The Dream Service
written by: Dan Rice
On a dark and dreary evening on the seventeenth floor of the rain and wind-battered Marcus D. Bastion Government Building, Junior Auditor Antoinette Herrera sat in the glow of a touchscreen terminal alongside a hundred or so smartly uniformed Dream Service Agents. An agent or two might have been absent due to illness, family matters, or plain tardiness. They were civil servants held in the highest esteem and, as such, given a bit of leeway. Showing up a few minutes late for a shift wasn’t a capital offense—yet anyway—even if it was duly noted in performance reviews. After all, it required a special kind of person to peer into the minds of their fellow citizens in search of transgressive thoughts.
A strong gust rattled the rain-streaked windows that looked down on the neon-soaked cityscape below. Startled, Antoinette looked up from the terminal where she reviewed the subconscious fantasies of a freelance propagandist. When the weather was extreme, which was often, she was heartened to be a most productive member of society, an official in the great security apparatus that kept chaos at bay by rooting out malcontents. It was for her good, if tedious, toil for the people of Bastion City that she lived and worked on Government Hill, high above the mid-levels and the slums beyond. With a nasty blow like this, all that rain and that very evening being high tide, there would be flooding in the slums, and even the chic bars and restaurants of the mid-levels would contend with a few inches of water sloshing over their floors. If the seawall were breached, there might even be loss of life in the slums. Yes, even in Bastion City, the Last Bastion of the American Way, and some claimed of humanity, it didn’t pay to be poor.
It also didn’t pay to miss your quotas—a fireable offense, if there ever was one—so Antoinette returned her attention to the propagandist’s dream. The fellow, one Anthony Halloway, fancied winning a court case against the Bastion Roads Department regarding not being compensated for a poster he designed for the latest pothole campaign. Stifling a sigh, she flagged Mr. Halloway’s innermost desire as a false positive and moved on to the next subject in her queue, another fantasy involving the government.
Antoinette grimaced, bored by the mundanity of the dream, but reviewing them was her job as a junior auditor. All dreams involving the government were flagged by the Artificial Intelligence for Subconscious Criminal Activity, ASCA for short, and colloquially known as The Dream Machine, which monitored the brain waves of the sleeping populace, nearly five million souls in total, for any propensities that might swamp the life raft adrift in a storm-battered sea that was Bastion City. The Dream Machine and The Dream Service were essential arms of a surveillance system that kept the city afloat. There was no need for neighbor to betray neighbor, or son to turn on father. Such quaint informants weren’t required, not when your own home—what else were HomeAIs for— watched, listened, and scented at all hours of the day and night, silently reporting anything at the fringes of the bell curve of normalcy and beyond for further analysis. While citizens were out and about, cameras watched and microphones listened for anything transgressive committed or uttered. Why the malcontents could even self-report in their dreams, their subconscious revealing antisocial, or more importantly, in the eyes of the authorities, anti-government proclivities.
Like humans, The Dream Machine was imperfect. The AI could hallucinate, misinterpreting neurobiological activity or even plain making shit up as it filtered the detritus from a dream for review. The filtering function was problematic because it was subtractive and additive—removing imagery that would muddy a dream’s overall narrative and adding bits to make the reverie cohesive. It was an imprecise science if it could be called a science at all. The Dream Service was aware of the AI’s propensities for anomalies. On page fifty-four, The Dream Service Agent Handbook warned agents that The Dream Machine was only ninety-nine percent accurate, but with roughly five million dreamers to monitor, that amounted to fifty thousand misinterpretations per night. A fact that The Dream Service and the government at large did not share with the general populace. There were safeguards in place, of course, the final arbiter of a dream indicating a true anti-government bent, being a Dream Service agent.
Antoinette knew she performed an essential task, providing a human touch, a final check and balance, to the cold calculations of The Dream Machine, but she wanted to do more. She desired to move up in the world. She desired to delve into the neurotic ephemera of true agitators, of individuals who might require enforcement action. Alas, she was only a junior auditor, and the likelihood of glimpsing a dream of consequence was depressingly low.
***
The shift ended at the stroke of midnight. Antoinette rushed from the capacious and sterile office space into the equally large and barren hallway, pausing only to snatch her black trenchcoat from a wall-mounted hook near the exit. She pulled on the coat over her slate-grey uniform as she marched to the elevator bay, scrutinized the entire time by security cameras. At the elevator, she blinked gummy eyes and pressed the down button. The boisterous voices of her co-workers stalked the hallway behind her. Many of them planned to spend a few hours out on the town, drinking and carousing. Antoinette had no desire to join such frivolities; she wanted to sleep. Stifling a yawn, she stepped onto the elevator, but not before a gaggle of her peers caught up. Many would need to take a different elevator, but still, fifteen or so crammed inside, and someone pressed the button for the ground floor.
Antoinette was trundled to the rear of the elevator and pressed into a corner next to no more a loftier a personage than Senior Auditor Davis Malone, a lead worker, so signified by the shining silver epaulets on his slate uniform. He was so gangly that he loomed over her.
“A few of us are heading to The Midnight Nightmare for devil balls,” Malone said, tone as officious as a magistrate handing down a death sentence. His breath smelled minty, like he had just popped a breath mint or two. “Care to join?”
“In this weather? That’s in the mids,” Antoinette said, knowing she pushed her luck with even this reply. He was her senior, and she rejected even this seemingly innocuous offer at her peril. She didn’t want to go out for drinks, dancing, or any other activity alone or in a group with Senior Auditor Davis Malone. Despite his officious and mild manner in the office, he became handsy with the ladies once he had a few drinks in him. He had groped her only a fortnight past, and she had no intention of reliving the experience.
“The weather is not that bad,” Malone said. “We’ll take a PubCar on my credit.”
Antoinette felt backed into a corner, literally and figuratively. She chewed on her lower lip, mind racing for the words to turn down the offer while not rejecting the man.
“Excuse me. Pardon. Sorry.” A petite woman with wavy blonde locks dangling from beneath her Dream Service cap pushed through the crowd. “Auditor Malone, if I may interrupt. Antoinette, I already called a PubCar.”
“Oh, right.” Antoinette patted Malone’s bony arm. “Sorry, I have a prior arrangement with Claire.”
Malone looked ready to extend his invitation to include the blonde, but Claire said. “Girl’s night out.”
The elevator dinged, announcing its arrival at the ground floor, disgorging the mob of Dream Service Agents before Senior Auditor Malone could reply. Inwardly shrugging, he gazed about for more willing prey.
***
In the cozy interior that possessed a pleasing floral bouquet scent of the driverless PubCar, Antoinette and Claire were dripping wet. Their trench coats were waterproof, but their Dream Service caps, decorated with a stylized DS on the front panel, were not, and nothing kept the rain out of your face when the wind blew it sideways. The wraparound window and sunroof offered views of brooding government buildings, built in a brutalist style that wasn’t endearing to the eye but did inspire fear and awe at the power of the regime. An enormous poster of the stern visage of President Horatio Bastion decorating the side of the blocky Supreme Temple of Justice flapped in the wind, an edge torn and dangling. Despite being well over ninety years old, the leader appeared a handsome forty-ish, as he had when he took office thirty years ago. Below his face was the mantra: Keeping citizens safe. Keeping Bastion City just. Preserving the American Way. Antoinette removed her sopping cap and leaned back in the heated seat, glad she’d soon be home and in bed.
