Chapter 11: Out on a limb

Jimmy

Once again, Amber had to catch Christine as she almost fell off the bed. The difference was that this time she was awake, or at least conscious, sort of — it was still a dream after all. She was also white as a sheet.

"David?" She looked from me to Amber and back again. "But you said ... Oh my god! You're her master? You're Jimmy?"

"Yes."

"And you're sixteen?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Oh ... my ... God! This isn't happening. I'm dreaming! That's it; I must be dreaming."

"Actually, yes," I said, "but that doesn't really change anything. We are in a dream, but it's not your dream; it's mine."

"What?" she said. "That makes no sense."

"I know," I said, trying to sound as understanding as possible. "It's complicated; sometimes it's very complicated, but that doesn't make it any less real. Here, I'll prove it to you; think of a place you'd like to be right now — anywhere in the world — just close your eyes and picture it."

Suddenly we were on top of the Empire State Building, staring out over the New York Skyline. Her eyes flew open as the warmth of the hotel room was replaced by a cold wind.

"So this is what it looks like," I said. "A little cold and drafty, don't you think?"

She turned around slowly, taking in the scene around us. Her eyes were wide by the time she finally realized that we were in the exact same positions — Amber kneeling before her, holding her arm to keep her from falling over, me standing behind her and to one side. The only difference was that the bed was gone, so there was nothing for her to sit on, and she looked like she really needed to sit down.

With a thought I moved us to the beach, under the awning next to the little changing tent, and suddenly Christine found herself in a bathing suit, seated in one of the canvas chairs — only now, I was seated next to her and Amber now kneeling in front of me instead of her.

"I'm more of a sun and sand kind of guy. What do you think? Stay here, or go back to the tower?"

She was starting to breathe fast, so I placed my hand on her arm to reassure her.

"I know it's a lot to take in all at once, Christine. I wasn't planning on telling you about all this, but Amber is afraid that if we don't explain things, you'll leave, and that bothers her."

That kind of snapped her out of it as she said, "Huh? Why would me leaving bother her? We just met two days ago."

"That's just it," I said. "We don't know why, but one thing we've learned is that there is usually a reason people get mixed up with me, so we'd rather not take the chance that we might regret it if you leave. I would be sad to see you go anyway, but it would be for different reasons.

"So, to answer some of the questions that I'm sure are running laps in your head; yes, the man you know as David Malcolm is in fact the boy Amber knows as Jimmy. My real name is James Edward Matthews, and — just like Amber — I had to change names because someone was after me. In my case, however, it was to protect the people around me, my family in particular, but others as well. Unlike Amber, it didn't work as well for me, but that is because the person that was after me already knew where my family was."

"And you actually rescued Amber, or Angela rather, when she was kidnapped?"

"Yes. You see, Christine, I have this gift. I can move in and out of dreams like most people move in and out of rooms. I can create them, control them, and even move other people in and out of them — like I'm doing with you right now. Most people have at least some control in their own dreams, some more than others, and practice does make a big difference. But that's only in your own dreams; if you were to suddenly find yourself in Amber's dream, for instance, you would have no control and be totally at her mercy. Fortunately, that can't happen, not by accident anyway.

"Right now, we're all in my dream, and in my dreams, or any dream I'm involved in, the rules are different. That's why you were able to change the scene to the Empire State Building; we didn't actually go there, after all; the dream simply changed to reflect the vision you wanted, and when I wanted it to change to this place, it did. The difference is that where I could change your image to this one, you couldn't change it back unless I let you. The really critical difference is that even if we were in your dream, you still couldn't over-rule me. Are you following me so far, or do I need to slow down a little?"

"No, I've got it. I'm not sure I believe it, and I certainly don't understand it, but you haven't lost me yet."

"Good," I said. "I've apparently been able to do this all my life, but I didn't realize it until just over a year ago. Once I discovered the truth and started experimenting, my ability seemed to grow at an unbelievable rate, until now it's simply staggering to think about what I can do. A little under a year ago, I discovered that my gift came with a price tag. You've heard it said that with great power comes great responsibility? Take my word for it; you don't ever want to discover just how true that is. Through a series of dreams, I discovered the link between several unsolved kidnappings, all of them teenage girls, and all of them dead. I won't go into all the details of how difficult it is to work like this, but eventually I got the FBI involved in solving the case. We spent months working on a profile for the killer, putting together a target list, and narrowing it down to the top five or ten targets — only to have him take someone farther down the list."

