The Dream Machine

            Fuck, I hate this elevator, Mitch thought, pushing the call button.  He switched his paper McDonald’s bag from hand to hand nervously, waiting for its arrival.  When the hollow mechanical ding rang out, he instinctively took a step back, though he knew no one would be coming out.  The door slid open, though “slid” would not be the right word.  The metal doors scraped against their tracks, revealing the flickering lights and peeling yellow wallpaper (that had once been white) within.  Mitch sighed and gingerly stepped forward, ducking his head slightly through the doorway.  With all the budget the school has, why can’t they fix this goddamn place? he thought, but deep down he knew why.  Barely anyone used this building anymore, which made it the ideal place for Arnold’s project.  He adjusted his glasses and pressed the button for the basement.  The elevator rattled into its slow descent.

            Mitch checked his watch: 8:34 a.m.  His first class of the day didn’t start for another two hours.  I could be sleeping right now.  I should be sleeping right now, he thought.  There was choir practice later, and he didn’t want to be too tired for it.  The metal elevator doors had spots of rust, but were reflective enough that he could see there were couple spots on his chin he had missed when shaving this morning.  He sighed.

The elevator dinged again and the doors slid open as best as they could.  Mitch stepped out and was immediately hit with the stench of old pizza that had been left sitting out.  He wrinkled his nose at the smell, but followed the source to the closed door at end of the dark hallway.  With each step, he could faintly hear a familiar tune, one that he hadn’t heard in years.  In the darkness, he opened the door with a loud creak.  Inside, he saw pretty much exactly what he expected to find.

     Most of the room was taken up by several rows of computers sitting on folding tables.  There was no uniformity to their arrangement, with PCs next to Macs, older models next to newer ones.  At the back of the room was a workbench with a mess of things that had no business being together.  An old, broken-down copy machine sat in the middle, surrounded by and connected to a series of wires of all different sizes and colors.  Some were thin, thick, short, long, red, blue, green, purple.  Many of the wires ran up the wall into a hole in the ceiling, some of them connected to nearby computers.  Screwdrivers, hammers, and wrenches were strewn all over.

     Near the door was what appeared to be Arnold’s living area, and also the source of both the sound and smell.  A TV sat on an unused shelf along the wall, playing an episode of Futurama.  In front of the TV was a coffee table covered with disorganized sheets of notes and diagrams.  An old couch, the leather peeling in several places sat on the other side of the table.  Arnold was nowhere to be found.

     “Hey, I got your food,” Mitch shouted into the room as he headed toward the couch.  He tried to toss the McDonald’s bag onto the coffee table but miscalculated his throw.  The bag slid across the table and onto the floor, spilling its contents.  Mitch hurried over and picked up the food, glad it was still wrapped.  He laid it out on the table and tried to sit down casually, pretending nothing had happened.

     “Thank fuck.” Arnold’s nasally voice came from the back of the room.  He stood up from behind one of the computers, looking like he hadn’t been outside for days.  Arnold was short, a little chubby, and, even though he was nineteen, had a face that could’ve easily been mistaken for belonging to a high school freshman.  “Oh. McDonald’s?” he said, the disappointment obvious in his voice as he sat down on the couch next to Mitch.  He grabbed his food and began eating anyway.

     “You said you wanted something cheap,” said Mitch.  It had only been a week or two since he’d last seen Arnold, but it could’ve been much longer by the look of him.  He looked like he’d been awake all night, but it only showed in the bags under his eyes.  Based purely on his behavior, Mitch might think he was doing okay, but the look in Arnold’s eyes still worried him.

“How long have you been down here?” he asked.

     Arnold laughed as he took a bite of his sandwich.  “Looks like it’s been a few days, doesn’t it?” he said with his mouth full. “Well, it has.”

     “Dude, it’s Thursday.  Haven’t you had class?”

     “Probably.  I don’t remember what my schedule looked like.”

     Mitch sat up.  “When was the last time you went to class?”

     “It’s been maybe a week…or two…or-”

     Mitch held up his hand. “I’m gonna stop you right there.  What the hell is wrong with you?  You haven’t gone to class in weeks?”

     “Yeah well, when my professors see what I’ve been working on down here, they’ll give me an A on the spot!”

     “You can’t actually believe that.”

     “Maybe.  But my shit is so much more important than some stupid classes.”

     “Arnold.  If you don’t go to class, you’re going to fail, and then you’re gonna have to drop out, and then you won’t have the tech to work on your ‘shit’ ever again.” He sighed. “Remember back in eighth grade, when I was failing Science, but you tutored me to make sure I passed?”

     “Yeah,” Arnold answered, “but that stuff was so easy, I couldn’t understand how you were failing it.”

     “Well, this is kind of like that,” Mitch tried to say in a placating way. “I don’t want to see you fail, just like you didn’t want to see me fail.”

     Arnold waved off his comments as he finished his sandwich. “How much do I owe you?”

“Tell you what, if you go to class today, you don’t have to pay me anything.”

            Arnold pulled out his wallet and handed Mitch a five-dollar bill, saying “Keep the change.” Reluctantly, Mitch took the money.

