Into the room walked five people who looked vaguely familiar and Susan, the woman I married. She was more beautiful than ever with her long red hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her green eyes were cold and hard, but she smiled a little to see me. The others were all grim-faced and took seats around the table. Susan came to me and kissed me on the cheek. "How are you doing, Marv?"
"I'm okay," I said quietly. "But honestly, Susan, I'm a helluva lotta confused, too. What is all this?"
She pulled out the chair next to me and sat down. She took my hand and caressed it a little. "It's all pretty complicated, but the simple version is this:
"You're a guardian of sorts. You have, in your head, a timetable. A kind of maintenance schedule. Actually, you have several of them. Dozens."
I was even more confused now. I fell back into how our relationship works. Worked. I interrupted. "Susan, the things I've seen today are pretty amazing, but I think I've managed to handle it all pretty well. Don't beat around the bush with me, please. I trust you, and I love you. I wouldn't have married you if I didn't. Just lay it out for me and I'll ask questions. What's going on?"
Susan looked around me at Erin. Erin shrugged a little and then nodded. Susan took her hand from mine and began to study the table top. This went on long enough for me to look at Erin again, and see that she was becoming worried, and this was the last thing I needed to reassure me that I wasn't in a bad spot.
"Susan?" I said. "Come on..."
"The Namtiil are after dreamstuff, Marv. They sell it on the galactic black market like it's a drug. It IS a drug. So many races throughout the Universe don't dream like humans do." She paused a second to let that sink in. "You have in your head a maintenance schedule for each human world. This maintenance schedule allows humans to sort of --- I don't know --- download, I suppose, their dreams into you. Then, periodically, you pass these dreams on to the next world, into it's communal dream ether. It's Collective Unconscious."
I sat back and put my hands in my lap. What the hell did this mean? Why couldn't I remember any of this?
"You're a kind of cipher, Marv. You're a real person, with real feelings, and real everything, but you're also not really REAL. You're sort of a filter for the hopes and fears of all mankind. It's a big job and you can't remember everything or you'd go mad."
Erin put her hand on my shoulder and turned to me. "Marv, it's crazy-sounding, but it's real. Will you believe that I know this to be true?"
"I'm not sure WHAT to believe. I mean, my wife is some kind of alien leader, I'm some kind of alien conduit and you're some kind of wonder woman? Jesus! How am I supposed to cope with this?"
One of the heretofore silent parties at the table spoke up. An old man with deepset eyes and wrinkles inside of wrinkles all across his face. He was wearing a robe over the black togs that Erin and I were wearing. They all were, but I only just then noticed it. The group was fairly innocuous, but they all had the air of defeated beaureaucrats, except for the old man.
"Marv," he said with a voice that sounded like crinkled rice paper. "We don't have a lot of time. We need you to accept the facts that have been presented to you. The Namtiil are a dangerous race, thuggish and unforgiving. They will seek you out and steal your mind, ending you and eventually ending the human race all across the Universe."
"What?"
Susan took over. "If humans can't take the time to stop dreaming and let the stored up dreamstuff go, into YOU, then they'll eventually all go crazy. They'll kill themselves and destroy their worlds. We can't afford that. The Universe can't afford that. No one wants it, except the Namtiil, who are just single-minded enough to try it. They even have a chance to succeed doing it. Will you take it on faith?"
I looked at her, the old man, and then Erin. Susan and the old man were all business. But Erin had something else in her eyes: a feeling for me. She looked slightly pained, regretful, but not sad. I knew her pretty well, I thought, but how well can I know someone else if I don't even know myself? I had to begin to reexamine everything I thought I knew.
However, there wasn't time. I was going to have to take a lot on faith, as Susan suggested I should. As Erin asked me to believe her. The two women who I thought were most honest with me until the car blasted through the back end of the bar.
"What happens down home? I mean those robot thingies were wrecking the city pretty effectively when Erin dragged me out of there."
"They're being beaten back. They don't realize that you're not there any more. Like I said, they're single-minded, but they're also not the brightest stars in the sky, if you get my meaning." Susan sat back and looked me straight in the eye. "Yes, this is all about you. You're probably the most important being in human history and I need you to tell me that you're going to cooperate."
"What happens if I don't? What happens to me if I do?"
"If you cooperate and allow us to use the dreamstuff you have inside you now, we can send the Namtiil back home with their tails between their legs. If you don't cooperate... Marv, it's better if you do. We're talking about the entirety of the human race scattered throughout the Galaxy and into the Universe. I won't lie, now. If you don't cooperate, we're going to do what we need to do to win." I heard Erin tense up just a little. It was a small thing, but the way her hand on the table closed so tightly, so quickly, I had to make a decision that was purely instinctual and then hope that I could figure a clever way out of it. This sounded to me like I was a doomed figure no matter HOW I answered.
So, I lied.
"What do you need me to do?"
Copyright2005 By Jason Arnett
