He smashes the bat into my midsection.
I barely feel it.
Felix smacks me again. “This is cool,” he says when I don’t flinch. “What’s next?”
“Your call. What do you need?”
He grins. “Guns. Lots of guns.”
I take us to a blank room with rows upon rows of weapons inspired by his movie reference.
Grin widening, he picks up a Beretta, loads it, and points it at my chest. “Are you sure?”
I inhale a big breath. “Shoot.”
Bang.
My chest hurts as if I were punched, but the bullet just falls at my feet.
This is a workable strategy.
Arming Felix with other weapons, I experiment with different ways of fighting a dreamwalker—melting a katana instead of letting it slice me, increasing gravity to prevent a cannonball from smashing into my metal chest, messing with the chemistry of gunpowder to prevent an Uzi from firing, and so on.
“Those video game design courses have clearly given you an advantage,” Felix says after we both tire of the exercise. “Practice like this some more, and I’m sure you’ll defeat that Nutcracker—assuming he or she dares attack you again.”
If only I were that optimistic.
“Thanks for the help. I’ll let you sleep normally now,” I say and leave Felix’s dream.
Too wired to go back to sleep, I brew myself a soothing herbal tea and sip it leisurely for a while.
When I catch myself yawning, I get back into bed. It takes a while, but eventually, I go under, and this time, my slumber is dreamless.
In the morning, a message from Felix is waiting for me in VR:
Nothing in the security footage. The Nutcracker must’ve made a connection with you before.
Hmm. That does limit the pool of suspects somewhat, and is worrying. Some creepozoid touched me while I slept. Just thinking about it makes me want to hygieia myself.
With a slight pang of disappointment, I don’t find a gushing apology from Valerian in my inbox—nor a message of any kind. Not even a “you suck.” Oh, well. Sounds like that’s it between us. I just hope he doesn’t stop the development of the Lucid Dreamer game because of this—I need the power boost from that to rouse Mom.
At least I think I do. With Phobetor as a variable, having more power might not be the only thing I need. Still, it should help with the Nutcracker situation.
Unsure of what to do next, I check in on my rehab job and find a big backlog of clients waiting for my unique form of therapy, so that’s what I do for the rest of the day.
Over the next three weeks, I continue catching up on my workload at the rehab clinic. The Nutcracker doesn’t show in my dreams, and Valerian is incommunicado.
Things get so routine with my clients that I wonder, not for the first time, if I should start a VR company to carefully craft VR experiences for common phobias that would mirror my dream therapy. It’s actually one of the reasons why I took the game design classes in the past.
Maybe this is a project to look into after I save Mom. Especially if I patch things up with Valerian, a VR guru.
No, scrap that last bit. Valerian is not going to be in my life anymore, either as a love interest or a business partner—and I don’t care how much I dream about his stupid, pretty face.
By the fourth week, I start to worry about the Lucid Dreamer project. If Valerian could throw me under the bus as he did with the Council, why would he continue all that expensive video game development for me?
To that end, I stalk the tower of sleepers until I catch Bernard there. Swiftly, I jump into his dream.
Bernard is dreaming of a trip to the zoo with his daughter.
It’s a memory, which means they’ve reconciled to the point of daytrips. Good for him.
I let him enjoy the dream, and when the next one starts, I direct it to a memory related to my query.
Bernard—or Bernie in this context—is sitting at the table with Ratridevi Bhairava, a.k.a. Rattie.
Today, Bernie looks more like Wario than his nemesis Mario, while Rattie is as attractive as he was when I saw him last, his symmetrical masculine features and strong dark eyebrows not at all rat-like despite the nickname.
“Let’s talk replayability for Lucid Dreamer.” Rattie activates the screens around them, and his Bangalore team joins the conference. “We want our user base to play the game over and over.”
Bernie frowns. “Our plot is too linear, and that’s hard to change. Nor do we have that many alternating paths or endings.”
“Right. That’s why I think the easiest way we can add some replay value is with multiple characters,” Rattie says, and everyone on the screens nods.
Bernie twirls his mustache, villain style. “Maybe we use a character that’s already in the game?”
“We could,” Rattie says. “Our big bad would be a cheap option. He’s got the same powers as—”