Content warning:
Horror, nightmare fuel, mental torture and anguish, dead bodies, lots of blood. If you thought ‘Lay me down to sleep’ was bad, this is probably worse. Be advised, this was written for a Halloween challenge.
“How are they, Edward?” Colonel White asked, setting a glass of water before the exhausted Cloudbase CMO as he sat at his cluttered desk in his small office and flicked through the latest reports transmitted by his auto-nurses.
Fawn rubbed his hands over his face and blew out a long sigh before making his reply. Unshaven and with deep bags under his eyes, the doctor’s answer was interrupted as he jumped in his chair at a muffled scream from the men’s ward. He swore softly as he found his voice back. “Charles, I’m at my wits end.” He shook his head wearily. “I’ve tried everything. Nothing’s working!”
“Doctor, there are five men in there who need your help,” White responded, not unkindly. He leaned over, swept the various print outs into one mostly tidy pile and set it aside to clear a space on the cluttered desk. “Let us start from the beginning. Perhaps there is something that’s been missed,” he said as he pulled up a chair and sat beside Fawn.
“Maybe.” Fawn didn’t sound entirely convinced as he picked up the glass and took a gulp. By his expression White guessed the doctor was wishing for something alcoholic or caffeine based instead. Nurse Tarris had firmly taken his last coffee away an hour ago to give Fawn at least a chance of some sleep.
“What have we been able to put together so far?” White asked, reaching for a clean sheet of paper and a pen. “The Mysteron threat was three days ago.”
“‘Aibell will play her harp and Nuada’s castle shall fall to Phobos.’” Fawn recited the threat from memory. “We found the H.A.R.R.P. project at Maynooth University in Ireland from there – Aibell is the name of the lead banshee of the O’Brien clan and she plays a harp, if you hear it you’re going to die. Nuada was an Irish king and god – Maynooth University is named after Maynooth Castle, which was named for Maigh Nuadhad, the Plain of Nuada, and the lead researcher was Doctor Mary O’Brien.”
“Yes, yes.” White nodded, scribbling out notes. “What did H.A.R.R.P. stand for again?”
“Hippocampus Auditory Repulsion Resolution Project,” Fawn told him after retrieving one of the many papers that White had stacked up. “They’re trying to cure phobias with deep stimulation of specific areas of the hippocampus with targeted infrasound to reduce the intensity of the revulsion response linked to the memories of whatever original incident triggered the phobia. Lots of potential and some really good data from their early research.” He sighed regretfully and absently scratched at the stubble on his cheek. “Sadly the Mysterons got to Doctor O’Brien before we could and she turned it into a weapon.”
“And she successfully used it on the captains before destroying the lab’s mainframe so we could not gain any useful intelligence on the device.” White’s lips thinned in a grimace as he finished his rough notes and capped his pen. “At least they were able to stop her and destroy it before she could use it on the university students,” he added. “It is scant comfort, but the outcome could have been far worse.”
“Yes.” Fawn also grimaced and continued. “They didn’t show any ill effects from it at the university, aside from some momentary vertigo and nausea, and nothing showed up on their examinations when they came back to base, but once they went to sleep they just didn’t wake up. They’ve been locked in a REM-like state for two days now and from what I’ve been able to piece together they’re having cycles of nightmares linked to their deepest fears or personal traumas.” Fawn rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, leaned forward and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to force some clarity back into his brain. Suddenly his desktop computer shrilled an alert from one of the auto-nurses and he leapt to his feet with a curse. “Ochre’s coding!” Fawn exclaimed as he dashed out the office, White following close on his heels.
In the ward, the nurses had already clustered around Ochre’s bed and Fawn’s 2IC Doctor Burgundy was replacing the paddles for the defibrillator back into their cradles on the crash cart. White hung back and let his CMO do his job as Fawn conferred with his team, examined the monitors and IV lines hooked up to the captain and gave a series of orders that they hurried to carry out while he adjusted the settings for the auto-nurse.
In the meantime White took the opportunity to check on the rest of the captains and see their condition for himself.
Blue was closest to him, the man’s face pallid behind the oxygen mask and his blond hair matted with sweat. He and all the others had been strapped down with restraints at the wrists and ankles for their own safety – two of them had thrown themselves off the beds with the force they used to try and escape their nightmares. As he watched, Blue’s eyes started moving rapidly behind his closed eyelids and he gave a heart-rending moan of anguish. “No... no... no... please, no!” he cried out, before falling quiet again.
Scarlet was on the next bed, well secured with extra restraints crossed over his chest and waist. Evidently the medical team were taking no chances after he became semi conscious for a few moments during an attempted treatment, ripped his arm free and tried to strangle Doctor Burgundy in his delirium. Right now he was almost unnaturally still but for a muscle in his cheek twitching and his frighteningly shallow breathing.
A sharp cry of alarm across the aisle warned him that Grey was going into another nightmare, tossing his head from side to side and his hands clenched into tight fists. In the midst of the garbled babble muffled by an oxygen mask, White caught two words: ‘hull breach’ – something that no one wanted to hear, much less a submariner with the personal history Grey had.
That was when Magenta suddenly screamed – a ragged, despairing sound. He arched against the restraints in an attempt to flee and the auto-nurse warbled an alert as his heart rate spiked alarmingly. Almost as if it was a signal the other captains started screaming and howling out in their own terrors, then just as suddenly they all fell silent, slumped onto their beds and gasping for breath as if exhausted.
Fawn was wearing an expression of deep concern as he approached Colonel White, his tone grim. “Ochre’s okay, but I’m not sure for how long,” he began, pre-empting White’s question. “It’s the adrenaline and other hormones from the prolonged and repeated stress and fear cycles. It sent his heart into atrial fibrillation, that’s the fixable version of a cardiac arrest,” he explained, translating the jargon into layman’s terms as he went, “but the longer this goes on, the higher the odds it’s going to do the same to the rest of them. We can keep shocking them and correcting it, and yes it’s safe for Scarlet, the voltage isn’t high enough to hurt him, but the cumulative damage to the heart from repeated arrests will lead to asystole – flat line – and I can’t fix that.”
“What have you tried so far?” White asked, careful to conceal his alarm. This was far worse than he had thought.
“Muscle relaxants, stimulants, anti-seizure medications, nerve blockers, ketamine and good old-fashioned talking to them.” Fawn ticked them off on his fingers. “I even tried deep electrical stimulation of the brain and vagus nerve – the main feedback nerve that tells the brain what the body is doing, used to be used as a therapy in epilepsy. Nothing seems to be snapping them out of this.”
“Perhaps this is the true extent of the Mysteron’s plot,” White mused, looking over the ward and reading the body language of the nurses and orderlies as they moved from bed to bed on their tasks. More than one had reddened eyes, shoulders were drooping and voices were sharpened by frustration and stress as nerves and tempers frayed. “Is it not a fear of anyone in the medical field to be confronted by that which you cannot heal?” he continued quietly. “Should we lose them, the ripple effects of the loss, especially in circumstances like this, would be devastating on the morale of your team and on Cloudbase as a whole. I cannot imagine the effect this would have had across Ireland and beyond should the university have been blanketed by this device like the O’Brien replicant had intended.”
“Yes. I’ve been trying very hard to not think about that,” was Fawn’s answer, the admission made just as quietly in echo of the colonel. He shook his head again and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands.
“Doctor, you should get some rest,” White suggested, gauging his CMO’s condition with concern. “Your staff can manage things here while you take a nap or at least lie down.”
“You’re right,” Fawn admitted reluctantly. “I’ve been up close to 26 hours, I’m going to be next to useless soon, but we need all hands on deck right now. Stuff it, I’m going to use that infernal Room of Sleep and... wait...”
“Edward?” White asked curiously, watching as the doctor frowned in thought, stared long and hard at the nearest monitor – Grey’s – and snapped his fingers.
“I have an idea!” Fawn stabbed the intercom and called for Doctor Burgundy, Doctor Lapis – the base anaesthetist – and Lieutenant Bay, the head technician for the Room of Sleep, to come to his office. “Just in case this is sleep deprivation talking I’m running it past them first, then getting some rest while they run simulations and set it up. I’ll explain later, come back in a couple of hours, I’ll need you,” he ordered, then hurried off.
White watched him go, but stayed put for now. He could do little else but offer moral support to the staff here, but he was determined to do what he could.
0o0o0
Three hours later a much more awake looking Fawn was outlining his plan to Colonel White while two orderlies brought in a gurney and lined it up next to Scarlet’s bed. Lapis and Burgundy were nearby, the two women quietly debating something on the captain’s monitor.
“Everything we’ve tried has been to stop or short circuit whatever the deep brain stimulation did to cause this faux-REM hallucinatory sleep state.” Fawn was explaining. “I want to try sidestepping it entirely by administering ketamine and inducing a semi-hypnotic state with the equipment in the Room of Sleep.”
