...is changing, Cooper...and though the war is finished, there is still much we must do...You have to come to us...

     "Alan?"

     ...brewing in the West. Things are not always as they seem. You know this. You've fought the good fight for too long alone...

     "Alan..."

     ...you have been asleep. It is time for the Sleeper to Awaken - and I'm not waxing logical on Herbert here...

     "Alan Christopher Cooper..."

     ...what I speak of exists, outside of the Sleeper world. I have watched you for several years - your talents will be needed for the coming times. But nothing will happen if you die...

     "I'm counting to ten..."

     ...You have to run, Alan. Your life and your beloved's life hang by a thread. You will not survive. It is time to Awak-

     "Wake up Alan!"

     Dream pulled away from him, abrupt in its departure, and in that leave taking, the dreamer realized he sat upon the summit. High winds buffeted his hair, brutally stinging his skin. Snow mingled into the cold, accents thrown into an artist's rendering of a landscape that existed only within the small bit of reality he'd carved within his computer's hard drive. He shouldn't be able to feel the cold - but he did. Or was it all in his mind, his consciousness now seeing the snow, actualizing upon its existence? Or was it something more ominous? That perhaps his synapse had lapsed into a languor that viciously wished to remain in the created world, no longer troubled by the problems of Reality.

     And yet - there the term lingered in his mind as he stared down from the high mountain to the green valley below. Reality. Where did such a concept exist? Here or there? Inward or outward? Was the voice that nagged at him to awaken in this world real? Or was the one now shaking him to awaken in the outward world...

     Hang on...

     Alan C. Cooper, youngest son to the noted neurologist Malcolm R. Cooper, felt his body sit up. He felt the stiff, wooden chair beneath him. He smelled the spicy scents of Maouri's recent attempt at an Italian meal lingering in the air. He felt a hand on his left arm - but why couldn't he see?

     "Would you please get that contraption off of your head?"

     Contraption? Oh. Alan reached up and his fingers connected with the slim-lined Virtual Reality visor he'd rebuilt the night before. Three clicks - and the gear came away easy – would have – if the straps had not pulled at his hair. His vision didn't adjust as swiftly as it should have. Maouri's usually serene expression was creased in hard lines. Her black eyes flashed anger, and he wondered briefly if he were still inside the Net.

     "Alan - are you in there?" his wife rapped on his forehead with the right knuckle of her index finger.

     "Owch," he put up a hand to hers. Skin. Flesh. Soft, subtle, firm. Real. Lacquered nails of soft pink, like the roses his mother once grew in their back yard. He stared hard at her wrist as he turned it in his hand. The subtle ebb and flow of blood traveling through her veins caught his attention. He could hear it move back and forth - a song of life within her body.

     "Alan...are you okay? You look a little pale. You know you fell asleep with that thing on your head."

     Her voice was different somehow - as if he could hear each individual pitch and resonance her vocal chords made to form the single sound his ears recognized and sought comfort in. His gaze traveled up her slender arm, to her elbow and upward to her soft shoulders laid bare by the sarong she wore about small and beautiful breasts.

     "Alan...honey, I need you to look at me."

     He did, peering deeply into her beautiful Eurasian features, such an exotic mixture of Polynesian and Japanese ancestry and again he was taken that such a beautiful creature had loved him, married him, built a home with him on O'ahu.

     Her features again became creased and he finally sensed her urgency with his seemingly reawakened senses. He blinked several times as if to clear the dust and clutter that had settled upon his mind. "Maouri - yes. I'm fine." His own voice sounded unique in his ears, and he wanted nothing more than to explore this new uniqueness, but her urgency and apprehensive feel brought his attention in sharper. He searched her eyes. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have fallen asleep with that thing on. What's wrong?"

     "Joseph called from the Library. He said two men were there this morning looking for you. I was surprised - not because they were looking for you, but because no one had seen you." She straightened up and pulled her hand from his grasp. "That's when I found you down here. You were talking to someone - at least I think you were. I heard voices, but when I called out, you didn't answer. I'm afraid I unplugged the computer."

