Chapter 59: Researching Developments

The idea of Mom playing memory fairy for Rachel opened up a whole string of questions and problems. Answering those questions proved to be more complicated than I expected. As usual, the first step was discussing the whole thing with my resident genius.

"I hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew here bringing Mom in," I said as we stood waist deep in the lagoon petting Zeus and Hera, the two dolphins that had come to play with us. The rest of the pod was off doing whatever dolphins do when their alphas are away.

"Oh, now why did you have to go and bring up work?" She bent down and kissed Zeus on the end of his snout. "Okay, kids, Mr. Killjoy has gone and spoiled the mood. You guys run off and play and we'll see you again later. Okay?"

Zeus did a tail stand, spun around, and headed out, Hera spit water in my face then took off after her mate. I wiped the saltwater from my face and tossed Allison an evil look. She was going to extremes to appear as innocent as possible; I thought the halo appearing over her head was a little much, but I let it go. After all, she was right; I had kind of blown the mood.

"I'm sorry if I spoiled the night for you. I'm just worried about making a mistake. Once I started thinking about it the questions just sort of snowballed on me."

She sighed, "I know. And I understand what you're saying. There is a lot of new ground to cover for this; a lot of unanswered questions. Can you leave Mom in someone else's dream? If you can't, then can we risk leaving her and Rachel in one of your dreams? If you leave them in your dream will Rachel be able to affect it? Can you prevent her from affecting it? If you can leave Mom in Rachel's dream, can you make a way for her to get back on her own or is she stuck there until you come and get her? Can you make a way for Rachel to leave your dream? Even if you can, should you? After all, you don't really even want her to know that she is not in her own dream. So if we have to use your dream, can you set it up so Rachel can leave on her own whenever she wants? I'm sure I missed something, did you think of any others?"

"That covers a lot of the basic ones. Then there are the dangerous ones."

"Dangerous?"

"Yeah, like what happens if Mom is in Rachel's dream and Rachel wakes up?"

"Wouldn't the dream just fade and Mom go back to her own dreams?"

"That's just it, I don't know. What if Mom doesn't go back to her own dreams? What if she's stuck there? I've never left anyone in a dream that wasn't my own before. I don't know if I even can. What if it's like what happens to Amy when I leave her? You've been with her when I did it; it hurt her, a lot. What if I left Mom in Rachel's dream and she cried out in pain? Rachel wouldn't know what to do, she would be scared, it might wake her up; would Mom be stuck there in pain until Rachel went back to sleep? Could she be stuck in limbo someplace until Rachel actually had the same dream again? There are so many things that could go wrong."

Allison had gone practically white as I had spoken my fears. I watched as she started mulling them over in her head. Once she got over the initial shock of the possibilities and started attacking them one by one, thinking about them from a more analytical view, she calmed visibly. I could almost see things turning in her head.

Finally she said, "We're going to have to do some very careful experimenting with this. I see some real possibilities here; things that would be very helpful but that it would be dangerous to let others know."

"Like what?"

"Like what if you can trap someone in a dream? Trap them so they can't wake up? Would that be like an induced coma? We don't know what you are moving when you take someone into a different dream. Is it their actually consciousness? Sub-conscious? How much is left behind? Jimmy, this has so much potential for someone to do truly evil things. We have to be very, very, careful."

"Yes. I think we need to talk to Bob about safe ways to experiment."

"I'm not sure I even want Bob to know about it."

That surprised me. "You don't think we can trust him?"

"It's not that. It's just that this... it's so big, I'm not sure I would trust anyone with it."

"Well, if not Bob, then who?"

"I don't know. But we can't just go in blind and hope everything works out."

"We couldn't anyway."

Now it was her turn to be surprised. "What do you mean?"

I hugged her close to me and answered, "Because I won't risk you or Shannon, and there is no one else to experiment with."

She hugged me back. It was warm and reassuring but it didn't get us any closer to an answer. In the end we both knew we were going to have to trust Bob to help guide us and try to keep us safe.

Bob didn't see it that way.

