8 Read online

  ‘I’ll radio for help,’ Maria says. ‘Hopefully Scarface will keep anyone down there occupied.’

  She picks up the radio speaker, clicking the button several times.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask.

  ‘The radio’s dead.’ She flicks the dials but none work. ‘We’ve got no power at all.’

  We stare at each other and I can see the fear growing in her eyes, mirroring my own worry.

  ‘I’ll check the engine again,’ she says.

  I stay at the controls, watching as Maria takes the cover off the outboard motor, inspecting inside.

  ‘Maria?’

  She holds up a transparent hose.

  ‘Someone cut our fuel line,’ she says, her head flicking around rapidly, surveying beyond the boat. ‘But—we’re alone … aren’t we?’

  I look around too. There’s no-one out here. No boats. No people. No aircraft. Nothing, as far as the eye can see.

  ‘Maybe it snapped?’ I say, joining her, looking at the fuel line, clearly cut in two. ‘Can you tape or stick it back together?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Look.’

  Behind us is a rainbow-coloured slick spreading far over the surface of the water. It smells of gasoline.

  ‘But how …’ I stop talking as our boat rocks unevenly again.

  ‘Scarface!’

  ‘No,’ I say, trying to stay calm. ‘Worse.’

  I instinctively flinch from the figure who is standing at the bow of the boat. Tall, in a black body suit, his face completely covered by a mask. Water trickles down the length of the suit, making his menacing, shimmering appearance even more ominous.

  He can breathe underwater?

  Solaris stands facing us, his arm raised, his flame weapon pointed and ready.

  ‘Sam and Maria,’ Solaris says, his voice metallic and rasping. ‘Time for another swim.’

  ‘You cannot …’ Maria begins to exclaim, taking a step forward, but I grab her arm. She turns to me, searching my face for an explanation.

  ‘We have no choice,’ I whisper to her.

  Solaris takes a step towards us. We move back, pressed together against the side of the boat.

  ‘NOW!’ the voice demands.

  ‘Maria!’ I whisper, pointing to the water. A large, shadowy shape glides fast through the water underneath us.

  ‘Hold on!’ I shout.

  SMASH!

  The shark hits the boat hard, tipping it over in one fluid motion. As we careen through the air, the engine rips away from the boat and is engulfed in a fireball flaring from Solaris’ hands.

  WHOOSH!

  Sparks shower over the surface of the water, igniting the fuel slick like a snaking fuse. The water all around us is on fire, and I can hear metallic laughter piercing my ears, so loud and grating that it hurts.

  I call out to Maria, thrashing in the waves and debris, but I can’t see her through the smoke. I strike out towards the sinking boat, fearful of seeing Solaris, wondering how I will fight him in the water. I’m almost there when I feel a pull on my leg. I spin around, my heart stopping in fear. There is the flash of a sinister shadow right under me. I lash out frantically but Scarface comes for me, dragging me down to my—

  Doom.

  03

  SAM

  Sam snapped awake, his sudden movement tipping the boat out of its rhythm. The thick, humid air made it hard to breathe. He looked around and realised with relief where he was. He slunk back down feeling sluggish and sapped of energy.

  Rapha was watching him carefully, one hand on the throttle of the boat’s outboard motor. ‘Bad dream?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Sam said, shaking his head a little and trying to make his voice even.

  ‘We’re running low on fuel but we’re almost there.’

  Sam stood and looked at the view. A small city stretched out before them, the sun catching the tips of an endless expanse of roofs. The river was now busy with boats.

  ‘Welcome to Rio Branco,’ Rapha said.

  ‘It’s big,’ Sam said, ‘I thought we were in the middle of Amazonian nowhere?’

  Rapha laughed. ‘Lots of people live in the middle of the jungle, my friend. There is an airport here and you can fly away with your Gear.’

  ‘Your Gear,’ Sam said. ‘You’re still a part of this, Rapha, I need you to come along with me back to the Academy, to see out the rest of this prophecy. Can you do that?’

  Rapha smiled and nodded. ‘I’m actually glad to hear that. I’d like to learn more about this race.’

  A heat haze rose from the hot tarmac of the airport, and Sam blinked away the memory of his nightmare. He had kept going over and over the details in his mind as they had travelled through the busy streets from the wharf to the airport in an old taxi.

