Charlie's first week of training was a blur of faces, rules, and rooms that didn't always stay where he left them.

  The schedule worked like this: students entered the dreamscape, attended sessions, and cycled through subjects until they woke up naturally or got pulled out by an alarm clock. Sometimes you'd "pop out", what the Agents called waking up for thirty seconds, rolling over, and falling right back in. Most nights, Charlie managed three or four sessions before morning. Some nights, he only got one before his body decided it was done sleeping.

  Agent Sharpe taught Manifestation. She was tall, silver-haired, and had the posture of someone who had never slouched a day in her life. "Imagination without belief is smoke," she told them on the first day. "Belief without imagination is a rock. You need both." She made them conjure simple objects like cups, keys, and paper clips. Then she critiqued each one with surgical precision. Charlie's cup kept having too many handles.

  Agent Hellstorm taught Navigation despite his name suggesting something more explosive. He was short, enthusiastic, and bounced on his heels when he got excited. "The compass is your lifeline!" he announced, holding his up like a trophy. "The Fixer made these for a reason. Learn to trust it." He taught them how to read the compass, what the words meant, how to interpret shifts in direction, and how to use it to create doors between dreams. He also taught them what to do if they lost it. "Worst case scenario," he said, suddenly serious. "But you need to know." Charlie liked him.

  Agent Daniels taught Intervention Protocol. She had a soft voice and a greenhouse full of dreams she'd rescued from collapse. "We don't fix dreamers," she said, watering something that purred. "We give them space to fix themselves." Her session was mostly case studies, like what to do when a dreamer was spiraling, when to intervene, and when to step back. Charlie thought about the library. About the man whose proof he'd solved without asking.

  Agent Denten taught Dream Theory and had apparently been teaching it since before the current Director had been installed. He lectured in a monotone about the history of the subconscious pool, the formation of the SCA, and the first recorded cases of bleed. Teddy fell asleep twice. In a dream. Charlie wasn't sure how that worked, but Denten just gave Teddy an appreciative nod both times.

  Agent Grubb taught Shielding. He was nervous, twitchy, and spoke with a slight stammer that made him hard to follow. "B-before the watches we had to use personal shields. If you find yourself without your w-w-watch, you'll need to know how to hold back the b-b-bleed. D-defense is about layers," he said, demonstrating a shield that flickered in and out of existence. "The more you b-believe in your protection, the stronger it holds." Shields were always transparent. Charlie wondered if that meant something.

  Agent Ravia taught Practical Field Work, but that didn't start until second term. "You have to learn to walk before you run," Merlose told him. "And crawl before you walk. And not touch things before you crawl."

  Which left Agent Rasputin.

  Encryption Studies was scheduled for Thursday nights, and by the time Charlie's second Thursday rolled around, he'd heard enough whispered warnings to know it wasn't going to be pleasant.

  The classroom smelled like burnt paper and old secrets. Charlie wasn't sure how a room could smell like secrets, but this one managed it. The walls were lined with diagrams like cross-sections of minds and layers of consciousness rendered in ink. Some of them moved, two shapes circling each other, testing, negotiating. Others were still, frozen at the moment of contact. The before and after of passage.

  Merlose had led Charlie to the training rooms the first night. She had been in her standard uniform, but she had told Charlie to show up in his street clothes. He just needed to adjust his clothes in the liminal space before entering the dream. After that first night, Charlie was able to find his way to the sessions.

  Charlie was apparently early tonight, and the seats were empty.

  He picked one by the window, which featured a battle between a giant lizard and a starship at sunset. Charlie found himself rooting for the lizard.

  Teddy slid into the seat next to him. "I've heard things about this teacher."

  "What things?"

  "Bad things. Mean things. The kind of things where people lower their voices and look over their shoulders." Teddy's leg was bouncing under the desk. "His name is Rasputin. Like the Russian guy who wouldn't die."

  "I don't think that's why he's named that."

  "Probably not. But it doesn't help."

