"Come on, Becky."
She looks warily at her big brother, way on top of the playground slide. "I dunno, Chris."
"Aw, don't worry about it. I'm right here. Or are you a fraidy cat?" An all-too-familiar note of scorn enters his voice and that makes her mad.
"I'm not a fraidy cat," she insists.
"So what're you waiting for, squirt? C'mon already."
She gathers up her courage, counts the rungs during the laborious climb. Twelve of them on a narrow ladder.
(It's an awfully long way down, all the same. Makes her really nervous.)
He's still sitting at the top when she gets there. "C'mon Chris, slide down."
"Nope." Smirks at her.
"Then lemme go first, you freak. I don't like being up here."
"Thought you weren't a fraidy cat." He gives an exaggerated yawn, stretches. "Think I'll stay up here all afternoon. Real peaceful."
Big brothers are really a pain sometimes. If he isn't gonna budge she'll just have to climb right over him. So there.
He grabs her arm on the way. "Where're you going, squirt?"
"Let go of me, Chris!"
He keeps tugging at her and they tussle. Suddenly she's falling, landing really hard on her right arm.
"Beck? You okay?" Chris kneels by her side. "C'mon squirt, speak to me."
"I'm fine," she grumbles, sitting up. "Feel kinda woozy, though."
"Let's go home." He helps her to stand. She's a little wobbly at first, but soon able to walk by herself.
"Hey, you aren't gonna tell Mom or Dad I pushed you off the slide, are you? Only they'll go nuts." He's looking at her anxiously.
"...Will you do all my chores for a week?"
He nods, relieved. "You got a deal."
Becky smiles to herself, which turns into a wince as her arm begins to smart a little. But by the time they arrive back at the house the pain's gone away.
In fact, the injury's almost completely forgotten until a week later, when she raises her right arm to reach something and cries out in excruciating pain. Her folks drive her to the hospital, the doctors take an x-ray and say it's a greenstick fracture, which means she has to have her arm in a sling for a few weeks.
Chris winds up doing her chores anyway, since she can't really do them one-handed. Though she never does tell her folks it's all his fault.
Ever since then, she's really hated heights.
Which does nothing, Becky thinks, to explain why she's currently hanging off the side of a mountain in a hypothetical noetic realm some fourteen years later.
The top's an awfully long way up, and the bottom's an awfully long way down.
Becky closes her eyes and grips the rope for dear life, hoping to god her hands don't slip. After some huffing and puffing, moaning and groaning she reaches a ledge just wide enough for her to take a break without falling over.
(At one point she'd thought about simply letting go and floating her way to the top- it is a dream realm, after all, anything's theoretically possible- but the sight of rocks being smashed to pieces far below her more or less confirmed the presence of gravity on this notional island. So climbing the old-fashioned way it is.)
Carefully looking neither up nor down, she regards the sprawling vista laid out before her. Wilderness up to the edge of the notional island, then Parabola in all its crazy, disorganized glory.
What kind of nasty, sadistic streak does Murdoc possess to recreate the Widowmaker here, anyway? She knows about Mike Forrester's tragic accident in the real world, the weeks Jack Dalton spent agonizing over it, and what her uncle had to do to pull him back from the brink. The trail she followed from the Clipper led her to this point; from whom did he steal these memories, and what does he stand to gain by putting her through the same ordeal?
Questions she fully intends to ask her quarry, once she reaches the top.
With a gasp of triumph she finally pulls herself up onto the summit, blinks in surprise.
English countryside. Rolling hills, fields marked out in neat hedgerows. A rambling path at her feet.
Which leads eventually to a rustic wooden gate and an absurdly quaint little farm, complete with resplendent garden and a two-story cottage, in mellow stone and tiled roof. A door opens, beckoning her with the promise of tea and freshly-baked scones, powerfully appealing after the long, arduous climb.
Becky knows better than to take anything at face value at this point. Clearly another trap.
Yet she finds herself stepping inside regardless.
An attractive blonde-haired woman waits for her in the parlor, by a fully apportioned table set for high tea. Smiles warmly in greeting, holds out her hand.
"Rebecca Grahme, I presume? Ashton Cooke."
"Please forgive me for the deception. I understand you were expecting my brother, having caught his scent. Which I had deliberately cast out into the sixty-four winds, hoping to get your attention. Care for a sandwich?"
Becky eyes the food warily. "Um..."
"They're not lethal," Ashton assures her. "Unlike Winifred I have nothing against you or your family. Everything in this dreamscape is perfectly safe."
(She's just as verbose as her brother, though her accent's a trifle less posh. More countrified, perhaps.)
"Thanks." Becky takes two from the offered silver tray. Fresh cucumber and Scottish smoked salmon, with the crusts cut off. Takes a sip of Darjeeling, two sugars. Delicious.
"So what do you do in the waking world, if I might ask?"
"You could say I'm working for Her Majesty's Secret Service."
"Like in the James Bond movies?"
"Nothing nearly so glamorous, I'm afraid. Mostly contracted research for MI-6; dreamwalking, that sort of thing."
"For how long?" She's got at least six or seven years on her, Becky figures.
