When I blink my eyes open, the room before me swims. My head pounds like someone has smashed me with a brick. Every muscle in my body aches almost as if I really did get into a fight. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Entering the Dreamscape outside of our regulated sleeping pods back at MaxLife protected me from most side effects.
Still, I've never felt this awful before.
Groaning, I move to sit up, trying to regain my vision. Except my body won't seem to move, which sends me into a disorientated spin. I close my eyes again and breathe deeply to calm myself like we're taught to do.
"She's coming around," a voice I don't recognize says.
"Excellent." This voice is higher, excited.
The conversation forces me to open my eyes again. The room blurs, but I'm finally able to gather that I'm not in the holding room in the casino anymore. The walls are a mix of concrete and distressed wood. Three figures in white lab coats stand not far off from where I sit, observing me. Their faces are fuzzy.
A sinking sensation drops into the pit of my stomach. Either I never left the dream and I'm still lost in it, a likely probability, or I've been kidnapped and taken to the laboratory that I saw in the dream. My temples throb so hard, it's hard to even think clearly.
"Where," I pause. My voice is raspy and my lips are swollen. I lick my cracked lips. I must have bit down on it during my dream. That happened once to Tony. Maybe that's why I experienced myself bleeding in the dream. I clear my throat again and try to speak. "Where am I?"
"Good evening, Aria," the shorter one says. "We are so pleased you've come to join us. We believe you are the key to all of our issues and your arrival couldn't have been timelier."
I shake my head, trying to lift the fog out of my thoughts.
"Don't worry," the other man says who oddly looks a lot like Dad's new assistant, Dr. Cage. "The sleeping drugs we gave you should wear off soon. The headache and blurred vision will pass. Ever since I realized your dad wasn't able to help me as I thought he could, I've been sending my men out, searching for you."
"My dad," I croak, and my heartbeat kicks up. "Where is he?"
"Your father?" The shorter man steps closer.
With him so close, I recognize him instantly. Dr. Reasner. He's got shaggy gray hair that looks untamed, reminding me of a mangy dog that hasn't gotten a bath in some time. A beard grows from his chin, hanging wild and forgotten. Dark circles ring his eyes and wrinkles crease his face. A faded blue tie dangles from his neck, half-knotted and tucked beneath his white lab jacket.
The emblem on the jacket catches my attention. Memory Retract Corporation. What could that be? Does he have his own Dreamscape that's similar to Dad's?
No, that's not it, I realize as everything becomes crystal clear. "You're trying to steal my dad's work, aren't you?" I confront him. "Because you're not smart enough to think of your own ideas, you have to steal someone else's."
Then I turn to Dr. Cage. "And you were my dad's new assistant. You totally betrayed him. You betrayed us all."
Dr. Cage beams as if I've just paid him the best compliment.
"You're as smart as I remembered you being," Dr. Reasner says. "I've been working on the human brain and memory recall for some time now. I like to think of your father and me as pioneers in the race to cure mental illness and memory loss."
My vision has now fully repaired itself. This is the exact room as the one in the dream. It looks like we're in a large warehouse. My eyes peer around Dr. Reasner for any evidence of my dad.
"But your father failed to see the true potential of our research," Dr. Reasner continues. "Why stop at bridging memory gaps when we could explore so much more? Why simply heal a damaged mind when we can improve the brain? Here we have within our grasp the opportunity to expand the potentials that the brain can accomplish. The potential is monumental and for everyone, not relegated to merely the old and weak."
I twist my hands, testing the handcuffs, and inwardly curse. This guy is either delusional or completely driven by fame and money. Either way, I need to get out of here ASAP.
Reasner continues, "My trusted assistant, Dr. Cage, got a job at MaxLife. Meanwhile, we gave Jake Hale pills to think he had severe headaches. Then we conned one of his friends to dare Jake to get the SWIFT codes. Of course, he accepted the dare as we guessed he would be able to see and access the codes."
"It's interesting that you have to bribe and cheat to get results," I note.
"It was a gamble on our part, but it paid off. Once he saw the codes, we orchestrated for you and your team to snoop into Jake Hale's brain until you found the SWIFT codes for us. So maybe I should be thanking you for all of your hard work in making this happen."
I spit at Dr. Reasner, but he doesn't seem to notice. Instead, he begins to pace the room, clearly enamored by himself.
"Did you ever realize, Aria that there's the possibility to use the confidences of the mind to reveal government secrets and plotting schemes," he asks. "Consider how in one mind travel, we can abolish interrogations permanently. No more torture or conjectures. Instead, we can merely gain entrance into an enemy's brain, determine their secrets, and BOOM! We win."
"You're sick." I grip the edges of the armrest so hard my knuckles whiten. "What you suggest is against everything MaxLife stands for."
"Ingenious. Revolutionary." He chuckles to himself. "The great master scientists of their time were often ridiculed for their brilliant, and yet, peculiar ideas. Take Galileo or Gregor Johann Mendel, for instance. Totally unappreciated and misunderstood during their time, but are now hailed as masters of science."
