This chapter contains all dialogue. The next chapter will have more action, I promise. Also sorry for it being so short.
"Welcome home, darling," Jack announced as he opened the door to the small flat on the upper levels of Flnogiotr side of Ragelsii.
"Don't do that," Clara moaned at the billionth married joke Jack managed to sputter since he'd forged the data work.
"Well, officially we are married."
"Which you forged for the soul purpose of establishing ourselves in the Nightmare fandom so we can save the Doctor. Out there," Clara pointed towards the door, "I will pretend, but not in here. If you want to survive this next month you gotta give me my space."
"Okay, calm down. I was only joking, unless you change your mind."
"Jack," Clara warned.
He laughed at her and then became serious, " Fine. So we've managed to get pretty high on our to do list, despite only just getting here..."
"We've got the currency, applications, residency, relationship established. Explain that one again, I don't get it."
"Married couples get in easier than loaners. Easier to pass the fandom down to the children or something, I don't know."
"So what do we do next?" Clara finally sank down into the cushions of a sofa, their flat was completely furnished. She hoped that Jack got her her own room. If not then he got the couch. She couldn't remember how long it had been since she slept and being unconscious didn't count.
"Now we fill out the application. Well I'll fill it out to save time, but we will need to think creatively for some of these answers. You see it gets a little tricky. We need to log in 200 hours of Nightmare and then take the exam, which will be provided by our local FNMC."
"Its like trying to get your teacher's certificate."
"Yeah. Like I said, it usually takes years to establish a high level presence in the Fandom."
"Well you can mark me down for one hour just 199 left to go."
"Only about a hundred for me."
"Really?"
"In the old days, it was popular, even in the 52nd century. Right, next question, what genre do you prefer?"
"Huh?"
"When watching the telly or reading a book, what do you like to see?"
"Adventure?"
"Oh yeah that's going to get us far."
"I don't understand what this has to do with anything. You haven't explained what it is, is it like a channel, like BBC 4? All you've said is that it is like a petting zoo and all I've seen is that
Ravana episode a couple of hours ago. What does my preference of genre matter?"
Jack sighed heavily as he sat down in the chair opposite to her. He rested the tablet he used on his leg as he explained, "Nightmare is sort of like a channel, I guess. They run the show also called Nightmare. And there are at least twenty different stories that go along with it. They have their
contestants, as they call them. They implant a device into their heads to basically record their dreams. On top of it they have them hooked up to dream shares, which were invented a hundred or so years ago, for people to share their dreams. Basically straight forward that one. Nightmare is able to interact with the contestants' dreams and to somewhat control them. Nightmare records the dreams of the contestants and edits them and then broadcasts them."
Clara stared at him, shocked, "So Ravana really is a girl whom believes in AstRethEn and believes she is in love with Rohhier."
"Yes. And everything you saw is in her dream. She isn't an actor, she isn't acting, she believes what is happening, what she feels, sees, hears, touches, tastes, everything is real to her."
"So she experienced being burned by acid and being turned into a cyborg."
"Yes. And because of her species rejects cyborgs, she believes that she won't go to her religion's version of heaven. Nightmare is making her question her belief. And maybe she'll try and commit suicide."
"But it is all in her mind, she is dreaming those things."
"She'll wake up and realize Rohhier was just a figment of Nightmare's imagination."
"And the Doctor is going to be in the midst of all of that?"
"Yes."
"So when it asks for my favorite genre, I need to choose something they do a lot of."
"Sort of, but it is called Nightmare for a reason."
"So if I said Romance Adventure?"
"Then your application would be put to the side and deemed, 'boring'."
"What did you put for yours?"
Jack picked up the tablet and scrolled over to his application, "Slash, explicit sex, hurt slash comfort."
"Ugh."
Jack shrugged. "You asked."
"So something extreme, I don't know, explicit violence and horror?"
"Better, I'll put it down with a side of hurt slash comfort."
"Okay."
Jack moved on to the next section, "We need to find ourselves a label."
"And that means?"
"What sort of fanatics are we?"
"Big ones?"
Jack rolled his eyes. "There is about fifty options, right on from cosplay to fanart."
"You're using words that aren't in my vocabulary."
"Cosplay is costume plus play. They dress up as characters and create the costumes and some even swap genders to play out characters slash contestants. Fanart is art created by the fanatics that illustrate their favorite scenes or characters."
"How do these labels have to do with us getting in for the live viewing?"
"If we're cosplayers then we'd get hooked up into the dreamshare so we can interact with contestants within the dreams. Fanartists get to take contestants out into the workshop and do a photo shoot. Posing contestants how they like, or they might get to be in Control and set up a setting for a contestant to pose in within the dream."
"So we choose one of these labels that will help us get to be with the Doctor alone?"
"Yes."
"So we need a label which has him unhooked from the dreamshare," Clara suggested. "What kind of label could get us that?"
"Maybe a Nightviewer."
"What is that?"
"They get a personal live review with a contestant. But it is a tricky one. We have to have a track record for previous interviews with other fandoms and a channel. It isn't likely we'll be able to fake our way through it. We need a label we can fake well enough to get in. The real question is, what can we fake well. I'd be good and Fanacombations."
"What's that?"
"Fans whom study the combat techniques of a specific contestant."
"That's a bit beyond me."
"Yeah. Do you do art, are you good at art?"
"Not really."
"What are you, I mean what do you do besides travel with the Doctor, what's your job, you do have a job right?"
"I'm a teacher,"
"What do you teach?"
"Literature."
"Are you good at it...? Good at writing?"
"Making up stories," Clara shrugged. "I guess. I'm pretty good with telling stories, descriptive words and remembering details, but I don't know how that helps us."
"We've got an option called Fanovels. Fans whom write their own stories about contestants. This is looking like our only good option, with your literature skills."
"But this will need to be in my chosen genre, right?"
"Yes, Horror, hurt slash comfort with explicit violence."
"If I pass off for one of these writers, do we get a private session with the Doctor?"
"Not exactly, we'd be set up into the control room. We might be able to work it out to get into the dreamshare and send in directions to control about significant plot devices and events. Like say if Ravana discovers she is a cyborg and then suddenly Reth appears to her in a dream and tells her to commit suicide."
"That was a writer's decision?"
"To some extent, the brilliance of Nightmare is that so much of it is invented from the contestant's mind. Makes everything much more believable."
"Do you think we'd be able to get the Doctor alone with this label?"
"We might be able to request it. But I expect that in the dreamshare procedure it will be in the same room as the Doctor. We could barricade the room, detach him from the device and get out of there via teleport."
Clara sighed, rubbing her forehead. "I still don't get why we can't just teleport in there now."
"We don't know where they are. And if we teleport in the middle of the Doctor being actively recorded and under the dreamshare, disconnecting him could kill him. But if we wait until the viewing, it will all be set up on the demo, he won't be fully under and it will be easier to disconnect him without risking his life."
"You know a lot about this."
"Ex-boyfriend's favorite show. He's taken me to a couple of live viewings. But that was several thousand years ago for me. I'm a different man now."
"I'm too tired to question all of that, because it doesn't make sense and my head hurts."
"You can go on to bed, I think I have enough information to fill out these apps. Tomorrow we'll go over to the FNMC so we can be acquainted with a club. And they'll help us with the exam."
"We aren't taking it tomorrow are we?"
"No, you aren't ready."
"Right, going to bed then. I hope you got two bedrooms, because I'm not sharing."
"Go sleep, I'll be here on the couch."
"Right, good night."
"Good night, Impossible girl."
