It had only been one day and Minhyun had to admit that everybody seemed quite active. The whole building was buzzing with operatives organizing the search. There were multiple channels of varying legality they used to acquire all the footage from cameras across the province and it would take a while. Usually the agents were tasked with making information vanish, especially pertaining to the existence of Junior and the organization itself, but getting information and filtering it was often included in that task. In short, the people on the case knew what they were doing.

And that’s why Minhyun felt useless. He had created a picture of Sujin with the help of a forensic artist and then aging software had confirmed the result based on photographs he still possessed and carried with him everywhere.

What else was there to do?

He tried to find some rest until nightfall. The trance chamber was almost finished. These Chinese knew how to build stuff in no time.

Not that there was much to construct. The chamber was one of the bigger rooms in the head quarter, soundproof since half an hour ago. Five beds stood in a lose circle. There was a desk for an overseeing medical professional and a direct line to the chief of operations. Fairly simple stuff.

Now that he thought about it, he was really lucky the boys weren’t just guys he worked with, but genuine friends. They had agreed to help him without question. He didn’t know how slim the chances were but there was no way he wouldn’t try to find her in the scape. He’d have gone alone if need be.

“Hey, whatcha doin?” Aron said in English as he hugged him from behind. The American rested his head on Minhyun’s shoulder, which the height difference made pretty much the ideal position.

“Trying not to lose my mind. What if she’s already on the move? Or if she only visits the dream scape very occasionally or if- eek!”

Aron nibbled on his boyfriend’s neck. “You worry too much.” More nibbling. “Let me take your mind off all that.”

Minhyun turned around to make lip contact. They found a quiet corner away from the construction work to make out. He poked on Aron’s consciousness and was beckoned in. They chatted mentally while their saliva exchange occurred.

“I think Junior’s not happy with all this,” Minhyun sent. “Any idea why?”

“Do we have to do this now? Our tongues are kind of preoccupied.”

“So?”

“That’s a signal for you to shut up. Normal couples don’t carry conversations while hooking up.”

“Normal? In a normal relationship I wouldn’t have to worry about my boyfriend turning the entire bed into gingerbread hearts with frosting while I’m in it.”

“Oh come on. That was romantic and hilarious.”

***

Night fell eventually. It wasn’t fully dark out but in the depth of the complex where the trance chamber had been built there were no windows.

Five beds, five boys, five sleeping pills, five glasses of water to wash them down.

Doctor Feng supervised the experiment. Her task was to monitor the heartrates of Nuest and shock them awake if some unforeseen event made the effort too dangerous to continue. Ren manifesting Rogues came to mind. The doctor dimmed the lights, made sure all sensors were firing and gave a thumbs up. Jason was assisting her, to make sure there was always someone in the room with the sleepers.

Minhyun had never needed a pill to fall asleep but there was no reason to wait for his body to become naturally tired. He swallowed the medication and handed his empty glass to the confidently smiling Jason, who went around collecting them.

He fell asleep so fast it was disorienting. This was no regular sleeping pill like the one he had used in the dojo with Ren – this was hard stuff.

The void gobbled him up rather than softly enveloping his mind. It even took a few seconds for him to manifest as his avatar, leaving his mind disconnected and stuck in place at first. Sleeping pills of that caliber, he concluded, made for a terrifying experience.

Four nebulous bubbles appeared around him. He didn’t even wait for these proto stages to develop into actual dreams, which might have taken several minutes.

He reached into the bubbles, using a link nested within the scape, and shouted repeatedly “You’re all dreaming. Snap out of it. We’re on a mission.”

One by one he saw the boys pop into existence as avatars within their foggy, little zones. He reached in and pulled them out individually, starting with Aron.

The American boy’s avatar was in his pajamas while Ren’s wore casual, practical clothing. Junior had chosen a suit and Baekho looked like he was going to the beach. For the first time Minhyun realized that he himself always put the same comfy jeans-sweater-combo on his own avatar.

 “So this is the scape,” Junior said, looking around. “Kind of like an inverse night sky, I’d say. All white except for the dimmer, flickering spots in all directions.”

“Wait, haven’t you already seen it?” Baekho asked. “I remember Minhyun saying you found him while he was walking around here.”

