Sometimes Arthur wondered.
It seemed odd to him when the others complained that they couldn't dream without the PASIV. He lied and agreed with them, but then he closed his eyes and they plagued him; a succession of lightning-quick images, burning themselves in a slave brand across his skull.
He hated the dreams because they were so different than what he experienced on the job. He missed the linearity of extraction. He wanted to walk through a maze, not be dragged through a hall of mirrors. He saw himself in every primal fear that presented itself to him, every fleeting memory.
Sometimes Arthur wondered. It was silly wondering, but he did it anyway. He wondered if this was all his imagining. He knew that the others had moments of weakness, thinking that perhaps they were in limbo or a somnacin-induced haze. But he didn't. What he wondered was whether all of this– the inception, the extraction– was actually the brief dream of another him in a world where he was a normal person, with a normal job.
So he grew scared of that other man waking up, because waking up would mean the death of him as he knew himself, and no one would mourn him because he never existed.
At night when he lay and stared unblinkingly at the ceiling he would think of all the miniature worlds and all the point men who were being constructed at that moment in the minds of a million other people. Worlds that lasted decades for the projections but hours for the creators. Worlds within worlds within worlds.
Dreams within dreams within dreams.
Sometimes Arthur wondered.