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Chapter 3:
The Dream

Agent Passion opened his eyes.
“I must’ve been knocked out. I’m in the same dream, just like last night, and the night before, and the night before, and the night before…” his voice trailed off.
Before him was a wide expanse, curving away at the edges into tumbling, crystal clear cascades. Spongy, luscious green grass brushed playfully at his ankles and small pleasant trees with bushy red leaves dotted the landscape. Rusty colored birds no bigger than house cats darted through the grass, maneuvering their two pairs of shimmering, rainbow wings so that they glided over the ground. They flipped twirled and dived in what looked to be a contest of dominance, given the other female, darker birds watching from a tree and preening. These birds had struck a key with Agent Passion, he loved admiring their great… passion.
He always thought to himself, in his pride, that his subconscious had come up with these birds based on the image of itself.
The sky was a light pink, with white puffy clouds swirled with blue floating lazily around. He had seen these images every night since he had arrived at the shuttle and become an agent, and he had meant to see a psychiatrist. But with the long, complicated, maroon shag hallways that formed the inside of the shuttle, he never really liked going anywhere. It was some sort of bizarre hedge maze, and he didn’t take to it very well.
Another thing, or things, that he always saw were similar waterfall islands like the one he stood open, appearing periodically off into the horizon. But he couldn’t see onto the islands in the air, for they were wrapped lovingly in a cotton candy mist, seemingly a soft but strong defender. He might have puzzled on this, but he wasn’t the inquisitive type, and his little island in this sea of bottomless cascades and pink air was so pleasant. But this time, there was something to interrupt the sameness of this dream. It was a very happy looking man in a yellow suit.
“Agent Bliss! What are you doing in my recurring dream?” Agent Passion called, walking briskly across the grass.
“Enjoying the scenery,” replied Bliss placidly, “and this is my dream. I’m glad you could come.”
“You both are dead wrong,” shouted a feminine voice from behind the two, “this is my recurring dream and you are intruding.”
Bliss and Passion turned to see Agent Excitement walking across the grass toward them.
Passion tilted his head impatiently. “Listen guys, I don’t know why I’m explaining this to creations of my subconscious, but if it wasn’t my dream, could I do this?”
As these words came out of his mouth, he raised his palms to the sky. Two great balls of purple fire blinked into being above his hands. They followed his fingers as Agent Passion brought his hands together in a fist. The purple flame melded to form a giant, flaming and beating heart. The color of the heart changed with every beat; you could get lost in the pulsing rhythm. The agent wrenched his fists apart and the heart blinked away just as it had come.
Passion looked at Agent Excitement tauntingly, daring her to match his display. She did with pleasure. Her hands shot out without a word and flares rocketed from her fingertips. The flares started exploding and crackling into great blossoms of hibiscus and sunflower, poppies and roses, they all flashed for an instant, and then were gone. She didn’t stop there. She kept flinging her arms out until a veritable explosive bouquet lighted the air, whole nurseries unfolded and disappeared. When Agent Excitement finally finished, the smell of roses and hyacinths hung in the air like incense.
Agent Passion might’ve normally been disappointed by being beaten at his own game. But he was so stunned he couldn’t move. The images of a thousand flowers was burned into his eyes, their beauty left a footprint in his mind, one that would take many winds to erase.
The two of them looked to Agent Bliss, to see what he of all people would conjure up. To their surprise, he just stood, hands in his pockets looking up and smiling as usual.
“Aren’t you going to, like, do something?” asked Agent Excitement awkwardly.
In answer, Bliss turned his head to face them. Then he made a little nod up, and returned to staring at the sky. Excitement looked at each other, and then looked up too. They nearly fell backwards out of surprise from what they were seeing.
The pastille pink sky color had changed to a bright lemon yellow. There were two giant black dots to the upper east and west, each positioned miles across from each other across the sky. The dots were as huge as the sun in the noon sky. Down to the south there was a dark arc 5 times the size of the golden gate bridge that stretched from East to south to West, all in one swoop. The three agents looked at the celestial heavens, which had now become, without a noise or rustle, a smiley face of epic proportions.