Junior used the de facto lack of gravity for some elaborate spinning. “Nope. Never been here. I had to wait until he wandered into my dream. If I could come here by my lonesome once he constructs the place, I’d have tranced instead of drugging myself to sleep like the rest of you.”

“Alright listen,” Minhyun said, “I have no clue how the mechanics of this place work once I’m not close to you anymore. If you manage to cross the edge of the scape you might just start dreaming or you might wake up. Or perhaps there is no edge. Maybe we’ll find out. Rule number one, don’t enter any dreams. Looking in from the outside is fine, though. Rule number two, keep your eyes out for anyone who’s moving between dreams, but this is mostly an attempt to figure out how to approach the search, rather than the actual search.”

“Rule number three,” Junior said, with a smile, “No Conmotes, Ren.”

The empath glared. “Oh you little-“

“Hey,” Aron said, ”can we get started? The first thing we have to do is come up with a search pattern. The second thing is, well, search.”

Junior rubbed his chin in a playful ‘thinking’ gesture. “Hm, this space is three dimensional. That complicates things.”

“Not really,” Minhyun said.

“Yes, really. That complicates things massively.”

The dream-walker shook his head. “No, I mean, it’s not really three dimensional. It's a disk. The dreams are sorted in clusters and bundles that are distributed across a certain thickness. But there comes a point where there are no more dreams along one axis. Were probably seeing all the ones above and below right now. The scape is only infinite to the sides. Although it might wrap around like the earth. That’s kind of my hypothesis. Distances usually correspond roughly. Like, two dreams right next to each other means those people share a bed.”

“Then we can use two-dee search patterns,” Junior said. “Spiral makes no sense, because we’re looking for something arbitrarily far away. Zone search doesn’t work because we have no predefined area. Same thing with grid.”

“We just spread out then?” Baekho said with a shrug. “There’s not even a point in making sure we’re not looking at the same spot twice because she might be hidden inside a dream when we pass by.”

Minhyun hadn’t even thought of that. He really needed to figure out if there was a way to survey more of the scape at once. Some kind of beacon? Or sensors? Things only existed as long as he paid attention to them. That was an unfortunate consequence of lucidity power.

“Fine,” Minhyun said, “Might was well go around at random. You can move faster by using a vehicle. Oh right, Baekho, Junior, you’ve never been here. You can have anything you want by thinking of it. Good luck. I’ll keep us linked, think out loud if there’s something to report.”

Baekho pulled an apple out of nothing to test his power and looked quite pleased with himself. Ren whispered to Junior, “Who made Hyunnie the leader here?”

Minhyun ignored the comment, summoned his trusty helicopter and picked a direction. Behind him, the others spread out.

***

He estimated they were about one real world hour in. So far, nothing.

They moved in straight lines, in waves, in spirals. Every now and then Minhyun checked back but no one had anything interesting to report. He had taken a moment to test if there was any light source he could summon that penetrated the eventual fade out. He was beginning to think that the area he couldn’t see might not even exist. Maybe he wasn’t creating the scape all at once, but dynamically as he moved in it.

Time to check in again. “Anyone seen anything, yet?” he sent into the link.

“Nope,” Ren sent.

“I made myself sunglasses,” Baekho sent, “I can only recommend it. Makes the void much easier on the eyes.”

“I can make really good strawberry flavored gum here,” Aron sent. “Ten out of ten, better than my real powers.”

There was a lengthy pause. Minhyun made sure he hadn’t forgotten to include all of them. But no, the missing boy simply hadn’t said anything. “Junior? What’s up?”

“I’m here,” the leader sent, “I wanted to look at the disk of dreams from above. So I flew up until I could see as much as possible at once. I think the fog might be thinner here. This could be a viable tactic. And…”

“And?”

“Say Minhyun, have you ever noticed that the dreams move?”

“What?”

“They all move in the same direction, very slowly. I had to stay still for a while to see it. I’d like you to come up here and make sure it’s not just me drifting involuntarily.”

This was all new information. He never had a reason to go far above – or below – the scape, so the variable thickness of the fog was precious knowledge. The movement not so much.

“If they all move in the same direction,” he speculated, “could this be the earth’s rotation?”

Junior grunted mentally. “It is a rotation, alright. But there is no curvature in the dream disk. It’s more like a galaxy. I think… the scape has a center. Have you even been there?”