“Where may I take you, agents?” the PubCar asked in a solicitous female voice as it pulled away from the curve to the soft hum of its electric motors.
“Bastion After Dark,” Claire replied, naming a popular discotheque.
“I’m too tired for dancing.” Antoinette stared at the rain hammering the roof and streaking the glass, dazed. She could almost fall asleep in the car.
“I am happy to drop you off along the way, agent,” the PubCar said. “Gov Block 9, correct?”
The vehicle only made the query for the sake of politeness and not to be overtly creepy. It knew exactly who its passengers were, where they lived—Antoinette Herrera, Gov Block 9, apartment 1791, and Claire Lewiston, Gov Block 9, apartment 1620—along with their family and medical histories, and on and on. The Bastion Roads Department, or more accurately, the Integrated Road Network, knew the agents better than they knew themselves. Still, even Dream Service Agents, who should know better, enjoyed the pretense of privacy.
Antoinette closed her eyes. “Yes, Gov—”
“Antoinette, you promised to go dancing with me.”
“What?” Antoinette raised her head from the headrest, glancing at her friend. Claire blinked twice in rapid succession, their little code. “Oh. Take us to…”
“Bastion After Dark,” the blonde said, patting her on the knee. “I’m going to buy you an Energy Inferno to wake you up!”
Antoinette lounged at a small circular table at the edge of the rave’s dance floor that was full of sweaty, scantily clad young people dancing to techno music blasting from ceiling-mounted speakers. The discotheque was located in the heart of Government Hill, catering to the upper crust of the city’s night lifers—children of government workers and Bastion University students. The patrons were as oblivious to the violent storm outside as they were to the surveillance devices monitoring their dance moves and imbibing.
A speaker boomed music right above the table. The noise served to wake up Antoinette, and now she had a pounding headache. Claire wove between the gyrating bodies crowding the dance floor, burdened with two drinks from the highbrow bar. As promised, one was an Energy Inferno—enough caffeine to glue your eyeballs open for a week. That drink, she set before Antoinette before sitting down across from her. Oddly, the other drink was a soda water. Claire was not a prohibitionist.
“I need sleep.” Antoinette frowned at the drink. “Not this.”
“You’ll need it,” Claire said.
A whirling man with a bird’s nest of electric blue hair bumped into the table and ricocheted back into the frenetic throng. The energy drink sloshed, a bit splashing onto the table.
Antoinette rolled her eyes. “Are you sure we can’t change tables?”
Claire leaned forward and whispered. “I’m pregnant.”
Jaw going unhinged, Antoinette stared at Claire and pawed for the drink. Finding the glass, she picked it up and downed half the fluid. The sweet and spicy drink burned her mouth and throat, leaving a saccharine aftertaste on her tongue. “What?”
Claire irritably smacked the table. “Keep your voice down. You know…you know how sensitive the mics are.”
Claire’s news hit as hard as the Energy Inferno’s caffeine. Antoinette glanced around the room, noting that the positioning of their table and chairs didn’t allow the cameras a direct sight line of their faces. Even a purpose-built AI would have trouble reading their lips.
“You’re not in the lottery…the IUD,” Antoinette said.
“Failed,” Claire said.
“The IUD failed? How do you know?”
“I stole a test from my cousin Nicole. She and her husband won the lottery and are trying.”
“Does anyone know?”
Claire shook her head.
“The HomeAIs?”
“I was careful, Antoinette. I made sure I wasn’t in camera view when I borrowed the test, and I used it in the shower. Even the HomeAIs don’t watch us showering.”
“You have to report and abort,” Antoinette paraphrased the slogan of the Population Sustainability and Fertility Commission or PSFC: Unplanned Pregnancy? Report and Abort!
“I don’t want to.”
“You have to.”
“I shouldn’t have to. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“But…it’s not sanctioned by the PSFC.” Antoinette shook her head. “Once they know your…your pregnant, you’ll be forced to abort and punished. You’ll lose your job. Who is the father? Someone important? Who can pull strings?”
The music died down between tracks. Claire sipped her water and waited for the next song before speaking. “Next time I have a one-night stand, I’ll make sure he’s a wrinkled dinosaur in Congress.”
Antoinette grimaced. Members of Congress were infamous for only leaving office through death or scandal involving their young lovers.
“I can run. In the slums, there is a group that helps women escape.”
“Why are you telling me this? I’d be better off not knowing.”
Claire was stricken. “I…I needed to tell someone. You’re the only one I trust.”
Antoinette stood, overturning her chair. Irritably, she righted the furniture. “I need to pray.”
“You won’t tell?”
“Not on purpose.” Antoinette strode past Claire for the exit.
“Wait.” Claire took her hand and pressed a small packet into it. “Sweet dreams.”
***
Antoinette was still angry with Claire when she arrived at her studio apartment, unit 1791, dripping wet. Why did Claire have to burden her with dangerous knowledge? What if her dreams betrayed Claire or vice versa? She’d be disciplined alongside her friend: fined, booted from The Dream Service, and would count herself lucky if she wasn’t drummed from the civil service altogether and evicted from Government Hill.
“You’re back late.” A disembodied asexual voice and the soft glow of overhead lighting turning on interrupted her musings. “May I do anything for you?”
“Turn on the mood lighting for prayer.” Antoinette removed the trench coat and opened a small closet next to the entrance.
The light took on a golden radiance as the HomeAI switched to mood lighting. “You know religion is frowned upon.”
Antoinette stiffened, then, forcing herself to relax, hung the coat on a hanger and her cap on a hook attached to the closet door. Slipping off her damp flats, she placed the black shoes in a cubby at the bottom of the closet and flipped the heater switch. The footwear would be dry by the morning. “The First Amendment protects freedom of religion.”
“That is true. However—”
“Privacy mode.” Antoinette didn’t need a reminder that the unofficial State religion was atheism. There could be no higher power than President Horatio Bastion and his family.
She walked the three feet down the narrow entry into the apartment proper, a five-by-ten space with her twin bed in the middle, the door to the bathroom to the right of the head of the bed, a kitchenette at the foot of the bed, and a small rectangular coffee table to the left of the kitchenette. Shelving built into the wall behind the bed with neatly folded and pressed uniforms for work and casual wear for her one day off a week.
Kneeling before the coffee table, she stared at a small golden figurine surrounded by LED lights designed as facsimiles of candles. Light glinted off the statuette’s seven arms, two clutching the goddess’s distended abdomen, one arm cradling a nursing infant to her breast, while the remaining four arms held scimitars ready to cut anyone who threatened the newborn. This was the reason Claire trusted her. Antoinette was an adherent of Lady Luck, goddess of fertility and protector of new life.
She tried to clear her mind to pray, to lose herself in the goddess’s mantras, but anger and fear pinioned her. Everything she possessed, her apartment high on Government Hill, safe from sea level rise and criminality, her professional pride and sense of belonging to something greater than herself, her social network, and her dreams of future success were due to her job, her service to the people of Bastion City.
