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He bristles. “I can’t believe you just thought that.”
“I was just testing if you’re reading my thoughts. You said you wouldn’t, but you did.”
He turns a deeper shade of beet. “Sorry. I’ll stay out of your thoughts going forward.”
“Thanks.” I fluff his fur. “And we’re definitely symbionts.”
His ears perk up. “Like a bee and a flower?”
“Definitely not like a bee and a flower,” I say and jolt myself out of the dream world.
Struggling not to giggle, I open my eyes next to Rattie’s pod. Though it’s unclear which of us Pom views as the flower, I know this much: If anyone’s going to do any pollination of me, it better be Valerian.
Speaking of which, I need to get moving, else I won’t make it to Gomorrah on time. I leave the building and buy more hand sanitizer before grabbing a taxi to JFK. Once we hit the inevitable traffic, I open up Leal’s journal in my VR view to have another look.
Skimming over a lot of minutiae, I locate something that piques my interest:
Another day, another failure. I’m beginning to think touchless dreamwalking is impossible—or if it is possible, it may be something only those of us with more power can master.
Touchless dreamwalking? How does that work?
I search the journal for more mentions of this term and eventually puzzle out that it’s basically a way to enter someone’s dream from a short distance—in lieu of touching them skin-to-skin.
Puck, that would be amazing. My least favorite thing about my powers is all this exposure to cooties. Next time I meet a sleeper, I’ll see if I can do this.
Arriving at JFK, I make my way to the secret hub and enter the gate that leads to Gomorrah. Once there, I stop by my place to use the bathroom, change my clothes, hygieia myself from head to foot, drink like a camel, and scarf down some manna. Then I head over to my destination—Erato’s restaurant.
Valerian is already there, waiting for me by the building.
He’s changed his suit for an outfit that would definitely look out of place on the parts of Earth I’m familiar with. It’s a black, sporty bodysuit, a skintight contraption that shows off every muscle on his body as thoroughly as if he were naked and covered in tar.
Another flush heats my skin. This outfit will definitely make it hard to concentrate on the job, whatever it is.
Valerian’s clearly not in the mood for flirting, though. “You’re late.” He puts on a breathing mask that blocks his features and makes him look like a gnome, then hands the same thing to me. “Put this on.”
Before I can ask any pertinent questions—such as, “What the puck are we doing?”—he stalks into the building and summons the elevator.
I hurry after him, fitting the mask on the way. “Wha—”
He places a finger to where the lips would be under the mask, and the LEGO letters show up in the air: My powers can’t fool listening devices if they’re there.
I nod in comprehension, and we ride the elevator in silence. When we get to the hundred-and-fifth floor, Valerian steps out, and I follow, staring at our surroundings in awe.
The walls are covered from floor to ceiling with vertically growing plants, each one with a dedicated lamp and a mist machine nourishing it.
“I feel like we’re in a greenhouse,” I whisper.
Don’t talk and stay in the middle of the corridor, he tells me via LEGO letters.
Demonstrating what he means, he keeps away from the walls as he creeps forward.
I mime his actions as closely as I can, though I doubt my movements achieve the predatory grace of his.
He stops next to a moss-covered door and waves an unfamiliar device over a lock. There’s a click, and the door slides out of our way. He takes out another gizmo and tosses it inside.
That will disable all electronics for a while, he tells me via LEGO letters.
I nod.
He waves for me to follow and moves even stealthier, which is logical since we’ve now officially broken into someone’s lodgings.
Bringing up my VR, I write him a message: If we get caught, will the Senate pardon us?
Stern-looking LEGO letters show up in the air immediately: Never refer to this job in electronic messages again. And to answer your question: it would be easier for them to make us disappear, so let’s not get caught.
Great. Just great. Now he tells me that.
Sighing, I follow him deeper into the apartment, which reminds me of the restaurant—a veritable jungle of different plants of all shapes and sizes. Only unlike the restaurant, there’s a sinister quality to some of the vegetation—like the acid seed okra, a flowering plant that can open its pods and spit out seeds up to two hundred feet. Those seeds, as the name implies, are covered with a powerful acid. And that’s an unmodified plant. Others appear to have been engineered from their nasty natural brethren, like the one that looks like poison hogweed—a plant covered by deadly poison, only with thorns. There’s also a cousin of the famous strangle vine, only bigger. The winner of the creep show, though, is sitting in a giant pot in the middle of the room. It’s a distant brother of the bug trap flower, except it’s big enough to eat a person instead of a bug.
