Breaking Layer One
R.I.C.A. pt. 2, Benjamin McEwan
For the third time Mitchell awoke in his apartment. He saw K pacing across the room shuffling through various papers, discarding many of them until only two remained.
“Subject-1043CAL4 — Elise Caldera, Long-term Dreamscape Generation Trail.” K chuckled. “We had her in that headset for four years. She was the daughter of a former researcher; when her mother threatened to leak company secrets—” he paused and looked Mitchell in the eyes “—well, we had to clean up. But she never did tell you any of that, did she? No, let’s take a look at what she did say.”
Mitchell exited the car and followed Elise to the beach. The cold ocean air swept over them both, and a burning sunset could be seen on the horizon. He had been working for Siobhan for a month now, and had become quite fond of the position. The forest was a kind of tranquillity he had never even conceived of. It lacked the excitement of most dream programs, yet every image and sound he perceived in that cabin was sharper and clearer than any fantasy he had ever experienced in a dream.
“We’ll wait for the others here,” Elise said, and the two sat down on a rock. “Siobhan tells me you’re from the city.”
“Yeah, I never really used to leave before I got this job.”
“Why not? Too busy?”
“Well I usually just rented out the cubicles at EverLucid, never had a reason to travel when I can just hop into my dreams.”
“Never even went to the park?”
Mitchell paused, “I don’t know where they are to be honest.”
The waves sputtered and rolled their way up the sand. Mitchell could see Elise’s leg trembling. She realised he had noticed and quickly rummaged through her pockets to find a bottle of pills.
“You remind me of someone I knew, back when I lived in a city too.” She shook a pill onto her hand and swallowed it.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, he was an interesting guy, always had plenty to talk about. I worried about him though.”
“Why’s that?”
She sighed. “Just didn’t take care of himself, that’s all. One day he seemingly just dropped off of the face of the Earth, never saw him again.”
Mitchell looked out at the ocean. He watched as a flock of seagulls twisted and turned through the air, the patterns of their motion mesmerising him slightly. He felt as though the hazy atmosphere of his dreams was beginning to creep in. He turned to Elise again and tried to shake off the feeling.
“Where do you live now?”
“A village, not far from here.”
“You know, I just thought — I haven’t actually been using those cubicles that much lately. Do you have them in the village? I’ve heard things are pretty rough in the country right now.”
“There’s a few, and it’s not so bad.”
“Do you use them?”
“No.”
The thud of car doors could be heard behind them.
Elise turned and stood up. “That’ll be the others.”
Mitchell spotted Siobhan approaching them on the beach, a man walking alongside her. They greeted one another and the man outstretched his hand towards Mitchell.
“Toby, nice to meet you.”
Mitchell shook his hand, “likewise.”
Siobhan spoke, “Let’s get a fire together before it gets too dark.”
Night soon arrived, and the four of them stood around the small hastily constructed fire-pit. Mitchell had not seen night beyond the city. It was quiet, and the air was cool. Every sound was sharp and seemed to carry itself effortlessly; the crackling of the fire, the waves gliding onto the shore, the shuffling of shoes in the sand.
“So, Mitchell,” Siobhan interrupted the silence. “I’ll admit you’ve adjusted to the job faster than I expected. We took in some other city folk before, they didn’t last much of a day or two in the cabin.”
“I’m hardly surprised.” Mitchell replied, again reflecting on the shift in his lifestyle.
“Despite that there is one thing you seem to have in common with the others.”
“What’s that?”
“Not one of you has ever questioned the work.”
Mitchell’s eyes opened wide. He looked at Toby and Elise, then back to Siobhan. It suddenly felt as if all three of them were interrogating him.
“Well, do you want to know?”
“Okay?”
“This is something you need to be certain about.”
He struggled to understand but agreed nonetheless. “I want to know.”
“Eight years ago, you finished school and applied for your first job…” She began listing the details of every job Mitchell had ever worked. The dates of his employments and terminations, the schedules he followed at each company, the specific nature of each job itself — all of which were remarkably similar to one another, even more so than Mitchell had first realised. “…and finally, that brings us to the present. Each of the companies you have worked at previously were all owned by EverLucid.”
Mitchell thought he could see the distinctive white suited body of K standing behind Siobhan as she spoke.
“Each company was situated close to an EverLucid building, and each one offered you practically meaningless work. The perfect customer.”
“The perfect customer,” the phrase rang out in K’s voice.
Siobhan continued, “meanwhile in the past few days with us,” she reached into her coat pocket and retrieved a small USB-stick, “you’ve helped us to collect and analyse EverLucid signals,” she held the device with outstretched arms “and now, we have a key — and we want you to help us use it.”
***
Mitchell was awoken by a scream. The howl echoed throughout the bunker, and he heard footsteps rush past his door. He carefully left the bed and ventured out into the concrete hallway. The hatch was open, and moonlight poured in through the shaft.
Ascending the ladder he found Toby standing amongst the trees, barefoot and shirtless. Mitchell’s feet shuffled through the leaves, alerting him.
“Sorry, did I wake you?”
“I wasn’t going to sleep much anyway.”
“The beds aren’t great but you get used to them. At least we’re just commandeering, I’d hate to be stuck down there during a war.”
Mitchell walked to stand beside him. “How’d Siobhan find this place anyway?”
“There’s tons of them, all up and down the country. She just picked one and did some tinkering to remove it from the records — the digital ones at least.”
“I thought she didn’t like computers?”
“No, not anymore, just radios now.”
The clouds were thin on that night, and looking up Mitchell could see stars glittering from through the canopy. “Was that you a moment ago? Have a nightmare or something?”
“Something like that,” he paused, “did Elise tell you yet?”
“Tell me what?”
“I guess not then. The two of us were forced into EverLucid testing programs. She was already there when I was brought in. My brain rejected their tech though, didn’t work on me for whatever reason. I took my chance and made a run for it. I found her and some others on the way, tried to break them all out but it was only me and her that made it.”
“What were they testing on you?”
“Me? No idea. Elise? You better ask her.”
***
“Twenty years. I dreamed my life right into my forties. I remember sitting down for dinner one night and all of a sudden I was strapped into a bed in a dark room hearing gunshots coming from the door.”
Mitchell noticed that Elise always walked with an absent minded stride. Her steps would linger and were of uneven lengths. The two of them were returning to the bunker following a day in the cabin. They came to the site, and brushed away the leaves on the forest floor to reveal a large concrete hatch.
Adorning the inside of the ladder shaft was an emblem depicting three eyes encircled by rays of sunlight. The first eye was halfway obscured, the second crossed on its pupil, and the third gazed into a twirling spiral. R.I.C.A. — the name of the organisation carved into the concrete just below the symbol.
Mitchell remembered the pledge he took. It was handed to him on a black and white cloth from which he read the words:
I HAVE LOOKED BEYOND THE SLEEPLESS FACADE.
I WILL PLUNGE MYSELF INTO THE DARKNESS.
I WILL NOT BE MEASURABLE.
I WELCOME THE KNOWLEDGE THAT I WILL BE FORGOTTEN.
I WILL BE THE BRIGHT UNBEARABLE NIGHTMARE THAT AWAKENS THE SLEEPERS.
WHEN I AM DONE I WILL REST IN DREAMS MY OWN.
Throughout the world were the various cells of this organisation. Siobhan was of course the head of this particular cell.
“Welcome back.” Toby greeted them as they descended the ladder.
“Everything set?” Elise replied.
Siobhan entered the room, “the tests went well, we’ve got what we need,” she sat down, “so Mitchell, are you ready to hear how we plan to bite history’s largest corporation?”