  Maria, in Cuba. She knows where the next Gear is.

  Oh, and sharks. And Solaris.

  Sam now paced the floor of the terminal, his backpack slung over his shoulder in readiness. He’d called Xavier and Tobias hours earlier, and they were on their way, but time seemed to be racing by while he could only keep pacing in frustration, waiting, doing nothing.

  C’mon, c’mon … we have to get out of here before someone finds us. We have to keep moving.

  Beside him, slumped in an uncomfortable chair, Rapha slept soundly with a baseball cap, newly purchased at the souvenir store, pulled down over his face.

  Tobias hadn’t sounded too concerned about Rapha’s lack of belongings, passport or any identification. ‘We’ll take care of it, Sam,’ he’d assured him.

  Sam kept walking around, looking out of the big glass windows at the tourists and commuters happily heading to their next destination.

  ‘What did you dream of?’ Rapha asked out of nowhere, making Sam jump. Sam looked down at him, his face still obscured by the cap.

  ‘Before? On the boat?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘A little bit of who the next Dreamer is—where I need to be next,’ Sam replied, trying to recall the details. ‘I find it hard, without writing it down straightaway, to remember everything. It’s like I’m in this in-between world of being asleep and awake. I keep going over and over it, so I don’t forget the little things, but …’

  ‘So where do you have to go?’ Rapha asked, his voice still sleepy.

  ‘I don’t know exactly,’ Sam admitted. ‘But I didn’t know exactly where you’d be either, and look how that turned out.’

  Sam could see Rapha’s chest moving, and it looked as if he was laughing quietly to himself under his hat. Then, from behind the row of chairs, towards the back of the terminal, Sam could see Tobias and Xavier hurrying down the busy corridor, looking at the faces of everyone as they rushed past.

  ‘Tobias!’ Sam called.

  Sam saw the immediate relief on the faces of his old high-school teacher and classmate at the sound of his voice. They both waved across the room.

  When they reached Sam, Tobias ruffled Sam’s hair in greeting and Xavier leaned forward, trying to give him a friendly pat on the back, but missing and tapping his shoulder awkwardly instead. Sam laughed.

  Rapha stood up from his seat, adjusting the cap to now sit properly on his head. He held out his hand as Sam introduced him to his friends.

  ‘Good to meet you, Rapha,’ said Tobias, shaking the outstretched hand. Then he added, ‘Well, that’s the introductions done, let’s get going!’

  Climbing into the plane’s small six-person cabin and buckling in, Sam felt relief wash over him again. His task in Brazil was over and he was with his friends once more, the Gear safely in his backpack. Looking at Tobias and Xavier climbing aboard, he reflected that it still felt odd seeing them like this. Not that long ago, Tobias had been lecturing about Newton’s laws at the front of the classroom, while Xavier sat a few desks away taking notes.

  Now, here we are, going from one adventure to the next, danger and death around every corner, trying to save the world … what a difference a month makes!

  Tobia
s asked, ‘How are you?’

  ‘Yeah, been OK,’ Sam said. ‘You know how it is.’

  ‘Ha, I sure do,’ Tobias said, buckling into the pilot’s seat.

  Wow, is there anything he can’t do? And I used to think he was just a science teacher …

  Xavier sat down beside him in the co-pilot’s chair and started pressing buttons.

  Tobias playfully smacked Xavier’s hands away. ‘First stop, Miami,’ Tobias said, ‘and then a flight to London. There’s a storm rolling around in the Gulf, from the northeast, but we should be able to skirt round it, maybe head closer to Cuba.’

  Sam smiled. The plane’s engine started up with a loud roar and the propeller engaged. Tobias soon had them taxiing to the end of the runway, where he powered up and lifted them into the air.

  Sam felt like a seasoned air traveller now. Before the last few weeks, he’d only been on a few flights, the longest one to Europe and back, and a couple of interstate trips, all family holidays. Now he’d been on long-haul flights, in helicopters and on supersonic aircraft loaded with stealth technology. Sam thought back to his recent ultralight flight over the Amazon Rainforest with Rapha.

  I guess I can add that to the list now.

