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Usinga maneuver from a dream of an Aikido master on Earth, I use the dwarf’s momentum to put her on the pavement. Then I break with Aikido philosophy and gracelessly kick my opponent in the head until she stays down.

I don’t get to enjoy my victory for long. As I look up, I see a vampire whooshing my way.

This is it. I’m completely screwed now.

“That’s enough,” Felix’s voice booms through the cul-de-sac, no doubt boosted by his suit.

Startled, the vampire halts, as does everyone else.

Neo Golem’s chest opens up. In the place where Felix’s nipples would be, two giant guns show up and fire at an empty spot nearby.

Boom. The explosion vibrates everyone’s inner organs.

The robot points the guns at the still-standing Filthy Bastards. “Do I make myself clear?”

A few angry nods.

His faceplate turns from orc to orc. “Which one of you is Vas?”

“Inside,” the vampire nearest me hisses.

“Stay here,” I tell Felix. “I’ll go look for him.”

The metal head of the robot nods, and I slip inside the abandoned store.

The gang has transformed the place into a hybrid between a gym and a casino. There are weights everywhere and a boxing ring in the middle of the room, but also card tables and even a small track, likely for illegal races with small animals.

Sleeping bodies are everywhere. The problem is, there are five orcs.

I dig through the pockets of the first one for ID.

Not my guy.

I check the next one. Nope.

On the third orc, I hit pay dirt. Not only is this Vas, but he’s in REM sleep to boot.

Reaching out, I make the connection and get back to the waking world. Then I make connections with a few more members of the gang—in case running around Vas’s dreams doesn’t yield gnome grandfather fruit.

Leaving the store, I nod at my friends as I sterilize my hands.

“You killed him?” the nearest orc booms.

“No. I just needed to see what he looks like,” I lie. “Now that I have, we’ll go.”

“If we let you,” the orc growls.

The guns in Felix’s chest point in his direction, and the orc steps back.

A vampire blurs into the store, then comes out just as quickly.

“Vas is alive,” he reports. “So is everyone else.”

“And they will stay that way if you don’t puck with us,” I say.

The Bastards step out of our way.

I pick up my gun and stand shoulder to shoulder with my friends as we back out of the cul-de-sac. Once we’re out of sight, we break into a run and grab a car a few blocks away.

“That was intense,” Kit says, turning into several gang members in quick succession.

Ariel looks at Felix’s chest. “I thought you only had one round in those boob guns of yours.”

Felix raises the faceplate and grins. “The Filthy Bastards didn’t know that.”

Itzel turns to me, her eyes shining with hope. “Did you find out where my grandfather is?”

“About to.” I touch Pom’s fur.

* * *

Appearing in the dream palace,I update Pom on the goings-on as I look for Vas in the tower of sleepers.

“Whew,” I say when I find my green quarry. “The other gang members haven’t woken him up yet.”

Pom flies up to the orc and looks him over with distrust. “You should still hurry. If you don’t mind, I’ll join you.”

I agree, and Pom perches on my shoulder. I can’t resist taking on the visage of a pirate before I make both of us invisible and jump into the orc’s dream.

* * *

The roomwhere the dream is taking place is familiar. It’s the Filthy Bastards’ abandoned store hangout. Vas and another orc are wearing gloves and standing in the boxing ring.

The dream is a memory, I realize.

I let it play out until Vas goes to the locker room. While his attention is consumed by changing his outfit, I transform the locker room into Cadmael’s cluttered room that I saw in VR.

Done changing, Vas looks up and fills out the rest of the information himself, starting with the vape gizmo, which shows up in his mouth.

A few of the gang members are here, looking scorched—probably by lightning balls. Itzel’s famous grandfather is also here, lying on the floor in an unconscious heap.

“Call him,” Vas says to a vampire nearby, one of the ones who attacked Kit in the cul-de-sac.

The vamp fiddles in his VR for a second, and a hologram appears in the middle of the room.

It’s a tall, thin man whose face is obscured by a puck mask, a popular adornment worn at costume parties on Gomorrah, and therefore one that doesn’t tell me much about the person hiding behind it.

“Do you have him?” the guy asks in a voice that sounds like creaking floorboards.

Vas gestures at the unconscious gnome.

The masked dude nods approvingly and points at the vampire who started the hologram. “I want him to bring the gnome to me.”

Puck. It would’ve been better if he’d asked Vas—that way, I could bring up that meeting in the dream world.

