DOS

by PumpkinPancakes

Season one: An adventure into the world of dreams. Please yell at me so I'll keep updating this, I'd love to finish it.

The screen lit up in seasick blurs of cheap pastels and neon; Paula's formerly night cloaked room was transformed into a plasticy noon. A man she knew, Dr. Andonuts, walked onto a stage in the most incredible sweatshirt; a relic from a time when shame was unknown. He smiled from beneath white whiskers and turned towards the camera with an awkward spin, sincere and terrible. Paula leaned forward in anticipation of everything that the mystery tape was sure to contain. A smile spread across her face.

The doctor, full of new wave electricity, began to speak. Paula pulled the headphones up her ears as the synthetic fanfare died away and the studio audience settled in for the lecture of a lifetime, "Have you ever felt different?" he asked.

"We all have, in one way or the other, but did you know there is are people out there that really are 'different?' Hi, I'm Doctor Linus Andonuts and I want to talk to you about the world of Psychic Power. Some special individuals have special powers far beyond the reach of the average human mind. You might call that pretty 'different,' huh? But did you know that everyone has the potential and the tools to harness latent psychic abilities? It's true! I don't claim to be different, or special, I'm just an average person, like you, but I am going to demonstrate what I and my institute have discovered in our year long study of psychic powers. Now, if you'll pause the video here and refer to the manual that came with your video package."

The doctor walked across the stage and sat cautiously on it's ledge, patiently looking towards the screen as block letters ran in marquee across her nose, PAUSE TAPE HERE PAUSE TAPE HERE.

Paula pulled the Betamax off the floor and kneaded buttons across the awful gray plastic controller until the video came to a halt. The package the video and player had arrived in was crumpled by the doorway; Paula shook it onto the carpet and after sifting through a pile of packing peanuts she returned, disappointed, to the video with no manual.

The video resumed and Dr. Andonuts sprang youthfully back onto his feet; the marquee drifted down to the lower edge of the video: OPEN TO PAGE 3 OPEN TO PAGE 3. Andonuts was walking through the seemingly across a green screened cosmos towards a plain wooden stool with an apple placed upon it. He turned back to the camera and began to speak again, "We'll start with a demonstration of Psychic Power that even you can do, at home, along with me. Take a moment to set up your own apple or similar fruit on a safe surface," he stared into Paula's eyes expectantly for a moment then continued, "Alright, let's begin."

He stood a distance away from the apple on the stool and the camera adjusted to frame them on either side of the screen. The marquee brushed subdued itself cautiously across the bottom edge, FOLLOW ALONG AT HOME, SEE INSTRUCTIONS ON PAGE 3. Andonuts narrated for the unfortunate viewer who had not been given the luxury of manual, "Now, we're using the focusing technique here, and in a few seconds we should see the results," his face was twisted up and pink splotches flared up from within the folds on his face.

For a moment Paula watched incredulously, not expecting anything to happen, maybe expecting the apple to roll across the stool and back. The video clicked monotonously away inside the player and the audience started wondering aloud. Then, in a wonderful moment of surprise, the apple crashed and splattered through the air like it had been rigged with several small firecrackers. The camera readjusted, a woman in the audience looked faint, behind her the crowd was applauding victoriously.

Paula whispered into the glow, "Holy crap..."

She ejected the cassette and held it up against the static of the screen, the faded paper held a small outline of ink embroidered on a star: "Everyone Can Be Psychic."

The day leading up to this had not revealed any of it's grand plans for that evening.

Paula worked in her family dare care center every morning except for Sundays, and took the children on field trips around Twoson. That morning they walked down 1st street to the farmer's market in Burglin Park and then back along the creek that ran through it. The tiny town had changed a lot in the last fifteen years; back then it was just a handful of colorful houses along the two proudly pavedstreets at the end of an abandoned interstate. During a small commercial boom, when the big mall had crowded in on main street and a county hospital was erected, the population doubled in the span of a summer. These days the roads stretched out far north and east; a retirement village crept across the twin rivers of the valley adjacent and the town's three darling stop signs had been torn up long ago and replaced with traffic lights. Paula marched before the lines of children holding hands and watched the endless passing cars. Despite trying, she couldn't relate their blurry faces to the people she used to know.