"Angela," she said glancing at Amber.

"Yes," I said shaking my head. "You can imagine how upset I was. So, while the FBI was searching southern California for her, I was searching for her here — hoping that if I could link up with her in a dream, that I might somehow be able to track her back to where she was being held. It took a long time, but eventually I did find her, and in the proverbial nick of time at that. The night I found her just happened to be the night that her kidnapper planned to kill her. You see, he knew the FBI was finally onto him, and he was worried that they might be getting close, which they were. We got there in time to interrupt him, but he had a backup plan — destroying the house and everyone in it, thus eliminating the pursuit and also destroying all the evidence he had to leave behind when he fled. Fortunately, while he knew the FBI was after him, there was no way he could know about me or my abilities, and I learned about the bomb in time to get Angela and Rebecca out."

"Rebecca?"

"Special Agent Rebecca Hampton, FBI. She's the agent I was working with. Then Angela became Amber and went into hiding, cut off from everyone and everything in her past."

"So this is how you were able to keep in touch with her while she was in hiding," she said. "That explains her saying that she was able to keep in touch with Jimmy. It didn't make sense that they would cut her off from everyone she knew except a sixteen year old boy, no matter how much he may have helped them."

"Yes, this is how I managed to stay in touch with her. For her own safety, they cut her off from everyone else, but they couldn't cut her off from me, not here. With the exception of Rebecca and her boss, the FBI doesn't even know I exist. No one else was supposed to know. That's why I had to quit being Jimmy Matthews and become David Malcolm, because someone found out and tried to get their hands on me. My family went into hiding the night they kidnapped an old friend of Angela's that I was dating. They were using her as bait to get me to come to them. She's in hiding with her family as well."

"So the FBI got her back," She said.

"No, I got her back."

That got me the wide-eyed stare I had expected.

"Rebecca's boss is the director of the Los Angeles Bureau, and now he's hiding both of our families. The problem is that I don't exist, so it's hard for him to justify doing it. Officially, a drug dealer was after me because I got some of his people busted at my old school. I don't know that they would go after Britney again, but I can't take the chance, so — until we're sure it's safe — she'll stay in hiding. The man you know as David Malcolm has existed for about three weeks. When we first met, I was on my way to Vegas to work on another little problem I ran across. I started the business as cover to allow me to work in the area without attracting undue attention. My sister says I have a "White Knight" complex, and I just can't pass up a chance to rescue damsels in distress."

"Like poor little me?"

"Well, I wouldn't call you a damsel in distress, but it really pissed me off what happened to you just because..."

She cut me off. "So why did you start hitting on me in the first place?" she asked. "I mean, apparently you're already engaged, not to mention Amber ... I guess that explains why you said you weren't interested in me for sex that first day, but why even start if you weren't interested? Not to mention being in hiding."

"Christine," I said with a smile. "We've been over this; I never said I wasn't interested. I would have to be dead to not be interested in a woman as beautiful as you. And if you recall, I wasn't hitting on you, I just wanted to know how to use the phone. Christine, given what you know so far, would you say my life was complicated?"

"David, or Jimmy, what do I call you anyway? Either way, it sounds like complicated doesn't begin to describe your life."

"David will be fine since that's who I am going to be from now on anyway, and as for complicated, all this is just the tip of the iceberg. You were one of the more pleasant complications, and I'm really glad I got to meet you. Apparently, though, there is more to it than we knew. That seems to be the case with just about everyone I get involved with. You know about Amber and why she needed me?"

She huffed and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, that's about the most bizarre story I ever heard. So, all those mixed signals I was getting that first day..."

"Were me trying to learn to be twenty-two," I said, nodding my head.

"You were doing fine," she assured me. "Amber's story proves that you're mature way beyond your age..."

