The Glitch In Sleep Part 22

"Jennifer."

"Um . . . this is a little hard to explain, but you see . . ." There was no other way for Becker to say it. "I'm what they call a Fixer in this place called The Seems-which is this place that makes our World-and um, they were trying to send you a Dream tonight, but because of a Glitch in the Department of Sleep, they couldn't get it to you, and then by accident I popped your Dream because . . ."

Jennifer was looking at him like he was totally out of his mind, and Becker worried he was botching the whole thing.

"Sorry, I know it doesn't make a lot of sense . . . it's just . . . there was something special in that Dream and because of me, you couldn't get it. So they let me make a new one and deliver it myself."

Jennifer glanced around the schoolyard-the place that had been her own personal Nightmare ever since she'd moved from Vancouver to Caledon.

"You're telling me this is a Dream?"

"Yeah. I made it in The Seems."

"Then why did you make it so bad?"

"Well, it's about to get a whole lot better, if you want it to . . ."

Becker could tell that Jennifer wasn't quite buying his story, but she didn't exactly say no.

"Then follow me."

After a moment's hesitation, she finally got up from the bench, and Becker led her back in the direction of the trees through which he'd arrived. The kid in the dirt was still there, codesigning a two-car garage with a freckle-faced third-grader.

"Who's that?" asked the smaller of the two.

"No one. He's just a Fixer in The Seems."

The kids shrugged, as if that were all but obvious, then went back to their architectural plans. Neither seemed to notice that the trees that had once loomed over their shoulders were no longer there, having been replaced by a tall, wrought-iron gate-the kind that might adorn a deserted amus.e.m.e.nt park- complete with rusted turnstile that led to the other side.

"I've never seen this here before," observed Jennifer.

"I told you, this is a Dream," said Becker. "Anything can happen."

"Tickets! Tickets!"

A vintage ticket taker with a red, white, and blue carnival hat sat on a stool beside the turnstile, waiting for the only two customers of the day.

"Hey, Dr. Kole." It was Becker's English teacher, who he'd specially chosen for this part.

"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Drane! I hope you have your tickets in hand, because I cannot allow our personal relations.h.i.+p to influence the performance of my duties!"

Becker pulled two s.h.i.+ny new tickets out of his back pocket and handed them over.

"Remember, the park closes promptly at dusk!" He ripped the tickets in half and handed one stub to each of them. "And be careful, my dear-this one's quite the ladies' man."

"Is that so?" Jennifer laughed, and for the first time since they'd met, Becker could feel her spirits lifting. He knew that was probably because she could glimpse what was on the other side of the gate.

"Shall we?"

Dream 532 was only ordered in the most dire of circ.u.mstances and it entailed the revealing of The Seems to a person in The World. It was only done inside a Dream because the aforementioned person was not actually being recruited for employment (in that case, they would have gone to Orientation), but rather needed a little help in negotiating the peaks and valleys of ordinary life. And even if they remembered everything that happened, they would no doubt write it off as a Dream, while hopefully the experience they had within would be memorable enough to change the way they looked at things when they woke up the next day.

The specific places that person visited in the dream varied on a Case by Case basis, but Becker wanted to give Jennifer "the deluxe." First, he took her to Time Square-the quaint town center in the Department of Time, complete with Second Hand Stores, Daylight Savings (FDIC), and Magic Hour-arguably the best coffee shop in the Seems. Then they stopped at the Sound Studio (where they design everything we hear) and the Olfactory (and all the things we smell) and they even dropped by the Weather Station, where Becker could show off a bit, because he knew the guys up there from a previous Mission.

"Briefer Drane," exclaimed Weatherman #3, upon seeing Becker with his wide-eyed companion.

"That's Fixer to you, Freddy!"

"Hey, congrats. How 'bout Yesterday? Was that a perfect day or what?"

"Keep up the good work."

Jennifer was impressed that Becker knew the people responsible for Weather, and she wasn't afraid to throw in a request of her own.

"Um, do you think you guys could do me a small favor?"

"For a friend of Fixer Drane . . . anything!"

"Well, I was just wondering if you could, like, bring down another ice age or something on this little town called Caledon."

"Caledon? Ontario, Canada? Sector 104?" The Weatherman quickly flipped through his log of local forecasts. "No Ice Age scheduled there for another thirty-two thousand years. How 'bout a Cold Spell? I could do that without having to get approval."

Jennifer laughed. "As long as I get a couple snow days out of it."

Becker knew where this was coming from. "Don't let a few bad apples spoil the bunch."

"Yeah. Sure. Right. I'm sure there's a lot of cool people I just haven't met yet." On the way out the door, though, she looked back and flashed Freddy the signal to hit 'em with everything they got, and the Weatherman gave her a thumbs-up.

But it was at the Big Building itself where Jennifer was really blown away.

Though it's strictly against the Rules to meet your Case Worker in person (even in a Dream), Becker made arrangements to stop by when the entire staff was out to lunch. While they rode the elevator up to the 423rd floor, Becker filled her in.

". . . and so each Case Worker has about twenty-five individual Clients that they manage, and their job is basically to help you in any way they can. Like sending you Happy Thoughts or nudging you down the right path, or in your Case, ordering up this Dream."

"And they let you design it?"

"The Pleasant Dreamers helped me out."

"That's a pretty cool job."

"Totally."

The elevator dinged and they wandered down the seemingly endless hallway to office #423006. A knock on the door confirmed that no one was there.

"C'mon . . ."

