Legend: Ch 11

Chapter eleven: Dreaming

Blake Indigo:

Boston, Massachusetts, United States, (Timeline 5): 10:32pm Wednesday, 27th of November, 2013

There are three things I won’t tolerate. Those who harm woman, children or innocents in any way. Violence or slaughter brought on by racial or specieal hatred and intolerance. And third; white humans; mostly because of trust issues. Someone had gone to the trouble of taking fifty thousand teenagers from high schools around the planet, and stars only know how many more. I don’t know what’s happening to them, but the only one willing to talk was this girl.

Walking into my dreamscape though a timeline fracture provided enough to get an idea of what was going on. She could reach me, but I needed more power.

“Blake!” Glenn yelled as he caught up with me in the corridor. “Boston PD took a person if interest into interrogation. “Mathews got us a referral in. Said we’re experts in the weird and unexplainable.”

“Understatement of the century. All we do is weird and unexplainable.” I added. “Right. Get your human IDs and get down there. Leave the fur coat.”

“Very funny.” Glenn huffed and walked off.

“Bring back a keepsake.” I walked into the medic bay.

“Just put it over there and open it up.” Koraian instructed, sterilising another probe, ready to connect to the base of the skull.

“Koraian, there’s only going to be four going in.” Clair informed him. “Blake Roxanne, Jamie and Jay’tion.”

“Actuarially...” Zane scratched the back of his neck, struggling to tell her that he was going in to. She worked it out.

“No. No. It’s bad enough that they’re going in.” Clair protested.

“She is right. Blake’s mind alone is going to be a mind field.” Jamie agreed. “Four sets of phobias and traumas are coming at us may be too much already. I am not risking a fifth.”

“But I can help right?” Zane asked.

The two scholars remained silent as two new arrivals entered the medical bay. One was a familiar red head wearing a purple vest over a tie and a cream button up shirt, and a skirt coming down to her ankles. She was accompanied with a brown haired sun elf, built like a brick wall and wearing military fatigues with the rank of lieutenant stamped on his shoulders.

“He obviously can.” Roxanne said bringing the girls attention to her. “Sarah’s still in Vietnam by the way. I didn’t think dragging her away from guest lecture gig in Ho Chi Min City was a good idea.”

“Did you get it?” I asked Roxanne.

She handed me a folder. “The vote was unanimous by the way.” She added as I opened up the folder. Clair looked over my shoulder.

“They actuarially issued a Blank Warrant.” She huffed.

A Blank Warrant. Last time I saw those words was when Glenn, Clair, Koraian and Joey were kidnapped by the same person who shot my mum six years ago. And me when I confronted him over hiring several hitmen to go after werewolves and their human relatives. What they were telling me then was to go after him with everything I had, including the local lycan pack, volunteers from the arcane collage, a swat team and a handful of KBG agents operating in the local area.

It feels like a lifetime ago. In some way, it was.

Being issued with a Blank Warrant was like being told that nothing mattered but the endgame. Not that I didn’t know already.

“Ready?” I asked, opening the third harness.

Jay’tion just smiled and climbed harness closest to his sister. Roxanne did the same for me. Zane climbed into the centre most harness.

“Just like old times.” Jay’tion mentioned.

“Except Jamie wasn’t about to be raped and Glenn was about to kill the raspiest.” Roxanne returned before gasping in pain from the probe being attached to her skull. Koraian then attached the probe to the back of my head before syncing my nanites to the med scanner.

Then came the injection. The chemicals hit my brain like a hammer.

“Remember.” Clair’s voice said. “Keep listening to my voice at all times. If nothing else, it is your tether to reality. If your destrested in anyway, I will attempt to pull you out. Am I clear?”

No one answered her. Zane, Jamie, Jay’tion, Roxanne and I all fell into a deep sleep...

.

..

...

....

“Blake?” I heard Clair’s voice echo in my head.