Slowly the smiley began to disintegrate. It seemed bits were breaking off and floating down. And so they were. Pieces of smile began to plop to the grass, one right before Agent Bliss’s feet. Silently, he bent down and picked up the circular shard tenderly. He held it out for the others to gaze at, and as he turned it to its other side, it became clear what the pieces were. They were little, individual smiley face cookies with yellow frosting for the face and chocolate for the eyes and mouth.
“The sky is falling,” Bliss said softly, so happy his eyes glistened. He raised the cookie to his lips and parted them, taking a bite out of the cookie. Agent Bliss chewed long and swallowed slow. “Happiness is delicious,” he mused, turning again to look at the sky.
Agents Excitement and Passion stood in awe. They too silently took cookies and ate them, just as Bliss had, slowly and carefully. The cookies were amazing. As soon as you bit down, a wave of joy and euphoria rushed down your throat. You chewed more, and if you closed your eyes, you could sense the entire universe’s happiness well as your own, all elated souls poured into a giant pot to mingle and meld. Everything was at peace in that one moment, nothing bad, nothing sinister, and everything was comforting, good, right, and pure. Just like a cookie should be.
Suddenly it was all interrupted by a soft French voice. “Have you ever seen the rain?” it asked.
The three of them, startled looked around. The cookies were gone. To their right, about 10 feet off the ground, a dense blue cloud of smoke hung in the air. On top of it sat a small, lightly built man, only about 5 foot. They could not see him very well, except that he wore a clean white beret. The smoke obscured most of his body.
“Why are you quoting CCR?” called Agent Excitement.
“Am I quoting CCR or did CCR quote me?” The man said abstractedly as his cloud drifted towards them. It slowly touched down and evaporated, leaving the man standing before the four three agents. He wore an impeccably clean, shining white suit and deep, blood red gloves. His shoes were also polished to the maximum, and light seemed to glisten and dance across their surface. He was French, as made obvious by his white beret and accent. He also bore a pointed noise and thin, pink lips topped with a very distinguished black moustache. His hair was in a neat crew cut, with not a hair out of place. His eyebrows were thin and dark, and they seemed to curve in questioningly towards his steely, unrevealing blue eyes. It was also apparent that he was aging, as his hair, moustache, and eyebrows were streaked with grey. This all gave him an air of authority and superiority, even though he was quite the shortest person in the group.
Agent Bliss forgot his question and stared at the man. The man returned the stare with a merciless look of his own, one that dared Bliss to speak.
“Well, are you going to answer my question?” the man asked, irritated.
“No,” said Agent Excitement uneasily.
“But haven’t you already answered?”
“I don’t know.”
“Or do you?”
The man smiled as Agent Excitement withdrew in confusion. The man stroked his moustache with a red gloved hand looking at each member of the group carefully, as if he was a fighter sizing up his opponents. However, he wasn’t given much time, as Agent Passion broke in.
“Who are you?” he asked angrily.
“My name lies within you.”
“Can you at least give us a clue?”
“That was a clue.”
“Fine, can you give us a helpful clue?”
“That was a helpful clue. You just must know how to use it.”
“Okay, can you tell us how to use it then?”
“But that would be giving you the answer.”
“Exactly!”
“Exactly.”
There was a pause in which the man smiled and Passion tried to figure out the past conversation. Agent Bliss shook his head and looked at the small Frenchman in the white suit.
“You are obnoxiously cryptic, dude,” said Agent Bliss with a sigh. Now Agent Bliss paused. All of a sudden his eyes lit up.
“That’s it!” he cried.
“What’s it?” asked the man.
“That’s your name! Obnoxiously Cryptic Dude!” Agent Bliss shouted triumphantly.
“No it’s not, you’re wrong,” said the Frenchman.
Now Agent Passion’s eyes lit up.
“Wait, you just gave us a straight answer!”
“No I didn’t! That wasn’t a straight answer!” he shouted frantically.
“Yes it was and you just gave us another straight answer!” Agent Excitement yelled happily.
“No it wasn’t and shut up!!” yelled the man, very angry.
“Now, I will offer you one real straight answer to one yes or no question. Think long, think hard, for you will only get one answer,” said the man. The blue smoke began to curl about his ankles, swirling like a deep, ancient cauldron. The birds that had been playing around before were now clustered to the side of the island, clearly disrupted.
