THE DREAMBRINGER
by Andrew Trapp
Lynn was instantly awake, and squinted at his glowing LED
clock. 2:33 a.m.
Having trained himself to awaken at about this time, he
stealthily stepped out of bed. Slowly and ever so quietly he made
his way downstairs and then into the basement. His way was illuminated
only by a distant street light shining through a slit in the family room
curtains. The only sounds were of the refrigerator humming and the
old grandfather clock tick-tocking away. The basement door closed
silently shut. Lynn turned on a single light and waited for his eyes
to adjust. He then proceeded to the corner where the heater and furnace
were. Behind them were four musty old cardboard boxes, stacked in
a column. Cautiously he removed the top two and set them down elsewhere.
Almost ceremoniously, Lynn lifted the third box and gently
laid it on a nearby foldup table. As had been done so many times
before, he took out the box's contents: a mechanical pencil, several books,
and a small stack of papers. Some of the wrinkled papers had hastily
scribbled notes on them. Others had barely comprehensible illustrations.
Still others had what would appear to be some very strange blueprint sketches.
The books were as varied as they were technical. One was titled Schematic
Reading and Drawing; there were a couple on neurological pharmaceutical
applications, three on the structure of the brain, one on human anatomy,
three on advanced electronics and computer structure, and four on the structure
of dreams. Lynn opened one of the books to a predetermined page and
began to read, occasionally jotting something down. The research
phase was almost complete; maybe in a few weeks he could start construction.
* * *
That was three long years ago, Lynn thought. A college
junior at M.I.T., Lynn was majoring in both neuroscience and abnormal psychology.
It had been a couple of weeks since he had last worked on his "project."
Two things were stopping him: lack of funds, and Lisa.
For a while now he had been having trouble coming up with
the necessary funds for his still-secret activity. At this stage
of construction came the most expensive parts needed. He had almost
saved up enough money to cover the replacement fee for a certain piece
of lab equipment which was about to mysteriously disappear one night.
Lynn considered getting his hands onto a credit card, which he could then
copy. No, best to keep this as legal as possible. Take as few
risks as were needed.
Then there was Lisa.
Until a couple of months ago his social life had been
the equivalent of an arctic tundra. But there was something in this
red-haired cynical woman he liked, and apparently something in him that
she liked. The two of them were going what one might call steady.
They had had intimate conversations, shared secrets...all except one.
Lynn could not bring himself to tell even Lisa about this most sacred project
of his. Besides, there would come a time when he would have to leave
her. Best not to get too attached. He could have her where
he was going, but she couldn't have him.
* * *
Finished.
Two weeks before graduation, it was finally finished.
Of course, Lynn would have to check for any mistakes he might have made
in its construction, but he doubted that there were any. Glancing
at his watch, Lynn let out a silent groan. It was 7:34, and he was
supposed to have met Lisa at the dorm restaurant at 7:00. He shivered;
basements of chemistry labs can get pretty cold.
"Hi."
That voice came darn close to giving him a heart attack.
A slim figure stood in the illuminated doorway. "Lisa! Thank
God it's you! Don't ever startle me like that again!"
Lisa descended the stairs, giggling. "Gotcha!"
Lynn eased himself in fron of his invention.
"Uh...."
"So, Mr. Frankenstein, I see now the cause of your delay."
It was hard not to see the large contraption behind Lynn's own narrow figure.
"Er, just something for my Masters thesis."
A sly yet serious expression came over Lisa's face.
"I knew you were up to something. You're always sneaking off to this
place. Until now, I thought you were seeing another woman.
And besides, what is this thing, a prop for a hospital horror movie?"
Lisa grabbed Lynn's wrist and tugged him towards the stairs. "C'mon,
you can tell me about it on our date."
Lynn looked troubled; he stopped. Indecision had
a tighter grip on him than Lisa did.
"Are you sure you want me to tell you all about it?"
"Forget supper. Let's go to the park. We can
talk there." And in another five minutes they were seated together
at a park bench, with an oak tree behind them and a lamp to the right.
"Let me start from the beginning."
* * *
"Gees, you're really serious about this thing, aren't you?"
"`Serious' is an understatement."
"But what is it? What does it do?"
Lynn exhaled a long, deep sigh. "I call it the Dreambringer."
A small fire lit in Lynn's eyes. "Whoever uses this device has practically
an entire universe at their disposal. Their every wish would be granted.
Imagine having whatever you could possibly want; you could be anywhere
you wanted to be, anywhere in the cosmos, instantly. Any time period.
You could live for a hundred thousand years and never age. You could
live the adventures of a million lifetimes, fulfill every fantasy....
And the beauty of it is, the beauty of it, is that whatever happens, nobody
is affected in any way, except the user!"
Lisa was awestruck. Then she burst out laughing.
"That's good! That's really good! Now really--"
Lynn's expression did not waver. "You're not kidding,
are you?"
"No." Lynn stood up; he wore a distant look now.
"We'd better start back. It's getting late."
"All right then, how does it work?" This was one
subject Lisa didn't care to change.
"How much do you know about dreams?"
"Well, for a few minutes early each morning most everyone
enters into a dream state."
"These dreams only last for a few minutes; but how long
do they seem to last?"
"Minutes, hours, sometimes days."
"What if, for the rest of your life, you were asleep,
and you were aware that you were dreaming, and could control whatever happens
in that dream?"
Lisa had to look away. "It all makes sense now...everything
you said earlier."
Lynn continued. "The Dreambringer will keep you
in a perpetual state of dreaming as long as you're asleep, and you'll be
asleep as long as you're connected to the device. Liquid nutrients
and occasional muscle stimuli keep the body healthy, and because of its
low power use and a vast supply of nutrient I've been stockpiling, it could
run for years, even decades."
Lynn noticed that Lisa was looking at him funnily.
He blushed. "I-I'm sorry. Don't mind my rambling on like that.
I'm just the Mad Scientist with his crazy, insane ideas about what to do
with his life--"
Lisa stopped him in his tracks. She gazed into his
eyes with a new understanding, a whole new view of him. "Uh, do you
suppose we could try it out?"
"We? Well, if I hooked up a second electrode and
support system in serial with the first, I don't see why it shouldn't work.
Our dreams would be as one."
"How long would we dream?"
"A long time--until someone woke us up. There's
a janitor that comes down there once a week to make sure everything's in
order. Not even he knows about the project, though."
"Although graduation's not far away, I think I could miss
about a week."
"Lisa, for you, I could miss an eternity." That
meant more to her than anything else on Earth.
* * *
A half hour later the two of them were in the chemistry building's
basement, and the modifications to the Dreambringer had been made.
"Here, place this headband around your forehead," Lynn
instructed. "This may hurt for a second." Lisa flinched as
Lynn inserted a small needle into one of her veins. "This tube is
for the nutrients. Very good. Now lie down." Lisa laid
herself down on the white blanketed bed.
Lynn hooked himself up and laid down beside her.
"All we have to do is fall asleep."
As Lynn grew weary, he thought to ask, "You hung the key
around the doorknob? So the janitor'll find it? That is
the only key to this basement door."
Lisa took Lynn's hand into hers. "Sure did," she
replied. She gave one last look at a wastebasket not ten feet away,
at the bottom of which a certain key lay.
"Lynn, will we live the adventures of a million lives?"
There was no answer; Lynn was already asleep. Lisa
smiled to herself, then she, too, began to dream....
* * *
Days later, a weary gray-haired janitor was having trouble
locating a certain key. Oh well, he thought, no one ever goes down
into that old basement anyway, and gave it no more thought.
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