Dream Space Prologue

Prologue of the novel Dream Space by Janel E. Kane

         “That’s what I’m saying, honey. I don’t know how late I’ll be yet.” Louis Kan directed his message to his wife sub-vocally through his DAB Cortex.

         Zenta’s image wavered in his exovision, her arms crossed over her chest.

         “I’m sorry honey, I’ll call you when I’m headed home.” He broke the connection and the image of his wife’s worried face blipped out of existence.

         Louis took several calming breaths. He felt sick: his guts twisted up and beads of sweat broke out on his forehead.

He willed himself to breath deeply and stay calm. The episode would pass, but these spells were coming more and more frequently. Louis struggled to breathe, certain his heart would explode.

         Black tarry rain slithered across the windscreen of the Renatta Lux. The lights from advertisements blanketed the building walls for twenty stories of the canyonous downtown flyways. The modern neon frescoes phosphoresced in the dirty rain.

         Louis piloted the Renatta down from the cruising lanes to queue up for the 7th Ave exit.  As they dropped through the flyway strata the car was seared through with the lights of targeting advertisements. His DAB Cortex compensated to block them out even as he loaded the final approach sequence.

         Louis looked into the eyelense camera mounted in front of him and activated it.

         “We’re approaching the Paragon Media Building, Sir. Five minutes.” His voice echoed through the imperfect sound barrier between compartments.

         He spared a glance at the feed from the eyelense in the rear and caught a glimpse of the man in back.

         Leonard Hayeson appeared to be about twenty with the lusterous brown hair and smooth skin of youth. Louis was still uneasy, though, at the sight of obviously rejuve features on his employer’s once familiar middle age face.

         His passenger was slumped down and pinching the bridge of his nose, shielding his eyes. His black synthsilk suit was rumpled and he looked care-worn.

         Who doesn’t look worried, these days?

         Constant news reports filtered into Louis’ cortex.

         He wished he could just tune them out but in an abstract way. Like how one might tell them-self to look away from a gristly accident but was never quite able to.

         The latest breaking highlights in the news cycle scrolled continuously at a subconscious level: killer storm in the pacific, dust bowl drought in the Great Plains, refugees, riots. Disasters both economic and environmental. His faculties of outrage and fear had been fatigued long ago.

Louis signaled the Paragon building SSI net that Mr. Hayeson was arriving and he was directed to a line of Renattas and Galeteras rather than into an underground reception bay.

{indent{As soon as the vehicle stopped Louis jumped out with an umbrella.

         “Mind the puddle sir, the street is flooded here.” Louis stood ankle deep in the swirling brown water as he held the door.



         “Of course it’s flooded, it’s ground level Manhattan. Isn’t there a secure entrance?” Leonard Hayeson, the old man in a young body, uncrumpled himself from the back seat. He stepped out onto the curb bypassing the gutter altogether.

         Hayeson stepped quickly and carefully across the plaza entrance as if he could miss the wet if he were careful enough.

         “These shoes may be ruined from this rain. Gah!” He arrived at the doors held open by a scurrying doorman and shook off his over coat. He walked away from the driver and the doorman without a dismissal or another thought and strode in  toward the elevators.

         What’s wrong with a secure virtual meeting? I have to be dragged out here for what?

         He resented being here. If there was any chance to get out of the office he should be with Vianca, his 24 year old sixth wife of the last 7 months.

         He looked down at his shoes, the leather spatter--marked, and reviewed the appointment information in his cortex. When the elevator opened he stepped in.

         The ride up was silent and fast. Hayeson scowled and brushed at his suit.



         The President of Paragon Media had a penthouse office with views out over most of midtown. Charles Wagner, pasty and soft, was easily a decade past when most of his set would be hitting a rejuve clinic. He stood near the side board table, set up with an assortment of liquor and glassware, greeting the attendees.

         A tall waspish man stood beside him in a synthsilk suit with a deep luster. The cut wasn’t flattering, though. It made him look more angular and narrow. Not elegant enough to be Wagner’s business partner, but he was.

Kurtis Thiral, who’s genetics laboratory revolutionized rejuvenation, worked with Paragon Bionetics division to create the DAB Cortex which, in turn, revolutionized personal communication.

         A pretty assistant in a pencil skirt and a figure as plush as the rest of the dècor handed Hayeson a rocks glass. He drank without looking at it’s contents.

         Hayeson moved and performed the careful dance of the aristocratic mingle, smiling through gritted teeth.

         A bank of televisions on one wall were all tuned to various newscasts.  Dire, fraught events, too many for even one non-stop news cycle. Thankfully they were muted.

         The Chromaglass filtered skyline of the Eastern metropolis ringed them floor to ceiling on all sides. Hayeson stole surreptitious glances out at the endless sea of lights and roving traffic streams.

         In the center of the vast open penthouse, in a sea of dark marble gleaming floors, was a hand--woven rug worth the economies of several small countries.  Plush seating designed to cradle the wealthy backsides of people such as they cradled now were arranged around this intricate silk carpet.

