Broken Dreams (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 5) (2 page)

The more Mara thought about it, the more concerned she grew. If the receptacle occupants shared a mass dream and communicated with each other, then Abby might be behind what was happening. She could be the source of the occupants’ fear. When Mara tried to explain her concerns two hours earlier, Dr. Canfield wouldn’t listen. Too wrapped up in the immediate medical needs of her charges in stasis, the doctor had dismissed Mara out of hand and told her that they would talk later. A few minutes ago Dr. Canfield had signaled that she could talk if Mara came here, to the doctor’s office.

The door knob turned and stopped. Through the door, Mara heard the doctor giving someone directions. The conversation stopped, and the door opened. Strands of loose gray hair fluttered alongside Dr. Canfield’s face as she maneuvered behind her desk. She slumped into her chair. Pulling up to the edge of the desk, she gave Mara a stern expression—the look her mother had when she knew Mara was about to confess something.

“Are things going better in the repository?” Mara asked.

“They are more stable than earlier, but we still cannot determine the cause of the hormonal spikes the repository occupants experienced. Clinically it looks very much like a classic fight-or-flight response, but that makes absolutely no sense.”

“So you’ve never had issues like this before?”

“Millions of people in stasis simultaneously having a panic attack? No, we’ve never encountered anything remotely like this,” the doctor said. She narrowed her eyes. “Why do you ask?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. The problems might be my fault—at least I may have caused them inadvertently.”

Deadpan, the doctor said, “Go on.”

“When I talked to Ping earlier today, he said the dreams he experienced were an alternate realm created by the receptacle occupants, a place they had created for themselves. They can communicate and interact with each other, experiencing a full life.”

“Impossible,” she said. “They are in stasis, and the lives they live are the ones we share with them—through the syncing process built into the repository system.”

“How can you know that? You aren’t inside their minds,” Mara said with a little more antagonism in her voice than she intended.

The doctor pulled back, repeating, “
Inside their minds
.”

Mara made a calming motion with her hand and took a deep breath. “I know it sounds crazy to you and it contradicts everything you believe, but Ping knew things that he couldn’t have known unless he was in contact with my brother in this other realm. Ping knew things that had happened to Sam after Ping entered the receptacle.”

“What’s this have to do with hormonal spikes in the repository occupants?” the doctor asked. She wasn’t buying any of it.

“As you know, I placed my friend Abby—the one possessed by the Aphotis—into a receptacle a couple days ago.”

The doctor nodded. “The person you said caused the problems at the transceiver node and transfigured people into shimmers.”

“Right. Well, if the occupants of the receptacles are living in some kind of dream realm, I may have given this creature access to it and all the people who live there—by placing her in the receptacle. She might be the reason everyone is so afraid—the source of the hormone spikes. After what happened in this realm, God knows what she’s up to inside the minds of the other occupants.”

Mara couldn’t tell if the frown on the doctor’s face was anger, confusion or what, but she didn’t reply.
Maybe she doesn’t understand, or maybe she doesn’t want to understand
. When Mara attempted to clarify further, the doctor interrupted.

“Your friend, somehow, threatened the other occupants—because she has access to them through some kind of communal dream state even though each is encased in a separate receptacle?”

“It sounds crazy, but it’s not any crazier than convincing people to transfigure themselves into living holograms, is it?” Mara asked.

“We don’t know that’s what happened,” the doctor countered.

“Your own staff reported seeing two shimmers. You’ve read the accounts in the news streams. They existed—people with synthetic bodies transfigured into living holograms with bodies made of light.”

“Yes, they existed. What hasn’t been proven is your explanation. We only have your word for it, and that hasn’t been confirmed by the authorities,” the doctor said.

“With everything you’ve witnessed, you can’t believe that I am making this up. We are not from this realm—you’ve examined us. You’ve witnessed me using my metaphysical abilities. I thought you were coming around, but you think I’m some kind of liar or a lunatic.”