"Oh, quite a while now. Though I'd hardly call myself an expert in the field, unlike your mother. Allison Grahme was a major player in dream research; her working notes have surely been of some use to you by now."
"I became a dreamweaver by accident, really," Becky admits. "I honestly have no idea how I'm doing this."
"I'm not surprised. Most reach this plane during casual dreaming and have no inkling of its true nature. We dreamweavers are instinctively born with the knowledge of how to explore or exploit Parabola's infinite possibilities."
"Your brother's threatening the sanity of everyone I know through their dreams; I'm here to put a stop to it, one way or another. That's all. I don't care about exploring or exploiting anything right now."
"You would've come here eventually nonetheless. Though it certainly doesn't hurt to have resources to make the transition easier, such as the Phoenix Foundation."
Becky quickly sets down her teacup. It's scary how much Ashton resembles her brother, with that smirk.
Though she can't lay her finger on it, there's something about this arrangement that reminds her of the spread Murdoc laid out for MacGyver in the apartment, before the mineshaft incident. What started out as innocuous teatime conversation is feeling more and more like pointed interrogation.
She remembers the last version of Mission City she'd visited, which had turned out to be one of Murdoc's traps. Even then it was apparent he'd lost control of it early on, as his sister was revealed to be the more treacherous of the pair.
Was the woman now facing her across a plate of scones the same Ashton from the coffee shop? Could this be a trap after all? The implications send a shiver down her spine.
Surreptitiously she starts teasing out patterns in the dreamscape, searching for a point where it could be unraveled sufficiently to enable escape.
"I know what you're doing, Miss Grahme. There's no need for that, I assure you. As I said before, I have no intention of harming you, your uncle or any of your friends, in dreams or the waking world. You have my word."
Becky withdraws, but not without finding a weak spot and holding onto it, just in case. "Sorry if I don't trust you. But given past experiences with your brother, you can understand my caution."
"Of course I do. Like you I'm here to stop Winifred from fully utilizing the dreamlore he's acquired. The implications for the real world would be devastating if he succeeds. We'd have more success working together, instead of alone."
Sounds reasonable enough. And yet there's that lingering memory, of her raising the shotgun.
There's a saying, about the enemy of one's enemy being a friend. Yet that's not always the case, is it?
"Trusting a stranger's a dangerous proposition, Beck," she can hear her uncle saying. "But sometimes you gotta take the chance."
Becky wants to trust Ashton, she really does. No one except for Murdoc's played her false so far, after all. Ironic considering how prevalent illusions and deceit are in Parabola.
Though so is actual truth, to be fair.
Wouldn't hurt to take precautions anyway, right? For peace of mind, if nothing else.
"All right."
"Splendid. Shall we get started, then?"
They step outside, into perpetual English summertime.
"It's pretty," Becky says.
Ashton wistfully glances around the farm. "I suppose so. Winifred and I were both born here. Then our mother died, and Father sold the farm and found a job in Liverpool. Never remarried, just took to drinking and beating us whenever he felt like it."
"I'm sorry." With a shiver Becky recalls dusty blankets in an abandoned factory, cold metal against her wrists and ankles. The sting of a hand across her cheek, the coppery taste of blood in her mouth.
Still the stuff of occasional nightmares.
(Murdoc had called her Ashton at times during that ordeal, now she thought about it. Though until now she'd never understood why.)
Ashton shrugs. "It was a long time ago. Winifred did his best to protect me when things got too bad. But eventually we couldn't take it anymore, and ran away. He sent me to live with an aunt in the Lake District, while heading off to seek his fortune elsewhere. I honestly believed I'd forgotten everything until I arrived in Parabola; this must've taken shape from my earliest memories."
Try as she might, Becky can't recall how long it's been since she herself first entered Parabola. More and more memories of the real world are slipping from her grasp the longer she dreams, despite the silver cord's protection. It's starting to feel like she's always been here, a scary prospect to say the least.
She reaches inside, lightly touching the connection.
Hey Unc, are you still there?
I'm here.
Please don't let me forget who I am. I don't want to be lost here forever.
Never. I'll bring you back when you're ready. Count on it.
I love you.
Love you too. Be brave, sweetheart. You can do this.
The conversation brings her comfort. Uncle Mac would never let her down.
"Ah, well," Ashton says briskly. "This is hardly the time to be wallowing in childhood memories, now is it? We'd best be off."
Snaps her fingers. A trim, two-seater airship materializes before them. Wood paneling and brass in abundance. Plush velvet cushions.
Becky's impressed. "Not my usual way of getting around Parabola, but it's very nice."
"Oh, mine neither. Still, it's an easier means of ensuring we both arrive at the same destination, isn't it? Climb in. Let's find my brother."
"Um, where are we going?"
"I have an idea where Winifred might be. We had an imaginary realm once; I wonder if exists here. Fancy an adventure?"
Becky gives a wry chuckle despite herself. "If you know who my uncle is, then there's no need to ask."
The airship rises, hovers briefly, disappears.
As does the dreamscape. Widowmaker, Sussex farm and all.