  Gwen sat on Charlie's other side. She didn't say anything, just gave him a small nod and pulled out a notebook that materialized in her hands. She'd been practicing.

  The room filled with other junior agents. Charlie recognized a few faces from Terminal Hypnos. There was the redhead who was friends with Benedita, a boy who didn’t know his own volume, and boy-girl twins who finished each other's sentences before they started. Benedicta Crispin walked in last, Donna and Priya flanking her. She surveyed the room like she was choosing real estate and selected a seat in the front row where she could see everyone and everyone could see her. Donna dropped into the seat beside her. Priya took the one on the other side.

  The door slammed shut on its own.

  Agent Rasputin didn't walk into the room. He was simply there, standing at the front, as if he'd always been there and they'd all been too unobservant to notice.

  He was tall and thin, with the kind of face that looked like it had been designed for disappointment. His hair was black and slicked back, his suit immaculate, his watch the same standard issue as everyone else's, but somehow on him it looked like a sentence.

  "Encryption Studies," he said. His voice was quiet, but it filled every corner of the room. "A misleading name. You will not be picking locks or cracking codes. You will be studying the negotiation that occurs every time two minds brush against each other in the subconscious."

  He let the silence stretch.

  "Encryption is not a wall. It is not a lock. It is a challenge. When one mind approaches another, the approaching mind is presented with a task. Solve the task, and you are granted passage. Fail or refuse, and you remain outside." He tapped one of the diagrams on the wall. Two shapes circled each other, tendrils extending and retracting. "But the task is not designed by the defending mind alone. It is shaped by both parties. The defender presents the challenge. The approacher determines the form."

  Benedicta's hand shot up. "So the encryption adapts to whoever's trying to pass through it?"

  "Precisely, Ms. Crispin." Rasputin gave a nod that bordered on approving. "A chess master approaches a mind, and the encryption may manifest as a chess tournament. A climber might face a cliff. A child afraid of water might find themselves before an endless ocean. The defending mind asks: are you worthy of passage? The approaching mind answers in its own language."

  Teddy raised his hand. "So what happens if someone's really good at everything? Like, what if they're a chess master AND a climber AND…"

  "Then they would face whatever challenge their subconscious deemed most relevant, Mr...." Rasputin glanced at him with the expression of someone noticing a stain on the carpet. "I'm sorry, I don't recall your name."

  "Teddy. Theodore Schreier. Either one works, really, my grandmother calls me…"

  "The question was rhetorical." Rasputin turned away. "As I was saying."

  Teddy's leg stopped bouncing. He stared at his desk.

  "Most encryptions appear as nightmares," Rasputin continued. "Impossible tasks. Monsters. Situations designed to trigger panic and force the intruder to wake up. This is not cruelty. It is protection. The subconscious does not want to be entered. It presents challenges it believes will be refused."

  He gestured at another diagram. This one showed a mind approaching, the challenge manifesting, and then passage. Two consciousnesses overlapping.

  "This is where bleed occurs. When passage is granted, intentionally or otherwise, the boundaries between minds become permeable. Memories leak. Thoughts transfer. Identity begins to blur." He looked at the session. "Can anyone tell me how most natural bleed happens?"

  Gwen's hand rose, hesitant.

  "Miss...?"

  "Gwen, sir. Gwen Holloway."

  "Go on."

  "People solve encryptions without realizing it?"

  "Adequate." He moved on without further comment.

  Gwen's shoulders relaxed slightly. Adequate was apparently good enough.

  "A dreamer wanders too close to another mind," Rasputin continued. "The challenge appears, but it doesn't look like a challenge. It looks like part of their own dream. They climb the ladder. They answer the riddle. They open the door that seemed like it was always there." His voice hardened. "They didn't mean to pass. But their subconscious shook hands with another, and now they're bleeding into each other. They wake up with memories that aren't theirs. Songs they've never heard. Names they've never known. And they have no idea why."

  The room was quiet.