“You are not a lunatic or a liar. However, I’m a scientist. I take nothing at face value. I need proof. That is how I determine the veracity of things—not on the say-so of a strange girl I met a few days ago. Is that so hard to understand?”

Mara looked down at her hands. “No, it’s not. It actually sounds familiar. I took weeks for me to acknowledge that Sam is my brother.”

The doctor looked confused.

Mara dismissed it with the shake of her head. “Long story. The one thing I learned a few months ago is this—just because something isn’t proven yet doesn’t make it untrue. And, ignoring the truth—whatever that truth is—can have unexpected repercussions. I believe that this is one of those unproven truths. The people inside those receptacles are in danger. Set aside everything I said about them living a second life, in a dream realm. Look at this like a scientist. You said the occupants’ fight-or-flight responses have never happened before. Right?”

The doctor nodded.

“What else has never happened before?” Mara asked.

“I’m not sure I’m following.”

“People from other realms—new variables—have been introduced to the system. Ping, Sam and Abby each come from distinct realms. At the least you have to eliminate them as the cause of the problems. Isn’t that what a scientist would do?”

Dr. Canfield looked unconvinced. “I don’t see how having them in the receptacles could affect—” Her face went pale.

Mara sensed the doctor had received an update. “Is something happening in the repository?”

The doctor stood up and went to the door. “Some occupants are going critical. Stay here until I come back. We’re not done talking about this.” She left, closing the door behind her.

Damn. It looked like she was coming around
.

A little more than an hour later, Mara still sat in Dr. Canfield’s office, staring at the poster on the wall. Getting antsy, she paced in the small space between the desk and the door, wondering if it were possible to disconnect Abby’s receptacle in a way that left her in stasis but prevented her from harming other occupants. Mara didn’t want to remove Abby altogether because she would be exposed to the dissoluendo virus, not to mention she might wreak havoc in this realm once again.
There must be a way to isolate her from the other occupants
.

Mara wished she’d spent more time grilling the attendant giving them the tour and an overview of the repository’s systems before Ping was placed in his receptacle. If only she had access to technical specifications, maybe she could do something …

Disable the synching protocols and disconnect the receptacle’s signal matrix to prevent Abby from sending or receiving any signals. If the occupants are communicating and sharing some kind of dream realm, this would be the only possible way, at least technically.

What? Where did that come from?

Mara cocked her head and distractedly bumped into the desk. Instead of turning around and pacing back toward the door, she sat on the edge of the desk and stared toward the ceiling, not really seeing it. She focused on the repository system schematics that scrolled through her mind like an endless animated presentation. Mara gasped, awestruck, as she realized what was happening.

She found no direct connection between the receptacles—leaving the signals used to sync the synthetic and biological bodies. Oddly the receptacles broadcasted and received signals on an open spectrum of rolling frequencies. Like a big, wide-open network with no passwords, no security and no filtering. All data sent had an attached address—a personal identifier or receptacle code—used to route the information. However, nothing prevented someone—inside or outside a receptacle—from appending whatever address they wished. Nothing prevented receptacle occupants from communicating with each other, assuming they had the means to send signals at will.
That is the big question. Can they send signals?

Mara, come to the monitoring lab immediately
.

Speaking of signals, that one was from Dr. Canfield.

As she pushed off the edge of the desk and headed to the door, Mara got the impression something was wrong, even though the telepathic signals these people exchanged lacked the emotional timbres of a human voice. In some manner Mara had yet to discern, the doctor had conveyed a sense of panic and urgency.

* * *

When Mara entered the monitoring lab, Dr. Canfield was in the middle of a video conference with eight doctors at other repositories, their faces displayed in two rows of four boxes on one of the large screens at the front of the room. Half a dozen attendants hunched over the control panels. When the doctor saw Mara step in, she called to an attendant and said, “Tina, could you mute the conference please?”