The package had come, following a mid-afternoon nap, under a blanket of credit card offers and bank statements. Paula had certainly not been expecting it, and in fact had not gotten any kind of real mail in a year or more. The address was from "1332 Elbert Ct. #0210" and was endorsed with four or five too many stamps than needed. It sat on top of the line of shoes next to her bedroom door until work had finished and dinner was eaten; it was then opened atop her lap with a delicate precision that quickly turned into an frustration and a heap of shredded paper.

She had never seen a betamax player before. It was futuristic. Sleek like a movie set DeLorean or an unused car phone. The tape was less well preserved, and looked like it probably came out of a damp cardboard box from the basement of a television studio. There was blank white tape across the single reel viewing hole and the actual label was at first glance seemed sun bleached.

Paula then wrestled her bedroom television off of it's faux-wooden stand and onto a pile of dirty laundry, cleared the electrical sockets of clutter and engineered a connection between the two similarly ancient devices. After a half-hour spent on this labor she rose from the scene and prepared herself for bed and expeditionary video observation.

That night she lay awake in her bed, conveniently placed with pillows arranged for easy window access, and watched the neighborhood persist well past it's curfew and then die off slowly like the disappearance of fireflies at the end of summer. Not long ago she had been adventurous, hasn't she? It was a betraying question for someone who wanted an excuse to sigh, or resign herself, even for someone who might roll over and accept normalcy in her life. But, she remained at the window and took all of it in until the lights had gone.

At the edge of the horizon the big light, the city, remained.

Sunday morning she woke up early to catch the bus across county lines into Fourside. Directions had been printed out and a day bag had been prepared. To Magnet Hill University. Past the library. Past the residency hall. Turn left on maintenance road. Enter laboratory complex at northern side of Elbert Ct. Go downstairs. Walk past first door on left. Turn to face second door on left. Knock on door. It was eerily accurate. She fascinated herself with a street view of the building, which was conspicuously white and featureless.

The campus was surprisingly lively despite summer break. On her way through the campus Paula spotted a lecture taking place in an outdoor amphitheater and across the parking lot dividing the residence halls and the sports fields she could see a small LARP battle taking place between two soccer goals. The Elbert Laboratories however were seemingly deserted.

The front door was held open by an Apple II computer laying on it's back, plugged into the outdoor electric panel. It's screen was lit up with a notepad program that read (in size 54 font): I am the door computer. do not remove me until we find the keys. -love, lab 0210. Paula walked past it and looked down the unlit hallways; they looked as if they hasn't been used in months except for a small awkwardly swept path through the dust that led to a flight of stairs.

She followed it down to the basement level and found the hallway below in good condition other than what looked like bike tire skids twisting out of the tiles beneath the stair bottom. A white board on the opposite wall revealed what Paula already expected: no rooms other than 0210 were being used.

She adjusted her backpack and walked down the hall to the mystery door then knocked twice. A short girl in her early twenties opened the door slightly and peered out, asking tenderly, "Who is it?"

Paula waved weakly at the mousy girl and responded, "Paula Polestar? I think you sent me a package last week?"

Someone slid backwards into Paula's view on a rolling office chair and slid his glasses up the bridge of his nose, squinted and asked, "Paula, what are you doing here?"

Paula squinted back, "Jeff?"

The mousy girl ducked her head and retreated behind the door; her hand reappeared at the bottom to move the kickstand into place. Jeff rose from his chair and quickly walked out to meet Paula in the hallway. He asked, "Did you have a question about the contract? You could have just called."

Paula frowned, "Contract?"

"The one I sent to you with the beta. It was in an envelope."

