The Vault of Dreamers (25 page)

I watched little wispy tendrils of light spread out in a dark zone, as if someone
were drawing dot-to-dots in a galaxy of stars.

In the next video, a young man in a lab coat strolled slowly down a gallery of gilt-framed
paintings. “Think of a memory like a pointillist painting, one of those classic Seurat
pictures made up of thousands of colored dots,” he said. The camera focused on a picture
of a garden scene. “Stand back, and you can see the subjects of the painting, the
people or the trees or the landscape. You consciously remember such a subject as a
dear friend or a favorite holiday at the beach. But step in close, and you don’t have
enough dots to make the picture clear.”

The man moved out on a terrace with a sweeping view of the ocean behind him. “Each
dot is a synaptic pattern. Some of our patients have lost the dots,” he continued.
“They’ve lost so many dots that whole paintings are missing. But if Dr. Fallon can
salvage enough original dots and provide the mind with a new canvas, we can get a
pale version of the original painting. And it’s alive. Give the painting time, and
the dots will fill in the gaps between them. They grow and duplicate, filling in the
damaged area.”

It was an amazing concept. I wanted more.

“We can’t promise anything,” the man went on. “At best, it won’t be the same painting,
the same memory. But the memories will be close. With a successful surgery, the patient
will recognize his family and, more important, recognize himself. He can relearn enough
of the rest. He has a chance to go forward. Once we essentially reboot the subconscious,
the rest can follow.”

The video ended, and I went back to watch it again. I knew the business about rebooting
the subconscious was important, but I also knew something was missing. The doctor
made no explanation of where the “regenerative stem cell patch” came from. But I knew.
I had watched while Dr. Ash had sent those little white circles to cluster around
a certain point in that kid’s brain last night. She had been taking synaptic patterns,
dots that knew how to connect to each other.

They’re mining dreams
, said a faint voice inside me.

This time, the voice didn’t frighten me because I knew it spoke the truth. Slowly,
I reached to turn off Janice’s phone.

Exactly
, I thought back.

Having more information didn’t make my decision any easier. If anything, it complicated
it. Suppose it turned out that Dean Berg truly was the diabolical evil genius I thought
he was, with Dr. Ash as his sidekick. I didn’t get why nobody else had discovered
them yet. Then again, I still didn’t have any real proof that he was harming the students
at Forge. I knew for certain that I’d been gassed in my sleep shell, but in a twisted
way, that was a logical consequence for skipping my pill.

I still didn’t know what to do. Until I did, I had to stick to my normal routine and
try to pretend I was fine for the cameras.

*   *   *

Later that Wednesday, after my practicum, I was coming back from a run when I caught
up to Burnham outside the pool house.

“Hey,” I said. “How’s it going?” Only after I spoke did I notice he was texting.

He glanced up absently. “One sec. Let me finish this.”

With his black sweats riding low on his hips, a blue swimsuit showed below his sweatshirt,
and swim goggles were strapped loosely around his neck. I went up a step so he wouldn’t
be so much taller than me, and pulled my sweatshirt sleeves down over my hands. It
was a sunny but brisk afternoon, and the coolness felt nice against my warm cheeks
and neck.

“Sorry,” he said, putting his phone in his pocket. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. Is everything okay?”

“Just family stuff. You know,” he said. He rubbed at the back of his head. “Did you
need help with your footage?”

“I don’t only talk to you when I need your help,” I said, smiling.

“But I like to help. Your ghosts are a challenge. I was thinking of taking another
look back through your footage, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. Knock yourself out.” I liked that he was interested in spying on the
campus, too.

He crossed his arms over his chest and did the double jerk with his thumb, indicating
the cameras. “Will you do me a favor?”

“Sure. What?”

“Say hi to my mom. She’s watching right now. She’s a fan of yours.”

Really?
I thought. I located a little camera button on the nearest lamppost. Then I smiled
and did a lame wave. “Hi, Burnham’s mom?”

Burnham laughed. “That was perfect.” He tugged idly at his goggles, his smile fading.

“You sure you’re all right?” I asked. “You seem a little, I don’t know, constipated.”

He laughed. “Good one.”

