The levtrain sped noisily, jerking back and forth through the towering buildings of the London Metroplex. Serah closed her eyes, trying to fight back the first signs of nausea and motion sickness. This only emphasized the roughness of the ride. She adjusted the environmental controls above her seat, hoping a bit of circulation would help, but was met with a warm, stale, humid flow of air that smelled of industrial fumes. She instantly became nauseous, trying to keep her eyes on the floor. This increased her awareness of the blurred cityscape streaking past the window beside her. The car was definitely moving too fast.
The confines of the dream seemed obvious this time, which made it no less disturbing. Part of her expected the train to jump off its guides and slam into an inconveniently placed building somewhere. As oddly as the dreamspinner had been behaving, it was still a sure bet that the dream had something horrifying and disastrous in store for her. She thought about what Flo had warned her: that much information should have driven her insane. Maybe it was already too late. Having a lucid dream under the influence of the dreamspinner was certainly not a positive sign. On the other hand, perhaps the dreamspinner had programmed this dream in such a way that she could finally gain some semblance of control over her subconscious and get some closure over the events of the past couple of days.
She sat back in her seat. Dream or not, the motion sickness was real. She debated waking herself, but thought better of it. It was probably best not to fight a temperamental dreamspinner. Just let it do its job, she thought, or at least what it thinks is its job. The machine was decades outdated, but it probably still knew more about her current state of mental health than she was qualified to diagnose.
She noted that the car was much like the ones she rode almost daily, except that it was noisier and devoid of color. Gone were the myriad advertisements and flyers, and the newsnet terminals on the backs of all the seats were dark and silent. She glanced down at the datapad in her lap. It was turned on, yet no matter what she did, the screen remained defiantly blank. The entire scene reminded her of a half-finished holopainting—all of the form but none of the details.
She was sitting in the last rear-facing seat on the starboard side window, as she almost always was on those days when she didn’t feel like socializing or being noticed by the billys that roamed the trains all day. As far as she could tell, the car had the correct number of seats, but none of them were occupied. She stood up and made her way through the right-side aisle toward the center doors, reasonably sure that if the car was out of control and headed for a collision, she would wake up at the moment of impact. If she knew it was a dream and kept focused on remembering it was a dream, it would minimize the chance of her going into shock or having a heart attack.
It was a dream. Wasn’t it?
Looking out the sealed exit doors, she saw the train was traveling on a narrow bridge. The sun was setting — or rising? — over a wide span of water that spread across the horizon. However, when she looked out the car’s windows, the train was still moving through a transit tube in the middle of the city at night. She marveled at how easily her mind seemed to accept this paradox. It was strange walking through a dream, knowing it was merely a dream. If this was the dreamspinner’s idea of “therapeutic,” however, the meaning eluded her.
To her surprise, the motion sickness abruptly ended. She turned around and saw a figure seated in the opposite corner of the car from her own seat. Had he been there all along? Why hadn’t she spotted him before? Not wanting to startle the man, she quietly stepped across the car and inched her way up the aisle. The man did not move. She carefully sat down on the seat opposite him. His eyes were transfixed on something in the blur of motion passing by the window next to him; his face was a portrait of confused calm.
“Dr. Halferne?” Serah asked.
The man did not move but kept staring out the window. A slow, exhaled sigh was his only confirmation that he was aware of her.
“My name is Serah. Serah Wyles. I think you’ve been trying to send me a message, only you were–” She paused, wondering if telling the man he had been murdered would somehow traumatize him. Of course not; this was her dream. If anything, he was supposed to be explaining. She placed her hand gently on his knee. “Dr. Halferne, I have to know what’s going on. I saw you … dead. It was just like my dream, but it wasn’t a dream. Was it?” Halferne still did not move. “Dr. Halferne? I have to know: Did I…” Her voice choked. Tears welled in her eyes, and she withdrew her hand from the man’s knee to wipe them.
“Professor,” Halferne said, turning his head slowly and looking at her with great sadness.
“What?” Serah asked, confused.
“Professor Halferne,” he said as if she should have known that already.
Serah laughed through her tears. “Sorry … Professor. What’s going on?” she asked. “Are you somehow doing all this?”
