The Dream Catcher Diaries
by
Alexander Patrick
The Dream Catcher Diaries
Text copyright 2013 © Alexander Patrick
All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be re-produced, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without written permission from the author.
The Dream Catcher Diaries
Everyone has a story to tell and this is the story of Matrix – the Dream Catcher.
It begins in 2012 in a small cottage hospital in the Scottish Highlands. A boy with yellow eyes is born – destined to be an outcast – a god – a devil – Matrix. A man who will suffer more than any man and who will lead a revolution to free people like him from institutional abuse and murder.
Matrix can read your heart, steal your dreams and make them into your darkest nightmares. This is his promise: no more secrets; no more lies; we share each other’s reality; your reality is now mine – and mine is yours.
He promised us his truth and gave it to us in his autobiography The Matrix Solution, except it was not the complete story.
Now at last, the Dream Catcher speaks out and we finally understand the truth behind The Matrix Solution and what happened in that Bristol warehouse in June 2047.
These are the Dream Catcher Diaries.
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Foreword
Everyone has a story to tell and one of the most famous of our time is the story of The Matrix Solution, first published in 2040. It sold in its millions until it was banned by the state. It is a book most of you will have read and all of you will have heard of. This is the book loved and revered by us all, because this is our story, the story of the substrata.
The life of Matrix is surrounded by myths and legends, and for many years his story has been debated in the media, but what is the truth? Matrix promised you his reality, but in the end, The Matrix Solution only ever gave you part of that reality. The Dream Catcher Diaries has put this right. Before, identities had to be hidden, people had to be protected. Now it no longer matters. This, at last, is his story in full. Nothing has been hidden and all has been revealed. We have here the true story of what happened that night in Bristol, the night of the Final Reckoning, of what happened beneath the surface of The Matrix Solution and after its publication.
Many people have agreed to contribute to these diaries in the interest of setting the record straight. Many friends and family have chosen to speak out. We have not found it easy. It has been a painful journey for us all, but one that had to be taken.
When I was asked to write the foreword to this very special book, I was at first flattered and then scared witless. Who was I to write words for such a publication? I know very little about words. I am an ignorant man who as a child spent little time at school – but then I thought again. There are few people who have known and loved this man as I have done. I may have little education, but I do have belief. From the first time I met Alexander, on that Devon beach so long ago, I knew I was meeting my saviour, my personal saviour and that of the world as well.
You doubt my word? All I can say is that he was the first and only person to believe in me. He believed when everyone around him told him the truth about who I was and what I was capable of. It never stopped him from reaching out to me. He believed I was better than I really was and he forced me to live up to that myth.
So why shouldn’t I have believed in him?
He saved me.
His story is the story of one person and of everyone. That is his secret. He is unique and universal at the same time. He is the Dream Catcher.
This is your book; read it, enjoy it, cherish it. Pass the word on to those who cannot read. You know what the word is. The word is hope. It is all we have, hold on to it and believe.
Steve Carter, September 2091
Table of Contents
Foreword
Prologue
Death of a Dream Catcher
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
The Matrix Solution
by
Jamie Cameron
Introduction
Part One
The Dream Catcher sleeps
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Part Two
Bràithreachas
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Part Three
The Matrix Worm
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Part Four
The Discard Revolution
Chapter 8
1
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Appendix 1
Code names and pronunciation guide
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Prologue
When I was a child, I used to sit with my brother and watch our favourite programme on the media known as television. The programme, a cartoon, was called ‘The Adventures of Nelson Fuller!!!’ – with no fewer than three exclamation marks in the title. The name of the hero was especially notable for me since it was a man named Fuller who proved to be my nemesis.
