Katia's Nightmare

Story so far

Because Carl's consciousness was lodged inside Katia during the treatment, the adjutants' screens can show her dream — proof, as Carl realizes with horror, that they can see crawlers' dreams. It plays in three movements. First, Katia and Carl stand in a hallway with their arms physically fused, watching her memory-self confront Fannar as he leaves the adoption agency having "told them the truth." Second, Katia pleads with a faceless caseworker that she can take a test and hasn't touched anything in ten years, and is told she's sick and has been hiding it, and with Annie's medical needs and so little time left; she sweeps the desk clear screaming "He had no right," the watching Katia saying it in unison with her ghost. Third, a hospital room where Katia holds the wired-up nine-month-old, and Shi Maria forces her way in, followed by Hapanzi.

On screen the dialogue comes out garbled like a radio slightly off station, but Carl hears every word clearly. He demands they turn it off — "This isn't yours to watch" — and is ignored. Architect Houston leans in to study it. Baroness Victory observes that none of it would have happened without the game guide's intervention.

Appearance

A hazy scene of blurry shadows resolving into a hallway, an office, and a hospital room; dialogue arrives garbled on the observers' screen.

Role

The violated private dream that became evidence in an official warlord tribunal.

Relationships