HERE IN THE ARMS OF ASSASSINS, Part 3 by Ken Gage ©2001

The god-eyed gunmen were everywhere. Dr. Benway couldn't close his eyes without spotting them in action, hovering in the darkness and stabbing out at him with their phantom claws. He threw on the lights and grabbed a book, Management Made Easy by Juniper Ortega.

He read a small section:

PRAISING SUBORDINATES

Hello __________,

We certainly hope you have another fine day today. As fine as -- if not better in fact than -- your last.

We know it's a tough job, but keep at it. We are all counting on you tremendously. Keep chugging away and, before you know it, your 8 hours of clock time will be over.

Have we told you what a fine job you are doing today, yet? You make us all very proud to know you even.

Some people take responsibilities lightly. But not you. That's why you are where you are now and they are not.

Strive to do more and try harder every day -- just the way you are doing currently. Hard work always pays off in the end. Yours will too.

Have another wonderful and productive work shift.

Sincerely,

Us.

"Some of your blood flows in thoughts like that," thought Benway. And whether he was plain decent or bone mean, he enjoyed positive messages and read them widely.

But the shadowy vipers would not have it that way. They desired control. Remotely, completely, automatically -- CONTROL.

"Die! Die! Die!"

Benway slept it out. They magnified their thoughts. A distant haze floated past. Stars, too. Thudding across the sky realms, snatching up the dying specks of the wakeful, mumbling, "Let us be! Let time thunder on! Rush, respond, repeat, run on!"

Clouds and rustling branches and jumbled greenery pry at the shell of the dreaming man. A little window dressing turns him into a regular Surrealist.

"Is he awake? Should we try...?"

"No, let the thoughts stream along lazily. Cut-ups and fold-ins are as old as the planet Saturn."

"Is this man plain decent or bone mean?"

"Ahhh, to be happily dead -- eternally, irreversibly, peacefully dead, that's what we're all dreaming about, isn't it?"

The little shadow-viper didn't answer.

A little erasure here, some pen marks there and the doctor ran his green saucer eyes across the strange note:

In an effort to measure the quality of community access to this dreamwell, a continual policy of accountability is in effect. Feel free to write your concerns, complaints, suggestions or praise regarding dreamtime. Just put your ideas in the air and they will be addressed, personally and individually.

Nightwalker 23-1

A real crackdown on dreamtime ensued. No device of terror was spared. Viral marketing of words in print and light were calculated to silence all. No presidential pardons in the waning hours of doom survived. William Harper Anderson, smartest man alive, was scheduled for routine termination. If the Great Nothingness intervened, none heard about it.

The devout prayed. Hard. The sweat swam down in buckets. "Please take us now or be forever cursed."

Dr. Karaoke searched the trenches for signs of life. He stopped. Rested. The rest felt too good to leave, so he stayed. His hands were empty; eyes closed.

"Let's not take any chances. We'll go with cremation." They didn't; they did. Signed it into action. Crossed T's and dotted I's. A misplaced period might mean anything -- Global Economic Meltdown, world wars, unwanted pregnancy