“Is this the right place?” My partner asked.
“Yes it is, apartment 1653,” I confirmed glancing over at Ava as she pulled out her QuickOpen™ automatic lock picking tool. A moment later the door swung open letting out a small squeak which made us both freeze.
It was imperative that our target not wake up. That squeak could have blown it.
I quickly stalked over to the target's bedroom, leaving behind the large pelican case. Carefully opening the door, this time without a squeak, I quickly laid eyes on our target. Sofia Novikov.
Sofia was roughly 5’ 7” 160lbs, lightly muscled, skinny with blonde hair. She was a spy that had defected from Russia. Our bosses were concerned that she had never stopped spying for the Russians and was actually a double agent. Our job was to determine whether that suspicion was true or not.
I quickly slipped over to the side of her bed and attached a small red disc to her temple. A moment later a green light lit up on the disc confirming that it was operating nominally. The red disc would monitor her life signs and ensure she stayed asleep while we did our job.
I checked my tablet as it threw out an alert. Sofia had an unregistered implant. It didn’t look like it would
“We’re good,” I called out softly to Ava. Even with the target unable to wake up, it was best if the neighbors' suspicions weren’t roused. A quiet rumble could be heard through the doorway on Sofia’s bedroom door as Ava rolled the pelican case into the bedroom.
Cracking open the pelican case I grabbed the unimaginatively named BRE or Brain Resonance Explorer. It’s what allows us to enter the dreams of the user. I looked over to Ava where she had pulled out the interfacing computer and the reality inhibitor.
All this tech laid out in front of us was state-of-the-art. Developed by and for the CIA it was decades ahead of civilian technology. Most of the world's leading neurologists didn’t even think it was possible to enter others' dreams, not to mention the even more sinister things possible with this technology.
Fools had always thought that if you concentrated on something hard enough it would ‘manifest’ into reality. Wealth, a good job, a loving spouse. It was purely pseudoscience. Until the CIA’s discoveries 2 years ago.
It turned out the human mind was able to manipulate reality but only when dreaming. It was only possible when you were in a hyper-focused state that was only attainable when entering another's dream. You couldn’t change much, only little things and only pertaining to those in the dream. And it was very hard to control and was prone to cause unintentional changes. That’s why we had the reality inhibitor. It kept the dream from affecting reality and also stabilized the dream for the infiltrator. Kept them ‘awake’ and aware that they were in a dream and of any changes being made in reality or the dream.
I slipped on my own BRE onto my head and laid down on the mattress on the far side from our target Sofia. I shifted until I was comfortable then looked at Ava.
“Ready Alex?”
“Yes, Ava.”
“Good, BRE’s are green, the dream computer is green and the reality inhibitor is green. We are good to go. Remember, we’re trying to find out if Sofia here is a double agent, nothing else. I’ll be pulling you out after 5 minutes have passed which will be 2 hours in the dream. Good luck Alex.”
The last thing I saw before drifting off was a bunch of red errors appearing on the screen in front of Ava and the cube that was the Reality Inhibitor flashing red.
