Page 13 of A Barista's Guide to Love & Larceny
“I don’t really know how to describe it,” Dani said. Meaning she didn’t know how to make it sound valid, like palmistry or an elemental affiliation. “As long as I can remember, people have just opened up to me, but it’s not something I do on purpose. It’s not like they can’t lie or anything; they just give me a little more information than they otherwise might.”
“Or give away their tells without realizing it.”
“Or that, yeah.”
Silva pushed her untouched sandwich to the side so she could lay her clasped hands on the desk. “I’ve never heard of anything quite like this,” she said. “The fact that it’s socasualmakes it all the more interesting to me—and it’s virtually undetectable, unlike a charm.”
“You detected it,” Dani pointed out.
“Ah, but I was on the lookout for curious behaviors,” Silva said. “Most people don’t have any idea what’s happening, do they?”
Dani shook her head.
“They just think you’re easy to talk to.”
Dani lifted one shoulder in a shrug.
“And you have no control over it.”
“I mean, I can tell when it’s happening, but I can’t predict when it will or won’t. But if I change the subject, it can kind of stop the person from saying even more.”
“Quite fascinating,” Silva said. “Passive abilities are exceedingly rare, though not unheard of.” Dani would have liked to hear more about these heard-of cases, but the professor continued. “In any case, I didn’t ask you here because I’d love to study you, though I would. I believe your talent and its near invisibility would be especially suited to the project I’m working on.”
“Okay,” Dani said, with her heart in her throat.Here we go.
“As you know, I’m an oneiromancer, with a particular interest in nightmares—but I’ve also been researching lucid dreaming and how dreamers can exercise control over their dream realms in general.”
She paused like Dani was supposed to say something, but Dani stayed silent. Silva took a breath, then asked, “Have you ever heard of OneiroLabs?”
Dani frowned. “The company with the tallest skyscraper in town? Yeah, kind of hard to miss it. They manufacture dream aids?”
“That’s the one. They’ve made millions off their pharmaceuticals, and they’re getting ready to announce their next big product in December.”
“What is it?” Dani asked, curious despite herself. She’d never taken any of OneiroLabs’s pills, but she knew people swore by them: DreamLite, for dreamless sleep, and DreamRite, for guaranteed sweet dreams. They’d taken the world by storm when they’d first launched a few years ago. Now one of the biggest employers in town, they’d had a booth at the career fair a few weeks ago and regularly recruited interns and fresh grads from Fox’s Leap.
“The full details on the product are forthcoming,” Silva said, “but it’s meant to activate lucid dreaming, allowing the user full comprehension of and control over their dreams.”
“Wow,” Dani said. “That sounds cool, actually.”
“That’s what they’re hoping you’ll say.”
“So it’s too good to be true?”
Silva took in a sharp breath, looking down at her hands for a moment, seemingly trying to decide how much to reveal—or fighting her Dani-generated urge to spill it all. Dani wondered if the professor could actively feel her power. She’d never actually had the chance to talk openly to someone who was on the other end of it. McKenna wasn’t affected by it, and with Dani’s parents, Dani tried to never discuss it, hoping they’d forget it existed—wishful thinking, of course.
But she didn’t want to interrupt, so she shelved that question for later.
When Silva finally spoke, each syllable felt deliberate. “It’s not public knowledge, but things haven’t been going according to plan behind the scenes. They’ve been conducting clinical trials for the past few months, and apparently, it hasn’t been yielding the results they were hoping for.”
“What does that mean?”
“The product isn’t working as intended,” Silva clarified. “I haven’t been able to uncover the specifics, but it seems there’s some kind of side effect they didn’t anticipate. I’m not exactly surprised; lucid dreaming can be dangerous even when not chemically or magically induced. Even so, they’re planning to announce in December and start mass manufacturing in the spring. We’d like to stop that from happening, if the product really does pose a danger to the public.”
“We?”
“My organization,” Silva said carefully. “I didn’t come to Fox’s Leap just to teach. I’ve been sent here to investigate OneiroLabs. They’ve become quite skilled at hiding from regulators, so we decided it’s time to take a different approach.”
“Hold on. You’re telling me you’re some kind of spy?”
