Drained: The Lucid (12 page)

“Ah, is this … are these the archives for Trusics?”

The woman settled into an ergonomic chair with a long, tired whine. Riley flicked her eyes around the room. Her gaze bounced from the decor, to the tattered chair, and settled on the outdated box monitors. There was no way she was in the right place. Everything associated with Trusics was top-of-the-line with the most advanced technologies available. This couldn’t be her employer’s archives.

“That’s a nice ticker,” the woman acknowledged. “You must be doing pretty well for yourself.”

Riley instinctively covered her watch with her hand.

“You can’t be more than what—seventy-five years old?”

Riley’s eyes widened. “Uh … sixty-nine.” She supposed there would be a time when she’d stop counting, but until she reached a century old, she still felt a little self-conscious about her age.

The woman made a humming noise and peered over the tops of her reading glasses. “What can I help you with today?”

Riley scratched at her head. “I’m looking for more information on the company. The history?” She dropped her voice. “
Our
history?” She had never thought to ask these questions before, never thought to dig deeper into her own heritage, but contact with Morgan had planted a seed of curiosity. Why did she exist? What was her purpose? Was there any meaning to her existence or was she a small cog in a much larger, capitalistic machine? They had become the kind of needling questions that if she had required sleep would keep her up at night.

“Didn’t you read the handbook from the company orientation?”

“I did,” Riley confirmed. “I just want to know more. You know, precorporate.”

Riley felt herself shrinking under the archivist’s disapproving stare. She was about to recant everything she had said, but the woman spoke before she could.

“Follow me.”

The woman rose from her chair and turned to walk through the same hidden door from which she had originally come. Riley followed, close on her heels, worried the woman would change her mind and send her away if she hesitated. Behind the wood-paneled wall was another room of similar size and unfortunate 1970s business decor. Along an adjacent wall was a metal cage that turned out to be an elevator that looked original to the building. The woman—she had yet to give her name—pulled the metal gate back. It squeaked and complained as if it hadn’t been used in years.

The woman stepped inside the narrow lift. This time, however, Riley did hesitate.

“Well?” The archivist lifted an eyebrow.

Riley worried her bottom lip. “I don’t suppose there’s another way?”

The woman didn’t respond, but her continued aggravated silence was answer enough.

Riley steeled herself and slid into the narrow cage beside the much wider woman. When the caged door slid shut, Riley closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. For as far back as she could remember, she had never done well with small, enclosed spaces. Riley kept her eyes closed while the archivist manipulated the controls on the lift, and after what seemed like a painfully long time, the elevator began to slowly descend.

Riley continued to focus on her breathing, but she had begun to sweat down the small of her back. Her knees buckled the longer they remained trapped inside the small, ancient elevator, and she braced herself against a wall. Mercifully, the elevator finally came to a loud, abrupt stop, and the caged door swung free.

Riley rushed out of the compartment and into another room, not caring about the archivist’s judgment. She bent at the waist until her head was nearly between her knees while sucking in deep, gasping breaths.

“Are you okay?” The concerned voice was foreign to Riley’s ears.

She righted herself and twisted in the direction of the elevator. A woman, a
different
woman than the one who had been in the elevator with her, stepped out of the small lift. She looked to be no more than thirty in human years with copper-colored hair that fell in waves down her shoulders. Unlike her stout predecessor, she was tall and slender, with a feminine build. Her long, pale limbs were dusted with a fine sprinkling of freckles. The unflattering denim mumu was gone, now replaced with sharply tailored business attire—a grey pencil skirt paired with a loose, cream-colored blouse unbuttoned to the third button. She wore a necklace with an elaborate pendant that rested in the hollow of her throat.

Riley blinked, sure she was hallucinating.

The woman smiled warmly. “I can’t very well go walking around like
this
above ground,” she explained with a melodious laugh. “Do you know how many people would want to visit the archives if they knew
I
looked over the company files?”