“But really.”

He aimed his gaze toward the horizon. “I don’t know,” he said. “My family does this
group text thing. It’s the anniversary of my grandfather’s death. We’re all thinking
about him.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It’s okay.” He bounced the toe of his sneaker against the step I was standing on.

“Is your family close?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“You have an older brother, right?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yes, Sid. He quit Harvard Medical School to work at Fister,” Burnham said.
“And I have a sister. Sammi. She’s the oldest. She’s a civil rights lawyer in Washington.”

“That’s cool.”

“It is,” he said. “Except she hates that I came here. This place is the opposite of
everything she believes in, like privacy.”

A couple of guys jogged down the steps and passed us, while for a moment, the hollow
noise and humid air of the pool wafted out the door behind them.

“But you said your brother came here, too,” I said.

“Yes, but I’m her
baby
brother. My sister thought she’d taught me better.” Burnham absently turned his watch
on his wrist, and I suddenly guessed why the old-fashioned piece might matter to him.

“That’s your grandfather’s watch, isn’t it?” I said.

Burnham lifted his wrist briefly. “Yes,” he said, and didn’t elaborate.

I thought I got it. It had to be kind of weird for him, talking about his grandfather
here, with his mom and everyone else watching. He looked like he needed a hug, but
I wasn’t sure if I was the right person to give it to him.

“It’s a cool watch,” I said. “It works, doesn’t it?”

He laughed. “Yes, surprisingly.”

“I’m glad.”

He adjusted his glasses and regarded me for a long moment, considering. Then he said,
“My grandpa was a great guy. He died eight years ago. When he got lung cancer, he
moved in with us so my mom could keep an eye on him. He called me ‘Partner,’ like
we were cowboys.”

“Partner,” I echoed. Burnham must have been a little kid back then, near to Dubbs’s
age.

“Yeah, but he drawled it, like a bad western cowboy. Pahtnuh.” Burnham tucked his
hair behind his ears and settled his foot on the step, leaning into it a little, to
stretch. “One night, when my parents were out, Grandpa asked me to bring him a bottle
of pills from the medicine cabinet.” He shrugged. “I didn’t think twice about it.
I just did what he asked. I was proud I could read the long words on the labels and
find the right bottle on the first try, way up at the top.”

Burnham leaned more deeply over his knee. When he didn’t go on, I imagined this chubby,
helpful kid bringing a bottle of pills to his sick, weak, bedridden, old grandfather.

“Oh, no,” I said.

From the other end of the quad, the clock tower bonged the quarter hour.

Burnham straightened up, frowning. “Grandpa was a pharmacist,” he said. “He knew exactly
what he was doing. My mom found him later that night, after she came home.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

Burnham looked up toward the sky. “The weird thing is, each year, I understand a little
better what he asked me to do.”

“You were just a kid,” I said. “You didn’t know.”

“Didn’t I?” he asked. “Didn’t I sort of suspect? That’s what I can’t quite remember.”

“Burnham, you can’t blame yourself,” I said. “He made the choice, not you.”

He shook his head slightly. “You should have seen my mother’s face when she put it
together that I was the one who got him the pills.” He cracked out a laugh. “And now
I’ve said all this in public. Who am I punishing now?”

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He didn’t move to answer it.

“I’m so sorry, Burnham,” I said.

His gaze, lonely and pained, met mine for an instant before he turned away. “Anyways,”
he said, but didn’t continue. His phone buzzed insistently, but he still didn’t answer
it.

I came down a step, and reached awkwardly to give him a hug. “You’re still a good
person,” I said.

“Am I?”

I gave his arms a little shake. “Of course you are.”

He smiled tightly, withdrawing from me. “Thanks. I’m going to go dive.”

“Good idea.”

But he hovered another moment, like he wasn’t quite ready to go. A breeze whipped
around us, and I dipped my knees as I shivered briefly. We stood there, not speaking,
not even looking at each other. I could hear his phone start up again in his pocket.

“Right,” he said finally. “I’ll see you around. Thanks.”

“Of course,” I said, and I watched him take the steps two at a time and disappear
into the pool building.