  "Your watches protect you from ambient bleed. They strengthen your own encryption and help you recognize when you're facing someone else's challenge. The Fixer-manifested compass is part of all Agent's field kit and required for every operation. These are how we create doors between subconsciousnesses and navigate. However, watches can be lost, and compasses can be damaged. Sometimes you will need to approach a mind intentionally to help a dreamer whose encryption is failing. In those instances you will need to be able to reinforce boundaries before bleed takes hold."

  He walked between the desks slowly.

  "Which means you need to learn three things. First: how to recognize when you're facing someone else's encryption versus ordinary dream content. Second: how to intentionally refuse a challenge, how to say no to a handshake your subconscious wants to accept. Third: how to strengthen a failing encryption so it presents harder challenges to intruders."

  He stopped at Charlie's desk.

  "Tell me, Brunswick. What did our central encryption look like to you? The collective challenge that protects Terminal Hypnos from intrusion?"

  "I…don't remember," Charlie said. "But the one to the Waste was a room with too many shelves."

  "A puzzle room." Rasputin's voice was flat. "No terror. No impossible task designed to make you refuse."

  "No, sir. Just puzzles."

  "And you solved them."

  "Yes."

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  "Without hesitation. Without recognizing that you were being tested."

  Charlie didn't know what to say to that. It was true.

  "The most secure encryption in human dreaming," Rasputin said, "and you treated it like a rainy afternoon activity." He leaned closer. "Tell me, do you make a habit of wandering into places you don't belong?"

  "I didn't know I wasn't supposed to…"

  "That wasn't the question."

  Charlie felt his face flush. "I guess... yes?"

  "At least you're honest about your shortcomings." Rasputin straightened. "Your mind says yes to every challenge it encounters. That is not a gift. That is an open door in a world full of things that want to walk through it."

  Benedicta raised her hand again. "Sir, could you explain the theory behind adaptive challenge response? I've read some of the literature, but I'd value your perspective on the Marchetti framework."

  Rasputin's expression shifted, something almost like pleasure. "The Marchetti framework. I'm impressed you've encountered it, Ms. Crispin. Most students don't find their way to that material until their second year."

  "My parents recommended it. They said you were the one who convinced the Director to include it in the advanced curriculum."

  "Did they." It wasn't a question, but Rasputin looked satisfied. "Very well. The Marchetti framework suggests that encryption challenges exist on a spectrum of permeability..."

  Charlie stopped listening. He watched Rasputin lecture. He was animated now, engaged, treating Benedicta like a colleague rather than a student. When Benedicta asked follow-up questions, Rasputin answered them fully. When Benedicta offered her own observations, Rasputin considered them seriously.

  It was like watching a completely different teacher.

  Teddy leaned over and whispered, "Is it just me, or does Rasputin really like her?"

  "It's not just you," Charlie whispered back.

  "Cool. I thought maybe I was being paranoid, but I'm not sure I can still be paranoid in here."

  Rasputin's head turned. "Is there something you'd like to share with the session, Mr.... Theodore?"

  "Teddy. And no, sir. Sorry, sir."

  "Then perhaps you could demonstrate the refusal technique I mentioned earlier. Stand up."

  Teddy stood. His hands were shaking.

  Rasputin conjured something, a shimmer in the air that resolved into a door. Simple, wooden, slightly ajar. "Behind this door is something you want. I won't tell you what. Your subconscious already knows. All you have to do is refuse to open it."

  Teddy stared at the door. His hand twitched.

  "Refuse, Mr. Theodore."

  "I'm trying."

  "Try harder."

  Teddy's hand rose, almost against his will. He grabbed his own wrist with his other hand, pulling it back.

  "The door wants you to open it," Rasputin said. "Your mind wants to know what's behind it. This is how encryption works. It offers, and you accept. Your job is to refuse."

  Teddy was sweating now. The door seemed to lean toward him.

  "I can't…" Teddy's hand lunged for the handle.

  "Then you fail."

