perfect health, excellent mind scores, and everything else that a scientist dreams of in a candidate. Yet, something had gone wrong.
Having monitored John for several weeks of dream experimentation, Dr. Aziz knew the steady beep, beep, beep-beep, beep rhythm that his heart put out. However, the EKG was now reading something completely different.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
No, that was not the usual pulse rate for John. Yet, that was John in the monitoring room.
He opened the door and stepped up to John, shaking him awake while pulling the wires from John's head. "John, wake up! Are you all right?"
John opened his eyes and smiled. "Who's John, Doc?"
Dr. Aziz stared at the man who was supposed to be John before he realized that something had gone wrong. This was not John.
"Thanks for the train ticket home, Doc!" said the man as he sat up from the bed and took a quick look around the monitoring room. "What the hell kind of place is this?"
Dr. Aziz stood back from the man. "Where is John?"
The man smiled, but made no attempt to answer. "Where the hell am I?"
"Where is John?" said Dr. Aziz, a little louder this time.
"He's back at the bar," said the man. The smile turned to a cackling laugh. "I don't think he's coming back."
Dr. Aziz rushed forward and grabbed the body that had belonged to John. "You bastard! What did you do with John?"
"I made him go bye-bye," he said, laughing at his own remark. Taking a deep breath, he stood up and turned to face Dr. Aziz. "Yes, this body will do just fine."
"I can't let you leave," said Dr. Aziz. "You do not belong here."
The man laughed as he stepped in front of the doctor. "Look, old man, I'm not asking you for your permission. You gave me the ticket here, but that doesn't mean I'm going to accept the return trip."
Dr. Aziz thought quickly before he rushed at the man. "You have to go back and send John home. He doesn't belong where he is."
"He does now," said the man before he reached out and grabbed Dr. Aziz, picking him up by his waist and tossing him across the room like a small child. "You don’t want to get on my bad side."
Dr. Aziz hit the far wall and slid down it to the floor, knocking a hospital bed over as he did. Slowly, he stood back up. "What are you?"
The man who used to be John simulated that he was drawing a gun from an imaginary holster. He pointed his index finger at Dr. Aziz, pretending to shoot the doctor. "I'm the gunfighter. Didn't you know that?"
Dr. Aziz took a deep breath and then rushed at the gunfighter. Before he could reach him, the gunfighter raised his right hand up in front of him, palm forward. Then a red light ripped from the hand, whipping across the lab and then connected with Dr. Aziz. The light ripped into Dr. Aziz's chest and then exploded. The doctor fell to the floor and didn't move again.
"Very good, my friend," said the gunfighter. "I think I'm going to like this place." He pointed his hand at the monitoring room's steel wall and sent a bolt of flame at it. A second later, he was staring out at the parking lot of the medical research institution. "Strange vegetation in this place," said the gunfighter as he walked onto the asphalt. Dropping down to his knees, he touched the asphalt with his index finger and then brought the finger to his tongue. "How does anything grow in this?" he said to no one in particular as he continued across the parking lot and disappeared into a crowd that was wandering near one of the local shopping malls.
Dr. Heinrich Fenster was the first person on the scene. Throwing open the lab door, he glanced around quickly, only moving in when he was convinced that there was no danger to himself and the rest of the complex. The far wall had been breached, but the outer security wall had dropped down once the oxygen levels had discovered a destabilization in that sector.
Crossing the room, he took a look at the security wall that had slid down from its roof housing. For the entire wall to come down, it was obvious that a large explosion had taken place. With such an explosion, one would expect massive destruction to the laboratory itself, but that was not the case here. The lab was generally intact, the wall being the only casualty. That meant that the wall had been attacked by some type of weapon that was both intense and concentrated. Dr. Fenster couldn't wait to take a look at the lab's observation tape that should have filmed whatever happened.
He then checked the lab's observation room, where he finally saw the body of Dr. Aziz. He went to take the man’s pulse before spotting his chest, noting immediately that most of Dr. Aziz’s chest was missing. Dropping the man's wrist, he walked over to the EKG machine.