“No,” Halferne said, consoling her as a parent would a child. “You are.” The words stabbed through Serah. “Perception dictates reality,” he continued. “Your dream. Your perception. I’m sorry to put you through all this, but I’m not myself, you know.”
Serah’s voice was defiant. “I don’t understand. I’ve never even seen you before yesterday, as far as I can remember. How could I … why would I?”
“A wise man said that having the answer to a problem is not nearly as important…” Halferne nodded as if expecting her to complete the proverb. “…as how you approach it.”
“How you approach it?” Serah repeated.
“Not me … you,” Halferne said, disappointed. “I’m dead, remember?” He smiled.
“I have to know: Who killed you?”
“You do know,” Halferne said gravely. “I’ve shown you.”
“Why can’t I remember?” Serah cut off abruptly when the door at the opposite end of the car opened up. A black figure stepped into the aisle. This time, Serah recognized the uniform—the dreaded robes and hoods of the Couteau Foncé, Persian death commandos, the dreaded enforcers of the Emir.
“No, Serah,” Halferne half-shouted. “You have to stop this!”
Serah leaped to her feet. “Get out of here! Run!” She pointed to the doorway leading into the next car. “I’m not going to let you die this time. I need answers!”
Halferne smiled peacefully. “You’re too late.”
The assailant stopped, briefly regarded Serah, and slowly drew back the hood.
Underneath, she saw her own face — expressionless but undeniably evil.
“This is no good,” Halferne mumbled frantically. “Just stop. You’re not approaching this the right way.”
“I’m not letting her kill you! Run!”
Slowly, the doppelganger removed a gun from her holster. Serah became convinced that the imagery meant she was expected to save Halferne. She darted across the car and tackled her “other self,” grabbing desperately for the gun, half expecting it to go off, killing one of them as in some low-budget videodrama, the kind that urged you to tune in for the next episode to find out which one perished. Instead, they both tumbled to the floor between the rows of passenger seats, and the gun slid into the aisle a few feet away. Of course, she thought, that was the other cliché. She pounded her fists into her opponent’s -– her own — face with all her might. It had no effect. In one lightning-fast move, her doppelganger thrust her palm into Serah’s rib cage, pivoted, and instantly jumped to her feet, defying the laws of physics themselves. Then, emotionlessly, she walked over and methodically picked up the gun.
“Serah. You’ve got to end this,” Halferne shouted from the other side of the car. “We shouldn’t be here.”
Serah looked up at the image of her own face. Dull, lifeless eyes slowly raised the plaser. She cursed herself for such a reckless act of heroism, then let out a scream, more of frustrated rage than fear, as she watched the trigger being pulled.
The skullcap slowly began to detach itself, and she felt like she could feel every nanofiber withdrawing from her brain. She knew this was impossible, of course, but that didn’t seem to matter. The room was completely dark aside from the glowing display of the dreamspinner. She didn’t care about the telemetry. She already knew what it would say. She only cared about the time. 5:15AM. She pulled the skullcap off her head and threw it across the room. She had never felt so alone in her life. She couldn’t even call Noctivo now without having to explain petabytes of information swimming around in her head that she couldn’t access. They’d probably laugh at her anyway. All she could do was wait for Erik to figure out what she was to do next.
She lay in the dark for a while, trying to coax her body into a natural, uninduced sleep as Henry had suggested, but it was pointless. Her mind was still racing from the dream. She was certain she had been close to the answer, but somehow, it still managed to dance just beyond her reach, like the images in Bayt Alruwh.
She walked to the kitchen, called for the lights, and pulled up the NPNA newsfeed. It was the same sequence that had caught Erik’s attention last time. Maybe it would work again. She wanted to update him on what his friends had learned, assuming they hadn’t done so already.
She realized she’d been standing in front of her food dispenser for several minutes, not moving. Coffee or tea? She couldn’t decide. It was a simple enough decision. Why couldn’t she make it? She growled in frustration as tears welled up in her eyes. Physically and mentally exhausted, she screamed and defiantly pounded on the dispenser’s interface panel. Then, she stormed back into the living room area and, with one grand sweep of her arms, dumped the contents of her desk onto the floor. Openly sobbing now, she grabbed her datapad and threw it across the room toward the dreamspinner at the head of her bed. The pad missed the bed by inches and, with a loud pop, shattered against the wall.
