To say the least I slept well that night. A great drug-induced, hazed over sleep. Then, right before I woke up, I had the strangest dream.
Essentially, it was the vision Eddie had; the one where he, Susannah, Jake, and Oy visited the lot on the day of its destruction. The details were the same; the same movie poster for The Craft and an ad for an Adam Sandler show, the garbage was there, as well as the bulldozer, manned by Bob the Engineer, then Tick-Tock, then the gunslinger himself.
But mine had some subtle differences then Eddie's. There were no Twin Towers looming far off in the background. Everyone was smoking outside their office buildings and restaurants and getting dirty looks for it. The city, as a whole, was much cleaner and there was a large protest outside the UN building. This protest was against something different, nothing normal or the stuff that has been going in the last few months. It was different- something big was happening and almost of everyone did not like it.
In this dream, as Roland was flattening the lot and the rose, I made my way over to the rally. Yellow Eye Industries, Inc. had bought out the Alaskan Refuge, thirty-percent of the Amazon, Costa Rica, western Siberia, Tibet, and Nepal. No one had heard of this company before and it was already the wealthiest corporation that had ever existed. Though it drastically improved living conditions for most of the people living in the "acquired" regions, they were receiving slave-pay, had a high rate of on the job accidents, mostly from imploding buildings and hand-eating machines, and had a high infant mortality rate, from SIDS, insufficient medical attention, and birth defects.
YEI, as it was called started as a construction company and eventually went into demolition. Demolition led to high-grade weapons and explosives, which led to robotics and technology, which led to biotech and medicine. Sitting on top of it all was a man named Jon Farson. I know this because I read the fliers the protesters were giving out. This Farson seems different than Roland's Farson; this one was smarter- a high class, cutthroat businessman all the way. And surprise of surprises, his second in command, whispering in his ear, was person only known as Flagg. Rumor had it that this Farson was starting up a new nuclear energy and weapons program, in addition to a super-technology and communications sub-corporation known as North Central Positronics.
Then I got my little hint on what I have to do. I went back to the lot, but it was not there. In its place was the corporate headquarters of YEI, a converted condominium complex with the main lobby right on top of the lot. The corporate logo, a yellow eye, was looking up and outward and I swore its horrifying pupil was focusing in on me. As I screamed silently awake, I realized that the pupil was right where the rose used to be.
~~~~~~13~~~~~~
The next day I surveyed the site, examined the garbage, and started to plan what I would need to stop it all. Regular industrial sabotage couldn't work; a multinational corporation doesn't simply roll over and play dead. Foresight and prophecy doesn't work well when protesting, so that would not work either.
Something new, something else has to work.
Something from the inside, maybe?
The rose gave the answer. A newspaper blew over and wrapped itself around my shoe. "Interns Wanted: Up-starting Construction Company Wants Creative Ambitious Young People In A New Architecture Project In Manhattan. Call R. Flagg For An Interview", followed a number.
I bent down and kissed the rose. "Thank you." Then I left and made a phone call.
