“The dream-viewer is almost ready, Dr. Stern.”
“Thank you, Judy. Go ahead and hook up our test subject to the device.”
Marcus Morris squirmed in his restraints, but the tranquilizers were already having an effect on his nervous system, and he felt a little groggy. “Dude, let me go! I don’t wanna be hooked up to no ‘dream-viewer’!”
David Stern looked down at his guinea pig. “This is for the good of the league, Marcus. Consider it a…public service.”
Marcus flinched as a diadem of electrodes was placed upon his head. “Public service my ass! When my agent hears about this…” Before Marcus could finish his threat, his head slumped to the side, neck slackened by the effects of sleep.
Judy, without command, held open Marcus’ eyelids while placing some kind of electronic scanning device over each eye. But, as a curious medical student, she could not contain her questions. “Is this thing safe?”
Stern cackled. “We’re about to find out. Flip the switch!”
Judy pressed a simple button on the side of the large contraption. With a belch of smoke and the cacophonous bleeping of a myriad sensors, the dream-viewer lurched into life. Immediately an image was projected on the device’s small CRT monitor. The dreams of an NBA player were being seen for the first time. Dreams of unimaginable lewdness.
Judy turned bright red. “Uh…”
Watching merely as a scientific observer, Stern was unmoved by the graphic sexual escapades being played out by Marcus’ mind. “Are you taking notes, Judy?”
“Um. Yes,” the intern responded, getting out pen and paper. Scribbling as fast as she could, she mumbled, “Tied to ceiling…harem…Ortega taco sauce…”
Soon, as dreams often do, the scene switched to a different time and place. Now Marcus was playing in an NBA game against an indistinct team. Stern watched with renewed interest. “Pay close attention, Judy. We will soon be gaining insights which had previously been locked behind the closed doors of the human mind. Insights which will be used to manipulate our players, subtly yet effectively…morphing the very neuronal structure of their minds in order to craft a superior basketball-playing specimen.”
Dream-Marcus was attempting to run up the court, but his movements were sluggish, as if he slogged through quicksand. His teammates were yelling at him to hustle. The emotion sensors blinked red and orange: fear and confusion. Finally getting the ball in his possession, he found it to be extremely heavy in his hands. He could hardly lift it to chest-height. Defending the play was an amorphous black player whose attributes were ill-defined; to Marcus, it was the average NBA defender. He hoisted a shot from the top of the key, but the ball barely traveled five feet before hitting the ground. Running back on defense, his brother, Markieff, shouted, “You idiot! Pass the damn ball!”
Now the emotion sensor was blinking blue as well: sadness. In the dream, Marcus was benched, and as he sat down with his teammates, he began to cry.
Abruptly, the image on the screen switched to a large tornado destroying a house. Marcus ran away from the scene in a panic, knowing that his entire family was in that house.
“That’s enough for now, Judy. Power down,” Stern commanded, sparing Marcus any additional mental torment. As Judy shut down the machine, Stern looked down with contempt at the sweaty, slumbering man tied to the examination table.
“What a twisted and vile creature, strong of body, yet weak of mind.”
Hesitantly, Judy asked, “What do you dream about, doctor?”
Stern looked at her coldly and stated in a monotone:
“I do not dream.”