Chris reached his free hand towards the fire-door handle, the eight other agents still behind him as they spread down the stairs, the fire alarm echoing in the concrete stairwell. The perp, the Dreamer, had to be on this floor or the next; they’d searched all the others. The fingers of his other hand tightened around the grip of his EMPistol, palm slick from the search, and the seven-floors’ worth of stairs they’d climbed.

  He was seriously getting too old for this.

  “Chris,” a voice loudly whispered from below him while his hand closed around the cool metal of the door handle, the light above strobing in time with the alarm.

  “What?” he hissed back. Or, was that a wheeze? Retirement or cardio, he was going to need to give at least one of them serious thought.

  “You’re not wearing any pants,” the whisperer replied.

  Chris allowed himself to blink once, twice, then slowly pivoted his eyes down from the where he was going to open the door to his legs. Pineapple-printed boxers, grey-haired legs with a slight sheen of sweat and the echo of muscle, sky-blue socks, and his brogue leather shoes looked back up at him. His pants were noticeably absent.

  Pushing his sigh back down before it escaped, Chris glanced back at the other agents arrayed down the stairs behind him.

  Jake, his young partner, leaned against the wall, hands on his head, a silent whistle on his lips, and gave Chris a wink. Jake still had pants. Of course, he did. Of the other seven, only the Skeptic, Miranda, still had something covering her legs.

  Six elite agents, the best of the best, seven if Chris included himself, stood half-naked on the stairs.

  “So, this is one of those dreams,” Chris said and gently shook his head.

  “Damnit Winston,” one of the agents halfway down said. “You know the rules. No going commando on workdays!”

  “I can’t do my best work when I’m feeling…restricted,” Winston replied, the smirk clear in the tone of his voice.

  “Enough,” Chris said. “Winston, you and me, we’re going to review policy when we get back to the office. But, before that, we’ve still got a Dreamer to wake, so let’s have some focus.”

  “How can I focus with that thing swinging like a pendulum in front of me?” the agent behind Winston, Rodriguez, asked.

  “Don’t be jealous,” Winston said.

  “Winston,” Chris hissed, his fingers tightening around the door handle.

  “Sorry, boss, but if it’s just one of the ‘I-forgot-to-wear-pants’ dreams, what’s the big deal? It’s barely Class-C, maybe even Class-D. Other than a bit of a draft, nothing dangerous to worry about,” Winston replied.

  The pit in the bottom of Chris’s stomach disagreed, and his eyes went to Jake’s face.

  Jake gave the tiniest shake of his head, the metal collar around his throat peeking above his trench-coat at the motion.

  “Until we know for sure…” Chris started in reply, but a sound on the other side of the fire-door dragged his attention away from Winston. What was that? A tap-tap-tap along with a kind of wheezing breath? Did somebody other than Chris need to start cardio?

  He glanced back at the other agents, mouthed ‘quiet’, and turned his full attention back to the door. Carefully and slowly, he turned the fire handle and gently cracked the heavy door inward, peeking through the narrow opening into the hallway beyond.

  What was…?

  Halfway down the hall he found the source of the sound, and ever so softly, Chris closed the door again.

  Shit.

  “What is it, Chris?” Rodriguez whispered.

  “Raptor,” Chris said.

  “A basketball player? That’s not so bad…”

  “Velociraptor,” Chris clarified.

  “Pardon?” Rodriguez almost choked the word out.

  “Dinosaur week on Nat-G,” Jake answered in reply. “Somebody must’ve fallen asleep while watching it.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. I’m still not wearing pants,” Winston said. Was there pride in his voice?

  “Means we’re dealing with two separate Dreamers,” Chris said.

  “Two? What’re the odds of two people sleeping through the alarm like this?” Rodriguez asked.

  “Chris, do you want me to…?” Jake asked, but Chris immediately shook his head without looking at the watch-interface on his left wrist.

  “I only saw the one raptor,” Chris said. “We can handle this without you getting involved.”

  “Okay, plan?” Jake asked, hands still on top of his curly mop of hair.

  “Miranda, what’s your rating?” Chris asked the only woman still wearing pants.

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  “I’ve been cleared for up to Class-C. I might be able to handle a low Class-B, but…” she answered.

  Chris cracked the door and checked on the raptor again. It looked pretty solid. No blurred lines, the flashing red lights reflecting off its scales, and its claws audibly tapping on the tile floor with each step. No way that thing was Class-D. Minimum Class-C, maybe higher. He gently let the door close again.

  Should he just get Jake to handle it? Chris’s eyes went to the metal collar hidden behind Jake’s jacket.

  “Miranda, I want you out front. If it’s as fast as I think it might be, you’ll need to slow it down.”

  “Yes, Sir,” she replied and climbed the stairs beside him. Her eyes drilled into the door, like she could see through it, and her lips nearly vanished as she clenched her jaw.

  “You can do this,” Chris said. “Remember your training.”

  Her eyes flicked to him, then back to the door, and she gave a brief nod.

  How long had she been with the unit? Chris ransacked his brain, but he couldn’t find the answer to the question. It couldn’t have been long though.

  “Winston, Rodriguez, you’re with me right behind her,” Chris said, and the two men joined him. “Jake, on my signal, open the door and clear the way.”

  “I can do more than just opening the door,” Jake said, but took up position.

  “You can do what you’re told,” Rodriguez snapped before Chris could reply, all traces of the earlier comradery absent from his voice.

  “We’ve got this one,” Chris said more gently, and Jake just nodded. This wasn’t the first time agents in the unit had treated Jake like a second-class citizen, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last, but Jake brushed it off in a heartbeat. “When Jake opens the door, Winston, you’ve got the left and Rodriguez the right. I’ll take straight down the middle.

