The Waking Nightmares, page 1
The
Waking
Nightmares
Serial One: Omnipresence
Book 3
Copyright 2023 © M. D. Boncher
1st Edition
ISBN: 979-8-9881492-3-1
Cover Design: Neutronboar
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Bibliography
Wild Adventure Sci-Fi
Tales From the Dream Nebula
01. Dreams Within Dreams
02. Lucid Reality
03. The Waking Nightmares
Dark Epic Christian Fantasy
Akiniwazisaga
A Light Rises in a Dark World
The Inheritance Thieves
Into The High Places
The Dream Nebula
Long ago, after the 21st century, Earth was conquered by an evil power: Xiao the Eternal. The entire solar system was subsumed into his realm, the Dream Nebula. Every living being was meticulously captured and cataloged by his invasion and placed into suspended animation.
When humanity was released again as Xiao’s subjects, reality as they knew it was gone. There were no stars, no inky black vacuum of space. Even the sun was missing. Only the shredded wreckage of planets, moons and asteroids, floating in endless technicolor clouds and perpetual winds, remained.
Time marched on for the subjects of the empire. They painfully rebuilt their cultures like bonsai in Xiao’s hands. They shared their vassal nations with mechoids, sentient mechanical beings, new species of uplifted anthromorphs and living AIs called dataoids.
In time, most of humanity obsessed over their lost history. Desires and hearts turned toward rebellion, the overthrow of the Emperor, and freedom.
1.
Warm light poured down over Winston as Puala’Lolo’s rotation took him out of the faint shade of the palm tree he had been relaxing under. He snored contentedly in a lounge chair in the early afternoon till the baking sand’s heat gently woke him.
He looked off into the seemingly endless distance to the ocean’s edge. Bright white local clouds puffed up into little thunderheads like ancient sailing ships, while above them the grandiose clouds of the Dream drifted by in pale pastel pinks, teals and oranges common to its tropical upper layers.
Life here had been a veritable spa as part of his convalescence following their departure from Nova Tortuga. The last few weeks out of the cab at this height of the Dream turned his skin a deep tan. He picked up his Plammer from the small table beside his chair and took a swig. The ice cold sweat felt good in his hand, and the mix of iced tea and lemonade was perfect for his lazy mood.
He paused mid-drink as he saw the long tail of a far off skytrain pulling away from Puala’Lolo, its huge tug pulling hundreds of shimmering containers behind it. Memories of piloting the Sierra Madre all over the known Dream came back in a rush. Despite all the bad times, he really missed that simple life. No way back to it now. He’d have to make do with whatever came next.
The thought struck him that this was his first vacation ever, even if it was due to his current cavalcade of suffering. A bitter bubble of memory rose to the surface as he realized he could not share this moment with Val and Emmy.
Had so many things gone wrong in such a short time? Getting blackballed from the only career he knew, then Mother getting him mixed up with gun runners for the rebellion, barely surviving a Black Void event was only the tip of the ice cube it seemed. Rescuing a secret insane asylum and getting brainburned really didn’t help either. Then there was Holly. He didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, smile or pine for her loss thanks to her messing with his brain with that limbic manipulator of hers.
An ice cold bead of water dripped from the glass in his hand, hitting his chest and giving him a start. The recollection popped, and he sighed at its passing.
Reaching over to the little table, Winston picked up his pocket assistant and checked the time. He’d been sleeping peacefully for over two hours. Maybe it was the after effects of all the neuro-therapy he had been undergoing with Doctor Amanda Junker, but even his nightmares refused to come to this paradise. He tossed the device back onto the table with a lazy flick and settled back into the cushions.
In the surf, Billy Joe Bob was fishing, using his own metamorphed utility sand arms as rod, reel, line and lure. Winston never considered a mechoid being interested in fishing, but there he was, fishing away. Probably something to do with that personality mod he’d been using, Winston thought with a faint smile. Waves washed around Billy Joe’s nanosand skirt as if he was a tide rock. At least he wasn’t noodling.
Their time on Puala’Lolo had been one of new experiences. Thanks to the battle between Mother and the Bonavitae hacker, neither dared to use the Sierra Madre’s mainframe. The tug’s computer was riddled with viruses and other dangerous programs that could snatch Billy Joe’s consciousness out of his CPU just as easily as it could scramble Winston’s frontal lobe.
They even avoided their favorite idle entertainments for fear of drawing any potential pursuers right to their doorstep. As far as Winston was concerned, he had just gotten his head straightened out; no way he was risking screwing it all up again for a stupid game or some silly video. Lady Amanda had given them permission to use the local network for such petty vices, but neither had felt the need to log in. There were plenty of new ways here to keep them entertained in real life.
Bubby landed another fish. It was a big, exotic thing. Possibly a ray of some type, flapping its huge wings in frantic splashes of water as he hauled it to the surface.
