Jens Richard

DREAM LIGHT CITY 

Part 1

John’s story

Another dead young girl

I'm on my way to a crime scene of another dead young teen.

Another broken dream.

My deputies are already there to start our show. 

They must have planted the evidence by now. 

I don't care about evidence anymore. I want to close the case and move on. 

This is just another girl in the gutter in Mr. Bix's territory.

I show up as the good guy the citizens believe I am. 

The one to solve the puzzle. 

I play my part to keep the city in order, and I will find someone to blame for her death.

It should be easy because everyone here carries the biotech from Mr. Bix. 

The biotech drug that accesses your consciousness and memories.

I sit next to the body. 

Poor thing, such a beauty. 

I see no signs of struggle. This was not a fight. 

Could there be something wrong with her biotech implants? 

Who is she?

She's not one of Mr. Bix's. 

My deputies have not planted anything. What game is this?

The ambulance is here. I better check her ID chip on her neck.

Something's wrong?

She has none.

One of my deputies interrupts me. 

"We have already checked her chip and notified her parents." 

I'm about to ask too many questions now. 

Questions about how they could scan her when she has none? 

But they quickly repeat themselves. 

"The chip is scanned, sir!" 

Okay, I get it. 

We keep it in the dark. 

Keep everything in the dream. 

The show must go on, and I need to find someone to take the blame. 

I point out a drugged punk in the crowd, a young man with too many piercings. 

He tries to say something in defense as one of my deputies takes his pad up, pretending to write notes, but in reality, he connects to the punk's biotech. 

That's my clue.

"You," I lie, "You were her boyfriend. I saw you together last night."

I stand up tall.

I know how to play Alpha. 

The crowd is quiet now. Everyone is holding their breath.

The punk suddenly says he gave her some bad drugs, and she must have died from an overdose. 

He gives me some pills, and my deputies cuff him as he confes every lie we give him. 

I put the pills in a container and hand it to the people in the ambulance, together with a private credit chip with 1000 credits. 

They will make sure the autopsy matches the statement.

Case closed. 

Clear the street. 

The show's over.

Welcome to Dream Light City.

Jens Richard

DREAM LIGHT CITY

Part 2

Sally’s story

Legacy

I’m the daughter of a legend.

I was tricked.

Manipulated, and too young and naive.

But my father saved me.

He sacrificed everything to give me a new chance in life.

I will carry out his legacy.

I am Sally, daughter of John.

And I am awake in Dream Light City.

My reality was shaken, and I had no idea how corrupt this city was.

I do now.

How dreadful it is since the city could corrupt a good-hearted man like my father.

I thought this city was ruled by the good guys.

My uncle was the Mayor. I idolized him.

But he was controlled by Bix.

Bix was supposed to be a visionary genius, developing tech for a better life.

But in reality, he is the ruler of the underground.

I was lured into his game by blind love.

My love for Lilly.

I can’t blame her. I love her too much.

She personally introduced me to Bix.

I was so excited.

He gave me the most advanced biotech for free.

He gave me nanobots in my blood, just like my father, but it never gave me strength or reflexes like his. 

It gave me something else.

A dream that felt so real that I couldn’t believe in anything else.

A dream I shared with Lilly.

I was happy until Bix offered me an extension for the tech.

A drug pack that kept feeding me with Quarts, a drug that removed all scenes of reality.

I became a living zombie and the nanobots controlled my actions and emotions.

I took it.

I trusted him.

But it was all a lie, and the dream became a nightmare, a game controlled by Bix.

It made me kill my father.

I didn’t recognize him, he wasn’t my father in my drugged reality, but a monster trying to kill me.

So I shoot him, with his own Raygun.

And now?

Now I’m in Bix’s office, handcuffed to a chair.

Bix sits behind his well-polished wooden desk in his high-tech-designed office, speaking to me.

I glance at my father’s raygun on the desk between us.

I need that gun. I need to kill Bix.

But I can’t get my hands free, and his mindless goons are waiting outside.

They will burst in, the second I try to do something.

Mr. Bix told me everything.

