D.R.E.A.M.S

"Right this way Mr Oliver."

"Dr Oliver."

The bald security guard ignored Oliver's rectification. He entered an iron door and Oliver followed suit. It slammed shut behind them like the snapping jaws of a rabid dog. Clutching his visitor's badge for dear life, Oliver surveyed the brick walls of the underground tunnel they were walking through. Some of the bricks were jutting out and some were missing altogether.

"Sure this is the right way ?"

"Oh yes."

The men walked in a silence that was punctuated by footsteps that echoed at regular intervals. A few minutes later, they stopped in front of yet another iron gate.

"What's with the paranoid security?" Oliver wondered out loud.

"Oh you know how it is, the government likes to keep things under wraps. Can't be complaining though, it puts food on my table and boose in my gut."

The security guard scanned his badge. The door buzzed open, paving the way to yet another tunnel. Oliver couldn't help but notice that the government facility was starting to look more and more like a maximum security prison, but he didn't voice his concerns. Instead, he persevered in search of the scoop. His flair was leading him to something big, he felt.

"This isn't gonna be like last time," he thought.

"Did you say something ?" the guard replied.

"No not at all, I must've been thinking out loud"

"OK then. Well, this is as far as this thing takes me." He motioned to the badge dangling from his neck. "The rest is up to you Mr uuh"

The guard squinted while trying to read Oliver's badge. Not that it would have helped; the badge only had the word GUEST printed on it.

"Dr Oliver"

"Alright then, Mr Oliver. See you later"

The guard walked back from the way they had come from, spinning the badge around his forefinger and whistling without a care in the world. Oliver never caught his name.

After scanning his own badge, Oliver entered into a spacious area that reminded him of hospital. Looking around the place, he could see various patients sleeping in different rooms with heart monitors and all kinds of machinery hooked into their bodies. He stood in front of a random room and studied the patient laying there. Her shaved head was crowned with a ring of sensors that sent data to what appeared to be an old school seismograph. The pencil of the device scribbled erratic waveforms at a frequency that threatened to burn the thin paper. The patient's eyes were agitated beneath rhe lids.

"Mr Oliver!" someone exclaimed from the far end of the hospital.

"Dr Oliver," Oliver absentmindedly replied while still examining the patient's unusual state. He turned after a short while to face his interlocutor, a short and middle-aged man in a white coat. The hospital's fluorescent lights reflected against his bald head.

"Glad you could make it Mr Oliver!" the man replied back. He walked towards Oliver with his hand extended, and Oliver shook it. It felt pudgy in his strong grip.

"Thanks for agreeing to see me, Dr Stevenson"

"Of course, of course. Any time. Shall we?"

Stevenson escorted Oliver to his office. Oliver was expecting a fancy mahogany desk and leather chairs, and maybe an intimidatingly large bookcase in the corner. Instead, he was disappointed to find a cheap desk and equally cheap chairs. And no bookcase.

"Please, make yourself comfortable."

Oliver tried to, without much success.

"So what brings you here today, Mr Oliver?"

Oliver rubbed his eyes under his glasses, a gesture he disliked because it left smudges in the glass. He was growing tired of convincing people that a PhD held as much weight as an MD.

"I'll be honest with you," he replied. "I have it on good authority that the government is conducting sleep-related experiments." He leaned over the table and continued. "I'm here to blow this thing wide open."

Oliver expected the meek-looking doctor to crumble under his gaze, but Stevenson never looked away.

"Tell me something Mr Oliver," the doctor replied while maintaining eye contact. "Did you practice your little speech before coming here?"

Oliver was taken aback. Before he could object, Stevenson continued.

"It feels too... artificial. Wouldn't you say so?"

Oliver considered this for a moment. He never practiced this speech in front of a mirror or anything like that, at least to his recollection. While it was indeed out of character for him, he reasoned that it was a spur of the moment sort of reaction.

"What are you getting at?"

Stevenson leaned back against his chair.

"I'm saying it's artificial, Oliver. As in manufactured."

