Dreamer

Saturday, March 17th, 2029

GAVIN

The table is set full with plates and forks and the whole shebang. Iris sits down and I take the seat next to her. I hear a loud crash, it sounds like it came from far away, and if that is the case it must’ve been something big. I turn my attention to the door, wondering what it was.

“Oh, don’t you worry about that, I think there’s just construction going on. I heard they were making additions to the statue or whatever,” Tammy says.

“You sure? That didn’t sound like construction,” I say.

“Don’t worry about it,” She says, shaking her head.

Tammy stands up from the stove and places a large pan onto the table, it is full with a huge pork roast. It smells absolutely amazing and has my mouth watering.

“Alright, who wants first bite?” Tammy asks.

I look back to the door and then let it pass from my mind.

“I think you should get it since you spent so long cooking it,” Iris says.

“Yeah, I guess that’s fair,” I say, a little disappointed.

“Oh, no really, it didn’t take that long you all,” Tammy says, backing away smiling.”

“Go on, we insist.”

“Alright,” Tammy says, grabbing the knife.

She goes in for the first stab on the rump of the pork and I can almost picture the once living pig screaming and welting in pain from the stab. She has some troubles with the knife going all of the way through and tries a little harder. She must have cut herself because I see a slight wince and she pulls her hand close to her faster than anything I’ve ever seen.

“Oh! Are you alright?” Iris asks, standing up.

“Y-Yes, I’m fine, just a cut,” she says, holding her hand close to her.

“Here, let me bandage it up for you,” Iris says.

“N-No need, I’ll do it, you two enjoy your dinner, I’ll be back,” She says, running out into the hallway and then the bathroom.

“Okay, that was weird,” I say.

“Yeah, but I guess that’s why you have to be careful with knives.”

“I’ll finish cutting, give me your plate,” I say, grabbing the knife.

“Put some on her plate also, for when she comes back.”

“Okay.”

I cut a slice of the pork roast off for Tammy and slide it onto her plate. Next I go in a bit deeper and cut out a nice section of the back and ease it onto Iris’ plate.

“I was just going to ask for a piece like that, thank you.”

I smile and cut myself a piece.

I sit back down beside Iris and stick my fork into the meat.

“So, when you were younger…” I begin.

She turns towards me, a good size section of the pork already in her mouth. She shakes her head and finishes chewing, “Oh, my bad, I’m sorry. You we’re saying?”

“When you were younger…” I repeat. “What did you want to be when you grew up?”

She looks to the side for a moment and then back to me, “You’re going to think it is stupid.”

“I can promise you I won’t.”

“I wanted to be a superhero.”

“Like Batman?”

“Like Wonder Woman,” she corrects me.

“Ah, right.”

“When every other girl wanted to be a princess I always wanted to be a superhero. I wanted to save the world and be the talk of the town.”

“And this is where your ideals of wanting to be something greater came from, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, can I be honest with you?”

“Sure.”

I take a bite of the pork roast and smile as it goes down my throat.

“You’re really quite super to me, and once this is all done and over you’re going to be one hell of a hero.”

She smiles and goes to eat another bite of the roast.

“That is so nice, thank you, Gavin.”

“Anytime.”

“And what about your parents?” I ask.

She looks onto her plate for a few seconds.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did something happen to them?” I ask.

“No, no, nothing like that. It’s just…it’s been so long since I’ve seen them it feels like.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s understandable.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I’m sitting here lamenting about not seeing my parents and you…” She trails off, but I know where she was going with it. You can’t see yours because they’re dead.

“Gavin…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that, it slipped out and-”

“No, it’s honestly okay. You don’t need to worry,” I say.

“It was a pretty mean thing for me to say.”

“Don’t worry about it, trust me,” I say.

She finishes her roast and I take in my final bite and chew it thoroughly.

I stand up at the same time as her, the both of us heading to the sink.

“Here, let me just wash the dishes,” She says.

“Nuh-uh, I’ve got them, you can relax,” I say.

“Okay, compromise, we both just wash our own plate.”

“Okay, agreed,” I laugh.

She does hers first, she turns on the water and douses the plate in and readies the dish soap right on the back of the sink. As she is washing I hear a door closing. I turn to see Tammy returning from the bathroom, a fresh white bandage covering her hand.

“Oh, you two already finished?”

“Yeah, we were just washing our plates,” Iris says.

“Okay, well I’ll get out of your way then, I’ll just take this to the bedroom,” she says, grabbing the plate of pot roast and walking off.

“Okay then, enjoy!” Iris says, returning her focus to the plate.