Riley laughed as well, recovering quickly from her stare. She wondered at the abilities that the reclusive succubus held. Had the woman only appeared different above ground because of an illusion of some kind, or was she physically able to shapeshift outside of the realm? The unique situation piqued her curiosity about all there was to her existence. If it hadn’t been a trick, the potential she had realized within the dream realm was merely a fraction of what cubare were capable.

“You have questions, don’t you?”

Riley nodded.

“Which question is most pressing?”

Riley bit her lip. “What’s your name?” she finally decided on.

The woman laughed and it felt like sunshine in the windowless basement. “Oh, that’s an easy one. I’m Liliah.”

• • •

Riley settled down at a long wooden table in the reading room of the company archives. Liliah had gone over with her an extensive list of do’s and do not’s in regards to archival policies. The emphasized restrictions were that no materials were allowed to leave the building and no photocopies or photographs were allowed of any of the collections. Liliah explained it had nothing to do with secrecy, as Trusics always strove to be transparent with their employees, but the fragile nature of the materials necessitated the precautions.

Liliah had disappeared once again to retrieve a box of material that she believed Riley might find helpful in her search for answers. Beyond wanting to know the archivist’s name, forming a tangible, researchable question had evaded Riley. She was simply curious, namely about Morgan, but it wasn’t as though Trusics would be able to compile a frequently-asked-questions document for her on the intriguing lucid dreamer. In the span of only a few dreams, Morgan had troubled what had previously been Riley’s relatively conflict-free existence.  

Riley drummed polished fingernails on the wooden table. She inspected her nails, which she habitually kept short, but manicured. “I wonder,” she murmured to herself.  

She concentrated on the color—a light taupe—of her fingernail polish. Her eyes squinted reflexively as she focused on her fingers. Everything else in her direct sight blurred until only the muted color remained in focus. In dreams, she could change everything about her appearance to meet a client’s specific desires. It had taken a few decades of practice, but now she was able to change her hair color, eye color, clothing, accessories, and time with minimal effort. It was an inefficient talent that monopolized energy that could otherwise go towards meeting her monthly quota. As such, she rarely manipulated the realm unless she calculated the waste would benefit her in the end. After witnessing Liliah’s transformation she had to wonder if the same kind of shift could be accomplished outside of dreams and if more than superficial changes were within her abilities.

Her concentration was disrupted when a heavy box was dumped beside her. The table shuddered under its impact.

“You’re thinking awfully hard,” Liliah observed. She brushed her hands together, producing a visible cloud of fine dust. It made Riley question if anyone ever came to the archives.

Riley shook her head with a rough flick. “Sorry. Daydreaming.”

The archivist licked her lips, a hint of amusement touching them. “As if you don’t get enough dreams in your line of work?”

Riley cleared her throat. “Have you always been down here?”

“Since the beginning of time?” Liliah arched an eyebrow. “No. But … I’ll admit it’s been quite a while since I was an active agent like you.”

Riley had more questions, and Liliah had been forthcoming, but she didn’t want to take advantage of the archivist’s kindness by asking too many personal ones.

“So,” Liliah began, “I took the liberty of pulling all of Trusics’s handbooks and newsletters. Well, all of the ones we have here at least.” She slid a finger across the layer of dust on the box and rubbed her fingers together. “But if there was a specific time span you were interested in, I could do an interlibrary loan from one of the other operations. Hopefully, you’ll find something of use. It’s an incomplete archive, unfortunately. Most of the precorporation material was lost or purposefully destroyed to keep our world a secret from the humans.”  

Riley stood and removed the lid from the archival box. She flipped her fingertips over the carefully organized folders, each of them labeled with a year. Her eyebrows furrowed. “But some of these go back to the late nineteenth century. Has the network been around for that long?”

“Yes. But Trusics, the corporate form that you know, has only been around since 1990.” The perplexed look on Riley’s face told the archivist all she needed to know. “You really
don’t
know much about our history, do you?”

Riley shook her head, feeling embarrassed by her ignorance. It had never occurred to her to ask questions like these. Trusics provided her with everything she had ever desired. Who was she to question that or their motives?

