Broken Dreams (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 5) Read online

  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.

  CHAPTER 3

  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?”

  Without looking up, he said, “It’s a depolarizer. I will use it to unseal the side of this control panel.”

  “How does it work?”

  “The inside surface is covered with a thin film that seals it in place. This tool changes the magnetic properties of that film, releasing the cover. Watch.”

  He positioned the tuning fork at the panel corner closest to the floor and moved the tool up the side of the console, across the top and down the other side to the floor again. After replacing the tool in the box, Perry grasped the edge of the panel with his fingertips and pulled it away from the console, revealing a maze of lights, fibers and mechanisms inside.

  “Mara?” Dr. Canfield, who stood a few feet away looking at a data pad, called to her. “Come take a look at this.”

  Mara straightened and went to her. As she approached, the doctor held out the pad. The screen displayed a chart with three lines on it. One of the lines was relatively flat while the other two climbed toward the upper right corner.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  The doctor ran her finger along the flat line and said, “This is the level of anxiety hormones reported in your friend Abby. Normal, not elevated at all. These other two represent a cross-section of receptacle occupants. Virtually all are elevated to some degree.”

  “Are Sam and Ping in any danger?”

  “Not immediately but don’t you think it is odd that Abby is the only person not affected by the spike? That she’s the only one not feeling this fight-or-flight response?”

  “Not if she’s the one causing it,” Mara said.

  The doctor frowned at the pad. “I don’t know …”

  “I’m ready to pull the signal processor now,” Perry called out, his voice muffled because his head was inside the opened console. “Are you sure you want me to do it? Once it’s done, it can’t simply be plugged back in.”

  “Go ahead and pull it,” the doctor said, still staring at the line chart.

  Mara glanced up at Abby in the transparent tube, half expecting to see some kind of reaction on her face. Instead a blossom of bright light reflected off the glass. Mara turned to see several streaks of lightning shoot out the side of the console, arcing along Perry’s spasming body and jumping across the room, where they struck an unoccupied receptacle that exploded, spraying glass for several yards.

  Mara and the doctor ran to the open console and crouched next to the limp form lying there.

  “Don’t touch him!” the doctor ordered. “He might be carrying some kind of charge.”

  Perry rolled over to his side and removed his head from the console. “No, I won’t shock you, but that signal processor sure will. Whew!”

  “Are you okay?” Mara asked.

  The technician shook his head, as if to check for loose parts. Determining none, he smiled, sat up and said, “I think so.”

  “What happened?” the doctor asked.

  “When I touched the signal processor, it emitted some kind of electrical pulse. Luckily I was grounded, and the energy was conducted away from me. I think.”

  “When I accessed the receptacle schematics, I found no power source running through it,” Mara said.

  “There’s none,” Perry said. “There’s not that much power running through the entire console. I’m not sure where the energy is coming from.”

  “Were you able to remove the processor?” the doctor asked.

  “No, and I won’t try again as long as there’s power running through this system. It’s just too risky for me and for the entire depository. Next time that energy might backtrack into the system and put the occupants at risk.”

  “Are you feeling lightheaded? Do you think you can stand up?” the doctor asked.

  “I think so,” he said.

  She gave Perry a cursory once-over to detect any injury. “You don’t look like you sustained any permanent damage. Do you need medical attention?”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m good. Just a little startled, that’s all.”

  Mara and the doctor each took one of his arms as Perry stood.

  “Very well then,” Dr. Canfield said. “If you would have this mess cleaned up, I would appreciate it.” She turned and walked him toward the door to the hall.

  Just as he regained his balance and turned to smile at Mara, she noticed the doctor stiffen as her face went pale.

  “What is it?” Mara asked.

  “The monitoring lab is recording another spike of fear in the occupants. Worse this time. I’ve got to get back there.”

  Mara did a double take. “Wait a minute. What are we to do about Abby, Ping and Sam?” Mara called after her.

  Dr. Canfield opened the door, calling over her shoulder, “We’ll discuss it later. Go to the training center to learn how to integrate with your new body.”

  “But what about …” The doctor was gone. Mara looked at Perry and said, “I guess I should take that as a hint I’m not welcome to go with her.”

