Dreamer: Secret Identity
This is a 'Dreamer' side-story of 'GNE' in the Xanadu setting. See Xanadu (setting) for details of the universe as a whole. By Dreamer
Dreamer: Secret Identity - Edited 01/Aug/10
Owen Johnson, dressed again in exercise clothes, sat on his bed. Something had changed. Something drastic. Acquiring the abilities of a super-hero character that he'd created for a role-playing game certainly broke his 'normal day' definitions.
Yes, all his life he'd had the feeling that things existed, beyond the normal, beyond the explanations of science. He'd used the ability to fly, without any vehicle, or high tech assistance, as his personal test for this. The meditators, the occultists, even the 'psychic powers teachers', none of them had delivered. He'd even got the impression that one or two of them were, concerned might be the best way to put it, about his focus and determination.
After so much searching he'd begun to believe that 'plausible deniability' was the only way the 'paranormal' might work. Yes, sometimes people got healed, or maybe healed themselves. Yes, some people seemed supernaturally lucky, or, really good at guessing. But, there was nothing you could call real evidence, and, he didn't accept the 'international conspiracy' theory about 'Them' concealing all the significant evidence.
Though he really disliked the idea, he felt he needed to know what was going on. Yes, 'Owen' was a 'secret identity', so, he'd need to be careful. But, there were a lot of inobvious 'dreams' that could be used. In fact, the best one might be the 'Inobviousness' dream, where he couldn't get people to pay attention to him even if he tried, and, it avoided the problems of something like invisibility, as they would avoid, rather than trying to walk through him.
As he threw the, seemingly familiar, mental levers to shuffle the dream into his dream pool, and activate it, Owen thought about 'Inobviousness'. He had, it was true, selected it from a book discussing dreams, but, it struck a chord with him. Hadn't he, at least occasionally, walked into rooms and no one had seemed to notice him, until he did something to draw their attention? Then, there was his occasional problem with attracting the attention of people like bar staff, and waiters, particularly if he was feeling a bit 'down'.
After a little thought he changed out of exercise clothes into jeans and cotton shirt, clean underwear, substantial leather walking shoes, and a brown leather jacket. He carefully filled his pockets with everything he wasn't prepared to abandon, if things went really strange. A water bottle went into a special pocket, and a few travel bars, just in case. And the small first aid kit, which he'd got very little use out of, but...
Standing outside, near the door of his room, which he'd requested to be in a quiet part of the hotel, he listened. Unless someone had added a riot event to the convention program, he didn't think those noises were right. Yes, some people had obviously put a great deal of effort into the costumes that he had seen earlier, but, rioting because they hadn't won didn't seem too likely.
Moving near-silently he drifted down the corridor towards more busy areas, continuing to listen, but keeping all his other senses alert. Then he paused. His super-hero persona, Ace Dreamer, had Mage Sight, a sense that he didn't always trust, but which looked far deeper into things. It might be risky to alter his perceptions, but...
Owen opened the inner eye of his Mage Sight, then quickly closed it again. The world looked wrong, twisted, bigger, and there were roiling waves of energy flowing from where he thought the convention centre might be. With a little thought he identified auric colours, violet and deeper, heading into the ultra-violet. Shear, raw, waves of magical power, just wanting to be used, to change the world, to remake things anew. This was beginning to look really, really, bad...
This side-story is related to GNE, and is precedded by A Winning Hand?.