Chapter 2
Jess jolted awake a scream catching in her throat. She gasped struggling to breath grasping the lawn chair she was sitting in with an iron grip. A second ago she was pulled off a building and fell fifteen stories onto solid pavement. She felt as if someone had kicked her in the stomach, very hard.
"What the hell…" she muttered with as much breath as she could muster.
"You get used to it." The Irish lilt said next to her as if these out of world experiences were normal.
"But, what? We just?" Jess murmured confused and then realized, "you pulled me off a building! I almost died!"
"Jess, it was only a dream." Matt reassured her.
"You almost killed me!" Jess repeated.
"We needed a kick to wake you up. It was either jump or shot you."
"What did you have to kill- wait. How do you know what I was dreaming about?"
Matt smiled, "We were sharing dreams."
"Sharing dreams?" Jess looked puzzled. "How? Oww!" Jess yelped as Matt pulled the needle out of her arm. She hadn't even noticed it was there to begin with.
"Using this." Matt explained waving the needle pointed at the machine it was connected to. "This is a PASIV. First created by the military to train soldiers in harsh circumstances, it enables people to share a dream together. While, as you know, it feels real, you cannot be physically hurt."
"More like emotionally scarred," Jess murmured rubbing the arm the needle was in. She hated needles.
Matt chucked at her comment, "yes, if you're not prepared you can be emotionally scarred. But we can prepare you for that."
"Prepare me for what? I'm not doing that again."
Matt raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"Hell no. It was awful. Nothing is as it seams and it's just- it's just-"
"Pure creation," Matt interrupted. "You could never build a city in mere seconds in the real world. When you're dreaming you feel, and you can do everything. It's pure creation, an architects dream."
Jess shuttered, "I guess I'm not your architect then."
Jess rose from the lawn chair shakily and gathered her composer. She was in a warehouse; plain, dull, and empty aside from the lawn chairs surrounding the table with the PASIV and a few work desks scattered around in no particular pattern. A small isolated work or observation room 10 meters away looked as if it served as a private office. Directly in front of her was what she was looking for, the exit.
"Jess." Matt called as she walked away. She ignored him.
He's crazy, ablsolutly crazy. There is no way in hell I'm going back. It was so scary, terrifying but amazing. You built a city, Jess, an entire city without lifting a pen! No, don't think about that, just go. Get out of here before you're sucked back into one of those dreams.
So deep in thought, Jess almost ran into the dark haired man coming out of the office.
"Excuse me," she said, head down, in passing. He moved aside to let her through.
As she reached the door, Jess heard a few lines of conversation between Matt and the dark haired man.
"It looks like that went well," the dark haired man said sarcastically.
"She'll be back, Becker." Matt said, "She'll be back."
{*}{*}{*}
Jess arrived home to her shabby student apartment. Dropping her bag at the door and slipping out of her orange heels, she collapsed on the couch her heart still beating a mile a minute. She lay there for several minutes allowing her heart rate to slow. Sitting up, she walked over to her bag and pulled out her architecture homework and sprawled it on her bed (she would have laid it on her desk if it wasn't already vomiting).
After half and hour of staring blankly at the beginning of chapter 12 she slammed her head against the textbook. Matt was right. It was amazing. Pure creation.
Jess rolled over and sighed.
{*}{*}{*}
"Jess," the dark haired man, Becker, said surprised as Jess walked back into the warehouse the next day. "I thought it'd be at least a week until you came back."
Jess blushed, "I-I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was just like…"
"Pure creation." He finished her sentence.
Jess just nodded.
Matt emerged from the office flipping thought a folder of papers. Looking up he saw Jess looking sheepish and smiled.
"What I tell you Becker," he said walking by him and playfully slapping him on the back. "I'd told you she'd be back."
Becker choked a smile.
"Jess, this is Becker, our Point Man."
"Point Man?" Jess furled her eyebrows.
Becker gave Jess a look. "Matt, did you even tell her what we do?"
"You share dreams or something," Jess said. Both men looked at her. "Or something like that, right?"
Becker closed his eyes in a kind of 'I-can't-believe-you-Matt' expression. "You didn't tell her?" he hissed, eyes still closed.
"You saw her run out of the room." Matt defended. Becker sighed.
"What exactly do you do?" Jess asked, a hint of fear creeping into her voice.
"In short, we go into people's dreams and steal information from them for a profit." Matt explained. "It's called extraction."
It took a moment for Jess to process this. Isn't that illegal? Although, Professor Gideon did warn me it wasn't exactly something I could put on a resume.
"What do you need an architect for?" was the first question that popped into Jess' mind.
Matt smiled, "Someone has to create the dreams, don't they?"
"Wait," Jess said asking for clarification, "You mean I have to create someone else's dream?"
"Exactly. Although this doesn't mean create a world where everyone walks on his or her hands on the ceiling, your job is to make us a layout that will hide us from our mark and give us the home field advantage."
"Like creating a maze and giving you the map."
"Precisely." Becker nodded.
"How do you know I'll take the job?" Jess asked, looking back at Matt.
"You came back after one day, there is nothing quiet like it is there?"
Jess sighed, "No, there isn't."
"Let's get started then," Matt said turning to Becker, "You'll need to give her some training while I'm off putting together the rest of the team. I have to go see Lester to finalize the plans and transactions as well as find Connor and Abby."
"There last known whereabouts were along the Mediterranean coast somewhere near Nice." Becker said and Matt picked up his coat off of one of the lawn chairs.
"Always the point man." Matt chuckled, "That'll give you less than a week to get her up to speed. Oh, and she'll need a totem."
"A what?" Jess asked.
"Becker will explain." He reassured her, "Don't worry Jess, I have the utmost faith in you."
"Great." Jess weakly smiled.
"I'll be back," Matt waved as he walked to the door.
"Don't get mauled by the Russian mob this time. I don't want to clean up your mess again." Becker yelled.
Matt just waved as he closed the door.
"Russian mob?" Jess asked warily.
"Matt was sloppy after a job and didn't cover his tracks. Don't worry, it only happened once. Anyway," Becker fished around in his pocket and pulled out a red dice one side of which old had dotes, six to be exact, "this is a totem. It's a small object, potentially heavy, that you can have on you at all times so no one else knows."
"Like a coin?"
"No, it needs to be more unique than that."
Jess reached out to touch the dice but Becker quickly grasped it and placed it back in his pocket.
"I can't let you touch it," he explained, "that defeats the purpose of it. It's specific weight and balance is only known to me and therefore, I know whether or not I'm in someone else's dream. You'll need to make your own. When you've been in the business as long as Matt or I have, you're in danger of not knowing the difference between a dream and reality."
Jess nodded and looked up at Becker. He was a fair bit taller than she was, probably a head taller if her weren't wearing heels. He was quite handsome too now that she thought about it. Dark features, well groomed hair, strong jaw line, deep brown eyes, and a knee-shaking smile. Jess, focus!
Jess smiled and tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear trying not to blush. "Okay, what's my first lesson?"
Becker smiled.
A/N: If there is any particular direction you want this story to go I'm open to suggestions (I'm kind of making it up as I go). Please review if you enjoyed it :)