Hector woke to silence. He had not set his alarm for that morning. There was no point when he had no work to attend. Not even a hospital to visit. He didn’t really have anything to do that day. The previous one he had made a photo collage with Jen, called work to let them know he wouldn’t be back, and visited the funeral home to drop off his dad’s favorite suit.
He could always take a page out of Volithur’s book and mindlessly cultivate to ease his demons. Hector scowled at the thought. That boy had been wronged so often by the damned Xian. He had achieved a level three soul and felt not even a moment of pride.
“I’d like to tear those assholes apart on your behalf, Volithur.”
“Who’s Volithur?”
Hector frowned at the woman beside him in the bed. “Damn it, Jen, what are you doing in here?”
“Last night you wanted to talk about the trips you took with your dad, then we both fell asleep.”
“You could have left when I was out.”
“If you had been the first to sleep, I would have.” Jen stretched as she stood. “I guess the dogs only like your bed when you are alone.”
Hector got out of bed and went to the bathroom for a minute. When he emerged, Jen waited for him. “Is Volithur your dream person?”
“He is a war orphan turned into a slave. He’s being taught to cultivate by his captors so he can be more useful to them. But then they do things like beat him to within an inch of his life. Most nights the memories I get aren’t very fun.”
“I don’t think they are meant to be fun,” Jen said.
Hector’s brow drew down. “What are they meant to be?”
“What are they meant to be? I don’t understand.”
“You said they’re not meant to be fun. Then what are they supposed to be?”
“I don’t know. They’re… memories from other worlds. Who knows why we experience them. All I can say is that they aren’t stories. They’re real lives. There is a lot less wish fulfillment in those.”
“You know, at the end, my dad asked if I thought other people would dream his life.”
Jen winced. “Oh God, I hope no one dreams mine.”
“I think I have a lot to offer,” Hector said. “Imagine all those people out there with the power to bend the universe to their will but don’t have the first clue how to load a truck.”
“I’m telling you right now, Justice would not like someone remembering her life.” Jen snorted a laugh. “Especially the bits with the happy stick.”
“Happy stick?”
“I’m not telling that secret.”
Hector shrugged and turned to stare at his gym bag. He didn’t have enough motivation to go through with a cardio day. He missed a workout on occasion, but he always felt like he had committed an unforgivable sin. Though the guilt could be lessened if he did something else beneficial to his health. Usually that ‘something else’ was doing a twenty-four hour fast, but he had something else he could do now.
“I’m going to spend most of the day in cultivation,” he said.
Jen sighed. “Of course you are.”
Ignoring the disappointment in her voice, Hector set himself up on the couch and fell into the natural flow of mental cultivation. When he had built up a decent charge of cosmic energy, Hector attempted to switch to aural cultivation. He knew that while he had extensive memories of using that method, they all belonged to Volithur. Hector had never actually used his aura and shouldn’t expect –
Hector’s aura expanded, solidified, contracted, and absorbed with a precision and ease that put every memory of Volithur’s determined efforts to shame. After that single initial round, Hector’s eyes popped open. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“What?”
“Jen, I’m either a cultivation genius or the kid in my memories was criminally incompetent.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“No, seriously, I’ve got to be twice as effective as him.”
Jen poked her head into the living room. “No, about your dream person being incompetent.”
“Weren’t you just saying that these are real lives and not wish fulfillment?”
“Hector, the statistics show that, overwhelmingly, the dreams are of people with great potential. People who have natural talent or receive elite educations or gain true insights.”
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Hector stared at his wife. “How are there statistics on this?”
“I mean, it’s based on self-reported surveys, but a lot of people are studying the dream phenomenon. Haven’t you watched or read the news lately?”
“Until very recently, I didn’t have mountains of free time like you do.”
Jen rolled her eyes. “This is the most significant thing to happen in our lifetimes. You should stay informed about it. The patent office is swamped with all the Jinn devices being submitted. Some of them already have working prototypes. There is this one woman who built a magnetic desalination circuit that is more efficient than reverse osmosis. They interviewed a guy the other day who was healing people with life energy. Nothing major, he wasn’t that strong yet, but he was using advanced Alfar techniques.”
“What about Xian? Are they saying anything about them?”
