Blood - Chapter 3

The transport is hot. Nico and Lara and Denny have been packed in with the other two they recognise. The medic is with them. Nico see he is looking twitchy, eyes darting, hands never still.

“Where are we going?” Nico asks but the medic doesn't answer. “Has this happened before?”
“Shut it,” the medic orders.
“Ssh, Nico,” Lara puts her hand on his arm, to quieten him.

He looks at her. She's wide eyed. Denny doesn't look bothered.. He's sitting the other side of Lara, arms folded, head back, eyes closed. The two others- a girl mystic and a girl warrior are sitting up ahead. Nico can't see their faces. He'd like to. He wants to know – are they feeling this too? Heart racing. Sweat on his hands. Lara is. Maybe is it just Dreamers.

Nico has never been on transport before. Not that he remembers. If he thinks, it's logical - he must have been brought to the Unit but he doesn't remember. He knows because the little Dreamers arrive somehow and the carers look after them. It's like a flow – the little ones come in – they can't speak or walk or feed themselves. They are there growing and learning and one day they are ready – full sized and ready they go off to fulfill their destiny. To work as Dreamers in the Dreamworkspace.

Nico has always knows this will happen when he is ready. It won't be that long. He's known Lara all his life – she's always been there at the Dreamers' Unit with him and the others. Always about forty of them – eating, learning, sleeping.

The learning happens mostly at The Academy. There the Dreamers are mixed in with everyone. Warriors, Carers, Medics, all of them. This is explained. They have to be with everyone so they can absorb the energy of everyone. If they are kept apart the dreaming doesn't work.

Dreamers dream for the Ultras. - the dream energy is taken and channelled away to the Ultraspace. They need it because Ultras can't dream. They discovered early on that the perfect beings failed – they tried everything to keep themselves alive but generations failed, one after another. It was the dreaming.

Dreamers always say this. Nico thinks it's true. The teachers say this and the Dreamers feel important. Their job is vital. The teachers say that without the Ultras everything would break down and nobody would survive. The Wheelcities would fail and everything would be like the Outsidespace. Nico feels a shudder travel up his spine and crawl across his scalp. They hear stories about Outsidespace.

Outsidespace – announced the teacher and that had made everyone shut up. Not like the learning they all did about their own jobs – split into their job groups herded up and down the academy corridors by the invigilators. They have all learnt not to defy the invigilators – if they do the punishment is swift and exact. Nico has never ever defied anyone or anything, especially an invigilator.

One of the older dreamers told him once that the invigilators are not machines and not blood but something in between. They make him shudder, just the thought of them. He dreams about them and wakes sweating. They are his nightmare with their soundless gliding, their mask faces and scanning eyes.

In the group lessons the Dreamers learn how important their job is. How really they are the chosen ones. Because of this their lives will be easy. They will be looked after like Princes and Princesses from worldbefore story books. They will live in palaces near the inner wheel of Servicespace. Dreamers must have perfect lives – they mustn't have stress or anger or difficulty.

In their lessons they see Telacasts of Dreamworkspace. It looks perfect and peaceful. The teachers tell them it is perfect and peaceful and everywhere is white and clean and there are fresh flowers and beautiful statues that come from worldbefore – beautiful naked humans. There are soft red carpets everywhere. Dreamers have to have a perfect diet, they have a life full of perfect peace so their dreams will be wonderful.

Nico has been eager to get to Dreamworkspace because it is so perfect and peaceful. No invigilators. None of the herding around the academy. No worrying about what might happen with the Warriors. Scuffles are always breaking out in the corridors – Warriors shoving one another up against the walls.

They are encouraged to be aggressive. Taught to fight – it's bound to spill over. Invigilators don't punish them for that. If they pick on anyone else though they are quickly immobilised. Nico panics when he sees the way the young warriors drop to the floor with just a touch from the invigilators. The Warriors lie there rigid and then twitch as they come round. Medics appear and lie them on their sides, make sure they don't bite of their own tongues.

"Outsidespace" – the teacher had said that day to Nico's mixed group. Everyone paid attention. There would be a Telecast, surely. They'd see Outsidespace.

