Betrayal

'The loud combustion of the Mustang's engine resembled the roar of a mighty lion. Its speed accelerates beyond Mach 5. And most importantly, it is the proud creation of the genius inventor- Maximus Rimley!' Max shouted, his enthusiasm was unmatched and uncontested by Arven and Slinx.

Slinx felt his body shaking intensely. He knew almost nothing about this mission they had been assigned. Where were they going? Who did they need to find to retrieve the ring? What even does the ring look like? The more he gave the mission thought, the more questions popped up. Right now, he needed more answers. Arven sat quietly next to him, he claimed not to know anything more than Slinx. That made Slinx even more curious, how could he be so calm at a time like this when so much was unknown?

There was a second reason why Slinx felt tense.

'How am I going to steal the ring from the UDA?'

The guards did seem quite laid back in the vault where they stored the other ring. But the UDA were not ordinary folk, they had an arsenal of dream weapons and talented ariki users at their command. How far would a brat like himself get before one of the Six started summoning rocket missiles and firing at him?

Slinx let out a long sigh, stared at his palm and started to concentrate.

'A key… a key…. A key!'

For a second in his palm, he felt the formation of a construct slowly developing. But when he opened his palm, what solid he felt had already lost shape and slowly disintegrated into dust.

'Slinx! Arven! Were you paying attention to me? Come on! Respect your elders man! Put your heads up and look around!'

Slinx looked up, they were crossing a rocky terrain along a highway built on a steep slope. Beneath them was a cliff over several hundred metres high, by squinting his eyes Slinx could just barely see a cluster of buildings that resembled a small town. Beyond that were densely grown forests stretching approximately a couple dozen kilometres. At the edges of the horizon, you could see the sea glimmering as it reflected the beaming sunlight.

'Fun fact! It's actually always dawn at this part of dreamland. We don't need the sun to sustain life here in Dreamland, so this one we made is literally just for decoration!'

'The UDA made the sun!?' Slinx was in shock,

'Well someone in the UDA, not the current board,' explained Arven, 'In my humble opinion, some of the recent board members have been major disappointments…'

'Who you calling a disappointment Arven!? Need I remind you that you wouldn't be on the board without me? Man, do teachers not get enough credit these days! And for the record, I definitely could make a better sun than that with my scientific knowledge and Ariki levels…'

Max kept on talking and made no sign of stopping soon. Slinx looked at him nervously and silently listened. Arven rolled his eyes and rested his face on his palm, letting out a long, weary sigh.

The car eventually arrived at Dreamapolis and entered the usually empty streets. There was an unusual amount of 'Sleepyheads' gathering in the area. 'Sleepyheads' was Max's unofficial term to describe non-lucid dreamers, everyone else used the official term 'Autopilots'. But having spent so much time around Max and being forced to listen to him talk for long periods, 'Sleepyheads' was the term that naturally came to mind for Slinx as he made his observation.

'Must be a particularly restless night for the world, way more Sleepy…' Arven paused his sentence halfway as if he realised he had said something wrong. 'This is bad, with this many autopilots roaming this area we might cause unnecessary casualties if the operation goes badly.'

'Don't you worry Arven o'boy, you've got your beloved sensei with you today.' Max said with a cunning smile, 'Slinx, you just watch and learn this time. If our intel is right, Arven and I will already be overkill for the target.' 

Max slowly decelerated the Mustang as they approached the autopilots, he skillfully manoeuvred the vehicle around them and signalled something to Arven. Arven took out a smartphone and observed the metrics shown. 

'What's the reading?' Asked Max.

'Within a 200-metre radius, we're getting closer… take a left turn and then head straight.'

Max drifted the vehicle towards the left.

'Jackpot, there's our guy.' said Max.

A hundred metres ahead was a man glowing with a luminescent purple. He was laughing somewhat like a maniac as he frantically brandished his hands. His movements left a trail of sparkling ash in its wake, with objects of varying shapes and sizes appearing out of it and falling to the ground around the man. 

Slinx observed the man's face: Besides a prominent birthmark on his left cheek, the man looked no more peculiar than the average autopiloting dreamer. But the man's eyes differed from the other autopilots: Instead of the hazy, inattentive gaze that characterised the autopilots, his eyes were wide open with his pupils dilated, as if he was trying to perceive as much of his surroundings as possible. 

Max brought the Mustang to a stop. Arven was about to get off when Max gestured to wait. Arven scoffed.

'How weak do you think I am? I don't need your protection anymore Max! Have I not proved myself enough in the past year!?'

'Let me do this Arven, we don't know for sure if this man is a new awakener for sure.'

Arven frowned and made a grunt, he then started to roll his eyes and gestured at Max to be gone.

