Dream Hunter (Bailey Spade 2)

Holy digitization. I had no idea my forehead was an erogenous zone.

He attaches another dot to my forehead, then another.

My breathing turns shallow.

Valerian grins, his eyes gleaming wickedly, and starts gluing dots to my nose, cheeks, and near my lips. By the time he finally attaches a dot to my chin, I feel like I need a change of panties.

Leaving me utterly discombobulated, he goes to set up the primitive Earth equipment.

“Can you follow instructions?” he asks with a smirk.

I clear my dry throat. “What do you need me to do?”

He asks me to display different emotions with my face, and I do my best—sometimes doing such a good job that Pom changes color on my wrist to match the expression. He then asks me to move for him, directing me this way and that. The weird part is that I find all this bossing around kind of hot—and not just the parts where he asks me to sway my hips and things like that.

Hours of motion capture later, Valerian says, “That’s enough. We should be good for the demo, but might need you back after that.”

I hold my breath as he carefully removes the dots from my face and turns his back to me again.

I shake off my hormone-induced daze and slip out of the onesie. Before putting on my original outfit, I use up all of my remaining hand sanitizer on my face and body—because that’s the rational thing to do.

However much it turns me on, I can’t forget that Valerian’s touch is full of Earth germs.

“I have some business on Gomorrah,” he says when he turns around. “But you should stay and work with Rattie and the team for as long as you can. In fifteen hours, though, I’ll need you for the first part of the Senate investigation, so meet me back at Erato’s then.”

Erato’s? “We’re eating there again?”

He shakes his head. “In fifteen Earth hours, it will be midnight on Gomorrah. Instead of dining, we’ll be invading Erato’s dreams.”

“We?” Is he including himself in this dreamwalking adventure?

“We’ll talk details after you make a dream link and get away from Erato’s dwelling. I assume you can dreamwalk in a dryad?”

“I don’t see why not, but—”

“Good. Let’s go.”

He leads me back to the elevator, and as he presses the button for the top floor, I recall something I’ve been meaning to ask him. “Does the word ‘Soma’ mean anything to you?”

He stiffens for a second, then his expression smooths out. “Can you give me some context?”

“It’s something Hekima mentioned in his last moments,” I say, puzzled by his reaction. “He made it sound like a place where dreamwalkers live. It also sounded like at least one illusionist family lived there too—Hekima’s own.”

Valerian’s jaw tightens. “You can’t trust anything that murderer said.”

“So you don’t know?” I ask—though it’s obvious to me that he does.

“I’m sorry. I can’t help you with this.”

“But—”

“If you want me to keep helping you, drop it,” he growls just as the elevator doors open.

Fine. If he’s going to ask me nicely like that, I guess I won’t pry anymore.

He strides back into the meeting room, and I follow. Bernie and Rattie are there, but instead of the teleconference, the screens feature drawings of bone-chilling monsters and mind-bending environments. Clearly, the work on the demo is proceeding at breakneck speed.

“My team is extremely excited,” Rattie says to Valerian. “I already have some stuff I want to run past you.”

Valerian holds up his hand. “I have a prior commitment, but Bailey can serve in my stead.” He glances at me. “I trust her implicitly when it comes to the Lucid Dreamer.”

As Valerian leaves us there, Bernie looks at me dubiously, but Rattie doesn’t bat an eye. “So, Bailey,” he says, “in your opinion, when in someone’s dream, should the dreamwalker character actually walk? Some folks suggested she fly or teleport around.”

“Let her walk,” I say. “If dreamwalking were real, I imagine all of the above would be possible, but she might still walk by default as that’s what’s familiar and doesn’t require extra effort and concentration.”

“Logical,” Rattie says. “And no flying cuts on dev time.”

“We haven’t done flying in VR before,” Bernie adds.

“Flying also has a higher chance of giving the gamer VR sickness,” I say, without sharing why I think so. There are flying games on Gomorrah that did that to me—and I’m an experienced flyer, at least in my dreams.

Rattie peppers me with more questions, and I answer as best I can, drawing on my game design knowledge when I need to, as well as on dreamwalker experience.

After a while, Rattie yawns in the most contagious manner. “I think it’s time for a few hours in the pod,” he says apologetically. “I’m still on Bangalore time.”

Bernie stifles a yawn of his own. “It’s not your jet lag. I could use some time in the pod myself.”