     Alan's own gaze widened and he turned to his right to face a blank screen. Abrupt disconnection. It was dangerous. But Maouri didn't know that. He'd never told her what he'd been doing. Why was that? Why haven't I shared all my discoveries of information with my own wife? My soul mate?

     The answer was not forthcoming and he turned his attention back to Maouri. She was quick, and had noticed his expression. "That was a bad idea, wasn't it? Is that why you're acting all funny?"

     "No, no..." he stood, a bit wobbly at first and she put her hands out to his shoulders. He still wore the blue and green Hibiscus print shirt from yesterday. How long had he been out? When had he fallen asleep? And why can't I remember any of it?

     Except a voice - familiar yet - untrustworthy.

     "Alan...you're not looking so good. Should I take you to the doctor?"

     "I'm fine." He forced a smile if for no other reason, to ease her fear. He didn't dare tell her how the world tilted and swayed as he moved, of how the colors in this room, their den, seemed blindingly bright and how every sound and click that came from the Macaw upstairs in the garden room vibrated with deafening intensity upon his ears. "What exactly did Joseph say?"

     Maouri sighed as she moved away from his computer and helped him with an arm on his shoulder, climb the few stairs leading to their kitchen. The sun screamed in through the polished windows and he only barely kept himself from yelling out at the pain their brilliance visited upon his eyes. Spying a pair of sunglasses on the kitchen table, Alan grabbed them up and placed them over his eyes.

     "I think I should call the doctor..." She was looking at him, concern in her expression.

     "It's my own fault, Maouri - really. I shouldn't have fallen asleep in VR. I just need to unwind from it. Now, sit and tell me what Joseph said."

     In truth, his manager had said little to Maouri. The two men, dressed all in black, had stepped up to the front desk of the Honolulu library and asked to speak to one Mr. Alan Christopher Cooper. When Joseph had explained the errant employee, head of their records and book search department, had not as of yet come into work, the duo had simply nodded and asked for his address.

     "Did he give it?"

     Maouri shook her head. "No. It's not policy to give out information, but he felt they already knew the answer anyway." She frowned. "Alan...what's going on?"

     "I have no idea." And indeed, nothing came to him. The description of these men sounded for the entire world like Hollywood government workers. Men in Black. Yet Alan had never done anything here, or in the mainland, to warrant such a visit.

     Living in Portland Oregon as a child, Alan had been a straight A student, with a penchant for computer language and technology. He'd fixed his father's computers beginning at the age of seven - and had on several occasions either built his own, or improved on what technology his father brought home.

     His mother had been a rocket scientist, in the literal sense, before her death three years earlier. Breast cancer had taken her life in a slow, torturous year that had left Alan, his father, and his two older brothers devastated. Professor Cooper had buried himself in his work, as had his other sons. But Alan, then in his final year at MIT, had buried himself not in school work, but in the ever expanding internet, spending night after night in chat-rooms, searching for the answer to his mother's death and his father's abrupt abandonment of the world, and his youngest son.

     Professor Cooper had refused all communication with his youngest son. And Alan never understood why.

     He'd never finished his degree, instead taking his father's old Palm Pilot and enhancing its functioning as a handy communication tool - long before such technology became available to the populace. On a whim, he'd entered a lottery drawing in Florida on a visit, and hit the jackpot of ten million. Alan set up the money in several banks, dispersing it unevenly here and there, yet transferring the bulk of it into a Swiss account under an assumed name and identity he'd worked up on the Net.

     He in truth made it difficult for anyone to touch his money, yet held the easiest access to it. He studied encryption codes on his own to set up his own versions of alarms in case anyone tried to steal his money. He never knew why he took such elaborate precautions, only that he felt somehow they would be necessary.

