Chapter 225: The Bridge of Dreams

Chapter 225: The Bridge of Dreams

Perry’s toes tapped against the concrete floor of his workshop, humming along with the hits of the last decade, playing the mixtape he’d made for Ex’bergazzat.

He was stitching together a high-concept battery that stored dreams. For some reason, the more he worked on it, the more it was taking the shape of a pillow.

Every stitch had to be perfect, because he was working with the idea of a pillow. The very concept, and such things had to match the idealized concept as closely as possible.

Hopefully this will do what I need it to do, Perry thought, stuffing the wriggling fingers back into the pillowcase where they were trying to slip through the unstitched portions.

He glanced over at the clock.

Is that three AM, or eight? Perry wondered to himself, squinting at the blurry numbers as the pillow in front of him began to crawl away while his gaze was turned.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Perry muttered, grabbing the wriggling thing, which fought him with the ferocity of a greased pig.

It took on the hairy exterior and the harsh squeals of a pig as it struggled to get away from him, and for some reason, Perry just couldn’t keep it under control, the pillow slipping from his grasp and sprinting off into the distance, darting out a wobbly door that seemed to only exist for one of Perry’s eyes.

“Bah,” Perry grunted, waving the ungrateful pillow away, picking up his blueprint and consulting it. Some facet of the production process was making these things incredibly difficult to nail down, like a dream.

Was it some bleedover between reality and what the battery was designed to store that made them so elusive?

Perry reviewed the blueprint again, the lines, labels and numbers shifting and rearranging themselves every time his eye moved to a new place. The words were blurred and jumbled, almost like...

Perry asserted control over himself.

First things first: He relaxed. The sudden knowledge that you are lucid dreaming can lead to excitement, which can wake you up.

Don’t get excited. Don’t move too fast. Do everything slowly, with a touch of grace, like you’re suspended in honey. Give the fluid dreamstate time to accommodate your actions.

Perry set the blueprint down, taking a step back from the desk and lying down on the floor.

Perry sunk into the floor a bit, soft and warm, like a bed.

Which, it likely was.

Once Perry was pretty confident his physical body matched his sleep body, he went to the next stage of tonight’s journey.

Perol’s Sleep Puppetry.exe

Perol’s sleep puppetry flushed out the body’s paralysis chemical without waking them. Induced sleepwalking, basically.

Perry sank further into the bed until it enveloped him, correcting his posture as he sank through it. As soon as he was completely engulfed by the floor, he fell gently from the ceiling of his workshop, his body position matching that of his physical body.

Perry reached out – Slowly, like he was suspended in honey – and felt the invisible bedpost with his knuckles. From that one data point, Perry figured out where the rest of the room was, and more specifically, the box with the Dream rope and Lurker Fishhook.

While dreaming, Attach the lurker fishhook to the dream rope, then hold in your off-hand. If released, the two will cease to be connected.

Perry slowly pushed himself into a sitting position, maintaining the image of his workshop as he reached out for the invisible boxes.

His forearm brushed past Nat’s skin as he reached.

Judging by the feel...

Perry located her head and kissed it before retrieving the box and setting it in his lap.

He couldn’t see it of course, but once he opened it...

The invisible lid swung away to reveal the dream rope in all it’s hairy glory.

Literal hair, woven from Dream Sirens. It only existed in dreams and if the box was ever opened by a waking figure, it would evaporate upon exposure to their conscious gaze. Like a dream.

One of the easiest magical essences to con people with. After all, if the only time you could confirm the rope’s presence was while you slept...when would you ever get that chance?

Perry always considered himself lucky that Dave was a straight shooter. Or perhaps the unicorn had realized that a good reputation is more important than a quick scam. In any case, there was Perry’s rope.

Now the hook.

Perry reached into the box, his fingers finding the invisible fishhook, sized for Prawn.

He looped the dream rope through the fishhook, which took on the local superreality of his dream, becoming visible as it was aided by the stabilizing effect of the rope.

The general’s dream was black-on-black. A dark wisp that nearly vanished into the abyss. It was a dark, twisted, and mean looking thing.

Perry parked himself up close to it, and eyeballed the distance, giving the grappling hook a quick whirl and releasing it.

The hook caught on the general’s dream, and in a matter of seconds, Perry watched as the hair rope morphed into a gangplank, connecting their two vessels.

Symbolism.

Perry set his hat and eyepatch.

“Yar.”

Oh right.

At this point, dismiss Perol’s Sleep Puppetry, lest you walk off the balcony of your tower, like Barghest the Foolish.

Perry canceled Perol’s sleep puppetry, his body falling back into bed while his mind strode forward into a tormented soul’s dream.

The gangplank morphed into a concrete hallway, lit by flickering florescent bulbs as Perry made the transition from his own mind to the general’s.

Perry walked up to a pair of double doors, made of rolled steel and painted with a veneer of wood to lend it just a touch of class. He pushed them open.

In front of him, the general was seated at a desk, his uniform looking crisp and freshly pressed, despite the sweat matting his hair and the scotch by his side.

“Whaddya want?” The general barked, not even glancing up at him as he rifled through papers, smoking like a chimney

“Goddamn eyes must be going,” Abrams muttered around the cigar, blinking and unblinking as he flipped through the papers, pulling a pair of glasses up to his face to no avail.

“Cheap commie garbage,” Abrams scowled, tossing aside the glasses before peering up at Perry. “Who the hell are you? You look like you just got done sucking your momma’s tit.”

Perry weighed his options. He could try to be clever and try to trick the general out of the information he needed...which would most likely blow up in his face if the man figured it out...or he could try leveling with the tormented soul...which might also blow up in his face.

Whatever.

“General Abrams?” Perry asked.

“The hell did you think you were talking to?” the general grunted pointing at the nameplate on his desk.

“Did you realize that you are dead? Undead specifically.”

“Fuck are you on about?” General Abrams asked, scowling magnificently around his cigar.

“I’m going to ask you some questions, and you’re going to answer them to the best of your ability. In exchange, I’ll put you out of your misery.” Perry said, taking a seat in front of the general without asking permission.

“Who the hell do you think you are you little shit? Get outta here before I shove my boot so far up your ass you can taste the polish.”

“Make me.” Perry said, folding his hands over each other in a relaxed posture.

General Abrams went red with undisguised rage and picked up the landline on his desk. “Carol, Get the M.P.s in here, there’s a little piece of afterbirth here that needs an attitude adjustment.”

They waited.

And waited.

And waited.

“I don’t think the M.P.s are coming.” Perry said.

“Fuck it, I’ll do it myself,” General Abrams said, standing up.

“When was the last time you ate?” Perry asked.

He stopped, mid-stride “What?”

“When was the last time you slept? Left this office? Took a shit?” Perry asked.

Perry could see the gears moving behind the general’s eyes. A modestly above-average intellect honed to a suspicious edge by a lifetime of warfare and political backstabbing. He could tell something was wrong.

“Who the hell are you?” General Abrams asked.

“I’m Paradox.”