Chapter 6 by Green

Chapter 6

By Green

“Dreamers like us weren’t always organized into factions like we are now.”

I leaned back in my seat as Frazer began his story. One look at Bluu told me he knew what Frazer was talking about to some extent but was nevertheless intrigued.

“We were scattered across the globe, keeping a low profile because the people who acted out generally disappeared within a day or two. My dad, Freddy, didn’t start Nozpin until we found out Freya was a Dreamer. Dad saw straight away that Dreamers with powers like hers needed extra oversight. If led in the wrong direction, they could very well get unwanted attention from the international community and be terminated.”

Frazer winced. “I suppose his vision didn’t exactly go as planned. Dad created Nozpin as a haven for Dreamers across the nation. By the time I was a teenager, he had expanded it to encompass the whole world. Eventually, Dad made himself known—discreetly, of course—to select government agencies. Nozpin was classified as a special case and allowed to operate so long as they maintained the peace. We keep an eye out for rogue or emerging Dreamers such as yourself to make sure no one falls out of line. As you know, that peace didn’t last.

“Freya was tired of being forced to limit her power and follow regulation. She didn’t understand why she had to bow down to people inferior to her—she wasn’t willing to make the sacrifices. Dad and Freya had arguments a lot, and one day, she finally let loose and had some ‘fun’ as she called it. She messed with the silhouettes—you know, those manifestations of people’s souls when asleep—enough to cause nightmares and sleep deprivation to a whole neighborhood. A lot of Dreamers were injured trying to stop her and bring her back to the real world. Dad ‘grounded’ her, so to speak. But she simply left.”

“Left?” I echoed. “Skedaddled? You just let her walk out after everything she did?”

“How were we supposed to know she’d start her own organization?” Frazer countered. “Besides, Dad couldn’t bring himself to place any consequences or bounties on her. By the time Sunside grew to become a threat, it was too late for us to reconcile. Dad was busy juggling the operations of all the Nozpin branches. He couldn’t properly focus on Sunside. So he put me in charge of checking my sister and I got wrecked the first couple of weeks on the job.”

“You got wrecked?” Bluu repeated in disbelief. This seemed to be a part of the story that he’d never heard before. The tone of his voice implied Frazer must’ve been some kind of god to his people.

“Yes, my friend. Freya wrecked me,” Frazer chuckled. “Several times. We may both shoot black tendrils from our arms—the formal name on paper is Black Ribbon—but she discovered the Dreamworld first. Over and over, I’d chase her on whatever new dangerous plot she was running and she’d leave me feeling bruised before escaping. It was hopeless. By the way, I’m the older brother, so it looked really bad in the sibling relationship books. I was a complete failure—don’t try to deny it, Bluu. Though I’ll admit it all changed in that one mission where I met Kristen Wang.”

“Wang as in Wang Group?” I asked. “

The same,” said Frazer. “Have you met her yet?”

I shook my head. I was surprised when Bluu did the same. This Kristen lady was probably higher up on the ranks to not show her face often.

“Ah, then I’ll leave her Dream ability as a surprise,” Frazer said. “She’s the most level-headed girl I’ve ever met. Calm, collected, a complete contrast from Freya. She likes playing solo and thought I was extra baggage when I offered to partner with her—I bet she still thinks I am. She agreed to team with me in the end because she also had a bone to pick with Freya and had been after her for weeks. The first night, we managed to stop a couple of Freya’s Sunside henchmen from raiding a sleeping neighborhood. They wanted to ‘conquer’ it, like some kind of gang turf. And Kristen really...she really blew them away. Strongest Dreamer I ever heard of.”

“Sounds like badass girlfriend material,” Bluu said, nodding along.

Frazer smiled. “How did you know?”

Are Frazer and Kristen… I didn’t finish the thought before answering my own question. It would make sense and the rest of Frazer’s story supported that conclusion.

“We stuck together after that,” Frazer continued. “Well, more like I tagged along and she said I was annoying. But she never told me to go away so I stayed with her. As things got heated between us and Sunside, Kristen surprisingly decided we wouldn’t be able to handle things on our own. She did most of the hunting and gathering for like-minded Dreamers, loners, or even Sunside defects like Eric. And voila, here we are. Welcome to Wang Group.”