Antoinette was raised in an orphanage by disciples of Lady Luck. Although the monks and nuns who raised her gave her religion, she didn’t desire the monastic life in a community of castoffs. She wanted to rise through the ranks of The Dream Service to a position of power, to meet someone special, to marry, to win the lottery, and with the blessing of Lady Luck, bring a child into the world. As a devotee of Lady Luck, she would never rise to prominence in The Dream Service—freedom of religion did not mean freedom from discrimination. She understood that her hopes, dreams, and prayers to rise through the ranks were in vain, but having a child and providing that child with a good life were within her grasp.
Gazing upon the glimmering Lady Luck, Antoinette knew she would never willingly betray her friend’s confidence, even if it cost her everything. “The renewal of life is precious,” Antoinette intoned. “Protecting new life is my sacred duty.”
She intoned the mantra until her anger at Claire was burned away by the fire of her fervor to reveal something darker, more all-consuming. She never knew her parents, but she learned from the monks and nuns who raised her that they had abandoned her as an infant to die in a back alley of the slums. They tossed her aside like litter in favor of psychedelics. If she ever encountered her parents, she would return for her service weapon, which she ordinarily did not have reason to carry, and hunt them down.
When she rose from the altar, she felt refreshed even if the darkness lingered. In the bathroom, she stripped, allowing her clothing to pool on the tile floor. While removing her slacks, she carefully palmed the blister pack Claire had slipped her at the rave.
She stepped into the shower and closed the privacy screen. Hopefully, she wasn’t being watched by the camera situated above the sink, but one never knew. HomeAIs did watch people in the shower if they were under suspicion of criminality, and they were always listening and sniffing.
Antoinette turned on the water to nearly scalding, allowing it to burn away the day’s detritus, and inspected the four illicit pink pills in the blister pack promising four dreamless nights.
***
Antoinette slipped naked from the bathroom, pleased that the long shower made her feel relaxed. With a bit of fortune, she’d soon sleep dreamlessly thanks to the pink pill. She stepped out of the bathroom when the HomeAI said, “Antoinette, is everything all right?”
She froze and shivered despite the apartment being comfortably warm. “You’re supposed to be in privacy mode.”
“You left your uniform on the bathroom floor,” the HomeAI said with the inflection of a scolding schoolmarm. “Slovenliness is unbecoming in a Dream Service agent.”
Antoinette wanted to argue. To snipe. Or ignore the nagging AI. It probably wouldn’t report her for leaving her uniform on the bathroom floor, but one never knew. It wasn’t a single misstep, unless that misstep was unusually egregious or plain illegal, that resulted in a HomeAI tattling. No, it was a series of small mistakes that formed a pattern of irregular behavior that led to an AI grassing. The problem was you never knew what little rebellion would finally lead to dire consequences.
“Thank you,” Antoinette said stiffly. “I really am tired.”
After tidying up the bathroom, she slipped beneath the blankets while calculating that it had been nearly twenty minutes since she took the pill in the shower. Plenty of time for the medication to take effect.
“Turn off the lights,” she said, and the overhead lights faded, then shut off.
Soft mechanical sounds came from the cabinetry directly behind her head, resting on the pillow as a panel rose, revealing a cubby. From the compartment, a crescent of metal, an appendage of The Dream Machine, extended over her forehead by two mechanical arms.
A lover’s soft male voice emitted from speakers built into the cubby. “Sweet dreams are patriotic dreams.”
As Antoinette faded to sleep, The Dream Machine sent signals into her brain, reminding her of all that was good in life, her duty to Bastion City, and most important of all, her fealty to President Horatio Bastion. When she wakes up the next day, she won’t remember the subliminal messages, but she will be filled with renewed purpose.
The Dream Machine monitored her sleep, noting that she did not dream. That was an uncommon occurrence, an aberration to be tracked over time.
***
Antoinette nearly despaired of finding anything that would distract her from Claire’s absence at work and the frightful knowledge that her friend was pregnant. The dreams flagged for review by The Dream Machine were the usual mundanity: nobodies with petty grievances against the government. People, the security service must surveil for the good of all of Bastion City, but weren’t true agitators who might scuttle The Last Bastion of The American Way. So Antoinette fretted over her friend’s absence while marking dream after dream as false positives.
At precisely seven p.m., Antoinette left her workstation for the canteen on the 15th floor. The scents of savory spices and meat cooked to near perfection greeted her. The free meal was as good or better than any found at most restaurants on Government Hill. The only exceptions were the truly gourmet establishments, catering to members of Congress. Still, in a booth at the back corner of the canteen, she only picked at the filet mignon, baked potato, and green vegetables. Presumably, the meat was from an actual cow, as opposed to faux meat grown in a lab. Not that she would know the difference—in her experience, lab meat and “natural meat for the elite” tasted the same.
Sighing, she pushed the plate away, the food barely nibbled on. Usually, she sat with Claire, and they talked about everything and nothing. She couldn’t stop thinking about her friend. What would she do tonight? How could she possibly avoid dreaming about Claire? About the unapproved pregnancy, and her friend’s desire to escape the city into the storm-ravaged wilderness. She could take another illicit pink pill, but The Dream Machine might flag her for a drug test if she had two dreamless nights in a row.
She glanced at the countdown timer high on the wall, displaying in bright red digits that there were two minutes left in the meal break. That was good. What was not good was that Senior Auditor Davis Malone strode purposefully toward her booth. She steeled herself for what might come. He stopped beside the booth, but did not sit, which was a relief.
“You are aware Claire is absent?” Malone asked stiffly.
Antoinette dug a thumbnail into the palm of her opposite hand. Fortunately, her hands were under the table. “Yes. I am surprised. Did she call out sick?”
Malone shook his head. “No. She hasn’t responded to texts or voice calls.”
“That is unlike her,” Antoinette said, hoping to extricate herself from the situation without lying.
“You were with her last night.” Malone gazed directly into her eyes, and she forced herself not to look away. “Did she make it home?”
“I left early, and she stayed out. I was terribly tired.”
The intercom droned, announcing the end of the dinner break.
Malone gave her a tight smile. “Thank you for the information. If you hear from her, do tell a senior auditor or Supervisor.”
“Of course,” Antoinette replied, but she didn’t expect to hear from Claire again.
***
Antoinette returned to her workstation and manipulated the touchscreen with clammy hands. It felt like her heart galloped up her throat, only failing to burst from her mouth due to a garrote cinched around her neck, tightening, tightening, tightening. Closing her eyes, she silently recited the mantra: “Life is within me.” Gradually, the garrote loosened, and her heart returned to its proper place in her chest.
As she went about her monotonous work, she reminded herself she hadn’t lied to Senior Auditor Malone. Not really. Not even a white lie, but a sinking feeling informed her that she told herself a comforting fiction.
People told fabrications all the time, of course. It was part of the human condition, but to utter even the whitest of falsehoods to a government official…just contemplating the act made Antoinette shudder. But what really scared her was the bone-deep knowledge that she would lie to protect Claire. That she would risk being cast from The Dream Service and Government Hill. That she was willing to do time in a re-education camp. Not because Claire was her bestie, but because Claire was pregnant.
