Dream Chasers (Dystopian Scifi Series Book 1) (4 page)

Midori pushed Peter against the
steel bed, a forceful one that made the steel frame shake. Time was up; the
time for idle chatter and pleasantries a thing of the past. The side of Peter’s
hip throbbed. He thought Midori was going to push him again and readied himself
mentally, eyes closed. But then the sound of a click, and Peter knew what that
was. He opened his eyes and turned, hips aching.

‘See my finger?’ Midori asked,
tapping the gun’s trigger. ‘All I have to do is give this … some pressure. And
you’ll look like your friend, holes and holes. Is that what you want?’

The machine gun’s snout was a
tiny hole. Something so little, Peter thought, with so much potential for
chaos. Staring at the gun brought a fresh, horrible awareness to surface, one
that made him want to faint.  

With a click, he could be gone.

Peter tried his best to forget
about his dead friend and mustered enough courage to look Midori in the eye.
‘What do you want from me?’

‘You work for us now.’ The gun
lowered. ‘You will do as the Yaramati tells you to do. Is that clear?’ Silence.
He waved his gun at the steel frame. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to go through a
little initiation. Think of it as an interview.’

To Peter’s horror, a gun fired.
The
bang
made his head jolt up. The first thing he did was study his
legs, chest, and face for any holes. He patted his neck and heard another
bang!
bang!
He turned his head and saw the ball shooting through the hoop.

Midori must’ve found this
funny, because he was looking at the roof and laughing. He cut his laughter
short and waved his gun at the Dream Machine. ‘You ready for the interview?’

Each time they bounced the ball
on the court, Peter felt his heart throb. ‘What interview?’

‘
Listeeen
,
listeeen
,’
Midori said, pronouncing each word with a smile. ‘You should feel proud. You
are the Yaramti’s Dream Chaser. But first, we need to see if Ohko was right about
you. He said you had a good imagination, that you’d be a great candidate for
our newest asset. Now tell me, Peter, do you have a good imagination?’

He was going to Dream Chase. He
was starting to see where this was heading. The interview Midori spoke of was
going to be his ability to effectively use the machine. But what happens when
his imagination isn’t strong enough to harvest energy from dreams? Will that
mean he failed the interview?

Boof, boof, boof
,
the ball bounced. ‘Good throw!’ someone shouted. Laughter and high fives
followed.

Peter looked behind at an old
man, who wore blue latex gloves and who was scrubbing the floor. The way he
scrubbed made Peter think that this wasn’t his first cleanup. The foam on the
floor consisted of white bubbles, red bubbles, and a lot of citrus smelling something.
Peter looked away from the foam and at the basketball players, and he wondered
again: what did I get myself into?

The cleaners did a fantastic
job. They left the floor sparkling, smelling of flowers in the rain, as if
nothing had happened. They snapped off their blue-latex gloves and carried the
cleaning utensils to the door. As the door swallowed them one by one, Peter lay
on the Dream Infiltrator, his heart beating uncomfortably, the inevitable
approaching.

You need to lie perfectly
still, one of the men in black coats reminded. If you don’t, it could cause
disturbances in the energy distribution, something they did not want and had no
time in indulging. This was a professional operation conducted by professional
people – the Yaramati gang, a proud syndicate aiming for great things, which,
of course, had capital green high on its list. Its motto: work with us or fuck
off, dead.

‘These aren’t part of the
Infiltrator,’ Midori said, picking up Peter’s wrist, which rattled. ‘The cuffs
are – how can I put it?’ his lips parted to the side, ‘a security precaution.
Are they too tight?’

They were. The metal scratched
his skin. The thought of asking Midori to loosen them felt absurd. Midori
rummaged the key from his pants and slid it into the cuffs. ‘Let me help you.’ The
cuffs tightened, and Peter’s wrist burned.

He yelped. ‘I’m helping you.
Why are you making it worse?’

Midori frowned at him, the way
you might look at a stray dog. He was going to say something, lips apart, but
was interrupted.

‘The machine’s almost ready,’
the man said, checking his cell. Everything he wore was black, his pants, his
shiny shoes, his coat, and his glasses, which were resting on top of his head. Midori
was the only one wearing a white vest.

‘Where is the needle?’ Midori
asked, waving at the Dream Infiltrator.

