Dream Walker (9 page)

Aislen handed Mr. Lange his med cup. He took it in his shaky hand and stared deeply into it for a few moments. Aislen watched him, wondering what he was looking for. Reading the tea leaves of his destiny, maybe?

She was curious as to what kind of assignment Troy had planned for her today. He was always requesting her assistance in different group sessions, exposing her to as many different levels of psychiatric care that he could. This appointment was new. Aislen had never been to the A.R.C. You couldn’t go in there without a special clearance, but you could accompany someone who had one. She was actually looking forward to seeing what the facility was about. And although it was sending a flutter of nervousness through her stomach, the opportunity of being alone with Troy outside the facility walls wasn’t an unappealing proposition.

Aislen looked down the main corridor toward the nurse’s station. Leaning back against the counter talking to Rachel was Troy. Aislen couldn’t help but marvel at the easy rapport he had with people. Rachel took a hard, intimidating stance in the presence of most doctors, but she treated Troy as she treated her nursing staff, with a good-natured warmth.

Troy laughed at something Rachel said and Aislen felt a pang of jealousy, which was completely ludicrous. Rachel was an awesome lady, but she was at least 20 years older than Troy, and
married
. And what did Aislen care anyway? She was losing it. It had been a slow spiral down into the crazies for her today. Maybe the stress of her upcoming finals really was getting to her. She didn’t feel that overwhelmed by her classes, but maybe she was more anxious about them than she realized. Maybe her “all work and no play” motto was taking a toll on her psyche. Maybe she could run some of this by Troy. He should have some expertise about stress, being a therapist and all.

She looked back down at Mr. Lange and found him staring back up at her. The clouds in his eyes had departed and they were a clear and bright blue.

“You aren’t Astrid,” he said.

Aislen was shocked. Never in the four years she’d worked here had he had a moment of clarity like this. “Uh, no, Mr. Lange. I’m not. My name is Aislen.”

“Ash-lynn,” he said, rolling it across his tongue as though he were correcting her. Her blood turned cold and a knot seized up in her stomach. The only person who had ever pronounced it that way was her father, all those years ago.

“It means ‘dream’ you know,” he continued.

No, she didn’t know. She didn’t know it even had a meaning. She could only stare at the old man, speechless.

Mr. Lange leaned over in his chair, as if he was going to tell her a secret, and whispered to her, “Are you awake, yet?”

Aislen dropped the med chart, sending it clattering down the hall. Her head was in a full spin now. A claw of ice shivered down her scalp then raked down her whole body like fingernails on a chalkboard. She felt like she would faint or vomit, or both at the same time.

Almost immediately, she felt a secure warm arm holding her up.

“Aislen, are you okay?” It was Troy. Rachel was standing right behind him.

“What happened, hon,” she asked. “Do you feel all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Aislen caught her breath and shook her head trying to clear it. She became very aware of the heat radiating off of Troy. He was holding her close against him. She could feel the taut ripples of muscle beneath his dress shirt and she thought she would faint for real this time but for a completely different reason. She pushed herself off him, regaining her composure.

“No, no. I am fine. I...I just slipped on something.”

Rachel looked down at Sigmund. “Mr. Lange, are you drooling again? Trying to trip up my nurses?”

Aislen looked back down at Sigmund. His eyes had veiled into milky clouds, and he was once again lost in numbers.

CHAPTER 7

Raze left Infinium directly after the meeting, hopped into his silver Audi R8, and within minutes was on the 280 northbound toward San Francisco.

The meeting with The 8 had gone better than he expected. He knew they wouldn’t be pleased with the circumstances, but in the end they gave him the permissions he needed to complete the project. He was a little surprised by the threatening stance Number 7 took at the end, with his scolding ultimatums.

Really?
Although fear was a great control mechanism for the masses, Raze was the last person they should be trying to catch with that net. Attempting to intimidate him during this crucial time in the mission was the equivalent of shooting themselves in the head. Raze was their best. Most operatives never made it past Level X, remaining mere bloodhounds in this game of seek and destroy. Raze was a destroyer.

Undaunted, even a little amused, Raze merged with the 101 and made his way into the heart of the SoMa district toward South Beach. What used to be an industrial area populated by warehouses, docks, sweatshops, and flophouses harboring immigrants, seaman, hobos, and whores was now home to art galleries, museums, posh night clubs, restaurants and high-rent high-rises.

When Infinium acquired an enormous, dilapidated warehouse for a “loss” project, Raze took advantage of his exclusive status in their program. He negotiated a bargain price for a 4000 square foot section of it and converted it into his own living and workspace. The rest of the building remained rundown and undeveloped. This created the best of both worlds for Raze. He was able to live in the midst of the dense population yet still enjoy near-total solitude.

After living in the company compound under lock and key for six years, Raze had finally earned the privilege of living in his own digs. It had been convenient and extremely profitable, living completely on the company dime. Room, board, and every possible amenity had been paid for, allowing Raze to save and invest his entire income—which was not only substantial, but top secret, off the books, and tax-free. While the compound was far from being a prison, it wasn’t his
own
.

The constant rattle and hum of San Francisco suited him better. In the bustling metropolis, he could be packed like a sardine in the tin box of a Muni bus or a BART train, breathing into the face of a stranger and still feel non-existent. People here ignored each other, never making eye contact though they were literally pressed against each other. It was the perfect place to hide in plain sight. It was the complete opposite of his childhood home in Nebraska, where there was
too
much space and people not only looked at you, they scrutinized, found your flaws, then picked you apart, deeming you acceptable, or, as in Raze’s case,
not
.

