Free The Land Beyond All Dreams by Bryan Fields

others like me come in. We’re here to help.”
    “Why would you help me?”
    Roberts looked off to the side for a moment. “I dated the most wonderful woman I’ve ever known while I was going to college. She had dark red hair, streaked with metallic gold. My wife once loved a woman with emerald green hair. We’re together because we can talk about them, because we accept we’ll always be in love with those women, and because we keep the same secrets for these women.
    “As wonderful as they are, they’re arrogant. They’re forgetful, and they don’t respect what we are capable of. They make mistakes, and when that happens, somebody has to clean up the mess. I’m one of those somebodies.”
    “Fine,” I said. “I’m glad to know you’re out there if we need you. However, Loseitall has nothing to do with them. This mess is not of their making. Sorry.”
    “No matter,” he said. “That number will reach me any time, day or night, if you need to tell me something.” He opened the door and shook my hand. “Thank you for your time.”
    “My pleasure.” I released his hand. “Take care, Agent Roberts.”
    “John Roberts is just a name on some paper,” he replied. “Call me Ishmael.” He shrugged his coat on and headed for the elevators.
    Watching him walk away, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. I’d never thought about what life would be like after Rose left. The truth is, I’d been programmed not to. The Dragons had worked out all possible scenarios and taken steps to counter them long ago. The logical thing to do when a Dragoness’ time on Earth was over would be to wipe her Human lover’s memory, and command them never to speak of what they’d learned. They didn’t do that because they wanted us to maintain a sense of wonder. That was the theory, anyway.
    So, there was a survivor’s club, and it was something the Dragons hadn’t anticipated. I filed that realization away for later exploration. In the meantime, my lawyer had some people from the NIH who wanted to ask me a few more questions. I grabbed a fresh cup of three-hour-old coffee and followed them into the conference room.
    When I got home, Rose had a stack of messages from the news media, and a repair crew replacing our front window. One of my beloved coworkers had delivered a death threat wrapped around a brick. The police had a description of the car and were following up.
    I also had multiple messages from my family, and one message from Carlos Cabeza de la Vaca, chairman of the board and CEO. My family just wanted to know how I was doing. Maybe after talking to Carlos I might have a better answer.
    Carlos picked his cell phone up on the second ring. “I have to say, David, you’ve made a lot of people very unhappy today. I was one of them, but at this point I think you may have saved the company. The news about Grover Page… The idea that someone killed him, took over his life, and had authority over our product… The idea terrifies me. It terrified the board.”
    “It was pretty upsetting for me, too.” I sighed. “Does the board have any news I need to know about?”
    “Yes. They’ve approved an early retirement offer for you. We don’t want to lose you, but it would, well, resolve several issues for the company. Of course, any separation would be your decision. All terms of your separation would be sealed. I’ll send the formal package to your lawyer in the morning. Look it over, talk to your family. Give us an answer as soon as you can.”
    “What if I decide to keep working?”
    “Nothing. No retaliation, but no protection if we have a reduction in force. Which we will.”
    “Fine,” I said. “So, answer one question for me. How much did you know already?”
    “Two incidents had been reported, but both involved other factors. One was using bath salts, and the other had a history of violence. There was no conclusive link to our trial. Once we saw your queries, we knew something else was going on, so we