“I’m still not sold on it,” Doctor Lapis interrupted, looking up from the quivering indicators on the monitor. “Ketamine is a dissociative as well as a stimulant; giving it to someone with who knows what going on in their brain and then inducing any kind of hypnotic state on top of that?” She shook her head. “I have strong reservations.”
“Why is that, Doctor?” Colonel White asked, giving the sharp-faced Indian woman an enquiring look.
Lapis tucked a grey lock of hair back behind her ear and crossed her arms. “Layman’s terms, ketamine works by cutting off the feedback from the body to the brain, disassociating them from the situation, but like I said it also has a stimulating effect,” she began. “The Room of Sleep works by tricking the brain into going into a ‘low power mode’ and accelerated dream state. I still don’t see how the different factors in play here won’t just cancel each other out.”
“But we’re not using the full dream state mode. Just the ‘low power mode’,” Burgundy cut in, her voice slightly hoarse. “Ketamine has been used to rouse some coma patients and it worked on Scarlet for a few moments at least, and that’s all the time the hypnosis machine needs.” The petite Dutch doctor absently rubbed her bruised throat as she spoke. “Using ketamine to bring him up to a level where the Room of Sleep technology can take effect will hopefully tip the brain into something like a ‘safe start up mode’, like when a computer acts up, and we can coax him through the faux REM state from there. I think it’s worth the risk.”
“I didn’t get to the best part yet,” Fawn added. “I’m going to be going through a similar procedure in parallel with him.”
“What!” The shocked exclamation came at him from three directions.
“It’s a theory that the original developers of the Room have been working on – creating a shared dream state for specialists to use to help patients with locked-in syndrome and certain types of coma. Bay is setting it up now,” Fawn explained, seemingly unfazed by the objections. “Two people both in that ‘low power mode’ and sharing the same hypnosis machine can share the same dream once they’re brought onto the same ‘wavelength’. Bay just confirmed that he can’t lighten the hypnotic state to the point where it’ll still have the effect we want and let us effectively communicate with them from the outside at the same time. Someone has to go in after them, someone they trust.”
“And if it doesn’t work, then what?” Burgundy asked, worried. “You’ll be stuck in there with him?”
“No, as soon as the ketamine wears off and the projector shuts down I’ll wake up because it’s not originating in my head. Believe me, Bay and I have been over that detail with a fine toothed comb. It’s got risks but I’m comfortable with them,” Fawn explained, looking between his subordinates and the colonel.
White took Fawn by the arm and drew him aside. “Are you quite sure you want to do this?” he asked in a low voice, mindful of the others around them. “I doubt it’s going to be a pleasant experience inside their heads.”
“I know, Colonel.” Fawn looked at him, unwavering. “I’ve been through all of their full medical files. I can do this.”
“Why do you need me then?” Colonel White asked curiously. “Why not simply begin the procedure if you are sure?”
“Consent, for Scarlet and the others,” Fawn explained. “I want to try it first with Scarlet but he can’t give informed consent right now. As his commanding officer you’ve got the authority to act on his behalf for an experimental, extreme and invasive procedure like this. If you agree I also need you to order him to cooperate with me. I know they can all still hear the outside world on some level, the scans show spikes of brain activity when we talk to them, and that stubborn soldier over there will take orders from you that he won’t take from me. That, alongside the training he’s had in resisting hypnosis, drugs and mind altering technologies, means he’s going to be the hardest one to work with. I’m hoping if he hears you ordering him to work with me on this, then it’s got a chance.”
“Why Scarlet first? Why not someone who more readily listens to you like Grey or Magenta?” White asked, his frown deepening.
“I think you know the answer to that one, Colonel.” Fawn was carefully professional in his answer. “If this doesn’t go to plan his end outcomes are better than the others’ are. Also, if I can get him out, he should be able to recover quickly enough to go in after Blue while I go after one of the others, probably Ochre. I’m worried about his heart.” He took a breath, glanced over the other captains and looked back at White, his expression grim. “Time is not our friend here, Colonel.”
Colonel White crossed his arms and frowned, chin almost on his chest as he weighed up the risks not only to Scarlet but also to Fawn, and measured it against the doctor’s confidence in his plan. “Very well,” he decided. “Do it.”
White crossed the room to Scarlet’s bed. He seemed to be between nightmares, his face relaxed and heart rate holding steady, if he was reading the monitor correctly. Half recalling something from an article he’d read many years ago, White laid his hand on Scarlet’s. “Captain Scarlet, it’s Colonel White, do you hear me?” he asked. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought he detected the slightest twitch of Scarlet’s fingers. “We are trying something to bring you and the others out of the nightmares. Fawn has asked me to tell you to trust him. It is going to require the hypnosis unit from the Room of Sleep and ketamine to bring you to a point where Fawn can enter your dream and help you. Don’t fight the doctor and listen to him, he is taking a great risk to help you. Do you understand, Scarlet?” That time he was sure he felt a replying twitch from Scarlet’s hand.
Heartened, he moved to Captain Blue’s bed to issue similar orders while the orderlies carefully untied Scarlet and disconnected the various IVs and sensors before moving him across to the gurney.
0o0o0
Inside the Room of Sleep, two of the gimbal-mounted beds had been outfitted with a portable auto-nurse to provide the extra monitoring and support needed. The hypnotic projectors above each bed had been half-gutted and new hardware patched in to link the computers controlling the devices and expand their capabilities to include the fine control that this project required. A stack of parts in the corner were for converting the third and fourth beds should this initial experiment work.
Scarlet was transferred to one bed and the nurse’s sensors applied to his forehead, temples and chest. Fawn took off his lab coat and undershirt (with admittedly some level of self-consciousness; while not lax about his health he didn’t have anywhere near the captain’s level of muscular definition), and made himself comfortable on the other bed as Burgundy stuck the sensors on him. To complete their corona of electrodes Lieutenant Bay added the necessary extra hardware for the re-wired hypnosis unit – a net of sensors that draped over their scalps – and slid the projector hoods into place. For his part, the thin-faced Bay looked very nervous about proceedings – normally his days consisted of maintenance and upgrading, not bio-hacking into nightmares caused by Mysteron-enhanced technology. He would be monitoring the hypnosis machines during the procedure.
“Last chance to say no,” Lapis advised Fawn as she put an IV port in his inner elbow and hooked up the dual syringe driver that would give a controlled, sustained dose of ketamine to both men.
“Still going through with it,” was Fawn’s reply – firm, but touched by her concern.
“Okay then, ketamine going in. Bay, activate hypnosis,” Lapis instructed as she pressed the button on the syringe driver. Bay entered a string of commands into the computer, the overhead projector started its slow lightshow and Fawn felt the drowsiness descend like a thick blanket of cotton wool. He was feeling curiously light, almost like he was disconnected from himself but connected to everything around him instead. Then darkness fell and he could feel himself falling with it.
-------
He was standing on a bare, featureless, grey plain that was dominated by an immense obsidian pillar. The size of a giant redwood tree, it erupted from the ground to disappear into the dense black clouds that rolled and roiled above him like water boiling in a pot. What little light there was had a steely aspect to it, and he cast no shadow. Despite the thick cloud cover the air was bone dry and heavy with the smells of hot metal and smoke, even though there was no fire to be seen. Crouching to examine the strange, grey earth, Fawn could see traces of where life had been – the outlines of leaves, twigs, even the skull of a bird – but it was like it had all been sucked dry of everything and absorbed into the ground, leaving only the faintest of imprints.
Curious, Fawn rose and approached the massive pillar, his feet kicking up puffs of dry, gritty dust as he walked. It wasn’t as solid as he’d first thought – a glossy, lazily undulating surface that seemed both sharp and hard and yet somehow liquid at the same time, catching and shifting the weak light like oil. The blackness seemed to have a greenish tint to it, a sickly colour that spoke of rot and gangrene instead of life and verdancy.
As he looked around, wondering where to go next, Fawn couldn’t help but grimace. He’d only been here moments and already he could feel his skin crawl. This place felt wrong.
“No! Let me go!”
The panicked shouting echoed across the barren landscape and Fawn ran towards the source, following the curve of the pillar around.
Digging bloodied furrows in the dead earth with torn fingers, Scarlet was dragging himself away from the dark pillar, but thick, clinging tendrils of it were whipping out to ensnare him, curling around his legs and ankles to drag him into itself. Fawn watched in horror as Scarlet, desperately scrabbling in the ground for some sort of handhold, was hauled towards the darkness, his booted feet sinking into the surface like an animal caught in tar. Somehow the captain found a reserve of strength and tore himself free with a frantic cry, ripping and kicking the clinging tendrils off and crawling a short distance away until he simply collapsed in exhaustion.