  ‘I’m gonna miss Brazil,’ Rapha said, seemingly for the millionth time since they’d arrived at the airport.

  ‘You’ll be back,’ Sam said, looking across the aisle to his fellow Dreamer. ‘Soon as all this is over, yeah?’

  Rapha nodded.

  ‘Least you’ve had your dream,’ Sam added, then looked out his window at the land below that became more and more distant and indistinct. ‘Mine happen every day.’

  ‘But you’re still useful,’ Rapha replied. ‘I’m just along for the ride now.’

  ‘You’re still useful too,’ Sam said, snapping out of his reverie. ‘All the 13 Dreamers are important, right up to the end, you’ll see.’

  ‘I’ll second that,’ Xavier said, grinning as he unbuckled and climbed through to the little cabin, passing around packets of snacks. ‘So, sleepyhead, you know where we’re headed next?’

  ‘Cuba,’ Sam replied.

  ‘Cuba?’ Tobias said. ‘Wait—you’ve had your next dream already?’

  ‘I didn’t tell you?’ Sam teased.

  ‘Ah, no,’ Tobias said. ‘And the next Dreamer?’

  ‘A girl, Maria,’ Sam said. ‘I recognised the Cuban flag in my dream.’

  ‘A girl named Maria somewhere in Cuba …’ Xavier repeated, nodding his head earnestly. ‘Great, that probably narrows it down to half their population.’

  ‘Once we plug into the dream-recording computer at the Academy, we’ll see more,’ Sam said, then he looked at Tobias. ‘Unless we head straight to Cuba?’

  ‘Hmm,’ Tobias said, scratching his chin.

  ‘You know what puzzles me most?’ Xavier said. ‘It’s, well, I mean, what if you don’t dream about it again? And it’s not like they’re recording it, because you’ve already had the dream.’

  ‘They can retrieve dreams—go back in and see more,’ Sam said. ‘There can be places or names that get missed while you’re dreaming.’

  ‘They can really do all that?’ Rapha said, dumbstruck.

  ‘Yep,’ Sam said. ‘Sometimes. They can go back in and look around.’

  ‘That’s …’

  ‘Incredible?’ Xavier offered. ‘Scary, weird. And you know what?’

  ‘What?’ Rapha said.

  ‘That’s not even the scariest thing about all this, or the weirdest.’

  ‘So what is?’ Rapha said, looking genuinely spooked.

  ‘Scariest? Solaris,’ Sam said immediately. ‘Weirdest is how the thirteen of us have our dreams. I mean, why us? How is it that we’re dreaming about the Gears for the Bakhu machine, hundreds of years after da Vinci invented it? That’s the mind-bender.’

  Rapha looked from Sam to Xavier, searching for more. Finally he asked, ‘So, what does this Bakhu machine do?’

  04

  EVA

  ‘You see …’ Mac said to Eva as he wrapped up his monologue, ‘you really could look at me as your creator.’

  Eva pushed her food around and refused to meet his eye. ‘I’d rather not, thank you. And here I was thinking you were just our captor.’

  ‘A god, if you will,’ Mac said, ignoring her quip.

  ‘Or,’ Eva replied, ‘a deluded maniac who thinks he’s far more powerful and important than he really is.’

  Mac laughed.

  Eva grit her teeth and fumed. She and Lora had been held hostage on Mac’s ship for over twelve hours already.

  I wish I could punch this guy in the nose … well, I could, but then what? Beat up all his huge security guards and take over the ship?

  ‘Maybe,’ Mac said. ‘Maybe …’

  Eva had just been presented with Mac’s best sales pitch about why she should join him—he was behind her creation, and the creation of some of the last 13, as part of the original government-run Enterprise, who had conducted the initial research. His genetics work had led to the discovery of the Dreamer Gene, he said—the part of humanity’s genetic makeup that connected people to their true dreaming abilities.

  If Lora wasn’t still locked up somewhere on this ridiculous yacht, I might just have seen what would happen if I did punch Mac in the nose.

  ‘So what? So you had a hand in paving the way for my dreams, and my nightmares,’ Eva said, sitting in the plush chair opposite. ‘So I guess now I know who to blame.’ The ship had been underway through the night but she had no idea where they were, although through the window she saw the lights of a shoreline twinkle brightly.