"Do you have to be this cryptic?"

"Fair enough. Let's try something else, Mr Oliver. Try finishing this sequence."

Stevenson pulled out a sheet from his breast pocket.

"Cow, heart, submarine, stove..."

"Hungry, rooftop, seven," Oliver replied as if in a trance. As soon as he realized what happened, he stood up abruptly, sending the chair flying.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING IN HERE"

Oliver's heart was battering his ribcage.

"Calm down Mr Oliver," Stevenson replied, unphased. "I'll explain everything if you would just sit down."

Oliver backed away with a horrified expression. He had never experienced like that before.

"Please, have a seat." Stevenson insisted.

Oliver considered his options. He could escape back from the way he came from. Or he could risk it all to find the truth. Memories of his last failure flooded his mind. The subject of his dissertation had turned out to be a hoax, and his credibility as a journalist got dragged through the mud. This was his shot at redemption. He took a deep breath. After composing himself, he straightened the chair and sat back down.

"Thank you Mr Oliver."

Oliver pulled his phone out of his pocket and turned on the recorder. He half put it half slammed iton the table facing up so that Stevenson knew what was happening, but the latter didn't mind.

"As I was saying, your speech is manufactured. We were the ones who put it in your head. In fact, the boys back there bet that I wouldn't be able to get you to say that. They owe me a hundred bucks."

"How?"

"Well, there are ten other doctors and nurses and each one bet ten..."

"No. How."

Oliver was growing exhasperated of Stevenson nonchalance. This was nothing but a game to him by the looks of things.

"Broadcasting, Oliver. We broadcast thoughts and images into people's heads while they're asleep. It's easier to manipulate them when they're unconscious. Of course, it isn't an exact science. I could go into the details, but you're not the right kind of doctor for that. No offense."

"Offense taken, but continue anyway."

"That was the extent of our knowledge. We find that certain people respond better than others, you being one of them of course. But we did boost it up a notch for you to be able to locate the tower."

Oliver could tell whether or not this compliment was backhanded.

"Why?"

"Advertising, my dear friend. Think of the possibilities. Take this phone, for instance. Did you choose it willingly, or did someone make that decision for you? I'm willing to bet that it wasn't free will that convinced you to pick a..."

Stevenson examined the phone, then resumed talking after raising his eyebrow.

"A phone that's clearly beyond the paycheck of a journalist. Now imagine that but on a much larger scale."

Stevenson saw skepticism in Oliver's eyes. He continued,

"In fact, we confirmed that theory. Remember fidget spinners?"

Oliver nodded without a word. He was starting to get the point, and he wasn't liking it.

"Now, do you remember ever seeing any form of advertisement involving fidget spinners? That's because there wasn't any. Well, with the exception of our little contraption of course."

Stevenson laid back in his chair. "Of course," Oliver figured. Greedy capitalism was the end game, as is often the case. And while the end itself wasn't worthy of an article, the mean was nothing short of a scoop. His flair had been right after all. But now it was time to wrap things up. He had gotten what he came for.

Almost.

His mind still held an unanswered question.

"Last question. Why me?"

Stevenson smiled at this. His smile betrayed a hint of smugness.

"Oh Oliver. Trust me when I say this, but you aren't special. We simply cast a wide net. You're not the first dog that came sniffing for bones."

He paused for a while and pensively massaged his chin with his thumb and index fingers.

"But then again, you did recite the checksum sequence to a T."

Oliver didn't need a PhD to tell where this was going.

"Thank you for your time Dr Stevenson, I'll see myself out."

He proceeded to gather his belongings in a hurry. Stevenson interrupted him with a question.

"Would you be interested in joining the Department of Recording, Enhancement And Modification of Sleep..."

Just then, the nameless guard emerged from behind Oliver and shoved a needle in his jugular without much tact. The last thing he remembered before unconsciousness took over was Stevenson's words.

"...as a test subject?"

Stevenson produced a hair clipper from his desk drawer. Oliver fell into a restless sleep.