Broken Dreams (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 5) (3 page)

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.

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 wondered 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.

“You will remove us from the receptacles?”

“I’ll have them bring you and Sam out of stasis, but you’ll remain inside the receptacles so you aren’t reexposed to the virus. Then I’ll use the Chronicle to send you back to our realm.”

“What about Abby?”

“I’m not sure what to do about her. If the Aphotis is causing these problems, I should disconnect him from the receptacle. But, if we bring Abby out of stasis, I may not be able to control what the Aphotis does or where he goes.”

“Could you send her back to our realm while she’s in stasis? Or perhaps they could sedate her beforehand?” Ping asked.

“I’ll talk to the doctor about it, but she’s not being open-minded about what’s happening in the receptacles.”

“You must convince her. If it’s true that the fear they experience in this realm affects their biological bodies, they could be in grave danger—in both realms.”

“And here I was hoping talking to you would make me feel better,” she said.

* * *

Mara downshifted from a jog to a slow walk when she saw Dr. Canfield and Perry, the technician, outside the double doors leading to the monitoring lab. The doctor talked, jabbing with her thumb over her shoulder at the lab, while he looked down at the floor with a somber expression, nodding. Mara’s first impulse was not to approach until they finished, but the tension in their demeanors made her suspicious—something was awry in the repository. She was too worried to be coy.

The doctor looked reproachful as Mara neared them. “It’s not a good time, Mara.”

“If something’s happening with Sam, Ping and Abby, I have a right to know,” she said.

The doctor held up a finger to Perry and leaned into Mara. In a lowered voice, she said, “I assure you that we are doing everything in our power to make sure they are safe and healthy. We’re working through a few technical issues, and then I’ll be able to give you an update on their condition.”

“I’m not looking for an update, Doctor. Please take Sam and Ping out of stasis so I can return them to our realm. I will come back for Abby when I know they are safe. Our best chance to help the receptacle occupants is to remove her from the system, even if it is risky.”

The doctor glanced at the technician, and he shook his head, looking away.

“What? Why’s he shaking his head?” Mara asked.

“We’ve lost connectivity with the receptacles,” she said.

“
Lost connectivity
? What does that mean?”

“We have lost the ability to implement commands into the repository system. Not just here but worldwide. We cannot even retrieve logs or monitor the status of the occupants. We are sensor-blind, totally cut off from them. There is no way we can safely bring your friends out of stasis until we reestablish connectivity.”

“How long will that take?” Mara turned to Perry.

“We’re not even sure what is causing the problem. We’ve run diagnostics on all the systems, and there’s no rational explanation for this. Everything should be operating normally. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Just unplug the damn thing,” Mara said. “Those people are my family—and I want them out of there now.”

“Shutting down a receptacle while the occupant is in stasis would be fatal. The synaptic shock would overwhelm their nervous systems in a matter of seconds,” the doctor said.

Mara leaned into the doctor’s personal space. “I had another holographic interface with Ping, and he informs me that his dream realm is collapsing. That’s why your biological counterparts are having adrenaline spikes. They are afraid of dying. Now I can’t prove it, but I think Abby is behind all this, just like she was behind all the havoc with the shimmers. We need to get her disconnected, or I’m afraid of what might happen.”

“What do you mean,
what might happen
?”

“If the repository occupants are this stressed out now, what do you think will happen when their world collapses, when it ends?” Mara asked.

The doctor blanched. “Even if that is true, we cannot disconnect your friend without killing her. The neurological shock would damage her brain. Even transitioning her to a synthetic body—assuming we had one prepared—would be unsuccessful.”

Mara stared at the doctor, the muscles in her jaw flexed as she absorbed the information, let it roll around in her head for a moment. She had to get Abby out of that receptacle. Doing that would solve all this—Mara was sure of it.

“What if I go in after her?” Mara blurted out.