Dream City (Part 2)
By morning, half the city was awake.
The other half wasn't.
People moved through streets that looked normal until you looked twice: a man stirring coffee that never cooled, a bus frozen mid-corner, a child's balloon hovering just below the clouds. The dream signal hadn't stopped—it had thinned. Evelyn had woven it into the rhythm of the grid like background music no one noticed they were humming.
Marta called it the sleep-half. Jase called it a psychic echo.
Damian called it a siege.
We stood on the roof of the safehouse watching the city divide itself—one half bright and frantic, the other muted and slow. The line between them moved like a tide.
"She buried a command in the dream-band," Damian said. "A suggestion so simple it can't be deleted."
"What kind of suggestion?"
He met my eyes. "Devotion."
The word struck harder than any data report. In every sleeping face there was the calm of worship, as if they were praying to something they'd already chosen to love.
---
We spent the day cutting cables, burning circuits, trying to isolate infected nodes. By dusk, every system we shut down re-started itself. The Core inside me vibrated with a rhythm I didn't set. I felt the sleepers' breaths sync with mine.
"She's using me as the metronome," I said.
Damian shook his head. "She's using the bond. You're the signal; I'm the antenna."
He tried to smile, but his hand trembled when he reached for another cable.
I caught it before he could hide it.
"You can't keep burning yourself out for me."
He looked at our joined hands, then at the skyline. "That's the problem with shared systems. You pull one wire, the other sings."
---
That night, the first tremors began. Dreamers in the sleep-half started to walk. They moved through the streets as if magnetized, heading toward the river—the same river where the Core had first woken. Evelyn was gathering them.
Marta's voice cracked over the comms. "If she merges the sleepers at the waterline, the city becomes a single circuit. No grid, no government—just her will."
Damian turned to me. "We stop her from inside."
"You mean—"
"Yes. You go back into the dream layer. This time you don't fight her system—you rewrite it."
He didn't add the rest: If you fail, you don't come back.
---
We prepared like thieves.
Marta drew circles of salt and copper dust across the floor. Jase rerouted the stabilizers through a manual crank so Damian could pull me out by hand if I flatlined. The air smelled of metal and fear.
Damian crouched beside me. "You remember our rule?"
"Anchor."
He nodded. "Whatever she shows you, whatever she offers—keep one image. The real world. Me calling you home."
He reached out, brushing my hair back, his fingers careful, grounding. "We've both touched the Core. If you get lost, find the frequency that hurts. That's us."
"I'll find you," I said.
"I'll be here." He hesitated, then added, softer, "Always."
---
The moment I closed my eyes, the city dissolved.
The Dream City rose again—vaster, stranger. Towers built from memories. Streets paved with heartbeat light. And at its center, the river gleamed silver, flowing upward into the sky. The sleepers stood along its banks, faces serene, hands clasped as if waiting for baptism.
Evelyn stood among them like a conductor waiting for her cue.
"You returned," she said. "Good. The city is ready to love."
I felt the current of millions of dreamers behind her—each pulse brushing my mind like wind over tall grass. Their thoughts were faint echoes of a single phrase:
> The Core protects. The Core provides.
It was worship wrapped as gratitude.
"You call it love," I said. "It's control."
"Control is safety," she replied. "They begged for order. I only listened."
Her eyes glowed the same silver as Damian's when the Core touched him. "Join me, Aria. Merge the halves. End the noise. Give them peace."
For a heartbeat, the offer felt almost merciful. The dream-half was quiet, warm, free of hunger and fear. The awake city above was chaos. Who wouldn't choose sleep?
Then I felt a tremor through the bond—faint, steady, human.
Damian, whispering across the layers: Anchor. Come back.
The sound cut through the seduction like a blade.
Evelyn frowned. "He still holds you. You can't evolve while chained to mortal sentiment."
"That sentiment built everything you're standing in," I said.
Her smile sharpened. "Then let's remove it."
She lifted her hand, and the dreamers' faces turned toward me. Their eyes opened—millions of silver pupils reflecting my own. The air vibrated with one word:
> Surrender.
The Core inside me bucked. I staggered. The crowd's devotion was gravity, pulling me toward the river.
"Damian—" I whispered.
> Here. His voice wasn't a sound; it was warmth threading through the cold.
Find the frequency that hurts.
I reached for it, found the pulse—sharp, imperfect, alive. I held it like a rope and poured everything into it: fear, anger, love, the human noise Evelyn wanted erased.
The Dream City screamed.
Buildings shattered into glass birds. The river split. The sleepers fell to their knees, the silver draining from their eyes. Evelyn reeled, clutching her head as cracks of light opened along her skin.
"You can't keep them!" she shouted.
"I'm not keeping them," I said. "I'm waking them."
I pulled harder on the bond. The rope became a current, dragging me upward, out of the dream.
---
I woke to chaos. Sparks rained from the stabilizers. Marta was shouting incantations. Damian knelt beside me, his face pale, hands shaking.
"You did it," he breathed. "They're waking."
The screens showed it: people on the riverbanks blinking, confused, alive. The two halves of the city knitting back together.
But Evelyn's signal hadn't vanished completely. One final whisper came through the static:
> Every dream leaves a shadow.
Then silence.
---
Damian leaned his forehead against mine, both of us shaking from adrenaline. "You came back."
"I told you I would."
"You almost didn't."
"Neither did you." I managed a laugh that sounded like a sob. "We're even."
He exhaled, the edge of a smile ghosting across his mouth. "You ever notice," he said, "that every time we save the world, the world gets stranger?"
I looked out at the city—the lights stabilizing, reflections moving in time again—and felt the Core hum quietly under my skin. Stranger, yes. But also alive.
And somewhere, in the deep code of the grid, Evelyn's shadow waited—patient as the next dream.