‘It should be here in five
minutes. We had trouble.’

Under the room’s lights,
Midori’s dragon tattoo appeared to be moving, alive, with his arm gestures. ‘What
trouble?’

‘The tollgate. The police
wanted a scan on the cargo.’

Midori swung his arm at the
heavens. ‘And what happened?’

‘It was no fucking problem at
all,’ the man snickered. ‘We had Jiro scanning the truck for us.’

‘Jiro, the police guy?’

The man nodded.

‘How much are we paying him?’

‘An amount that shuts the
mouth.’

‘Very good. I want a visit to
his house.’

He stopped typing on his cell
and looked up, confused. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Burn the body.’

‘But isn’t he—’

Midori slapped him across the
cheek. The man’s head flew sideways. He stumbled a good distance and looked
behind as if worried about something else – maybe a bullet. ‘I’m sorry!’ the
man said. ‘I shouldn’t have questioned.’ He got up from the floor, bowed with
shaky knees, and rushed for the door.

As if on cue, a stream of
people came in, carrying the final piece of the puzzle, the machinery needed to
transfer the energy. It was like an IV pole, just a lot bigger with cords
snaking all around.

‘Put the headpiece on him,’ the
newest member of the black coats said. He studied Peter’s forearm. ‘This is
going to sting. Bite your tongue, boy.’ The man reached for the cord on the
machine, pulling a string that made a hissing sound.

‘Wait, what are you doing? What
is that?’ Peter heard the fear in his voice. The cord had a thick needle at the
end, the size of a finger. For a second Peter thought the needle was going to
go into him, but the tip of the needle turned into a bright, sea-blue beam, a
barcode with letters.

‘I’m marking you. As I said,
you might want to bite your teeth – not your tongue,’ he snickered. Peter had
anticipated pain, but he didn’t expect it to hurt this much. The blue beam ran
across his forearm, marking red letters on his skin that disappeared a second
later, fading into the color of his flesh. It was beautiful to watch shiny red fade
into blue and then into skin, but there was nothing beautiful about the pain.
Peter screamed – tried to scream – the pain away. Someone covered his mouth
with cloth as he screamed.

‘Bring in the host,’ Midori, a
patient observer, said, standing a few feet away from the table. He waved his
fingers at the door. There was commotion. The first thing Peter saw were legs
kicking, then a body of a man. It was the homeless guy from earlier, the one
Ohko had given cocaine to.  

‘What’s this?’ Homeless
protested. ‘I got no trouble with you authority!’ He was carried in by three
men. When Homeless saw Peter, his eyes widened. ‘You,’ he said, spit dripping
from his lips. ‘You tricked – you tricked me!’

‘No I didn’t,’ Peter said.
Before he could tell the man to calm down, Midori head-butted Homeless with his
gun, knocking the man dizzy.

‘I … wha-I, I.’ Blood snaked
down Homeless’s nose. They sat him in a chair next to Peter, where he lay
slumped with his head back.

‘We don’t need him fully conscious,’
Midori said. ‘Just half awake.’ He slid his gun into his waist and turned to
Peter. ‘Now listen to me carefully.’ He stepped closer with his finger raised.
‘You are going to infiltrate his dreams, and I want you to do whatever is
necessary to harvest the dream.’

The pain in his forearm was only
a nibble now. He watched them scan the man’s neck with the blue laser, marking
him as the host. ‘I don’t know how.’ Peter shook his head and bit down on his
lips. ‘For fuck’s sake, I’ve never done this before! How do you expect me to
harvest his dream without training?’

Midori waved Peter’s outburst
away. ‘All you need is a strong imagination, something Ohko said you had. If
that’s the case, you should be fine.’ He rested his one hand on the gun, using
his other hand to emphasize his words by waving it around. ‘Let me remind you,
if you don’t succeed in our little interview, you are going to end up dead,
bleeding, lost and prone in a trash bag. Is that understood?’

Fuck you! Peter screamed in his
head.

‘Was’s going on?’ Homeless
asked, reaching for his bloody nose. They strapped him with cuffs. His eyelids
fluttered open, trying to fathom, trying to remember, but he went back to
painful sleep.