Judging by the gouges that he’d clawed into the earth, this tug of war had been going on for some time, but each time Scarlet was collapsing a little closer to the pillar.
“We are patient. You will return to us.”
Fawn felt more than heard the voice, a sibilant whisper in the dead calm air. He could almost imagine the cruel sneer that the words seemed to convey, an enjoyment of the struggle that only prolonged the inevitable and served to make the final victory sweeter.
Scarlet flinched at the voice like he’d been struck by a physical blow. With a herculean effort he forced himself to his feet to run, but only staggered a few steps before he crumpled again, sobbing for breath and clearly on his last legs.
“Scarlet!” Broken out of his shocked stupor, Fawn ran towards the fallen captain, dropped to his knees beside him and automatically reached out to start making an assessment of his condition. To his surprise, Scarlet pulled back from him, rolling away and bringing his bloodied and ruined hands up to fend him off. “Scarlet, it’s me, Doctor Fawn, I’m here to help you,” Fawn tried to reassure him, noting the wild eyes and bared teeth.
“How do I know it’s you?” Scarlet demanded in a hoarse voice, his hands still raised in a protective gesture and naked fear in his eyes. “How do I know you’re not one of them?”
“Because I’m not!” “Oh that was smart to say,” Fawn chastised himself, seeing the instant suspicion in Paul’s face. He went to try again, but a flicker of movement caught his eye. A veritable forest of tentacles whipped out from the base of the pillar, latching on to Paul’s ankles and locking into place.
Scarlet instantly tried to kick against them, but he was too exhausted to dislodge them. His earlier suspicions discarded, he instinctively reached out to Fawn as the tendrils started to pull him in. “Doctor!”
“Paul!” Fawn grabbed one of the flailing hands in both of his. Digging his heels into the ground and leaning back with their combined weight, he pulled and hauled until the tendrils lost their grip on Paul. When he was finally freed, Fawn turned Scarlet so his back was against Fawn’s chest and grabbed the captain’s arms at the wrists, crossing them over Scarlet’s own chest and weaving his arms in with them in one of the carry techniques he’d learned in medical school. So braced, he was able to stand and drag Scarlet’s near dead-weight, walking backwards until he judged they were at a safe distance from the pillar.
Puffing hard despite it being a dream, Fawn laid Scarlet down and let him pull himself back together while he sat down heavily on the dead earth. The doctor shook his head slightly as the meaning of the symbols and physical metaphors of this place finally fell into place.
Scarlet loved the outdoors, it was one of his places he’d retreat to to refresh himself and recover his strength. Fawn also knew that he relied heavily on his small circle of closest friends to keep him grounded, and while the British officer enjoyed having time on his own, Paul hated being alone.
Knowing that about him made the current situation even more chilling, Fawn reflected as he glanced back at the looming obsidian pillar speared through the heart of this desolate reality. Paul had been battling what could only be the embodiment of the Mysterons in a tug of war for his own freedom and doing so all on his own in a world that they’d consumed and sucked dry of all life. It was no small wonder that he was in such a state.
With this added context, the strangely out-of-place smell of hot metal and smoke now made complete sense – the car crash. Fire was one of the last things that Paul reported remembering before waking up in Medical. Having those lurking memories compounding everything else was another twist to the proverbial knife.
“What was that?” Fawn asked as he caught his breath. He knew what it was, but the literature suggested that he had to make Paul name it to help him break free of the hallucinations.
“The Mysterons! They’re trying to take me back!” Paul got himself to his hands and knees and tried to stand on shaking legs, fearful edges as sharp and as fragile as broken glass in his voice. “I have to...”
Fawn heard the rising note of panic and very quickly moved to cut off that train of thought. “Scarlet, I know this all feels very real to you but it’s not,” Fawn tried to explain. “You’re stuck in some sort of nightmare state. What’s the last thing you remember? How did we get here?”
“I...” Scarlet paused and sank back down to sit, visibly leafing through his memories. “... I’m not sure.” He looked around himself, actually examining his surroundings and the impossibility of their current reality for the first time. Fawn could almost hear the logic snapping back into place. “Colonel White... he said you were coming after me,” Paul realised, looking at Fawn with new eyes.
“Yes, and I need you to focus, to wake up,” Fawn ordered. “The others need help, I need you to go and get Adam while I get Rick.”
That got Paul’s attention.
“Adam and Rick are like this too? Is this happening to all of us? Are they here or elsewhere?” Scarlet asked, his tone all business now. Fawn recognised what was happening: Scarlet had a mission to focus on and heaven help whatever got in his way. “How do we get out of here, Doctor?” he requested, his cadence clipped and crisp.
“All the others are caught up in their own nightmares,” Fawn confirmed. “As far as I could see in the literature, you have to recognise this is false and reject it, completely and utterly.”
“Now that I know what’s going on, that shouldn’t be too hard.” Scarlet’s expression was resolute as he glared at the distant pillar but his eyes were full of simmering rage, then he turned away from it and closed his eyes to better concentrate. “Let’s get out of here.”
The dry and dusty plain with the pillar stabbed through its heart faded like a chalk drawing in a rainstorm.
0o0o0
Waking was like falling.
Both men jerked as they came awake, their attendant nurse ’bots warbling an alert as their brain activity rose to consciousness.
Feeling horribly cotton-mouthed and shaky, Scarlet gratefully accepted Doctor Burgundy’s assistance in sitting up while she divested him of the forest of wires that decorated him. On the bed next to him, Fawn was getting the same treatment from Doctor Lapis.
“You just stay right there for now, Scarlet,” Burgundy told him firmly as she put a drink bottle in his hand. “Sip that slowly, you’ve been out for two days.”
“No argument from me,” Scarlet rasped, taking small sips from the bottle of chalky-tasting electrolyte replacement drink. He felt horribly stiff and sore and looking down at himself he could see fading bruises and red welts decorating his body in several places – restraint straps probably, judging by their placement.
“How much do you remember?” Burgundy asked next, checking over the readings from the auto-nurse.
“More than I’d like to, it’s patchy, but I remember Fawn saying the others are locked in nightmares like I was.” Scarlet frowned, spotting her bruised neck. A vague memory floated into the forefront of his mind. “Was that...?”
“Later.” She dismissed his question with a quick gesture of her hand. “Let me know when you’re feeling strong enough for the briefing,” she said as she went to help Lapis with Fawn.
Beside him, Scarlet could hear Fawn telling Bay and Burgundy to get the other pair of beds set up with the equipment. From what he was overhearing, the lieutenant was sounding both excited by the success of what he’d figured was a harebrained project and highly nervous that they were going to do it all over again. “Bay’s going to give himself ulcers over all this if he doesn’t relax,” Scarlet mused to himself as he scrutinised proceedings.
“The orderlies will have Blue and Ochre down here shortly,” Lapis reported to Fawn as she drew up a syringe full of clear liquid from a small glass vial. “In the meantime...”
“Yes, yes, I know, rest and meds.” Fawn held his arm out for the syringe. “Gimme that.”
“Scarlet too?” she asked as she connected the syringe to Fawn’s IV port and slowly pushed the plunger down.
Fawn looked over at Scarlet. “Any lingering disorientation, hallucinations, disassociation, or other abnormal sensations?” he asked, flinching a little as the cool fluid went into his arm.
“Plenty of abnormal sensations but nothing out of the ordinary,” Scarlet tiredly quipped back. “What is that anyway?” he asked curiously.
“Antidote for the ketamine,” Lapis replied as she finished administering the medication. “Ketamine is short acting, but since Fawn is determined to go find Ochre and may need to go after some of the others as well. I’d rather he have a clean system each time.” Her tone was purely professional, but the look she flicked at Fawn showed that she wasn’t happy with the CMO’s plan.
“I think Scarlet will be okay without it, his system hates all sedatives and burns them out relatively quickly.” Fawn missed the look as he accepted the bottle of electrolytes that Burgundy passed him on her way to calibrate the auto-nurses being hooked into the other set of beds. “I don’t like tinkering if it’s not needed, but the others will need it if they’re going after someone.”
“Noted,” Lapis affirmed as she tidied up the used equipment with brisk efficiency and issued a string of orders. “You two rest for now and sip the electrolytes, we’ll prep for Blue and Ochre. Doctor, we’ll need the bed shortly, I’ve sent James off to get some chairs, Captain, you stay put.”
“S.I.G.” Scarlet nodded and obediently took another sip of his drink. He knew better than to cross Lapis when she was in this kind of mood. Spectrum women were formidable as a rule, Cloudbase women even more so, and the female doctors and nurses could be downright terrifying when they wanted to be. With the amount of times he was in and out of Medical, Scarlet had quickly learned to be on their good sides.