  ‘Blame?’ Mac said, sitting back in his chair and lighting a cigar. ‘My dear Eva, you have been given a gift. Clearly it’s beyond anything that you can imagine right now.’

  Eva looked at him with a tiny hint of interest.

  ‘This race to the Dream Gate?’ Mac said. ‘It’s just the start. A small introduction to your talents. You’ll continue to have your dreams, seeing events that will happen in real life, for the rest of your days.’

  ‘Wow,’ Eva said, full of fake amazement at the revelation. ‘Everyone dreams, what an astounding discovery.’

  ‘Not like you.’

  Eva looked at him. ‘So, what are you saying? You and Solaris want to mine my dreams forever? First to find the machine and control the world, then—then? What’s after that? You’ll already have the world.’

  ‘Solaris?’ Mac said, his tone annoyed. ‘He’s only interested in one thing.’

  ‘Using the Bakhu machine to find the Dream Gate?’ Eva said.

  ‘That’s correct. He, like so many others, is intoxicated by its promised power. But that’s such a short-sighted adventure. Lucky for you he’s already left the ship to pursue his one and only goal. Me? I don’t believe in fairytales. I don’t believe that this Dream Gate is anything other than an ancient myth, cooked up by Egyptian priests so that they could hang onto as much power as possible. But I do believe in what I see.’

  ‘Then take a look in a mirror sometime,’ Eva said, pushing her food away. ‘You might get a shock.’

  ‘Hmm. You have fight in you, Eva. I like that. You’d work well on my team. You know you can see the future, you told me yourself about dreaming of how you met Sam and Alex on the helicopter. Think of what you might see in the future.’

  ‘A way off this boat,’ Eva replied.

  ‘Quite possibly, but you can leave whenever you like,’ Mac said.

  ‘Oh, really?’ Eva said, a little taken aback. ‘I thought Lora and I …’

  ‘I mean it—you are free to go whenever you like,’ Mac said.

  Eva stared pointedly at the two men standing guard just inside the doorway.

  ‘Yes, yes, I have security, of course I do,’ Mac dismissed their presence with the wave of a hand. ‘But I just want you to hear what I have to say, so that you may understand where I am coming from. This is a matter of more than just life and death for
me or you.’

  ‘OK …’ Eva said, leaning back in her chair. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Eva, I believe you will become a very powerful Dreamer indeed. You will see wars before they are fought. You will see the changes in world economies and politics long before they occur. You will be able to discover unknowns before anyone else … you, Eva, are our future.’

  ‘Yeah, like I said before, wow,’ Eva said, nonplussed. ‘I’m a Dreamer. I get that. All I care about is my friends, this race to the Dream Gate and making sure that we win.’

  ‘Win?’ Mac scoffed.

  ‘That’s right. That we get there first. That we beat everyone else—you, Solaris, Stella, Hans, whoever—whoever wants to get to the Dream Gate and use it for evil.’

  ‘Evil?’ Mac repeated again. ‘We’re all a little bit evil somewhere inside ourselves.’

  ‘Not me,’ Eva said decidedly.

  ‘You have no idea, do you?’ Mac said to her. ‘You’re not just any Dreamer, Eva.’

  Eva battled with wanting to know what he was getting at but not wanting to give him the satisfaction of having her intrigued.

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you here,’ Mac said, the expression on his face almost becoming friendly. ‘You’re so much more than that. So much more …’

  ‘I know, I get it. You think that I’m one of the 13,’ Eva said, exasperated. ‘You’re wasting your time here.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘I bet I can change your mind.’

  05

  SAM

  ‘OK …’ Rapha said, having listened to Sam, Xavier and Tobias all explain the Gears, the Bakhu machine and the Dreamer lore about the last 13. ‘So, we are joined to this race through our dreams—like destiny.’

  ‘Destiny,’ Sam said, ‘and some of the 13 are enhanced at a DNA level, sharing genetic information that goes back to some of the greatest Dreamers in history, like da Vinci and Archimedes and Aristotle.’

  ‘A Dreamer Gene,’ Tobias added. ‘Some have it in their natural makeup, while others of the 13 had a little genetic help in their creation.’