  “If this thing is Class-B, we’ll need to hit it at least once before it gets to us to weaken it enough for Miranda to handle. More is better,” Chris said, and lifted his EMPistol in both hands to take aim just over Miranda’s shoulder.

  He waited for the two agents beside him to mirror his stance, then glanced at Jake. The kid understood without a signal, and silently mouthed ‘Three, two, one’ and swung the door inward.

  Miranda strode out, raising her hands as she went like they would be enough to ward off the lizard whose head snapped in her direction. Its jaws spread wide to display its knife-like teeth, and it lunged down the hall towards the small woman, claws tearing gouges in the tile floor.

  Pull.

  Chris squeezed the trigger as he stepped out behind her, the golf-ball-sized barrel humming and spitting out a comet of condensed electromagnetic energy. The raptor barely shrugged, its head ducking under the bolt of energy, then leapt forward, shifting its weight to lead with its horrific claws.

  Two more bolts sizzled from Chris’s left and right, Rodriguez and Winston joining him in the hall, and he squeezed the trigger a second time. Pull.

  Like his first shot, the bolt on the left sailed past, eliciting a curse from Winston, but Rodriguez’s shot and Chris’s second found their mark, slamming into the chest of the sailing raptor.

  EMP shots didn’t carry any mass though, and while the chest of the dinosaur wavered and blurred, the creature still careened towards them as sure as a runaway train.

  “It’s just a dream,” Miranda, to her credit, whispered as claws as long as her hands reached for her face before colliding with an invisible wall at the extent of her outstretched hands. “It’s just a dream,” she said again, beads of sweat rolling down the side of her face.

  The raptor bounced off the wall of Miranda’s disbelief, its claws blurry and insubstantial from the brief contact with the Skeptic’s power, but quickly rolled to its feet.

  “Hit it!” Chris commanded. Miranda was shaken, her disbelief wavering from the brief contact with the figment, and a second confrontation might be too much for her.

  Winston and Rodriguez stepped up beside Miranda, EMP bolts flying as fast as they could pull their triggers. Miniature comet after miniature comet struck the raptor, staggering it back as the dream substance that made up its body withered and faded under the assault.

  “Reloading,” Winston said, the clip dropping out of the handle of his gun, and Chris stepped up to take his place, hitting the raptor with a steady stream of EMP blasts.

  This thing was definitely Class-B to take this many shots without completely dissipating.

  “Nova, incoming!” a voice shouted from behind Chris, and he turned his head to the side just as a grapefruit-sized, metal ball lobbed over his shoulder.

  A bright flash turned the world white, and when Chris looked ahead again, only a few grains of the sandy substance that made up figments left in the raptor’s place. In seconds, even that was gone.

  He still didn’t have pants though.

  “Good job, Deshaun,” Chris said, glancing at the spent EMP grenade on the ground. “How many more of those do we have? The pistols aren’t enough if we run into another raptor.”

  “Why do you think we’d run into another?” Winston asked, reloading his EMPistol.

  “They always work in packs in the movies,” Jake offered. “And, if this was one of those, the rest of the pack would be right behind…”

  He cut off as one of the apartment doors, 701, cracked open, and seven EMPistols spun to point at the opening.

  “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot,” a woman’s voice said, its owner cowering with her long, black hair hanging down in front of her face, and her hands up. “Is it safe? Is it gone?” she asked, dark eyes peering out from behind the thick strands of hair.

  “What are you still doing here?” Winston asked, his gun unmoved.

  “Winston, lower your weapon. And, Jesus man, cover up,” Chris ordered, then turned his attention to the woman. “You didn’t get out when the alarm went off?”

  “I tried,” she said, creeping out of her apartment and looking down at the deep gouges the raptor had torn out of the floor. “But, as soon as I opened the door, I saw those…those things there. Are they gone?”

  “They?” Chris asked and raised his EMPistol down the now empty hall towards where it turned out of sight to the right.

  As if in answer, the retort of EMPistols firing in quick succession along with their telltale flashes echoed from around the corner.

  “It’s clear behind us,” Chris said and pointed towards the fire-stairs. “Don’t stop until you’re outside the building,” he finished, then dashed down the hall.

  “Nova!” a voice shouted, and it was all the warning Chris had before bright white stained the wall ahead of him. He blinked back tears to banish the white spots, then crept to the corner of the hall, weapon at the ready, and peeked around.

  “What the hell took you so long?” a man’s voice said.

  “Agent Percy,” Chris said, barely supressing the disgust in his voice. Why did it have to be Percy? “Guessing you just dealt with the other velociraptor?”

  “Yes,” Percy said, and reached out his free hand to grab one of the other agents around the back of her neck. The small woman flinched at his touch, but didn’t pull away, her eyes down. “No thanks to you, Dog. What the hell were you even doing? Hoping I’d get offed so you could run off?”

  Percy shook the woman with every word, her scruff of tangled hair shaking in front of her face, while the other seven agents simply watched.

  “Percy, you don’t have to…” Chris started.

  “Mind your own damn business, Hero,” Percy said, the last word coming out like some kind of curse. “You take care of your Waking Dreamer however you want, but this one is my tool,” he said, and threw the woman forward. She fell to her knees in front of him, but looked back up with the briefest look of unabashed hatred in her eyes.

  “Stupid bitch,” Percy said and jerked his gun back like he was going to pistol whip her with it.

  “Agent…!” Chris shouted, but cut off while everybody else froze, a school of shimmering fish swimming out of the wall, across the hall, and into the other wall to vanish without a trace.

  “What the hell was that?” one of the agents behind Percy asked.

  “A third Dreamer,” Chris said.