"My father told me you were ambitious," I say, "but you didn't have the conscience to accomplish your crazy philosophies. He was completely right."
"Your father is a great man," Dr. Reasner says. "But he lacks vision and ambition to make him truly great. He was too obsessed with healing his mother that he couldn't see the potential his work had. Still doesn't."
"Don't you dare speak about my grams!" I push against my restraints, and that's when I realize my feet are shackled into clamps as well. "Why have you bound me? Why am I here?"
"It was fortunate that Zhang Lau and I crossed paths not long ago at a conference." Dr. Reasner taps his fingers together, creating a tent with them. "She wanted money. I wanted your father. It was the perfect plan. And as you can see, it worked. Until you and your friends got involved, but then I'm a believer in Fate. And Fate has brought you to me."
I search the still bodies on the gurneys, trying to figure out if any of those people are my friends. A pair of loafers catches my eye at the end of the line. Did Jake wear loafers? I can't remember. I wish I'd paid more attention.
"Well, your plan failed," I say. "Because the American government is on our side. Now that I've gone missing, they'll be here in no time."
"I doubt that." Dr. Reasner points to a van parked at the other end of the warehouse. "As you can see, we're a movable lab. We travel anywhere we want. By the time your government gets through all of their red tape to believe a girl has been kidnapped at a casino—crazy story, by the way—all evidence of your existence will have vanished. We snatched you and your boyfriend at the casino. Your other friends have no idea where you are now."
My heart soars realizing Sun must have somehow gotten away. Plus, he doesn't know about Javier and Tony. The Dreamscape would have shown my friends a visual of this warehouse. But who would ever be able to pick out or recognize this place?
The odds are extremely thin. My stomach twists and I feel like I could throw up. Dr. Reasner is right. He outsmarted us.
"But why bother bringing us here?" I ask.
"You, my dear," Dr. Reasner says, "are the key that I was missing all along. It wasn't until three days ago I figured it out. When I heard my men had practically blown you up in the van when they were just supposed to kidnap you, I nearly lost my mind. You have no idea the relief I felt when I received the report you were unharmed and on your way to Boracay."
"How thoughtful of you," I say sarcastically.
"Bring out her father," Reasner commands. "It's time to make history!"
Two large security guards wearing all black who probably served as bouncers in their previous lives escort a man out of a room at the far end.
"Dad!" I scream. I can't stop the tears that spring to my eyes at seeing him.
His graying brown hair is disheveled, and his dirt-smudged clothes hang from his body. I cringe seeing how much weight he's lost. His right eye, rimmed with a dark blue bruise, is squeezed shut. My heart tightens, and it's hard to breathe. But a small voice inside me reminds me that he's alive.
"Hello, Dr. Hale," Dr. Reasner says cheerily. "I hope you are feeling more cooperative this evening than in previous days."
Dad's one good eye falls on me. I expect to see joy and hope on his face, but instead, his eyes and mouth widen in horror. The guards shove him into a chair beside the computer that Dr. Reasner is typing into, and then they clamp his hands and feet into place like they did with me.
"Aria," Dad says. "Are you okay? Did they hurt you?"
"I'm fine. I've been looking for you. I wasn't going to stop until I found you."
"You should've left this to the federal agents. These people are too dangerous."
I'm hurt by those words. Sure, he may be right. Okay, so he is right. But in my mind, I imagined this incredible reunion where I had rescued him and he threw his arms around me in a fierce embrace, thanking me.
"Whatever happens with this lunatic," Dad says, interrupting my thoughts. "I'm proud of you. Leave it to you to find me when the feds couldn't."
I want to tell him everything. How the police wouldn't believe me. How we chased him down through the hints the dreams gave us. But that would just give Dr. Lunatic more horrible ideas of how to use the Dreamscape, so I clamp my mouth shut.
"What a lovely family reunion!" Dr. Reasner says. "So Aria, let me give you an update on what's been happening. Your father kindly gave me the schematics for the Dreamscape he created. Brilliant stuff, really. But the bizarre thing is that every time a team enters a dream, they get kicked out. Or die." He sighs at that. "Those were unfortunate causalities."
"Are you serious?" I'm aghast. "You let people die in the Dreamscape?"
"He didn't have the right connections between his Dreamscape and his Dream Walkers," Dad explains wearily. "I couldn't stand watching so many scientists go in only to die so I gave him the missing coding. Plus, he threatened to kill you and your mom."
"And I was very grateful for his shared information," Dr. Reasner adds. "Thanks to your father we have the Dreamscape. I thought all of my troubles were solved. But I was the fool, trusting your father to be of true assistance. We couldn't keep our Dream Walkers in the dreams. They kept getting kicked out, staying within the dreams for only seconds at most."
My heart sinks and I lean backward. He's having the same problem we had. So that's why they kidnapped me rather than killed me. Ever since I started entering the Dreamscapes, we began making progress, and no one got kicked out of the dreams.
