“What was that?” I practically demanded.
“A dragon, by the looks of it,” Mouse replied.
“A dragon?” I repeated, unable to hide my surprise.
“Yeah – a fire-breathing one, at that.”
Okay, this I have to see, I thought. I cycled my vision back to the visible light spectrum, and sure enough – just as Mouse had said – there was an enormous, fire-breathing dragon right in front of us. It was winged and covered in gold-and-green scales, with a long, supple tail that whipped back and forth. As I watched, the creature’s nostrils flared and its diaphragm expanded; a moment later, its mouth opened and a stream of fire shot out, bathing me and Mouse in flames.
I had to give Dream Machine credit: his creation was beautiful and incredibly life-like. Even knowing that it wasn’t real, I still half-expected us to get burnt to a crisp. Thankfully, that didn’t happen, and when the flames died down, the dragon was gone.
A moment later, however, I heard an odd clicking noise coming from overhead. Looking up, I’m sure my eyes bulged as I saw a bloated, man-sized spider descending towards us on a silky line of webbing from its spinneret. Almost completely black and with mandibles clacking together spasmodically, it reached for Mouse with long, spindly legs. Unexpectedly, it lunged in an apparent attempt to bite my mentor’s head off. It was all I could do not to shout out a warning, but just before its fangs made contact, the spider disappeared.
Mouse gave me a quick sideways glance, but didn’t say anything. It was a sure bet that I’d given him some non-verbal cues that I’d switched my vision to the visible spectrum. (Plus he was no longer giving me a play-by-play overview of Dream Machine’s illusions, which suggested he knew that I could see them myself.)
A light suddenly began shining at the far end of the tunnel directly ahead of us. As I watched, it seemed to move closer towards us, like someone with a flashlight walking in our direction – except the light seemed to be held in a steady position. A moment later, a noise like an air horn reverberated through the tunnel.
No, not an air horn, I thought. A subway horn!
As if in confirmation of this, the rails on either side of us began to vibrate, and I heard the sound of a train car in motion – metal wheels grinding on metal tracks. Dream Machine’s latest illusion was headed right for us.
With the light shining in our faces, I wasn’t able to get a good look at the AI’s latest fabrication, although I imagined it was a full-length subway train. However, as it drew closer, the lights in the tunnel caused the train’s shadow to form on the wall, and I was a little disappointed to note that it was seemingly just a single subway car.
Shadow!
With klaxons going off in my head, the word leaped to the forefront of my brain – along with the dire warning of the little homeless girl. Thoughts racing, I reflected back on the illusions I had seen and suddenly realized that neither of them had cast shadows. That meant…
I immediately – almost simultaneously – did three things: I cycled my vision away from the visible spectrum; shouted a warning to Mouse that consisted solely of the word “Real!”; and phased the two of us.
The subway car – which was in no way an illusion – was almost on us at that point. The fact that he had sent something real (and capable of causing us grievous harm) was a sure indicator that Dream Machine was no longer fooling around. He was intent on stopping us by any means necessary.
Thankfully, I had phased us in time for the subway car to pass through us harmlessly. Unfortunately, in my haste, I forgot to phase the metal post with the computer hub attached (although I had phased Mouse’s tablet). The train hit it at ramming speed, ripping the post up from the ground and dragging it along with it down the tracks. Mouse, who – to his credit – had never stopped working even when I’d shouted that the train was real, merely turned and watched as the post, now caught beneath the subway car’s wheels, spewed forth a bright shower of sparks. A moment later, accompanied by the squeal of grinding metal, the train derailed and crashed into the wall of the tunnel with a sound like a bomb going off. The tunnel shook for a moment, causing the lights to flicker briefly as dust came cascading down from the ceiling.
A slight popping noise drew my attention to the floor, where I noticed some exposed wiring from several cables that had snapped when the post was dragged away. The popping noise sounded again, in concert with a few sparks from the wiring.
“Please tell me that you stopped the upload,” I said as Mouse and I stepped back from what was obviously several live wires and I made the two of us solid again.
“Not enough time,” Mouse said solemnly.
I let out a sigh of disgust, furious with myself. I had failed miserably. The entire reason for me being here was my ability to differentiate reality from illusion, and I had allowed myself to get so distracted that it affected the mission.
“So, that’s it,” I said, feeling wretched. “Dream Machine wins.”
“Not necessarily,” Mouse declared. “We just have to go to Plan B.”
I frowned. “Huh?”
“We can’t stop the upload directly, but maybe we can do it indirectly.”
“How?” I asked, nonplussed.
“By disrupting his power supply.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I was in his systems, I noticed that all of Dream Machine’s operations depend on a single power supply, and it’s close by.”
I thought about this for a second. “Wait a minute. You’re saying he has an independent source of electricity that he uses to power everything?”
“Yep. I had always assumed that he was siphoning it from the city grid somehow, but apparently that’s not the case. He’s got some independent means
