Sally will be okay; she still has lots of praying to do and what can happen to her in the middle of Notre Dame Cathedral? Feeling happier at that thought, I follow Andre Breton through to the Dream Lounge of the Surrealist Centre. He pushes open the black painted door with a finger to his lips and a smile on his face. I step after him into the room and see lines of sleepers on leather chaises longues, each of them lost in his or her own personal dreamworld. There are no brocaded curtains, just couches that wouldn’t be out of place in an office or modest hotel. This is no romantic opium den.

Most of the chaises longues are occupied, but Breton takes me to an empty one. 'Lie here,' he says.

I study him carefully. Is this some kind of trick? But the Surrealist Centre existed before I came to Paris, so it isn’t just some scam to entrap me. And looking around, I see there are plenty of other dreamers. They stir in sleep all around me, muttering to their dreams, some turning and tossing uneasily, others with beautiful smiles on their faces.

I lie down. 'Do I take a potion?' I ask.

Breton shakes his head. 'The ladies will bring you a pipe.'

I nodded, propped up on my elbow. Breton sit down on a chaise longue just over the way from me. There is a clear passage between them and I looks and see a pretty Chinese girl carrying an opium pipe walking toward me. She is dressed in a chic French business skirt and jacket.

She set handed me a silver opium pipe. The opium, or whatever substance it is supposed to be in the game, is held in a small round chamber about a third of the way down the slender silver pipe. I take it and she bends in and lights the lump of opium, closing the lid. She smells of jasmine and China tea and she says, 'Smoke, sir. Smoke.'

Breton watches me with a broad grin, lying down now on his own couch. 'Smoke!' he says.

I hold the silver pipe, which is warm to the touch, and as warm as blood. The girl looks at me and smiles as I take my first drag of the smooth smoke. It is unexpectedly bitter. I take another inbreath, look over to Breton to comment on it, but then the world ends.

Transformed is a better description. 

I’m still lying on the leather chaise longue, but the room is full of shadows. Shadows that wreathe and whisper under the ceiling and in the corners like smoky snakes. I sit up and see everyone else still slept. Everyone but Breton. He is looking at me blinking his dark eyes. He is not substantial like he has been, a vague blue light hangs around him.

'How come everyone else is asleep?' I ask. 'But not you.'

He stands. 'It is my intention to come with you.'

More suspicions grow in me. 'But why?'

'Because you are special. You are a visitor. You're English, not Parisian. I am curious about you.'

He is an NCP, a machine intelligence, why should he be curious about me? 'I don't understand,' I say.

He smiles. 'There's nothing for you to understand. You want to see Dream Paris? Follow me.'

He stands and I follow him out of the room past the reclining dreamers. Though it is day when I entered, it is night in Dream Paris. I ask Breton, if it is always night here.

He nodded. 'Yes, yes. This is the land of shadows. It is always night here. In the night, things can remain hidden; they can move unseen.'

But now I am outside on the street, I donn't know where to go and I stand there, bewildered.

'What do you want?' Breton asks. 'Be clear in your mind.'

In London, the Great Old Ones have a processing centre for the Warm Ones, those who've gone insane. I guess they will have one in here in Paris, and even if it isn’t the centre of their operations in the city, if I find it, I will at least be on their trail.

'A hospital. An asylum?'

He nods again. 'Yes, you said that.'

'But you didn't know where one was.'

He shrugs. 'Like I say, there are many.'

'Then I don't know where to go.'

He says, 'You must let the game lead you there.'

'What?'

'Open yourself. The game will lead you. It knows what you're thinking.'

'But the game is the Great Old Ones. I don't want them to know what I'm thinking.'

He shakes his head. 'No, the Game is neutral. The game is like the Chinese Tao, it is the mother of all things; it has no allegiance to any of its myriad children. And it is malleable. You can change things in the game by your desire.'

'I don't understand. You're saying by merely wanting to find what I want to find, the Game will take me to it?'

Breton smiles. 'It will take some practice. At first you are not in tune with the Game. But soon you will get to know its promptings and it will get to know you better too.'

This seems crazier than I even first thought, but as I have no other clue, I concentrate on my goal: I want to find some base or centre of the Great Old Ones, to try and find out what they are up to here in Paris. So I close my dream eyes in my dream body; I may close my game eyes in my game body, I don't close my real life eyes in my real life body on the VR rig in Preston's house in London 2027.

