It’s that time of year again, which means everyone here gets a chapter by chapter update of the NaNo project in progress. This year, it’s Come What May, an UNSETIC yarn that begins in 2028–much later than most of my current projects. It deals with a younger batch of (current and future) UNSETIC agents who end up falling into a situation that they didn’t anticipate–or that most of them didn’t anticipate. Of course, the younger batch can always fall back on mentors and family to help as the situation they’ve found themselves in turns out to be much, much bigger than any of them might have feared.
With that tease, it’s on to the first chapter. Enjoy.
One
“Find me.”
Nicholas Caden startled awake, her voice still echoing in his ears, the scent of her still filling his nose. It felt so real—still felt so real.
His phone was buzzing. He groped for it, half wondering who could be calling and what the hell time of morning it was for someone to be calling in the first place. The last trailing edges of the dream cleared as his fingers wrapped around the phone and silenced it. Blearily, he stared at the screen.
“Fuck,” he muttered. “How can it be that late already?”
He hadn’t intended to sleep through his first alarm. Then again, he hadn’t intended to be so deeply imbedded in yet another dream of her to need his alarm to wake him in the first place. He tossed the phone onto his dresser and lay starting at the ceiling for a few seconds.
How is it actually morning?
If he was honest, he half expected it to be much nearer to winter than to the end of summer. The dreams just felt so real—every morning, he’d woken up surprised that this was his real life, not the adventures he’d been having every time he closed his eyes.
And it had been every time. Every single time he’d gone to sleep, another dream had come, usually picking up almost right from where he’d left off with the last one. This one—this last one—that had felt different somehow. Like it was an ending.
“Find me.”
Her voice still echoed, even as the rest of the dream faded. It was half a command but more a plea.
“Find me.”
Nick shivered and rolled out of bed, scrubbing his hand roughly over his face. He checked the time again.
I need to take a shower. I need to get dressed. I need to get my shit together. Class in an hour. His stomach growled. I need coffee and a bagel or something.
He blew out a frustrated breath and hit the shower. He’d have to be efficient about all of this if he was going to make it over to the student union in time to grab something to eat before class. That, after all, was the ultimate goal this morning. He’d need the coffee to sharpen up enough to make it through the day. A late night coupled with yet another intense dream wasn’t the best recipe for a good first day of classes for his sophomore year.
The hot water helped him wake up and worked the worst of the kinks out of muscles that were unaccountably sore. It wasn’t as if he’d done any actual heavy lifting the past few days, at least not in real life. As far as he was concerned, the ache was psychosomatic, an echo from the dreams that felt too real.
“Find me.”
“Find you,” he muttered as he leaned against the tiled walls of his shower. “I don’t even know if you’re real.”
The words tasted like ashes on his tongue.
Even if she was real, though, he had no idea where to start looking.
Nick lingered longer in the shower than he’d intended, just as he’d slept later than he intended. Barely—just barely—he managed to dress himself and grab his bag with just enough time to hit the student union for a cup of coffee and something resembling sustenance before his first class of the day. The late summer sunshine beat down on him, a breeze ruffling hair that was not quite brown and not quite blonde, caught somewhere between the two shades without being terribly remarkable. The breeze was the only thing that made the brightness of the sun bearable. Even though it was August, it still felt a little too warm.
Of course, last night I was dreaming of December, so I guess that would make sense, wouldn’t it? He barely managed to suppress a sigh. Stop dwelling. Focus. You’ve got shit to do today.
Three classes and probably a meeting with Dr. Bridger, who he’d spent the summer assisting with a research project. There were pretty strong odds that he’d keep on helping with the project as it moved on to the next phase, but it wasn’t something he just wanted to assume. If he didn’t catch up with him today, then it would be the next day—sometime that week, to be certain.
He jogged up the steps to the student union, glancing at his phone. Twenty minutes until his class.
Should be enough time, right?
Nick ducked inside into the blessedly cooler building. The fifteen degree drop in temperature coupled with the shade of the building’s interior was a welcome relief after the trek from his single at the north end of campus. Voices echoed off the high ceilings as he headed across the tiled atrium toward the small coffee shop at the other end, though it wasn’t the same kind of cacophony that it would be a few hours later—he avoided the place between noon and five when he could. There was just too much noise at that point.