I move too far ahead. I only mention it now as it serves to remind me how ironic life can be. Anyway, Nelson Fuller was a small boy with large blue eyes and spiky blonde hair who, despite being born in a wonderful castle, had been thrown on to hard times by cruel fate, and was battling the world’s problems alone. The chief cause of his problems was the super villain, Matrix. Matrix was wicked and spent every episode trying out new methods to conquer the Earth – and sometimes even the Universe. Luckily for our hero, though, Matrix was not only evil but also rather stupid and tended to fall for the most obvious ploys and plot constructions imaginable. Not that such literary critique entered our juvenile heads at the time; we were rooting for Nelson at every turn.
Matrix was an ugly villain. He had a twisted mouth, missing teeth and a black sprawling scar shaped like a spider’s web that traced from the corner of his right eye, covering and disfiguring his right cheek. Not surprisingly, perhaps, Matrix hated to be reminded of this scar – which he was of course in every episode – and everyone had plenty of spiteful nicknames for him: Scar Face, Spider Mug, Web Features, that sort of thing. Not that any of them ever had the courage to say so to his face. No, they all invariably cowered before him and called him Matrix. All except our hero, Nelson, who stood up to him in every episode and called him Scar Face. He was very brave and we all loved him for it.
However, the most horrifying thing about Matrix was not the scar, although this was bad enough. No, Matrix was terrifying because of his eyes. He had terrible eyes. They were a bright, luminous yellow, a colour that only a cartoon can truly create. They shone sickly golden and could look right through buildings, objects and people. These x-ray eyes were used to devastatingly evil effects and caused our hero no end of problems. He was certainly bad news for the world, and who knows what we would all have done had it not been for Nelson Fuller, our small, plucky, blonde, blue-eyed hero.
I wish I could state at this point that I was Nelson Fuller and that as a child I had emulated his heroic life, but I can’t – hands up, I have to admit to it right now. I am not Nelson Fuller, quite the opposite in fact.
I am Matrix.
Death of a Dream Catcher
Chapter 1
June 2047
At a disused warehouse in Bristol
The General stood next to me. I was naked, dumb and covered in blood. A look of disbelief crossed his face as he surveyed the carnage around him.
We were standing in a cold disused warehouse on a deserted industrial wasteland. The room was dim and full of shadows. Porta lights were hanging from rotting, discoloured beams and sitting on cluttered, dirty shelves, casting their light across the tall, narrow room in zigzag shapes. The place was filthy; it smelt damp, stale and cold. We were standing in a world from yesterday overcome by today’s smells: the smell of death, blood, urine and a rich cocktail of drugs and whisky. I could smell it all; it lingered in my nostrils and clung to my skin, a touch of remembered pain. The warehouse may have been a mouldering, run-down building but it had kept its secrets of the past few days. Its walls had kept in the sounds of my screams; no one had heard.
‘You’ve killed them all!’ he whispered, gazing around him as he did so.
I nodded and smiled.
‘Shit,’ he muttered. He glanced back at me; then, gently he prised the gun from my hand. I didn’t want to let it go. He took my hand in his and slowly unclenched my fingers from around the gun. He passed it across to Sweeney, who was standing next to him with his mouth slightly open. Sweeney looked at the gun. ‘Dispose of it now,’ whispered the General. Sweeney jumped into action and ran out of the room.
Someone came up behind me and began to dress me. They took a bandage and wrapped the wound in my side. ‘He needs a doctor,’ a voice from somewhere in the room said. Sounds were beginning to drift into and out of focus.
‘Do the minimum; we’re getting him home to Simeon,’ said another voice.
I pointed to a body huddled on the ground.
The General crossed the floor and fell to his knees. Slowly he turned the corpse over. He said nothing as the battered face of a much-loved younger brother gazed sightlessly up. The General was a man who rarely showed emotion, but he did now, tears streamed down his face, silent tears, heavy and wet. He stood up and looked at me and I knew, at last, that he understood.
***********************
I am Matrix. It’s not my real name. My real name is Alexander James Patrick, but Matrix is a name that has stuck with me for as far back as I can remember. I have always hated the nickname. I don’t know anyone who would like to be named after a cartoon super villain – especially one as stupid and ugly as Matrix – but the name was given to me as far back as infant school. The other kids would shout at me: ‘Hey, Matrix, when are you going to conquer the world?’ or ‘Seen any naked women recently, Matrix?’