She turns the water onto hot and grabs the sponge that sat next to the dish soap. She finishes up and I scrub my plate just as she did. As I’m about to finish I hear a door on my other side open and shut, I turn around to see Kevin walking back into the house, wracked with sweat.

“Aw, dinner all concluded with?” He asks, noticing the cut in pork-roast and the half deserted table.

“Yeah, Tammy went into the bedroom to eat, I guess she won’t mind you grabbing a slice of your own?” I ask.

“Haha, I’m going to do just that, you two feel comfortable on the couch, alright? I’ll see what I can do to help you for tomorrow night,” he says.

“Thank you,” I say.

Kevin takes the knife and cuts himself a large cut of pork and slides it onto an empty plate.

“Night, see you both tomorrow,” Kevin says before walking off.

“Good-Night Kevin!” Iris says.

“Night.”

I finish up my plate and set it aside to dry.

“I’m feeling quite tired, you want to retire to the couch?” Iris asks.

“Sure thing.”

We turn down the lights to the kitchen and walk into the living room. Iris motions for me to lie down first, and I do. She lies down next and cuddles up right next to me, I can feel her breathing on my neck.

“This is perfect,” she says.

“No objections here,” I say, smiling.

“Your eyes are very pretty when you smile,” She says, smiling back.

I have to tell her sooner or later about my body. I choose sooner.

“There’s something about that,” I begin.

“Hm?” She asks, looking up.

“Do you remember what I told you about me going through time?”

“You said that you visited the future and met your future self, Micah, there.”

“Yeah, well, I was told that a human body would age severely if not break down from the trans-dimensional travel, so my consciousness had to be put into a shell meant to look like my old body. I was told when I first arrived in the future that some of the Radical-9 had bonded with my soul, that that is the reason why I was able to make the journey. Because of that, my body was left behind, that was the explosion that destroyed Denver back in 2018.”

She looks up to me still with no change.

“No.”

“Iris…”

“What…what are you talking about?” She asks.

“I’m trying to say that even now I think that’s a lie. I think that I was put into this body solely so Jack could have his way with me, because you made the trip here just fine, and you’re human. I didn’t know how to tell you all of this because I didn’t want you to see me different. The thing is, the opposite will be true, this body doesn’t age as far as I can tell.

“I am so sorry, I didn’t know.”

“That’s because I didn’t want you to know…I didn’t know how you’d react.”

“No matter what happened, you’re still the guy who saved my life. No matter how much of you is actual skin or fake, you’re still you, the you I had a crush on since the second we met,” she says, and then blushes afterwards.

“There’s something else.”

“What?”

“Kate…had these visions. I used to have them, I don’t remember the last time I did, they seem to be very erratic. She had this vision of me on the battlefield in the arms of a girl with red hair. And I…I was dying,” I say, choking up.

“That…isn’t going to happen,” She says.

“These visions…every single one of them has come true. Every single one of them has shown me something that has happened or is going to happen.”

She shakes her head, grabbing my shirt and pulling herself close to me.

“No, not this time, I won’t allow it,” she says.

“Listen, in no way is this me giving up. I am going to fight using all of my power and all of my resistance and do everything possible to change my future.”

“That’s right, we write our own futures,” she says.

A moment of silence passes as we just stare into each other’s eyes. She comes closer and kisses me. I hold her in both of my arms and pull her close to me. She opens her eyes and with her free hand she grabs mine and interlocks her fingers inbetween mine.

She stops kissing me and sits up.

“What’s wrong?”

“Hold on…”

She takes off the shaul and works off her top.

“Are you sure? Out here?” I ask.

“Most guys would instantly drown out all logic and dive in head-first,” She says.

“I think you know by now I’m hardly anything like most guys.”

“Well, okay then, we don’t have to go all of the way,” she says, guiding my hand. “But at least let’s have some fun before the storm that comes tomorrow.”

She places her palm on mine and guides my hand around her right breast. My breathing becomes more shallow and she bends back over, kissing me more. I kiss her back, my hand still cupped around her breast and eventually I have to stop to take off the shirt I’d been wearing because it feels so hot in the room.

She runs her hand through my hair as she stares into my eyes.

I wrap my hands around the back of her, undoing her bra, she doesn’t seem to mind. She only asks, “You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

It falls off onto the floor beside us, I keep my hands around her, exploring her body, the smalls in her back, to which she seems to shake slightly.

“Too much?” I ask.

“No, just right….all…the way?”

“All the way,” I reply, smiling slightly.

She backs up slightly and moves to unzip my pants, her breasts bounce the slightest when she moves back.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

She nods and finishes unzipping. She then grabs for me.