Oh, well. Maybe Vas had met this guy at some point anyway?

As Vas’s dreams start to stray away from memory territory, I find opportunities to put the puck-masked man into a variety of environments.

Unfortunately, nothing prompts the dream I seek. The mystery man must’ve never met Vas outside that hologram conversation.

Giving up, I go back to the waking world for a moment, then recall a few more gang members I’d made connections with and snoop around their dreams next.

No luck.

Outside the hologram conversation, no one seems to have met the masked stranger.

Exiting the last person’s dream, I apprise the team on what I’ve just learned.

Itzel grunts. “We almost got killed for nothing.”

“I’m not so sure.” Kit transforms into a male vampire, bares fangs, and looks at me with glamour-ready eyes. “Is this the one who escorted the masked guy?”

I shake my head.

Kit turns into another vampire from the fight. Then another.

“This one,” I say when she turns into the vamp from the dream.

“Ah, good.” Kit turns back into herself. “One of the more handsome devils. This should be fun.”

Everyone stares at her as she pauses dramatically, enjoying the attention. When Itzel appears ready to shoot her with a ball of lightning, Kit says, “My plan is simple. I’m going to take on a different guise and use my feminine wiles to extract the information from that vampire.”

Ariel winces, probably thinking of her issues with vampires, and Itzel eyes Kit worriedly. “Are you sure? I love my grandfather, but I don’t know if—”

“Don’t worry about it.” Kit turns herself into a beautiful woman, followed by an even more attractive one. “I plan to enjoy this mission—vampires make great lovers.”

“What kind of Cognizant doesn’t?” Felix mutters under his breath.

“Technomancers,” Kit says without a second of hesitation. “At least so far. Care to prove that wrong?”

Felix reddens, and we all chuckle at his expense. He certainly walked right into that one.

“How long do you think it’ll take?” Itzel asks Kit.

Kit turns back into her usual self. “A night, maybe two.”

Itzel frowns.

“Fine. One night,” Kit says soothingly. “If the carrot approach doesn’t work, I’ll tie him up under the pretext of more fun and torture the information out of him.”

We ride in silence for a few blocks, digesting this even more disturbing part of Kit’s plan. Then Ariel and I start to question her about the safety of this, and she reminds us she’s on the New York Council and can take care of herself.

Shrugging in defeat, I go into VR and check my messages.

Nothing from Valerian. Did he really give up on me, or is he having trouble locating that werewolf?

For the sake of my mom, I can’t accept the former.

I look at Felix. “What are your plans for the night or two while Kit is doing her thing?”

He blinks. “I haven’t made any.”

“Want to help me with a VR video game? I’ll pay for your time.”

He grins. “No need. I’ve always wanted to try it, but I’ve been typecast as a security expert.”

I thank him and ask Kit where she wants to go. After the car drops her off there, we swing by Itzel’s place to drop her off and stash Felix’s suit before heading to the gate hub building to return to Earth.

* * *

When we comeout of JFK, Ariel takes her own cab, and Felix and I go straight to Valerian’s office.

“There’s a chance we’ll get kicked out of the building,” I tell Felix once we’re in the elevator. “Valerian and I had a little fight, so it all depends on how much of an ass he decides to be about that.”

When we approach the front desk, the lady there smiles at me as if I were a celebrity. “Ms. Spade. How can I help?”

“I’m here to see Rattie or Bernie,” I say.

She blinks in incomprehension.

“Mr. Bhairava and Mr. Anderson,” I clarify.

Felix’s unibrow lifts at the second name, as I figured it might—The Matrix being his favorite movie and all.

“Mr. Anderson took some personal time to see his daughter,” the woman says. “I’ll let Mr. Bhairava know you’re here. Please take a seat.”

Spending time with his daughter? Good for Bernie. He’s indeed making progress with resolving his issues.

Felix and I take a seat, but we don’t end up waiting long. Rattie arrives in mere minutes and smiles at me in the same way as the front desk lady.

What’s up with that?

“Hey, Rattie.” I rise to my feet and gesture at my technomancer friend. “This is Felix. He’s a brilliant developer. I brought him to help on the Lucid Dreamer project.”

Rattie shakes Felix’s hand. “Mr. Bale mentioned you.”

“That’s Valerian,” I whisper to Felix as Rattie insists Felix call him by his weird nickname and leads us through the floor.

