The Glitch in Sleep (12 page)

“It’s too late for me, man. Once you’ve had the thrill of pickin’ a lock on a window, grabbin’ that tooth, and leavin’ a silver dollar for a kid under his pillow? Knowin’ he’s gonna wake up in the morning and say, ‘Mom, the Tooth Fairy came!’—well, there just ain’t no place to go after that.”

The Tooth Fairy shook his head, lost in the wistful memory, then threw back another Shot in the Dark.

“But enough about me. How can I help you, chief?”

“Well,” said Simly, dropping his voice to a whisper, “it’s about this Glitch . . . ”

The crowd in the VIP room had begun to build, despite the argument that was heating up in the corner.

“We don’t want to destroy The World.” Thibadeau pounded his fist on the table, his voice infused with the fervor of a true believer. “We want to save it!”

“Is that what you were doing when you poked holes in the Bags of Wind?” Becker yelled back. “Or what about the Rain Tower—I could’ve been killed on that Mission.”

“We tried a peaceful solution a long time ago, but the Powers That Be refuse to listen. So now we have to take matters into our own hands.”

“But what about the damage to The World?”

“Change always comes with a price. One day, when everything is different, you’ll see that it was worth it.”

Thibadeau pointed Becker’s attention to a huge flat-screen Window, where images from The World were being projected as part of the club’s funky ambience.

“The World is a lost cause, Becker.” At that moment, an image of an orphan flashed upon the screen, crying and wandering through the streets of Rio de Janeiro. “What kind of Plan allows for something like that?”

Becker stared up at the child, who slowly dissolved into an exploding volcano.

“Once it might have worked, but suffering is an old idea. It doesn’t do anybody any good, so why is it still here? Because the Plan fell apart long ago.” Thib’s hand found its way to his pendant. “If there ever was a Plan at all.”

Becker was thunderstruck. During Training, Thibadeau had often mused about the beautiful intricacies of the Plan.

“Our time is coming, Becker. We’ve infiltrated every department, every corner of The Seems, and when the word is given, the Tide will rise and seize the means of production to make a better world. A perfect world.” For a moment, Thibadeau’s expression softened, and Becker felt like he was back with his old friend. “Join us, Draniac. I promise, it’ll be sweet.”

Becker considered his classmate’s offer. Of course he had his own doubts—everybody did, and it was tempting. Especially when things in The World didn’t always make sense and it seemed so easy for The Seems to change them. But Becker had also made a choice . . .

“The beauty of The World is how it is, Thib. Not how it isn’t.”

Thibadeau fell back into his chair.

“Blaque really got to you good, didn’t he?”

“I guess so.”

“I’m sorry it had to be this way.” Thibadeau looked like he genuinely meant it. “The Tide could use a man like you.”

“Well, at least I know where the Glitch came from.”

Thibadeau laughed out loud.

“Please—we would never unleash something that impossible to control. Besides, when we make our next move, you’ll know it. And you won’t have to ask who’s responsible.”

Becker felt his ire rising but kept it in check, because the Mission had to come first.

“Is there anything you can tell me? For old time’s sake?”

Thibadeau thought it over long and hard, then pulled out a ballpoint pen.

“I can only tell you what I heard under the Radar.” He finished writing and handed Becker the matchbook he’d been fiddling with. “But next time we see each other . . . it won’t be the same.”

Becker got up and flipped a coin into the open guitar case in front of the band.

“It already isn’t.”

Freight Elevator 3, Department of Sleep, The Seems

Simly and Becker were cruising in a freight elevator toward the upstairs Bedrooms of Sleep. And though the Mission was still very much in jeopardy, the Fixer seemed dazed and out of it.

“You’re wrong,” he whispered. “That’s not the way it is . . .”

“Excuse me, sir?”

Becker had been rattled by his encounter with Thibadeau and had nearly forgotten where he was and what he was doing there.

“Sir?”

“Sorry, Simly.” He shook off the lingering taste of the argument. “Go ahead with your report.”

“Well, I did get one decent tip.” Simly pulled out his Briefing pad, which was filled with scribbles from his conversation with the Tooth Fairy. “According to my informant, this Glitch seems to have a . . . ‘mind of its own.’ ”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Glitches usually move in random patterns, right? And destroy everything in their path?”

“Yeah . . .”

“But this one’s sneakier than that. The breakdowns it’s causing are almost impossible to detect, and they get slightly more destructive with each Bedroom that it hits.”

Becker couldn’t help but agree and it troubled him deeply. A Glitch with a purpose was almost too terrible to contemplate.

“My guy says this is just how it happened during the Not-So-Great Depression.
²⁰
”

“Who Fixed on that one?”

“No one. They say that at the last possible moment, the Glitch just . . . vanished.”

Simly tried to moisten his mouth with a piece of Trouble Gum™, but it did little to quell the rising panic.

“How about you, sir? Did you find anything out?”

Becker nodded and handed him the torn-up matchbook. On the inside fold was written a single word:

Dreamatorium

“This is where the Glitch is going next.”

20
. A period in the early 1990s when an abundance of Depression was accidentally released during a pipeline break in the Department of Thought & Emotion—the repercussions of which are still being felt to this day.