"I didn't see any envelope."

Jeff ran his hands halfway into his dirty blond hair and began to rub his scalp with a look of concentration. After a second he turned and walked quickly into the relative darkness of lab 0210. Paula watch incredulously, whispering to herself, "Nice to see you again."

He returned in a minute with a standard envelope in hand and extended it to meet Paula's. He gave an apologetic smile and said, "Sorry, it's been a little disorganized in here lately."

Paula said, "Oh. What are you doing in here anyways?"

Jeff replied, "Well, the complete details are in that contract actually. But, it's research, did you watch the video?"

Paula laughed to herself and said, "Yess! That was amazing. Were you embarrassed when you saw it? Your dad is so cool."

"Not so much when he wears that sweatshirt around at home."

"Ahh! I want to see it."

"Anyways, were sort of doing something related to that here."

"You're studying psychic powers? Are they for real, I mean, other than..."

"It actually is a real phenomenon, yes. We've seen an increase in psychic power over the last 20 years to the point where maybe one in one million or so people have shown evidence of it."

"Wow! Jeff, that's crazy. Have you got one of them in a cage in there?"

"No, no. Our actual research is on dreams."

"Dreams?"

"Yes, we're working on a way to monitor dreams of other people, first hand."

"Really? That sounds pretty, uh, sci-fi-ish. Anything interesting so far?"

"Well, there are a few things I'm not supposed to talk about yet, but I guess I could tell you."

He stepped back and signaled for Paula to come into the lab. The mousy girl was sitting next to a hunched over man at a station with a few rows of computer screens all scrolling jerkily with text. Jeff announced, "That's Mable and that's Arnold."

Mable turned slightly and nodded with a meek smile; her short brown hair was scattered chaotically across her face and forehead, mostly obscuring her eyes. Arnold lifted up a hand briefly without turning from his work. Jeff continued deeper into the lab. For the most part it was empty and benign, with gray beige carpeting and white paint on the walls. There were six or seven collapsible beds piled in an empty corner with a few conference chairs and a 40 gallon trash can which was overflowing. Air vents and plumbing crossed and converged along the ceiling, and were painted the same white they must have bought in bulk for the building. Jeff pointed to a closed door and said, "That's where 'Free' lives," with lazy air quotes thrown up at his waist.

Paula asked, "Who?"

Jeff replied, "Freesia, is what we've been calling her, she's a part of the team, in a way," He paused for a moment, "Well, I guess she's more like a part of the project really. She's great, it's a little hard to explain without knowing her."

He turned and walked through a second door and they entered what seemed like a particularly short hallway, or maybe a really long closet. At the far end of the room was a second computer station and on either side of them metal blinds covered something on the walls. He turned and smiled, "This is our viewing room."

He flipped a switch next to one of the blinds and it ascended quickly to reveal a small pane of glass overlooking a room with an ancient looking MRI machine with long plastic tubes spilling out of it's cylindrical body. Jeff said, "Thats our monitoring machine, I modified it from a CAT scan for our research. The data comes up over here."

He turned on one of the 4 screens crowded onto the computer desk next to him. After some typing and a few menu navigating moments he stepped back and a video started to play. A voice played out from the speakers, "I'm inside of the test patients dream, does it look okay?"

It was Jeff's voice. He was looking into a strange room. A young woman sat, unnaturally, on a bed on the far wall with her eyes closed. There were unclear decorations all over the walls, obscured for some reason, memories called up from something no longer familiar. No one replied but Jeff's voice replied, "Good, I'm going to observe the patient while we've got this working."

Jeff watching, muttered, "We used to have a lot of trouble with it."

The scene shifted as Jeff, in the dream, walked forward and looked around the room. The girl was stirring and she drifted weightlessly to the floor. As her eyes opened the whole room twisted away from her; the bed she was sitting on crumpled like a cheap paper model and then disappeared into a vanishing point far behind her. From nowhere a new scene materialized.

