33. Sleep
Sleep
Isaak
Isaak studied the wall. It was grey, with nondescript bricks, which all looked the same – perfectly rendered replicas of a real-world cement brick. The mortar that kept them together was white.
He noticed something off about one of the bricks. That crack wasn’t there ten minutes ago…
Facing it, he pushed his mind to summon anything that might help tear through the bricks.
But nothing came. He couldn’t summon any tools in this part of the Tapeworld.
The strain of trying, like a guitar string plucked to the point of breaking, wore him down.
He sucked in air, running out of breath.
A sound tore through his concentration. A scream – guttural, throaty, human. It sounded like someone shouting his name.
The bricks started falling from the wall, pushed out of place by an unknown force. The white mortar between them dissolved. Hope crept into his chest.
More to test it than believing it would work, he pushed a brick himself. It fell, disappearing into the black floor. Through the newly formed gaps in the wall, bright light shone. The ground on the other side was green. Freshly mowed grass, dewy and leafy.
Fists clenched and arms protecting his face, he pushed through the remaining bricks, and found himself in the arena. The same arena where he’d played for the London Lazarus so many times.
The same arena where he tore his knee.
He heard someone shout his name again.
His eyes hurt from all the spotlights.
“Isaak!”
A crowd of fans, shouting his name after winning the EuroLeague. He was back in the team. A strange warmth flooded his chest. He closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around himself, dropping to his knees.
“Isaak!”
It wasn’t the noise of a crowd. It was one, singular voice.
Her voice.
“Dylan!”
She was right in front of him. And she wasn’t alone. That friend of hers, from the night at Aftershock, the night he met her.
Relief flooded his chest and he ran towards her.
“Isaak! It’s me!” Her mouth was a smile and she ran to him, her dress fluttering in the wind. She was glistening wet, as if she’d had to swim across the Thames to get to him.
Halfway to her, doubt struck him, and he stopped.
Wait. How do I know this is real?
“Stop.” He raised his hand. “Stop!”
Dylan halted, her face filling with fear and worry.
“What’s wrong?”
A stream of tears fell from his eyes. Memories of his time playing that game as a kid, reliving the time he hurt his knee on the field, and when Sacha had given him the news that they were going to let him go… What if this was another of Astrid’s tricks?
“I don’t know how long I’ve been in here. You could just be another distorted memory, replaying in front of my eyes.”
She continued walking towards him, her eyes like galaxies, and he didn’t stop her. She was so close. Her scent – a mix of perfume and sweat – was intoxicating.
His brain told him to retreat, but his heart told him to embrace her.
“Could a memory do this?” She wrapped her arms around his neck and parted her lips, leaning in.
He closed his eyes.
They kissed.
The wet warmth of her mouth through the Tapeworld – an impossible kiss – was like tasting liquid electricity. His whole body tingled, goosebumps growing on his arms.
It was her. For real. As real as she could be, in this place. He pushed his doubt away. “I thought I was trapped here forever.” He studied her face, wanting to take her all in. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
Dylan smiled.
He went in for another kiss, and she grabbed the back of his head with her hand, fingertips brushing his ear. She snaked her body around his, raising her leg around his waist, which he promptly grabbed and held on to.
“I’ve been waiting to do this for a long time, Isaak Powers.” Whispered words between kisses and soft moans.
His heart felt like it might explode out of his body at any minute.
“Hope I’m not interrupting anything…”
He jolted back to reality. Dylan’s friend from the club.
Dylan broke their embrace, but stayed very close to him. He held her hand, and she squeezed it, side-eyeing him as they faced her friend.
“Hi, I’m Isaak.” He reached out for a handshake. “Guess you’re the rescue party. Did you have much trouble getting here?” He realised how much he sounded like a tour guide. “Sorry, I’m still… I can’t imagine what you’ve had to do to get to me.”
“This is Talia.” Dylan grinned at her, and her friend grinned back, their exchange hiding something that Isaak couldn’t figure out.
“Great to finally meet you,” Talia said. “She’s talked about you a lot, you know.”
He glanced at Dylan. It was a new feeling to have someone who talked about him with her friends. Who looked for him when he was lost. And who did it despite what happened the last time they saw each other…
“I’m sorry,” both him and Dylan said at the same time.
They laughed.
“You go first,” she said.
“I shouldn’t…” The words struggled to leave his throat. “I shouldn’t have monitored you. I just wanted to protect you. Bringing someone new to this world, I thought you might get hurt.” He looked at the ground. He wasn’t proud of what he’d done.
She huffed. “Look… I get it. You’re a bastard for not telling me from the start” – she punched his arm, playfully – “but I’m so relieved we found you.”
“Me too.” He didn’t think he’d ever be able to thank her enough. “Wait, how did you find me?”
Dylan smiled. “It’s a long story.”
Talia nodded. “Let’s just say you’ve got a good friend in Sacha.”
Of course.
Dylan turned to Isaak, her face full of worry again. “There’s still a problem.” She rubbed her thumb over his hand as she spoke. “You’re still wearing the sleep device.”