*   *   *

I headed slowly back to the dorm. I hoped, when Burnham talked to his parents, that
they would be understanding. I felt sort of honored that he’d confided in me, and
uneasy for him, too. I wouldn’t have had the guts to tell such a personal story on
camera. And that thing he’d said about punishing somebody. I couldn’t tell if that
was supposed to be his family or himself.

As the hours brought me closer to bedtime, my anxiety kicked in again. My stomach
churned too much for me to try to eat. Or maybe I didn’t want to risk running into
Linus in the dining hall. Instead, I curled up on my chair in the dorm and pulled
out my video camera from home. I had locked some old footage of Dubbs in the memory,
and I flipped to it now. Watching her bright face brought me some comfort, and I was
able to smile a little.

Later that night, when we were all tucked in our sleep shells and the dorm was quiet,
I dialed my walkie-ham to channel four and listened for the static noise to change.
Every half hour, I pushed the call button. It was after midnight, finally, when I
heard the static go brighter.

“Linus?” I whispered.

“I’m here,” he said quietly.

“I read your letter,” I said.

“So I gather. I noticed you didn’t come break up with me, so that’s something.”

I rolled to face the direction of the door in case anyone came in, and tucked the
little box of the walkie-ham under my ear, where it couldn’t be seen.

“Where are you?” I asked. As usual, I kept my voice just barely audible.

“The lookout tower again. I borrowed Otis’s keys. He’s still not happy with me, but
he says I have to make my own stupid mistakes.”

I supposed that was a good thing. Sort of.

“I’m sorry about stealing your swipe key,” I said.

“You could have asked me for it,” he said.

“Would you have given it to me?”

“I don’t know, honestly,” he said. “Now neither of us has it. I’ve been restricted
to the public doors like a new employee again. What were you doing in the dean’s tower
last night, anyway?”

“I snuck up to the sixth floor,” I said. “You’ll never believe what I saw.”

“Try me.”

As I tried to explain, I wasn’t even certain how to put it all into words. I talked
through the whole thing, from when I left my sleep shell until I returned. “I
saw
the virtual operation,” I added. “Somewhere nearby, Dr. Ash was operating on the
kid.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t a recording of a surgery?” Linus asked.

“It wasn’t. It was happening live,” I said. “She was doing what Dean Berg told her
to do, like he was teaching her.”

“And why do you think she was mining the boy?” Linus asked. “Because of the white
circles? Did they actually use the word ‘mining’?”

I had to think. Huma had talked about mining and seeding, but that might have been
during the earlier conversation I overheard. All day, I had thought talking to Linus
would make this problem easier, but his questions were making it worse.

“What’s it matter what they called it? What else could it be?” I asked.

“To be honest, I don’t know what to think,” he said. “I’m sorry to say it, but it
sounds a lot like you had a nightmare. The whole thing, the tunnel and everything.
Isn’t that at least possible?”

I was insulted. And hurt.

“It was no nightmare,” I said. “I looked up Huma Fallon online, and she’s part of
a clinic in Iceland that does brain surgeries on coma patients. She and Dean Berg
talked like he’s been supplying her with something medical that she needs, and I think
it has to be dreams. The medical version of dreams. And you know what really freaks
me out?” I swallowed, licking my lips. I made sure to keep my voice down. “Dean Berg
knew I was out of my sleep shell, and he hardly cared at all. When I came back to
bed, they released a gas into my shell that knocked me out. I think they mined me,
too.”

“Last night?”

“Yes.”

“How can you tell?” Linus asked.

I wanted to tell him about the voice, but I was afraid he would just think I was going
mad. “I feel different to myself,” I said. “Like the core of me doesn’t line up straight
anymore. Like it might be a relief to do something crazy.”

In the silence on his end, I could hear Linus doubting me.

“You’re not believing one word I’m saying,” I said.

“I’m just trying to think,” Linus said. “I’m trying to put it together.”

“I’m telling you the truth,” I said. “Every word.”

“I hear you,” he said. “I’m just wondering if it might be related to something else
I found out.”

“What?”

“This is why I wanted you to call me Tuesday,” he said. His voice turned ironic. “Before
you stole my swipe key.”