estate and more. Stock market
manipulation, internet porn, construction kickback schemes, they do it all. A
significant amount of that wealth is due to work done in the digital
territories. Soldado, I’m sure you’re familiar with the yakuza’s ‘digital
warriors’.”

He nodded. “The
Dejitaru. Pure digital. We’ve contracted with individuals and small cells.
Mostly bag jobs on tight databases or proof of concept threats. Some thrash
attacks and data drills. They’re expensive but we’ve used them on Asian targets
because they know associations and routes in that part of the world. They move
like light through glass, even in Chinese space. That’s why they’re expensive
to get.”

Edward glanced at the
oyabun’s image. “Sakuma’s Dejitaru bring him great wealth, a wealth he wisely
shares with them. Out of the estimated forty thousand members in the
Ookami-shita, as many as four thousand are Dejitaru. Compare that to your five
hundred in the Underground and you get an idea of what they are capable of. Our
interest in their operations recently uncovered this man,” the screen split to
display the photo of a white male in his forties, slim with an intelligent face
but otherwise unremarkable, “a Comannda Group 2 agent. He greases the wheels of
the unwashed masses, influences thought processes, and uses money and other
incentives to secure cooperation. To make agreements with the yakuza in this
manner is expected, as they tend to honor them when made face to face. Getting
Sakuma’s commitment saves them the task of manually driving lesser bosses from
behind the scenes. He is one of a few we have ferreted out and are trying to
keep track of.”

“What’s he up to?”
Johan asked.

“He’s been working on
Sakuma to bring him into a deal he’s resistant to. Encounters are shielded, any
and all observation blocked. When he’s alone, we sense Sakuma is disturbed at
the proposal, but we can’t get in to learn the details and he speaks to no one
of it.”

“He’s been muddled.”
Sean added. “Active shielding in the grid and in Saoghal. We could only skim
stray emotions and watch, ready if they slip up.”

“During a recent
meeting they did. We pressed in. What little was harvested suggests involvement
in a local operation with worldwide implications.”

Sean picked it up.
“Interpreted, we see the Dejitaru running concerted net attacks against the US
and EU. Likely infrastructure with extra emphasis on financials. Why this
bothered the godfather so much isn’t clear. It implies he didn’t trust the
proposal or he doesn’t like what the attacks would bring about. This yakuza
connection may yield the best intelligence of what they’re planning.”

The slide changed to
an image of a nearly destroyed black luxury sedan.

“The Comannda’s need
for the Dejitaru must be timely and great. This morning the oyabun was involved
in a car wreck. Before they could finish him off, bràthair interceded and stole him into a dream. The bond to his body is
thin but he may still make it provided the body is maintained. If the godfather
dies now, the syndicate falls to his son, Ukita, whom we know is willing to do
whatever the Comannda wants. This must be delayed, at least until we know
more.”

Austin asked, “If you
have him in the dream why haven’t you figured what it is?”

Edward shook his head.
“Attempts at forcing lucidity have failed. Which is why we need you, Johan, to
assume the dream. You may be able to do what others have not, as well as ward
off attempts to recapture him. As for his body, his wife managed to install an
army of Ookami-shita warriors in and around the hospital to protect her
husband. It won’t be enough. The Comannda will be enraged at our involvement
and will act soon.” He turned to Austin. “You leave for Tokyo tonight. We want
you in place to help protect Sakuma.”

“You’re serious?” Austin
asked. “What can I do that his warriors can’t, besides maybe get myself
killed?”

“Sounds dangerous,”
Johan agreed. “Why the risk?”

“Because what we do
requires risk and he has to start somewhere. From a field position, he’ll be
surrounded by positively aligned forces. The Confrere have assigned
anti-terrorist units to the hospital so risk is low. Training means nothing if
you don’t apply it.” Edward stood and
paused, taking in the three on the couch. “Anki, you’ll go with him, as a traveling
companion. You’ll gain field experience and help further with his
self-discovery.”

The idea didn’t set
well with Johan but he kept silent.