"Guide you? Keep you safe? You're just looking for someone else to pin it on if something goes wrong." The shock must have been evident on our faces. He smiled and continued, "Relax, I'm kidding. I know you mean well and you're trying to prevent anything tragic from happening. I wish I could be more positive, but, honestly, I don't have a clue. I don't even know where to start."

We sat looking at each other for a moment before Shannon made her usually brilliant and insightful suggestions, "Then maybe we should start there."

Bob just sort of cocked his head and looked at her for a second, then looked back at Allison and I before he said, "You know? I think you two are contagious. You all give me great hope for the future. That, young lady, is exactly correct." He stood up and went to the closet, pulled out a large easel, white board, and markers, set them up quickly and continued, "You can't really be sure where to start until you know where you want to go. So," he looked back at us, "where do we want to go? What are we trying to do?"

He put a big number one on the board and beside it wrote as he spoke, "Can we, or more specifically, you, leave someone in another person's dream world without causing them pain or harm? There are two possibilities; first, you can. If you can then we move on to the next question, if not, then we need to define the next question; i.e. Why not? What happens? Is your presence required? Or just your attention? If it's just your attention, then the question we need to consider becomes... How much of your attention is necessary to keep them safe."

"What do you mean how much attention?" I asked.

"Well, we know you can leave the girls alone in one of your dreams while you are in a different one, even in someone else's entirely, without them having a problem. To my knowledge, you have never left, say Shannon in Allison's glade. Have you?"

"No, I don't think so. It's easier just to meet in mine and then leave from there if I need to, that way I know they are safe."

"Safe from what?"

"I never really thought about it, just that they were safe."

"Okay, then that's one place to start. Take Shannon to Allison's glade, then go to the beach or come back to my office, or anywhere else, heck just walk out the door and then go back. You said with Amy the pain starts as soon as Jimmy walks out? Then you don't need to spend much time on that aspect. From there we can look at the question of whether or not she can leave on her own. If she can, then what are her options? Can she follow you? Or is she limited to just going back to her own dream? Will she go back to the last dream space she was in before the glade?"

Allison jumped in, "There's a problem spot right there. We shouldn't start out in the glade. What if the she goes back to the last dream she had and it wasn't one where we were with her?"

"I don't think that would be a problem." Bob answered. "If she went back to a prior dream then it would still be her own dream and she should be able to wake up normally. I think it's going to be much more complicated if when leaving she just goes to whatever space Jimmy went to. What if he goes through several spaces? Would she be able to track him through multiple dreams? For the record I think she will just go back to her own dream space, whether a past dream or something new or just normal sleep is all that we'll have to see. Is there anywhere else to go on that line?"

I answered, "I don't think so. Once she exits into her own dream space we can probably move on to the next experiment."

"No," Allison said. "We have to re-run it to see if it is the same every time or if she can change it."

"Very good, Allison, in order to be sure we know what is going on we need to see if we can duplicate our results. Okay, so here's what we have for the first experiment. Jimmy takes you both somewhere, maybe the beach, whatever. From there he takes you both to the glade, Allison's glade, not his. Then he leaves and returns, assuming Shannon did not feel any discomfort then he leaves again and she leaves shortly after. I know dream time is subjective so you need to try and establish a time frame before Jimmy goes back to check on her."

"That's not a problem. We've already proven that I can communicate with Jimmy even after he leaves. Remember the night he came to your office and I called him? I stuck a bug on him just to see if something I created would stay with him, and work of course."

"Good," said Bob. "Then once Shannon leaves you can just tell him she is gone. Even better, give Shannon something that she can use to describe or tell you where she has gone." He stopped for a second. "Try that both ways, have Jimmy give her something the first time, then re-run the experiment and this time have Allison give her something. See if they work the same."

"Why wouldn't they?" Shannon asked.

Allison had the answer already, "Because sticking an invisible bug on Jimmy may work differently than using one on someone else. For one thing, he's Jimmy, and the rules for him are always different. Second, he left the glade to go into one of his own dreams, not Bob's. They started out in Bob's classroom, but Jimmy said that was his idea just to give Bob a familiar reference. Then when they moved to the new office, again, that was something Jimmy created. I think the office is like the glade, there are two, one of Jimmy's and a twin of Bob's. Maybe not even a twin. Bob, I'm guessing you never explored the rest of the building when Jimmy wasn't around."

