Tread Softly, Because You Tread On My Dreams

[Tom Harriman]

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet,
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

- WB Yeats



The book closed with the dull thud of paper, and Tom was forced to stifle a yawn. It wasn't that the literature had bored him to the brink of sleep: more that his nocturnal past times had been robbing him of the proper rest he probably needed. Nothing that a shot of espresso won't cure, he reassured himself, eyes straying to the unblinded window. Daylight was rapidly retreating. It was nearly time.

Wandering absently around his room, he haulled out a duffel bag and began to fill it with what he'd need. Ever since Alice had found out, he'd rethought his antics: reconsidered his choice of clambering full-costume in and out of the appartment windows. While he always took great care to avoid being followed back to the home he shared with Alice, there was always a risk that unsavoury types, or neighbours - or roommates - could catch an unwanted glimpse of him in costume, and place his secret - and Alice - at risk. So instead he took it all with him; left the house dressed like an ordinary guy on his way to the gym; ducked down an alley, climbed up to the roof, and changed there before heading off into the night.

Unfortunately, he wasn't able to leave his gear stowed in his bag; or rather, he didn't feel safe doing so. If anyone started poking around in his room, a duffel full of vigilante gear was going to look mighty suspicious. Sure, if someone turned his room apart they'd probably find the arrows under the false panels in his drawers, the bow tucked under a loose floorboard, or the armour in a hidden cubby underneath the wardrobe. But it wouldn't be easy for him; and if nothing else, that spiteful little fact would probably make him feel better.

Tugging on a jacket and slinging the duffel over his shoulder, he slipped out of his room. The appartment was eerily quiet - it was a Friday, and Alice had slipped out at some ungodly hour for an early start at work; she'd been gone before Tom made it back the previous night, and he'd spent most of the day asleep. He paced across to the kitchen, eyes settling on the dry-wipe board that Alice and he used to exchange messages on the days their paths didn't cross. Her handwriting proclaimed "No milk" - a subtle reminder that it was Tom's turn for a grocery run.

He grabbed the marker pen, and scribbled a response.

Gone to work. Back with shopping later. - Tom x

He frowned at the cross that had appeared unbidden at the end of his note, and smudged it out with a finger. He sighed at himself, stowed the pen back in the pot on top of the fridge and, shrugging the duffel bag to a slightly more comfortable position on his shoulder, headed for the door.

[Tom Harriman]

I always amazed Tom how many cliché places there were around Los Angeles. He'd always sat watching television shows like Charlies Angels or S.W.A.T as a kid and thought: yeah, right - like there are that many alleyways and backstreets in LA.

It had never occurred to him at the time that such shows were actually filmed in the backstreets and backlots of LA, so in fact it made perfect sense. That reality turned out to be to his advantage as he ducked into one such street and, checking around him for anyone watching just in case, clambered up the fire escape and onto the roof.

Minutes later, the vigilante Orion descended into the backstreet with considerably more flair and athletic prowess, landing crouched on the ground as if he'd casually hopped down from something a tenth as high. He straightened, gaze sweeping each way down the street. From the direction of the main road, a van appeared. Under normal circumstances Tom would have turned and disappeared; but as he did so, a matching van appeared from that direction as well.

A cold sensation began to twist in the pit of Tom's stomach as he percieved the trap being closed around him. It grew colder still as a set of doors opened, and a pair of generic cop show extras clad in military fatigues stepped out of the nearest unmarked van. Tom rolled his shoulders, limbering up, eyes watching the duo intently and yet not turning his back on the van behind.

"You need to come with us," one of the figures announced.

Tom's eyes narrowed. "Do I, now?"

As the pair drew closer, Tom's confusion grew. The pair of advancing figures weren't merely generic: they were near enough identical. Twins? Tom mused. Cute.

"Yes." The voice came from behind him now, the metallic clunks of closing doors signalling that more men had disembarked from the van behind. It's similarity to the first voice was unsettling; as Tom turned, eyes settling on yet another identical face, the feeling only grew worse. "You do."

More figures - quintuplets; octuplets; too many tuplets to count - appeared, calmly spilling out of the back of both vans like the project of some kind of Nissan cloning machine.

"You have two options," one of the meat-slab multiples announced, voice thick with menace.

"The easy way, or the hard way," another chimed in.

Tom felt an eyebrow arch up his face. "TV tropes 'r' us, huh?" he muttered; anything to keep up the illusion that he wasn't accidentally bricking himself. To be honest, he wasn't sure what was worse: the prospect of getting snatched off the street by Captain Cloneface here, or the I told you so speech that Alice would be sending his way when she found out.

His hands tightened into fists. "And what's the difference."

"The easy way," the first tuplet explained, "Is that I shoot you with a tazer, and we put you in the van."

Tom frowned, seeming to ponder that option for the moment. "And the hard way?"

Another twin chimed in this time. "We all beat the living shit out of you, and then he shoots you with a tazer and puts you in the van."