Naked women did not feature in the cartoon, but childish minds had easily and quickly leapt to the possibility of the sexual uses that x-ray eyes could pose. I was taunted constantly, unremittingly and without mercy. Other children didn’t want to make friends with me and shunned my company. They scrawled cruel names on my books and belongings and were quick to sideline me in the playground, all because I looked different to them – all because I looked like some stupid cartoon character.
The worst of it was that not only did I look like Matrix but so did my father. In truth, he looked even more like him than I did at the time. I came to resemble Matrix when I grew older, but as a child I had only one thing in common with him – well two things to be precise: my eyes. My father had the same eyes and he also had the scars to match. However, he wasn’t at my school and adults didn’t go around calling him Matrix – though they did call him Scar Face.
I digress. I have yellow eyes; kind people call them golden; they are in fact bright yellow. They are startling in their intensity and completely unnatural looking, so unnatural in fact that most strangers enquire whether I am wearing contact lenses.
When I look at people, it doesn’t appear that I am looking at them, more staring through them. The stare is so odd and blank that on first meeting me, people think I am blind. This is an added complication since my brother is blind, and so when strangers come to visit they think I am Davey. Davey, meanwhile, sits back in his silent oblivion letting me take all the pity for being blind. When this mistake is pointed out to these hapless strangers, they look at me as if I have deliberately conned them. They then turn away and apologise profusely to Davey for not realising that he was the blind one. They are told kindly, but firmly, not to worry since Davey is deaf as well as blind and so has not been offended at all. The strangers usually leave in a huff at this stage, feeling they have been deliberately made to look stupid. My mother would always shake her head and say, ‘Ah w
ell, not to worry, they probably didn’t really need much help in that direction anyway.’
As you can imagine, our family didn’t have many friends.
My eyes now, of course, are pretty well buggered. Life has not been kind to them, and I have had my fair share of blindness, so much so that if I were now to meet those people who felt duped back then, they would feel much better about their mistakes. But, at the time, my eyes, though strange to look at, were fine.
They have never been perfect. I have what is called Hynes’ Syndrome, a condition I inherited from my father. It is a kind of pigment deficiency, something like albinism, and very rare. My father was the first in our family to have it, and I was the second. It is more prevalent in males, although females are not immune. Sadly, all my sons have it, but my eldest brother did not. Hynes’ Syndrome is characterised by the yellow or orange colour of the eyes and sensitivity to sunlight. I struggle in bright lights: the pain can be intense and so I need to wear sunglasses. I also need to apply special medicated eye drops to compensate for my poor tear ducts. Failure to keep my eyes artificially lubricated results in irritation and a sensation of grittiness in the eyes. I have weak vision in dim light and I have difficulty in tracking fast moving objects. The latter meant that I struggled with sports at school since I often couldn’t see the ball if it was moving at speed – which didn’t help my credibility at all. If I could have at least done that, it might have compensated for my odd appearance.
I spent most of my youth wearing cool sunglasses when meeting and chatting up girls, but that moment always had to arrive, that dreaded moment, when I had to take those sunglasses off. Then, I would get the startled look, the disbelief and the questions, the same inane questions. I had one girlfriend who never saw me with my sunglasses off. It was one hot summer. It was wonderful. I even made love to her wearing those sunglasses. She was not too bright; she was, however, very beautiful.
The name Matrix followed me from childhood and infant school to high school. New sets of people didn’t seem to make any difference. When I finally made it to university it was there, like an unwanted friend waiting for me – and oh how I hated it. I just wanted to be Alexander, the name chosen for me by my parents, a real name, not a name dreamt up by some half-baked cartoonist in America. The name, in the end, defined me. It defined who I was and what I became. If I am really evil – and there are many who say that I am – then blame the name. I was damned from the beginning.