Looking around, I begin to have an inkling about all the strange looks. The majority of the cubicles are covered by images of me, only with breast augmentations and wearing completely impractical outfits, like a bikini made out of chainmail.

Felix stares at one of the images in a way Maya would not approve. I clear my throat, and he blushes.

“Umm.” He clears his throat as well. “Are you a warrior princess in this game?”

“Of course not. I’m a dreamwalker.”

Felix cringes. Unlike me, he’s under the Mandate, a tool Cognizant use on worlds like this in order to hide their nature from humans. As a result, he wouldn’t be able to say he’s a technomancer to Rattie without deadly consequences.

Rattie doesn’t bat an eye, of course. “I hope you don’t mind that,” he says, eyeing the images with distaste. “The marketing team is behind these; they anticipate seventy-five percent of the game audience to be men. For what it’s worth, when in VR, the player takes your point of view, so they don’t really see you much. Not unless they look into a mirror.”

“It’s fine,” I say magnanimously. What I don’t add is that I’d let them depict me completely naked and rolling on gigantic breasts as a mode of locomotion if that meant I’d gain enough power to save Mom.

Looking relieved, Rattie herds us into a meeting room, where the screens are already down and his team from India looks at me with the same adoration. Sitting down, he folds his hands on the table like a boarding school student. “How about I give you an update?”

I take a seat opposite him. “That would be great.”

“The team has worked almost without sleep since we last met,” Rattie says, glancing approvingly at the faces on the screens. “Kind of ironic, given the subject matter of the game.”

I nod sympathetically at him and the screens. “I know how crappy sleep deprivation feels. Let me know if Valerian doesn’t properly compensate you guys for your hard work.”

On the screen, one of the developers goes from happy to worried. “Our compensation is generous. It really is.”

“It’s true,” Rattie says.

I immediately feel like an idiot. “Of course. I wasn’t trying to say anyone’s ungrateful or anything. Please go on with the update before I stuff more of my feet into my mouth.”

Rattie smiles. “The good news is that we got lucky breaks every step of the way, and the level is almost ready.” He pauses to give me a chance to beam happily at him. “But before we can let the testers play it, we need to solve a problem that isn’t game development, per se. There’s a security issue that—”

“Felix can help you,” I blurt.

“With security?” Felix looks at me like a puppy whose squeaky toy was taken away. “I thought I’d get to work on the game.”

“I’m sure once you prove yourself with security, the team will find some game-related tasks for you as well.” I look at Rattie pointedly.

“Definitely.” Rattie examines Felix intently. “If you’re experienced with—”

“I am.” Felix puffs up like a horny peacock. “Whatever it is, it won’t be a problem.”

Rattie looks at me dubiously.

“Felix is amazing at his job,” I say. “Consider your security issue solved.”

“In that case”—Rattie takes out a box, two pieces of paper, and two pens—“let’s get to the fun part.” He slides the papers in front of each of us. “Sorry about the NDAs. It’s a standard precaution for unreleased intellectual property.”

Waving his apology away, Felix and I sign the non-disclosure agreements while Rattie opens the box with a flourish and takes out the headset inside. “This is the Illusion Scope.”

“Wow,” Felix whispers. “So small.”

Actually, it’s bigger than any Gomorran headset, but for Earth’s primitive technology, it’s not bad.

“The room is already wired for hand tracking,” Rattie says and gives me the gizmo. “It’s only right you try it on first.”

I walk over to the open part of the room and put on the headset. The dashboard here is basic and only has one icon, a small version of me in a skimpy outfit. When I gesture at the icon, the game starts to load, and as I wait, I read the text under the heading of “Backstory:”

Bailey’s mother was kidnapped by an evil dreamwalker, the Rat King. Using her own dreamwalking powers, Bailey finds her way to the Rat King’s twisted palace and is about to face him in a fight to—

The game starts, and I’m holding a giant sword.

With no mirrors around, there’s really no way to tell if I look like me at this moment. The only parts of me visible are my hands—which, pixelation aside, look close enough to mine. It’s a blessing no one bothered to give me those boobs as per the marketing department—they’d be blocking my downward view completely, not to mention smacking me in the face if I needed to run.

I wave the sword a few times and begin studying the dark cavern when a disturbing monster jumps down from the ceiling.

He/it has the body of a spider but the head of a clown. In case that wasn’t terrifying enough, the lower portion of the clown’s face is covered by a surgeon’s mask and the front legs are holding scalpels.

Before I so much as blink, the thing leaps at me.