‘If you fail, this man is going
to die as well.’ Midori pointed at Homeless. ‘So you better—’ he twirled his
hand in a graceful bow ‘—learn on the job, as they say.’ The machine next to
him lit up in wonderful rainbow colors. A man appeared with a laptop. The
machine made a smooching sound. Peter could feel heat coming from somewhere,
maybe from within.

‘Vitals steady,’ the man said,
tapping the keyboard. ‘He should be under in one minute.’

Another man appeared from
behind, reading on a tablet. ‘Did you give him the procaine?’

‘What’s that for?’ the man
asked, looking up from the laptop.

‘They give Dream Chasers
procaine tablets to numb their mouth, something about numbing the lips,
otherwise they run the risk of biting their tongue off.’ Laptop guy was the
first one to laugh, and then everyone chuckled. Midori approached the bed.

‘You are going to be fine,’ he
said, putting his hand on Peter’s forehead. ‘You’re getting really hot, son.
You okay?’ With his hand still on Peter’s forehead, he looked at the guy with
the laptop. ‘How far?’

Suddenly, Homeless Man began to
bob in his chair. His legs shot up like wooden planks. Retarded words left his
lips, something about death and clouds and that he was coming home. Peter
watched in horror as Homeless frowned, a forehead squeezing every muscle
possible. His eyelids fluttered, revealing eyes without irises – two white
balls trying to jump from a skull.

‘I don’t know if this is how
it’s supposed to go,’ the man holding the laptop said. And that was the last
thing Peter heard before his vision turned white.

There were over two hundred
offices in this magnificent building, which towered over Tokyo’s landscape like
an elder brother; the city below was a young boy looking up at his older brother.
You trust that older brother because family would never betray. Blood is blood,
the invisible contract signed by families. Today, the sun gleamed over Yoamo
Corporation, the first company of its kind to start synthesizing Dream Energy
for market potential.

Even though there were two
hundred offices all stacking up toward the sky, Noni Makaratzi, the hardworking
Tokyo citizen who had a family of one, was not high up in one of those offices.
This never deterred his soul. Noni Makaratzi had big plans and ideas for the
company. His father had always said, “A company is nothing without its people,”
and with this in mind, he was going to share his ideas with his boss, Kiln Mayn,
who must’ve known that Noni was coming, because the secretary called for him over
the intercom:

Would Mr Noni Makaratzi please
make his way to the head office
.

There was a disturbance in the
workflow. Papers shuffled in the corner and then one loud snap, a stapler
biting. Nosy coworkers peeked over their cubicle walls like meerkats, wanting
to know what the fuss was all about. The office above almost never called for
the ones below, and when it did happen, it was usually for one of two reasons:
a promotion up into glory and status and respect and something other than
filing papers, or a demotion, which for the lower part of Yoamo Corporation’s
workforce meant a permanent goodbye, a pat on the shoulder and a smile good
luck for twenty years’ service rendered.

Standing in the elevator with
his hand on the button made him want to shed a tear. Makaratzi was alone, and
the metal doors were shut. The silence provided a moment of clarity, a
realization that today was the day. He had worked all his life for this moment,
all twenty years. He had joined the company when he was eighteen, fresh out of
school, and slaved his way through mundane work and doing things other people
didn’t want to do. He’d always known deep inside of his other nobler qualities,
which had to do with his mind. Whenever he saw a complex problem, his mind
would attack it with solutions. When he was four years old, his mother had
bought him a puzzle with a green “15+ age” sticker on it. It took him five
hours and forty minutes to complete. He knew it took him that long because he’d
counted the arms on the clock in the living room.

Before swiping his badge on the
elevator’s scanner, a darker thought infiltrated his mind. What if he was
getting fired? In the silence of the metal box, he stood there, contemplating
if such a thing was possible. Of course it was. Tokyo’s business arena was in a
world of turmoil and change, all thanks to the demand of Dream Energy. But
Makaratzi had a good feeling about today. He had been spouting ideas around the
office about what they could do to improve Dream Infiltration. Most of his work
colleagues didn’t share his enthusiasm. Most of them waved his ideas away as
something that should only be discussed by superiors.
Leave the big thinking
for the big boys, and let’s talk about why you didn’t come for a drink with us
on the weekend
.