"Barren," the teacher said, "Barren means nothing grows. Nothing grows because Outsidespace is toxic. Humans poisoned it hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Ultras have been trying ever since to make it safe but it is so toxic nothing can live there. Nothing."

"Ok, we get the idea." Nico heard Denny mutter, sitting a few along from him

"The Ultras have succeeded in making small areas safe and this is where the Wheelcities are made. Only in the places the Ultras have made safe. They are the only places we humans can live safely," the teacher had said.

Nico became aware of Denny twitching, his knee jigging up and down. Denny's had went into the air.

"Who builds the Wheelcities?" Denny asked, "if nothing can go out there?"
The teacher looked at Denny and blinked. The teacher looked like he was trying to remember something, frowning.
"Ah," said the teacher, "that is, - uh" – he looked around him, picked up the Telacaster control. "Ah ..."
A younger one at the front jiggled in his seat,

"I know, I know," he said, "is it machines? Do the machines build the cities?"

Another hand shot up
"Do the workers have special suits? To be safe out there?"

Another hand – "Is it the invigilators? I bet nothing can poison them." The group laughed. Even Nico. A nervous laugh. A poisoned invigilator, he'd like to see that.
The teacher looked red in the face. Nico noticed the teacher had sweat on his temples and on his upper lip.
"Now, now,"- he was trying to say. The group were laughing and shouting things out.

"Who builds the cities?" Denny had shouted above the noise.

"Anyway!" A little Dreamer squeaked. She had jumped up on her seat in the front row and turned round to face the group. Nico recognised her from the Unit. Bright red hair, curling and long. She sat on his table at mealtimes. She had such a squeaky little voice, but loud. "Anyway!" She jumped up and down – full of excitement with what she had to say – "someone told me" – she said – and as she said it Nico saw the door behind her open and two invigilators came through, soundlessly as always.

And as the group noticed, each fell quiet instantly, leaving the room empty of sound and the little red haired Dreamer just jumped on her seat, so full of what she had to say.

"Anyway, I know," – she squeaked into the silence – "that there are things living in Outsidespace!" – she shrieked it so hard in the silence and Nico found his own mouth making the shape of No! But he couldn't speak – his throat was blocked by something.

All he could do was watch as the invigilators came up behind the little Dreamer and as she shouted – "I know it – I know wild humans live out there! Wild humans!" - the invigilators reached out and the girl fell.

Nico watched her fall, watched her lie motionless on the floor, watched for her to twitch but she didn't. The medics came in, two of them. They bent over her and Nico saw them look at her and then look up at each other. The briefest of looks. They took the little Dreamer girl away.

"Now," the teacher said, "perhaps you will all listen instead of talking. Outsidespace" – the teacher said – "is toxic. Nothing lives out there. Nothing."

The Telacaster came on in the wall and Nico watched with all the others as the cast showed images of Outsidespace. Just grey. Nothing growing there. Just like that teacher said. Toxic.

Nico is jolted from his thoughts. The transport has stopped abruptly. Nico leans forward and nudges Denny's arm. Denny jerks upright, hands instinctively in a defensive pose.
"Den," Nico whispers. Denny has been deeply asleep. He blinks at Nico, looks around him, realising where he is.
"What?"
"Do you remember the day the teacher taught us about Outsidespace?"

Den's eyes narrow. Lara put out her hand to make Nico quiet but Nico knows there are no invigilators here on the transport.

"Do you remember the little girl? What she said?" Den nods. "She never came back to the Unit", Nico whispers. It was true. He noticed the next day she wasn't there. Denny frowned.

"You think they ..." he makes a sign with his hand – as if it's a blade cutting across his throat.
"No!" Nico says, too loudly. The medic spins round and stares at them. They shut up.

Nico hasn't thought that the little Dreamer might be dead. He feels shocked. He feels Lara next to him, lean in closer.

"Only a warrior would say that," she says, her lips up close to his ear. "They're obsessed!"

Nico nods but he'd felt a lurch as soon as Denny had made the cutting gesture. He knew why the little Dreamer hadn't come back., why she hadn't twitched like usual. Why the medics took her away. They probably thought she would be no good as a Dreamer with all those ideas in her head. But someone must have told her them.

He looks at Lara and she is nodding. It reminds him of something. The teacher – saying Now, nothing grows. Nothing.