"What happened here?" said a voice from the door. He turned around to see Harris Palmer, the assistant director of security. There were security officers in brown uniforms at his side.
"Get those men out of here!" said Fenster.
Palmer stared at him for a second, then at the lab, and then back at Fenster again. He motioned to his security officers. "Secure the outside corridor. No one is to enter without my permission."
"Yes, sir," said one of the officers as he and two of his partners stepped back into the corridor.
Palmer shut the door and pulled down the blind screen. "Dr. Fenster, what's going on here?"
Fenster waved his hand to gesture at the entire room. "We've had a breach in the dream research department."
"A break-in?" said Palmer, still not sure what Fenster was talking about.
Fenster shook his head no. "Dr. Aziz was working on the uncharted areas of the dream sphere."
"You've lost me, Doctor," said Palmer. "I'm a people man. I find problems and eliminate them. This dream stuff is your department. Did someone break in or did someone break out. That wall doesn't shut in the system unless there is a breach."
Fenster turned back to the EKG machine. "Dr. Aziz has two hearts on this EKG readout." He snatched the tape from the EEG machine. "There are two brain wave patterns on this one. I think he brought someone back with him from the dream sphere." He smiled. "Damn, he always claimed it was possible to tap the hidden areas, but I never dreamed he would."
"What are you talking about?" said Palmer. He was beginning to regret his decision to leave his men outside. Fenster wasn't making any sense. Come to think of it, didn't Fenster's profile register on the risky side?
"The dream sphere," said Fenster. "Whenever you go to sleep, your mind goes to a special place where you dream.”
“A special place?”
Fenster continued. “Each dream is confined to a certain location in the sphere. This institute was created to breach those confinements. I think Dr. Aziz breached that wall and accidently brought something out with him."
Palmer shook his head. "Are you trying to tell me that some kind of dream monster blew out this wall?"
"Not exactly," said Fenster. "I think that something was brought back through the dream sphere into our reality. The man Dr. Aziz was using was a prime candidate for breaching the walls of confinement."
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to report this," said Palmer. "This is too weird for me."
"No!" said Fenster. "We have a problem here. We can't exactly report it and hope to keep this institution alive."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Don't you realize what has happened?" said Fenster. "We've found another dimension in the dream sphere. This is an area that makes us able to communicate with other people who are dreaming. There is another world out there waiting for us to explore. Do you want this kind of information to get out. The repercussions would be horrible."
"We can't not report this," said Palmer. "I don't know how much I buy your dream breach story, but this complex was hit by something. As a recipient of government funding, we are required to report anything out of the ordinary."
"We can't report this until we find out what came out of that dream session," said Fenster. "God knows what's out there."
"That's why we can't avoi
d reporting it," said Palmer. "If what you're saying is true, we might not be able to handle whatever it is that's out there. Hell, the thing just blew out a concrete wall. Can you do that?"
Fenster ignored him. "Why don't we see if the film can show us what happened here."
"Film?" said Palmer.
"Of course. Do you think we go into any of these sessions without filming what happens?"
Palmer shook his head no. "I'm sorry, sir, but I can't allow that. Regulations require me to contact higher authorities."
"But you don't know what that might mean," said Fenster.
Palmer removed his revolver and kept it tight in his hands. "Sir, we will be closing down this department until government agents arrive. Until then, I advise you to leave this area."
"But--"
He pointed the revolver at the scientist. "Regulations are quite specific, even if the circumstances are not. Please do not make me use force."
Fenster nodded and walked towards the door. He knew better than to face down a security executive who was carrying a loaded revolver. Plus, he'd heard stories about Palmer and the fact that Palmer was a martial arts expert; even if the man didn't have a gun, he knew better than to face him down. He was a seeker of the truth, but he wasn't stupid.
The gunfighter had never seen anything like it before. Living in western towns, fighting whatever creature was stupid enough to come up against him, he never came face to face with a shopping center. Now that he had, he didn't know why he hadn't looked for one before.