  The door vanished. Teddy stumbled to the floor, breathing hard. Benedicta laughed as Teddy picked himself up. Donna joined in louder. Priya smirked.

  "Sit down, Mr. Theodore. We'll try again when you've developed some basic self-control."

  Teddy sat. He didn't look at anyone.

  Charlie felt anger rise in his chest. Teddy hadn't done anything wrong. He'd tried. The door had been specifically designed to tempt him.

  "Something to say, Brunswick?"

  Charlie realized his hands were clenched. "No, sir."

  "Good. Because I was about to ask you to demonstrate as well." Rasputin conjured another door. This one was different. It was covered in puzzle pieces, patterns swirling across its surface. "Let's see if you can refuse something that speaks your language."

  Charlie stood. The door was beautiful. Every piece fit into the next in ways that made sense, that clicked, that wanted to be completed. He could see the solution already. Just push here, and turn there, and…

  "Refuse it, Brunswick."

  Charlie's hand stopped an inch from the door. He tried to pull it back. His arm didn't want to move.

  "Your mind is saying yes. Tell it no."

  Charlie thought about Teddy's face at the humiliation. Rasputin's casual cruelty and Benedicta's laugh.

  The door flickered but didn't vanish. The patterns kept swirling, inviting.

  "Again," Rasputin said. "Refuse it again and again. Until it stops asking."

  Charlie stared at the door. He could only think about the laughs at Teddy's expense. He thought of Tyler Maddox and all the kids who laughed at him when he couldn't think of the right thing to say. This was his chance to make them stop laughing.

  He found himself furious at the door for existing. For trying to make people laugh at him. He forgot about the eyes in the room and just focused on how much he hated the door.

  Then it shattered, and the session was silent. Rasputin studied the space where the door had been. His expression was unreadable.

  "You used your emotions to withstand it. That won't work outside Terminal Hypnos," he said finally. "You make angry decisions or ones based on fear out there, and you endanger what we do in here. Like tunneling into the Waste blind." The last part had enough venom that even Charlie could track it. "Sit down, Brunswick."

  Charlie sat. His hands were still shaking.

  The rest of the session passed in theory. Rasputin lectured on encryption recognition. Something about how to spot the telltale shimmer at the edge of a challenge and the subtle wrongness that indicated you were facing another mind's test rather than your own dream content. He called on Benedicta twice more, praising her answers. He ignored Teddy entirely. He asked Gwen one question, accepted her correct response with a nod, and moved on.

  When session ended, the other students filed out. Teddy was first through the door, not looking back.

  "I should go check on him," Gwen said quietly to Charlie. "He's probably spiraling."

  "Yeah," Charlie said. "Let's go."

  They found Teddy sitting on a bench outside, methodically eating a cupcake he'd manifested. Then another. Then another.

  "I'm fine," he said, not looking at them. "I'm totally fine. This is just stress eating. Empty calories." He paused. "Get it?"

  Gwen rolled her eyes and sat on one side of him. Charlie couldn't help but smile as he sat on the other side.

  "Rasputin's a jerk," Charlie said.

  "He's not wrong, though. I couldn't do it. I couldn't refuse a stupid door."

  "Neither could I. Not at first."

  "You shattered it."

  "Because I got mad."

  Teddy almost smiled. "Speaking of mad, Rasputin almost blew his top. It was kind of amazing."

  "He seemed fine to me," Charlie replied.

  "Guys like that don't yell when they're mad. They say mean things instead. He was livid," Teddy explained.

  "Benedicta didn't get tested at all," Gwen said. "Funny how that works."

  "Benedicta's parents probably play golf with Rasputin," Teddy muttered. "Dream golf. On a dream golf course. With dream polo shirts."

  Charlie laughed. Gwen's mouth twitched.

  "We should get to the next session," she said.

  "What's next?" Charlie asked.

  "Navigation. Agent Hellstorm."

  Teddy perked up slightly. "I like him. He's actually nice."