“Check it out, Hoss!” Bubby shouted back to Winston. “Hoo-boy! Look at it!”
Winston raised his Plammer in salute.
Like a happy kid getting approval from his parents, Billy Joe held his catch up high while a wide, silly grin broke across his face. “Take a picture!”
Winston snorted. “Why?” he called back. “You can replay that memory later.”
“Come on! I want it from your point of view!” his partner shouted, wrestling to hold on to the squirming fish that was almost half his size. His drive skirt spreading out more creating a lattice of columns to help keep balance, his arms wrapped around the fish to hold on a few more seconds.
Winston reached over, picked up his pocket assistant and snapped the picture. Billy Joe whooped in delight and reabsorbed his fishing gear into his arm and tossed the critter out into the water with a flat smack. The ray took off like a shot. Winston watched it disappear beneath the waves, then turned toward the shore.
He slid up out of the surf and over to Winston, still smiling from ear to ear. “It’s no industrial press video, but there’s something soothing about this sport.”
Winston chuckled and dipped his drink towards him. “To Bubby, the mechoid fishing champeen of the Dream. Who’da thunk?”
Billy Joe gave a goofy, auto-tuned musical laugh.
From the corner of Winston’s eye, a flicker of movement between the manicured bushes drew his attention from the mech.
A hovercar approached, following the curve of the shoreline. It was an exotic, touristy sort of thing with open sides and a fabric canopy that fluttered with a fringe that was completely incongruous with the stiff, uniformed figure who piloted it.
“Oops. Looks like playtime’s over,” he said, giving a head jut up the dunes toward the Baron’s compound. “Here comes the Baroness’s guard to collect us.”
The smile on Billy Joe’s face dropped into a bitter grimace and he looked from the approaching vehicle to his partner.
Winston sat up and swung his feet off the lounge chair with a groan. He scowled at the compound then turned his darkening gaze back out across the water, his good mood souring.
“I’m not looking forward to this either, Hoss, but what else can we do?” Billy Joe said. Winston’s own sadness echoed in his partner’s voice.
“Like watching your favorite horse get put down in her prime,” Winston groused. With a few big swallows, he finished off his drink, put it on the small table and stood up.
The car came to a stop on the sand beside them, and the driver stepped out.
“Mechsters Winston and Billy Joe?” he addressed the pair walking toward the hovercar.
“Yah, yah. Keep yer pants on,” Winston said, putting on his straw panama hat and sandals that completed his beach bum appearance. He shuffled through the soft beach sand to the car and climbed aboard after Bubby. The driver circled back around to the driver’s seat and put the car back into motion, gliding over the dunes and deeper into the island compound grounds.
They wound their way through the tropical forest and a pineapple plantation where mechoid harvesters toiled. Rising above the jungle in the blue hazy distance, the anti-airship spires glinted in the light. They were part of Puala’Lolo’s defense grid against pirates and other principalities that might come a-knocking in an unfriendly manner.
Trees gave way to manicured grounds and extensive gardens tended to by servants. The main house came into view, a bright white clapboard mansion that reminded Winston of a similar house in the middle of some Earth prairie he saw in a movie poster once. It sprung from the top of a small hill and towered over the careful landscaping.
Looping around a hill, they passed by other outside recreational sports and drove alongside the golf course before veering towards a large reinforced lab building built into the coral cliff from the main house. The driver stopped the car in front of the office entrance.
“Did we get everything out?” Billy Joe asked.
Winston sighed. “Think so, but I plan to take one more check. Check all the storage spaces. Make sure I missed nothing in the sleeper. You know how it can get.”
“Not really,” Billy Joe responded.
Winston smiled and shook his head. “Difference between bioids and mechoids, I guess. We leave clutter behind no matter how well we try.”
The pair hopped out and went through the glass doors to the salute of compound security.
“Ain’t never gonna get used to that,” Billy Joe mumbled after they cleared the lobby.
“Comes with being made a ‘Special Retainer of the Barony’ I guess,” Winston reminded him. “Whatever that means.”
“Too bad Mother and H-” Billy Joe started to muse.
“Nahq it, Bubby!” Winston snapped, whirling around to face the mechoid. “This is bad enough without you adding to my misery by bringing them up!”
Billy Joe slid back a few paces. “Sorry, Hoss,” he apologized. “Sometimes I just cain’t help my nature.”
Winston stared hard at him for a moment before rubbing his stubbled cheek with a sigh. “Let’s just get this over with,” he growled. He started back down the hall towards the industrial lab, the slapping tempo of his sandals increasing with his agitation. After a moment, Billy Joe hustled to catch up in silence.
2.