There were people everywhere. Thousands of them.
There were stores that offered everything. For a simple piece of green paper, storekeepers were willing to part with anything, and they smiled when they gave away the items. The gunfighter couldn't believe it.
"Can I help you with something?" said a voice from behind the gunfighter. He whirled around to see a bald man in blue clothing, some type of uniform with a badge. A badge?
"Are you the sheriff here?" said the gunfighter.
The man smiled. "I wouldn't go that far. I am the security supervisor here. You look like you're lost. Are you?"
The gunfighter breathed easier. He noticed the bald man had no gun. There was no danger from him. "I am new here."
The security supervisor nodded and then moved on, convinced the gunfighter was just another tourist who wasn't used to the larger shopping centers. He couldn't have been any more correct than he was.
Dr. Fenster sat in the complex's security interrogation room and waited for someone to come to speak to him. He was upset. As a working scientist, he had experiments waiting for him to attend, and he didn't have time to sit around waiting for government inspectors. To make matters worse, the door was locked from the outside; he couldn't even leave if he wanted to.
Finally, the door unlocked from the outside. When it opened, two young men in black suits walked in and took seats across the table from him. Palmer followed close behind them and sat down at the other end of the table. The leader of the two agents spoke. "I'm Special Agent Harley, and this is my partner Special Agent Gunther."
"Why are you keeping me in this cell?" said Fenster.
Special Agent Harley smiled. "No one is keeping you here. We just had some questions, and we didn't want you to go home for the day until we asked them."
"So, you're keeping me here."
"Don't think of it that way," said Harley. "We just want to know what was going on in that lab."
"Have you reviewed the tape for the session?" said Fenster. It had been over three hours since the federal agents had arrived. They had more than enough time to go over the tape.
"It was blank," said Harley. "We were kind of hoping you could help us by telling us what you know."
"Bullshit! There's no way in the world that tape was blank."
Harley smiled. "We know our business. That tape was blank. Now, why don't you tell us what you know about Dr. Aziz and his unauthorized experiments."
"Dr. Aziz didn't run unauthorized experiments. He ran experiments with the full cooperation of the government and the company. This whole institution is run in conjunction with government cooperation. You know that."
"What did he tell you about his experiments with one John Whelan?"
"What was on the tape?"
"It was blank."
"Tell me, and I'll tell you."
"I'm sorry," said Harley. "It doesn't work that way."
"We're supposed to be on the same side, aren't we?"
"Of course we are. That is why I'm wondering why you aren't cooperating with us."
"What was on the tape?"
"The tape was blank!" said Special Agent Gunther. "Why don't you start playing the game right, and we'll finish this in time to get you home for supper?"
Fenster sighed. "He was conducting dream research."
"We know that," said Harley. "What was he trying to find?"
"I don't know," said Fenster.
"That's a lie," said Harley. "You told Mr. Palmer about a dream sphere. What did that have to do with the accident in the lab?"
Fenster sighed again. "Look, I don't know what kind of spook game you're playing here, but I don't care. Dr. Aziz was trying to tap the dream sphere, a boundary in the dream plane. I believe he succeeded, bringing something back in the body of John Whelan."
Gunther looked at his partner for a second before Harley nodded to him. Then Gunther started to speak. "There was evidence on the tape. We wanted to be sure you knew enough that it wouldn't make a difference if we told you about it."
"I'm a senior scientist here. Of course I know enough."
He ignored his outburst. "We believe it is possible that Dr. Aziz's experiment may have damaged the mind of John Whelan, making the patient believe he is someone he is not. We don't buy the dream sphere stuff, but we're willing to believe that John Whelan's brain may have been altered to believe such a story."
"That's a load of crap," said Fenster.
"Well, we're not inclined to believe that there's a world in our dreams. We're trained to think logically."
"What about the tape?"
"The tape shows the young man coming back from the experiment and killing Dr. Aziz. He used some type of energy weapon to shoot him in the chest. We believe he used the same energy weapon to destroy the wall."