Serah froze in awe, picturing Halferne’s similarly smashed datapad lying next to his dead body.
The door chime sounded. She must have made enough noise to wake the neighbors. What would she tell them? Sorry, Mr. Fenton, I’m just going mad. I’ll try to keep it down for you.
The door opened, and a man stood there, staring at her. He said nothing but regarded her coldly for a few seconds. Serah felt faint, staggered back a few steps, and braced herself against the wall. It was the man from Nine Stones, the one who had watched her intently, who had nearly approached her there but was interrupted by the waiter. She wasn’t certain, but she also believed he was the same person who followed her out of La Chasse club.
He entered, grabbed her by the arm to steady her, and silently shut the door behind them. He dragged her into the living room and threw her roughly on the couch, drew a gun from his inside pocket, and aimed it straight at her as he paced back and forth. She lay there, helpless, having lost all will to resist. This was it. She had lost. At least if the man killed her, the nightmares would end.
His hair was unkempt, and his eyes were bloodshot. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. He paced back and forth in front of her, rubbing his hands through his hair, occasionally glaring at her, then up at the ceiling. Serah didn’t try to speak to him.
“I will only ask this once,” he hissed. “Where are they?” He stared at her, his eyes burning with accusation.
“Who?” Serah tried to keep her voice calm. “Look, I don’t have any idea what you’re–”
“Halferne’s allies in France!” the man yelled. “He knew we were on to him, so he left them and came here looking for you.” He continued to pace a little faster now. “Where is the rest of his network?”
She began to shake. The man was not in his right mind. “You killed him,” she said as the entire picture fell into place. “You killed him, and planted the gun in my bag while I was talking to the waiter. You were standing behind me. Of course!”
“No,” he said, as if suddenly remembering. “That was just a dream! I didn’t kill anyone. It was you!”
She stared at him, jaw dropped. “A dream?”
“Too many dreams!” He stumbled backward as if the memory itself had pushed him.
It couldn’t be a coincidence. If he was having the same dreams as she was, was she also headed for the brink of a mental breakdown? She knew she desperately needed answers, and he had them.
“Why would I kill him if I was his ally?” Her tone was balanced, curious. This was just another interview. This was no different from the hundreds of others she conducted. She just needed to keep him talking until she figured out what to do.
“You killed him to protect him, just like you’re protecting all of them.”
“Who? Who am I protecting? What else did you dream?”
“I saw it all. He has allies. We need to find them. We need to wipe out all trace. You need to tell me where they are.”
“Look, this is all a misunderstanding. If you’d just let me explain–”
The butt of the pistol came across the side of Serah’s head. She fell to the floor. Surprisingly, there was very little actual pain, but pinpoints of light now clouded her vision.
She thought about death. She knew it would come someday, and she always wondered what it would feel like. Somehow, it seemed surprisingly trivial now. Her living room swam out of focus. She was in the utility room under the arco, ankle-deep in water. Her feet were numb. She was waiting for death. She was ready. She smashed her datapad on the railing and stared at the shadows.
“Get it over with!” she shouted, suddenly finding herself back in her living room, staring down the barrel of the gun again.
She thought about the dream. Something inside her told her she wasn’t like Halferne. She wasn’t going to welcome death. If nothing else, she needed answers. Summoning every ounce of raw fury and strength left in her, she leaped from the floor, grabbed the man by the throat, and sent them both tumbling backward. They hit the floor together, and she found herself back on the train car, fighting her doppelganger in the Couteau Foncé uniform. This time, her darker self held on to the gun after they fell. She rammed her knee into her opponent’s abdomen, body over to trap the gun.
There was a man’s scream, and she was back in her living room, lying on top of the stranger. He shoved her off of him with little difficulty and was on his feet a split second later, blood gushing from his nose and mouth. He was snarling, trying to catch his breath, as he leveled the gun squarely between her eyes.
She heard two shots before succumbing to the darkness.
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