The two men had a few minutes to themselves while preparations were made around them, left with their thoughts as they recovered. Fawn seemed to consider something and looked at Scarlet with that slight tilt to his head that Scarlet instantly recognised - Fawn had come up with a theory and now wanted some more data to test said theory.
“Scarlet, how much do you remember of the nightmares?” he asked quietly. “Feel free to tell me to shove it if you don’t want to talk about it.”
“No, it’s all right.” Scarlet ran his thumb up and down a seam on the side of the drink bottle. “I don’t recall much, it’s fading, like any dream.” He looked down for a moment, trying to pull together the right words. “I remember feeling terribly frightened, alone in a lifeless place. But I wasn’t alone. Something else was there that scared me more than anything else in my life.” Scarlet looked at him and gave a wry smile. “There’s the rub, I suppose. Someone once said we’re not afraid of being alone in the dark, we’re afraid that we’re not alone in the dark.”
“Whoever said that hit the nail right on the head if you ask me,” Fawn replied, nodding slightly as he mulled over what he’d been told. “I remember a little more than you do. Do you want me to tell you?”
Scarlet considered the offer for a moment, brows drawn close as he pondered, then shook his head. “No, not right now. I might ask later... but the sooner I can put all of this behind me, the better, I think,” he decided.
“Understood.” Fawn nodded, then they both looked up as the door opened and two orderlies appeared with Blue on a gurney, a third orderly following with some folding chairs under his arms. There was a flurry of activity as Fawn carefully hoisted himself off the bed and got out of the way. Burgundy came over to wire up Scarlet and properly brief him on the situation and what the literature suggested on getting someone out while Lapis and Bay reset the equipment under Fawn’s watchful direction and Blue was transferred over and prepared for the procedure.
Scarlet couldn’t help but worry as he saw his friend’s condition – pale and drawn, Blue’s face was thinner than normal under the two days’ growth of stubble. Lapis caught his attention for a moment as she swapped out the ketamine syringes – his was bigger for the higher dose he’d need now that he wasn’t in a coma – and hooked him up to it, then helped him lie down. “You’ll find him in there, Scarlet. I know you will,” she reassured him, seeing his concern, then looked over at Lieutenant Bay. “Are we ready?”
“Ready.” Bay nodded, frowning in concentration as he entered commands into the computer.
“Ready, Captain?” Lapis asked, turning her attention back to him. “Remember, don’t fight it, just go with it.”
“Do it.” Scarlet made himself relax as the projector hood was slid into place. He could hear Lapis order ‘Bay, now.’ A warm darkness drew him into its depths and then he knew no more.
-------
He was standing outside the Svenson family home in Boston.
Paul glanced around, feeling a coldness that sank into his bones. It was night, the air felt murky and somehow cloying and clinging, the house looming before him was dark and still and every instinct was screaming ‘don’t go in’ as he approached the mansion. The proportions of the building seemed somehow skewed as he approached the main door, like no walls were quite plumb and corners that should have been 90 degrees were just off enough to make it unsettling.
As he got closer, he realised the large oak door was slightly ajar, wood splintered around the lock. Scarlet automatically stood with his back to the red brick wall, gun in hand and peering carefully through the gap into the dark interior, all senses on high alert.
The smell of blood hit him like a wave.
The screaming started a moment later – a single voice howling out his horror, loss and anguish.
It took every ounce of resolve that Paul had to not rush in to find Adam – he was sure that it was him – instead carefully nudging the door open and slipping into the building like a ghost as he searched each room.
It was a massacre. That was the only way to describe it. Bodies, young and old, were strewn everywhere, clustered by windows they’d clawed at in their attempts to escape, huddled in corners or simply mown down where they stood, shot for the most part. The plush carpets covering the floors had soaked up the blood like sponges, making each footstep squelch.
Paul checked the faces as he passed, recognising the odd one from the photos that Adam kept in his room and had shown him a time or two. “It’s everyone he knows!” he realised as he passed the bodies of two of Adam’s cousins. “Every single person he knows or remembers, everyone he cares about or is important to him... all dead.”
The utter cruelty of the tableau was beyond his comprehension.
He found Adam’s family in what looked like a breakfast room, all seated at the table as if they’d gathered together to start the day, all slumped with their throats cut, thick pools of congealing blood still oozing over the polished table and dripping on the floor. People he realised were from the World Aeronautic Society were scattered in an office. Classmates from Harvard had been penned into the library. Finally, in the formal dining room he started to find people from Spectrum – their instructors from Koala Base along with staff and officers from Cloudbase and Spectrum’s wide-flung bases.
Colonel White was sprawled beside the cold fireplace, Green beside him and Fawn not too far away. The other captains, Brown included in their ranks, had attempted a defensive line with an improvised barricade made of an upturned table, but they’d all been executed with a shot to the back of the head. Paul found his own body crumpled amongst them – quite dead with the distinctive burn of a Mysteron gun gouging a hole through the armoured tunic and into the chest. The Angels were a cluster of bloodstained white and gold beside the captains, their weapons in hand, but their fight had clearly been futile. His heart skipped a beat when he saw Dianne amongst their number and he had to firmly remind himself that this wasn’t real. A set of drag marks gave him a path to follow and Paul knew without looking who’d been taken from the group of women.
In an adjacent sitting room, Paul found Adam huddled in a corner, heedless of the blood as he cradled Karen’s lifeless body in his lap, murmuring endearments to her and stroking her hair as tears streamed down his face. In the dim half-light Paul could see the final salt in the wound – the golden bands set with gemstones that glinted on Karen’s left hand and the open flight jacket that revealed the taut swell of a pregnant belly.
“Everyone he ever knew or loved, and the family he hoped to one day have... all taken from him... such wickedness...” Paul holstered his gun as he carefully approached the distraught, broken man. “Adam, Adam, look at me,” Paul coaxed as he folded himself down to kneel in front of Adam. “Adam, none of this is real, it’s a trick.”
Adam’s head snapped up with a hiss of indrawn breath through clenched teeth as he glared at his friend. “Paul? You’re dead, I saw you die!” he snarled. “Black said he’d finished you off for good, that he was going to come back for me and everyone else and we’d burn the world for him. Did they take you back already? I won’t let you have her!” His voice rose in a nearly hysterical shout as he held Karen even closer, wanting to protect her from the final horror of being replicated. “You can’t have her!”
“Adam, I’m not dead!” Paul carefully extended a hand to him. “Take my hand, I’m warm, see? Mysterons are cold, you know that.” He had to reach Adam and help him see the illogic of this place, but he couldn’t do that while the nightmare still had its hooks in his brain. He could only hope this would be enough to jar Adam out of the nightmare’s grip.
Indecision flickered across Adam’s face, then he shook his head, his expression turned blank and he curled himself around Karen, his face buried in her hair.
Paul carefully inched forwards into arm’s reach, like he was approaching a skittish stray dog, and stretched out his hand to touch Adam’s wrist. Adam flinched back from the contact like he’d been burned... then his hand flicked out and caught Paul’s arm, holding it for a long moment. “You’re... you are warm,” Adam said at last, finally looking Paul full in the face. His eyes cleared for a second... then the nightmare reasserted its hold.
His expression blanked again for a moment, then Adam dropped Paul’s wrist, shifted his grip on Karen’s body and almost as fast as he could blink, Adam’s gun was in his right hand, pointed unerringly at Scarlet’s head. “It’s a trick,” he declared flatly, eyes narrowed and diamond hard. “This is just another Mysteron trick.”
Paul froze in place, hyper aware of every moment he made and especially of how close his hands were to his own weapons – the gun on his hip, the knife down his boot and the second knife at the small of his back.
His combat training screamed at him to neutralise the threat – he knew several moves he could use to deflect the gun away from himself and try to gain control of the situation. But the part of him that was Adam’s friend quietly murmured that none of those would help right now and would only serve to make things worse – Adam was distraught and not in his right mind. Fighting wasn’t the best response here, especially since it would only feed into the narrative the nightmares had written.
Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Paul forced himself to relax, drop his shoulders, place his hands behind his bowed head and close his eyes – a gesture of complete surrender as he waited to see what Adam would do next in response. A cornered Mysteron never surrendered, they always fought it out to the bitter end.
Long moments crawled by, then there was a confused sounding “... Paul?” from Adam. Metal clicked as Blue engaged the safety and the gun made a dull sound as he put it on the floor, but by the time Scarlet had cracked an eye open to see what was going on, Adam was again curled around Karen’s body, head bowed and shoulders shaking with soundless sobs.
“It’s like he’s stuck in a loop,” Paul realised, “every time he starts to break free the nightmare always drags him back to grieving for her, that’s how it’s keeping hold of him... Do I have to let him process the grief first?” he wondered as he considered what to do next. “I think I do. It’s too strong for me to attack it head on and try to break through it to get to Adam. I’ve got to take this slowly and patiently. Once the grief is out of the way, then maybe I can get to him.”
