I came into lucidity amid the a scattering of half-translucent scenes and 'sets' for dreams - what we'd started to call the surface dream. Unwounded, dressed usually... and no rifle. I couldn't decide if that was good or not. I wandered a bit, turning over different memories of the week, until one of the 'apartment' bits around me closed in and solidified. I opened the door, and took a moment to lean on the door jamb, looking down at the main hall of my new memory palace.
In my sketches, I'd taken the body of St. Paul's Basilica, a church I'd visited for a number of fancy weddings as a child, and placed it as my entrance hall, putting my current apartment up where the organ pipes would have been. On the floor below, in place of the benches, were the floors of a gym, a dojo, and several tables from the main hall of a gun show I'd visited shortly after turning eighteen. I could see the cat wandering among them.
Walking down the stairs, though, I saw that all the rifles were duplicates of the one I'd held only a few nights past - what I now knew to be a Browning Automatic Rifle.
Interspersed with those were the sidearm Mrs. Krenski typically imagined her husband to have carried, the M1917 revolver. A few minutes on the internet can solve a lot of research issues; tonight, I knew the proper names. Even if the memories weren't mine, and weren't even real memories, I knew these guns would work. I took a pair of pistols. Their presence might not be a great sign, but still.
My name is Unna.
I spun, but couldn't see anyone.
You already know that I am the one speaking to you. I have no patience to watch you pretend to yourself that you do not.
Well, the cat was sitting on the floor, looking at me.
"Okay. You're talking to me. Your name is Unna."
Better. I have chosen to speak, to tell you to use my proper name. And to say that you should not deal with the big man. Lie. Tell him you cannot get him what he wants. Hide.
"Why? No taste for crime?"
He serves the enemies of your kind. I cannot easily say more than that.
"It's kind of already set, Ulla. We'll end up tangled up with him even more if we don't do it. One sale, and done."
I think you are wrong, but make your own mistakes, if you must. It is possible that what you say is true.
"Uh, thanks, I guess? Anyway... Why are you with me? Following me, showing up with me, you know."
Because you are not here for greed.
"Okaaay. But why me, then? Gina and Ray are..."
Yes. Greed. Different guises, but greed is greed. They are having-people and getting-people; they may be generous even as they are greedy, but to them, all the world is made of things to be possessed. It is a human sickness. If they were otherwise, my brothers and sisters might have favoured them, too. But you only want to look to a wider horizon. This makes you an acceptable companion for me, however flawed you may be in other respects.
So it was a cat, after all. Little snobs.
"And what's the trade? You go where I go, and you get?"
One day, perhaps, we will go to Ulthar, and I will show you off to my brothers and sisters. Or to Celephais, where none but humans and their tribes may go, and you can invite me within.
"Those are places, here? And... Tribes?"
They are places, though far from here. Another night, we will speak of them. Your tribe, now - they are the people of your mind. The reflections you carry.
"Reflections of what?"
Not of what. Of who. What would Gina say if you told her you were talking to a cat?
And as I considered my response, Gina stood up from behind one of the tables and moved to speak. I held out a hand, quickly, and she froze in place.
"Like the people in Edith's pillar."
And the one that you took from there, who lives in you now. Hold his weapon! Then let him rush forward, but you stay where you are.
I picked up the rifle, and imagined Abe charging forward - and he rushed out from me, scouting alertly, and then spun to face me. Again, I held up a hand, and he froze. I stepped up to him, and he flickered out of being as I took the rifle. Turning, again, I saw that the Gina I had called up had also vanished.
You begin to understand. Now, we should find your friend Ray, and give the Abraham to him.
"What? But I thought you were just showing me how to use him."
Nonsense. I was showing you how to call him up. Keeping such things, that is not your talent. Though I'm sure if you keep hold of those smaller weapons, you will retain just enough of an echo to use them.
"Well, that's... Wait, what do you mean? What is my talent, then?"
I told you. You are an acceptable companion. Though I forbid you from telling them about my ability to speak to you. Do you understand?
"I kind of wasn't planning on it, unless you really insisted."
Perfect. Now, shall we go?
"Only if you want Ray to know that something's up. I wouldn't be keeping myself lucid without you here, would I? Never mind going out."
True enough. Tomorrow night, then.
Moments after, the night turned to haze, and I remember nothing more of it.