Nice, his subconscious muttered. Tom's mind raced like a whirlwind. How are you going to get us out of this one?

"I pick option two," he announced, turning to square off against the more threatening tuplet. "As in, to hell with that."

Tom's arms flew forwards palms out, striking Captain Tazer and Captain Cliché square in the chest. His powers added extra force, lifting both clean off the ground and flinging them through the air. More force was directed sidewards as he broke into a run, bursting through the defensive line and charging towards the road, and the van that blocked it.

He leapt, feet catching for a step or two on the windshield as he continued to run, boots thundering against the van roof for a few strides before leaping down onto the alley floor.

He made it nearly three whole paces before two metal darts on cables leapt out from the back of the van, catching him square in the centre of the back, and sent him shuddering to the floor as electricity surged through his veins.

From the van shadows in which he had been lurking, another tuplet emerged, his hand raising to he radio headset by his ear as he regarded Tom's now unconscious form. "Target acquired, sir," he announced. "Bringing him in now."

[Surge]

The first thing Tom Harriman would smell was the wood-grain of the table his face was pressed against. The second would be smoke. Surge turned his face a fraction away from the slumped body before him and exhaled a thin stream of smoke from the corner of his mouth. The quirk in his lips became a smile.

“Rise and shine, Harriman.”

[Tom Harriman]

"I don't have to go to school, mum. I'm thirty-one."

That was the elloquent announcement that heralded Harriman's return to consciousness. Given the uncomfortable way something solid was pressed up against his headache, he really wished he could've stayed in blissful blackout. Things hurt less there, and if his dreams were anything to go by, there was a higher statistical likelihood of sexy gogo dancers.

Instead, he found himself presented with a man whose accent made him sound as out of place in the States as he was. He had that frustrating look about him - vaguely familiar but unspecific, as if Tom maybe recognised him somewhere in the back of his mind, but probably didn't. The amount of thinking that a concept like that required was very much unwelcome, and solicited a faint groan.

Still, it could have been worse: at least this person, whoever he was, wasn't another one of those clones, or whatever they were. It was mildly reassuring to discover that he wasn't in the process of being abducted by the thuggish spawn of octomom. That said, the fact that they knew his name was... alarming.

He realised that some of his vigilante effects - dark glasses, hooded jacket, vambraces - had been removed. He risked a glance downwards, trying to confirm that his trousers were still safely in place and that - hopfully - nothing untoward had happened to him while he was unconscious. The whole train of thought left him decidedly rattled, though hopefully he was still groggy and barely conscious enough that it wouldn't seem out of sorts.

Finally, he turned his eyes directly to his apparent captor. "In sixty seconds," he explained, voice slow and calculated, carrying as much confidence as he could instill within it given the circumstances, "My powers are going to send this desk flying across the room, with your face attached to it. I doubt it will do me any good as far as escape is concerned, but I'm sure it'll make me feel a whole lot better."

His eyes narrowed. "You have until then to convince me why I shouldn't."

[Surge]

“I know who you are, Tom, and I know what you can do. I wouldn't be sitting here casually smoking this cigarette if I didn't think I could handle anything you could throw at me, including the table – but if you want to go for round two with Joe, by all means...”

With another smile, he gestured over Harriman's shoulder. A team of Joe's stood on watchful guard, openly armed and looking just bored enough to consider violence a viable way to spend the rest of the day.

“You remember Joe, don't you? It's not often he gets to use the taser so I'm sure he'd be happy to accommodate whatever wilful stupid you can throw his way. Alternatively, we can skip the pissing contest and get down to the meat of the matter. What do you say, Tom?”

[Tom Harriman]

It took a level of self control that Tom didn't even realise he had to stop his fist from flying out and smacking this guy in his smarmy, smiling face. He'd even sussed out a way that he could use High and Mighty and the table as projectiles to take out three, maybe four of the Joes in his initial salvo; maybe a couple more if he got enough time to grab the chairs before they opened fire. Granted, it'd leave him completely out in the open with no cover, and there was no way he'd be able to deflect shots incoming from those left standing, but he'd sure as hell feel a lot better for having tried.

Except, well, he'd sort of promised Alice that he wouldn't go taking any stupid risks that might get him killed. Technically, this wasn't a risk - death was pretty much a sure-fire certainty; but somehow, he doubted his roommate would see it that way.

Tom leaned forward across the table, his fingers interlacing as his voice dropped to a confident, conspiratory half-whisper. "The smoking tough guy routine may have been cool back in your day, Old Man, but us young people generally respond better to people who don't hide behind their brainless minions like a little girl."

He leaned back in his chair, and offered the Old Man his most self-assured smile. "But hey, if you feel the need to compensate for something by having an army that can grow to infinate size, I suppose I shouldn't judge."

A wink almost followed, but an uncharacteristic moment of restraint stopped Tom from resorting to such cheesy measures. "So," he said, with a sigh. "What's this about? Did you bored of playing with your GI Joe collection, and decide to kidnap Action Man?"