"I've had to be," I interjected. "The kinds of things I've had to deal with this last year? Trust me; growing up was not optional. Diane was the first girl the killer took; I can't describe how horrible it was watching what happened to her — I was only fifteen years old; it almost destroyed me — but I swore I would catch that son of a bitch or die trying. I almost did both."

"What do you mean?"

"I caught him, and he almost killed me. Fortunately for me, almost wasn't quite good enough. Unfortunately, while we were working on catching him, another very bad person — an old acquaintance of his in fact — found out the truth about me, and now ... well, we already covered that."

"Every time you talk about that, there's a change in your voice, and in your eyes; there's more to it isn't there?"

"A couple of nights ago she sent four mercenaries to kidnap my parents and my little sister from the safe house the FBI had them hidden in. They murdered four agents for no reason. She left my parents with the mercenaries and sent my sister somewhere else. I got them back."

Her face went pale. "You got them back, not the FBI, just you." She shook her head. "You, by yourself, took out four mercenaries, plus however many were guarding your sister. Jiminy Christmas! So Amber wasn't making that up; it really was you who did that last night?"

"Yes. We recently discovered that the bond between Amber and me is much more intimate than we ever suspected. In dreams, anyone I am intimately attached to — Lizzy, Amber, my sister, a few others — can summon me. From here, I can find anyone I know or have met. All I have to do is focus on them, and I can see them in my mind — where they are, what they are doing — and I can pull them into whatever dreamspace I am currently occupying or send them into a totally different dream."

"That's amazing; you're like a modern incarnation of Morpheus."

"Who?" I asked.

"Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams; he was the son of Hypnos, who was the god of Sleep. Except none of the legends ever talked about Morpheus doing some of the stuff you do, he just sent dreams to people; sometimes the gods would order him to send visions to mortals."

"Well, I'm no god," I said. "I'm just an average guy, with a not so average gift, trying to make a difference in the world, but I can send dreams to people — or visit them in dreams — so I guess it's a fair comparison."

"David, from what I've seen so far, there is nothing average about you, and I'm not even talking about this gift of yours — or gifts considering the list of things you can apparently do — but why tell me all this? You seem to be really worried that people will learn about what you can do, and I totally understand that. People would freak if they knew someone could do half the shit you can. I'm freaking out already, and you've made it pretty clear that there is a lot more going on, so why tell me?"

"Well, like I said, so far there seems to be a reason for meeting pretty much everyone I get involved with. After watching Amber take out that trucker last night, we were afraid of scaring you off, and we're hoping that by telling you what is going on, you'll decide to stay."

"But what if I don't? Aren't you worried that I might... ? Oh my god, you wouldn't... ?" She stopped herself and rolled her eyes. "What am I saying, of course you wouldn't."

I let out the breath I was suddenly holding.

"I am so glad you said that," I said. "No, of course I would never hurt you just for knowing the truth. Fortunately, I don't have to. This is a dream after all, and if you decide you don't want to stay, then it will just be a dream that you don't remember having, and you will be free to go. But at the same time, even if you decide to stay, a lot of this will be hidden from you. There would be too much danger in letting you walk around with the knowledge; and by that I mean danger to you if someone found out you knew the truth. So, if you decide to stay, you will only remember everything when you are here, in a dream. When you are awake — out in the real world — you won't know any of this. I'll just be David Malcolm; you already know I'm engaged to Lizzy, and you will eventually learn the truth of my relationship with Amber. But beyond that, I'm just the really nice guy who scored you a free trip to flight school and is giving you a job to help you pay for it."

"So, what about Lizzy; she must know the truth, where does she fit into all of this?"

"Funny you should put it that way," I said. "You could say that truth is Lizzy's specialty. She has her own gift, very different from mine. It was Lizzy who discovered the truth about Amber and helped me to be there for her when she needed me most. From the moment we met ... Well, it's hard to describe."

"No, it's not," Amber said. "Christine, they fell in love so fast it was incredible. The weirdest thing was that everyone knew it but them. Ask Allison about it sometime."

"Who's Allison?"

"My sister," I said.

"Oh," she said. "You really have a sister? After the first one you introduced me to, I wasn't sure." She punched me in the arm lightly for effect.