He considered several options, dismissed most of them and decided to try the simplest idea first.
Once again moving slowly, Paul turned around and shuffled himself back until he was sitting against the wall next to Adam, close enough for their shoulders to touch, and waited for him to notice. It wasn’t the first time he’d sat with someone like this, simply being there for them amidst their loss, acknowledging and validating their pain, but it never got any easier. He was a doer, helping someone by simply being present still felt strange to him, well outside of his usual skillset.
When the initial contact didn’t trigger anything in response he put an arm around Adam’s shoulders in a comforting gesture, one they’d used on each other in the past when the burden of the uniform got too much to bear alone.
Finally Adam registered his presence and looked up. His grief had carved deep lines into his face, like he’d aged years in only moments. The tears had stopped for now, leaving faint traces of salt, and his eyes were red and bloodshot. “Paul...?” Adam frowned, and Paul could almost feel Adam’s mind testing the fabric of this false reality, probing at the seams and pressing at the corners. “You’re... you’re here. You are here... wherever here is...” He blinked, shook himself, then looked around. “... What... what happened?” he asked, his eyes finally clear.
“Long story short: we’re all hallucinating our worst fears, I’m here to help you find your way out,” Paul told him, relieved to finally see his friend reasserting himself. “This is some sort of dream reality, Doctor Fawn said you have to recognise it and reject it to push us out of it.”
Adam looked down at the body in his arms, paled and nodded. “S.I.G. Absolutely no problems there,” he declared. Getting to his feet with a grunt of effort, Adam stood and carried Karen’s body over to a nearby couch. Laying her down upon it, he arranged her into a semblance of decency, then stood for a moment, an inscrutable expression on his face as he looked at the still form.
“Let’s go,” he said at last, turning away and looking towards the door and the exit it promised.
The false reality faded into a grey nothingness.
0o0o0
Adam gasped as they returned to the waking world while Paul groaned softly, starting to feel the toll of breaking through Adam’s nightmare on top of his partially recovered state from his own ordeal and subsequent escape. This was taking more out of him than he’d anticipated.
“Ah good, you’re awake.” Fawn glanced over at them as he tweaked the settings on the second set of apparatus being readied for himself and Ochre, who had already been brought in by the orderlies and laid on the bed. “You two catch your breath. I’m going after Ochre, then one of you two will have to go after Grey, the orderlies should be bringing him down soon.” He sat down on the bed, connected himself up to the syringe driver while Burgundy reapplied the electrodes and sensors, laid down and within moments he was unconscious, sinking into Ochre’s nightmare.
-------
The darkness didn’t fade. In fact it seemed to press around him, a tangible pressure that lay heavily on his head and shoulders like he’d been draped in a blanket soaked in water. Fawn rubbed at his eyes, tried blinking and shaking his head as if to disrupt whatever lay on him, but nothing seemed to shift the blackness away. “Ochre!” he called out. “Ochre, it’s Doctor Fawn! Where are you?”
He thought he heard a faint sound and started to shuffle in that direction, carefully feeling his way with hands outstretched like a blind man. He encountered the first wall almost immediately – cool and hard, it felt like polished metal under his fingertips. He slid his hands up as high as he could reach, but he couldn’t find the top of it. Following the wall, he found a corner to the left, then another straight section, then a corner that went to the right. Playing a hunch, Fawn stretched out his other hand, found a parallel wall and it suddenly made sense – it was a maze.
“Blind and in a maze...” Fawn theorised out loud, then corrected himself. “No, blind and lost in a maze. Damn.” Not being able to see... well, Fawn was doing a lot of work to keep a lid on his own burgeoning panic, and he was the one who knew that this was all fake. He couldn’t imagine what this was doing to Richard. “OCHRE!” He raised his voice, hoping to be heard and that there wasn’t a roof on the maze that would muffle him. Just the thought of being sealed in like that was making his claustrophobia pluck at the triggers for his fight or flight response. “OCHRE, IT’S FAWN! I’M TRYING TO FIND YOU!”
Nothing.
Trying something else, Fawn beat at the wall with his fists, trying to make more noise, but it only reverberated dully. It felt a little ridiculous, but he even tried the old ‘CooooEE!’ cry that he’d rather enthusiastically used as a kid when he’d been taught to by a bushranger on a week-long school camp in the Outback.
Still nothing.
“Well, worth a shot,” Fawn muttered as he started following the wall again, his left hand on it and his right held out before him in case of any obstacles. “Now what was it they’d said again... if lost in a maze, always follow the left wall,” he muttered to himself as he carefully shuffled along. Ochre had to be in here somewhere.
0o0o0o0
In the waking world, Scarlet could see that Bay and the doctors were getting concerned about Fawn and Ochre, exchanging worried looks over the heads of the unconscious men as the minutes ticked over on the displays.
“What’s taking so long?” Burgundy fretted, worriedly examined the readouts on the auto-nurse monitoring Fawn and then picking up a clipboard and flipping through the pages as she consulted a document there.
“How long did we take?” Blue asked, slowly sipping an electrolyte drink. By this point they’d relocated from the beds to the folding chairs so that Bay could more easily check over the equipment in preparation for the next session. Stiff, sore and exhausted, slumped in their chairs with something of a lack of decorum, both captains were feeling decidedly drained by their experience.
“About four minutes, both times,” Burgundy reported, somewhat distracted as she jotted down a note on her clipboard. “We’re at six now.”
“Is there a failsafe?” Scarlet asked as he sat up straighter, his concern starting to grow.
“Yes, the ketamine should finish wearing off soon, by the fifteen minute mark at the latest.” Lapis replied as she reached under the projection hood and pulled one of Ochre’s half open eyelids fully up to check his pupil response, then did the same to Fawn. “Once that’s run out, Ochre will sink back down to a level the hypnosis machine can’t affect and Fawn should wake up. If it doesn’t work, I have the antidote ready to go.” She nodded to the prepared syringe in a kidney bowl on a side table.
“‘Should wake up’?” Scarlet frowned, sharing a worried glance with Blue. Neither of them liked the sound of that.
A muffled cry interrupted them, becoming louder as two orderlies brought in Grey, who was in the grip of another round of nightmares, struggling and crying out half sentences and snatches of words. “Give us a hand here!” one of the orderlies called out, trying to keep the gurney steady in the face of Grey’s thrashing.
“S.I.G!” Spurred on by adrenaline, Scarlet got to his feet, Blue moments behind him. Between the two orderlies and the two captains, they got the gurney inside and held it securely until Grey finally stilled again, chest heaving as he sucked down air.
The two captains stepped back to let the orderlies take Grey to the freshly reset bed and looked at each other again. “He said ‘hull breach’,” Scarlet told Blue, a grim set to his mouth. “It has to be the sub accident.” Grey hadn’t said much about what had happened to him, but Scarlet knew enough to know that it was a nightmare to live through the first time around, he couldn’t imagine what it would be like with whatever the nightmare machine had done.
“You’re probably right. I’ll go,” Blue instantly volunteered, looking at his partner. “I know you’ve got SCUBA experience from cave diving, but I’ve got open water experience that you don’t.” He managed to remain standing for a few moments longer, then swayed and leaned against the wall as his legs threatened to give way, Scarlet quickly moving to support him with an arm around his waist.
“And you need to rest and recover some more, Blue.” Burgundy jumped in with her two cents, hands on hips and looking pointedly at Adam. “Scarlet’s in far better shape for another round. You, on the other hand, need more time to recover and we’ll need you as a backup if Fawn or Scarlet can’t reach Ochre or Grey. Now sit,” she ordered, pointing him back to his chair.
“Blue, listen to her. I feel like I’ve been stuffed in a sack and beaten with sticks, I can’t imagine how you feel,” Scarlet pointed out from where he stood supporting Adam’s weight.
There was a long pause, then Blue reluctantly nodded his acquiescence, unable to keep up the semi-facade of functionality. “You’re right,” he reluctantly conceded, reclaimed his chair with Scarlet’s help and resigned himself to watch as the final preparations were made and the two doctors took Scarlet to the unoccupied bed to wire him up in preparation for going after Grey.
For his own part, Paul felt a distinct sengse of unease about proceedings. He didn’t feel as close to Brad as he would have liked for something like this. Rick probably would have been a better choice, he and Brad worked together quite regularly, but Ochre wasn’t an option right now.
Just before he laid down, Paul glanced over at the other set of beds and their too-still occupants. “C’mon doc, get you and Ochre out of there.”
-------
Before the darkness had a chance to clear he almost fell on the tilted deck of the submarine as water surged across the floor with the force of a fire hose, threatening to sweep his feet out from under him as he staggered through the narrow passageway towards what he guessed was the control room.