There wasn’t much of a line at one end of the counter by the registers, but a shrill voice grated on his nerves as a blonde girl in too-tall wedges waved a paper cup of something in front of one of the baristas, obviously unhappy with her drink. Nick winced as he drew closer, checking the time again and glancing at the line, trying to gauge if he’d have enough time to get coffee and food even with the sideshow.
“Seriously, could you please not?”
Nick blinked, looking up from his phone at the familiar voice. A slow smile started to blossom as he watched Thad Bridger step out of his place in the line to order to get a better line of sight on the entitled sorority girl who’d picked that exact moment to cause problems.
“Excuse me?” the girl said, turning from the exasperated barista.
“I honestly doubt that all of your histrionics are necessary,” Thad said. “I am so terribly sorry that your soy mochaccino, sugar free no whip decaf is not up to your usual standards of foaminess and temperature, but I am sure that somehow, you will deal. Yelling at her isn’t going to change the fact that you’re about to make a dozen people late to the first day of class and I really don’t think you want to end up with that kind of reputation this early in the semester. Now please, toddle off before someone gets the bright idea to spit in the next drink you order here because you decided that today you were going to be an entitled bitch.”
“What—” the girl stopped, her eyes widening for a second, then narrowing as she focused on Thad. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“A really pissed off freshman who hasn’t had coffee yet this morning. Now go on, shoo. Take your disgusting concoction and go. No one wants to deal with this today. Go. Go on. Go.”
The girl’s gaze swept over the rest of the line before she looked at the barista, who stood with her arms crossed and eyes narrowed, clearly in complete agreement with Thad. The sorority girl glared at Thad, harrumphed, then spun away, marching in the direction Nick had come from. He sidestepped, glancing back over his shoulder to watch her for a second as he headed over to join Thad in line.
He shook his head. “That was impressive.”
Thad snorted, crossing his arms. “Impressive would have been stopping it before it started. I just didn’t want anyone to end up wearing that drink. How’re you this morning?”
“Tired,” Nick admitted. “Distracted.”
“Distracted?” Thad arched a brow over one hazel eye. His voice dropped low and he leaned closer. “Are you still having those dreams?”
Nick nodded. Thad was the only person who had an inkling of the sheer volume of the dreams, though he suspected that Thad’s father knew more than he was admitting. “The last one felt different, though.”
Thad frowned, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Different how?”
Nick shook his head and gestured toward the counter, where a girl waited to take Thad’s order. Thad mumbled a curse under his breath and scrubbed a hand over his face.
“Red-eye with a shot of simple syrup, please. A large.” Thad handed the girl his card to pay for the drink, glancing at Nick. “You want anything?”
“I’ve got it,” Nick said. “Go on, I’ll meet you at the other end.”
“Don’t think you’re dodging,” Thad said as he stepped away from the counter to make room for Nick.
“I’m not,” Nick said. He handed the girl his card, ordering a large black coffee and a bagel before heading down to the pickup counter where Thad waited, leaning against the black granite of the counter.
“So this one was different,” Thad prompted, his voice still quiet, as Nick joined him.
Nick shrugged. “Yeah. That’s the only way to describe it that feels right.”
“Different how, though? I mean, from what you’ve described before they’re not exactly normal dreams in the first place. You said they felt too real for that but what the hell else could they be, right?”
“Right.” Nick turned his back to the counter as he leaned there, staring up at some stained glass sculptures hanging from the atrium’s roof. They cast a rainbow of light against the walls above their heads and Nick felt his throat tighten strangely for a second. He swallowed against the sudden lump in his throat. “It almost felt like an ending.”
“The dream last night?”
He nodded.
Thad’s brow furrowed. “How?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “It just did. And then—” Nick stopped, hesitating a moment. “This is going to sound crazy.”
“Probably less crazy than you think. Shoot.”
Nick shook his head, his voice barely more than a whisper. “She said something right before I woke up and I can’t get it out of my head. It didn’t—it didn’t fit with the rest of the dream, Thad.”
“What was it?”
“She asked me to find her.”
