I looked at the green fluorescent goo that ran along the cracks in the rocks, and thought back to the time when the Dream Wars barely had any of it. Now it was everywhere. Only after the government sent a team over with an A-bomb and set it off, did the stuff start to appear en masse. It healed the dream world in one day, like some kind of regenerative serum for the ghoul planet, or realm, or wherever the hell we were. But we’d also learned it wasflammable.
Meanwhile, the radiation from the A-bomb had somehow leaked out of the Dream Wars, and we started getting high radiation readings in Australia. That’s when we realized their world lay directly over ours, like a parallel reality. The nuke had killed a bunch of ghouls, but it didn’t take out their world and it harmed ours, so we had to go back to the drawing board. We’d tried everything to find out what the Dream Wars were, where they were. We’d sent signal beacons, rovers, but nothing could tell us how to get there. When the signal beacons sent data back, it looked like it was still on Earth. Basically, we werescrewed.
“Data text? That’s cute,” Damienscoffed.
Okay, maybe this guy was smart too, but he was most definitely a dick. We reached the “trees” just as Ronnie popped in, nearly landing on top of the glowing greenfoliage.
“Sorry,” I told her and moved more out in the open. Everyone was going to pop in next to me, so I would stay exposed until we were allin.
“I’m good.” She dropped her med bag and pulled her gun, doing a 360. “Damn, Kit, you never disappoint. We’re in the fuckingboonies.”
I grinned. “Until they smell Damien,” Ijoked.
Our scientists thought the “attraction” was some sort of phenomenon, as if they sensed a threat in that person for some reason and used their collective consciousness to hone in and take them out. Some pheromone alpha male thing, whoknew?
Damien frowned. “Hey, I can’t helpit.”
“I’m just joking. It’s how I stay sane.”He’d better get used to my warped sense of humor, or this will be a long timetogether.
“You’re sane?” he asked, eyeswide.
Ronnie laughed. “Goodone.”
Just then, Jeremy and Josephine popped in carrying that heavycase.
Brisk, Nox, and Mr. Hansen were right afterthem.
Poor Maxine. She had issues with insomnia due to the PTSD. Even when she was dead tired, it sometimes took her almost an hour to drift off and give in tosleep.
“Let’s make camp behind this rock. Maxine will join us when she can.” I headed behind the pod tree and rockcropping.
The Dream Wars had a specific smell, a foreign metallic scent mixed with death. It wasn’t pleasant, but I was used to it. I looked up to the sky, as I always did, and saw our moon, our stars, and the faint shimmer of a flying Galadria across the nightsky.
“The first time I came here I expected to see two moons and an unrecognizable star system.” Damien said from besideme.
I nodded. “Me too.” But nope, our stars, our moon and the striking colored Galadrias floating across thesky.
Galadrias were the only thing of beauty in the Dream Wars, winged creatures who posed no harm to humans, and fed off the green stuff on the ground. They avoided the war and the ghouls whenever possible. Only landing to feed or sleep, they otherwise lived the majority of their lives up in the sky, peaceful andalone.
I’d met my first Galadria when I was ten, in its sleeping den. It was then that I realized I could communicate with them, speak their language directly to their minds, and I’d had a soft spot for them ever since. Galadrias looked like a cross between a dragon and a seal: innocent wide eyes and a round head like a seal, with a small button nose, but then their body was that of a winged beast with four stumps for arms and legs. To top that off, their skin was a fuzzy scale, like petting a furry snake. They came in all different colors, and you could tell when they’d just eaten because their skin glowed a luminescent highlighter color. I was admittedly fascinated with them, and they with me, from what I couldtell.
Jeremy got right to work, snapping out of his scared trance and opening the clasps to his case. Josephine, who was handcuffed to him, sat there patiently as he yanked her arm left and right, setting up instruments, beacons, and whatever else. He shoved one rod directly into the tiny stream of phosphorescent green stuff that ran into theground.
“He seems okay now,” I whispered to Damien, whonodded.
“He lives for his work. He’ll be in the zone, happy as a clam until they showup.”
Until they show up.I’d almost forgotten his admission that they were attracted to him. I was dreading the moment they showed up. Every so often, I’d make it a whole night without seeing one, but those nights were rare. We didn’t know why they had attractions to some humans and not to others. It was as if the moment that person entered the Dream War, the ghouls could sense or smell them. Something about Damien attracted them, so we would see them sooner than we normally did, unable to hide out aslong.
Jeremy snapped his fingers. “Need your wrist,” he mumbled to hisbrother.
One in two babies born nowadays had autism. The spectrum was such a wide range that sometimes the person just seemed a little nerdy, and other times they needed assistance for the most basic things like toileting. Jeremy had yet to make eye contact with his brother or anyone here, but he was clearly functioning well and able to express his needs. He was obviously one of the higher-functioning ones. And maybe it wasn’t all autism. Maybe the Dream Wars had played a part in breaking his mind. The thought of either made mesad.
Damien held out his hand without question, and Jeremy fixed a bulky weaponized-looking cuff to his arm. It didn’t resemble the sleek dream bands that Striker Industries made in the slightest. This one was definitely a prototype and had some type of defense system on it, from what I couldtell.
“Where’s the redhead?” Damien asked, looking at ourcrew.
“Maxine has insomnia. She’ll drop in once she can get to sleep,” Iexplained.