6

Back in The World

12 Grant Avenue, Highland Park, New Jersey

The rings of Saturn glowed a fluorescent green on the ceiling above Benjamin Drane’s race-car bed. Jupiter was its big old self, but Mars was actually in the wrong place, located right on the outskirts of Pluto. There was also a spaceship that came with the set and Benjamin had pasted it up there, presuming that this was a family searching for a home on some distant planet, complete with the young daydreaming daughter, adventurous boy, and intrepid parents who would someday arrive and plant their flag of dreams.

Benjamin wasn’t used to being up this late, but there was a secret thrill in it. The planets seemed a little brighter and the outside seemed a little darker and the house seemed a little bit—

CREAK.

Something made a sound from inside his closet door.

Benjamin sat up with a start and waited for another sound, which never followed. But it was enough to tweak his mind, which immediately raced toward thoughts of the Boogeyman and
Piñata
(this movie he watched on USA one night) and eventually sent the young boy out of his bed and into the hallway once again.

He had already exhausted his video game collection, and the bathroom held little comfort, so the choice had come down to his parents or his older brother. He knew what he would get from his mom—a long, though loving, digression on the fact that he was just displacing his deeper fears of intimacy, loneliness, and death. And his dad, a professor at Rutgers University, would do just the opposite, taking a hasty trip to the closet and giving Benjamin scientific proof, right there and then, that there was no such monster in attendance.

Benjamin slowly turned the doorknob to his brother’s room instead.

“Becker?” He had been reprimanded in the past and agreed (under oath) never to enter Becker’s room without written permission, but tonight he was hoping for a reprieve. “Are you awake?”

All that Benjamin got back was the sound of snoring, so he slowly padded across the floor toward his brother’s bed.

“Becker . . . I need your help.”

Miraculously, the sound waves containing the word “help” flowed out of Benjamin’s mouth, through the air, into the auditory canal of the sleeping Me-2, where they were detected by a miniature microphone that activated the settings on the back of its neck, turning the dial automatically from “Sleep” to “Auto-Pilot” without the slightest click.

“Becker, wake up!”

Benjamin reached for what he assumed to be his brother’s shoulder when—

“Don’t you know I have a quiz tomorrow?” Benjamin nearly jumped out of his skin as the Me-2 rolled over and opened its eyes. “If I blow another one, Mom is gonna kill me!”

Its voice and appearance were indistinguishable from Becker’s, and it even seemed to have the same personality.

“But I still can’t sleep,” cried Benjamin. The younger Drane was on the verge of tears, partially from being afraid to go back into his bedroom and partially from the worst bout of insomnia he had ever experienced. The Me-2 sighed and tapped the side of the mattress.

“C’mere, buddy.”

Benjamin wiped away his tears and climbed aboard, his feet barely able to touch the floor.

“I’m gonna tell you something confidential,” whispered the look-alike, “but you have to promise not to tell a soul.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

The Me-2 looked around for effect, as if to make sure no one else could hear.

“It’s not just you who can’t sleep, B. It’s everyone in The World.” It opened the shades and the lights of the unsleeping neighborhood showered in. “A Glitch broke out in the Department of Sleep but there’s a Fixer on the job and he’s one of the best.”

Benjamin understood and this brought comfort to his worried mind.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“As a matter of fact there is.” The Me-2 thought it over. “Go back to your room and draw the coolest picture you can imagine of the Glitch being Fixed—just to give the guy in charge a little extra support. ’Cause trust me, he can feel it!”

Benjamin now had a mission of his own and promptly saluted.

“Aye aye, sir!”

“And when you’re done with that, tuck yourself in and await further instructions.”

As the boy bolted from the room and back into his own bedroom, the Me-2 cracked a smile.

“That’s why they pay me the big bucks.”

But that smile faded when the Me-2 glanced out the window once again and saw that the situation had deteriorated even further. Literally every house in the neighborhood was ablaze with light and activity, while out in front of 12 Grant Avenue, Paul the Wanderer had become the first person in recorded history to finish
War and Peace
in a single session, and had gone back to his old habits of wandering the streets unhinged.

“C’mon, Becker. Don’t chunk this one.”

It was about to lie down and click itself back into “Sleep” mode when the fiber optics implanted in its eye noticed something sitting on the tiny bedside table: Becker’s copy of
I Am
the Cheese
.

It picked up the book and began to read.

Motel Emmaus, Ulyanovsk, Russia

The TV remote control didn’t work and the rooms were still wood-paneled, but the small motel was clean and the staff friendly and courteous. Anatoly sat back on the bed and struggled to take off his shoes. His back was killing him after forty straight hours on the road, and all the travel had worn him to the bone.

“Please,
lapuchka.
” He waited patiently as the phone rang one time after another. “Pick up the phone.”

Anatoly Nikolievich Svar had been the king of the Northwest Territories only ten years ago, when Formica cabinets had been all the rage and people had a little extra money to spare. But now, with kitchen styles shifting back toward antique woods and purse strings pulled tight, his numbers had become harder and harder to make.

“Hello?” asked the tired voice on the other end of the line. “Is that you,
zaychik
?”

“Did I wake you?”

“No, no . . . I’m still up. How is the trip going?”

“Good, good, things are turning around.” He didn’t want his wife to worry, so he tried to sugar-coat it. “People are really liking the new line.”