They were in a dorm room. Another girl was standing behind the dream's owner, shifty and immaterial. She began to shout in a strange amplified echo, "Sarah, what the hell is wrong with you?"

The dreamer reached up to her face and covered her mouth; her eyes shot up and to the right and the scene seemed to be held in motion for a second before the dreamer, Sarah, suddenly began rummaging through the room at inhuman speeds. Jeff in the video spoke, "Are the visuals transitioning okay?"

Then after a moment he said, "Okay. Lets see if DOS can handle a physical exit, try waking her up?"

The video turned and stared at the wall for a moment. Little desk drawers were sliding out of the drywall in a grid, then fell, in sync, with a rumble. All kinds of objects clattered out onto the floor, desks and beds, things you would find in a drawer. The other girl, the figment, began to cry somewhere in the unseen part of the dream just as things flickered slowly the screen turned white.

Jeff turned back to Paula, "Pretty cool, right?"

Paula was enthused, "Yeah! Cool."

Jeff said, "Thats about as far as we usually get, that was actually the first time it didn't crash when we woke someone up."

"What are you going to do with this?"

"Well, officially we're developing it for therapy use. It actually is pretty useful for something similar to hypnotism... But, truthfully we've been spending most of our time on some of the exploratory things we can do while in a dream."

"Like what?"

"Well, I wish I could show you the passageway, but we can't get the video to record in there."

"Passageway?"

"Yeah, it's really interesting. It's our biggest find so far."

Jeff stepped past Paula and walked back into the main room and closed the door behind Paula. He pulled a simple cell phone from his pocket and glanced at it for a second, then spoke, "Unfortunately we promised some of our funders that we would have a working prototype of our program ready for presentation later today."

He gestured at Mable and Arnold, "You can probably guess what were trying to get done right now. I wish you could stay for a little while longer but I know we're just going to be writing code all day and I promised everyone that it would be as boring as possible."

Paula laughed, "Well, I was gonna look around the campus anyways. I assume you three are attending?"

Jeff said, "Yep, you're right."

"I don't know how you can afford it."

"Well, father pulled some strings, you know how it is."

"Not really, but it's cute that you call him father."

Outside, Paula read the contract on the bleachers of the soccer field while the remaining warriors fought sluggishly in the heat of their costumes.

Dear Paula Polestar,

We here are Monotolli Technologies are proud to offer you an opportunity to work with some of our best and brightest in the field of EXPLORATORY DREAM RESEARCH. We at Monotolli Technologies are committed to staying at the edge of scientific development and because of our passion for education of the sciences we are currently funding university studies in 50 campuses all over the country. If you choose to work with our team at MAGNET HILL UNIVERSITY you would be under the supervision of one of our best team leaders, JEFF ANDONUTS and you would be assisting with a experiment regarding DEVELOPMENT OF TECHNOLOGY FOR THE ANALYZING OF DREAMS AND ACCESSING INTERPERSONAL EXPERIENCES USING DREAM MONITORING SOFTWARE.

Your job will include many diverse fields of work or study. You will be expected to: REPORT TO LAB EACH WEEK NIGHT BETWEEN 6 AND 12, OPERATE SOFTWARE, COMPLETE WORK RELATED REPORTS DAILY, STUDY TO UNDERSTAND RELATED FIELDS, COMPLETE RESEACH BASED MISSIONS RELATED TO FUNDING INTERESTS AS SPECIFIED BY CASE WORKERS, AS WELL AS ANY OTHER TASKS ASKED OF YOU BY YOUR TEAM LEADER OR CASE WORKERS.

If you do choose to work for us you will report to JEFF ANDONUTS or one of our many representatives and present a signed copy of this contract for our records. It has been requested that you do so by AUGUST 17th at the latest.

