Dream: Synergy

Date: 10/8/2019

I had a sight that most didn't. I could see the leylines of energy all around me and the world. Lines buzzing and rippling full of spiritual energy. I didn't know much on it when I first noticed it. It was just a second sight for me. Natural. I always thought it was normal. As the years went on I got into college. I continued my studies of the metaphysical along with that of sociology and psychology. I needed to see the world others did to better understand what it was I was seeing. I began living with my older brother. I played a bit on rent in exchange I was closer to the campus. It was a nice house and a pretty nice neighborhood. I could commute easily to campus and my work. The hard part… I never actually knew what my brother did for a job. Some nights were harder than others. I'd fall deep into nightmares. I'd see my brother running from feds of all people. He would shout and shoot at them to get them off him. Usually I'd wake up with him there, worried as hell, having been trying to wake me for almost an hour. One night… I awoke and he wasn't there. I looked around the house, a bat in my hand, trying to find him. The back door was wide open and my brother was standing in the door frame. He was bloody and beat to hell. He had a laptop bag in his hand that he gave me.  "Run far. Don't let anyone have this." He told me. I held the bag tight. "What about you?" "I have to finish what I started." He told me and shut the back door. I was panicked. I ran upstairs and threw on some clothes. I put the laptop bag over my shoulder, grabbed my purse, my brother's keys to his truck, and ran back downstairs. My brother was still in the house. The leylines around us seemed to pulse and vibrate in a way I hadn't seen before. I grabbed his wrist and dragged him to truck. "Get in! You need a doctor!" I told him as I more or less shoved him into the truck. I saw the shift. The color of they leylines changed from the faded blue to dark red. I started the car and peeled out of the garage. There was a chopper above our house and people on the roof but I didn't care. I was driving as fast as I could. "What the hell, man?!" He snapped at me. "That's my line!" I retorted as bullets shot at the truck, "Fucking christ! Why are those guys after you? What's in the bag? Why are you so bloody?" "Pay attention to the road!" He shouted as I veered us into a lane. "God dammit I am! Answer me!" I told him. My brother seemed hesitant, eyes panicked as more shots were fired and I did what I could to avoid them. "Believe it or not. Those guys, I used to work for them. Found out about a corrupt project. It's all in that bag. You were supposed to take it and leave. Go far away. Put that information all over the web. They'll try and frame me. Take me down… but they'll never reach you. I won't let them." He told me and his voice became serious. "Yeah. Well tell that to the asshole shooting us." I retorted as I sped between some cars trying to get away from them, "Shit man you're gonna bleed out at this rate." "I know you see them. The leylines. People like us… they'll try and use us to destroy everything." He sputtered as blood dripped from his lips. "And how do you plan to stop them?" "By getting you out of here." He told me. His eyes frosted over and a burst of energy shot from his hand to me. I slammed on the breaks as a white light shot across my vision and I closed my eyes.  When I opened them again on a dock in a city I didn't understand. My brother's laptop bag was still attached to me and so was my purse. I looked around and there were people staring at me all crazy. "Where am I?" I asked some of them. They shook their heads and backed away from me. I looked around as I got to my feet. The leylines were shifting rapidly between blues, yellows, and greens. Signs of curiosity, fear, and concern. Nothing bad. I dug my phone from my purse and looked it over. It said it was the next day… and according to GPS I was now in Italy.  "Ok. Ok. Think. Where does an American go when suddenly blasted across the seas…" I muttered and looked to the crowd. "Umm… american? English?" Someone asked and I whipped around to see a man standing there. He was about my height, maybe a couple inches shorter, and in a police uniform. "Yes. I'm American." I told him instantly. "Passport?" He asked me. I shook my head. "I don't have it. I don't even know how I got here." The man's eyes widened but he nodded. "Come with me. We'll get you sorted out." "Thank you." I told him as he led me away. I could see a couple other officers talking to the crowd. Time seemed to speed by. Before I knew it, we were at their police department. The officer that brought me had me in some kind of interrogation room but thankfully they never took my bags. They went through them in front of me. All that was in my brother's laptop bag was a laptop and it's charger. Everything in my purse was my tablet, stylus, notebook, pocket calendar, some pens, my wallet (holding my ID, debit card, student card), and some more feminine necessities. They had taken my phone. I neatly put everything away and waited where I was as the officer shifted in his seat at the edge of the room. There were people outside the room. I could see the shifting colors of the leylines beneath their feet. "Am I a prisoner?" I asked the officer. "Not exactly. You're… an oddity." He answered with some hesitancy. "Look… I need to know my brother is okay." I told him as I felt panic rise again, "Can I call him please?" "Not until the boss gets here. He had questions for you." The man said. "Fine. Then can I know your name?" I asked him as I attempted to calm my nerves. "Angelo Nicola," The officer responded curtly. "I'm Sylvia Gregory. My brother is Antonio. He and I were in a truck running from some men trying to kill us. Next thing I know I'm here. Please. I need to know he's alive." I told him as I fought back the tears. I was scared as hell. Officer Nicola sighed and pulled my phone out. "One call. Speaker phone. No more than five minutes." I nodded and dialed my brother's number. I