Inside the office was a messy desk with a nameplate: "Clara Manning, Senior Case Worker," and posted all over the walls were pictures of her Clients. You really have to love your people in this job, and it was clear that even though the two had never met, Clara felt that way about Jennifer.

One section of the wall was entirely devoted to her and there were Moments up there that Jennifer herself had nearly forgotten-like the time she had won a bronze medal at the Pacific Dolphin swim meet, and the time she hiked to the top of Hominy Hill and caught this amazing view of the valley and the church steeple and wished more than anything that someone could be there to share it with her. There was even a yellow Post-it note slapped on the corner of the laptop computer that read: Note to self: Remember to send J. K .

hint that necklace she lost = under bed in floorboard crack.

"This is wild . . . ," said Jennifer, staring at her life up on the wall.

"Yeah, Case Worker is a great job, but they have a lot of restrictions. They can't mess with your life or invade your privacy, but if you let them they can really help you out."

"Cool."

Clara had a cheap clock from Seems Club on her wall, and Becker noticed that another thing he'd preprogrammed into the Dream was about to unfold. He slid the window open and invited Jennifer to come to the edge.

"What are you doing?"

"It's a Dream-I figured we would fly to the next spot."

"Are you crazy?"

"Trust me." He reached out for her hand. "This is gonna be sweet."

She thought it over for a second, but everything else had gone pretty good so far, and someone told her once that when you fall in a Dream, you wake up before you hit the ground.

"Carpe diem," she said, and together they climbed out on the sandstone ledge. The wind was whipping back and forth, and far below they could barely make out the monorail, which looked like a toy train.

"What are we waiting for?" asked Jennifer, now fully on board.

"Hold on a sec." Becker had a giddy smile on his face. "I planned something special for 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . ."

Out of nowhere a song kicked in, as if playing on invisible speakers. Becker had debated between "I'm with You" and "Flight of the b.u.mblebee" when sifting through the music section of the Spice Rack, but had chosen "Sugar Mountain," because he expected a smooth and mellow flight.

"You like this song?"

"Totally."

"But isn't the guy who sings it, like, four hundred years old?"

Becker was b.u.mmed, because he'd thought it was a pretty good call.

"I could probably change it if you want?"

"No, I'm just teasing you." She smiled and punched him on the shoulder. "I love Neil Young."

They took one last look over the side before Jennifer leaped into the air.

"See you at the bottom!"

When they finally landed, they pretty much spent the rest of the day chilling out on the Field of Play and enjoying a first-cla.s.s picnic. Twinkies were served with knife and fork, Soft Drinks provided as beverage, and outside of an Ultimate Frisbee game between the two sides of the Coin, they pretty much had the run of the place. Jennifer told Becker all about her gram and how cool she was and that even though it sucked that she had died, Jennifer always felt like she carried her around with her wherever she went. The whole time, Becker couldn't help thinking about how much she reminded him of Amy Lannin, which made him kind of sad but also made him kind of happy too.

Unfortunately, a Dream can only last so long, even though Time doesn't work the same way there as it does in Reality (you can spend six hours in a Dream and it's only two minutes of Sleep). And Becker remembered the Pleasant Dreamer's warning, so he knew it was almost time to wrap things up.

"Wow," said Jennifer, following the Fixer to the top of a craggy hill. "That's pretty awesome."

For his grand finale, Becker had chosen the Point of View, a thin jut of rock that overlooked the Stream of Consciousness. Soon, each would have to go back to their respective worlds, but neither were in any hurry to leave.

"I wish I could just stay here in this Dream forever," Jennifer mused, hair blowing across her face from the breeze.

"You can."

"What do you mean?"

Becker couldn't help noticing how pretty she looked to him-even more so than when he first "met" her on the Window in the Night Watchman's station-and it almost caused him to forget what he was trying to say.

"That's the thing about 532. It's supposed to make you feel better Tomorrow, not just Today."

"But tomorrow I have to go back to school." The harsh reality of Reality was creeping back into Jennifer's state of mind.

"But now it could be different . . . because now you know about The Seems."

"The Seems is just a Dream, Becker."

"No, it's not."

Jennifer gave him a look, like, "Dude, please give me a break."

"I swear!"

She could tell he wasn't kidding, and part of her wanted it to be true. In fact, a lot of her wanted it to be true, but there was still something bothering her about the whole idea.

"You know . . . if The Seems is so great and they have a Plan and everything . . . then . . . then why is this happening?" She was referring to her situation at school, which Becker had witnessed firsthand. "I mean, you don't know what it's like to wake up every day and know you're gonna have to deal with that."

Becker nodded and gazed down at the rippling water, as a single sculler whisked gently past them on the Stream. Somehow he knew this moment was coming. It came for him when Amy died and again when Thibadeau disappeared and sometimes it still came Today, when he saw all the things that didn't make sense in The World.

"That's a good question. And I actually asked my teacher at the IFR the exact same thing once, when I was going through a really tough time."

"And what did he say?"

"He said that no one, not even a Case Worker, can tell you what lies at the heart of the Plan-and beware of anyone who says that they can." Those were his Instructor's words verbatim, on the day when he was called off the Beaten Track to hear the tragic news about Thib. "But Fixer Blaque seemed to think it was something good."

Now it was Jennifer's turn to search for answers in the rippling water.

"I wish I could believe that."

"Well, that's the thing." Becker shrugged his shoulders. "Tomorrow, when you wake up, pretend that maybe The World isn't what you thought it was. That the trees and the leaves and the wind-and even you-are all part of the most magical place ever created, and something, somewhere, is making sure you'll always be okay."