now.’
‘No, no, I mean, anything that’s in the charts at the moment?’
‘Oh right. Well, my parents don’t really listen to popular music, so I don’t know. Classical is pretty much all I’ve ever heard.’
Ryan gawped at her.
‘Seriously? You’ve never…? You’re in for a treat then.’
He flicked on his speakers and began playing her some of his favourite hip-hop tunes. Daisy appeared to enjoy them, although it was difficult to tell whether it was genuine, or if she was just humouring him. It was a far cry from her musical comfort zone. Nevertheless, she sat perched on the edge of the bed, merrily tapping her feet as Ryan opened up a web browser and they began their search.
‘Right, here we are,’ he said, his fingers poised over the keys, ready to show off his masterful typing skills. ‘What should I search for?’
‘The Dream Academy!’ said Daisy, clapping her hands in excitement.
A moment later a list of results were displayed on-screen.
‘Hmm…’ said Ryan, scrolling through them for any sign of what they were looking for. ‘Doesn’t look like there’s much here. Some old band that my dad probably likes and some stuff about making your dreams come true, but I don’t think that’s it.’
He flicked up a couple of websites that offered tenuous links to what they were after. But, unsurprisingly, they were completely unconnected.
‘Nope, nothing here.’
‘Oh,’ said Daisy, looking crestfallen. ‘So there’s nothing there at all.’
‘On the whole internet? No, there’s got to be something. It’s just a case of putting in the right combination of words to get what we’re after. If it’s here, we’ll find it.’
‘What should we look for then?’
‘Let’s try ‘Dreamweaving’,’ replied Ryan, his fingers whirring into action.
Up popped a list of sites, the majority of which appeared to deal with organising weddings and the like. Again, Ryan flicked through them and opened a couple up for good measure, but to no avail.
‘Bugger,’ he said, sitting back in his chair and frowning at the screen.
‘Try ‘Dreamweavers’,’ suggested Daisy.
Ryan reached for his keyboard with one hand and deleted i.n.g. from the previous search, and added e.r.s. He pressed Enter.
‘Nothing,’ he said grumpily, flicking up and down the list. ‘Same crap as before.’
‘Wait a minute; you’re moving it too fast. It’s hurting my eyes.’
Ryan looked over his shoulder and was somewhat alarmed to find Daisy’s face less than a foot from his. She was sitting forwards with her chin in her hands, staring intently at the screen. Ryan had never seen her blue eyes looking so big. He could almost read the name of the search engine reflected in her pupils. He hoped she would blink at some point soon to prevent her eyeballs from popping out.
‘Could you go through them more slowly please?’ asked Daisy, her gaze remaining fixed on the screen.
‘Sure,’ nodded Ryan, turning back to the PC and taking hold of the mouse.
‘Web design, weddings, web design,’ murmured Daisy as the descriptions scrolled past. ‘Is that it?’ she asked when Ryan had reached the bottom of the page.
‘No, there are all these pages yet.’
‘Keep going then.’
Ryan opened the next and resumed scrolling.
‘Holidays, weddings, weddings, charities… keep going.’
Ryan opened another.
‘… web design, holidays, wed… hang on, what’s that?’
Ryan’s eyes, which had started to wander from the screen, snapped back and tried to locate what she was looking at. It took him a couple of moments. Sandwiched between yet another pair of wedding sites was another, whose tag line read; ‘Imagination is the only limit...’
‘A bit cryptic, but it could be the one,’ said Daisy, her eyes alive with anticipation.
‘Shall I?’ asked Ryan, his attention fully captured once more.
‘Do it,’ said Daisy, almost under her breath. ‘Please,’ she added a moment later.
Ryan smiled to himself as his hovering finger descended on the mouse button. He pressed down on the plastic moulding and there was a small amount of give before the micro-switch gave a resounding click! The entire screen went white.
‘What happened?’ asked Daisy.
‘Dunno. It just went blank.’
‘Did you click on it?’
‘Yeah. Everything’s gone. Everything. Even the browser.’
‘Perhaps it’s broken?’
‘The screen wouldn’t go white. It would go black, or blue if it was really serious. Anyway, the power light is on and it looks like the hard disk is happy.’
‘How can you tell that it’s happy? It’s just a computer.’
‘I mean, it looks like it is working okay, okay?’
