15. Dreaming

The Controlled Dreaming State console sat unopened on the bench where Sylvia had left it since its delivery this morning. It was brand new and apparently a more advanced design than the one she’d previously been used to. Today she’d done everything imaginable except for setting up the console. She’d cooked, she’d cleaned, she’d organised a hospital stay for her ailing father. The ambulance would be here at any time, giving her another reason for delaying the inevitable. This house, which held so many unhappy memories for her, was in the process of being re-colonised. As she wiped down benches and cleaned behind sofas that hadn’t been moved in years, she scrubbed the past away. She went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the newly-cleaned mirror. It was the face of someone un-cowed.

The doorbell rang, sparing her the need to devise yet more tasks for herself that didn’t involve setting up the CDS console. She ran to the door and flung it open, letting in the light. The air outside was smoky and unclean. Two young men, both barely out of their teens, stood on the doorstep. They were dressed in the attire of Regal Perth Hospital and they looked less like paramedics and more like overgrown hoodlums having recently stolen an ambulance, such was the sloppy way that they presented themselves. One of them was taller than the other, but otherwise they seemed identical to her.

Sylvia felt sure she was making a mistake in sending her father to Regal Perth. There were private hospitals in the city, but they were fearfully expensive and she didn’t have the money, despite what was left of the hundred thousand. So it was Regal Perth or Quindalup Health Campus, and the latter had a reputation for being somewhere you sent your unwanted relatives if you didn’t want to see them ever again. Regal Perth was supposed to be a public hospital, but these days it was only public in the sense that if you had some money but not a lot you could get someone in there.

“Sylvia Baron?” the taller one asked. “We’re here to pick up your old man.”

“Come in,” she said. She held the door open as they manhandled their trolley bed over the threshold, banging one of the back wheels on the step. The pillow fell onto the recently-mopped floor and the shorter of the men picked it up, brushing off some imaginary dirt and putting it back on the trolley. “He’s through there,” she said, indicating to the master bedroom. “Shall I wake him up?”

The taller man grunted. “If you like.”

The noise of the trolley and the men’s voices had woken her father. She could tell that he was awake even though his eyes remained closed. She had become used to his sickly smell, his frailty, his yellowed flesh.

“Come on, Grandpa,” the shorter of the men said. “You don’t look so heavy.”

The other man threw the blanket off the bed, revealing her father’s soiled garments and sweat-soaked sheets. “Whoa,” he said, waving his hand in front of his nose.

The two men positioned themselves to lift her father off the bed and onto the trolley. “On three,” the short one said.

“No,” she said. “He’s not going; I’ve changed my mind.” Shouldering past the men, she retrieved the blanket and covered her father with it.

“You pre-paid,” the tall one said. “Don’t think you’re getting a refund.”

“I don’t care about the money; just leave.”

“You’ll probably have to pay the first day admission fees,” the tall man warned. “Big waste of money if you ask me.”

“I’m not asking you,” she said.

“All right,” the shorter man said. “Easy pickup, this one. We’re off.” He pushed the trolley out of the bedroom, almost taking a chunk out of the door frame in the process.

She slammed the front door behind them. Then she wondered what she’d just done. “Dad?” she said, going back into the master bedroom. He didn’t reply but she knew that he could hear her. “I don’t want to lose you,” she said. “Mum was right.”

Mumbles. Perhaps an attempt at words, perhaps not.

“It’s all right,” she said, stroking his head. “I won’t let anyone try to take you away again. I’d better change your sheets, then you can go back to sleep. Dad?”

She tended to him, knowing that he didn’t have long left, surely days instead of weeks. There was nothing that Regal Perth could do for him now. He slept.

The box containing the CDS console wasn’t heavy, its contents not in themselves dangerous, but she handled it as though it contained a bomb. Lifting the sleek, black console out of its packaging, she placed it down on the kitchen bench and unpacked the rest of the cords and controllers. Despite the intervening years, she could probably set up one of these things in her sleep. But where to put it? In her room, or out here in the living area where her mother would be able to see her?

Better out here, at least to start with. That way she’d be less inclined to retreat more fully into her own long-submerged desires. She set it up in the corner of the lounge, next to the two-seater couch. She could draw the blinds and dream in near darkness, even if it was uncomfortably warm in here.

