Secrets

My eyes blink open to a blurry world of faces leaning over me.

"She's awake!" a voice says. I piece together that familiar cadence, soft and soothing. Sun. "There now, Aria. Everything is going to be fine. Just fine."

I wait as the faces focus into place. I recognize the crew from MaxLife: Javier, Tony, Sun, and my dad.

"There, there." Dad pats my shoulder, which even in my half-zombie-like state, I find myself bristling from. Leave it to Dad to revert to treating me like I'm still eight. "You're coming around just fine."

"I told you it was too dangerous," Javier says. His tone may be sharp and biting, but there's worry in his brown eyes. "Escúchame, hermanita. Next time, stick with the crew."

I smile weakly at his pet name for me.

"But dude, she found the Vault!" Tony says. "She's proven it exists!" Then he picks up my limp hand and slaps my palm with a high-five. "And bonus points for falling into the Void and not dying. That was epic."

"Well," Dad says. "We don't know for sure if it was a Vault, but it was definitely something different than we've yet experienced."

I push myself up, unable to resist letting loose a low groan. My head pounds and my muscles ache like I ran five miles. "The Void part was far worse than I thought it would be," I mutter.

"Oh, no, no, no you don't." Sun pushes me back down onto my sleep pod. "Don't go rushing about, now do you hear me, Aria? And the deal is off."

"Deal?" I'm completely confused.

"You said you'd behave and not do anything stupid." She clamps her hands on her hips. "So forget about getting a ride in my brother's plane."

I lay back down and moan. "Bummer."

"Javier!" Nurse Debbie demands. "Get her some food. Orange juice and how about some of those sliced pears?"

"Donuts," I say, my voice raspy.

Javier tromps off to find food, muttering under his breath in Spanish like he does when angry or worried. Meanwhile, Nurse Debbie pushes everyone aside and checks my blood pressure again.

"I'm fine." But it's impossible to force any enthusiasm or punch into my words. I try to take off the blood pressure wrap, but Debbie wags her fingers at me. "Don't you be messing with my work now, Air Girl." She laughs at that. "I saw you flying on the monitor."

Dad rubs the side of his face like he does when he's keeping something from me. "You did well, Aria," he finally says.

"I did 'well'?" I sit up. "Are you kidding? That was amazing! It was the first time we've come this close to proving that a person's mind holds a Vault with their memories locked inside."

"I'm not saying it wasn't." Dad rubs the gray stubble on his face and sighs. Those bags under his eyes have gotten heavier. "More than any Dream Walker has ever done. But though it looked like it could be a Memory Vault, we don't know for sure. Regardless, I'm pulling you from any more Dreamscape treks until we get you cleared by Nurse Debbie."

"Seriously? I told you I was fine." And actually, I do feel fine after taking a few sips of juice and a bite of the chocolate doughnut Javier passes to me. Except a million questions fill my mind. The foremost is seeing Jake Sutherland in the Dreamscape. "What do my vitals say, Debbie?"

"That you need to give yourself a rest." She gives me a pointed look over her glasses. "Maybe you'll be ready next week for an observation assignment only. No more dream walking for a while."

"By the way, you touched the dreamer," Dad begins once everyone has left, leaving the two of us alone. He takes a swig of his coffee, screws up his face as if he tasted something sour, and then dumps the coffee into the sink. "You know that's against the rules."

I stiffen. If Dad had any clue I knew Jake, he'd pull me from working on Jake's case so fast. I can't let that happen. I don't know why Jake is coming in for memory therapy, but I want to be on the team that goes back in the next time Jake's here. I cross my fingers the video footage doesn't show his lips saying my name.

"He seemed to trust me," I hedge. "I knew it was a risk, but I think that's how I got so far into the memory." I decide to turn the tables. "Why didn't you give us this patient's medical records? And why are you and Dr. Cage acting so strange?"

I swallow the lump in my throat and wait for Dad to justify his actions or give me some type of answer, but he just refills his mug with steaming hot coffee.