I feel like a set of Russian dolls: self within self within self. 

Nothing happens. I concentrate hard on thoughts of an asylum filled with Warm Ones, but still nothing happens.

I open my dream eyes and shake my head. 'Nothing.'

Dream Breton says, 'Your skill is weak.'

And then I have a thought. 'Is this a skill I can develop? Can I learn it?'

'Of course. And I can teach it. If you have skill points, I can teach you Lucid Dreaming and this will let you change the course of things any time you enter the Dreamlands.'

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But I have no spare skill points. I’ve spent them all learning French. I will need to level up before I can put any points into Lucid Dreaming. Levelling up usually meant killing things. I felt the weight of my pistols in the holsters under my arms. 'Do guns work here?' I ask. 'They worked in the Nameless City.'

He nods. 'They do, but there are better weapons. Search around. You may find something useful.'

'So what now?' I ask.

He gives an inscrutable smile. 'We go exploring.'

He leads me through the dream version of the Surrealist Institute and we go up a cast iron staircase to the floor above. We walked down a passage tiled in while and black diamonds, except in the dream world they are smoky and blur slightly as I walk over them. 

Soon we're up in the attic and Breton goes up a flight of wooden steps to push open a hatch in the roof. He turns and smiles. 'Come on up, the weather is lovely.'

It turns out that was some kind of surrealist wisecrack because outside the weather is smoky and dark. Shadows hide in shadows hide in shadows. I stand on the smoky dream tiles of the roof and look around. We are up on about the fourth storey. It's a tall building and I can see a good way across the city. Shadowy buildings are all around.

'What now?' I ask Breton.

'Try to focus on what you want -- the hospital.'

I try hard, squeezing my real life forehead. I try to visualise a research facility where the Great Old Ones might be experimenting. I remember the one in London. I remember the Nameless City. I try really hard.

'Nothing?' says Breton.

'You tell me,' I don't really know what I'm doing.

Breton shrugs his smoky dream shoulders. 'Let's just wander then. Follow me.'

Breton takes a hop, skip and a jump and steps of the roof. 

I've already started after him but I stop. He doesn't fall; he just stands there standing on dream air. 'Come on, Reverend Cadmon.'

I look down. Even though I know this is a game and I see he hasn't fallen, I hesitate. It's just natural. Peering down from the roof edge I see a significant drop. 

He beckons. 'Come on!' 

So I follow him, stepping gingerly onto smoke. I don't fall. The air feels springy but it supports me. Then he's off, walking fast across the gap and stepping onto the roof of the building opposite. I hurry to catch up. Walking in the air is okay, as it turns out. 

Before I cross the next roof, he's walked over the gap and is on his way to another building. It's so dark here, I can hardly see anything. The closer buildings are smoky silhouettes, but further away things drift and blur. I can see shapes that are buildings but they are vague and lacking in detail.

I yell forward. 'Where are we going?'

He stops and turns and puts his finger to his lips. 'Ssshh!' He says. 'You never know who's listening.'

I glance suspiciously all around me. I can't see anything, but then who knows what could be lurking in these shadows and deeper dreams of shadows. I hurry across to where he waits, standing in mid-air. 

'Where are we going?' I repeat.

He smiles. He's a bit smug this Breton guy. 'As your powers of will are so weak -- at least for now -- I am trying to find your reseach hospital for you.'

I grimaced. 'Thanks. I guess.'  I had some vague suspicions about Breton. He was just too self-satisfied, but I had no real grounds for suspicions, other than it was a good policy not to trust anyone. But I could use his help as I didn't seem to be able to will myself out of a paper bag in the Dream World. 

So, I followed Breton across roofs of boiling mist. And then there was a strange metallic flashing way off to the right. It was a bright rippling pinprick of light. I pointed. 'What's that light?'

A flash of fear crossed Breton's face. 'Ah,' he said. 'I didn't know they were about so early.'

'Early?'

'In the moon phase. Usually they come out when the moon's full.'

'I can't see any moon.'

'Exactly. It's brand new.'

I stopped and stared. The dot of light was moving. Not towards us. 'What causes it?' I said.