     Eventually his travels led him to Atlanta where he met Maouri Kuhio. Originally from the Island of O'ahu, Maouri ran a hair salon called "Chimera's" in Midtown off of Amsterdam. Most of her clientele were gay males, intent on maximizing their looks. Maouri had been just as surprised to see Alan in her chair as her fellow hair stylists. Yet, on the net, he had discovered from other chatters, that "Chimera's" was the best place for a haircut - and information.

     Still, Alan had not known what that meant - not entirely. And Maouri's boss, Trent Cole, the owner of "Chimera's", treated Alan with a level of awe and respect the young man had never understood. The man looked and sounded like Dr. Smith from the series Lost in Space, which unnerved Alan to no end.

     Eventually Maouri agreed to go out with him. Then she agreed to date him. And to his surprised, she had agreed to be his wife, but only with the promise they go back to her home. She had been separated from her family for five years and missed them terribly. Her mother was in poor health and her father had since returned from his job with the Diamond Head Administration Offices. That was easily done and within six months they were married. He bought her the house of her dreams and even extended it's basement for himself. He'd gotten a job at the library, and found he had a knack for finding lost books.

     Not the kind miss-filed, but those the databases told inquirers didn't exist. Yet, Alan found their requests indeed contained IBN numbers, even copy write information. With the help of his talent, he found he could locate obscure copies of these books on the net, whether they were actual printed copies, or those scanned in by their owners. There he either hooked them up with the owners via a chat room, or post office box.

     What had galled him the most was that these books, by the most part, weren't usually that obscure. Many of them, such as Nietzsche, he knew existed because he owned a copy. In fact, Alan owned quiet an extensive library and had taken the time to digitize all of his volumes onto CDs for storage. Again that odd, jarring sense of his had also instructed him, as a precaution, to hid those CDs where they couldn't be found.

     So it had been with every rare tome, every old book, every scrap of information he found, whether it be online or in print, Alan Cooper kept a copy of it, neatly OCR'd and checked, burned to a CD and hidden safely away.

     He noticed that most of those that sought his assistance sought books on the occult, technology and history. And so he made his copies and read them, memorized as much as he could, and kept his own small archive on his home computer.

     But something was missing - Alan had had no idea what his longing was for. He felt he was stuck, but in what he had no idea. When he brought this fear to Maouri, she suggested perhaps it was time to have a baby. The idea enticed and terrified him - but the idea of a child, a small daughter to love and raise. He agreed immediately and they had tried for many months with no success. Maouri had gone to a clinic months ago to discover she was barren - having a womb unable to support life.

     And Alan had tried to be everything he knew for her, to be the supportive husband, to be there and give the emotional support for her - for now her thoughts centered during times of depression, upon her inability to be a true woman.

     Yet - he felt drawn always to the Net to find his answers.

     While on the Big Island of Hawaii, Alan had found a Virtual Reality kit and brought it home. With a few adjustments here and there, the technology simple to understand, he set up his own bit of space on his hard drive, and there he became a virtual shop keeper, searching for those with VR access, those tomes and bit of information kept hidden from them.

     And it was here that he found something about his wife's condition. A small thing it was, easily fixed with therapy and a small surgery. Yet, why had this information been kept away from everyone? Especially from those like Maouri who were afflicted with this reproductive deficiency?

     He wasn't able to access it online at the time, but he did know it existed in printed form. Its copywright was only five years ago, and so he went out looking in the small bookstores of O'ahu.

     And he found it in the first place he looked. The find seemed too coincidental - that such a book on medical procedures would be found in this back alley store - and that the proprietor would seem as surprised as Alan had been to have the book in his shop.

     That find had only been a week in passing - and Maouri had read the information with renewed hope, bent on finding a doctor willing to listen and learn and perhaps aid in their yearn for children.

     Alan felt himself travel abruptly back to the present and his senses, though somehow sharpened, and felt his wife's gaze hot upon his cheek. He looked to her eyes narrowed at him.