“Yeah. I’m here.” I said slightly groggy. It was just dark, like a black void.

“Ok. I’m having trouble getting to Jay’tion, and I haven’t gotten to Roxanne yet.”

“And Zane and Jamie?”

“Waiting for you. Ok. You should see a door.”

“I can’t.”

“Koraian. Adjust the frequency.” Like she said, there was a door, appearing out of nowhere. It looked like a door from a cheap motel, the number thirteen on it.

“I can see it.”

“Good. Go though it.”

I walked up to the door, gripped the brass handle and opened the door.

On the other side wasn’t what I was expecting. It was a city, carved from sandstone with a golden sun setting over an extensive desert.

“Where are you?”

“Kin’ti Sol.” I answered. “The ancient city of the sun elves.”

“Must be Jamie’s mind.”

I heard laughing.

“Kostia’ ba Jan’ti.” I heard a little elfin boy run around the corner wearing leather armour. He was followed by a girl that I could recognise as Jamie.

“Moss ti moss. Un mana’ tan se nie so da.” Jamie yelled, chasing the boy in her apprentice robes. She caught the boy with her hand. “Tan. More.”

The boy seemed disappointed.

“I remember this place.” Jamie’s voice came from behind me. I turned to find the genuine article standing there, watching herself chase the little boy. “But now is not the time for the past. Come. We must go before a nightmare decides to show up.”

She beaconed and I followed. She lead me to the balcony overlooking the desert. She stood up on the ledge. In the distance, I could see a shape flying though the air.

“Want to take a dive?” She asked as I climbed up on the ledge next to her.

“About time you showed up.” Came Zane’s voice from above. I looked up to see Zane standing on one of the buildings. “Bonzi?”

“Bonzi.” I repeated. We jumped.

The ground below opened up into a tube we felt the gravity shift and change until we were shot into an enclosed garden.

“That was fun.” I moaned.

“Hello operator.” Jamie said suddenly. “The royal botanical gardens.”

“Your memory?” I asked Jamie.

“No.” Zane drew my attention to the human woman and the dragon whelp wandering the gardens. The orange dragon looked around in wonder and curiosity, eagerly taking in his surroundings.

“Let us keep moving.”

Clair Weli’sol:

“Vitals are good.” Koraian observed, tapping the holographic display with a claw. Roxanne and Jay’tion’s brain waves were syncing up, but I was still having some trouble with reaching them. Maybe their conscious minds haven’t entered the dreamstate yet. In theory, they don’t have to for the experiment to work.

I looked at the piece of paper Roxanne brought with her. All it said was ‘Blank Warrant’ and nothing else.

“Clair!” Joey’s voice came over the intercom. “We have a problem.” I opened up the intercom vid-feed and saw the human face of Joey Parker, the dark skinned computer tech looked worried. “Radar just picked up something in the FTL spectrum. Not sure what it is yet.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

“Because you’re boyfriend is playing good cop, bad dog with Boston’s finest.”

“Ok. Try and get me something. I’ll be up in Data in a minute.” I cut the feed and turned to Koraian. “Can you keep them alive until I get back?”

“Yeah. Won’t be a problem.” He agreed.

“Keep me posted.” I walked off.

To say that I was worried was an understatement. It wasn’t because I agreed with this, but everything looked like someone was experimenting on these kids. This goes against everything I learnt in my field. Science requires sacrifice, yes but lives and welfare of sentient beings comes first. We use science to understand the world we live in, to understand ourselves, and to understand the environment we live in. But to disregard lives in the pursuit of knowledge is unacceptable.

I’ve seen black mages, private corporations, government agencies use flawed research as an excuse to disregard ethics. It goes against the hippocratic oath. Chemistry, physics, biology, psychology, four times I’ve taken that oath and I’ve lost count how many men of science and medicine have broken it.

Every single one of them made me sick to even consider them scientists or doctors. And doing this to Blake, Jamie and Zane, It makes me feel like I'm no different from them.