Lorraine looks like she’s going to say something else, but O surfaces from her private thoughts to interrupt.

‘Charlie, are you working on Melodie tonight? Do you want Stack to come along?’

Stack and I look at one another in alarm.

‘Uh . . . no offence, but what is use Stack going to be?’

‘Yeah, I’ve got plans anyway—’

‘For protection,’ Lorraine says solemnly. ‘In case this Antonio gets out of hand.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. Antonio is not dangerous. This person in the dream can’t be really real.’

‘Why not?’ Stack says.

‘What?’ I am giving him my frightened-wildebeest face. I can feel it. Damn.

‘Why can’t it be a real person? If you can hack people’s dreams then presumably a lot of other people can, too.’

‘What?’ My vocabulary seems to have got stuck on that one word.

Stack says, ‘Copernican principle. Humans don’t occupy a special place in the Universe. Applies to everything, but Western postmodern narcissism blinds us to reality. If you can dreamhack, ten to one there’s some nasty people who can do it, too.’

Copernican narcissism WTF is he even talking about?

‘I am actually aware of that,’ I say as haughtily as I can, which, after saying ‘what’ two times running, is unconvincing. ‘It doesn’t change the fact that it’s only a dream. Nobody is in any physical danger.’

Stack shrugs and returns his attention to his Spacetime.

‘I hope it’s not a cat hacking your dreams, bruv,’ he mutters.

I try to ignore him, but I have very good hearing.

‘Because cats are vicious predators and they already control the Internet.’

The Dark Side

The Dark Side

Wet London. Monday crowds. People walk too slowly, and sometimes I want to drop down and crawl between their legs; I swear it would be quicker. The Tube strike means the buses are packed and I hate crowded buses. Having all those people around me is so exhausting, especially since I got this dream thing. It’s like the separation between me and other people is even thinner than it was before, and I can almost hear their thoughts. I pick up feelings all the time. So, even though I’m already late, I take my bike off the rack and cycle wobblingly out into traffic, narrowly avoiding an AR horse-and-carriage driven by a Loan Shark.

Last night I finally caught up with the anxious hairdresser; that dream went well. No Creeper in evidence. Then, just when my confidence was returning, this afternoon a botmessage from Melodie. Her performance on Saturday was ‘off’ according to the conductor. The livestreamed concert is tomorrow and she’s desperate. So here I am with my new business cards and a Spacetime full of informative links that O sent me during the night for my perusal.