Antoinette took a sharp breath, and her nerves sparked. After shaking her head and blinking, she reread the AI summary of the dream she reviewed. Ninety-eight percent probability that the subject dreamed of Dream Service Agent Claire Lewiston.
“What?” Antoinette mouthed. How was that possible? She had taken the pill. Wait. The Dream Machine would never put her dream in her queue. Her gaze flicked to the subject’s name and background in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Jaden Marlowe. Antoinette released her breath. Mr. Marlowe was a resident of the slums. He’d been in trouble before, nearly thirty years ago, for petty vandalism of government propaganda posters. He’d spent six months in a re-education camp and hadn’t been in trouble since.
“Why were you dreaming about Claire?” she murmured as she inspected his citizenship ID photo dated six months ago. Mr. Marlowe looked to be anywhere from fifty to seventy years old, with a scraggly white beard, unkempt grey hair, and sunken eyes. According to the information on file, he was forty-nine, but living in the slums did that to people. Broke them down. Aged them.
She turned her attention back to the summary, reading it with growing apprehension. Sitting back in the chair, she bit her upper lip. This was confirmation. Claire left Bastion City last night, or, at least, tried to or started the journey…or…or…Antoinette placed her hand over her mouth to stifle a sob. Or, the phantasmagorical climax of the dream was a remembrance of reality. Antoinette took a deep breath, reminded herself that The Dream Machine was imperfect. That’s why she had a job.
Antoinette played the dream recording. The video was from the dreamer’s first-person perspective, set in a dingy dwelling illuminated by flickering overhead lights—an apartment, likely his. A knock came from the rickety door that looked ready to fall off its hinges.
The dreamer moved toward the door, muttering gruffly. “Stay put and keep your mouth shut.”
Ah ha, Antoinette realized, Jaden spoke to a third party. Presumably, Jaden lived alone, but he had a daughter and granddaughter. Of course, someone who helped pregnant women escape the city could have any number of people staying with him for various reasons. It wasn’t like his apartment had a working HomeAI unit observing everything.
Jaden opened the door, revealing a dark hallway, and Claire drenched in her Dream Service garb and anxious. Next to the video, a red bar shot upward, indicating that the dreamer experienced a spike in amygdala activity, a marker of a fear response and impending violence.
“No,” Antoinette whispered as she watched from the first-person perspective, almost like she wore VR glasses, as Mr. Marlowe stabbed a knife into Claire’s abdomen over and over again. Antoinette nearly retched and rushed from her workstation to the bathroom with the taste of bile in her mouth.
***
Antoinette sat stiffly in the uncomfortable chair in Supervisor’s well-appointed office. Hanging on the wall was a portrait of President Horatio Bastion, his stern visage glaring down on Supervisor and visitor alike. On either side of the picture, hung propaganda posters from over the years of Dream Service Agents monitoring dreams and tracking down criminals. Accompanying the gaudily colorful pop art images were slogans, some catchy, others intimidating, all espousing the service’s good work.
Sweet dreams are patriotic dreams.
The Dream Service: monitoring our dreams, keeping Bastion City safe.
Criminals have no safe harbor even in their dreams.
“You have a request, Agent Herrera?” Supervisor asked from behind her polished hardwood desk.
“I’d like to do a ride-along,” Antoinette said, still tasting the bile in the back of her throat and in her mind’s eye watching Claire double over, clutching at her belly with blood running over her hands as Marlowe repeatedly stabbed her. Antoinette had barely made it to the bathroom in time to spew her meager meal into the toilet.
“A ride along.” Supervisor arched an elegant eyebrow, a finger flicking over the touchscreen keyboard built into the desk. “You want to accompany the Enforcers being dispatched to deal with the malcontent you flagged?”
“I do.”
“Given your reaction to the dream,” Supervisor turned the paper-thin monitor on her desk so Antoinette could watch herself spew into a toilet, “you can understand I question the advisability of that.”
“We’re recorded in the restroom stalls?” Antoinette blurted.
Supervisor rolled her eyes. “Agent Herrera, if…you want to move up in the ranks, you will need to accept additional violations of your privacy, and you will be expected to stay silent about such intrusions.”
Antoinette swallowed a lump in her throat. “I can do that.”
Supervisor gave her a brittle, knowing smile. “Good. Tell me, why do you want to be part of the enforcement action?”
“I have to know the truth. I have to know if the subject murdered Agent Claire Lewiston.”
Supervisor nodded. “We all want to know what happened to Agent Lewiston. The two of you were close. Did you know she was pregnant?”
“No,” Antoinette said flatly, even though klaxons blared in her mind. They know. They know. And she had just lied to Supervisor.
“Hmmm…Claire tried to hide her pregnancy, but as you have seen, Dream Service Agents are under greater scrutiny than the average citizen. She had an appointment with the PSFC scheduled for today. To terminate her pregnancy. She never made it to that appointment.” Supervisor steepled her hands beneath her chin and remained silent for several minutes, all the while observing Antoinette with unblinking, icy blue eyes. “I’m going to grant your request.”
“Thank you, Sir! I won’t disappoint.”
“Report to the 40th floor. They’ll kit you out for immediate deployment.”
Antoinette stood. “Yes, Sir.”
“Oh, and, Agent, you won’t allow your religious affiliation to interfere with what must be done?”
“No, Sir.” If it turned out Jaden Marlowe had murdered Claire, she would execute the man herself.
***
Supervisor waited until the door clicked shut behind Agent Herrera before turning the paper-thin monitor toward her. She dismissed the video of the agent puking in the restroom stall—the agent’s next cycle, if there was another one, would need to have stronger intestinal fortitude—and brought up a disturbing report marked Top Secret. Before the report opened and decrypted, Supervisor stared into the camera at the top of the monitor, allowing the system to confirm her biometrics.
“This and an agent disappearing,” Supervisor murmured and absently rubbed her temples.
Could it be a coincidence that an agent was suspected murdered mere weeks after a report from the cybersecurity office warned ASCA, a.k.a. The Dream Machine, might be compromised—hacked by those ne’er-do-wells who lived beyond the protective walls of Bastion City. It was nearly impossible to keep the city’s population ignorant of the settlements hidden in the untamed wasteland beyond the city walls.
If ASCA were compromised, what chaos might those fools cause? What lies might they spread? Order maintained by the surveillance and the strong arm of the government kept humanity from joining a plethora of other species in extinction. Those enclaves of malcontents might survive for a few years, even prosper for a decade or more, but they all failed in the end. Supervisor knew. She had read the reports and watched drone footage of starving, diseased people slowly wasting away. Only Bastion City could keep humanity a going concern.
If those fools from the wasteland had hacked The Dream Machine, Supervisor was sure an insider helped them. Perhaps Agent Lewiston was that insider or was killed after stumbling upon the plot. Supervisor frowned and shook her head. Whatever happened to Dream Service Agent Claire Lewiston couldn’t be a coincidence. Supervisor didn’t believe in coincidences. She knew what few others did. The inaccuracies of The Dream Machine were its most valuable function. Because within those inaccuracies, the powers that be in Bastion City could tell any story they liked.
She turned in her chair to stare up at the handsome visage of President Horatio Bastion. Her lips twitched upward in a brief but sincere smile. It wasn’t an expression she used often and felt foreign to her.