"Actually, now that you mention it, no, I've never left the office once I was there. So you're saying for me there may not be anything else. Even the view from the window may be imagined. I could be in a little box on the ground floor and still see what I expected out the window."

"Pretty much. The point is we need to see if something I give Shannon will still work, or even still exist once she leaves. Is there anything else we need to cover in this sequence?"

"Yes." I answered.

"What?" asked Shannon.

"Well, let's say you can leave, can Allison prevent you from leaving?"

"Yes," said Bob. "I think we're going to discover that since she is in Allison's dream, Allison can hold her there if she wants to. That points out a serious danger to be aware of. When you first took Shannon to the glade, she couldn't change her clothes. For that matter Allison couldn't change them either, she could not directly affect her. But it was Allison's dream; she had control of the rest of the environment and can likely affect Shannon indirectly. We need to verify how much she can affect her. Could she hurt her indirectly? Say she envisioned Shannon in a burning building? Shannon can't get out and has no control over the environment. By the way, once we do all this and run it a second time we need to do the whole thing over again, only this time Shannon and Allison change places."

"Why?" I asked.

Shannon answered this time, "Because Allison has more experience in dreams and we need to see if that broader experience will give her any better control or allow her to protect herself, or if it will change anything else."

"I don't think it will," Allison said. "Shannon has really been picking this up quick. I may be faster and more willing to push but probably not by much."

"You're probably right, but there is certainly no harm in trying it anyway, it may tell us nothing, but then again... you never know."

"So, what comes after all this?" Shannon asked.

"Then we get to the dangerous stuff," I said solemnly.

"Dangerous?"

"Yes, well potentially dangerous stuff anyway, and depending on the outcome of the first set we may not need to try them. That's what I'm hoping anyway."

"Dangerous how?" she asked. "Or maybe why would be a better question."

"The answer is the same, because there is no safe way that I can think of to find out except to do it."

"Do what? What answer are you looking for?"

I looked away and softly said, "It's not an answer that I'm looking for, it's just one that I need to know."

Bob looked on as Allison took Shannon's hand; we hadn't gotten this far in the discussion with him yet either. "Shannon, what happens if you are in someone else's dream and they wake up?"

"I don't know, wouldn't you just go back to where you were before? Or maybe just into your own dream."

"And if you don't? What happens if you can't get back? Where do you go if you can't leave that dream? Is it like being in a department store and having it close while you're inside? Do you just wander in the dark until they come back? Do you have to wait until they have that same dream again? And if you are stuck there, what happens to your body while you wait?"

"Well, you'd just wake up when your body woke up, wouldn't you?"

By now Bob was looking a little white. "Not necessarily, Shannon. I think I see where they are going here? What if you can't get out of the dream? Can't get back to your body? What happens to your body?"

"Exactly," I said. "Would it be like a medically induced coma? The lights are on but nobody is home."

Allison continued from there, "The thing is we don't know, can't know unless we push the button and see how it unfolds. No safety net, no do-overs, just do it and hope nothing goes wrong."

"Why do you need to know?" she asked.

"Because," I answered, "I'm sending my mother into Rachel's dream, what happens if she wakes up before Mom gets out?"

Shannon turned a little white at the thought. "Oh," was all she said.

"Yes," said Bob. "I'm not sure I can really help with all that. I agree that you should know it's safe before you trust Cindy's life to it, but I have a real problem with the fact that you have to risk someone else to find out. So let's give some serious thought to how we might be able to work around it or make it safer. Meanwhile I guess you may as well get started."

We shook Bob's hand and thanked him for his help and then I took the girls to Allison's glade. We spent some time getting the monitor and communications laid out. It turned out Bob had been right. Either of the girls giving me something worked; giving something to each other didn't. Once again, everything worked differently because it was me. Then it was time to get serious. I made a quick trip to the beach and back during which time Shannon felt no discomfort at all. Then I went back to the beach and waited for Shannon to try leaving on her own. It wasn't long before Allison's voice spoke in my ear.

"Okay, she's gone."

"Shannon? Can you hear me?"

