From up on high, with hateful machinations
He felt his Self drift away into some powerless corner of the world, and he knew his Spirit was in control again. It was like stepping into a cool, still room after sprinting and stumbling through the Texas heat. The electric feeling of potential power that defined existence in the Otherworld returned to him, but it was diffused, as if its peaks and valleys had been flattened out. Like a butane torch compared to bursts of muzzle flash.
The door came to him easily, popping into existence at the edge of the roof, a dead thing compared to the doors given by the Allworld. When he could sense Michael and the rest of the team on the other side of the door with his dream knowledge, he opened it.
They stood around in a circle on an invisible floor, with the metroplex floating half a mile below. He looked down as he walked over to them and his stomach fluttered.
“You’re late,” Philip said. “Get lost in a sewer again?”
“It wasn’t a sewer,” Celeste hissed. Gradie felt the color swell in his face and wished for his mirror mask. Their trip through the dreamworlds had felt so personal he hadn’t even considered anyone else would ever know about it.
“How am I late?” he snapped. “No one told me about a meeting. We just had one like six hours ago.”
“I forgot to tell him,” EP said, before Philip could form whatever dig he was working on. Gradie met her eyes but she looked away like he was the most boring side of a brick wall and stared out at the skyline. He wanted to say something about her acting too uninterested, but his words caught in his throat. He didn’t want her to move. Her blue-grey eyes reflected the city lights, her soft mouth was held in a slightly contemptuous pout, her pale skin was exposed by the almost plunging neckline of her black lace dress—
“Wait, are we back in the Otherworld?” He noticed the rest of the team was also in their Otherworld meeting clothes, and the way they stood around him in a circle reminded him of Lucy’s Astralarium. He glanced down at his own clothes and realized he was wearing the same pants and shirt he had slept in.
“This is my Dream realm,” Michael said. “You can’t return to the Otherworld without leaving your Self behind. We use the dreamworlds for secure communication, especially in the case of emergencies or when other forms of contact are impossible.”
“And to train any combat skills we might need during the day,” said Philip. “Which is why dream control is so important to a Hardworlder. So why didn’t you induce a lucid dream like you were trained to do?”
“I did.”
“Oh yeah? Then why did Klara have to snatch you out of your night terrors?”
Gradie thought about the dark figure and the strange anger returned, stoked on by Philips grilling. Michael must have seen the glare in his eye and interjected.
“Enough. He’ll get the hang of it.”
Philip must have seen the flash of anger too, from the way he smiled.
“So I’ve been told.”
He stepped to the center of the circle and motioned down past his feet.
“Alright, here’s the plan.”
The land below them shifted and the sun started to rise like a time-lapsed video. Downtown stopped below them. Cars and people moved like ants. Gradie found if he tried to focus on one individually it shuttered and popped out of his focus.
“Here’s the jail.” Philip pointed and a laser shot out of his index finger and painted a wide red circle on the roof of the tall brick building.
“After we bail him out, Celeste is gonna pick him up and take him down Henderson.” He highlighted a road that went out of downtown and across the river. It ran alongside a massive construction area where a bridge was being built over train tracks, and past a sheet metal roof that when seen from above had the shape of a step pyramid that Gradie knew to be a flea market.
“Bail him out?” Is that gonna work?” Gradie said. Philip didn’t even look at him.
“Above your pay grade, kid. Save your burning questions till the end.”
“Why not go through downtown and get on the highway?” Lindsey motioned with her hand and a spotlight traced a path through the towers and out to one of the freeways that snaked around the edges of downtown.
“Too much collateral,” Philip said, disappointedly.
“You’re expecting them to attack us on the road?” Lindsey asked.
“Yeah. From the chatter, it looks like at least two distinct teams. One’s LE and the other one looks like a mix of dummies and hardheads.”
“Dummy?” Gradie said.
“Crash test dummies,” Philip said. “New blood. Addicts usually. Dropped in via trap doors. Used to brute force a job with numbers. The ones that tried to snatch our guy on four-wheelers, that type of shit. Hardheads just means guys with experience.” Gradie vaguely recalled the twins saying something like that.
“The LE team is probably watching the same channels we are and know these bliss heads are gonna jump off the moment we take the guy down the street,” Philip said. “They’ll be watching for it, probably look to take Cooper back into custody if anyone even lets off a round next to him.”
Gradie had figured out that LE probably meant law enforcement, so he asked one of the other six questions bouncing around his head.
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“How do we know? Don’t the other teams use encrypted calls and shit like we do?”
“Oh no, I’ve spoiled him,” EP said, still not looking at him.
“Not every team is lucky enough to have the skills we do,” Philip said. “Think about that next time you act like you’re owed something here.”
“The dummies think burner phones are encryption,” EP said. “The LE team is smart enough not to talk about anything suspicious on police channels, but their movements give them away.”
“The dummies know if we get him on the highway, there’s a good chance they never lay hands on him,” Philip continued. “They don’t have the scope of the LE team, but what they do have is manpower and firepower, and they’ll want to use it the only way they know how. Directly. They’ll probably jump them the moment Celeste gets him out.”
“Almost sounds like you’re actively trying to bait them,” Lindsey said.
“Im saying all these guys have are hammers, and the route I’ve picked is gonna make Celeste and the dude look a lot like nails.”
“So you are—”
“No, if we get them to the safe house without incident, so be it. But I want you all to be prepared. Anyway, a shootout may have some upside to it.”
“How?” Lindsey drew the word out long and slow. Gradie got the feeling she had just started to believe Philip wasn’t just a bullet junkie itching for a firefight, and was now angry at herself for being so naïve.
“We’ll let the mad dogs get up to the glass, let Cooper see their teeth, then smack them away and explain his options. He’ll be more likely to give up the location.”