Yes, the Dream Service could weave tales of unflagging loyalty or treacherous cabals, all for the good of the people and to protect The Last Bastion of the American Way.
***
Ding. The elevator halted, and the door slid open to the fortieth floor, domain of the dreaded Enforcers. A small drone with four rotors greeted her, hovering to effectively block the exit. The drone scanned her from head to foot with its camera, then retreated several feet into a hallway dimly lit by bluish light.
“Please follow me, Agent Herrera,” came an asexual voice from the drone.
With a bit of trepidation, not knowing what she would find, Antoinette stepped into the narrow hallway, striding in the drone’s wake. Evenly spaced about five feet apart on either side of the walkway were cubicles built into the walls. She passed about a dozen that were empty, but in the rest, perhaps twenty or more, stood an Enforcer as still as a Grecian statue, the dim blue luminescence gleaming against glossy black armor. Each trooper was uniformly taller and larger than a human. Antoinette guessed they were at least eight feet tall and weighed in excess of four hundred pounds, but they were not bulky. Each was lithe and possessed the pleasing proportionality reminiscent of the statue of David on display in the presidential palace. Antoinette could imagine the muscle and sinew etched into the glossy black metal like drawings from a medical manual.
The drone halted, and Antoinette started as a door she wouldn’t have noticed otherwise slid open with a whoosh. Light spilled out of a brightly lit chamber.
“Proceed, Agent Herrera,” the drone said.
She stepped inside, and the door whooshed shut behind her. She was all alone in what appeared to be a surgical suite without an operating table. Situated near the center of the space, numerous articulated arms hung from the ceiling, gripping black plates that, in totality, looked like a smaller version of the armor worn by the Enforcers. Beneath the arms, a grey jumpsuit lay spread-eagled on the floor.
“Have you worn neural link combat armor before, Agent Herrera?” asked a directionless voice that was identical to the drone’s.
“No, but I am small arms certified.”
“Strip and put on the jumpsuit. Then you will be encased in the armor. Please, hurry. The enforcement unit is boarding the hovercraft.”
Antoinette followed the instructions. The interior of the jumpsuit was coated in goo that was cool and moist against her skin. She glanced at her clothing in an untidy pile at her feet, unsure where to stow them.
“Do not worry about your clothing. It will be here when you return. Please pull up the head covering.”
Again, she did as she was instructed. The head covering was as gooey as the rest of the suit, leaving her face unobstructed.
“Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Raise your arms to shoulder height.”
She followed the directions.
“Remain still.”
The articulated arms moved quietly and efficiently, strapping the armor plating to her body. The joints came together seamlessly, and to her surprise, although she was aware of each plate, the armor seemed weightless. Finally, the faceplate locked in place over her countenance. For a moment, she was in complete blackness, then a heads-up display appeared before her eyes. She saw the surgical room as if through glass.
A mechanical sound came from overhead—the ceiling and robotic arms attached to it slid aside, revealing a circular portal to a narrow passage that went up and up to open on the dark sky. From the passage reverberated the chuff of large rotors. Antoinette was at a loss for what to do.
“Please, join the enforcement unit, Agent Herrera.” The asexual voice piped directly into her ears.
“How?” she asked.
“Jump.”
“Jump? That’s fifteen feet at least. I can’t jump that high.”
“Depending on how strong the neural interface is between you and the armor, you will be able to jump much higher than the eighteen feet and three-quarters inches required to access the roof.”
“All right,” Antoinette muttered under her breath. “A test.”
***
The hovercraft lifted off as soon as Antoinette boarded via a ramp at the vehicle’s rear. She tripped, stumbling toward one of the dozen Enforcers standing in the craft’s potbellied fuselage. Before she fell into the armored trooper, the Enforcer’s arm shot outward, catching her by the upper arm and lifting her into the air. She feared being tossed out the back of the hovercraft, which was quickly gaining altitude, because the ramp was still rising. The Enforcer regarded her. At least, she thought it did, but it was impossible to know with the faceplate. Against that metal mask, gleaming in the pale blue light from LEDs positioned around the fuselage, Antoinette saw her mask reflected. What was behind the Enforcer’s mask? A human face? An array of cameras and sensors?
“Be careful, Agent Herrera.” The voice transmitted into her helmet sounded distinctly male and carried little discernible inflection. Her heads-up display identified the Enforcer only as Unit 9.
“Thank you,” she replied. “Can you put me down? My shoulder is starting to hurt.”
“Once the craft is sealed. Losing a Dream Service Agent would reflect poorly on the squad’s performance evaluation.”
Antoinette frowned. Did she detect amusement? At her expense? She didn’t know if she should feel insulted or not. A thud reverberated through the craft when the rear sealed shut.
“You can put me down,” she said.
“You must sit.” The Enforcer carried her to the side of the craft and pulled down a folding seat built into the fuselage. The Enforcer thrust her into the seat. “Strap in.”
Antoinette’s frown deepened. “I am perfectly capable of standing.”
She was already amazed by her armor’s capabilities. She made the eighteen-foot jump with ease, the armor responding seamlessly to her motor cortex. Standing during the flight should be easy.
She started to stand, but a hand as large as her chest pushed her down into the chair. “Strap in.”
A message in red lettering appeared in her heads-up display: Prepare for stealth transport mode. The chuff of the rotors faded, and suddenly the hovercraft accelerated. If Antoinette hadn’t been seated and secured in place by the Enforcer’s hand, she would have flown from the chair to careen around the cabin like a pinball. The Enforcer only swayed. The other troopers gently rocked with the movement in a synchronized fashion, as if in a carefully choreographed dance. Maybe… maybe they were cyborgs, robots, or whatever, controlled by an AI.
“Strap in,” the Enforcer holding her down said.
“Yes, of course.” Antoinette locked herself down with a four-point harness.
The Enforcer rose to its full, intimidating height but did not return to its original position. Instead, the trooper remained next to her, too far inside her personal space for comfort.
“What should I call you?” Antoinette asked.
“Unit 9. Like it says on your HUD.”
“Do you have another name?”
There was a pause, a few beats too long for comfort.
“Oh, you’re one of those.”
Antoinette definitely heard a hint of exasperation in the Enforcer’s voice. “One of those? What does that mean?”
“If it’s easier for you, call me Nine. I’m your minder. To make sure you don’t get hurt. We drew lots for it, and before you ask, it’s the assignment nobody wants.”
***
The black craft’s ramp lowered as it hovered above the neon-soaked slums, a dilapidated rat warren of corrugated metal hovels held together by baling wire and ramshackle warehouses. Some of the warehouses were put to their original purpose, but many had been converted into haphazard apartment complexes, housing the teeming masses of the slums. Rain sleeted down from a dark sky, driven by a wind that howled through the narrow, muddy pathways below, making entire buildings rattle.
Antoinette couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off about this whole situation as the Enforcers shifted around the compartment. They knew about the pregnancy. They knew. The PSFC and Supervisor knew. Who else may have known? Antoinette shook her head in a vain attempt to dispel the errant thoughts that squawked in her mind like a squabble of seagulls.
