Dream Hunters (eBook)

Bevan Knight (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
396 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-8963-2 (ISBN)

Infos

In 'The Dream Hunters', the Croans' mission to observe Groob's inhabitants turns perilous after discovering a device that shares thoughts and emotions. While some see hope for connection, others fear control. As ancient threats and enigmatic robots resurface, the Croans must navigate love, distrust, and danger before it's too late.

Bevan Knight has been a librarian, book reviewer, database administrator and long distance runner. He lives in Wellington, New Zealand with his wife Naomi.

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In "e;The Dream Hunters"e;, the third trilogy featuring the Croans, the explorers venture to Groob, a planet where remnants of a once-advanced civilization survive at the edge of a vast desert. Their mission to observe and excavate unearths a remarkable device that shares thoughts and emotions directly between users. While some view the device as a path to empathy and connection, others fear its potential for totalitarian control. The Croans, sworn to impartiality, find themselves entangled with Groob's inhabitants, attracting both love and suspicion. Meanwhile, ominous threats emerge the specter of whatever destroyed the previous civilization, feral robots prowling the desert, and rising mistrust of the Croans' mysterious abilities. As tensions escalate, the Croans must decide how long they can safely remain before they become captives of the very world they sought to study. Rich in tension and intrigue, The Dream Hunters explores progress, fear, and the limits of understanding.

Textauszug

Chapter 6

The Dream Hunters

Aleb rode his bicycle through the big gateway arch, dismounted and gazed up at the six story structure built of black and white stone. A large sign on the tower announced ‘Dream Hunters—we turn your dreams into reality.’ Judging from the movement in the foyer, the company was not lacking in clients. Vehicles came and went. People carried strange items in, and out. Aleb whimsically considered that catching dreams and solidifying them must involve a lot of work. He took his time and watched the activity before working his way around obstacles to reach the front door. Two name plates announced, respectively, ‘Dreamland Enterprises—Ground Floor’ and ‘Dream Hunters—Floor 6’. Aleb, stood pondering about the remaining four floors, until his contact, Hamul, came running out, apologetic about the wait.

“Aleb? Come in, come in! So sorry, so sorry … no, not that, that’s the goods lift … this one … here we are, top floor.”

“It’s like a fortress.” Aleb looked down from where he’d come, scanned the courtyard, the opposite tower, the crenelated outer wall. “I’ve gone past it often enough, but never thought too much about it.

“It’s very old.” Hamul smiled. “Many were demolished, but fortunately not this one, because it’s perfect for us.”

“They demolished them? Yes, I do recall hearing something about that.”

“The ones on prime land came down; new housing was desperately needed, and building material too. Then, the south road round the coast was another urgent matter.”

“Just the same …” Aleb retreated from the window, leaving his thoughts unfinished.

“Ask me anything you like. I notice you weren’t very complimentary when you mentioned us in the Monitor. I’m hoping to turn that view around.”

Aleb flushed. “I promise I’ll keep an open mind.” He took the offered seat at the table and set up his recording equipment. Sounds from below filtered upwards.

“You seem to be very busy.”

“Oh, most of that is because new tenants are moving into the floor below us. Some kind of trading company I believe.” Hamul paused, and listened to the muffled noises. “No modern building would be so well insulated, except maybe City Hall.”

“So tell me, just how old is this building, and how did it survive?”

“Nobody can be sure. It’s hard to date stone buildings, but this one here certainly goes back to the elder days. There are still plenty of them out in the desert, mostly in ruins, with some almost buried in the sand. More have been discovered recently, virtually unspoilt, and built to virtually the same design: two towers, a central courtyard, an outer wall. This is one of the larger ones. It came under the protection of Groob’s Building Committee. We repaired the walls, added some steel reinforcement, the lifts, and of course plumbing, wiring, air conditioning—all the essential stuff. But, as you see, we’ve kept the walls looking as far as possible in their original state.”

“What about the other tower?”

“That’s in a worse state, and we’re not sure whether to restore it or demolish it. We could use those big stone blocks for something more useful.”

It was not hard for Aleb, surrounded by those heavy blocks, to imagine himself transported back in time. He closed his eyes, leaned a little sideways and ran his fingers over one of the dark, smooth surfaces. Then he sat up a little straighter and shook himself free of the illusion.

“Perhaps now you could tell me about the company, what you do, and so on.”

