"Those are all good questions," Samir replied, turning his own Sideband over in his hands and not rising to Danny's annoyance. Indeed, it seemed to bother the lanky man very little, the only hint at his temper being the subtle tightening of his jaw.
"We are doing orientation, Daniel, precisely because if we do not, you'll all be useless to me. Knowing how to work the Sidebands is critical to our work, and knowing what we are supposed to be doing is critical to catching the unsub. If you want to run out blindly waving your pistol, I'll kindly take your badge now."
He was quiet a moment before clearing his throat.
"Now, as for the kidnappings, the children are being taken somewhere between when they leave school and before they get home. This suggests the killer watches them for awhile beforehand, knowing who has parents that wait at the bus stop and who doesn't. Most of the kidnappings are taking place along the east side; neighborhood quality seems to be middle and low income, people who can't afford to stay home enough to pick up the kid or wait for them--"
Samir stopped abruptly, turning to look at Jonathan as the parts of the Sideband floated in front of him.
"Put it.back.together," Samir ground out, his voice like tectonic plates grating past each other. "Now."
Taking a deep breath and repeating a silent prayer for sanity, Samir regained most of his formerly cheerful demeanor.
"As for partners, we all work together unless, in very specific circumstances, we have to split up. This is not kindergarten, we aren't working in pairs. The parents do know the TCPD is cooperating with local police. And our parts in this, as I just explained, are to catch the killer. Now, if we're all done having outbursts, reading, and taking apart very expensive department equipment, we are going to run our first dreamspace to give you all a feel for how it works. Once inside you'll receive further details on how to navigate. For now, here are the basics:
Together, you each use your different psychic powers to construct the environment I'll run. Telepaths gather the information needed to construct it, ESPers create the environment, Telekinetics help create (and bend) physics, and Mediums allow for interface with semi-sentient personality shard in the spaces as well as the transport of consciousnesses into the space. Once the bands allow you to sync, they will help you continue doing this automatically once you are in the dreamspace.
This automation is important because of the relatively fragile nature of dreams. Once the dreamer knows they're dreaming, they wake up, and being in the space when the subject wakes up forces a restart on the bands, which is uncomfortable at best and dangerous at worst. What that means for us is that we can't interact with the space in ways it isn't meant to. You can't go around grabbing people and smashing walls and acting like a bull in a china shop. You have to play by the rules of the environment, or you risk destroying the whole thing. Ideally we'd train you longer, but time is ticking, after all."
Samir placed the band on his head and sat down, leaning back in his chair.
"Put them on, press the little start button, and relax. Close your eyes, count backwards from ten, and let your powers roam free."
As they counted backwards, they found the lights in the room dimming and flickering. The clock on the wall began to lose its numbers and the writing on the whiteboard ran until it was a muddled, unreadable mess. The floor bowed and they sunk into the white tile like quicksand until they were in total darkness.
Abruptly a yellowish fluorescent light snapped on, humming and trembling in its cracked fixture. They were in the lobby of an apartment complex, and ahead were three doors. One was a grate-style elevator door, one was an apartment door that read "7089" and the final was a bank vault door. Inside the elevator stood a fairly young woman in a bright pink sari, her hands clasped in front of her. She seemed to be waiting patiently for them to help her out of the elevator, but the buttons did nothing to open the door.
"If you can't proceed in an environment, it usually means the subconscious is defending itself. Try looking for a puzzle or clue," she offered, her accent mild and bubbling.
The front reception desk had a pack of "Lucky Strikes", a child's object and hole puzzle with only the square and sphere available, a piece of paper that read "One shot", a baseball bat with a red paint hand print on the top, and an empty pistol.