Winston walked out the glass door from the offices onto the catwalk that overlooked Doctor Amanda Junker’s industrial lab. It was one part commercial airship hanger, one part factory. The aircraft doors were on the far end, open to the sea.
Several smaller aircraft dotted the floor, dwarfed by the cavernous space and a host of cranes, both physical and anti-grav, busy moving machinery around. Drones zipped back and forth with parts, tools and tanks full of nano-fabrication feedstock.
In the middle of the factory floor, floating over a large pool of pewter goo, was the Sierra Madre. It hurt Winston’s heart to see her like this.
Battered, cold and opened wide, her powered down reactor core dark and exposed. It felt like looking at the heart and lungs of an autopsy cadaver from an aircar accident.
The damage to her from their escape had been bad. Several parts were impossible to overhaul, requiring total replacement. The energy burns from the skypirates and corporate frigate were ugly. How their canopy had not blown out on several occasions was astonishing. Dozens of Trapline Creeper trigger vines stuck to her nose and fan nacelles like grotesque dried out ropes.
Winston gripped the railing and hung his head, fingers blotching red, his knuckles white.
“You know we got no choice,” Billy Joe consoled, coming beside him.
Winston only nodded. It was hard to look at the old girl. Honestly, she wasn’t that old even. Twelve years, maybe?
Below, Doctor Amanda Junker talked with one of her shop foremenchs, her arms gesturing wildly as she explained what she wanted done. She tapped a palmtop then pointed off at a collection of machine tools that were outside Winston’s comprehension. The floating mechoid gave a snappy salute and flew off like a baby spider on a silk thread, landing on top of its new project and getting right to work.
Doctor Amanda caught sight of Winston above her and raised her hand in greeting. He waved back. She engaged her flight harness and flew up to him, hovering just on the other side of the railing in mid air.
“Well,” she started without preamble, “she’s ready to be dipped.”
“I can see that,” Winston said softly, his voice barely carrying over the sound of the industrial lab.
Amanda gave him a side-eyed glance, then nodded towards the forlorn vessel below. “You want to give her a final walkthrough? Make sure there’s nothing personal still onboard?”
Winston straightened. “Absolutely.”
“Good,” she said with a sniff and wiped her nose on her lab coat. “I figured it was a good time for that. Just remember, you have your final review exam in an hour.” She smiled at him. “You’ve made remarkable progress, considering what you went through.”
Winston scowled darkly. “I just wish you could have found out if... she... messed with my brain.”
She sighed. “Mimetic programming caused by limbic manipulators is undetectable,” she explained again. “They’re not really doing anything abnormal. They’re just bypassing the usual mental pathways and digging into the emotions and memory process more directly. The brain can’t tell the difference between natural and artificially caused emotions and memories, especially after the fact. Well, beliefs are affected more than memories. What, ahem…she was using focused primarily at one specific emotion in your case.”
“Yeah,” Winston said. His jaws clenched. That particular memory was a sore spot, a mix of unwanted fascination, raw lust, a healthy dose of embarrassment and anger at being so easy to manipulate.
His pride didn’t care that he had been the victim of a carefully crafted attack. His inability to resist rankled his ego.
“Okay, then,” Doctor Junker said and floated over the railing to land beside him. Her two personal guards came over to assist her out of her lab coat and flight harness. “I have to see dear Quentin for his exam first. I hope he can resume work today, too. So be ready. He’ll want to take you to his research library as soon as I clear you.”
“Yes ‘um,” Billy Joe said cheerfully. “Be good to get back to some honest work. Sick o’ not being of use.”
“Gotta wait till our new tug finishes cooking before we can do what we’re solid at,” Winston reminded Bubby.
“Well, from the schematics we purchased from Commodore Roberts, that should take about eighteen hours after we complete the breakdown of the Sierra Madre. That,” Doctor Amanda said, gesturing to a pair of bracket-shaped machines hanging on massive cranes and spanning nearly the width of the entire hanger, “is an incredibly fast nanofab frame.”
The two large brackets connected to one another by a bubble-like membrane that jiggled in the breeze of the large space.
“I best go do my final check then,” Winston agreed. “See you in a bit, Doctor A.”
The former Baroness smiled at his nickname for her. “Till then.” She disappeared through the glass doors into the office.
Winston and Billy Joe put on their flight rigs.
“She’s a whole different woman when she’s working,” Billy Joe remarked.
“Mmm-hmm,” Winston muttered, focusing on the straps of his rig.
“After the Commodore’s hotel, I wasn’t sure what we were getting into,” Billy Joe continued. He slapped shut the last clasp of his own rig.
Winston shrugged his shoulders to settle the harness more comfortably. “Me either, Bubby. Glad she turned out to be a touch more common when in her comfort zone.” He flashed a quick wink and a stiff grin at his partner. “But boy! Can she put on airs when she needs to!”