"Energy weapon? What kind of crap is that? Where did he get it? Did George Lucas loan it to him?"
"It's no secret that the government is working on special particle beams and high energy weapons. It is quite possible that one of these weapons may have been obtained by John Whelan or Dr. Aziz before the incident."
"Right," said Fenster, shaking his head. "Now what?"
"We have to find John Whelan," said Harley. "As long as he is out there with an energy weapon and his mind is in the state it is in, he is a danger to anyone he comes across."
"How are you going to bring him in?" said Fenster.
"That is our affair," said Harley. "Your affair is to go back to work and let us handle our job."
"Whatever," said Fenster as he stood up and moved towards the door. "I don't want anything else to do with this." With that, he left.
Gunther turned to Palmer. "Can we trust him to keep his mind shut?"
Palmer nodded his head. "He may not like your way of handling the story, but he won't go against the institute. He can be trusted."
"Good," said Gunther. "We may need to use him. I'd hate to have to eliminate a potential ally."
Across the street from the shopping center was a public library. The gunfighter went into the building and looked around the place, exploring aisles of books. At the end of one of the aisles, he saw a young woman sitting at a solitary desk, alone. There was another desk across from her, also empty.
Grabbing a book off a shelf, one on gardening, he sat across from her, smiling when she looked up at him. She smiled back and then went back to her book, a
n earlier Stephen King horror novel. Ironically, something about a gunfighter.
"Come here often?" said the gunfighter after a couple of seconds.
She looked up again, putting on a faint smile that was designed to tell him that she appreciated his attention but didn't want it. "Uh, yeah. I come here to read." Not to get picked up!
"What are you reading?" he said.
She put the book down and sighed, resigning to the fact that this guy wasn't about to leave her alone. She looked at his book, The Joy of Gardening, and realized he wasn't here to read. He wasn't the gardening type. "It's a book about a gunfighter named Roland."
Roland," he said, "strange name for a gunfighter."
She looked at him with the hint of a smile, wondering if he was serious, even though she knew he couldn't be. He had to be fooling with her. "What's your name?" she said.
He thought about the question for a second. "John."
"I'm Alice," she said as she stretched her hand across the table to shake his. He took her hand and caressed it for a second before he shook it.
"You are most beautiful," he said.
"Thank you," she said as she wondered if she wanted to get back to her book. She had two hours before her next class, and she thought it might interesting to spend those two hours with John.
"You'll do very well," said John as he opened his gardening book and started to finger through it.
She stared at him for a second, wondering what he meant. However, after a couple of seconds, she realized he wasn't planning to look back up from his book.
Oh well, she thought. Your loss, John.
Sticking her nose back into her book, she suddenly realized she was growing very tired. Before she could put the book aside, she fell asleep on the title page.
Special Agents Harley and Gunther walked across the pavement to the shopping center with Palmer following close behind them; Palmer didn't want to go with them, but they didn't know the area, and he was the only one they could trust. "Are you sure he came here?" said Gunther.
"He's a stranger, right?" said Harley. "There's no way to miss this place. He had to come here."
They entered through the main entrance. Walking through the mall, they came to a security desk. "Can I help you?" said a young woman in a blue security uniform.
Harley pulled out the photograph that had been wired down from the DMV office. He showed it to her. "Have you seen this person?"
She shook her head no. "Why? Did he do something wrong?"
Harley pulled out his federal credentials. "We're looking for someone who doesn't fit in, someone who is really out of place."
The woman pulled out a clipboard and went over the entries. "I have an entry from four hours ago. Sergeant Eversole came across someone who looked lost. He reported the guy in case something strange happened."
"What did the person look like?" said Harley.
"WMA," she said. "That's all the entry states."
WMA, white male adult, fit the description, but they needed more. "Where is Sergeant Eversole?" said Gunther.
"He's on the north side," she said. "He hangs around the yogurt shop." She spoke in a quieter tone. "I think the girl who works there likes him. Or at least he thinks she does."
They smiled