When he got there the water was almost knee deep, ink-dark and swirling with yellowish foam. Red emergency lights flickered weakly; though there were portholes, no light showed through them. Heavy shadows lurked in the corners of the control room and Grey was slumped awkwardly against the plinth for the diving controls, his radar operator bobbing face down in the water nearby.
As a horrified Paul watched from the doorway, every time Grey shifted himself, hoisting himself a little higher out of the water, the level of the water jumped so it constantly stayed just below his mouth. One slip, one wrong move, and he’d drown.
“It’s like the torment of Tantalus! But air instead of food or water!” Paul realised as he waded through the knee deep water, stepped over the rim of the door and tried to shove it closed against the relentless surge of water to buy them some more time, but the force of it was simply too much for him and he had to abandon the effort as futile.
“Grey, stand up!” Scarlet ploughed through the freezing water, feeling it soak his legs and run down the insides of his boots, stealing the warmth from his body. “Brad, this isn’t real!”
“Paul?” Holding himself stock still, chin lifted and gasping at the intense cold, only Grey’s eyes moved as he looked towards the other officer. “What... what are you doing here? You’re not WASP,” he asked, confused.
“Brad, this is a hallucination! A nightmare! I’m here to help get you out!” Paul bent down to take Brad’s arms and pull him up to his feet. But a thought tugged at his mind even as he did so – this nightmare felt a lot more solid, for lack of a better word, than his or Adam’s had.
“No!” Brad pushed him away, icy water splashing as he tried to fend Paul off. “My back! It’s broken! If you pick me up I’ll be paralysed! You can’t move me!”
“We don’t have time for this! Do you trust me?” Paul demanded, looking Brad in the eye.
-------
At the same time, Fawn was feeling the stirrings of panic getting more and more insistent for his attention. It felt like he’d been wandering this infernal maze for hours now, he’d lost track of the twists and turns within moments and could only hope he wasn’t walking in circles as he followed the left wall. He’d called out until his throat felt raw, hearing nothing in reply.
Finally, as he shuffled through yet another pair of right angle corners that marked the latest in a series of dead ends, his foot touched something soft that recoiled from him with a rustle of clothing and a strangled whimper.
“Rick? Richard, it’s Doctor Fawn.” Fawn said as he crouched and patted the ground, looking for what or who he had found. With fingers made sensitive from years of surgery and the building of intricate electronics, he identified the shape of a Spectrum issue boot, followed it up until he found the rest of the curled leg, then made a rough guess and reached for where he thought Ochre’s arm should be, feeling a bolt of relief when he found a sleeve and the circular shape of the Spectrum roundel at the wrist. “Ochre, it’s Fawn, Colonel White told you I was coming to help you, remember?” he repeated, frowning in perplexment when that strange whimper happened again and the arm pulled out of his grasp with a sharp jerk.
A distinct suspicion growing in his mind, Fawn reached out again. “Sorry, Ochre, I’ve got to get a little handsy.” He found the wrist again, secured it with his left hand and followed the arm up to the shoulder with his right. Ochre struggled weakly as Fawn quickly found the shoulder of the vest, skipped over the shape of the epaulette, the rounded collar and then the undershirt until he hit the side of the neck, traced that up to the point of the jaw and then the side of the head. “No ears,” Fawn realised with a sinking feeling as he swept his hand back over the spot, then found the matching spot on the other side and only found smooth skin where the ears should have been.
Knowing he was risking getting bitten but suspecting something else had also happened to Rick, he slid his hand across Ochre’s face and found more smooth skin where Ochre’s mouth and eyes should have been. “Blind, deaf and mute, lost in a maze and completely unable to call out for help. Bloody hell.” Fawn shook his head. This was beyond cruel.
He turned his attention back to the wrist he still held despite Ochre’s struggles and forced Rick’s hand onto his own wrist so he could feel the Spectrum roundel on his sleeve. When Ochre stopped fighting him, he traced out F A W N on the back of Rick’s hand, hoping against hope it would get through to him. Silently he cursed himself for not taking up Green on the offer to teach him Morse code, that would have made things so much easier right now.
Ochre’s other hand came up to catch his and he slowly drew D O C ? on Fawn’s palm with trembling fingers.
Y Fawn replied, following it with a carefully written F A K E D R E A M.
F A K E ? Ochre’s hand retraced the roundel on his sleeve as if to reassure himself.
Y I S D R E A M. Edward paused for a moment, trying to pick the shortest, clearest words to prevent confusion. U M U S T W A K E U P.
S I G
There was a long pause, then Fawn finally felt that now familiar falling sensation and breathed a sigh of relief. It had worked.
-------
Meanwhile, Paul was starting to shiver as the water suddenly leapt higher, distracting Brad from the demand of ‘do you trust me?’ as Brad’s mind fought against the nightmare and the nightmare fought back.
“Easy to see why he believes this is happening! It feels so real!” was Paul’s conclusion as the cold bit into him. He’d already lost feeling in his toes. “That must be it! It feels real because it’s drawing on his real memories to make this nightmare happen!” He couldn’t help but glance around the flooding submarine, his gaze lingering on the drowned sonar operator. “If this is anything like the real thing... damn.”
“How do I know you’re not a Titanica agent?” was the wary question from Brad, his eyes narrowed in suspicion but teeth starting to chatter. “They’d love to get their fins on a Stingray.”
“Because you’re wearing a Spectrum uniform, not WASP, the same as me.” Was Scarlet’s answer. “Look at yourself! Brad, you know who I am, right? You recognised me.”
“... I guess so.” Grey blinked and shook his head, clearly struggling to make sense of the conflicts of the reality around him.
“You’ve been here before, that’s why this,” he gestured at their surroundings, “feels so real.” Scarlet tried a new angle of attack. “Your sub failed, your radar operator drowned, but you somehow got to the emergency ballast and saved yourself. You spent a few months in hospital and got some titanium pins in your back, but you walked again and got recruited to Spectrum when WASP failed to recognise you were still fully field-capable.”
“If that’s so, then how did I end up here again?” Brad challenged.
“Maynooth University in Ireland, do you remember that? We got hit with a weapon that induces nightmares,” Scarlet answered, then turned the question back on him, recalling what Fawn had asked him and how that had drawn the truth into focus for him. “How did you get here, Brad? In this sub, right here, right now?”
“I...” Grey frowned in perplexment, then looked about himself, then back up to Scarlet, seemingly seeing him properly for the first time. “... I don’t know... I was on base, then... I was here.” The surging dark water around them became still and calm as Brad reached up and took the hand that Scarlet offered to him to help him up to his feet. “How do we get out of here?” he asked, almost absently reaching over to activate the emergency ballast blow on the plinth he’d been propping himself up on.
“Reject this reality and we’ll return to our own,” Scarlet told him as the submarine shuddered around them in response to the ballast being dropped. It seemed this reality was already being rewritten as Brad asserted his will on their surroundings and reclaimed his stolen memories.
“That makes sense.” Brad nodded crisply, one hand sweeping out as if to dismiss their current surroundings. It all started to fade away as the light from the portholes grew brighter.
0o0o0
“... ’m jus’ going to stay here for a bit,” Scarlet almost drunkenly slurred as reality came flooding back and the projector hood was removed. He waited a few moments for the room to stop spinning before he propped himself up on his elbows into a semi-sitting position. “Ochre, Grey, Fawn, you alive?” he asked, looking around the room carefully.
“No I’m not,” was Fawn’s flat declaration as Ochre and Grey stirred and made waking noises from their respective beds.
Rick carefully drew his hands over his face before speaking. “I think so?” was his response as Lapis swept in to check over his vitals.
“Hurts too much to be dead,” Brad quipped weakly, not objecting when Burgundy started to assess his condition.
“Glad to have you back.” Adam was clearly relieved as they started sitting up. “You gave us a fright there, Ochre.”
Ochre was about to ask why when Colonel White entered the room. “Stay there, gentlemen,” he said as he came in, seeing the younger men automatically shift their weight to try to stand. “I am very glad to see you are awake.” White made sure he stood out of the way as the doctors and Bay worked, the harsh lines in his face softening slightly with relief as he swept his glance over his officers. “Where is Magenta?” he asked, counting them and coming up one short.
“He’ll be brought down shortly,” Lapis advised as she tidied up from giving Fawn yet another dose of the ketamine antidote. “We’ll just need to reset the unit. Fawn, stay there, you look terrible.”
“Thanks,” was the CMO’s dry response, but he didn’t argue as she put his electrolyte drink in his hand.
By the time the orderlies had returned with their last patient, Ochre had been relocated to one of the folding chairs to sit next to Blue, Grey was sitting up on his bed and Scarlet had elected to lie down again, looking spent.
Colonel White watched the process with fascination as Magenta was brought in and prepared for the procedure and Fawn girded himself for one last trip into someone else’s nightmare. Bay, Lapis and Burgundy had evidently found their stride as they had all the wires and sensors in place, the ketamine readied for delivery and the hypnosis machines primed in a matter of moments.