She had a drink, used the toilet, checked on her sleeping father and came back. She drew the blinds, plugged the console into the wall and turned it on. It did its initial boot-up. Hypnotised by the winking lights, she didn’t take her eye off the console the whole time. The skullcap, the veil: both brand new and smelling faintly of pine. She fought it, fought the dreaming, but not for long. Soon she was inside, at the profile setup screen. There were more options than ever, not only giving her choice over her avatar’s appearance and clothing, but things like level of physical fitness, tolerance of alcohol and even propensity to sweating. Surely that was taking things too far. She remembered spending hours fiddling with her earrings and makeup, but a sweating slider? It would never end, not until the real world could be shut out altogether, not until it could be entirely replaced by a shinier, better reality where no one was poor, where no one was dirty and where no one died untreated in their bed.

She selected one of the default avatars, a trim nonentity of a woman, and jumped into the splash pool. The avatar’s stock name was Gloria and by default she lived in a small country town in the year 2012. Sylvia would be damned if she was going to spend her days pimping her profile like she’d done before, so she left it at that. It could be a personal challenge to her, not to spend even a single moment on her avatar. That would make her feel better about the whole thing. Off to 2012.

She had messages, a little dropdown box informed her, but she had to set up her mailbox before she could retrieve them. She went into the post office on the street corner and, with a wave of her hand, the queue in front of her dispersed. She chose a new password, hopefully one she could remember, and went around to the post office boxes with her key. Finding the correct box, she opened it and retrieved two small, white envelopes from inside. Neither of the envelopes bore any distinguishing features to give her an indication of where the letters had come from. She locked her box and stepped onto the street.

It was a nice day but it wasn’t too hot, and there were a few people walking around, but not too many. The buildings on the main street were solidly-constructed and made from a stately-looking reddish stone. The buildings looked to be at least a hundred years old, even in 2012.

Finding a coffee shop which specialised in vegetarian and organic food, she ordered a macchiato and sat down to watch the sleepy traffic drifting by. Before she knew it, her coffee had been placed down before her. The envelopes remained unopened. Across the road were some more cafes and a newsagency, and down an alleyway between the old courthouse and the post office she caught a glimpse of a children’s park. She went to the counter and ordered herself a falafel, then sat back down again and sipped her coffee.

She didn’t want to open the envelopes, but she knew she had to. The first letter was just a generic welcome message. She had never been so glad to see those bland phrases as at this moment. Her falafel came before she had a chance to look at the second envelope, so she tucked into her lunch. It was delicious.

The second letter turned out to be the one she’d been dreading. It was written in flowery handwriting and in blue pen. She scanned over it, impatient to learn what would be required of her and when. The letter just asked her to come as soon as possible to a particular house on the outskirts of town, to ‘meet some friends.’

She looked at the piece of paper, wondering whether the AFP could see what she saw now. Lyncoln Rose had not made it clear whether her time spent in CDS was her own. Ordinarily, she’d assume that CDS time came under the heading of ‘thought’ and not ‘action’, but she wasn’t naïve enough to think that the AFP would be thrown off as easily as that. They must have a way of monitoring whatever she did here, even if it was by some other means.

The house in question was a good ten minutes’ walk from here, and although there was probably a way of getting there instantly, she felt like stretching her legs. She finished her lunch and strolled down the alleyway to the park, where a number of small children were frolicking on the playground. In reality, a huge amount of water would be needed to keep grass as green as this. There was a swing bridge over the river and an old church at the top of the incline beyond. The river flowed freely in a way that rivers in the real world seldom did, and the church even managed to look welcoming to an unbeliever like herself. It was just a short walk along the road past the church to the house in question. A marker hung above it in the sky.

The house sat on a quarter-acre block and it had a pair of impressively tall trees at the front. There was something unfinished about the place, as if the owners had not yet moved in. The sand pad upon which the house was built lay uncovered, and the exterior walls were unpainted. She knocked on the door, but no one seemed to be home. Whoever she was supposed to be meeting wasn’t here yet, but hopefully her presence would trigger a message.

She turned the handle and the door opened. The interior walls weren’t painted either, and the floors were covered in some ersatz hardwood. She sat down on a couch and waited.