Because we at here are the Monotolli Corporation believe in treating our employees like family, we are prepared to offer you the following in exchange for your commitment to us:

(ONE) FULL SCHOLARSHIP TO MAGNET HILL UNIVERSITY

STAFF HOUSING

SALARY OF $800.00 PER MONTH

FULL MONOTOLLI CO. INSURANCE PACKAGE

If you have read and understand the terms discussed in this contract please sign and date below.

Signed,

Geldegarde Monotoli Jr.

Attached to the contract was a hand written note from Jeff:

Paula,

I suggested you to some of my funders as a candidate for this job.

I hope it's not a strange thing to do, I know haven't seen you in a very long time. I still think of you as a friend though. I'm still a shy person (I'm working on it though) so I don't really know what to say to you about this. I hope you'll consider it. I think it would be a lot of fun to have you around. There are a lot of exciting things I'd love to show you.

Anyways, I'm sure I'll hear from you soon.

-Jeff Andonuts

She walked back through the quad and the campus at large; back down the ancient sidewalks of the downtown area and sat down at the bridge bus-stop to wait for the bus back to Twoson. She watched the gray blue water of the city bay soundlessly kick against the bridge support and fall away again. Above the water a stream of cars pushed by and dispersed into the web of streets beyond, like a diagram of water rising from a tree's roots up into the tangled branches. In some ways it had a charm. Everything was lit up and electric. She though back to the sunsets that failed to set on the towers here, a world where the lights didn't turn off at night, and she felt a little charged herself. It might not be so bad to live in a big city, right? It wouldn't be the first time she had set out into the world unprepared.

That night, as Paula sat down for dinner with her family, she stood up slightly and her parents turned to look at her with concern. She pulled the folded up contract from her bag and handed it to her father, then started to speak, "So... I got offered this job in Fourside."

Paula's mom immediately scooted her chair over and began to read the paper over her husband's shoudler.

Dad spoke first, "Is this what you want? You want to go to school?"

Paula replied, "Yeah, I mean, I think it's a good thing to do. It's a good school."

Mom asked, "Is that where you went today, to talk to this Jeff?"

"Yes, Mom, you met him before."

"When?"

"Well, you know... back when I was 13."

"The baseball cap boy?"

"No, not him, the blond one, the science guy."

"Oh, the shy one."

Dad spoke up, "Is this going to be the same sort of thing as before? Are you going to disappear for a couple months?"

Paula shook her head, "No dad. It's not like that. He goes to the school too, and I'd visit too, you know, I'd come home a lot."

Mom ate a spoonful of mashed potatoes, and said, "Well, I think you should do it."

Paula was taken aback, "What? It's okay? You don't want me to stay?"

Dad handed the contract back to Paula, "This seems like a good deal."

Paula sat down, "What about the preschool? What about you guys? You need me."

Mom laughed, "It's not the first time I've had to run a preschool by myself dear, You're great to have around, but I'm sure we'll be just fine."

Dad said, "You're going to do what you think it right, Paula, you've always been independent. You're going to be 20 pretty soon, and you've spent all of your time here at home. This seems like a good chance for you to make friends and do irresponsible things, like a kid should. It might be nice to have the house to ourselves anyways, right dear?" and then winked at his wife.

Paula grimaced, "Sick."

By the next weekend she had her life sorted into a single suitcase, overstuffed and occasionally popping at the seams. She wore two extra pairs of socks on each foot and her pockets were filled with trinkets that weren't allowed to be left behind. Her neck was burning under a few extra layers of out of season scarfs. Her room looked tidy for the first time in years. It was a troubling scene. Her mom and dad walked her across the street and hugged her in front of the commuters at the bus stop and as they walked away her mom turned to wave three more times.

She hiked across town with the heavy luggage hugged to her chest. When she got to the facility and walked down the unkempt stairs she stood for a second in front of the lab 0210, hesitating for a second. She exhaled and pulled the proper forms out from her back pocket, knocked and readied herself. Jeff was closest to the door and opened it wide when he saw who it was. He asked with a smile, "Did you decide?"

She set down her suitcase and swung the contract into his hand with a nod.