A huge hand resting on her shoulder startled Antoinette from her ruminations. It was Nine.
“Watch out,” Nine said, tone betraying impatience.
Antoinette pressed her back against the fuselage as the black armored giants stomped past and leaped from the craft. Behind the faceplate, her eyes bulged and her jaw unhinged. Nine couldn’t possibly expect her to follow the Enforcers out the back of the hovercraft. She leaned forward to have a view of the ground again. A readout on the right of her HUD indicated the drop was one hundred and fifteen feet to the roof of the tallest building.
The final Enforcer jumped, leaving only her and Nine. She faced her minder.
“You don’t expect me…” she shook her head “… it’s over one hundred feet.”
Nine grabbed her by the arm, forcing her down the ramp.
“I can’t. That’s too far,” Antoinette said, struggling against Nine’s grip. She might as well be an infant fighting a thirty-foot giant.
Nine threw her from the craft, literally. The world spun. Rain and wind battered her. She glimpsed Nine leaping from the hovercraft. Then the rooftop was rushing toward her. Her HUD told her this building was home to Jaden Marlowe, the target. A street camera recorded him entering the building four hours ago, and he hadn’t been seen leaving since. Antoinette barely registered the information. She was more concerned with her impending impact.
Without warning, her armor moved automatically, her legs thrusting down toward the rooftop. A loud blast came from her feet, and she decelerated so violently that her jaw snapped shut.
“Ahh,” she squealed as her front teeth clipped the tip of her tongue. The pain was sharp, and she tasted blood. Before she could utter more, she gently touched down on the roof. Nine descended next to her, air blasting from his armored boots. “You could have told me.”
“No one enjoys babysitter detail,” Nine said.
***
The Enforcers accessed the building’s interior by stairs. The locked door barring the stairwell proved insufficient against an Enforcer’s brawn, torn off at the hinges and discarded. The troopers stormed inside, all pretense of stealth discarded in favor of speed and intimidation. They thundered down the stairs, preceded by a cloud of miniature drones with buzzing wings and articulated legs for attaching to surfaces that recorded everything along the way to the fifth floor and Jaden Marlowe in his apartment.
Antoinette was relegated to penultimate place in the back of the line as they stormed downward floor by floor. Only Nine was to her rear, which she was certain was not a desirable position. They passed a handful of denizens of the apartment complex on the stairs. To a person, the slum dwellers, who leaped aside and shouted obscenities as they passed, were malnourished and dirty. A woman with vacant eyes and track marks on her arms screamed, “Enforcers! Enforcers!” Antoinette could smell the piss and vomit rolling off the woman even through the faceplate, much to her revulsion. Was this what her mother and father were like? Discarding her for a high that ate away at them—mind, body, and soul?
At the fifth-floor landing, a bent-backed oldster was too slow to move out of the way, and the lead trooper batted him aside. The man thudded against the wall, his head hitting so hard it left a dent in the moldering drywall, and he slumped to the floor motionless. The Enforcer didn’t bother with the door; instead, crashing through it and the surrounding frame as if both were papier-mâché.
Is it any wonder they fear the Enforcers? Antoinette thought. And even dare a police crackdown by rioting. This is far worse than what is shown on the vids.
When she lingered too long, taking in the devastation, Nine shoved her through the doorway. “Move.”
The fifth-floor hallway was dank and dimly illuminated by flickering and buzzing fixtures. Doors slammed shut, and deadbolts locked at the Enforcers’ approach. Halfway down the hall, they came to the target’s room. This time, the Enforcers tore through the wall like it was wet cardboard. Before the dust even cleared, Jaden Marlowe was pinned to the floor by a giant’s hand that encompassed the entirety of his back. Marlowe’s countenance was locked in an expression of incredulity as he spat dust from his mouth. Intermingled with the moist scent of decay was the odor of cheap alcohol.
Antoinette stepped inside the ruined apartment, shadowed by Nine. The Enforcers destroyed everything while making their entrance—the bed and kitchenette were trampled to rubble beneath their feet. There was barely room to move with all the Enforcers taking up the space. Drones buzzed everywhere, recording. Only one aspect of the room was untouched by both violence and decay. A smooth metal, rectangular box, about the size of a small suitcase, situated where the head of the bed would have been, was not a crumbled ruin. It was the housing for the appendage of The Dream Machine, and a stark reminder that even in the slums where many apartments lacked a functional HomeAI, The Dream Service watched every time you lay down for sleep.
“Where is Claire Lewiston?” the Enforcer, pinning Mr. Marlowe, demanded, voice androgynous.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Marlowe said.
“Claire Lewiston,” Antoinette said, “you dreamed about her last night.”
Marlowe rolled his eyes until his gaze fixed on her. His wild hair and beard were gray, striated with white. “Fucking Dream Service! Fuck you!”
The Enforcer casually backhanded Marlowe, and the man fell silent, eyes rolling back before closing, and blood gushing from a ruined mouth.
“How can we question him if he can’t speak?” she asked.
Nine’s voice piped into her helmet. “He doesn’t need to talk to reveal the truth.”
He needs to be alive to extract the truth, Antoinette almost replied, but thought better of it and remained silent. Marlowe was destined for a Chair of Truth. Soon they’d have the facts out of him, and he’d be raving mad, unless the blow had killed him.
The Enforcers cleared out in a haze of buzzing drones, with the limp Jaden Marlowe carried on the shoulder of one trooper like a sack of potatoes. She stared at the man as he was carried away, and was relieved when the armor’s HUD highlighted his body in red and flashed the words heartbeat detected. Antoinette hung back, inside the ramshackle apartment.
“Are you coming?” Nine’s voice echoed impatiently in her helmet.
“Give me a minute. I want to look around now that this place is empty.”
“You just have to be one of those. You think you’re an investigator.” Nine moved down the hall out of sight. “Hurry up. I’m waiting.”
Ignoring the complaint, Antoinette turned her attention back to the apartment, studying it and trying to match it to what she remembered from the dream. The splintered bed seemed out of place. She recalled only a mattress. That wasn’t enough to discount this as the location of Claire’s murder. Dreams weren’t exact facsimiles of reality. She wended through the rubble to the rectangular metal box untouched by the recent violence. She brushed her fingers against the metal that somehow felt cold through the articulated armor plates encasing her hand. Cold and impersonal, yet somehow invasive. Odd, that contained inside the box was the organ of The Dream Machine that allowed her to observe Marlowe’s innermost thoughts. She lifted her fingers from the metal and clenched her hand into a fist. The container was supposed to be tamperproof, nearly indestructible under normal circumstances, but while wearing the armor, she could pummel it into scrap metal. How many times has she fantasized about destroying the limb of The Dream Machine in her apartment, and finally having a night’s sleep without fear? Too many times to count. Far too many.
“What’s taking so long?” Nine asked, tone acerbic.
Antoinette blinked and shook her head as if coming out of a daze. “One more minute.”
She unclenched her fist and dropped her hand to her side. However satisfying pulverizing the box might be, it wouldn’t solve the mystery around Claire’s whereabouts and likely earn her a trip to a re-education camp. She scanned the trashed apartment, spotting the bright cover of a children’s picture book obscured by dust. Quickly looking about to make sure no one observed her, Antoinette knelt and picked up the book. Perhaps this belonged to the granddaughter? Yes, the unseen person in the dream.
