Darkness Falls(18)

“The further you get from your own dreams, the less control you have,” he said. “Enter another Rêve, and whoever is in control there dictates the setting and what happens. You only control yourself.”
Simple settings—like the Envoi’s beach Rêve—were easiest to create and very commercial, appealing to the masses. But some Rêves were becoming more complex, even plot-driven, so that Revelers could enact stories, each with myriad outcomes. Even he, who’d seen everything, was impressed.
“When you opened that door into the Envoi’s beach Rêve, you broke through the barrier of your individual dreamwaters. Now that you know what it takes to get out, you can do it whenever you want. It’s a feeling, like learning to ride a bike.”
Jordan sent him a sharp look. “What about others getting in? My sister brought someone into the Envoi’s Rêve. And here you are in mine.”
Exactly. So smart. Like she knew what he was thinking. “Yes, some people have a knack for crossing boundaries.”
“Do I?”
The woman was a total wild card. “Don’t know yet. Give yourself time to acclimate before you try anything.”
The pavement crumbled at last into the boundary of a vast, empty plain, what agents called the Scrape, though who had initially found and named it, no one knew. Beyond the edge of her dream, the ground rippled like a desert or the ocean floor, grains pushed continually over each other by a constant harsh wind.
She gaped at the emptiness before her. Yeah, it had that effect.
“There are no rules in the Scrape. No one controls it. You can feel pain. You can die. You don’t go out here alone, not for a long time, you hear me?”
She shook her head like she didn’t want to in the first place.
“We’re going to cross into the Agora,” Rook said, which he could already sense as a wavering desert oasis of matte silver light, less vibrant and colorful than a real dream. It’d take only one step to get from here to there. “Agora is Greek for meeting place, and all legal shared dreaming that initiates in the United States occurs there. Agents come and go at will, and you’ve been granted temporary access with an escort.”
The fierce Scrape wind screamed in his ear as he stepped out of her dream, drawing Jordan with him.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she chanted as her hair whipped crazily around her head.
People got lost in the desert, which is why he shifted from holding her hand to putting an arm around her shoulders. He appreciated any excuse to pull her close.
In one electric pulse, they crossed into the silence of an inactive Rêve in the Agora. They arrived in an area where no dream was in effect, so the space was vast and dark. The Agora’s characteristic Corinthian columns created an infinite grid on a horizontal plane within the darkness. In reality, there was only one pillar repeating over and over again, but that was the stuff of popular trivia.
Marshal Harlen Fawkes was leaning against a pillar, apparently waiting for their arrival. As a tracker, Rook rarely stayed in one Rêve for long, but the Agora was Fawkes’s territory. After someone like Jordan was scouted, she would usually be given to a specialist for orientation in the different venues.
Yeah, not this time. Rook had no intention of giving her up.
“Coll told me to expect a new Reveler,” Fawkes drawled, shifting his weight in his big boots. “He didn’t tell me she was beautiful.”
“Jordan Lane,” Rook said drily, “this is Marshal Harlen Fawkes.”
“Nice to meet you,” Jordan said. “I didn’t know there were marshals in Rêve. Isn’t it supposed to be safe already?”#p#分页标题#e#
Rook liked the implication of her statement, If Rêve is safe, what’s this guy good for?
“Well, I keep it that way.” Fawkes swaggered forward while simultaneously putting on at least two inches in height and bulking himself up noticeably with muscle under his shirt. He had stretched a big, white cartoon smile. Must think he was so damn charming.
Likewise, Jordan chuckled, a gorgeous low sound.
Introduction officially over, Rook thought. “You got any Rêves going today?”
“In fact I do.” But Fawkes kept his attention on Jordan. “High-end dating meet-and-greet. I had to throw out a scammer who got in without paying the twenty grand fee,” he bragged for her. “Seems the elite want to make sure they only dream-hump other elite.”
“How very classist,” Jordan responded.
It was true: the wealthy got access to Rêve. The poor waited on lists or found illegal hookups, like Jordan’s little sister. Like him, too, before Coll scammed him into joining Chimera.