"It's complicated and nothing for you to worry about." He shuffles to the work panel and reviews our visual footage of the mission. "Things should get back to normal tomorrow."

"So something is up." I swing my feet to the floor and my knees buckle slightly.

"Make sure you get food in you before logging into your dream account. I'll call your school and tell them you're sick. I'm writing you a doctor's note right now."

I decide not to argue the point that he's more of a Doctor of Science than a practitioner. "You're avoiding the question," I huff. "Besides, I'm fine. I'm going to school today."

I hold up my finger to Dad's lips when he spins to argue with me. This usually makes him laugh, and he teases me about being stubborn like Mom. But not today.

"Don't tell your mom about the dream incident." His jaw clenches and he won't look at me, which unnerves me even more. "If she knew, she'd insist you work with her instead."

"Trust me, I won't."

"Good." Dad nods distractedly and despite the cool AC pumping through the lab, a line of sweat trickles down the sides of his face. "Now go get some rest."

Inwardly, I stiffen at his quick dismissal. Ever since Grams was diagnosed with dementia, the two of us have worked hand in hand to develop this Dreamscape. I've been just as much a part of this as he has. So why is he shutting me out now? I could stay and argue over this, but my mind is drawn to the door at the far end of the lab. The door that leads to the room where Patient 145 is.

Usually coming out of a Dreamscape can be rough on the body. There's disorientation, dizziness, nausea, hunger, and sometimes prolonged headaches. I've always been the lucky one. Unlike the others on my team, I have minimal side effects other than being ravenous for a good breakfast as if I've been sleeping all night rather than entering a short NREM or REM sleep cycle of another person's dream.

But as I shuffle down the corridor, the dizziness and aches remind me why we have the rule to steer clear of the Void. When I felt them pulling me out of the dream, it was as if I'd been smashed against a brick wall. Maybe Sun was right. I was more stupid than brave today.

Glancing around to make sure no one is watching, I crack Patient 145's door open and peek through the narrow slit.

Cheryl and Craig, our two technicians, are working at their computers, probably entering their report, but the sleep pod is empty. The dreamer has already left.

Disappointed, I head to my debrief terminal when Tony slides open the glass door to his station, and tipping back his chair, winks at me as he continues his monologue of our mission. "Then that Aria went and leaped out of the chopper, paddling her arms and legs like she was swimming for an Olympic tryout. I thought she was going to plummet to her death, but she flew like a bird, a plane—"

Before he can say the rest of his line, I push his chair upright and slam the glass door, shutting him inside his room. This makes Tony laugh even harder. I can't hear him between the sound-proof glass, but he's pointing at me, mouth open and head back, mimicking a dead fish. I roll my eyes.

"Hilarious," I say. But as I slip inside my terminal, I recall jumping out of the helicopter with Jake and that exhilarating feeling of flying and falling.

After we leave the Dreamscape, we're supposed to watch the footage of the dream the computer pieces together from our brain waves. Once we make an audio commentary of the footage, it goes into our client's files, which are then passed over to the psychiatric department for review. Their job is to figure out the best ways to reroute neuron pathways in the patient's brain.

Except recently our Dream Walks discoveries have shifted our goals. Since dreams show the natural process of long-term memories, when a person dreams, it strengthens those memories. So if we could connect these new traces with their stored memories, it's possible to stabilize them so they aren't erased or damaged.

It doesn't take long for me to review the dream into the audio. I pause the footage as Jake's and my fingers intertwine. The memory of the rush that flooded my body surges back to me. I lean in closer to get a better look at him.

"Is that really you, Jake?" I whisper. "And if so, why are you losing your memories when you're so young?"

Or maybe it isn't Jake from my school. It's not like we hang out. Ever. Maybe this dreamer looked a lot like Jake when he was young. Or perhaps it was Jake's grandfather. That would make a lot of sense. Except for the fact that he knew my name.

Or what if Jake is a part of an experiment even I'm not aware of?

I nibble on the corner of my thumb, knowing exactly what I need to do.