He scanned his badge through a
thin blue line. The machine beeped and requested identification by voice.
Makaratzi leaned in, said his name, and the machine said thank you. Before he
knew it, the elevator went up, an effortless glide that made him think he was
still on the same floor.

Here at Yoamo Corporation
,
the artificial voice said,
we pride ourselves in next generation schematics.
Have you heard?
We are the first corporation to synthesize Dream Energy
for a brighter future, and as a Yoamo employee, we just want to thank you for
being part of a—

The doors opened. A secretary
holding a reading device looked up. She smiled, revealing perfectly white
teeth. She wore a light-brown blouse that had a zip running down the middle, no
buttons, a black skirt knee length, and clothes a perfect fit for her slim
figure. Maybe a little too tight, but better tight than loose. She stretched
her hand for a handshake, which caught Noni a little off-guard because he
wasn’t used to it.

‘My name is Alissa Ralph,’ she
said. They shook hands. ‘Welcome to floor one hundred. May I get you anything
to drink or eat?’

There were two hundred floors
in this building, Makaratzi thought, and he was halfway to heaven. His father
had been right about him: he did have a bright future ahead, and it was all
thanks to him never giving up on his dreams of becoming a better person.

But, the darker thought said,
the one at the back of the head that sounded like a shady figure in a dark
alley, what if you were getting fired today? You have heard the news, haven’t
you? They don’t need people like you anymore working for them.

Noni was a simple man. He wore
his peppermint-green overalls clean and tidy. No need for a fancy tie or
expensive shirt. Simplicity is the mother of workability. After all, a
beautiful flower needs only two things: water and sun, which are nature’s
simplicity. He adjusted his name plaque on his chest and gave the secretary a
simple smile. ‘No, thank you. Just here to see Kiln Mayn.’

‘Of course, follow me.’

The hundredth floor was nothing
like the ones below. Here, the walls that would have separated co-worker from
co-worker were removed. The floor an expensive looking oak. The walls layered
with pinkish bricks. They walked past a painting the size of a house door. It
was an oil painting of Miyamoto Musashi, a fearless swordsman who excelled in
duels. Next to the painting was a three-legged table with a vase on top, which
had branches sprouting from it.

‘This way,’ she said, pointing
at a door. They made their way over, Makaratzi gazing around in awe, at how
different the floor was compared to the ones below (and this is the hundredth
one, he thought). She held the device in her hand up, pressed on it, and
smiled.

‘Yes,’ a voice replied.

‘Mr Makaratzi is here to see
you.’

‘Let him in.’

She opened the door and waved
for him to go inside. When he was inside, she gave a smile goodbye and closed
the door, off to do her many other duties.

There was silence, and fire
crackling broke it, a fireplace on the right, burning freshly put logs. The
room was somewhat empty, minimalistic. Kiln sat behind a glass desk. He pointed
at the chair behind and told him to approach.

‘It’s great to meet you, sir,’ Noni
said, approaching the table while noting the wooden Dream Infiltrator model on
the table.

‘Please, sit.’ Kiln got up as
Makaratzi sat down. He went over to a cabinet, rattled it open, and removed a
katana from the many other swords. ‘Do you know why you are here?’

Enthusiasm made him nod, and he
tried keeping his excitement under control. There was no need to act like a
little boy receiving a present for the first time, no need at all. His father
had taught him that a person should accept good fortunes gracefully, to
appreciate the good in life with a warm heart. ‘I’m here to help Yoamo
Corporation succeed even further, sir.’

‘Is that why you think you are
here?’ Kiln asked, laying the sword on the table.

Makaratzi felt his heart slowly
sink into his stomach. He stared at Kiln without much expression. He was trying
to think of an answer to his question, and it felt as if he were on a timer to
do so.

Logs snapped in the fireplace.
They both stared at each other, Kiln waiting.

‘I apologize,’ Noni said. ‘I
must’ve been foolish for thinking—’

‘For thousands of years our
ancestors looked upon the sword for answers. It kept them safe, gave them
comfort, and fed our ancestors whatever they needed. The East has a saying, “The
tongue is more to be feared than the sword,” which I believe is what our land
needs now more than ever. You see,’ Kiln got up and turned around, where a
kettle and two cups were. Liquid trickled into cups. ‘The time for swords has
long dissipated.’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Would you drink with me?’