“All right. I joined when we were part of Dreamland, which is a company that makes mostly beds, mattresses, pillows and quilts, along with a few gadgets that are designed to induce relaxation. I took over the technical side, and then I heard about the controversy that Jelani Therim had stirred up. I thought there just might be something there we could use. Never mind the science—I know a lot of scientists declare the idea is rubbish. Commercially, that doesn’t really matter. We were intending in any case to use the image of a joyful young woman, contemplating all the wonders of the world, as a brand, and as a way to introduce some recently discovered neurotechnical devices from the desert. I had a few prototypes made, and then I chased up Jelani. She was hostile at first, but when I assured her I’d give her a big budget to play with, and she could experiment as much as she liked, she relented. Her name still attracts people, and apart from that she’s a great looker. I just wanted her to be part of our advertising.” Hamul paused and handed over a paper folder. Aleb frowned, opened it, and took out some glossy leaflets. The words Dream Hunters were displayed, the large capital ‘D’ forming a frame for Jelani’s face. In the background was a view of a brightly coloured balloon sailing into the sky. “Dream Hunters,” he said aloud.

“Yes. It seemed the obvious name to us. It even shows the link to the parent company, Dreamland Enterprises. Did you see the names in the foyer? Dreamland has the ground floor, we have the sixth.”

“So I suppose you’ve found some means of recording people’s dreams?”

“Not quite. The word is to be taken more in its other sense, the things we aspire to.”

“And Jelani is part of your team?” Aleb felt a little betrayed. She had not mentioned the company by name, although she did say she had found ‘an opening’ but the details were still being worked out.

“She’s better than we’d hoped. Her suggestions, along with the skill of my very capable technical team, have produced our number one product. Of course, it’s all stuff that came out of the desert in the first place; that is, from their surviving documents and artefacts, adapted to our materials and more limited expertise. Here, have a look through this.” Hamul handed over a headset, and Aleb rather gingerly put it on. It showed a large white screen in front of his gaze. This was featureless, but as he looked into it, it gave him the illusion of opening up a vista that stretched into the infinite distance.

“Now, push that little switch on the side. You should be looking at a red light, yes? That means you have to tune the device so it can read your brain … Push the switch again … No, don’t worry, it can’t hurt you. At most you might feel a slight tingling. Raise your hand when you see a green light.”

Aleb was directed to look at a series of faces, some sad, some happy, some angry, some afraid. Eventually a green light winked on and off and the screen cleared once more. Aleb raised his hand.

“Good. Your machine is now tuned, ready for action. Just let your eyes rest on a figure that is about to appear.

Aleb saw a young woman in a tutu performing on a stage. “Classical ballet,” he said under his breath.

“Now, push the switch again.”

The woman became fully three-dimensional. She was on the white screen he had seen first of all, and was retreating away from him, dancing still, but moving off as if making her way down a long white corridor. Eventually she faded out of sight. Aleb took off the headset.

“Yes?”

“This is D1, our first product. As you saw, the visual construct that your brain creates is copied into the viewer giving that intensely real, almost surreal effect.”

“Yes, hyper-real I would call it, but my brain didn’t create it—it was already there.”

“Not that last bit, where the dancer moves off into the distance. That was something you were doing yourself.”

“I find that hard to believe. You are saying my brain is looking at the results of its own visual construction, when I look into your viewer?”

“Yes. Your first construct is fairly minimal, but the interaction with the screen image, which incidentally goes on, and on, builds it up in extraordinary vividness. In other words, you are looking at your own visual construct, and filling it in in greater and greater detail.”

“How on earth did you manage it?”

“We didn’t. We got lucky. A couple of archaeologists sold us a gadget they’d found in the desert. It was damaged, but our team did their own searching and found enough undamaged parts to make a complete device. We don’t yet fully understand it, but what we do know is it reads the visual cortex and projects the result onto an external screen. What the elders did with such a thing we don’t yet know.”

“Amazing. Convince me this is not a trick, Hamul.”

“Okay. Think about something, some memory perhaps, or I could provide you with a picture?”

Aleb thought about the moment when he had first met Jelani, in her room, with all her possessions, seemingly, scattered on the floor. He put on the headset.

There she was, and he could have sworn he could reach out and touch her, she looked so close. He gave a little exclamation of astonishment.

“Do you mind if I look in—if it isn’t too private? These devices communicate with each other.”

“Yes? Oh, sure.”

“Oh, Jelani again. You’ve already met her?”

“I interviewed her,” said Aleb. He removed the headset. Vaguely, he heard the lift in the passage open. There was a knock on the door, and then Jelani herself entered. Aleb jumped up in astonishment. She raised her hand in a sort of salute to Hamul and then looked at Aleb.

“I heard you were coming,”...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 28.2.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Science Fiction
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-8963-2 / 9798350989632