Hayeson took a seat and resisted a mad idea to kick off his damp shoes and luxuriate in the rug. How many times has Chuck bragged about the value of this damn rug? None of it mattered now. He looked askance at the muted uproar of the news broadcasts.

         He had the subliminal feeds direct from his DAB Cortex, he couldn't get away from the reams of bad news.

         The storms were worsening, every day some place was hit with something. The whole damn world was falling apart around their ears. Screw us all! He wanted to giggle.

         He had never felt like he belonged in this club. He got lucky with some investments which he turned around and invested again. He hit another stroke of luck, knew some of the right people but his big score had come with the cost of a few skeletons in his closet.

         That had just been the beginning, though. Now here he was drinking scotch that was certainly not a synthetic, on a rug worth a large chunk of the planet to someone, staring at the end of the world through the eyes of a vulture. He rattled the ice in his glass and took a deep breath.



         A last arrival, Denis Bymere, Bymere Space Industries, blustered in. He handed off his overcoat and shook off the rain with dramatic irritation.

Hayeson imagined him waiting, leaving the rain sitting on his coat in the elevator. His premeditated splatter of greasy droplets marring the marble floor was a power play. It was a wonder this room was large enough to hold this many massive egos.

         On some subtle signal everyone began to move toward the sitting area around the rug. Drinks were filled one last time, ties were loosened, gloves came off.

         “Gentlemen, thank you all for coming.” Kurtis Thiral stood with his back to the skyline surrounding them.  He hulked, framed in the light of the rain-slicked city behind him.

         The room was silent. No one acknowledged the range of sentiments about being dragged out, in this weather, and this hopelessness, to a meeting that seemed utterly pointless.

         “We are at the end, gentlemen. The end of Earth. We have maybe another decade before this shit box is completely uninhabitable.”

         There was a chorus of grumbling around the room.

         “But-” The stork--like Thiral, in his left--the--hanger--in, too stiff suit paused.  ”It doesn’t have to be the end of us.” He took a drink.

         “Until now we were only in the design phase.” Thiral extended a gesture of welcome to the pompous head of Bymere S.I.  “Thank you, Denis,-- won’t you?”

         The trim military precision of the man could not be hidden in any civilian suit. The late arrival strode, rain dirty shoes, straight across the center of the priceless rug.

         “Recent jumps in technology, and let’s not kid, obvious need, have catapulted us past the planning phase and into position to move on...” Bymere paused.

         Hayeson grimaced into his scotch. Fucking drama queen!

         “…A life boat project.”

         There it is just drop it on us like that, your big reveal and the dramatic made for tv pause-- You are a damn showman! Hayeson stopped and ran back over what Bymere had said, forget how he delivered it.

         Did he say a damn lifeboat?



         After going through the plan’s prospectus and each person’s buy--in there was simply too much talk at once for Hayeson to follow it all.

         “So we’ll select our working class with a lottery from people that meet criteria for selection?” The man to Hyeson’s left, maybe he was in oil, was talking to Chuck Wagnor.

         “We can tout our ethnic diversity and make sure that we get people from all disciplines and enough ditch diggers to make the world go round, yeah?” Hayeson watched light in the man’s eyes as he pictured a new utopia amongst the stars.

         “So these genetic modifications you are going to make in the population, how many generations before you have full saturation on this collective subconscious?” Beryl Frost asked Kurtis Thiral. She was the only woman present and wore an impeccably tailored pants suit of a glistening red sythsilk. She kept her short hair in a severe coif just above her ears which were tipped in simple glittering gems. “How does this work to control them?”

         “I’m not sure I understand how this relates to the DAB Cortex…” The gentleman on the her other side interjected.

         “How are you going to limit technology though?” A sleek young man with a roman nose and dark chocolaty eyes asked the room in general. “What’s to stop someone from developing say the automobile or a weapon or mass communications?” 

         “Energy, its all about energy.” Bymere answered him.

         “We control it and we determine who gets to use how much of it.”

         “Don’t worry, the workers are barely going to scrape out their own existence.” Chuck Wagnor stepped in. “They aren’t going to have time for inventions, not if their every moment is spent on survival. Then, give them just enough dose of entertainment to distract them. In a generation or two no one will remember that it was ever any different.”

         Hayeson still sat in the same seat he held during the presentation. He felt stunned, a weight suddenly lifted. He began to tally his assets in his mind, making a list of which could be liquidated quickly and for how much, what holdings needed more time to sell off.

         “What do we know about Rœomos? You say it’s an M type planet?” Beryl Frost spoke up again. “What does that mean? Is it Earth compatible or do we sit in deep freeze while we terra--form?”

         So many questions but none of it mattered to Hayeson. He was going to get his heirs off this forsaken rock if he had to liquidate his client’s holdings as well. He coded a message to his lawyer to draw up standard divorce papers.

         One billion US dollars a person for a ticket to Rœomos. It was not a small amount even for him. On his fifth rejuve; he had a bevy of children. Even if he included only direct descendants, he needed to hustle to come up with his stake.