“Ready?” Lapis asked from her position at the syringe driver.
Fawn simply gave her a thumbs up from underneath the projector hood.
“Okay, Bay – now.” She ordered as she activated the driver.
“Now what?” White asked as he watched Fawn go limp and saw the corresponding changes on the screen attached to the auto-nurse.
“Now we wait,” was Burgundy’s distracted reply as she scribbled down some notes on her clipboard, glancing between the monitors and frowning slightly in concentration. “Hopefully it shouldn’t take too long.”
White nodded his acknowledgement as he turned his attention back to the captains. He’d already had Green call in the team of backup colour captains from Spectrum London and they were on their way – there was no way his officers could function at anywhere near full capacity right now and he wanted a team ready to go in case of another threat. “Going by their state, I’ll need the backup team for at least a week,” White mused to himself as he assessed the lethargy and weakness currently on display.
A surprise warble from one of the nurse ‘bots interrupted his train of thought. Fawn had been under for less than a minute and his attendant auto-nurse was already signalling his return to consciousness. Bay and the doctors leapt into action and the others looked to the hub of activity, first with anticipation, then with concern as Fawn stirred but Magenta remained silent and motionless on his bed.
The CMO groaned as he woke and Bay pulled the projector hood away from his face. “... if I ever step foot into this room again it’ll be too bloody soon.” He winced at the dim light in the room, tried to sit up, failed and slumped back on the bed. “I couldn’t get to Magenta.” Fawn shook his head and moved his arm to let Lapis get to his IV port for the antidote. “He was trapped, I couldn’t reach him.”
“I’ll try.” Scarlet immediately sat up and slid off the bed as he volunteered, only to turn shockingly white from the sudden change in altitude and very quickly sit back down before his legs could collapse out from under him. “... I just need a minute first...”
“I’ll go.” Grey spoke up, but he looked in worse shape than Scarlet did.
“None of you will,” Colonel White declared before Blue or Ochre could gather enough of themselves to try and volunteer, looking around the room with arms crossed over his chest and daring anyone present to disagree. “You’re all near collapse. I’ll fetch him.”
“Sir?!”
“But Colonel...!”
“Sir!”
“My decision is final.” White overrode the protests with a wave of his hand as he strode to Fawn’s bed. “Doctor Fawn, can you give me any intelligence on Magenta’s situation?”
Fawn sat up carefully with Lapis’ help and swung his legs over the edge. “Not much, it’s all fading.” He shook his head and frowned as he tried to pull together what fragments remained of the memories into a format that made sense. “What I do recall is he can’t get out, he’s trapped... all the chains are golden, but chains are chains no matter what they’re made of.”
“I see.” White frowned in thought as he waited for Fawn to be divested of the sensors and everything was reset for a second attempt. “You rest now, Doctor. I’ll go get him.”
“Understood.” Fawn nodded and carefully stood, too exhausted to argue.
Colonel White helped him over to a chair that Bay brought over, then went back to the bed and carefully listened as Burgundy filled him in on what to do and expect and the captains chimed in with what they could remember of tactics that seemed to work. When the system was ready, he divested himself of his tunic and undershirt, laid down and allowed them to place the various sensors and set up the IV.
“Ready, Colonel?” Lapis asked as the last of the preparations were completed.
“Ready,” he nodded.
Darkness swept across his vision like a curtain, bringing a strange weightlessness with it, then he was swept away by it.
-------
When the darkness lifted, a ballroom filled with light and bedecked with ornate decorations greeted Colonel White. Waitstaff in black tuxedos glided between partygoers, their trays laden with delicacies or flutes of champagne. Beautiful women dressed to the nines swept through the room, either singly or on the arms of sharply dressed men. Turning, he could see through the large double doors that the paparazzi had turned out in throngs at the main entrance, waving for attention from this person or that from behind their cameras. To the side was a five piece band on a low stage playing the classic ‘Dangerous Game’ and the centre of the room was full of couples dancing to the beat.
Yet an undercurrent of threat and danger had the hairs on the back of his neck standing up in alarm, a spite against the glitz and glamour visible on the surface. As he weighed up his surroundings, White vaguely recalled how the word “glamour” sometimes referred to a veneer used to disguise something else, something terrifying or unnatural. As he glanced around the room it felt like that was the case here.
The paparazzi’s camera flashes flared more like muzzle flashes, sharp and bright lights that made him instinctively flinch away. As for the partygoers – smiles fixed in place and chattering loudly – they set off all his instincts of ‘false/lies/fake/don’t trust’ with their sharp edged voices and sharp edged smiles that were more predatory than polite.
The gist of a half remembered poem flitted into his memory as he surveyed the ballroom – most animals smile as a threat display, to remind another that yes I can open your yielding throat, ‘so remember that the next time I smile’. It certainly seemed fitting here.
Old training and habits kicked in as White accepted a champagne glass from a passing waitress and slowly circled the room, eavesdropping on various conversations as he looked for Magenta. He was mostly ignored, but he could sense eyes on him from the armed bodyguards he could see standing in the deep shadows that lurked around the perimeter of the room in clear defiance of the light filling the space from the lead crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. The illogical pools of darkness added an extra layer of menace to the tableau.
He finally found Magenta at the far end of the room, not quite enthroned but close to it, seated in an impressive chair with a small table beside him that bore a couple of empty glasses and plates of food that had only been picked at. Two hulking bodyguards flanked his chair, lurking just behind him as he surveyed his domain. Incongruously, he wasn’t wearing a suit or any other kind of formal wear, but his uniform. His sidearm wasn’t in his holster however, instead it was placed on the table – closer to his bodyguards than to him.
Observing from behind a polished black marble pillar, to the colonel’s eyes Magenta seemed more like a Mafia Don than the head of a Syndicate. It certainly didn’t suit him, and he seemed to be very ill at ease despite the lavish surroundings. White knew from his own conversations with Magenta that he’d never hosted an event like this – something as attention grabbing and open like this party would have been asking for Ochre or similar to come for him. He’d attended events held by others, using them for networking mostly, but he never took the centre stage at one. It was simply too risky.
White hung back and watched for now as Magenta received the almost obsequious greetings of someone in a well cut suit, his companion – a young woman in a silver dress that seemed to have more slits and plunges than fabric – very clear in her intentions towards Magenta.
While Magenta received them politely, he dismissed them to go and join the rest of the swirling crowds as soon as pleasantries could be dispensed with. White didn’t miss it as Magenta surreptitiously checked his exits and the flicker of fear as he saw they were all blocked or guarded. From his observation point he could see the grim lines to Magenta’s face as another supplicant approached him to pay homage and the resignation as the charade repeated itself again. As the supplicant left, White could see the changes of expression on the supplicant’s face, from fawning to sneeringly triumphant and scornful.
“A gilded cage. That’s what this is.” White realised. In this twisted version of his previous life, before his recruitment to Spectrum, Magenta had everything he could want but he was a prisoner here – if he didn’t play his part, his people would turn on him. ‘Bread and circuses’ was the phrase that flitted into White’s thoughts as he reassessed the room and its occupants in the light of his revelation. As long as Magenta was a successful leader who passed on the fruits of those successes, he was safe. But as soon as he tripped, fumbled, stumbled or failed to deliver, they’d tear him apart. As for the bodyguards, they were the prison guards. They were there to protect him against external threats, but if he failed them, they’d end him just as quickly.
He couldn’t imagine living like that – an undercurrent of menace threading through every moment, a Sword of Damocles hovering over every interaction, constantly looking over your shoulder with no one to trust, no one to lean on or confide in. The wondering as anyone approached you – is this it? The brief respite of success, then the soul crushing knowledge that you had to do it all again and match or exceed your previous accomplishments to fend off the wolves lurking at the door, eager to have your blood.
The endless tension would wear down even the most stalwart soul and from the despair that he could now see edging into Magenta’s expression, he was teetering close to the proverbial edge.
White frowned to himself as he considered his approach. He had an idea of how to break through to Magenta, but getting close enough to him to have that conversation without the bodyguards or partygoers stopping him was going to be an issue – at an educated guess, that must have been what happened with Doctor Fawn’s attempt. He needed to get Magenta somewhere so they wouldn’t be interrupted. The problem was how to communicate with him.
It was with a moment of surprise that he recalled the rarely used RadioCap he was currently wearing. “Of course, this is a dream, why wouldn’t I have whatever I need?” White admonished himself as he pressed the call button. “Colonel White to Captain Magenta.”
“... Colonel?” The relief was evident in Magenta’s voice, but his face didn’t betray a twitch of it as he shifted to lean his elbow on the armrest, his hand coming up to partially cover his mouth so he could speak without being observed by those around him.