At first it feels cold and foreign, but at once she makes me at ease, and then she sits up even more. She looks straight at me as she begins. Everything from today’s waking moments to now come rushing through my mind as I see the girl of my dreams here right now. In this moment I’d kill a million men for her.

I brush a stray hair out of her face, she opens her brilliant brown eyes to look at me as she goes down. Every sound is so minute and exact and I feel like time itself is slowing down.

“O-Okay, I want you to…I want to please you…” I say in between breaths.

She continues for another few seconds and then stops. She lets go and sits up.

“Already? Don’t you want me to finish?”

“I…I want to make you as happy as you’ve made me.”

“Are you sure we’re still talking about sex?”

“I’m talking about us. Whether that be right now or in the future, I want to make you as happy as you make me,” I say.

She smiles and sits back.

“You’re…perfect.”

I sit up, pulling the pants down to my knees and bending over her. I kiss her on the lips as she lifts her skirt up.

Underneath she’s wearing light blue panties that she slides off with no second thought.

“No turning back.”

“No turning back,” she repeats, kissing me again.

It’s a hard fit at first, she squeals a little getting it in, but once I’m in I have this little voice in my head chanting “In and out. In and out.” I follow the rhythm and she lets out what starts as the smallest noise I’d heard her emit to less quieted groans.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, keep going.”

I do.

“In and out. In and out. In and out” the voice chants over and over, as if it is demanding a sacrifice.

I grab her leg as I go in harder, faster, I can feel the sweat form on my body, in this second I absolutely love this woman, this person I’m sharing my entire connection with. It is like the perfect twist of fate that I need to keep going, to remember that there is more to me than Radical-9. There is more to me than the past. The present, now, and what is to come, and I’m going to share it with this person, my person, Iris McCallum.

Thank you.

Just then, my head begins pounding. Just as the voices called for rhythm this calls for me to let go. At first I feel the ultimate confusion, but then I remember this feeling, this is when a vision comes to me.

[ | ]

I’m standing in a darkened room, it seems to expand long past my field of view. Just then I see a single light come on from above, a spotlight illuminating an area below and in front of me. A second spotlight, and then a third, and then six, and then twenty, and it keeps multiplying until I’m staring at a void of figures standing in an area the size of ten football fields. The figures are human-like, all in rows as if they were toys on a factory line. Automatons.

I look around to see where I’m standing. I know it instantly as a hallway from the Sustineo-10. I remember the metal hallways of this place too well. I peek through one of the nearby doors to see a sort of docking bay. Inside lines hundreds of people I’ve never even seen before.

Except for two.

In the very front I see two familiar faces, Kevin and Tammy. They’re in line with other automatons that look like everyday people.

Sirens start sounding off and I can see a figure cloaked entirely in shadow standing beside me, an outstretched arm propped up.

The automatons seem to understand the figure and turn themselves around. The back wall of the docking bay begins to open up, and from the outside I can see the depths of space, earth right below.

The shadow figure begins shaking as I see a glowing energy flowing from their finger. It causes the air around the opening of the docking bay to vibrate and sparkle. The air seems to rip itself apart and creates a sort of rift. The automatons all begin synonymously marching forward. They seem to get sucked in once they reach the vicinity of the rift.

I look back to the figure and see that they are no longer cloaked in shadow.

It’s Micah.

He’s grinning wildly as he opens a rift through time to send the automatons back in time.

To our time. The scene changes I’m now looking at what seems to be California. I am about two hundred feet into the sky looking at the city. I see a similar looking rift open into the sky, all of the automatons I’d seen before come flooding out of the sky. They land with little to no damage to themselves, as they do they seem to act like normal humans, walking about as if they were there the whole time. A voice erupts from the rift.

“Go! Claim this city and entertain our guests when they arrive! Prepare to terminate on my mark!” The rift disappears and the vision changes again. I’m back at the apartment, it’s dinner time. I’m looking at the scene through Tammy’s eyes. I look as she first sticks the knife into the pork, her difficulty in cutting the meat, and the moment the knife cuts her hand. In the instant she pulls her hand back I can see the blood that escapes her flesh isn’t red, but white.

The scene plays out as normal, but she hides her bloodied hand from view.

The scene changes once more and then I see the Statue of Liberty, it’s in pieces. It looks like a bomb had hit the place. The overturned head remains in one piece, it lays amongst the rubble, staring at the arm carrying the sword. In the middle of the war zone I see John. The vision bleeds out and I return to my place in the apartment.

[ | ]