  "Compared to Rasputin," Gwen said, "an angry badger in a tie would be nice."

  Charlie smiled. "I'm sure someone could dream that up."

  Hellstorm's session was a relief. He spent the hour teaching them compass calibration, how to read the subtle shifts in direction, and what it meant when the word on the face changed from FORWARD to WAIT. "The compass knows things you don't," he said, tapping his own. "Your job is to listen."

  Charlie's compass kept pointing at Teddy for some reason. Both Hellstorm and Gwen thought that was hilarious.

  "Means you're tethered," he explained. "Happens sometimes with new agents. Your subconscious has decided he's safe. Useful in the field, actually. If you get separated, you can find each other."

  Teddy looked genuinely touched. "That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me all night."

  "The bar is low," Gwen said. "But still. It's sweet."

  By the time the session ended, Charlie felt almost normal. Or whatever passed for normal in a place where the hallways sometimes rearranged themselves and soft serve had a flavor called "Friday Nights."

  Charlie had told Gwen and Teddy he was going to meet with his handler, and assumed that meant goodbye. He was surprised when they walked with him through the ever-shifting corridors.

  "You don't have to come," Charlie said.

  "We know," Gwen said.

  "So why are you?"

  "Because Harwick is on assignment again," Teddy replied, talking about his handler.

  "And Leon told me I'm only allowed to check in once a week." Gwen's handler was about the laziest dreamer Charlie could imagine.

  "Plus, you didn't ask us to leave," Teddy said. "That's like an invitation. A passive invitation. My therapist says I need to get better at recognizing those."

  "Does your therapist know you're a dream agent?" Gwen asked.

  "No, but she'd probably say it explains a lot." Teddy manifested a cupcake and bit into it. "Also, I don't want to go back to the break area. Benedicta's there."

  "She's always there," Gwen said. "I think she just stands in the middle of the room waiting for people to notice her."

  "That tracks."

  Charlie glanced at Gwen. She walked with her arms crossed, notebook tucked under one elbow. She'd been quiet most of the day. Quieter than usual, which was saying something.

  "You okay?" he asked.

  "Fine."

  "You've been fine a lot today."

  "I'm a very fine person." She didn't look at him. "You know how I popped out during Navigation?"

  She had faded to nothing at one point, but then came back in from the hallway a minute later.

  "I ran into Rasputin when I popped back in. I still haven't gotten the hang of coming back to my original spot, which is obviously annoying. Anyway, he said my answers tonight were 'technically correct but lacked conviction.'"

  "That's not even an insult," Teddy said. "That's just words arranged to sound mean."

  "It felt like an insult."

  "Everything feels like an insult from him. He could say 'good morning' and it would sound like he was disappointed it was just one sun."

  Gwen pressed her lips together.

  "That means she's fighting a smile," Teddy translated for Charlie.

  They turned a corner, and the corridor shifted, stretching longer than it should have been. Charlie had stopped being surprised by that. The architecture here had opinions about where you were going, and sometimes it disagreed with you.

  "Can I ask you something?" Teddy asked Charlie.

  "I'm not sure how to stop you."

  "Why do you say that? Harwick says that too. Is it a thing people say?"

  "It's a thing people say to you specifically," Gwen said. "Because you always ask anyway."

  "Fair point. Okay, so..." Teddy finished his cupcake. "When you shattered that door in Rasputin's session. What did it feel like?"

  Charlie thought about it. "Angry, I guess."

  "Angry at the door?"

  "Angry at him. For what he did to you." He left out the part about the kids from his school.

  Teddy stopped walking. Charlie and Gwen stopped too.

  "Wait," Teddy said. "You shattered an impossible training construct because you were mad about me?"

  "I don't think it was impossible."

  "It was a little impossible," Gwen said. "I saw Rasputin's face. He didn't expect that."

  "Nobody expects that," Teddy said. "That's like. That's a lot." He looked at Charlie with an expression Charlie couldn't quite read. "Nobody's ever broken a door for me before."