“Anki is uniquely
qualified to help Austin. A cab will arrive in a few minutes.” It rang with
finality. “Soldado, Mr. Lathrop wants to use this time as a sampling of their
communications net using your hypothesis. I think you’ll appreciate what he’s
setting up.”

The flat’s door stood
open, a cab visible at the curb. Anki sat in the back, having said her goodbye
with Johan. A chorus of crickets subsided in the nearby shrubbery as Edward and
Austin stepped out onto the porch.

He turned to regard
Edward, who nodded.

“Go on, Austin. Out
with it.”

“Yes, I’ll say it.
You’ll use Johan for this but not for Kaiya? At what point do you think it
becomes anything less than cruel? If you’re holding back, do me a favor and
tell me now. Is she really gone?”

“I’ve withheld nothing
since you dreamt. I simply do not know. I give you my word, Austin, we will use
him to find her. This assignment will be a test. If he can operate safely on
Sakuma’s behalf, we’ll know Kaiya will be safer when he goes to look for her.
It is the right order for the circumstances. That’s all I can offer.”

He looked away. A
cricket dared a chirp. The sweet scent of honeysuckle on the night air took him
back home to evenings with Kaiya, to dinners on the patio, lying out looking at
the stars under the pines, and watching television with the windows open. He
ached to hold her again. It was torturous to think she might be gone forever.

“Austin. There is no
randomness, nor is there chance. Trust things are evolving as they should, with
our understanding or without. Go now with Kaiya in your heart and a love of the
mystery and the power you are joining with. You will find what you need. You
will be complete.”

There was nothing to
say to that. It was in the old druid’s eyes, the truth of his words. To protest
would create weakness at a time when strength was needed. He could only
continue to trust – in Edward, in the Runa Korda, in the universe.

The druid offered his
hand and he shook it before leaving to join Anki.

From the porch, Edward
watched the cab pull away and disappear down the lane. Long moments passed
before the crickets resumed their song – hesitant at first, then with growing
confidence.

• • •

Johan stood on a
raised dais in a room that stretched a hundred yards in all directions.
Slate-gray walls and floors offered no texture for the eye, nothing to
distract. On the dais were two chairs. Tom sat in one, Sakuma in the other, looking
upward as if at the stars.

“You’re in, thank
Christopher,” Tom said. “Feel ‘em? They’re trying to distract me and draw him
away. It may not look like it but I’m doing the equivalent of a wind sprint
here–” An apparition of a mother figure appeared before Tom. “Uh, see, it’s
hard to talk and control at the same time when you’re the center of so much
attention.” Tom’s exertion was plain, even in the dream. “I’m the second
handler. We almost lost him in transfer from the first. They want him bad and
are teaming up. We’ll be outnumbered soon. Look, here’s the deal. He... he
thinks he’s on the shores of the Pacific, stargazing with his buddy from the
army.” Sakuma muttered something. “He hasn’t been lucid yet, which is bad
because he’s not making much sense – hold on.”

Tom turned to the
muttering old man. “Eh, Sakuma? I can’t hear you.”

“I said the night will
tell if we get off the island or not,” he looked over his shoulder, right
through Johan. “I swear they are closer now.”

“No, no, they are
still in the cages. Relax Sakuma, the tigers can’t hurt you. Think of other
things. I still want to hear about the job the American wanted you to do. Relax
and tell me about that.”

The crime lord shook
his head and sighed as if he’d not heard.

“Same thing I get,
every time. Tough nut. It’s time to transfer him to you. I heard you did well
in practice so this should be cake.” A gurgling roar echoed from the distant
walls. “Uh, okay, I’ll set the path, you just need to follow it. The moment you
reach the door and open it, it’s all you. They are bound to be all over him, so
you’d better be good about slappin’ ‘em down. It’s both our butts, you know?
You can use this as a template or do whatever you want. I’m going to scram.
They’ve got enough vibe from me to nail me to the cross, I think. And the door
is a push, not a pull. Questions?” He was eager to dump out. “No? Okay.” He
nodded to the left where a stone path appeared and ran all the way to a door in
the far wall, a football field away.

Johan took a few
strides and stopped, looking back. “Um, any way you could...?”