And that's when the pieces of a puzzle that I never knew existed snapped into place. My head swivels and I stare at Dad as the truth unfolds before me. Why hadn't I seen it before?
All those times when Dad and I worked together to create the Dreamscape fly through my mind. It was my mind that he used as a prototype. It was my mind that he studied and downloaded the data from. Without me, no one could enter the Dreamscape for longer than a few minutes because the entire program had been built around my brain. He had made adjustments in the team's sleep pods to help, but those had been short-term fixes.
Dad's eyes are so sad. He closes them and hangs his head.
"I'm sorry, Aria," Dad says. "I never thought my vision of helping people with memory loss would lead you here. I never wanted this for you."
"No." I shake my head. "Don't be. I wanted to help Grams just as much as you did. I wanted the Dreamscape to work, too. This is just as much about my goals as yours."
"Yes," Dr. Reasner says and with a touch of a button pulls up a halo-vision of a brain. It rotates through the air before us. "Apparently your father used your brain as the prototype. He developed his entire work and Dreamscape around it."
My mind flashes back to when I wore the headset as I ran through the backyard when I ate my favorite ice cream—chocolate marshmallow—and even when I opened my birthday presents. The Dreamscape had been my invention, too, in a way. It had been my idea to wear the headset when I slept and when Grams and I'd sit on those late nights to watch her favorite movie, A Kiss Before Midnight. I suppose on some subconscious level, I've always known the Dreamscape and I were connected. But seeing it before me, hearing Dad admit it and Dr. Reasner explain it, overwhelms me.
"You, Aria," Dr. Reasner says, "are the alpha and the key to the Dreamscape. No one can control it like you can."
My gaze pivots to Dad. It's not that I don't believe Reasner, I just need to hear it from him. "Is that true, Dad?"
"I never meant for that to happen," Dad explains wearily. "But when you first went into the Dreamscape and it worked—it finally worked!—I suspected it. Over the past two months, I've been testing my theory and reached the conclusion that yes, you can control the dreams. That's why you've been able to manipulate the Dreamers so well."
"Which means until I can fix this system glitch of you having to be in the Dreamscape for it to work," Dr. Reasner explains. "You get to work for me now."
I glare at him. "You kidnap my father and me and want us to help you?"
"Trust me." Reasner's lips curl into something that resembles a smile. "This is not an ideal situation for me either. But it is a necessary means to an end. Plus, I have my ways of enticement."
At the snap of Reasner's fingers, the security guards press a key against my chair and the locks on my wrists and ankles pop open. I pull my arms away and start massaging my aching muscles when they heft me up and drag me across the room to a gurney. My heart sinks. He's going to make me go into the dream.
"Dad!" He's always been there for me, stood up for me, but I know my words are futile. There is nothing my father can do for me now. I'm on my own.
"Don't do this, Reasner!" Dad grips the edges of his chair, straining at his constraints until his veins are bulging. "She's just a kid. There has to be a better way."
"I have to make sure my theory on her being the alpha is true," Dr. Reasner says. "This won't take long and then we'll know for sure."
As they strap me onto the gurney, Dr. Reasner comes to my side. Sweat trickles down the sides of his face and his eyes are bright as if light by an inner fire. How different he appears from the lethargic photo in the conference flyer.
"Now listen carefully," he tells me eagerly. "This is your task. Go into the dream and have your hacker boyfriend show you how he's able to hack into the Federal Reserve site. Once he has the codes, you'll prove to me you are being helpful."
My boyfriend? Then it hits me. Jake! My eyes dart over to the gurney with the loafers. That has to be him. Guilt tugs at me. When he's dreaming, he won't even know it's not real. My mind flies, trying desperately to find a way out of this.
"I'm sure the feds have amped up their firewalls after everything that happened," I say. "He won't know anything that can help you."
"Are you saying he's useless?" Dr. Reasner points to Jake. "I don't keep anything useless around. It just creates clutter. And then there's your father. I'll even consider releasing him if you cooperate."
Crap. It's like walking through a minefield. One misstep and you're dead.
"Maybe not," I hedge. "I might be able to get him to show me something useful. But before I do anything, I want you to give my dad an ice pack for his eye and some food."
"Ah, a negotiator. Impressive." He nods to one of the assistants who runs off to do his bidding. "There. Happy now?"
"Happy? Oh, I'm just full of laughs today."
Then an attendant slips a dream mask over my eyes. This one isn't as silky or comfortable as ours at MaxLife, which gives me pause because I know that one miscalculation in the Dreamscape, one malfunctioning wire can really screw with your brain. I dig my nails into my palm, trying to not think of the ramifications of what I'm about to do. My only hope is that Dr. Looney has done his homework and we all don't die.
The music that streams in through my ears isn't as relaxing as anything we have in our system at MaxLife. I think of Sun and the others. Do they know where we are? Are they looking for us right now? Maybe if I can fight these sounds, I can stay awake.
But my mind begins to drift, and I sink into the world of dreams.