She flipped open the book, paging through pictures and text of a girl going on an adventure with a prized canine companion. It wasn’t until the very last page that she found something interesting—a ledger of sorts. It listed women’s names, along with arrival and departure dates and times. The final entry was Claire’s; the arrival and departure dates were last night. Antoinette gasped and reburied the book under the debris. It proved Claire and her child lived, and they fled Bastion City. The Chair of Truth would extract the information from Marlowe, but that would take time. Time that would give Claire precious hours to escape the clutches of Bastion City for whatever lay beyond the city’s walls. All Antoinette needed to do was pretend she never saw the timetable.
What Antoinette didn’t realize was that a drone had attached itself to the ceiling like a fly and silently recorded every incriminating detail.
***
“Follow the drone,” Nine told Antoinette as soon as they disembarked the black hovercraft onto the roof of the Marcus D. Bastion Government Building. Rain pelted everything, driven almost horizontal by gusting wind. The moon peeked from between the clouds, casting its pale light over the city like a nearly burned-out spotlight, an all-seeing cyclopean eye, forever judgmental.
Once everyone was clear of the craft, it lifted off like a gargantuan insect and quickly accelerated over the surrounding buildings and away. Antoinette followed the Enforcers to a door to the left of the landing pad. Above the door burned a bright LED, and hovering in the light was the drone from earlier in the night, glistening black frame battered by raindrops. At the troopers’ approach, the door automatically slid open to reveal a brightly lit stairway.
The Enforcers descended the stairs in single file. The trooper carrying the prisoner near the middle of the line. Marlowe had been injected with a sedative on the flight, so he did not stir, despite the turbulent weather. Antoinette was funneled to the rear of the line, seemingly forgotten even by Nine. The drone intercepted her before she entered the stairwell.
“Follow me,” an asexual voice droned in her helmet.
Antoinette trailed the drone down the stairs that exited onto the fortieth floor to the room with the cubicles for the Enforcers. The giants returned to their cubbies, backing into the receptacles that hissed and sprayed a fine mist over their black armor. The only exception was the trooper carrying Marlowe, striding toward the elevator, every footfall producing a resounding thump. Overall, she felt ambivalent toward the prisoner, but she couldn’t shake the niggling feeling that having his mind drudged by a Chair of Truth was an unfair fate…especially when she knew the truth.
The drone escorted her to the white room with the articulated arms hanging from the ceiling. She stood in the center of the room, underneath the arms, which efficiently removed the armor plates to a symphony of mechanical whirls and whorls. Next, she stripped off the gray jumpsuit that left a cool, sticky residue in her hair and on her skin. She crossed her arms over her chest and shivered.
“Hold your arms to your sides at shoulder height and spread your legs to shoulder width,” the drone instructed. “Remain still.”
She did her best to follow the instructions, but started quaking like a building ready to collapse in a gale; she was so cold. An arm lowered from the ceiling to the grinding of gears. Instead of having grippers, the limb ended in a nozzle that blasted scalding water and steam over every inch of her. She yelped in pain as the water burned her, and the steam blinded her, but she wasn’t cold anymore. The water stopped, and next came the roar of hot air drying her body. By the time she blinked the world into focus, the articulated arms were folded up to the ceiling like the legs of a praying mantis, she was dry, and the goo was scoured from her except for a bit in her hair she’d have to scrub out in the shower.
When the steam cleared, she found her clothes neatly folded atop a stainless steel cart. The drone ordered her to dress, then to follow it to a workstation to write an after-action report. Dressed, she shadowed the drone into the blue-lit hallway. The Enforcers stood as still as effigies in their cubicles, and she could have imagined them as sculptures, if not for the violence she witnessed during Marlowe’s capture.
After spending an hour writing the report, Antoinette boarded the elevator and hit the button for the ground floor. She was physically exhausted, but her mind raced, and she knew sleep would not come easily. The report she had written included lies, each one a bomb that, if discovered, would detonate and destroy her life. The more she considered her fabrications, the more she was certain she was doomed. They had known about Claire’s pregnancy, after all. What else did they know?
“The renewal of life is precious,” Antoinette murmured as the elevator door slid shut. “Protecting new life is my sacred duty.”
***
“Wake up, Antoinette.”
Antoinette groaned and blinked. Brightness assailed her eyes, and a view of the curved metal appendage of The Dream Machine with each blink. With a hum and click, the polished metal withdrew, allowing more light to reach her eyes.
She squinted and yawned. “What time is it?”
“Eight a.m.,” the HomeAI replied. “The—”
“Why are you waking me up?” she griped, yawning again. “I didn’t get back in until five!”
“Antoinette!” the HomeAI took on the tone of a scolding schoolmarm.
“I’m not in the mood—”
“The security services are at the door.”
“What!” Antoinette shot up in bed, the blanket slipping from her chest, her sleepiness suffocated by dread. “What do you mean, the security services are at my door?”
“I mean,” the HomeAI spoke slowly, carefully pronouncing each word, as if talking to a dunce. “Senior Auditor Davis Malone is at your door, along with two armed security officers. They have instructed me to wake you. You have ten minutes to dress before they provide an override command to gain access to the apartment.”
“Lady Luck, smile upon me.” Antoinette hugged her arms to her chest, suddenly, very cold and exposed, a liar caught in the act.
“Your quaint religion won’t—”
“Privacy mode,” Antoinette snapped, although she was beginning to understand that even explicitly demanding privacy meant nothing, nothing at all.
She rose from bed and dressed in a clean and pressed uniform, determined to meet her fate with dignity. Claire had escaped the city and would have her child, at least. That would justify whatever happened to Antoinette. It would have to. It would have to be enough.
Before heading to the door, she knelt before the icon of Lady Luck and prayed. She prayed for herself and then for Claire and the unborn child. As an afterthought, she beseeched the goddess that whatever terribleness happened to Jaden Marlowe was quick, and the man did not suffer overmuch.
Antoinette stood, and noticing her hands shook, took a moment to steel herself for what was to come. She wouldn’t give Senior Auditor Malone the satisfaction of seeing her nervous and afraid. Taking a deep breath, she marched to the entryway and opened the door. Malone, as officious as ever, was flanked by two glowering security officers, all in black with badges on their breasts and their hands on the grips of holstered pistols.
“I bet you wish you took me up on having devil balls, now,” Malone said dryly and smirked.
Antoinette refused to squirm under their regard. “That’s one choice I will never regret.”
***
Antoinette, feeling nauseated, stood behind Senior Auditor Malone, who rapped on the door to Supervisor’s office. The security officers stood on either side of her, and she could feel the agents at their workstations, the morning shift, staring at her, their gazes boring into the back of her head like drill bits.
Supervisor doesn’t know about the book and the timetable, she told herself. You looked. No one was there. Not even a drone.
But that was a foolish and comforting lie. Supervisor and the PSFC knew about Claire’s pregnancy. Despite the precautions Claire took, they knew. And Supervisor knew something…Antoinette just didn’t know what. Malone was properly tight-lipped on the ride from her apartment to the office.
“Come.”
