“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney
Seventy-three confirmed arrests on a perfect record. Not a single death, either. The others all marvelled at Ian Maverick’s stunning capabilities to seek out law evaders. As a person, he was reserved and aloof, always absorbed in a case. Any time Ian was in town, he meticulously travelled the streets, taking notes on the constant redevelopment. They assumed his success was because he threw his life into his work. And he did. Many lives.
You see, Ian was a dreamer – and very good at it, too. Born with a slight malfunction in his memory storage unit that went unnoticed until he was a teenager, Ian was able to replay the day’s events and speculate into the future while remaining conscious in a dreamlike state. He would be completely unaware of his surroundings and all his other senses would remain disabled, but the activity scans showed his mind to be running at near full capacity. Over the years, Ian had perfected his art to climb the ranks of bounty hunters, bringing in criminals by the dozen (with one of them even being a baker). But he played with the consequences, too. In those dreams, Ian ran through the hunt again and again, adding more and more obstacles until his reflexes were tuned to unheard-of levels. And he died, too, in those adventures, but each failure only strengthened his training. Every bounty hunter respected the Dreamer.
Some cases came easy, the perps no wilier than paranoid squirrels returning to dig up their hidden stash. Others hid their tracks well and Ian had to play through painstakingly long dream sequences to perfect his approach. This case, though, was something else. Alistair van Ravenheldt, better known as the Sorcerer, had eluded arrest seven times. The last of those arrest attempts saw Ian busting down the door of the Sorcerer’s hotel room only to be attacked by a flock of pigeons. Once the deluge of feathers had cleared, it seemed the man had simply vanished.
Now the Dreamer had a new lead, one that took him to the cramped quarter of the Night Market in Neuhaven. An AI had noticed a peculiar purchase history and had notified Ian of its source. It seemed the Sorcerer was still running his cryptocurrency fabrication scams, even while on the run. Well, a man had to make a living.
As the Dreamer checked into the musty hotel referred to simply as “G3”, he took stock of his surroundings. It seemed his room unit was disconnected from any windows and the only exit led into the back alley. No distractions, just as he’d requested. He checked the time – 18:42 – removed his equipment, making sure to set his safety AI to alarm him should anybody try to sneak up on him, and collapsed on the stiff mattress.
Immediately, vivid colours flashed in front of his closed eyes, constructing a scene that mirrored his room exactly. He stood in his new dream, critiquing his surroundings with a studious glare. Everything was perfect. He looked back and saw himself lying still on the mattress. The out-of-body experience had been odd enough to force him to simulate his own sleeping self, an anchor to the real world. He’d gotten so good at creating these dreams that seeing himself was the only way to know he was in one.
Satisfied with the quality, the Dreamer put on his equipment and strode out into the streets, replicated perfectly. Ian had taken the liberty of installing some new Monte Carlo processing units for pedestrian events, and the interactions were exceedingly lifelike. He passed by the G2 hotel sign and walked the main streets of the Night Market. The sun was setting and the dome around Neuhaven was beginning to recede, allowing the trapped hot air to escape. As Ian stopped to check the time, though, the dome’s motion halted for a brief second before it snapped back into place. A cold shiver went up Ian’s spine. The disturbance had lasted for a mere instant but he knew that his simulation should be perfect. To be safe, he decided to restart the dream, and…he couldn’t. Sweat beaded at his forehead as he realised he was trapped, at least until his demise. Or was that escape gone as well? Panic began to set in before he forced himself to relax and continue walking. How had the Sorcerer known where he was going to be the past seven times? His ability wasn’t exactly a secret, but it was unique, right?
Ian rounded the corner and looked on the scene before him in horror. What should have been a dilapidated takeaway had been replaced by a stone tower, twisting in various ways and carving out the skyline. It ended in a bright blue conical roof with the words “Alastair Ravenheldt, Sorcerer Extraordinaire” circling about it. And floating in the window was a cloaked man, his face obscured by a mask.
“Welcome, Ian, to my dream.” The Sorcerer called out, and Ian jumped back as a beam of green light streaked from the man’s finger, narrowly missing the Dreamer and blowing up a car. Ian wasted no time in retaliating, loading his rifle and firing back. The shot vanished in a puff of smoke as it left the end of his gun and Ian swore as another flash of light destroyed a street lamp beside him. Above him, the Sorcerer cackled, raining down more bolts of destructive energy as Ian desperately fled.
“There’s no escape, Ian,” Alastair taunted, and Ian realised the man was flying. Well that wasn’t fair. “Watch.” The ground in front of Ian rumbled and shifted, and suddenly he was dashing through a forest. He heard men shout around him as they aimed were those bows? at him and he jumped over a creek as the Sorcerer continued his destruction.
There was no point in lying to himself – Ian was terrified. He’d assumed that his dreams were his safety net, his one reprieve from the madness of the world, and now that was gone, too. But damned if he was going to go down to this cybercriminal. It was clear that the Sorcerer was manipulating his dreams, but he’d said it was his dream. Or was it?
Ian concentrated hard as another bolt set a tree on fire and leapt into the air, streaking towards him. He thought harder than he’d ever thought before, single-minded in his efforts. Alastair’s taunts grew distant for a moment as he braced and let the magic hit him…and went right through. Ian looked shocked for a moment, but wasted no time in steadying his rifle again, taking aim at the figure in the sky. Through the scope, he saw his own terror reflected in the Sorcerer’s face.
“It might be your dream,” the Dreamer said, “but that don’t make it real.”
BANG!
Ian jumped awake – literally. He was covered in sweat, back in his room at the G3. He checked the time – 18:43 – and breathed a sigh of relief as he looked at the empty mattress behind him. After all these years, it seemed he could still have nightmares. At least now he knew the Sorcerer’s secret. He waited for his heartbeat to return to normal, before he closed his eyes and launched the simulation again. The job was still unfinished.