We waited for him to keep talking. After a pause, it was evident Frazer had finished his tale.

“But what about what happened a month ago?” Bluu said. “Wang Group got in a skirmish with Sunside one night and the reports said you were MIA. You didn’t return for a whole week and our trackers didn’t find anything. We labeled you KIA, did you know that? Our leader, KIA! But you’re actually alive!”

“Right, that part,” said Frazer, gripping the steering wheel a little too tightly. “Before I get into that, how is Kristen? Is she alright? Does she also think I’m dead?”

“I’m not important enough to meet the big boss,” Bluu joked. “I’m sweating my hands off just talking to you right now. But it’s safe to say pretty much everyone thinks you’re dead.”

Frazer sighed. For an awkward moment, Bluu and I stared at Frazer’s lost-in-thought expression. Underneath his rugged looks, I began to see shimmering seriousness in his eyes and the confident way he held his shoulders that suggested the demeanor of a leader. He hadn’t been vacationing at some luxury home considering he looked like he spent a month on the streets, which I suspected he might have. But why? Why not return to the organization that needed him while his sister was still at large?

“Oh!” Frazer snapped out of his daze. “I almost forgot I had some explaining to do. I remember that fight with Sunside. It was a difficult one. They retreated and we gave chase. One of the Sunside Dreamers had an explosive power. It was a trap. I remember getting caught and being held down while my team passed by our hiding spot.”

“You were captured?” Bluu said.

“Not for long,” said Frazer. “I got knocked half-unconscious but a group of Nozpin Dreamers ambushed Sunside before they could take me to God knows where. Nozpin brought me to one of their safe houses and that’s where I woke up. My dad was there too.”

“So you ended up meeting the Mr. Maerd?” The way Bluu said “Mr. Maerd” sounded like this man was well respected, even by other factions. Bluu looked Frazer up and down. “Is he a...hospitable guy?”

“Oh, he’s the best dad I could ask for,” Frazer said. “I chose to look like this and I’ll explain that later. I was just as surprised as you are about meeting my dad, though. We hadn’t seen each other for almost three years. He asked how the war against Sunside was going, and I told him our progress—which wasn’t much. We still hadn’t caught Freya. Sunside feels like it’s getting bigger. And now I learned from you two that a good portion of the Wang Group branch in this city is being held hostage. With those developments, it’s more crucial now that we get Nozpin on our side.”

“What do you mean by ‘on our side’?” I asked. “Because that implies that they could be ‘not on our side’.”

“I’ll get to that. Let’s go in order. I finished my report to my father and he agreed that our current methods weren’t working. So he told me to send some Dreamers to go undercover and infiltrate Sunside. He’d heard that the Wang Group accepts Sunside defects, so he wanted me to start assigning Dreamers from there. I disagreed. I’ve always treated the well-being of my organization and all Dreamers as my responsibility. I wasn’t going to let my colleagues risk their lives to go back to the very organization that they escaped from.”

“You decided to go undercover yourself,” finished Bluu. “And this your disguise.”

“Yes. Sunside frequently operates in dark streets and alleys. For the month that you thought I was dead, I was just laying low. Seems like it worked. If everyone at Wang Group labeled me KIA, then Sunside might not suspect much either. Nozpin Dreamers saved me from the ambush so Sunside must think I’m either in custody or out of the city. In reality, I’m right under their noses.”

Frazer finally looked at me through the rearview mirror. “Now for your question. Yes, there are Sunside-sympathizers in Nozpin but not enough to throw any major wrenches in our plans. We can still safely go to Nozpin to ask for the antidote. Once we get Eric cured, he can help me finish infiltrating Sunside since he knows them best. I could use a little help. Living on the streets has not been the best experience.”

I was still skeptical. In my mind, Nozpin was beginning to equate the Dreamer government. Government, I was inclined to believe, was typically corrupt. It didn’t make me feel any better that Frazer’s father ran the show. For the record, I’d only been a member of the Wang Group for a grand total of a couple wee hours, and Bluu had tried to hand me to Sunside in that time. I wasn’t about to trust anyone in the Dreamworld.