Shit. The memory of putting on the device had been buried under the mind prison and Astrid’s games.
He instinctively brought his hand up to his head, but wasn’t surprised to find nothing there.
“It’s Astrid,” he said. “She sent me this thing. And I put it on, like an idiot.”
“It’s not your fault,” Dylan said. She got on the phone. “Sacha? We got him.” He heard a loud cheer from the other side, Sacha’s squeaky voice. It was a relief to hear him. “Can the lobster phone help get him out?”
Lobster phone?
Dylan kept talking with Sacha on the other side, the real world side, while the three of them stood in the arena. Empty stands, setting sun. It would have been a beautiful scene, had he not been violently trapped in the Tapeworld.
He stared at Dylan, longing to be alone with her again.
“Sacha’s talking to Elodie,” she said. “They’re working something out.”
In the flood of relief at being rescued, Isaak hadn’t noticed the redness around Talia’s eyes. She’d been scared. Worry behind a put-on front.
Protective instinct kicked in.
“You know, you girls don’t need to wait. Both of you can tape out now.”
Dylan scowled. “No way! You don’t know what we’ve been through to get to you, Isaak. I’m staying.”
“So am I.” Talia folded her arms, her posture defiant. “I’m a newbie here, but I’m sticking by you two. I just saw her kick the ass of three grey-looking blokes, easy.”
She and Dylan smiled at each other. Their friendship reminded him of how he was with Sacha. Before.
“Grey?” he asked.
“I’ll explain later…”
Dylan put Sacha on speakerphone. “She’s come up with something,” he said. “You have to trust me on this, it would take too long to explain.”
Isaak, Dylan, and Talia eyed each other with apprehension.
“Sacha, before you do anything, can Talia tape out first?” Dylan asked.
Talia stared at her. “I told you I’m leaving at the same time as you, Dee.”
“But—”
“Elodie is telling me to just do it,” Sacha said loudly, “so I’m just going to do it.”
“Wait!” Before Isaak had a chance to intervene, the spotlights went out.
He was catapulted through time and space.
When he finally opened his eyes, he was lying on his back, with the other three looking down at him. Sacha, in his classic utility vest, Talia, wearing what Isaak could only describe as clothes from a designer perfume advert, and Dylan. His heart ached.
There was a sting by his temple as Talia pulled the device away from his head, a red light on the back of it. She placed it on the counter.
Dylan caressed his cheek. “Are you okay?”
Sacha was doing Sacha things, talking tech babble, explaining how – with Elodie’s invaluable help – he was able to reverse the sleep device. Isaak was barely paying attention. He was barely able to pay attention.
He opened and closed his hands in a fist. He was lying on his gaming chair, the back pushed all the way down.
“Why is there blood on his head?” Dylan touched his face. That twinge of pain again. “Can you get up?” she asked him.
Words formed in his mind. He tried to say them. It took longer than it usually took.
“Y-yes.”
They helped him out of the chair. As he reached verticality, his legs gave out and he fell back again, pushing the chair out of place on its wheels.
Fuck.
There was a fairly old couch at the other end of his small studio.
He’d carried that couch up and down every flight of stairs from the various other flats he’d lived in.
They must have noticed his wordless glance at it, because Sacha grabbed him beneath his shoulders, and Dylan and Talia each grabbed a leg.
“H-hey…”
It happened too fast for his protests. They moved him onto the couch, head propped with his pillow.
“This Sleeper thing is packed with IV nutrition,” Sacha said.
Shortly after, Talia and Sacha went over to the kitchenette, talking too low for him to get a read on what they were saying.
Dylan sat next him on one of his two chairs.
There wasn’t enough seating or space for all of these people in his miniscule flat.
He felt like getting up and giving a big apology.
Sorry, everyone, that my place is shite.
That didn’t happen, as his legs barely responded to his intentions.
Whatever Astrid did to him had really messed with his body.
While he was trying to formulate a theory on just what the hell Astrid was up to, and trying to put it into words and get them out of his mouth in the right order, Dylan spoke.
“Take a breather, boy.” She clasped his hand in hers, smiling at him. “Just rest. We got you.”
He smiled back at her, only slightly mumbling his next words. “Thank you.”
She leaned closer.
Turns out, for a kiss. Any shame he might have felt didn’t make it into his mind.
Talia and Sacha didn’t exist at that moment.
It was just Dylan and him. The taste of her lips was so different from their kiss inside the Tapeworld.
No algorithm telling him what it should feel like, no overexposed sensation like the hyperreal colours of that world.
It was a real kiss.
He sensed Dylan starting to hold back. The shift led him to open his eyes. Sacha and Talia had been staring and giggling. They waved awkwardly from their short distance away in the kitchen, grins plastered on their faces.
The four of them agreed to talk the next day, but for now, Isaak needed rest. Talia and Sacha left, leaving Dylan behind. He sensed Talia and Sacha had something of their own going on.
Good for you, Sacha.