The conversation on the screen was silenced.

Dr. Canfield met Mara at the door, then pulled her aside toward the back of the room, away from the attendants.

“Is everything all right? I got the impression something was wrong,” Mara said.

“We had two people at other repositories flatline a few minutes ago. We lost one, but we were able to resuscitate the other. Both were elderly, so no one is sure if it’s a direct consequence of the elevated anxiety the occupants are presenting. Obviously it didn’t help,” the doctor said.

“So you haven’t found a solution for what’s happening to them?”

Dr. Canfield shook her head. “No, we’re stumped. For the time being we can counteract the symptoms, but that’s a short-term solution. We can’t keep pumping drugs into everyone for long, primarily because it’s not healthy. Secondarily it’s not sustainable. We never before anticipated administering a pharmaceutical across the entire repository population. With a limited supply, we’ll run out shortly. If we don’t find what’s causing this soon, we are going to lose more than a couple old people.”

“Why did you call for me? What can I do to help?”

The doctor glanced toward the attendants to make sure none were looking in their direction and lowered her voice. “I don’t for a minute believe any of our earlier discussion in my office, but, considering the introduction of new variables into the repository system, it might be prudent to remove your two friends and your brother. It won’t resolve our issues, but it will be one less thing we should consider. I wanted to get your permission before proceeding.”

“Can you keep them in stasis after you remove them from the system?” Mara asked.

“No, we need to shut down their receptacles. All of them are now virus-free, but, if they leave the receptacles, they’ll be reinfected. I would recommend that you depart to your own realm as soon as we power down their receptacles.”

“The only problem with that scenario is Abby—and the Aphotis—will wake up. I can’t guarantee I can get her out of here before she escapes or does something even more destructive in the repository.”

“How were you planning to remove her from the receptacle when you first placed her there?” the doctor asked.

“I hadn’t thought it out that far. I figured she could stay in stasis long enough for me and Ping to find a way to get her out safely. It never occurred to me that putting her in there was introducing her into a dream realm your biological bodies cooked up.”

The doctor gritted her teeth. “
That
is impossible.”

“Access the technical specs to the repository. Look at the schematics of the syncing protocols. Nothing prevents one receptacle from signaling another. It is technically possible for the occupants to communicate with each other.”

“That doesn’t prove they are. And it certainly doesn’t prove the occupants have created a whole new world for themselves.”

Mara raised her hands as if fending off an attack. “All right. I’m not going to convince you of anything. How about we try an alternate plan that won’t unleash the Aphotis on the world again? We could disable the signal processors in the console of Abby’s receptacle. That would eliminate the only connection she could use to access the rest of the repository system while keeping her in stasis. We can do the same for Ping and Sam, if you like. None of them need to sync with a biological body anyway.”

“All that presumes I believe in this dream-realm hypothesis, and I don’t.”

“No, it doesn’t. Don’t believe in the dream realm if you don’t want to. What we are doing is eliminating the possibility that Abby is causing the anxiety spikes of the other occupants via the only possible connection she has. Eliminate the signals from her receptacle, and you eliminate the possibility.”

At least technically. Of course that doesn’t take into account metaphysics.

Dr. Canfield rolled her eyes and took a deep breath.

Mara cocked a quizzical eyebrow at her.

“Frankly I like better the solution where you take your friends and go home, but I don’t see how cutting the signals will do any harm. Give me a few minutes to wrap up here, and we’ll grab a technician and head over to the repository.”

* * *

Perry, a gregarious bald man who looked old enough to be considering retirement, opened the toolbox on the floor before the console to the transparent tube containing Abby. He squinted into the open top of the box, contemplating something and then looked up at the dim ceiling. The inset lighting just above the area brightened, and the man smiled. “That’s better,” he said. Reaching into the box, he extracted a device that looked like a tuning fork.

Mara crouched next to him and asked, “What kind of tool is that?”