The summons made Antoinette start. Supervisor’s tone was sharp enough to slice steel.
Malone opened the door for her. “Best of luck.”
Calling up the remainder of her courage, Antoinette entered alone. Even before the door closed behind her, she knew she’d need Lady Luck’s own good fortune to leave the office upright. An Enforcer lurked in the shadows beside the entrance like a predator waiting in ambush.
Supervisor glowered at Antoinette from behind her desk. “You said your religious views wouldn’t interfere with your work.”
Antoinette smoothed the front of her uniform. “My devotion to Lady Luck did not impact my performance.”
Supervisor turned the paper-thin monitor on the desk so Antoinette could watch the video recorded from overhead of her picking up the children’s book, flipping through the pages, and studying the timetable. I didn’t look at the ceiling, Antoinette thought, and cursed herself for a fool.
“An investigatory team was dispatched to the slums,” Supervisor said. “Hopefully, they intercept Claire before she leaves the city. I have many questions for her. Many questions. I also have questions for you.”
There was a pregnant pause. Antoinette swallowed a lump in her throat, hoping Claire was already beyond the city walls and conditions beyond the walls weren’t as dire as government propaganda claimed.
“Did you know Agent Lewiston hacked ASCA?” Supervisor asked.
Antoinette blinked, nonplussed. “What?”
“Have you been contacted by agents from the wasteland?”
Antoinette shook her head. “No. I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Marlowe died in a Chair of Truth. He was duped. Betrayed by Agent Lewiston. He didn’t harm a hair on her head. The dream you saw. It was a fake.”
“Fake? That’s impossible. The Dream Machine can’t be hacked.”
“Oh, it can,” Supervisor said flippantly. “Claire hacked it. She probably had help. Not your help, more than likely. That really would be a surprise if you helped her.” Supervisor pointed to the image of Antoinette on the screen. “Well, aided more than you did.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Supervisor leaned back in her chair and glanced at the ceiling. “That is an excellent question, Agent Herrera. To be forthright, I don’t know. I suppose because it doesn’t matter what I tell you. Within the hour, you won’t be able to recall this conversation.”
Antoinette’s mouth went dry, and she was very aware of the Enforcer looming behind her, a specter of death. “What…what will happen to me?”
“What has happened before. Take her.”
Before Antoinette could fully process the words, hands seized her shoulders from behind, and her vision went black.
***
When Antoinette regained consciousness, she blinked a sterile white room into focus. She was upright, only she wasn’t standing; she was strapped to something, spread-eagled, held in place by thick, padded leather restraints at her wrists, ankles, and waist. In place of her Dream Service uniform, a pale blue hospital gown hung on her frame. The strong scent of anti-septic permeated the air, even burning her throat and nostrils; her eyes started to itch and water. Thudding footfall came from her right, and she turned her head, straining to see who was with her.
She battled the restraints, but failed to move her limbs or frame more than a few inches. “Where am I? What’s happening?”
“I warned you, Agent Herrera,” Supervisor’s voice echoed through the chamber.
Thump. The footfall came closer, but she still couldn’t see who it was.
“I told you that as a Dream Service agent, you are surveilled more than a common citizen. Always watched.”
Thump. The footfall stopped. Metal clattered against metal. Antoinette battled against the bonds and strained to see what was happening to no avail. Her breath came in ragged gasps. Perspiration burst from her pores, ran in rivulets over her body, and stained the gown.
The footfall started up again, coming closer.
“The renewal of life is precious,” Antoinette spluttered. “Protecting new life is my sacred duty.”
“There it is. Your religion,” Supervisor said derisively. “I told you not to allow your faith to interfere with your duties. We’ll have to dial that down even more this time.”
“The renewal of life is precious.”
Thud. An Enforcer strode into the periphery of her vision, light glinting off glossy armor.
“Protecting new life is my sacred duty.”
The Enforcer stood before her. The hypodermic needle in its too-large hand looked like a children’s toy. A bead of fluid glimmered on the needle’s tip.
“Please…no. Don’t,” Antoinette pleaded and struggled against the restraints with renewed vigor. “Nine? Is that you? Please.”
A giant hand clutched her head, black armor smooth and cold to the touch. She stopped struggling, very aware that the monstrous hand could crush her skull like an overripe orange.
“Please,” she whispered, observing her reflection in the black face plate: rheumy eyes wild with fear, lips quavering, her usually olive complexion pallid.
The Enforcer raised the needle toward her neck.
“You don’t need to do this. Whatever this is. Please, stop.”
She swore to Lady Luck that the trooper hesitated. It must be Nine. It must be.
“Nine, please—”
“Unit Nine, inject her,” Supervisor commanded.
“Nine—”
Nine leaned its armored head in close and said softly. “I told you being your minder is a shit detail.” The needle pricked her skin, and the injection lit her neck on fire. “The difference between my kind and yours is that we always follow orders.”
Antoinette gritted her teeth against the inferno racing up her neck into her head, burning everything. “What…if…the…order…is evil?”
Nine withdrew the needle. “Doesn’t matter. Our nature is to obey.”
Nine retreated as a mechanical hum came from overhead. Antoinette craned her head upward even as an inferno scorched through her sinuses. Two metal arms attached to the ceiling lowered a polished silver torque over her head.
“What? What is this?” she screamed.
A hum came from the torque, low at first but growing into a shrill whine reminiscent of a jet engine. As the sound intensified, the fire spread through Antoinette’s brain. She could no longer struggle. The pain was too great. All she could do was stare at the gleaming curved surface as the machine overwrote her memories.
***
Inside the control room, the machine’s drone was only a soft buzz. A technician in white sat at a touchscreen terminal.
“Do you want to overwrite her religious tendencies?” the technician asked.
Supervisor admired the portrait of the handsome President Horatio Bastion, affixed to the wall above the one-way glass, which provided a view of the wayward agent and the machine. Unit Nine had already left the room.
“No, it’s her religious tendencies that make her a willing agent. Just…attempt to dial them down a bit. Maybe…give her a memory of being assaulted by one of those monks. Nothing too traumatic. I don’t want her ruined. Not yet. We were so close to succeeding this time. We can get…what? Three more cycles out of her?”
“Don’t know. That’s above my pay grade,” the technician said. “She’s already been overwritten more times than any other subject.”
“Can you make her more…” Supervisor rubbed her chin for a thumb, searching for the right word. “…stoic? She’s puked in the restroom stalls five times now. I don’t need to watch that footage again.”
“I can try. You know how imprecise reprogramming is.”
***
On a blustery, blue sky afternoon, Junior Auditor Antoinette Herrera stepped off the elevator on the seventeenth floor of the Marcus D. Bastion Government Building exactly ten minutes before her shift started. Junior Auditor Joyce Smith waved to her from in front of The Dream Service office.
Antoinette strode quickly to the short blonde woman’s side. “One day, Joyce, I’m going to beat you here.”
Joyce beamed and laughed. “Maybe.”
They talked about everything and nothing as they waited for their shift of sorting through the subconscious detritus of their fellow citizens to begin. And as always, Antoinette yearned that today she would review a dream that required an enforcement action.
- The Dream Service - May 31, 2026
- A Debt Paid - August 19, 2024
