Dream People I — The Mysterious Magic Visitors

CHAPTER 11

The Return to VELORIA

The dream began beside a fountain Daniel recognized. This time he stood on the ground, with the towers rising above him and the sound of traffic moving through elevated lanes. He remembered his notebook. He remembered wanting to ask the city's name. For a moment he was delighted that the place seemed to have returned. Then he saw the security notices projected above the square and realized the people were watching him again. He tried to speak to a passerby, but the stranger recoiled. Daniel raised his hands to show that he meant no harm.

A child pointed toward him. Someone called for security. He looked for the flowering tree and the little girl who had waved, but the plaza was too crowded. His excitement faded. He wished he could explain that he did not know how he had arrived. At Meridian Research Spire, QUIDRIX detected a manifestation signature resembling the earlier Atrium record.

Sardrith called Reedis. The approved field equipment was not yet installed in the square, so the general ordered a controlled pursuit toward a quieter transport service area. Sardrith protested that frightened subjects could become unpredictable. Reedis ordered his officers to keep their distance and avoid physical force. Daniel rose into the air, partly from instinct and partly because the ground seemed suddenly unsafe. He saw vehicles approaching and tried to move away from them. Below, a public information display flickered with a word he could almost read: VELORIA. He repeated

it aloud, wanting to remember. The dream began to thin. The sky shivered around the edges of his vision. He reached toward a tower, felt the air slip through his hands, and vanished before the officers could reach him.

Daniel woke with a single word on his lips. 'Veloria.' He switched on the bedside light and wrote it in his notebook before it could fade. In AURELIS, QUIDRIX recorded a second incident linked to the same visitor identity cluster. The recurrence made Reedis more determined than ever. The next appearance, he decided, would not end without a measurement.

A Name in the Air Daniel heard the city's name while trying to escape the security vehicles. The syllables came from an overhead information display, repeated in a calm public announcement that seemed absurd beside the alarm. VELORIA. He said it again and again, terrified that waking would erase it. The flowering tree stood beyond a stream of pedestrians. For an instant he thought he saw the girl, taller perhaps, or merely distorted by distance. He tried to descend, but an officer gestured toward a service court and shouted something he could not understand. Daniel raised both hands. The officer slowed. Neither knew what the other wanted.

Then the thinning began. Daniel felt the city retreat while he remained in place, as though the world were becoming transparent around him. He forced the name through his mouth one last time. He woke saying it. The sound startled him enough that he sat upright. He wrote VELORIA in enormous letters and underlined it twice. For the first time, a fragment had survived the crossing

intact. On the other side, a sensor recorded the same departure. Neither archive yet knew what the other possessed.

PART II — THE CAPTURED DREAM

BODY