“You don’t have to stay here, I can get you out of this cage you’re in, just like when you were first recruited.” White spoke just loudly enough to be heard over the noise of the party.
“What’s the plan, sir?” Magenta glanced around, trying to spot his CIC.
“On my signal, go for the windows to your left,” was the instruction as White set down his champagne flute on a nearby table and slipped his pistol from its holster.
“What’s the signal?”
“This.”
Colonel White ducked out from his cover, sidearm in hand, and fired a volley of shots at the two massive chandeliers dangling from the gilded ceiling, then another two at the floor-to-ceiling window. Chaos erupted, people screaming and crying out as glass shattered and rained down on the partygoers, the lights flickered and about half of them died. As he’d anticipated, the bodyguards surged forward to try and find the attacker while he ducked around the back of the pillar, using the carnage as cover as he made for the window, pulling a fire alarm along the way. Magenta waited a beat for his bodyguards to join the fray and bolted for the exit that Colonel White had made for them.
They crashed out through the remaining glass, landing in the well-manicured gardens below. “Come on!” White barked out the order as the fire alarm began to wail, leading Magenta in a half crouch as they ran alongside the building and to the shadows of the tall cypress trees that lined the outside of the building. More guards were appearing out of the night time gloom, shouting orders into their radios.
White, painfully aware of the colour he was wearing and how he stood out against the backdrop of the night, yanked Magenta into the lee of a storage shed and motioned for him to be quiet as three of the guards jogged past their position, searching for ‘The Boss’ so he could be returned to his place inside. Knowing it would only be a matter of time before they were found with such a large crowd of armed thugs roaming about, White quickly began explaining. “I know this all feels real to you, but it’s not,” he began in a hushed murmur, urgency colouring his voice. “You’ve been free of that life for years, right now what you’re experiencing is a nightmare. You and the other captains have been trapped in nightmares for two days now.”
“I know. I saw Doctor Fawn, he started telling me.” Patrick shook his head, glancing back over his shoulder at the banquet hall. “The guards killed him before he could finish.” He shuddered reflexively at the memory. “How do we get out of here, Colonel?” he asked, desperation sharpening his expression.
“Simply reject this reality as false, it will return us to the real world,” White told him.
“S.I.G, Colonel White.” Magenta looked around and blew out a long sigh as he closed his eyes. White could feel the nightmare reality start to warp and shift around them as through sheer force of will, Magenta pushed his way out of the nightmare and their surroundings simply dissolved.
0o0o0
The auto-nurses warbled again and everyone present was deeply relieved when this time both men moved and showed signs of waking.
“How are you feeling, sir?” Burgundy asked as she helped Colonel White sit up and started removing the various wires on him.
“I’ve been better,” was the honest response as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Magenta...?”
“Here, sir,” Magenta croaked, staring up at the ceiling. “Mostly.”
“Just relax for now, Magenta,” Lapis interrupted as she checked him over and started removing the electrodes on him. “There’s no hurry.”
“Oh good, because I’m not hurrying anywhere for at least a week. Maybe two,” Magenta declared, slumping back on the bed as soon as he was free of monitoring equipment.
“Well, that was a trip and a half,” was Grey’s dry comment as he laid back down on the bed with a groan. “How’re we going to sum that one up for the mission report?”
“If any of you say ‘there’s nothing to fear but fear itself’, I’ll boot you out the nearest airlock,” Scarlet declared, lying semi-reclined on his bed with a rare, unguarded expression of deep relief as he looked around the room at his brothers-in-arms and the people who had saved them.
Fawn recognised the ‘humour as a coping mechanism’ and added his two cents in the form of a tired smile and a ‘Me too’.
“Me three.” Pat waved weakly from his bed.
“I vote we kidnap these people, take ‘em groundside to the nearest bar and buy them a lot of drinks.” That was Ochre, making a vague gesture in the general direction of Bay, the doctors and Colonel White. “We can take the Magnacopter. Scarlet, you’re the sober driver.”
“As long as we bring some back for the nurses and orderlies too,” Scarlet chimed in, canting a cheeky grin at Adam as he spoke. “We’ll put it all on your card, Blue, that should have enough.”
“Considering what happened the last time you brought alcohol onto the base, I think perhaps we should pass on that,” White chuckled tiredly, recognising the much needed jesting and joining in.
“Dinner at the base restaurant on us instead?” Grey suggested.
“Good idea. Later. Right now, all of you need to go back to Medical for a check up,” Fawn declared, asserting his authority as CMO, even though it clearly took an effort for him to do so. “Your minds seem to have already started the recovery process with how the memories of the nightmares are already fading, but I want to run a few tests to make sure you’re all okay. At least two MRIs, EEGs, vitals and a round of bloods to start with – then you’re all on medical stand down to recover, including you, Colonel. Green will need to call in the backup officers to take over for a spell, and you’ll all need to book in a session or two with the psych team before returning to duty.”
“You too, Doctor Fawn,” Burgundy firmly cut in over the half-hearted chorus of groans of protest from the captains as she asserted herself as Fawn’s 2IC. “You’re not getting out of this without going through the same tests and a stand down yourself.”
Scarlet, all too familiar with the batteries of tests that Fawn liked to run, quickly hid his smirk at the CMO’s open dismay that he would be unable to escape them himself.
Epilogue
From his post high over the ground in the crook of a venerable oak tree and well bundled up in an old field jacket and olive watch cap, Paul watched the low hanging clouds blush into gold-trimmed pink, sipped coffee from the thermos he’d carried up and listened to the dawn chorus crescendo as the birds greeted the rising sun. The air had just enough nip in it to make the hot coffee just that bit more enjoyable and he could smell the dew-wet, newly-grown oak leaves all around him.
They’d been freed from the nightmares five days ago. The first day had been spent on the inevitable tests to make sure that they were all hale and hearty. While waiting for the results to come back they’d all had group and individual sessions with Doctor Orchid, the recently appointed replacement to Doctor Cinnabar.
At first glance Orchid, who was quite spry at seventy, appeared to be a sweet, grandmotherly type of woman – the kind who would always have a packet of butterscotch sweets in her handbag and live in a quaint little cottage with a perfectly maintained garden.
In reality she was an ex-WAAF med-evac helicopter pilot who’d retrained in psychology when she’d lost an eye in a crash and she could give any of them a run for their money in sarcasm, dry wit and salty language. The captains adored her.
The first thing she’d done had been to have them all write down what they could remember of the nightmares and give the notes to Fawn to lock away, unread, in one of his secure cabinets – to get it out of their heads and stored onto paper, as she explained. Orchid had then moderated a series of group debriefs – one with all of them, one with only the captains and one with just White and Fawn, acknowledging that sometimes certain things could not be said in front of one’s subordinates or superiors.
They were all grateful that Orchid stayed up with them that first night – when their bodies demanded sleep but they were quite naturally leery of allowing it. After a quick strategy session on recognising and processing this lingering fear they’d slept in shifts, watching over each other and making sure they all woke up afterwards.
By the end of day two the final run of test results had come back clear and they’d been allowed out of Medical to continue their recovery on the base for another two days.
Personally, he hadn’t wanted to spend his first night out of Medical on his own, nor go to sleep alone with some lingering memories still pricking at him, so he’d curled up with Dianne in her bed, finding the necessary peace and reassurance in being close to her. He didn’t need much sleep these days anyway, so the three hours with her had been ample to allow him to rest and soothe his mind.
During their two days on base they’d all practically camped out on the Promenade Deck, keeping each other company and continuing to have little debriefs with each other and Orchid as different bits and pieces of memory surfaced. When Fawn was at last sure they were all okay, they were given four days’ furlough and turned loose for some much-needed R&R groundside.
As soon as they’d gotten the okay to go, Paul had gone straight home to Winchester. It was late spring and he had a deep need to spend some time amidst the life and verdancy of the little wilderness area out the back of his parents’ property. There’d been a flight delay and some issues at London airport so it’d been well after midnight when he’d finally gotten home. Finding himself too restless to sleep, he’d filled up his thermos and climbed up here last night, intent on watching the sunrise from the crook of his favourite tree.
The molten gold disk of the sun finally cleared the horizon, bleaching the dark night sky into the pale blues of day, and Paul settled in with a contented smile to watch the changing colours chase across the clouds, finally feeling like all was now right in his world.
Fin.
Author’s notes:
Thank you to Chris for kindly letting me run off cackling with the concept of a shared dream using the Room of Sleep from her story Twilight of the Gods. Inception was an influence on this story as well, and a little Matrix and Age of Ultron snuck in there too.
Orchid is based on my manager, who has quite the life story.
Many thanks to my husband for helping me with this, I couldn’t have done it without your look over, and to Hazel for beta-reading it and helping polish it up, I really appreciate it!