"Hey now, that's not fair," I said, rubbing my arm in mock pain. "I never told you Lizzy was my sister, she made that up on her own so you wouldn't feel bad for taking advantage of me."

"Oh god, don't remind me. I can't believe I had sex with a sixteen year old."

"And how was it?" Amber asked with an evil grin.

Christine blushed and appeared to be searching for an answer.

"Yeah, thought so," Amber said, flicking an eyebrow at her. "And now are you going to pass up a rematch just because you know the truth?"

"Christine," I said. "Age is a date on a piece of paper. Jimmy Matthews is dead, or as good as. David Malcolm is twenty-two years old and legal in any state. If it makes you feel any better, I checked, and the legal age of consent in Nevada is sixteen."

"Well, thank god for that anyway."

"All kidding aside, Christine, I need to know if this is an issue for you because you're going to forget most of this when we leave. If it is a problem for you, then I'll make sure it doesn't happen again. I know Lizzy told you about our engagement, so you'll have plenty of reason not to, and I'll make sure you stick to your resolve."

"David, I don't ... I mean, it's just hard to wrap my head around, and a name doesn't change who you are. The truth is you're sixteen, and I've slept with men almost twice your age that didn't make feel half as ... special as you did. Can you really pick and choose what parts of this I remember?"

"Yes," I assured her.

"Then I'd really rather not have to deal with the age thing. You're David Malcolm, twenty-two, and a really great guy. I don't have a problem with you as Amber's master; compared to everything else I've learned, that's like, nothing. I'm going to struggle with the whole engagement thing, but ... it's not like you're cheating or anything; and since Lizzy apparently has Amber to take care of her, I guess it's only fair you have someone too."

She started shaking her head like she couldn't believe what she had just said. "Even though that sounds absolutely awful. But Lizzy is so right about my not wanting to be bothered with dating. So, if she's okay with it, then I'm certainly not going to complain. Just do me one favor and promise me that you won't let being with me jeopardize your future with her."

I had to smile at that. "I'll make it a point to keep an eye on that, and I promise; if it ever becomes a problem, I will tell you, and we can drop back to just being co-workers and friends, okay?"

"Okay, so how does the rest of this work?"

"Which part?" I asked.

"Well, the memory thing for one, and then I was wondering what else you guys do here. There has to be more to it than..."

She cut off in mid sentence and a scream came from the middle of the lagoon as she found herself rocketing down a waterslide. Amber and I were waiting at the bottom when she came splashing down.

"Asshole!" she said, glaring and splashing water at me. I sent us back to the top and rode down with my arms around her waist. I felt Jamie show up about half way down.

"Hi," Jamie said. "Lizzy said you guys were done, and it was safe to come back. How did it go?"

"Okay, I guess. She took most of it pretty well. We won't know for sure until they wake up in the morning."

"Or we could test it now," she suggested. "She shouldn't even notice a difference."

"Except that she'd be in a dream with all three of us, wondering how she got here. Somehow I don't think water slides are something she normally dreams about. If we're going to test it, I think maybe a more plausible, reality-based scene would be better; like maybe waking up in the hotel with them."

"Okay, I guess that makes sense," she said. "We can always come back afterward."

"Why didn't Allison come with you?"

"Same reason, she didn't want Christine to wonder who she was in the dream; she figured it was a variable that her mind couldn't account for, and it might cause problems with her accepting the explanation that she is going to wake up with. You know, the one that explains the way she feels. Personally, I don't think it would be a problem, but no way am I questioning little sister. There's a reason she's the brains of the outfit."

Lizzy was waiting at the bottom chatting with Amber. They both turned away to avoid the spray as we splashed down between them, and then she came in close to say hello.

"Hi, I see you still think it's fun to scare the girls. Hello, Christine, how are you handling all this? Are you doing okay? You still look a little anxious."

"I'm doing okay," she said. "I'm a little worried about not remembering, but otherwise ... You weren't kidding when you said your lives were complicated."

"I wish," Lizzy said, "and it's actually a lot worse than this. He didn't have time to do much more than hit the high spots; wait until he gets to the rest. For now, though, it's good to see you looking confused instead of afraid."