'Aww, I knew you'd let me show off.' teased Max. Max hopped out of the car and approached the man head-on.

The man paid little attention to Max's approach. He cackled ruthlessly at the top of his lungs, creating a cacophony of menacing laughter and the occasional choking and coughing sound.

When Max was around 2 meters away from him, the man's eyes finally shifted their focus onto the confronting stranger.

'Do I know you scrum?! Haa ha ha ha ha! You're probably one of those mindless zombies wandering around, you probably can't even hear me!' said the man, 'You better… plooof!'

Max's fist sank into the man's abdomen, an uppercut strike so clean you could almost see the tailwinds from its movement. The man was sent flying out for meters.

'Let's skip the courtesies and get straight into business. My name is Max and under the authority of the United Dream Alliance I demand that you hand over the ring that you unlawfully possess.' 

Max walked towards the man with his hands in front of his face, a mysterious aura of light emerged from his hands and soon covered his whole body.

'You dirty piece of scum! I'll make you pay for that!' the fallen man raised his arm and pointed at Max, the light around him converged into his palm.

'Fire!' 

Slinx was not entirely sure of the next sequence of events that followed. He heard a loud gunshot coming from the man. And almost simultaneously, he vaguely heard Max say the word 'deconstruct'. When his vision finally caught up with the aftermath, Slinx saw Max standing right in front of the man. The man had dropped onto his knees with his jaw dropped.

'Hu… Hu… How?' 

'You're much weaker than what we expected. That bullet was not going to pierce me even if I didn't deconstruct it. I guess they were right.' Max grabbed the man's shirt by the collar, lifting him to his eye level.

'But that leaves us with an even bigger question: How did you, a pathetic, half-witted, bug-eating peabrain get a ring in the first place?' 

The man tried to struggle his way out of Max's grip, but it was futile.

'Oh don't even bother escaping, your Ariki level is so low I bet the puppets I made yesterday could beat you unconscious. Don't worry though, we don't harm civilians, even the lowly narcissistic ones. Most likely we keep you for a day or two in the lab, wipe your memories clean and let you go back to your life.'

Light emerged from Max's palms again, this time creating a chain that tightly wrapped around the man's body. Max proceeded to slide the ring off the man's hand.

'Alright, mission accomplished. Let's head back gang!' 

Slinx stared at Max, Max was putting the ring into his front pocket.

Slinx thought about pickpocketing the ring, but the risks were too high and would not buy him enough time to escape. 

He had to ask for the ring. But that was an even more difficult ploy to pull off, there were not many excuses that sounded convincing enough for Max to trust the UDA's newest recruit with such an important item. All this scheming was making Slinx's head hurt, the more he put thought into the plan the clearer it was that perhaps the best move was to not steal the ring and betray a powerful authority commanding hundreds of garrisons. 

And then the image of Cavina pops into Slinx's head, and suddenly he feels as if there was nothing to be afraid of in the first place. 

'I want to see you again. Because you have made me happier than I have ever been.'

'And if it means betraying the world to feel that happiness again, so be it.' 

Max hopped back into the car and started the engine. Slinx reached for his pocket and took out a tiny device.

'Woohoo! Another day, another glorious tale of Sir Maximus Rimley to be told!' Max yelled. He stomped onto the petal, the engine roared in response and accelerated its pace.

'This is why I hate going on missions with you.' Arven commented.

The ride back was not so different from the departing ride. Max self-proclaimed the role of "Radio host" and resumed accounting the time he almost dated the cutest UDA girl right after dumping the second cutest (according to his unofficial ranking of UDA employee's attractiveness scale). 

'But even if I did end up dating her, I probably wouldn't be any happier.'

'Yeah? Wow…' Arven was not interested but knew better than to try to stop Max.

'Because after so long, she still lives in my heart.' 

The sudden words of limerence caught Slinx off guard. For a second, Max had his attention, an unexpected bond hinting towards empathy for Slinx's misfortunes.

'Should I tell you guys the story? Nah, now is not the time for that. Anyways!'

With that Max returned to his beaming persona. Arven made himself some earplugs and started reading a book. Disappointed, Slinx stared into the distance, toying with the device he hid in his palm, tapping to keep count of every 10th tree they passed.

Eventually, they once again reached the cliff region. 

'And that's how you turn two dollars into a thousand bucks!' Max said.

'Max? Can I take a look at the ring?' Slinx asked. 'I've heard that each ring is a bit different, do they give the users different abilities?' 

Max laughed, 'I sure hope they do! Nah, it looks fancier than what it's worth. Wearing one of these doesn't automatically turn you into a god. Sure, it awakens the autopilots to become lucid dreamers, but besides that, it doesn't do much.' Max revealed the ring in his pocket. The ring looked no different from any ordinary accessory, the glowing purple aura that it displayed had now faded away.

