Demetrius slept. This was not as restful as you might suppose.

About three minutes after falling asleep, Demetrius found himself in a very busy city. He didn't notice – though we would – that everything was now in greyscale. Dreaming in black-and-white was a common occurrence for the Gheorgheni clan: nobody had ever asked why, because frankly, they didn't really want to know the answer. Sometimes the minutiae of the multiverse (currently universe) could be overwhelming. Better to worry about one conundrum at a time.

D.'s problem at the moment was trying to get from one place to another. He didn't know where he was trying to go, or why, only that it was urgent. He also had no clue where he was coming from. That would either come to him later, or it wouldn't. He didn't know the name of the city, either. He tended to call it the Akashic City. It was always the same city, even though the streets tended to look slightly different every time. That bothered him less than the fact that the public transportation system was uniformly dodgy.

A streetcar came by, running on rails over the cobblestones, with trolley poles attaching it to the overhead wires. He mounted the steps, rummaging in his jacket pocket for coins and not worrying about what he was wearing: fashions varied a lot in the Akashic City. Looking down at his palm, he saw:

• A US silver dollar from 1875: It featured some sort of Roman-style goddess, seated.
• A Carthaginian shekel bearing the profile image of the goddess Tanit, consort of Ba'al Hammon.
• A commemorative wooden nickel from the Allentown, Pennsylvania bicentennial of 1962.
• A ticket stub from the 21 October 1858 Paris performance of Offenbach's Orphée aux enfers, slightly bent.
• Some pink fluff.

D. straightened out the ticket stub and tossed it into the coin tray. The driver, a capuchin monkey wearing a visored cap, nodded acceptance and closed the door.

As the trolley rattled its way down the street, D. made his way down the swaying aisle looking for a seat. The car was about half-full. In one pair of seats a female passenger in a miniskirt and go-go boots huddled in earnest conversation with a Benedictine monk. On the opposite side of the aisle were two very prim ladies in long skirts and high-topped boots: their elaborate hats boasted stuffed birds perched on satin nests, and the bustles of their skirts were pushed up behind them against the wooden seat backs. Further back, taking up two full rows of seats, were a fireman in full gear, a mid-20th-century US city policeman, a cowboy, a North American Plains Indian in a feathered headdress, a man in a sailor suit, and a workman in a hard hat.

As D. passed them, the cowboy asked, 'M or W?'

D. braced himself against one of the backrests and fished in his breast pocket. He pulled out a small paperback book and handed it to the cowboy.

'Here,' he said. 'Page 142.'

'What's the title of the book?' asked the sailor. 'I can't read in dreams.'

'1001 Silly Song Lyrics You Wish You Could Forget,' D. replied. He found a seat at the back of the trolley next to a Roman legionary in full armour.

D. watched the scenery out the window. Lots of Beaux-Arts buildings with elaborate statuary in front. Then a block of tall, narrow brick buildings with shop windows. In one of the windows stood a young man wearing a green eyeshade, sleeve garters, and an open waistcoat. He was dressing a mannequin in a tailcoat and top hat.

'Oh, look!' said one of the ladies in hats. 'That's Frank Woolworth! He's inventing the window display.'

'No, he's not!' called the girl in the miniskirt. 'He's setting the stage for a performance of Evening Primrose.' And, indeed, the mannequin in the window came to life and began singing.

As the trolley passed the window they could hear:

Let me see the world with clouds

Take me to the world

Out where I can push through crowds. . .

'That's a bit on the nose, don't you think?' the Roman legionary said in D.'s ear.

D. turned to the soldier with a shrug. 'I've heard worse,' he admitted. 'Dmitri Gheorgheni,' he introduced himself, and stuck out his hand.

The Roman gave him a 'secret club' handshake and grinned. 'Spurius Ligustinus.'

'Pleased to meet you,' said D., privately wondering what makes a man so loyal to his people that he serves twenty-two years and fights in six wars when the only thing it had given him to start with was a farm the size of a 20th-century suburban lot, while the rich will spend vast sums to avoid the slightest discomfort? He didn't ask any questions, though: just continued to look out the window at the passing cityscape.

The trolley turned an oblique corner and stopped. The capuchin monkey chattered.

The Benedictine turned to the others and said, 'I speak capuchin. He says it's the end of the line. Everybody off.'

'You're really clever to be multilingual like that,' commented the miniskirt girl. They all got off and went their separate ways.

D. looked up at the giant billboard facing the square. It showed an Asian woman swallowing a pill and smiling. Beneath was a crawling display of text.

The text read, 'THE WORDS OF THE PROPHETS ARE WRITTEN ON THE SUBWAY WALLS.'

D. sighed.

Across a narrower street from the giant billboard was a tall Art Deco building with a revolving door at its entrance. D. hesitated, but a lot of people seemed to be going in and out, so he went in.

It only took him three complete revolutions to reach the lobby. Not bad, he thought. He still didn't know why he was there. He walked across the lobby's tessellated floor and approached the front desk.

The desk clerk adjusted the elaborate cravat on his high collar and beamed through the handles of his ridiculous moustache. 'Can I help you, sir?'

'I think I'm late for a meeting,' said D. Ah, that's the way the wind blows, is it?

The desk clerk consulted an enormous ledger. 'Ah, yes: the meeting of the Temporal Research Committee. . .'

D. laughed. 'The Temporal Research Committee? That's the best you can do? Not the Super-Secret League of Hyperborean Chrononauts? Not the Society for the Prevention of Terminal Entropy? Not the – '

The desk clerk fixed him with a severe look. 'Sir, I am merely the representative of the collective logic of the akashic record. An AI, if you will. I am not responsible for the nomenclature. Your meeting is in Room 1342. That is. . . '

'. . . on the 13th Floor, naturally,' said D. He thanked the desk clerk and headed for the lifts, though not happily. The problem wasn't the floor designation: 13 was a lucky number for Gheorghenis. The problem was lifts.

The door was Art Deco, of course – and the dream was now in colour. The lift looked deceptively non-threatening. D. knew better. Nevertheless, when it opened he got in. What choice do I have? If I don't, I'll just get this ludicrous dream all over again.

No operator, of course. D. pushed the button marked 13. And braced against the safety railing on the side of the car.

The lift went sideways, to D.'s right. Then up a few floors. Then sideways in the other direction. Finally, apparently impatient, the thing abandoned all protocol and went up diagonally. After another short sideways sprint, it came to a halt and the doors opened. D stepped out quickly, in case it changed its mind.

More tessellated flooring. Very shiny flooring. Lights in sconces. A. likes sconces, D. remembered. He stepped gingerly at first, but the floor appeared to be solid: not slippery in spite of the shininess, and not spongy. He followed the numbering on the doors: 1300, 1302, 1304, 1308. . . around the corner, 1311, 1313 (Gheorghenis are innumerate for, er, reasons). He pushed down the door handle and went in before he could change his mind.

And found himself standing on a ledge halfway up the rockface of a gigantic waterfall. The cascade was roaring in his ears.

A figure could be seen dimly through the wall of water.

'We need to talk,' it said. Quietly, but in a voice that could be heard through the roar.

'You brought me all this way to tell me this?' groused D.

And woke up with a start. The sun was lower in the sky and there was a large orange cat purring loudly on his chest.

DG

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