‘Of course.’ He took the cup
from him and peered inside. Broken branches drifted with scattered leaves. A
twirl of white rose, and Noni knew the scent well. ‘Thank you for the green
tea.’ They sipped together, peering at each other over cups.

‘The East will dominate the
world with its tongue. Already, the West murmurs behind closed doors, talking
about our greatest invention yet. They realize the potential of Dream Energy.
They realize what we are capable of. And with Yoamo Corporation spearheading the
way, leading our civilization in the direction we need to go, the world is at
our knees. Do you understand what this means?’

He wiped green tea from his
lips. ‘I understand.’ He was trying to understand where this was heading,
trying to put the puzzle pieces together in his head, just like he had done
when he was four years old, when his mother had bought him a puzzle box with a
thousand tiny pieces. A voice in his head, his father’s voice, told him to be
patient; a flower can’t be forced to grow.

His patience paid off. Kiln
crossed his fingers and peered over them. ‘I have heard of your problem solving
skills, Makaratzi, and I want to put your skills to good use. I am inviting
you.’

He waited for him to carry on,
but silence forced Noni to ask: ‘Inviting me to what?’

‘There will be a great divide
in Tokyo. It’s something you need to understand. There will always be a divide
among things, and Lower City will be the divide in our chainmail. Upper City
will be the place for Dream Energy creation, and Lower City will be our servant.’
Kiln stood up, raising his cup for a toast. ‘This is where I’m inviting you, a
place among the spearheads of Tokyo. Accept my offer, and you will be relocated
to a different part of the city, the Upper City.’

He couldn’t believe it. All the
hard work, all the sacrifices, this is what he was waiting for, a glimmer of
hope for his desperation. His father had been right, a bright future lay ahead.
Noni stared at Kiln’s cup, about to say something, when he thought about his
father who lived in the lower parts of the city. He felt confused all of a
sudden, a feeling of uncertainty. What was going to happen to his father? The
man was old and frail and his only family.

‘What is your answer? Are you
ready to help Tokyo?’

‘There’s something I need to
know.’ Makaratzi laid his cup on the desk, tapping the glass.  ‘I apologize for
not accepting your offer hastily, but a question needs answering.’

‘Of course,’ Kiln said. ‘What
do you need to know?’

‘It’s regarding family. In this
case, my—’

‘Your father, yes.’ Kiln ran
his fingers along the sword’s edge. ‘I heard the man suffers. Is this correct?’

How does he know about my
father? Makaratzi thought.

‘Don’t look so surprised.
Understand this, we are not inviting everyone into the Upper City of Tokyo,
only the elite. So the people we do invite we have to investigate thoroughly.
We cannot have weakness in our place.’ Kiln swiped his hand over his machine.

‘Yes?’ the secretary asked.

‘Bring in the file.’

Alissa Ralph walked in with a
file in her right and a tablet in her left. She gave the caramel-colored file
to Kiln, asked if he needed anything else, and when Kiln waved his fingers, she
walked out.

Kiln slipped a photo from the
file. ‘This is your father, sixty-one, Solhan Makaratzi, a retired fisherman
from Hitachi. He’s currently in hospital, yes?’

Noni took the picture and
studied it. His father looked happy in there, a lot better than how he looked
now. In the picture, his father was holding a fish almost as big as him,
smiling at the camera with squinting eyes. ‘My father is a sick man, yes,
suffering from arthritis and stage one dementia.’ Noni was grateful for the
opportunity, but seeing a file with his family information made his brain ache
for answers. ‘May I ask what all this is for, sir?’

‘I have already told you. We
aren’t inviting everyone into Upper City. We have to thoroughly inspect the people
we do invite. You are one of the few in this building selected for the honor,
Noni. Your abilities, we could do with it.’ Kiln slid the file over the desk.
‘Question is, do you accept our one-time offer?’

‘Will I be able to take my
father with me?’

Kiln leaned forward; his chair
creaked. ‘Of course.’

Then the answer is simple, Noni
thought. He’ll take his father to a better place, a place where he could take
care of him. ‘I accept your offer, sir, and I thank you very much.’ Noni bowed
his head. ‘What do you expect of me?’

Kiln had his fingers crossed behind
the table again. ‘Welcome to the elite, Noni Makaratzi.’