Jasper Fforde - Early Riser

‘Now,’ she said, ‘before I really get to work on you, last chance: tell me where the cylinder is.’

She drew closer and her teeth seemed to sharpen into points. I was suddenly reminded of Sister Contractia, who filed her teeth for fun until Mother Fallopia told her not to.

Despite the pain, I closed my eyes, concentrated, and shifted away from Aurora, away from the beach, away from the dream. I could feel myself momentarily aware of the apartment at HiberTech with two technicians looming over me, and then I was standing next to the blue Buick under the azure sky, the picnic laid out beside me, the oak tree around which the stones were piled. And sitting on top of them, Don Hector. Old, grizzled, tired. There were no hands around except his and mine, nor was there any Aurora. She’d have to find me.

The old man caught my eye and I walked over, the sun feeling warm against my skin. He was eating a sandwich, and a glass of freshly poured Champagne stood on a nearby boulder, the fizz rising in the liquid. The detail was all there. Every texture, every smell, every sound.

‘Your dream or mine?’ he asked, waving a hand about him.

‘Yours,’ I said, ‘with maybe a hint of mine.’

He smiled and patted the stones he was seated upon.

‘Do you know why these boulders are heaped around the tree?’

‘I’ve been wondering that for a while.’

‘Farmers ploughing their fields,’ he replied. ‘Whenever they snagged a boulder it was pulled up and discarded. Usually deposited to the side of the field, but if there was a tree, that would become the place. The heap of stones represents toil; a lichen-encrusted palimpsest of an agricultural way of life before mechanisation.’

‘I have the cylinder,’ I said, ‘but I need to know what to do with it.’

‘You have to get it to Kiki.’

‘I am Kiki.’

‘Then my mission is complete, my work is done.’

‘Yes, but what do I do now?’ I asked, ‘very little is clear to me right now.’

He stared at me for a moment, then smiled.

‘Bring them all back,’ he said, ‘bring them home.’

‘Okay—but how?’

‘I think you already know. Good luck, Charlie.’

Whump

Don Hector was knocked violently from the pile of rocks and to the ground, where he lay quite still. I turned around to find Aurora holding a Thumper. She didn’t look very happy. No, wait, scrub that: she looked seriously pissed off.

‘Think I’ve never been in the Dreamspace before? Think you can outwit me? I have over fourteen hundred hours’ dreamtime, Wonky, and I’ve prised bigger secrets from stronger people’s heads than yours.’

I wasn’t worried. I’d escaped from her once, I could escape from her again.

‘You killed Don Hector out in the real world, didn’t you?’

‘He’d lost sight of the good work we were doing,’ said Aurora with a half-smile, ‘and we felt he had swung from asset to liability. Asset good, liability bad,’ she added, in case I’d missed the main thrust of her argument.

‘Nightwalker retrieval was only the beginning,’ I said. ‘He’d perfected a risk-free Morphenox that could be synthesised cheaply and easily. He was going to go public. No secrets, Morphenox a universal right. Sub-beta, the Ottoman, the emerging Southern Alliance – everyone. A global hibernating village, equal in sleep, equal in dignity.’

She stared at me for a few seconds before speaking.

‘So what? With no one to tell, it’s the same as you never finding out. Now, where’s the cylinder?’

I concentrated hard and shifted again – this time to the abandoned Morpheleum, all mould and decay, stone arches, dirt and windblown leaves. Webster was in his orderly’s outfit, and Don Hector, back again, looked at me oddly, as though I shouldn’t be there. In truth, I wasn’t. I was actually on my own; all this was my invention. I was dreaming the dream, dancing my own steps. First person Active Control but no longer tied to a target dream. Freestyle .

‘Hullo, Wonky,’ said Webster cheerfully, ‘I hear you’ve been helping out Birgitta.’

‘I could have done a better job.’

‘You and me both.’

He suddenly looked around, saw Don Hector, and a look of panic crossed his face.

‘No, no, no,’ said Webster. ‘This is just what Aurora wants. Connecting Don Hector to me. Move somewhere else or wake up. Go, now, go !’

But I was too late. Aurora was standing in the shaft of light that emerged through the roof above the altar, and looked oddly magisterial.

‘So it was Webster after all,’ said Aurora, looking at them both, then me. I tried to shift again, but Aurora had grabbed me by the arm and twisted it around so she had my wrist in a swan-neck. It was a trick to keep someone anchored, I guessed – flood their mind with pain so they couldn’t concentrate.

‘I’m impressed,’ she said. ‘You have a natural talent for dreaming; it took me years to do what you’re doing.’

Aurora then lifted her head and spoke. Inter-dream operatives like her worked in pairs, I guessed – one in the Dreamstate and a monitor to listen to their sleeptalkings. I imagined Aurora on a bed somewhere close to me at HiberTech, mumbling in her sleep.

‘Don Hector’s contact was Webster after all,’ she said. ‘Find out where he lived and get someone over there.’

I wriggled out of her hold; with the pain gone I could concentrate, and in an instant the small naked hands started to flood in through the open door, tossing, squirming and falling over one another in their haste to gain entry. They rushed towards Aurora but she took one look at them and they all melted into dry autumn leaves.

‘What’s this? Amateur hour? Now, before I start to bring all manner of horrors to bear: where – did – Webster – hide – the – cylinder?’

‘Don’t go there, Wonky,’ said Charles, but try as I might, I couldn’t help myself. I was suddenly in the lobby of the Cambrensis , sitting on the sofa, opposite Zsazsa, who looked at me suspiciously.

‘We know of a remote farm in Lincolnshire,’ she began, ‘where Mrs Buckley lives—’

‘Yeah, I know,’ I said, ‘and in July, peas grow there.’

I heard the front door opening. It was Webster again. Different clothes, same face. It was all the dreams I’d had, jumbling into one another.

‘Don’t let Aurora find the cylinder,’ he said, looking around nervously, ‘don’t even think about it. In fact, don’t even think about thinking about it. Think Bonanza .’

‘Bonanza?’

‘Or Rawhide . It doesn’t matter. A brick wall, a prawn, Ed Reardon, Mott the Hoople, Green Rye , Yorkminster. Anything to block her out.’

Aurora walked into the lobby, talking to her unseen monitor: ‘It’s the Cambrensis . The twisty-headed frostwit is leading us straight to it. This is my twenty-seven-hundredth incursion,’ she added, marching up to me. ‘You get to spot the runaways, the misdirectors, the randomisers, even the world-builders, shape-shifters and tangential digressers. You’re none of those. You’re just bouncing around, leaving a trail so broad an amateur could follow. Now: where’s the cylinder?’

‘The laundry room.’

‘You gave that up way too easily. Again: where’s the cylinder?’

It’s hard not to think of the thing you’re trying hard not to think about. I tried to take us elsewhere – back to the Gower, the Wincarnis, the Ponderosa ranch, the last Fat Thursday at the Pool, but it wasn’t easy, and a moment later we were inside Charlie Webster’s old room.

‘You see?’ said Aurora. ‘This could all be so painless. And you know what? I don’t even need you to tell me where it is. All you have to do is think it. And you will, eventually. Room 106,’ she said to her monitor, ‘get the team over there.’