“Well,” thought Agent Passion aloud, “we could probably squeeze one more answer out of you if we tried.”
“Not this time,” the white suited man said confidently, “I previously underestimated your intellect. That will not happen again.”
Agent Excitement spoke up. “Is this one of those dreams you see in movies and video games where you can’t wake up until you save a princess or defeat a villain or something like that?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Sweet!” she yelled, “I’ve always wanted to have one of those! I wonder what we are going to have to do.”
“Whatever it is, milady,” Passion said suavely, “I will make personally make sure that you remain perfectly out of harms way.”
“Awwww,” giggled Agent Excitement, “You’re no fun at all.” She gave him a playful shove slightly too hard and he stumbled back.
Unfortunately, his foot caught a stump and he startled to fall. Very unfortunately, the stump was right next to the edge of the floating island, and his hand shot out just in time to snag the tall grass. Very, very, unfortunately, waterfalls sprouted from every side of the islands, and soon Agent Passion was soaked to the bone. And, very, very, very unfortunately, the grass gave way, causing Agent Passion to fall. But, in a rare stroke of luck (finally), Agent Passion caught hold of a rocky crag jutting out from the waterfall. He heaved himself up, and clung like a quite unluckily rat as gallon upon gallon of pink water crashed down on him.
“Get me up!” he bellowed, trying to out roar the roaring falls.
Amazingly, Agent Excitement and Agent Passion heard him. “We’ll think of something!” the two yelled down.
“What are we going to do? It’s all my fault,” said Agent Excitement hysterically.
Agent Bliss held up a finger. He positioned his feet shoulder width apart, cracked his neck, and tilted his head to the sky. With a flourish he placed his hands in front of his mouth, parted his lips and reached in. He then withdrew his hand, and between his pinched fingers was a yellow handkerchief. He kept pulling and tied to one end of the first handkerchief was another, and on and on. He kept pulling the yellow cloth squares from his mouth one by one. The rope started to pile up at his feet, but Agent Bliss didn’t stop. Agent Excitement watched wide eyed.
“Whoa,” she said softly as Agent Bliss pulled the last handkerchief out of his mouth. “How did you do that?” she asked in wonderment.
Agent Bliss shrugged. “I don’t really know,” he replied.
“Were lowering a bunch of to you handkerchiefs down to you!” they shouted, tossing down the makeshift rope.
“What!?” shouted Agent Passion back up, heavily confused.
“Just grab hold!’ they yelled back.
Passion looked and saw the rope of yellow linen dangling in front of him. He also noticed that embroidered on each square was a smiley face design.
“You got to love the guy,” he muttered under his breath taking hold of the line with both hands and tugging a few times. Soon he was back upon the grass dripping with pink liquid and looking like a dead fish.
“Need a towel?” asked Agent Bliss helpfully, bundling up the handkerchiefs under his arm.
“I got this one,” Agent Passion answered, closing his eyes and concentrating. Then, slowly, he seemed to catch fire. The flames seemed to pulse just like before, and soon they had flickered away. Agent Passion leapt up energetically. Agent Bliss and Excitement touched his suit, surprised to find it wasn’t wet at all.
“Dry as our 11th grade history teacher,” he said proudly to Agent Bliss.
“Nice,” responded Bliss.
“What are we going to do now?” asked Agent Excitement thinking about how they had to achieve a goal to escape the dream.
“Why don’t you ask Obnoxiously Cryptic Dude?” said Bliss by way of answer. He was fiddling with the string of yellow smiley face cloth and thinking what he was going to do with it now that it served its initial purpose.
Agent Passion looked around, looking fro the small, mysterious Frenchman in the white suit. “Where is that guy anyway?” he wondered.
“Must’ve flown away on his cloud,” assumed Agent Excitement, her hands on her hips.
“Well what are we supposed to do now?” asked Passion to now one in particular, wondering how come he always got stuck in such bizarre situations.
“Hey dudes!” Bliss called.
The two turned to look at their co-agent. He had wrapped the handkerchiefs around his neck many times like a yellow, happy, and highly elaborate scarf.
“Check it out!” Bliss said grinning ear to ear and gesturing to his neck.

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