put it on speaker phone and waited. No answer at first but then I heard the sound of someone's breathing. "Miss Gregory. Your brother gave you something very important to us." The voice said and my fear rose to new heights. Officer Nicola waved one of the others in and they quietly walked into the room. "Is my brother alright?" I asked them, my voice squeaking a bit. "I'm afraid he had a pretty nasty accident. Check your local station. You'll see all about it." The person's voice was distorted. They were clearly using something to mask what they really sounded like. "No… if you hadn't shot at him… what the hell could he have taken from you?!" I shouted as tears fell from my eyes. "Reports. Special documents. He gave them to you when he blasted you away." They stated calmly. "He didn't give me anything. He came home bloodied. I was trying to get him to a hospital and you… you shot at us… and chased us…" I felt my voice catch in my breath. The laptop. Whatever was on that laptop was important. "No time for games, Miss Gregory. We'll find you soon enough. Return to us what he took or you'll follow him." The line went dead after that. I choked on the words I wanted to say. My vision began to blur from the tears. "I need to see what they're talking about." Officer Nicola nodded and let me pull up my local news station on my phone.  "...videos are flooding in. This strange explosion that occurred on I-70 just between Kansas and Missouri. Strange as it disintegrated a driver, killed the passenger, and knocked the power from many vehicles around them." The anchor stated. They showed videos of the event from different angles. Some clearly having been people's camera phones. It was showing me vanishing in a burst of light. My brother's arm was burnt. The next thing it showed was all vehicles surrounding his truck losing power. But the next video was showing him being pulled by EMTs… that looked familiarly like some of the men who had hunted us… "Fuck!" I shouted, nearly dropping my phone. "That was where you came from? The blast?" Officer Nicola asked. "Yes. Somehow I vanished from there and got here." I told him. His partner turned on the television. He pulled up one of their news stations. They were showing a video with a burst of white light and me falling out of it onto the dock. Looking just as disoriented as I had felt moments ago. "Before you ask, I don't know how that happened." I told them both firmly. "Yeah. That's clear. That's why we got the boss." Officer Nicola stated. I heard another set of footprints and tensed up. The leylines… they were turning red with each step… panic bubbled in me as I shoved my phone in my purse. I pulled it and the laptop bag to me. Officer Nicola noticed this as his partner headed to greet their boss. The man entered the room and I saw red all around him. The leylines were a deep blood red.  "This would be a fantastic time for a miracle escape…" I muttered to myself. Officer Nicola's brows furrowed and he put a hand on my shoulder. The bubbling sensation intensified and a bright light engulfed me. I found myself in the parking lot of a mall. Officer Nicola was there with me. Eyes wide with surprise. I looked around and saw it was dark out but the mall was still open. "Look. I don't know where we are or what just happened. Let alone how it happened. Right now we need cover. That boss… I can't explain it… but he was one of them…" I told him and headed towards the mall. He shot a warning shot that skimmed my arm as it whizzed by. "Fuck… what was that for?!" I snapped at him. "Until this is handled, you stay with me." He stated firmly. "Then we are changing your wardrobe. You'll stick out like a sore thumb. The assholes who killed my brother will get us. He'll have died for nothing." I told him. Officer Nicola grimaced but nodded. We headed inside and to one of the clothing stores. I was thankful I'd gotten a decent raise at my job before the chaos. We grabbed new clothes and I got a new bag. Went to the changing room and shoved everything in it. Stuffing my purse in it and the contents of my brother's laptop bag. After talking with the clerk I'd learned we had ended up in England somehow. I threw the laptop bag away, having dug a few jump-drives out of hidden pockets my brother had clearly sewn in. "Ok. Now we just need to make up a convincing reason for an Italian officer and an American student to be traveling together. In England. Without passports." I stated as Officer Nicola walked out. He had his uniform in a bag he'd grabbed. "Your name. Sylvia. That's Italian, right?" He asked as we walked through the streets. "Yeah. My mother was apparently native. I'm half. But well… she couldn't keep me. So I was adopted in by Antonio's family. They gave me a good home. A good life." I said as I felt my heart twinge with pain. Officer Nicola nodded. "Can you speak it well?" I shook my head. "I know a few phrases and words. Nothing solid." "Guess we'll need to blend in and hope they don't notice. At least until we can get back to Italy." He told me. I sighed at that but it wasn't like I could control the teleporting. Time passed once more. Officer Nicola and I were in a hotel in Moscow. I don't recall what happened exactly. Just that we were chased and somehow ended up there. The teleporting again. We'd somehow managed to talk the hotel clerk into letting us get a room. Officer Nicola paid for it. He lied and said we were newlyweds on our honeymoon. So we were in a room, together, trying to figure this mess out. I pulled out my brother's laptop and the jumpdrives. I began pouring through them and taking in everything they held. I quickly put everything from the drives and the laptop altogether in a giant zip file. One that I duplicated onto each jumpdrive and into the laptop. I looked to Officer Nicola, who had quietly been looking everything over with me. He gulped and looked to me with a level of fear close to what I'd been feeling since this chaos began. "This is what they want?" He asked me. "This is the dirty secret they want buried." I told him. It was then I awoke.