• Nobody’s Real


    The engines that opened the hangar doors gave a choppy almost musical chord-like sound as they fired up. The motors themselves gave a ‘ba-dum’ as the hangar door slowly rolled open. As the door to the Mepando opened, it gave off an alarm that made Tristan think of sirens for Police of the Funk. He followed Hiro into the helm where Hiro set down a tea kettle on a small mat with a cushion on each side. Hiro stepped to the controls and punched in a few things then sat down by the tea.

    Tristan sat on the cushion opposite the tea kettle of Hiro. Today was the fifth day he had been at the castle and he couldn’t wait to go home to Galadaer for the weekend to tell Patti about his week. Hiro’s class was usually the last class of the day. “So what will we be discussing today, Hiro?”

    Hiro poured the both of them a cup of tea. “I was going to teach you how to make tea today, but you already seem to know how.” He handed Tristan a cup and gazed at him from behind his own cup.

    “Is there something wrong?” Tristan could see the troubled expression on his teacher’s face.

    “You’re looking forward to going home this weekend, aren’t you?” Hiro closed his eyes in pain as Tristan nodded. “This is going to be hard, but there is something you should know.” He hesitated for a while. “You… aren’t real.”

    “What do you mean?” Tristan was completely lost.

    “You didn’t exist until five days ago. You’re technically a dream. A dream made real by the magicks of an extinct race called the Lunars.”

    “But… I have memories. Memories of nearly eighteen years of life and terrifying nightmares.”

    “And what have your nightmares been for the past five days?”

    “Well…” Tristan hesitated. He had figured out that his nightmares came to happen, although not necessarily the way they happened. “Patti and I are talking like we usually do. The next thing I know, Patti’s gone and I’m all alone.”

    “So assuming that your nightmares are premonitions of a sort, what does that mean?”

    “That… That I’m all alone. My life is a lie.”

    “Do you doubt that your life has happened?”

    “Well…” He thought to his lessons with Leon Sensei. “Cogito ergo sum.”

    “Good. Descartes. I see Leon has been teaching you well.” Hiro took a sip of tea. “It is a complicated spell that has brought you to life. You bear the memories of what your life would have been like if you had really existed. If you were to go to Galadaer right now, I think you would find that your mother is not who you think she is, Patti is completely different, and your school does not even teach fencing.”

    “Hiro?”

    “Yes, Tristan?”

    “Should I find this easy to accept?”

    “I believe that even though you can accept it, you will still carry the pain of knowing that it wasn’t real. Almost as if-”

    “A part of me is missing that will never come back.”

    Hiro nodded slowly as he took another drink of tea. “Precisely.” Tristan stared at his tea in deep thought. “If you don’t mind, I would like to discuss your nightmares just for a few moments.”

    “Yeah.” Tristan continued to stare at his tea for several minutes. Eventually he looked up to Hiro. “That will be fine.”

    “Well to start things off, your nightmares are, in fact, a type of premonition. You told me about the bomb robot dream. That same day the auditorium downtown blew up, along with William Masters and the Followers of the Eye. I believe that he was set off to try to destroy my children and me.”

    “Wait, who was set off? William Masters? Are you saying that William Masters was a robot?” Hiro nodded. “B-but then… What about the-”

    “Scary monsters and super peeps?” Hiro took a final sip of tea. “Well, as you know, the more you dream the less you sleep.” He chuckled slightly. “We are somewhat opposing, you and I. You dream every night and can’t sleep because of it. I don’t dream and sleep soundly. One curse for another.” He set his cup aside. “So now that your life as you know it has gone away, are you still willing to stay?”

    “I sure as hell don’t have anywhere else to go.” Tristan grinned slightly. He was still chocking down the fact that he just came into existence.

    “In that case, there’s something I’d like to show you.” He stood up and called for a servant. “Prepare Tristan a bag. We shall be traveling to Valtagia.” The servant bowed his head then rushed out.

    “I thought Valtagia was destroyed.” Tristan set down his cup.

    “Mostly. It has begun to be rebuilt.”

    “By who? I haven’t heard of anyone moving back there.”

    “Look out the window and you shall see.”

    Tristan looked out the window of the Mepando into the ruins of Valtagia. He was awed at the presence of a large palace in the center of the city. The signs of reconstruction were everywhere. “Who’s doing all this? And what’s with that castle?”

    “That is Dreadnought Palace, capitol of the Draegus.”

    “The Draegus? But that’s just a military rumor.”

    “Are they really? Do you think humans could have rebuilt this much of the city in such a short amount of time?”

    “So the bomb robots are suicidal Draegus?”

    “No. The Draegus are… complex. They were originally publicized as cyborg but they have very little machinery to their body. They are enhanced by biotechnology and nanotechnology, or at least that’s what the recruiting pamphlets say.”

    “Recruiting pamphlets?”

    “Yes, whoever is in charge of the Draegus is attempting to expand their numbers by turning humans into Draegus.”

    “So, everyone in this city isn’t a real person? And they‘re hiding their existence?”

    Hiro nodded. “Nobody’s real, but they’re willing to let you know. Their leader is offering to change whoever is willing into a Draegus.”

    Tristan stared wide-eyed at the people he could see moving below. “That many Draegus…”

    “Could you predict, could you foresee why these soldiers are artificial by necessity?”

    “It would give them a tactical advantage. They would tire less and achieve more. Their reflexes would be amazing and they could easily lift an elephant.”

    “If you had the chance, would you become one of them?”

    “Well, when you don’t care about what’s really so vile.” He turned to see Hiro raise an eyebrow. “I don’t know about you, but this is my body. I don’t want anyone else to influence how I got it. If I wanted reflexes that fast or muscles that strong, I’d train hard to achieve it.”

    “All right. You’re welcome to stay with us then. Leon had you play chess, Hira had you promise to learn magic, and I wanted to see if you would want to give up the privacy of your mind.”

    “What?”

    “Oh, I forgot to mention. The Draegus have interconnected minds. One can hear what others around it think and their leader can hear all Draegus everywhere.”

    Tristan looked repulsed. “Then I definitely wouldn’t want to be a Draegus.”

    Hiro nodded then turned the ship around to head back to the castle. “Going back to your nightmares, how do you sleep with the time that’s left after you wake up?”

    “It is difficult knowing that I will just have another nightmare, but the worst is already passed so I just try to enjoy what’s left of my night. Sometimes I just want to get out.”

    “I swear, there’s no doubt you can’t be ready to go back to sleep. There’s nothing left to do.”

    Tristan shrugged. “I got used to it, that’s all.” Hiro smiled in admiration at his pupil then sped up to get back to the castle in time for dinner.