'Can I examine it a little closer?' Slinx asked.

Max took his eyes off the wheel and looked at Slinx, his eyebrows lowered and strained.

'Why do you need to see it? It's just a normal ring I told you.'

'Look out!'

A huge boulder had tumbled down the mountain and headed straight towards them. 

Max hit the brakes. The vehicle is brought to a sudden stop.

Inertia sends Slinx and Arven flying out of their seats, they get catapulted out towards the cliff.

Max attempts to grab both. But he has himself to worry about, he has one hand on the wheel.

With his other, he grabs hold of Arven.

'You fool!' Arven yells.

Max catches a glimpse of Slinx, Slinx is wearing a parachute.

Slinx gives the parachute a jerk, it opens and thrusts him upwards.

By the time Max realised what was happening, Slinx was already halfway down the cliff.

'Look at what you did! This is all your fault! Now we have to go save Slinx!' Arven said.

'Save? I'm pretty sure this is exactly what Slinx wanted. Honestly, I'm impressed that he managed to pull that off. The guy could hardly make a working battery a few days ago, but now look at him with his fancy parachute and elaborate escape plan.'

'Escape? What are you…' and then it hit Arven.

'Are you saying Slinx is betraying us?' Arven asked.

'No points, too slow.' Max turned both his pockets inside out, nothing was left in them, and the ring was gone.

—----------------------

It took him a while to untangle himself from the hanging parachute, but eventually, Slinx was on his foot again sprinting as fast as he could. The dense growth of vegetation blocked most sunlight from reaching down, it was hardly visible but got better as Slinx's vision adapted to his surroundings.

He still cannot believe he pulled it off. Slinx had studied all day about the mechanism behind the parachute, watching video explainers and books to ensure he had every detail mastered. He did not know if it was possible to die in a dream, but he was certainly not going to risk that.

After several more minutes of sprinting, Slinx slowed his pace into a hurried walk, and when that was too exhausting a dire drag. The dense underbrush was gradually turning into sparsely spaced shrubs, and the dim light was slowly but surely reuniting with the shining rays of the artificial sun.

Now that he was out of the forest, all that was left to do was to meet up with Walder, give him the rings, and continue his blissful adventures with Cavina. No more of this UDA and ring crap.

'So why exactly do you want the ring?'

The familiar voice made Slinx's heart skip a beat, he spun his head towards the direction of the voice.

Max was standing there, he looked calm and unfazed.

'Ho… How?' Slinx's jaw dropped wide open, his body lost balance and toppled on the floor.

'Doesn't matter Slinx, you should be the one answering here.' Max took a few steps forward, and not a single muscle on his face moved.

'You knew this would get you into a lot of trouble, and you also knew how incredibly unlikely it was for you to succeed. And yet you still did it, why?' 

'Stay back!' With the last bit of strength, Slinx conjured a bow and arrow. 'I didn't want to use this.'

'That's not a threat to me Slinx.' Max said calmly. 'You remembered what I said to that man back in Dreamapolis?'

'Slinx, right now you are weakened and tired. Anything you conjure will not have the same levels of Ariki imbued into it as you may have hoped.' Max peered at the arrow, 'Hmm… that arrow is no more durable than cotton candy.' Max took another few steps forward.

'I'm serious! I will shoot you!' Slinx warned, his arms and legs were shaking violently and he could hardly aim properly.

'Go ahead. You and I both know this is a waste of time. Now put down that arrow and we can forget any of this ever happened.' Max said, without the slightest sense of emotion in his voice.

'I… I can't…' Slinx's vision was getting blurry, he felt drips of tears ready to slide down his cheeks.

'I want to see her again… and this … this is the only way I can see her again.' His nose started to clog, and Slinx dropped the bow and arrow.

Max stood at point-blank range from Slinx. Max knelt to look Slinx in the eye.

'How important is this person to you?' Max asked.

'More important than anything in the world.' Slinx whimpered.

Max let out a long, weary sigh. And for the first time during the mission, Max fell silent for well over a minute.

Eventually, Max broke the silence, 'I swear if you screw this up, I will never let you see the light of day again.' Max grabbed Slinx by the shirt, the same way he yanked the man up. 

'Now go, or I'll beat you senseless you brat!'

Huh? 

Max was letting him go? 

Slinx did not understand the rationale behind Max's decision, but his body was quick to follow Max's commands. Almost as if he had a jetpack on, Slinx sprinted out of the scene and headed towards Dreamapolis.

When Slinx finally stopped, he realised why he had regained energy so suddenly.

He was, indeed, wearing a jetpack. The letters 'M.R.' were carved onto it.