     “You know, if you ever do decide to get out of this basement, clean yourself up a little first.  You look kinda disgusting.”

     Arnold smiled and wiped his hands on his t-shirt. “I know,” he said.  Mitch never understood why he took a kind of sick pride in his poor hygiene.

There was a pause for a moment while they both watched the TV before Mitch decided to ask the question he knew he would probably regret: “So, what have you been working on?’

     Arnold’s face immediately lit up. “You’re not gonna believe this,” he said, “but I think I’ve figured out a way to go into people’s dreams.”

     He was right; Mitch didn’t believe him, but he decided to humor him anyway. “What, like in Inception?” he asked.

     “It’s not quite that…cinematic, unfortunately.  It’s more like hypnosis from a long distance.  You can sort of broadcast your voice to one specific person, and they’ll be able to hear what you’re saying in their dreams.”

     “So it’s like telepathy.”

     “Not quite.  You can’t do it while they’re awake because their minds will just block it out.  But when they’re sleeping, the mind is much more open to suggestion.”

     “What do you mean by ‘suggestion?’ What do you plan to do with this thing?”

     Arnold smiled slyly.  “People are more susceptible to outside influences when they’re asleep.  Their minds are more…malleable.  That’s how hypnotism works, essentially.”

     “So, what you’re saying is that you can tell people what to do in a dream – and they’ll do it in real life?”

     “Yeah, pretty much.”

     Mitch sighed. “Why can’t you just make meth like a normal person?” He had meant it in a joking way, but Arnold didn’t laugh.

     “Maybe it’s because I’m not a ‘normal person.’ Maybe I was destined for greater things.  And this machine I’ve invented – I think it’s one of them.”

     “Okay…”

     “We could change the world with a device like this, don’t you know that?”

     “Wait a minute.  We?”

     “Oh yeah, I almost forgot the best part!” Arnold ran back to his work bench and grabbed something off the counter, returning with it behind his back.  “When I run this thing for the first time,” he said, pulling out a wireless microphone, “you’ll be the one doing the talking.” He handed it to Mitch.

     “Oh, no.  No, no, no, no, no.  I’m not going to be a part of your little mind control experiment.  No way.” He turned toward the door, but Arnold blocked his path.

     “Hold on a second, man.  This is my dream, you know?  Didn’t you have a dream like this?  One you wanted more than anything, but accepted that was probably never gonna happen?  That’s why you’re stuck taking accounting classes, isn’t it?” That stung a bit, but Mitch tried not to let it show.  “Well, this is mine,” Arnold continued, grabbing Mitch by the shoulder. “I actually invented something, dude.  Something amazing.  Something that could actually change my life.  Let me have this.  Please.”

     “Why do even need my help in the first place?”

     Arnold’s eyes went to the floor.  “Your dream was to be a voice actor, wasn’t it?” he said in a quiet voice.  “Or did you forget.” It wasn’t a question.

Mitch’s attention turned back to the microphone Arnold was still holding.

     You son of a bitch, he thought. “I never forgot,” he said through gritted teeth.

     Arnold offered him the microphone again.  “This is better than any voice acting gig you could get.  Your voice could be part of history, man!”

     Mitch didn’t take the microphone, but his expression softened a little. “What exactly do you need me to do?” he asked, not able to look Arnold in the eye.

     Arnold headed towards his workbench, beckoning Mitch to follow. “The way this thing works is that it scans the DNA of a specific person,” he said, pointing at the copy machine, “and then it broadcasts whatever comes through the microphone into their head.  Like I said, they need to be asleep or they’ll just block out anything we send them.  And also, to really test the quality of the machine, we can’t just talk to them in their dream – we’ll need to tell them to do something when they wake up.”

     “Something like what?” Mitch asked, concerned.

     “Nothing bad, don’t worry.  We’ll just have to make sure that it’s something a person wouldn’t normally do in order to get the best results.”

     “Okay then.  So, who’s gonna be the test subject?”

     “Ethan Jameson.  He’s in a couple of your classes, so you shouldn’t have any trouble getting his DNA.”

     “Okay…I have three questions.  One, why him?  Two, how do I get his DNA?  And three, how do you know all this?”

     “First off, his apartment’s right next to mine.  His girlfriend used to come over a lot and they had really loud sex.”

     “Seriously?  That’s the reason?” Mitch tried to stifle a laugh.

     “Yeah, but she was also kinda young-looking.  I think she might be underage.” Mitch was about to say Maybe you shouldn’t make assumptions like that, but Arnold had already stopped paying attention.  He was rummaging around in the drawers of his workbench and pulled out a pair of tweezers in a small Ziploc bag. “You should be able to take a few hairs with these, and that’s all the DNA we’ll need.” He handed the tools to Mitch.  “And as to your last question: let’s just say I do my research.”

     Mitch took the tweezers and bag with some hesitation. “You know, I still haven’t fully committed to your plan yet,” he said, “but I’ll make a deal: if you can actually manage to go to class today, then I will –” he had to stop to swallow his pride – “I will take some hairs from this guy for you.”

     “That’s fine by me,” Arnold said with a big smile on his face.  Mitch left without another word.