"Yeah, I can hear you. I'm in the mall. Now what?"

"Just pick a door to go through and I'll bring you back."

It only took a moment and we were back in the glade with Allison.

She hugged us both and said, "Okay, so far so good. What do we want to try next?"

I looked at Allison. "This time see if you can keep her from leaving."

"How?"

"Nothing fancy, just basically think that you don't want her to be able to get out."

This time I went to Bob's office, my version so he wasn't there, and waited. On a whim I mentally turned on the television and watched Allison and Shannon embracing in the glade, "All set here, go ahead."

Shannon tried the door and this time it was locked. It didn't matter which way she tried it, or how hard she pulled, it wouldn't open.

"It won't open," she finally said. "Wow, this is a little scary, I mean it would be if I was stuck with anyone else."

I concentrated for a moment and said, "Try it now." She turned the knob and the door opened normally. The set automatically went to split screen and I watched her emerge back in the mall. This was an interesting development. I was actually watching two separate people in two separate dreams at the same time. This was one development I knew I wouldn't be sharing with many others.

"You did that?" Allison asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I wanted to see if I could affect your dream from here. I guess I can." I concentrated for a second and her clothes disappeared.

She started and then struck a pose, one hand on her hip and just staring up with a look of "very funny" on her face. "Cute, so now what?"

"See if you can follow her."

"See if I can follow her, stark naked into a shopping mall. I don't think so."

"Okay, okay. It was just a thought." I put her clothes back on and she walked through the door but did not appear in the mall with Shannon. She was in a mall but not the same one.

"That's what I thought would happen, you're in a mall, but not the one Shannon is dreaming of. I want to try something, go through again." I concentrated as Allison walked through the door to the nearest shop and this time she appeared in the mall with Shannon.

"Cool!" she said. "You moved me into Shannon's dream without actually having to be here. This has possibilities."

"Yeah. Okay, everybody back to the glade."

"Can't we shop for a while?" Shannon asked. "There is this cute little lingerie store I'm just dying to take her to."

I chuckled and said, "Maybe some other time."

They whined a little more but then walked back through the door and appeared back in the glade.

"I want to try something else. Shannon, there is a key in your pocket. Close the door and try it again. I'm going to occupy myself with something else and not think about it this time, see if the key will open the door. Allison, I want you to still concentrate on holding her there, okay?"

"You got it, Mr. Wizard."

I turned off the TV and sat back in my chair, thinking of nothing in particular. A few seconds later the door opened and Shannon walked in with Allison right behind her.

Allison looked around and said, "So, you do have your own office after all. If I didn't know better, I'd swear I was in Bob's. But why did we come here?"

Shannon was all business. "I was thinking of Jimmy when I used the key."

"Really?" asked Allison. "That's interesting. Let's do it again."

She grabbed Shannon's hand and practically dragged her back through the door. I watched as they emerged back in the glade. Allison checked the door and it was locked again. She looked down and changed her clothes, then looked at Shannon but nothing happened. Satisfied that she was in her own dream she turned and whispered in Shannon's ear, then stepped back as Shannon tried the door. It was still locked but when she tried the key it opened right away. Sunlight streamed in through the open doorway. She stepped through and the screen split to show her emerging onto the beach. But which beach? I continued to watch and suddenly she was in her bathing suit. Allison again followed and then she also switched to a bathing suit. No doubt about it, they were at my beach.

"How did you do that?" I asked.

"I told her to concentrate on the beach when she unlocked the door to see if we could go somewhere else using your key. I didn't really expect it to work. At best I thought we would end up back in one of her dreams. Interesting though."

"Yes it is. And it opens up all sorts of new possibilities. Could you go back through and try it again, please."

"Sure, but why?"

"Just something else I want to try, think of some place else this time."

They returned to the glade, closed the door, and went through the steps of confirming where they were. Once they were satisfied that they were again in Allison's glade they tried the door. As they expected, the door was locked but this time when they tried the key it didn't work.

"Hey, what's up with that?" Shannon asked. "Why isn't it working?"

"My fault, I'll explain later. Try it again."

This time the door opened but when they stepped through they found themselves once more in my office.