Episode 10 - In Control

Episode 10 - In Control

I could hear the voice calling out to me. It was a voice louder than the whispers. It took a second to realize that the voice was coming from someone she barely knew. "Carter?"

He appeared to manifest in front of me instantly. "Wow," I said. "Impressive."

"That was all you," Carter said. "You called out to me. This is your dream, after all."

"Dream? I'm dreaming?"

"You are," he said.

Unbeknownst to either of us a figure sat at the bistro sipping coffee It was Jared and he was observing us.

"If I'm dreaming, why is it so weird and disjointed?"

"Penny found something in your blood that  caused you to go into seizures. They also could be damaging your dream state."

"No one messes with my dreams," I said, "feeling the aggression build. When it came to a boiling point I flung my hands out. The red notebook I'd lost along the way came flying back to me. When I caught it, the world around me changed from sepia-toned to technicolor.  And I didn't notice it at the time but Jared was no longer sitting at the bistro table.

"You should probably wake up because Penny is out there and you don't know how worried she can get. She really likes you."

"The feeling is mutual," I said.

Carter faded away and I glanced down at the red notebook. In gold letters across the front was labeled "My Story." As I thumbed through it I noticed only a few pages had been filled in.

Maybe this was a sign, a message to take back to my real life. I shrugged, held the notebook tight and willed myself to wake up. 

***

My eyes opened and I had no idea how long I'd been asleep. Penny was sitting in a chair next to the bed dozing. The dream I'd left behind was fading quickly. The more I came back into the real world, the farther the dream fell into the background. 

Carter waved at me from the hallway. He stepped into my room and put a hand on Penny's shoulder. She woke up instantly but held onto some grogginess. 

"What?! Is she awake?" Penny slurred. 

"Yep. She made it back to the real world in one piece." Carter smiled. "Take a look for yourself ."

Penny opened one eye and scanned the bed. Then both popped open wide. "You're awake! Yippie!"

She hugged me so tightly I had no doubt that at least one person inside A51 cared about me as more than a science project.

***

Carter left Penny to watch over Taffy. He closed the door to her room and leaned on it weakly. Being inside another's dream was exhausting enough but helping to pull back a fractured reality took more out of him than he wanted to admit. 

Jared Watson appeared behind him. He put an arm around his waist, holding him up. "You're a glutton for punishment, you know that?" Jared said.

Carter smiled weakly. "With you being here -- are things with Taffy worse than they seem?"

"You've remedied some of the problem," Jared. "Bringing both realities together in her mind brought a new compatibility."

Jared brought Carter to a wooden, elaborately carved bench and sat him down. Then he grabbed a water bottle from a kiosk a few feet away and handed it to him. 

"What do you mean by 'compatibility'? Are you talking about Clarke's nanos?"

"General McCabe had more than one reason for bringing Taffy to the facility. We believe some visitors have been implanted with an alien tech. She's been seeing strange symbols flashed across her vision sometimes when she wakes up."

"You mean little green men aliens?" Carter's voice was filled with suspicion. He had seen a lot during his time in Area 51.

"Not exactly. The visitors we've heard of throughout history, they're not aliens. They're us looking back into the past. We believe someone from the future planted technology into people they believed could not only translate it but transform it enough to change the future." Jared watched Carter gulp down the water as he took in the information. 

Carter laughed but it caused pain in his side. "Do you know how out there that sounds?"

"I know. I didn't accept this explanation lightly, Jared said. "I need to bring you back to Section 57 and debrief you. We've both been exposed to both the fractured tech and the tech in harmony. We have to be scanned for residual emissions."

"All right but I am going to need to rest. Helping her focus took a lot out ..." Carter couldn't get another word out. He pitched forward and passed out against Jared. 

"Sorry about that, Buddy." Jared picked up the half empty water bottle and threw it into the trash bin. "We both have to go to containment immediately."