“So, the plan is to get in another shootout to scare the guy into complying? Wasn’t the one gunfight enough?” She said, squinting at him.
“No, because he was face down for most of it, and Celeste wasn’t there by his side working him over the entire time.”
Gradie saw Celeste off to the side talking to Luke. She pointed down to something and gave it a glowing, smiling review. Luke nodded and pointed somewhere else, then outlined a massive plate in his hands. Gradie’s gaze drifted over to Sam. He was directly across from her and had been trying to catch her eyes since he entered the circle, but she had been studying the city intently the whole time. Now she met his eyes for a moment, then looked back down. He got absolutely no information from the look, but it kicked up his heartbeat anyway.
“What about taking him through here?” Lindsey said. “Looks like less risk of collateral.” She highlighted a road that went down the center of a peninsula formed by a curve in the river. It looked like a bombed-out ruin from above. Empty cement rectangles that were either old parking lots or the remaining foundations of demolished buildings or a combination of both, as well as an abandoned baseball field. The only things active on it were the renovated drive-in, a few wrecking lots, and a brewery
“Because it’s not the quickest route to his apartment.”
“She’s taking him to his house?”
“No, but we want the LE team to think so. They’ll think the coin’s there somewhere and everybody missed it. That way when the dummies hit us, the LE team will have to split up and cover Cooper and his house.”
Lindsey glared at the city below as if it was conspiring with Philip. He continued.
“So, Celeste pulls him out, keeps in under control. Sam, Luke, and Gradie will follow behind, out of sight in the SUV. Lindsey will be on the bike playing safety. Mike and I’ll be in the area to fill in any gaps. Here are the swap points so far.”
Flashing dots sprouted up on the map.
“Swap points?” Gradie said.
“You drop your brain in Sam’s couch and forget all that time I wasted training you? Swap points. Vehicle swaps. Since I’m goin’ over day one shit again, remember to coordinate all swaps with EP so she can make sure there are no birds watching while you do it.”
Gradie stared for a bit.
“Birds meaning police choppers,” EP said, sounding tired.
“And look out for cameras and looky lous, and park out of sight of the new ride when you do it, ok?” Philip said with mock gentleness.
“Aight,” Gradie said flatly. Luke laughed at the side of Philip's head.
“Alright, then,” Michael said. “Everyone clear?”
Everyone made general motions of affirmation.
“Alright, see you all in the morning.”
The team started disappearing and Gradie got deja-vu. He had no idea where he was going.
“Uh, so do I wake up?”
“No. What the fuck did I say earlier?” said Philip. “Use your dreamworlds to Train.”
Gradie stared at him. Philip laughed and shook his head.
“I gotta spell it out for you? Thought you were Mr. gung ho? Think of your dreamworlds like that vault you use, but your Self is along for the ride. Run through whatever applicable skills you were able to prime, dig up the memories and play them out. This is your chance to patch up whatever deficiencies slipped through when you dropped in.”
The fear and anxiety from the dreams before slipped away as Gradie realized what Philip was talking about, and he started nodding along and bouncing on his heels as a big smile spread across his face.
“Yeah, I got it. Ok.” He was itching to step out the door and run his Self through a lucid dream boot camp. Philip laughed at him again, but he let something slip through the fake derision. It was something Gradie had picked up on late in his training in the clubhouse. Whenever Gradie would get a concept, not just blow through it but really understand why something was done, and what it could be used for in the Hardworld, the feeling of power, that feeling of unlocking some secret part of these words of endless possibility, would rise out of his chest, and Philip would notice.
At those times, Philip's smile would soften, his eyes would lose their edge, and Gradie knew that Philip had one love in this world, Hardworlding, and his love was reserved for those who loved it as much as he did, just as his hate was marked for those who disregarded it. It made it hard to hate him, because Gradie felt the same way.
“All right, enjoy your wet dreams,” Philip said. He turned and a big metal door opened behind him onto a fire escape stairwell. Somewhere in the world beyond, police sirens screamed. He stopped and looked back.
“Oh, and from now on assume we have a meeting every night. And be on time.”
“How do I know what time it is?”
Philip flashed his wrist and a projection of red digital numbers about the size of a dinner plate shot out of it. 12:25. Just like telling time in the Otherworld. Philip stepped through the metal door and it slammed shut and was gone.
“While you’re in the dreamworlds,” Michael said suddenly. Gradie had forgotten he was there and jumped. “There will be a kind of time dilation, due to how the Spirit reacts when the Self is completely unconscious outside REM sleep. Just don’t get too concerned about it.”
Gradie nodded and Michael summoned a door with a flick of his wrist, but the door was next to Gradie.
“This will take you back to your dreamworld,” Michael said. “Try not to slip out again. It’s never guaranteed that Klara will be able to catch you.”
Gradie tried to shake the horrifying scenarios that statement brought on out of his head, and get back to the excitement of using his dreams as an assassin's playground as he stepped through the door.
He came out the other side right where he started half a mile above downtown. Only now Michael was gone, and the city shifted under him, as if its framework had been pulled out from the inside.
He reached out for memory and his Self answered. In an instant, he was dropped down to the street below, into the driver's seat of his Self’s Tesla. He had summoned his X95 and manifested a few gunmen peeking out of the cars ahead of him, when he started to feel that strange sensation of fragility, like all of reality was built on shattered pieces stacked together, and collapse was only a matter of time.
His Spirit was about to make its daily contact with the Real.
Though he knew it would take no time, and his Spirit and his new Self would quickly smooth over it, a part of him wished he could be free of it forever. As he slipped away, wondering if that desire made him a monster, he thought he saw a figure in his peripherals, watching.