Thad’s brow furrowed even more deeply and he studied Nick for a few seconds. Something flickered through his eyes and then was gone, as if it had never really been there in a first place. “So, let me get this straight,” he said slowly. “Some dreamgirl redhead that you’re not even sure is real gave you a message in a dream asking you to find her.”
Nick grimaced, brows knitting and nose wrinkling. “It sounds ridiculous when you put it that way.”
“It sounds pretty ridiculous any way you say it, Nick.” Thad sighed, shoulders slumping slightly as he turned to take his drink from the barista that set it on the counter behind him. “Which is why I wish I didn’t believe it.”
Nick stared at him. “I’m not even sure that I believe it.”
“I know,” Thad said, handing him his bagel, then his coffee cup. “Have you tried Googling her?”
“Huh?”
Thad rolled his eyes as they headed around the edge of the counter so Nick could add cream and sugar to his coffee. Thad leaned against this counter, too, sipping his drink and watching him. “Have you tried searching for her online?”
“I don’t even know her last name.”
“But you have some kind of name,” Thad said. “I mean, it’s not like you couldn’t at least try, right? What’s the worst that could happen? You figure out that she really is real and really is out there and you guys connect and start dating and fall in love and get married and have like a dozen kids or something and live happily ever after.”
Nick stood there, stone still, an empty packet of sugar clutched between his fingers, upended over his open cup of coffee. He stared at Thad for a few seconds, his heart starting to pound a little faster. That’s not the worst that could happen. “You’re ridiculous,” he managed to say, his voice somehow even.
Thad snorted. “I am not the one who’s been plagued by dreams all summer long that feel way too real to be just dreams.”
“What the hell else could they be?” Nick stirred the cream and sugar in, then fit the lid back onto his cup, waving for Thad to start walking—if they didn’t get moving, they’d both be late to class. “People don’t just dream of that kind of thing and have it actually be real, Thad. Not in real life.”
Thad shrugged and started walking, leaving Nick to fall into step beside him. “You never know. Stranger things and all that.”
Nick’s stomach twisted. Does he know something? It was an unsettling thought—almost more unsettling than the thought that maybe, just maybe, the dreams could be more than just some kind of fantasy. He knew full well that sometimes, just sometimes, that sort of thing happened, though usually it didn’t happen to guys like him unless there were major consequences involved.
At least, that’s what his uncle had told him over the years of training, of exploring his craft and what he could do with the gift he’d inherited from his late father—a man he’d barely had the chance to know. His Uncle Arthur had raised him alone but had taught him more than anyone ever could. Of course, there had been other things that his uncle had tried to drill into him, and for the most part had been successful.
Never let anyone know what you can do. It only leads to trouble. Keep it a secret. That’s what will keep you alive. Keep it a secret and bury it deep because no one—no one—needs to know what kind of power you have at your command.
He’d never had much reason to doubt his uncle’s wisdom in that regard and wasn’t entirely sure he ever would.
“I guess,” he said, then shook his head. “I’ll think about it. I just—I don’t know, Thad. Maybe I am afraid she’s somehow real. What the hell would it mean if she was?”
“No idea,” Thad said. “But I’m sure you’d figure it out.” He pointed toward the science building. “I’ve got to get to physics and something tells me that you’re not headed in that direction.”
“No,” Nick admitted. “I’ve got to head for sociology. Ronstein, urban soc.”
Thad winced. “Good luck with that. He’s dry as hell and his research interests are even more dull. A little too oldschool for my tastes.”
“And your dad’s?” Nick asked with a wry grin.
Thad grinned back, tapping one finger against his nose. “Pray he’s got a TA, bro. Otherwise, you’re in for a snoozefest. Catch you later?”
“Sure,” Nick said as they parted company. “I’ll hunt you down.”
Thad flashed a thumbs-up and started to jog toward the science building. Nick watched him for a few seconds, then pivoted on his heel, heading for one of the other buildings and his sociology class. He hadn’t been looking forward to this particular general education credit already, and now with Thad’s description of the professor, he was even less enthusiastic about it than before.
Can’t do anything about it now. He blew out a quiet breath and shook his head at himself. He’d just have to grin and bear it.
Somehow.