“Not much. The Xian are considered extremely powerful in the dreams, but they are always tied to their home world. There isn’t a lot of the energy they need on Earth. There is life energy for the Alfar because there is life here. There is space energy for the Orisha, substantial energy for the Titans, legal energy for the Jinn, and I think the Arahant’s illusory energy just comes out of their imagination or something.”
“Wait a minute, you got all of that from the news?”
“Yes. This is the news story of our generation.” Jen grabbed her tablet computer from the end table and tapped to bring up a website. “See? People are keeping track of everything.”
Jinn Legal Energy Probability manipulation 30% Alfar Life Energy Vital manipulation 20% Arahant Illusory Energy Rituals 15% Orisha Spatial Energy Spatial manipulation 10% Titan Substantial Energy Matter manipulation 10% Xian Cosmic Energy Kinetic manipulation 10% Chimeric (Alfar) Life Energy Totem manipulation 2% Strigoi (Alfar) Life Energy Human manipulation 2% Ogre (Alfar) Life Energy Self enhancement 1% Yazata
Hector studied the chart, his brain on overdrive. “This isn’t accurate.”
“What isn’t accurate?”
“Xian don’t just have a kinetic domain. They can enhance their bodies until they are able to punch through steel. They have protective auras strong enough to deflect bullets. They can travel between worlds and hurl chaos bolts.”
Jen waved away his protests. “They’re not listing everything here. This is what we can expect to see in the next few years. Like if you click on where it says ‘spatial manipulation’ – click it, come on, click it – see, it says that two Orisha can link together, then open gates between their locations. The suggested applications section says that transit gates can replace airplanes. Then the potential problems section talks about smuggling and border control. Orisha are gaining strength very fast on Earth because a lot of the energy here is spatial.”
Hector pushed the back button on the browser. “What is a Yazata?”
“Angels, maybe?”
“Angels?”
“They are supposed to be messengers from the gods or something.”
“It says ‘no reliable reports’ of someone dreaming one. Do they actually exist?”
“The researchers put it on the list, so probably?”
Hector clicked on the hyperlink for cosmic energy and read through the description. ‘A component of primordial chaos that lends itself to imparting motion, creating protective fields, and launching destructive blasts. This energy is rare in stable universes outside of Tian.’ He glanced at Jen. “How far along are you in your soul?”
Jen shrugged. “I was almost ready to attune before I switched to using a more broad spectrum life energy.”
“And how often do you cultivate?”
“Well, I don’t call it cultivating, but I do about fifteen minutes a day.”
Hector’s guts twisted inside him. “Fifteen minutes? That’s it? And you almost attuned already?” It was just like with Volithur. He was being screwed over by the universe itself.
“I should probably go to the park and hug some trees or something,” Jen said.
Hector settled back onto the couch and resumed his aural cultivation, pointedly ignoring the source of his annoyance. He didn’t need a readily available source of energy. He would make up for its scarcity with hard work and consistency.
For long hours, Hector worked at aural cultivation. He didn’t know how it felt to harness other types of energy, but his experiences with cosmic energy compared favorably to his memories of Volithur. He was maybe ten percent more effective than his counterpart at mental cultivation. Yet when it came to aural cultivation, Hector far surpassed his counterpart.
At that moment, their two lives seemed to have synchronized. Hector and Volithur both sought emotional relief in the repetitive practice of cycling cosmic energy. Of course, the next time Hector slept, the story of Volithur would jump forward weeks of time. Who knew what would happen to the friend he had never met in that time.
Ever since his dad had told him of the death of Deronto, Hector had worried about Volithur’s end. He didn’t have high hopes for the boy’s future, given how precarious his position was. Hector only hoped Volithur could experience some peace, and maybe even a little joy, before the inevitable happened.
As Hector worked through lunch, his efforts became more challenging. He moved outside to get at a fresh source of ambient cosmic energy and, for a time, was able to power through the exercise. But then the difficulties returned.
This time, Hector recognized the phenomenon. The density within his soul had grown high enough to make adding more energy effortful, and the scarcity of energy in the external environment didn’t give him much to work with, so he was squeezing tiny pellets of energy into his soul with each cycle. Hector gritted his teeth and forced the energy density higher one bit at a time.
And then, with a small metaphysical explosion, the process completed. Hector blew out a big breath and walked into the house to make himself a sandwich.