     "Alan...did you do something?"

     "No – well I'm not sure," he pursed his lips and thought hard on the book. He asked Maouri its whereabouts and she told him it rested with a Dr. Mirougi who was as fascinated as she had been. He was her hope. Their hope. Their child's future.

     Shoving aside an abrupt rise in panic, Alan stood and asked the phone number. Maouri had it quick to her memory and he dialed - his fear intensifying when there was no answer. It was well past nine in the morning, on a Tuesday. And no receptionist gave way in the dial tone.

     Before hanging up, Alan's sharp ears detected several telltale clicks. Their line was being tapped!

     He snatched the line from the wall, and schooled his features as he turned to his wife. "Maouri, pack. Quickly. Grab what is most prescious to you. There is nothing within this house that I cannot afford again."

     But his wife was not going to be so easily ordered. She raised a dark eyebrow at him and placed her hands firmly upon her hips. "Not until you tell me what's wrong. Why are you panicking? And don't deny it – you're shaking."

     "I -" how can he tell her - to describe the abrupt difference in his senses? To relay the now dangerous signals he felt that screamed in his mind to run? He went to her and put his hands firmly on her shoulders. "I can't - I don't know. I just have a feeling that it has something to do with that book - the one that Mirougi possesses. There is no answer at his office."

     "That can't be. I have an appointment with him today."

     Panic surged again, and Alan felt an overwhelming need to dive back into the Virtual World. He heard that voice again, in his mind, the one from before...

     "No," he shook his head. "You can't go. I think they're there waiting for you. They'd use you to get to me."

     "They? They being who?" Maouri shook her head. "Whom are you talking about? The guys from the library?"

     "Yes. Them. I don't know why - but I don't trust them. I'm," he licked his lips and touched her beautiful smooth cheek. "I'm afraid, Maouri. I'm afraid for you and for me. We need to go. I'm not sure if they know where this place is - but they know the phone number now. I heard the tap on the phone."

     "Alan…" her eyes widened. "What is happening? All this over a book?"

     "I don't know Mao - just please. Run up and get your suitcase. I'm going to book a few flights, okay? My Dad has a place in New Zealand. We can stay there for a few days until I sort this out."

     She hesitated for only a few minutes before stepping to him and putting her own hands to his face, caressing his cheeks in her warm hands. "I love you, Alan. I trust you. I'll be only a minute."

     Once she was gone, he rushed back downstairs and booted his computer. He tried to detect an outside line and found nothing.

     Nothing.

     The line was cut. He picked up the phone. Silence greeted him. They knew.

     With a desperate search, Alan found his cell on the floor beneath his desk. He checked its line and found it open. They hadn't disconnected it. He'd gone to great lengths to protect its existence - and again - he had never understood why.

     But now there was a voice coming through loud and clear. The voice from before.

     "...out! Get out of there! They're at the gate! You have to leave now! No time to teach you yet..."

     It was the voice from the VR. The one he'd spoken to before. But how was it on his phone when only seconds before he'd had a dial tone and now there was a voice? No time. No time. He had to grab Maouri now.

     He yelled up the stairs as he took them two at a time, the phone clutched in his hands. "Maouri! We have to go now! They're..."

     They were in the kitchen's doorway. Two of them. Dressed in black, with inky shades covering their eyes against pale complexions. Just as Joseph had said.

     One of them held his wife around the neck, a gun held to her temple. Her eyes were wide, but she remained silent.

     "Mr. Cooper," the other one spoke, his voice flat, emotionless. Alan's alarms screamed at him to move, to flee...

     But Maouri...

     "What do you want?" His own voice sounded pitiful in his ears, and yet...it parted and resonated about the four of them. He saw his voice, a myriad of circuitry entwining itself about the pair.

     These men seemed to notice this and the one who had spoken now raised a gun similar to the one pointed at his wife's head and pointed it at Alan's chest. "Please, put the phone down, Mr. Cooper. Put it down and we can all leave here in one piece."