Daisy smiled.
‘I’m just joking, Ryan.’
Ryan mentally slapped himself. Of course she was joking! He would have taken it as a joke if anyone else had said it. Why was he so convinced that Daisy was anything but normal? She’d been his friend for years!
‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled.
‘What for?’
‘I don’t… err… I just am. Sorry.’
Daisy looked at him with her head tilted slightly to one side and smiled.
‘You’re weird,’ she said. ‘Oh look!’ she added, glancing back at the screen. ‘Something’s happening.’
She was right. In exactly the same way that it had done in Ryan’s mind when he had fallen asleep the night before, the outline of a mountain was sketching itself across the white screen.
‘Oh my gosh, this is what happens when I go to sleep!’ Daisy exclaimed.
‘Ditto,’ said Ryan, watching, enthralled, as the Dream Isle slowly painted itself into existence. ‘This must be some animation they use as an introduction to the site.’
As it turned out, the entire website was something of a marvel. It was operated through an interactive interface that required the user to click around the landscape to access different areas.
‘I’ve never seen anything quite like this,’ Ryan murmured as he got to grips with the navigation controls. ‘I mean, it seems to have a standard site layout underneath it all, but this interface is something else.’
‘It’s pretty,’ said Daisy as Ryan brought the view-point swooping in towards the Spire.
‘Yeah. It’s like in the movies where they make all the computers do really simple stuff in a fancy way just to fool dumb people into thinking there’s something complicated going on.’
‘Well, there is, isn’t there?’
‘Not really. Not in this part, at least.’
‘Well, I like it. It makes more sense to me than all those indistinguishable pictures you normally have to click on.’
‘Right, so now we’re here what do you want to do? Actually, before you answer that, let’s take a good look at the Spire. We’ve only seen it from ground level.’
He dragged the view round so they were peering into the observation ring near the top.
‘Looks like there’s more going on there than just people staring out of the window,’ he said, marvelling at the amount of detail present and feeling a little surprised that both his computer and his internet connection could handle it.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Daisy.
‘Look at that bank of screens on the far wall and all the consoles in front of them. I guess they must monitor what’s happening on the island from up here. That’s a bit creepy.’
‘Where do those stairs go?’ asked Daisy, noticing a small flight between two of the consoles, leading up to the ceiling.
Ryan shifted the viewpoint.
‘Roof access?’ he suggested. They could make out the faint outline of a hatch on the top of the observation ring.
‘So Tristram can take the short route down,’ smiled Daisy.
‘Maybe…’
Ryan spun
the image round so they were looking at the island in plan view.
‘It looks a lot smaller from up here,’ he grinned.
‘What’s that?’ asked Daisy, pointing at a thick, dark line leading away from one side of the Spire all the way to the sea.
Ryan zoomed back in. From one side of the Spire a deep gorge plunged, carving a deep, twisting scar through the landscape.
‘I haven’t seen that before,’ he said.
‘Neither have I,’ said Daisy. ‘But I’ve only seen a small part of the island, so I’m not surprised.’
‘Do you think it means anything?’ asked Ryan.
‘I’ve no idea. Maybe we could ask Tristram about it tonight. Anyway, we’re here to find out more about the Academy. How do you get to that information?’
Ryan turned his attention back to the Spire.
‘Each side of the tower or outer wall is a link,’ he said knowledgably. ‘Look, this one’s Home, this one’s News and this one’s About.’
‘Click that one!’ said Daisy gleefully.
Ryan did so.
Immediately all the colour drained from the image and a message appeared in the centre of the screen. It read: PLEASE ENTER YOUR LOGIN DETAILS. It was followed by:
AVATAR – …………..
D.O.A. – ……………...
PASSWORD – ……….
‘Oh,’ said Ryan, staring at the words and feeling rather annoyed.
‘What does D.O.A. mean?’ asked Daisy.
‘Dead On Arrival.’
‘That doesn’t seem to be in the right context.’
‘Dunno then.’
‘How about trying one of the other links?’ suggested Daisy.
Ryan pressed Escape and colour flooded back into the image. He clicked on the ‘Home’ octant, but the same thing happened.
‘Great,’ he said. ‘Fat lot of use this is. All we can do is sit here and spin the pretty picture around.’
He moved his hand sharply, causing the island to spin