'Mirror snakes.'

'Mirror snakes?'

He nodded gravely. 'They eat people.'

'Really?' I was used to various Lovecraftian monsters in the game by now. None of them nice, but I didn't remember reading about Mirror Snakes in Lovecraft. The place must be breeding new monsters.

'Let's go back,' he said. 'It's a long way off, but better safe than sorry. They can move very fast.'

I didn't like the idea of the Mirror Snake, but it was a long way off, and we still hadn't found any clue as to where the research facility might be. I said as much to him. 'Let's go on a bit further? We haven't found anything yet.'

'Yes, we have.'

I was puzzled. 'We have?'

He nodded his head over to the left. It all just looked like dark mist to me. 

'Over there,' he said. 'Can't you see it?'

I couldn't see shit. 'No.'

He smiled patronisingly. 'Ah yes, your dream vision is poor still. You can put skill points into it.'

'I don't have any,' I said.

'Pity.'

Now he really was being smug. I wanted to punch him. 'So where is that?'

He said, 'In the Bois de Boulogne. It's a long way off though. It will take us a long time to walk, and I won't risk it with the Mirror Snakes out.'

'Then how do we get to it?'

He hummed and hawed. 'Normally, I'd go at the dark of the moon, but they seem to be out even now. Something's changed. It's pulsing,' he said.

And I listened. I could feel the pulse. It was a low frequency. I felt it in my sternum and in my temples. I listened. A slow heavy pulsing like a massive heart.

 'It sounds like it's powering up,' Breton said.

'Powering up? What does that mean?'

'Nothing good,' he said. 'But let's get back. The snake's coming closer.'

He indicated where the little dot of light had become a short ribbon of sparkling light. It was closer.

'No need to panic,' he said. Then he stepped off and began walking at a very fast pace. 

We went back the way we'd come, though to be honest, it all looked the same to me and I would have been completely lost without him.

He started walking even faster and I struggled to keep up with him. I glanced over my shoulder. The Mirror Snake was gaining on us. Then Breton began to run, plunging through the shadows, jumping and leaping onto roofs. 

I saw a roof that could have been that of the Surrealist Institute in the middle distance. Breton was yards ahead of me but he looked to be aiming for that.

I looked over my shoulder. The Mirror Snake was clearly visible as a long strip of glitter, looking like the squares on a mirror ball, but arranged like a tapeworm. As I watched, it switched to another direction. It seemed it hadn't scented us, or however these things hunted. I was about to yell to Breton, then I thought I didn't want to draw attention, in case the Mirror Snake could hear.

Breton stood on the roof of the building, holding open the hatch. He was grinning. 

I began to cross the dream air from the roof of the building I was on. A couple of steps and I'd be back on the Surrealists' roof.  Breton said, 'Come on, slow coach.'

I was halfway across the gap when it attacked. A different Mirror Snake leapt up from the gap between the buildings like it had been lying in weight. It was long and covered in glittering mirrors, but its mouth was round like looking down an intestine, except it was covered in long soft suckers like feelers that waved and writhed around. 

It hit me.

Jeez. That was a third of my health. I couldn't take very much of that. 

The blow pitched me forward and I landed on my hands and knees on the surrealist roof. Grey, smoky blood poured out of a wound in my leg and the snake came at me again. Some instinct made me roll and the thing missed. I snatched my guns from their holsters, the Beretta in my left hand and the Browing in my right. They weren't on safe so I blazed off rounds at the thing. 

I had no idea how strong the thing was. But I'd hurt it and made it pause. I looked back to where Breton had been just to see him disappearing down the hatch in the roof, and pulling it shut after him.

The snake struck again.

Less damage this time, but I would only survive a couple more. The lightning man had stolen all my health potions too so I couldn't heal up.

The mirror snap snapped back to strike again and I shot it.

Bits of mirror hung off its damaged flesh. It whined in pain and moved more slowly, but it was still coming to attack. 

I fired again and critted again. The thing had enough and began to retreat but I shot it as it went away crying and whining. 

A few of those then:

I stood there, my heart hammering. Then I thought there could be another one nearby and I might not be so lucky this time. I went over to where the hatch was. At least the little shit hadn't locked it after him.

I opened the hatch and stepped into the dream version of the Surrealists Institute.