My suspicion grew when it became evident Frazer was driving us out of San Francisco. The city had been my life and my business for several years; though I’d traveled outside of SF before, this time was different. This time I was being hunted by a group of Dream terrorists and traveling towards a destination I’d never been to. My only comfort was that Frazer drove on the highway, which decreased the chances of us being ambushed. Unless Sunside didn’t care.

The bay came into view. Water sparkled on the horizon, flanked by lumps of hills covered with the rectangular edges of distant buildings. I noticed the little city lights at the same time I noticed the sky darkening with dusk. W

hat a day. Or was it several days? I couldn’t distinguish between the waking or Dreamworld anymore, given the number of times I’d fallen asleep and woken up.

The highway dove into a slightly hilly portion, where I had a brief session of rapid heartbeats because hills were always the scenes for ambushes. But I was awake and nothing done in the Dreamworld could touch me. It almost made me never want to sleep again. As we emerged on the other side of the hill, a familiar sight graced my eyes.

The Oakland Bay Bridge. It wasn’t as beautiful as the Golden Gate Bridge at dawn. But dusk turned the lights on the suspension cables gold and darkened the silver steel architecture. The water took on a purplish hue as our car began to make its way among the traffic across the bay. The view calmed me somewhat. It almost distracted me from the fact that we were approaching Oakland on the other side. That was apparently our mysterious destination.

Once we were off the bridge, Frazer went straight for downtown. He stuck to the streets with the most cars—then again, all the streets seemed to have a lot of cars—and where Frazer was going looked to be a busy center. The towers weren’t as tall as San Francisco’s, but one particularly brightly lit office building stood out among the rest against the dark backdrop.

“For an organization that’s supposed to be laying low,” I said as we drove towards that building, “you sure have conspicuous hideouts.” F

razer just chuckled. Our car made it all the way to the foot of the office building, where classic people in suits streamed out after a long day of work. I found it amusing that Nozpin required their Dreamers to wear formal clothing. What good would that do in a Dreamworld fight? There was a packed three-story garage next to the office building.

We drove right past it. Does Frazer want to park out in the open? I wondered. He steered the car around the garage. We were now behind the office building, and in front of me was a smaller, less bright building that had been almost entirely blocked from view by its larger neighbor. At the back of the garage was another entrance that sloped downwards. It was from here that Frazer drove us into the underground level of the garage.

That wasn’t sneaky and cool at the same time at all. Even at the underground level, where many parking spaces were left open, Frazer didn’t stop the car until we reached the far wall to our left. There, a man and woman stood in front of a door. Frazer finally parked in an open space nearby. He motioned for us to get out of the vehicle.

“Hey, how are you doing?” Frazer greeted the pair as he strolled forward.

“Great,” the woman said, casually shifting so her body blocked the door. “The weather could be better though.”

I frowned. Did Frazer just walk up to strangers and strike conversations on a whim?

“I’m a weather enthusiast,” said Frazer. “Want to hear what my secret favorite weather is?”

He beckoned for Bluu and I to come closer. Then Frazer whispered to the four of us, “11% cloudy, 25% chance of rain, and 42% humidity.”

I was perplexed at the numbers. But the pair standing by the door nodded, and the man even said, “I like it just a little bit cloudier.”

This time, when Frazer approached the door, no one blocked him. He opened it, revealing a hallway that I realized led into the building that had been hidden by the bigger, brighter one. Bluu and I followed Frazer through, but the other two stayed outside by the door. Guards, I realized. They’re guarding the door. They’re from Nozpin.

And those percentages that Frazer recited must’ve been a password. I had started trailing behind while preoccupied in my thoughts and quickened my pace to catch up with Frazer and Bluu. Walking through this hallway reminded me of when I first travelled the Wang Group halls with Bluu, seeking protection from Freya. Now we were headed into the headquarters of yet another Dream group, looking for a cure to heal Eric and then infiltrate Sunside.

I straightened myself. We had to succeed. After this, we were going for Freya.