  "I can say the same. I'm sure Gwen could, too. Is it that big a deal?"

  "It was medium-big. About this big." Teddy held his hands about six inches apart and started walking again. "I'm going to remember that. Just so you know. It's going in the file."

  "What file?"

  "The mental file of people who don't suck. It's a short file. Very exclusive."

  "I'm honored?"

  "You should be. Gwen's in there, too."

  "I'm aware," Gwen said. "You've told me four times this week."

  "Repetition builds trust."

  "Repetition builds annoyance."

  They found Merlose in the terminal's south corridor, sitting at a small table near a window that looked out on a thunderstorm made of colors Charlie didn't have names for. She wasn't alone. Another agent sat across from her, a woman with short gray hair and a face that looked like it had stopped being surprised by anything a long time ago.

  They were talking in low voices. Charlie would have walked right up, but Teddy grabbed his arm.

  "Wait," Teddy whispered. "Listen."

  "That's eavesdropping," Gwen said.

  "That's intelligence gathering. Are you a Junior Agent of the SCA or what?"

  Charlie wasn't sure that's what defined being an Agent, even a Junior one, but he stopped anyway. Merlose's voice carried just enough.

  "…thirty three more this month. All in the Pacific Northwest cluster. The pattern's accelerating."

  "Could be coincidence," the other agent said.

  "Maybe, but the three experienced encryption specialists on top of that says something's changing. Sleeper Agents don't just wander into absorption by coincidence, Vance. Someone's feeding them bad intel. Or the Hive's gotten better at hunting."

  "You think there's a leak?"

  Merlose was quiet for a moment. "I think something's changed. The Hive's never stopped, but it hasn't been this hungry in years. Now suddenly they're active again, and it started right around the time…"

  She stopped. Looked up and saw Charlie.

  Her expression shifted, something complicated that came and went before Charlie could read it.

  "Brunswick. Schreier. Holloway." She gestured at the empty chairs. "Pull up a seat. Agent Vance was just leaving."

  Vance looked at the three of them, then at Merlose. Something passed between them.

  "We'll continue this later," Vance said, standing. She nodded at the kids and walked away.

  Merlose watched her go, then turned back to them with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "How was Rasputin?"

  "He's a jerk," Teddy said.

  "That's the general consensus, yes."

  "What were you talking about?" Charlie asked.

  "Work stuff. Boring."

  "It didn't sound boring."

  Merlose's smile stayed fixed. "Lots of things sound more interesting than they are. That's lesson one of being an Agent, most of the job is paperwork and waiting around." She spread her hands over herself as if to say voila.

  "You said the Hive," Charlie pressed. "You said they're active again. What does that mean?"

  "It means things I'm not going to discuss with Junior Agents who've been in the program for less than a week." Her voice was light, but there was a wall behind it. "You've got enough to worry about. Focus on your sessions. Learn to refuse a door. Master the compass. The rest will come when it comes."

  "But…"

  "Charlie." She said it gently, but it was final. "Trust me. Some things you're better off not knowing until you're ready to know them."

  Teddy and Gwen exchanged a look. Charlie wanted to push harder, but he recognized the expression on Merlose's face. It was the same one his grandfather got when Charlie asked about what happened to his parents.

  Some doors stayed closed for a reason.

  "Fine," he said.

  "Good." Merlose stood. "Now. Who's hungry? The cafeteria's serving something that claims to be pizza. I make no guarantees about accuracy."

  "I still can't believe we need a cafeteria," Gwen said.

  "Brain food," Merlose replied with a smile.

  "Is that a…"

  "Yes, Charlie, that was a joke." He was surprised that it wasn't Merlose responding, but Gwen and Teddy simultaneously.

  They followed her toward the food, but Charlie looked back once at the window where she'd been sitting. The colorful thunderstorm raged on, silent behind the glass.

  It started right around the time…

  Right around the time, what?

  He didn't ask, but he didn't forget either.