Even If You Dream

"Matter of fact, you do. Your mentor, Doctor Sandoval, was a trailblazer in the field of artificial humanoid creation. I understand you're expanding the frontiers of that work."

"Sandoval was a visionary," Reficul said, his voice rich with respect for his mentor. He ran a hand through his hair and adjusted his red work suit. "I can continue his work, but I could never hope to exceed his discoveries."

"Pity none of them survived," Korpil said, waving them through a checkpoint. "I understand his three prototypes make Project: Eve look like mere toys."

"I wouldn’t know," Reficul said. "No one's ever seen them, aside from Sandoval's family."

Korpil and Reficul stepped into a small alcove. The lights shut off and there were several strobe flashes. They stood quietly for about a minute, whereupon the lights came back on, the door before them slid open, and they walked into the clean room.

Reficul's eyes narrowed on the three female forms lying in the capsules on the other end of the room. "These are your . . .Marionettes?"

"Yes," Korpil said. "The blonde is Mary, the brunette is Miri, and the redhead is Mara. They were supposed to be our first three production models, well, until Dr. Gora had his . . . accident."

"His accident," Reficul repeated. "Don’t you mean his suicide?"

Korpil looked shocked. "Not at all," Korpil said. "It was all in that report you read. He got caught in the airlock cycle and blew up. An accident. That airlock had given us a lot of trouble, and I'm very glad we fixed it before we lost anyone else."

"Are you?" Reficul asked, his voice dismissive. He had been locked in a shuttle with Korpil for the last eight hours, and to keep himself from going insane under the repeated assault of Korpil's relentless chatter he had catalogued every single lie he told him.

Eight hundred and nine, he thought. Never let it be said we Oneirans don’t have superb analytical minds.

"We here at Omnicorp like our researchers to feel safe," Korpil said. "After all, there's still a few generations of humans for whom living in space isn’t second nature."

"Mmm," Reficul said. He walked over to a nearby terminal. "I assume I'm cleared for all Dr. Gora's notes?"

"Of course," Korpil said. "Get what you can out of it and update me."

"I will," Reficul said.

Korpil clapped his hands and looked around. "Soooo . . .anything you need?"

Reficul stared at him wearily. "Peace. Quiet. Solitude. All of the above?"

Korpil nodded and took his exit.

The doors slid shut and re-pressurized. Reficul turned to look at the three women. They almost seemed to be sleeping.

* * *

Kienan lay in bed in his quarters, trying in vain to sleep, but sleep wasn't coming. He was thinking about what had happened two nights ago, about what Lil had said, and about what had happened when he had ignored her warning.

He sighed, reached over to his bedside table and took his already lit cigarette out of the ashtray. He watched the ceiling, searching the grey metal for some answers, but of course it had none.

He sighed again. He felt restless, but there was nothing to check or double-check any more. He had done it already. Twice over. And he still had a day to go.

"Damn it," Kienan said, rolling out of bed. He exited his spare quarters and made his way down below decks. If sleep wasn't going to come to him, he had a way of relieving his tensions.

He made his way to the very bottom of the ship, large room right next to the artificial gravity generator. He tapped in some numbers on the keypad next to the door and stepped in as the door slid aside.