Liliah sat on the edge of the reading room table. “The Realm’s United Suc and Inc Communication System”—or Trusics as it’s known as now—is as old as the first printing presses. Obviously, the cubare community has a far more ancient history, but starting around the mid-fifteenth century, our kind began to seek each other out in a more organized fashion. It began modestly as a kind of …” she hesitated, looking for the right word. “Support group.”

“Support group,” Riley repeated. “As in ‘oh woe is me, it’s so hard being immortal?’”

“Where would you be today without your friends?” the archivist asked sharply. “Without a strong
support group
of allies who knew the exact trials and tribulations that come from being like this?”

Riley held up her hands, properly chastised. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean offense. I remember those. It’s just that they’re so different now.”

The woman’s features softened. “Apology accepted. So, as I was saying,” she continued, “around the 1600s, some of the founders were looking for alternate ways to fiscally support themselves that would allow them more time in the dream realm. This became a joint-stock company founded in Great Britain with footholds in the Far East.”

“Which explains how easily Trusics was able to expand globally around the time I was recruited by them,” Riley said, thinking out loud.

Liliah nodded. “They had already sown the seeds centuries earlier.”

Riley ran her fingertips over the tops of the organized folders. “Is there anything that exists from the early period?”

“No. They used a disappearing ink as a precaution, in case the newsletters fell into the wrong hands.”

Riley knew by now not to mock the other woman, so she kept her snarky comments to herself.  “Then what?” she asked, eagerly leaning in. Her curiosity was like a dam, weakened from the strength of a flash flood. Now that the first questions had been asked, she could hardly hold back the deluge.

“Well, the company earned more and more money, eventually branching out to a small line of chain stores.” Liliah fished a worn folder from the archival box and produced a newsletter dated from the early 1800s. “Word spread that if you were in need of reliable work that afforded you enough time to access the dream realm, this was the place to seek employment.”

“I worked for one of those cubare retail chains in New York before our current employer.” Riley’s eyes roamed over the artifact. “Honestly, this is amazing. I can’t believe someone kept this for so long.”

Liliah made a humming noise of agreement before carefully refiling the newsletter. “Then the wars came,” she recited. “A century of death that affected the cubare population, as well as the humans. So starting in the 1950s, recruitment picked up.” She tilted her head to the side, inspecting Riley. “When did you become a succubus?”

“Not long after that,” Riley admitted.

Liliah chuckled. “Ah yes. One of the Baby-Boomer succubi.”

Riley had never heard herself referred to in such a manner—most of her friends were younger cubare like herself—so she didn’t know if she should be offended or not. She was also tempted to ask Liliah when she had become a succubus, but she had already sensed that the archivist was far older than herself.  

“Then came the Internet and everything changed. But you probably already know about that.”

Riley nodded.

“Thus ends storytime.” Liliah looked around the empty room. “You’re welcome to look through these files until the end of the workday. I usually close up shop around 4 p.m., so give me a call on that phone over there if you’re finished for the day or if you’d like to look at some more boxes.”

Riley stood up. “Thank you, Liliah. You’ve been extremely accommodating.”

Liliah flashed a brilliant smile, all even, white teeth. “Glad to have the company.”

Riley pulled her hair back into a ponytail. She fished out the first folder from the archival box. “Well, here goes nothing,” she said and began to read.

Hours later, Riley still had not discovered anything of use. The newsletters might have served as a touchpoint for the cubare community since the invention of the printing press, but so far Riley hadn’t stumbled upon anything more interesting than a recipe for bacon-wrapped jalapeño poppers. A digital archive would be far more helpful. She could research phrases like “lucid dreamer” and “injuries that manifested in the real world” without alerting anyone in her company to the irregularity of her latest mark.

Riley rubbed roughly at her face. The small print was starting to affect her; the tiny black words blurred together, causing her eyes to strain. She stood and stretched her arms above her, enjoying the delicious pull at the base of her spine. Oxygen to the brain wasn’t going to be enough if she wanted to soldier through more archival material for the rest of the day. She was going to need a caffeine drip.