     "Leave and go where?" Alan wasn't about to put down his phone - it was his only link to.... he blinked rapidly ... to what? Why am I clutching it as if it was a lifeline?

     "You have been found guilty in the crimes of the Virtual Adept Tradition, formerly of the Technocracy. Our primary function is to find those newly Awakened and terminate them. But, we have been given orders of leniency due to your father's stature within our organization. We are to bring you in for psych-evalution and recruitment."

     Alan's world tilted again and he wavered for a brief instance. "My father? The Tech - what? My Father sent you here?"

     "Put the phone down, Mr. Cooper. Put it down or we kill the Sleeper."

     Sleeper? Maouri? What were they talking about? Alan looked at the phone. Again the voice came to him. "...out of there! Use Correspondence! I can bring you here - come to me! Put the phone to your ear..."

     Unsure of what he'd heard, he put the phone to his ear.

     And what happened would remain a part of him until his ending days, burned forever into the central core of his nervous system, a scar that would never heal.

     Reality blurred and slowed, and he was in two places at once. He stood in his kitchen, the cell phone to his ear - and yet he stood upon a mountain with cold air buffeting him. Only this mountain wasn't the one of his Virtual Reality. This mountain he'd stood on before, the night he'd proposed to Maouri. This was Stone Mountain - a landmark of the state of Georgia.

     But he still saw the images of his kitchen - he heard both guns firing, their blaring deafening. He saw Maouri jerk, her entire body lurching in the fiend's arms. Her eyes widened and he screamed. He saw the side of her head explode outward, spraying the other man's face with her blood.

     He screamed in both places as the other man came at him, firing his gun repeatedly into what Alan knew was his chest. Yet he felt none of it. Instead the scene in his kitchen faded as his last sight past the running man was that of his wife's body sliding from the man's grip as her captor chased after him...

     ...and his scream came aloud and echoed from the mountain side in this new reality as he fell backward from the lurch. His chest was pressed tight, a pressure weighing heavy on him as hands caught him and lowered him to the ground. The sun was setting upon this mountain as he looked up at blue sky, with only the wisps of clouds marring its clear surface. The pressure became a fire and it was becoming harder to breath.

     And there were voices...familiar ones that spoke around him in that blue sky.

     "...not quick enough. Damnit."

     "It looks pretty bad. You think Maggie can help him?"

     "The Euthanatos is the only hope we have for him. We've got to get him off this mountain."

     Alan felt hands on him. A blanket was placed over his body as it jerked and surged with the intrusion in his chest. Not fast enough? Am I shot? Is this what that is like? This indescribable pain?

     "Careful on that side." There was that familiar voice again.

     He didn't understand any of it. He only knew they were taking him away from Maouri.

     "Mao..." he heard his voice and it's shaky timber and weak sound frightened him.

     "Trent," a female voice sobbed and he tried to see her face. "He's asking about Maouri."

     "Damnit. Damnit it all. If I'd only have gotten to him during the night. We might have gotten them both through the link. Of which, where is his phone?"

     "Here. I have it. I'll look after it."

     Alan sobbed. The pain of his heart warred with the pain in his chest. His soul cried out to Maouri. He was being jostled, carried by many hands. Down they were going. He wanted was to close his eyes and let the blissfulness of what he prayed would be death claim him.

     But another voice came to him, this one he knew instantly. It was his wife's old boss at "Chimera's". He opened his eyes and looked up into the face of Trent Cole. "Alan - you have to hang on. Maouri's dead. There is nothing we can do. I need you to hang on until we get you to Maggie's."

     Dead. Yet he knew that. He's seen her blood, looked into her shocked and betrayed eyes as she fell to the floor. He sobbed again and groaned as another pain rolled over him, taking his conscious thought from him.

     If Maouri was dead, then he would be dead too.