Raze pulled the Audi into his 3-car garage, another luxury in the space-deprived city. At the back door, he placed his hand up to the Qi panel. It was a condition required by Infinium that Qi pads be located throughout the house. Because his residence was both a living and a workspace, access was limited. The Qis controlled admittance to and from each room. Housekeeping and concierge services were limited to the first level. The very rare, personal guest could be in the first level and his bedroom, but only if Raze was there with them.

When the Qi panel identified Raze, the locks disengaged and the door slid open. He stepped into the foyer and coded the system for alone status, which allotted him full, unchecked access. All the doors in the house simultaneously slid open, welcoming him home.

He stepped through the hallway and into a soaring living room, vaulted to the third floor. The concrete ceilings and walls were accented with exposed steel beams and original pipes and ducts. A pair of 24-foot, arched windows on the western wall framed the cityscape. Throughout the house, select walls were spray painted with the vibrant street art of the renowned graffiti gods of The Seventh Letter: Revok, Saber, Push, Reyes, and Retna. Custom stained concrete floors were garnished with bright geometric rugs. An iron spiral staircase connected the staggered, tri-level floor plan and a catwalk bridged his third floor bedroom with a private roof top patio that boasted a 360-degree view of the city and the Bay.

Raze took off his jacket and tie, throwing them on the living room couch. He ripped his shirt off, letting its buttons pop and scatter in six directions, then tossed it on the fireplace mantle. He kicked one shoe off by the recliner and the other toward a far corner of the room. He didn’t give a fuck. The maid service could clean it all up tomorrow—
and
mend his shirt. He liked making people clean up after him. He liked reminding them of
their
place in
his
world.

Shirtless and barefoot, he padded into the kitchen and opened up the twin Sub Z’s to find himself some righteous nourishment. The concierge service stocked it each morning, leaving it chock-full of pre-made gourmet meals and snacks. Raze grabbed a basket of acai berries, a handful of almonds, and the pitcher of purified, alkaline water. He had adopted a high-vibration diet during his training process, eating only fresh organic foods and completely eliminating alcohol, sugar, and caffeine in order to keep his physical vehicle balanced and help him better control his gift.

After years of living on a diet of Red Bull, Slim Jims, candy, and fast food, clean living had been a shock to his system and had caused severe withdrawals. But the payoff was worth it. He’d had a pretty decent body before, but now it was beyond extraordinary, redefining “ripped” and taking “shredded” into the stratosphere.

Although he was exceptional when it came to keeping inferior energies in check, Raze could feel a persistent nag of stress within his energy field and in his body’s cells. A thin thread of a current ran opposite to its normal flow through his system.

It
had
been a stressful morning. In his eight years as a control operative, never had a situation of this magnitude arisen. The question of how a young woman had manifested herself in Demesne and altered the course of events whined in his brain like a small child deprived of its candy. Raze was itching to pick it up and shake its knobby little head for the answers, but there were other priorities to be handled. He only had a couple of hours before he needed to track Blake down for the kill and that would take his total focus. It took a calm and collected mental, emotional, and physical state to do what he was about to do. He needed to release a little tension.

Raze contemplated his options. Anything that would relax him too much—a sauna, a Jacuzzi, a massage—was out. As was sex. Pussy now would deplete and scatter his energy way too much. He could treat himself to a blowjob later as a reward for the successful outcome of this assignment. What he really needed was a workout and some fresh air. Raze went into his bedroom, changed into some running clothes, coded the warehouse for away status, and left for a run along the Embarcadero.

It was perfect running weather, clear and crisp. Surrounded by water on three sides, the seasons in San Francisco tended to be backwards and the weather unpredictable. The summer brought in billows of damp fog and a chill, while fall and winter brought sunny skies and even warmth. He ran under the steel skeleton of the Bay Bridge, past the Ferry Building, through Maritime Park to Van Ness. Instead of allowing his endorphins to run unchecked into producing the euphoric most high runners craved, Raze directed them into burning out the pockets of tension and disquiet in his field. There was nothing better than running to clear his space.

After the alternating currents of agitation and distraction were neutralized, Raze turned around and methodically reacquainted himself with the facts of the Project.

The 8 had called him in on the assignment after they received intel that Scott Parrish had been accessing restricted information regarding Quantum Gaming Systems and Infinium Incorporated.

Level X Viewers began tracking Parrish’s every move and eavesdropping on every conversation after they found out that he had been sent a top secret video of a wartime incident that depicted a team of soldiers mowing down a group of obvious civilians.

To Parrish, an award-winning journalist, what was most disturbing about the incident was the borderline glee with which the troops acted.

They shouted encouragement to each other.

“Light ’em up!”

“100 points for that guy in the stripes!”

“Another 10 if you finish off the one crawling on the ground!”

Also unnerving was that one of them could be heard repeating, “Keep shooting” in a chillingly monotone drone, again and again until the street was paved with blood.

It was as though they were playing a video game, rather than participating in a real war, and Parrish couldn’t help but wonder if there was something more, buried underneath the obvious war crime. He began working on an article that exposed a military training program that used a video game to create killing machines out of its players.

When Parrish purchased Demesne to try to unlock this ulterior motive, Infinium Incorporated was more than concerned. Their Gaming Protocol was very successful aspect of their government contract and they did not want to jeopardize it with any unnecessary negative attention.

If Scott Parrish had been a writer for an organization that was part of Infinium’s media conglomerate, it would have been an easy fix; an editor could just squelch the article. But he wasn’t. He was a correspondent for an independent, online magazine renowned for its impartial and accurate editorials. It was imperative that any catastrophic exposure be prevented.