  He gave her a commiserating nod and crouched down to gather his tools.

  Mara glanced at her brother’s face in the next receptacle. His brows were furrowed and his jaw clenched. Turning back to Abby’s tube, Mara looked up at her old friend. Serene.

  CHAPTER 4

  Mara opened the conference room door just a crack, peeked inside and found it vacant, so she slipped in and shut the door behind her. Going to a get-to-know-your-artificial-body session was out of the question. She couldn’t concentrate on anything as long as Abby, Sam and Ping might be in danger, not to mention everyone else in the repositories. This was the only familiar place where she could hide after Perry had walked her back to the smaller underground cavern that housed the offices and laboratories.

  At the round Plexiglas table, she sat, rested her chin in her palm and stared at the shiny blank wall that could display data when called upon. She needed to get her thoughts organized because Dr. Canfield wasn’t cooperating. Just standing around waiting for Abby—or rather, the Aphotis—to kill everyone, if that’s her plan, was not an option.

  If the receptacle occupants lived in a dream realm, Mara needed to extract Abby without setting the Aphotis loose again in this realm. Which would be easier if Mara knew what was happening inside this other realm. What was Abby doing to those poor people?

  Mara stood up and paced, hoping that moving around might jar loose an epiphany. She walked to the glass wall overlooking the laboratory on the floor below. The same room where she’d first seen Cam, after their arrival at the repository—where his holographic image had interacted with the attendant assessing Cam’s damages sustained after the cab had struck Cam back in Mara’s realm. Now the lab was empty.

  If only she could talk to Ping one more time.

  Mara’s eye’s widened, and she spun on her heel. There, across the room, lay the holographic platform they’d used to talk to Ping earlier. The attendant, who had brought it here and activated it, had not retrieved it yet. Mara ran over to it and crouched, examining it. The platform was a featureless beige platter, the circumference of a car tire, made of molded plastic with beveled edges, like a Frisbee. There were no buttons or switches, no markings of any kind. Once the attendant had placed it on the floor, he had not touched it. He’d simply activated it with a voice command.

  It couldn’t be that simple. Surely some kind of security prevents just anyone from using it.

  Then she remembered how easy it was for Abby and her followers to access information about the synthetic physiology of the people in this realm. These people didn’t secure anything. To them access and information were like air or sunshine—just here for the taking. No questions asked.

  Nothing prevents anyone from using the holographic interface.

  She smiled and tried to remember what the attendant had said to start the last session with Ping. The memory came to her with such clarity that she wondere
d if it was because of her artificial brain.

  She shook off the thought and said aloud to no one in particular, “Initiate holographic interface with Receptacle 7542-36-0112.”

  Ping’s image slowly coalesced above the disk on the floor, but this time he was crouched with his arms held over his face, cowering from something.

  “Ping? Are you all right?” Mara asked, approaching the platform.

  “Huh?” He lowered his arms and blinked. “Oh my. For a minute I thought I had been sucked into a black hole.”

  “Black hole?”

  He straightened a little and said, “You’re back, or I’m back with you as a hologram—which is a good thing. I think it might be a good idea for Sam and I to depart this realm as soon as possible.”

  “A black hole? Like in outer space?”

  “No, I’m not referring to the galactic phenomenon. I believe this realm is in the process of collapsing or rending itself apart. Large pockets of darkness suddenly appear from nowhere, as if the fabric of Reality is fraying. A few minutes ago a large rip opened in the sky over downtown and sent people panicking in the streets.”

  “Sheesh. Dr. Canfield confirmed the receptacle occupants had experienced a spike in anxiety. She and the other doctors are concerned they might start losing people because of the stress.”

  “I have no doubt the fears experienced by people in this realm could affect their biological bodies in the receptacles,” Ping said.

  “Is Abby doing this?”

  “That was my first thought, but I’ve not seen her. We have to assume this is the work of the Aphotis. It certainly looks like something with metaphysical underpinnings. If things continue to deteriorate, the devastation will grow to apocalyptic proportions, and it’s likely this realm will tear itself apart.”

  This realm and the dream realm. “All right. I will talk to Dr. Canfield and get you guys out of there,” Mara said.