Everything about my dad, my uncle, and the city.

He continues his villain monologue:

“Now you know all the secrets but one. I’m about to tell you my biggest secret, which I only tell the random people who become mayors in my city.”

I have been here, listening to him for hours. 

Acting cool, calm, and collected to get intel and figure out what the hell just happened, but now, I can’t take it anymore. 

“I’m sorry, Bix, but I’m new to being handcuffed in front of a villain monologue, please get to the point.”

Hatred burns inside me.

Bix will die.

“You can’t manipulate me anymore, Bix!”

He smiles back and leans over the heavy desk.

“Oh, but Sally, you need to hear this, because I want you to kill me.”

“Say what?”

“Let me explain. Not many people know how their death will impact the world, but I do.”

“What are you talking about?!”

“When I die, every person in Dream Light City with an ID chip will die with me.”

“The fuck you say?”

“Yes Sally, that’s my secret. I’m connected to every ID chip, and people will fall one by one when I stop breathing.”

He walks around the table and takes off my handcuffs.

“Now I will let you go and give you your father’s raygun, and I will let you kill me.”

I’m outplayed.

Confused.

I can’t find any sense in this.

“The fuck is wrong with you, Bix?”

He walks back to his chair behind the desk with a smug attitude.

He taps on the raygun between us.

“A lot is wrong with me, Sally.”

“I’m gonna tell everyone about this.”

“And don’t you think people will see you as a conspiracy freak? Or maybe it will start a riot with fanatics trying to hunt me down and kill me?”

I pick the Raygun up.

I aim at him with anger and tears in my eyes.

My mind is split.

I´m upset and confused.

I take a firm grip on the Raygun and load it.

“You are about to kill an entire city now,” he says with a grim smile.

I aim it at his ugly face.

But I can’t shoot.

He gently takes the gun out of my hands and puts it in a fancy case.

“How sad, even if you couldn’t do it the gun’s AI would have fired automatically if you wanted me dead. It knows your intentions.”

What the hell am I supposed to do?

Or think?

What sick game is this?

I start to cry.

I can’t bear this.

Bix opens the door, and a goon comes in together with Lilly.

My heart breaks looking at her. 

Always dressed in a purple short dress to match her natural purple hair and cute cat ears. 

A real Neko-born beauty. 

What a cupcake. 

But she is a puppet.

Bix gives the Raygun case to the goon.

“Willy here will take you home, Sally. Do you want Lilly to accompany you?”

Oh, I see how he plays his games now, and I need to get on top of that and take charge.

“How dare you set me up like this, Bix. What lies did you give her? I want true love, not a pet.”

“She believes your love is true. Don’t break her heart.”

“No! Not like this, set her free. Let her decide if our love is true.”

Lilly takes my hand and looks at me with love in her eyes.

“What are you talking about, Sally? I have already decided to be with you. Bix told me you are the one for me. I trust that.”

I look at Bix, angrily, but he interrupts me before I can say what’s on my mind. 

“Lilly came to me after she lost everything in her life. Her past was so devastating and cruel that she wanted it all erased and committed to a new but fake life. I have only given her a life of happiness. You are her new life.”

Lilly starts to cry. 

Begging me.

“Don’t you want me? I will play any dream you want. Please tell me what you need.”

Bix continues. 

“If I set her free, as you wish, she will return to her cruel memories of her past.”

I lost control of my situation.

My brain is blank.

What a mess. I can’t make that decision. 

I can’t set her free. I love and care for her too much to bring her back to whatever misery she came from. 

What past makes a girl choose to be a puppet? 

I can’t even imagine. 

“Then give her another dream where she can be happy.”

I turn my back to her and Bix.

“Tell me Bix, where is my consent in all this?”

“There is none, Sally. You are the chosen one. The Godsend if you want it to be more epic.”

“Chosen to do what?”

“To be the hero who kills the villain.”

“You are sick in your fucking brain, Bix.”

I follow Willy.

Lilly cries behind me.

I just want to go home and sleep, get my shit together, and find a way to outsmart that fuck-head.