Assigned to bring a plagued man out of the dreamscape intact, Harka finds him living in her very own fantasy.

Harka signed up for the monitor program to get money for a new business. She wants to open a small shop but will have to hire help. Her people skills are crappy.

Her assignment is to go into a man’s mind and keep him distracted until he is healed from a life-threatening plague. She never imagined what she was walking into.

Derin has been asleep for centuries, content to reread the books and reports he archived in his life before the Edinar plague. When the stranger drops in on him, he believes she is a fantasy female, but when she starts cracking jokes, he knows she is far much more than he dreamed.

He doesn’t want to wake.

Excerpt:

Harka waited in the office and fidgeted. She wasn’t used to being immobile, and it made her choice of assignment a little awkward.

One round as a monitor would give her the money she needed to open her own shop. Her savings could only go so far. The injection of cash from the use of her mind for half a year would enable her to buy her shop outright and only have her own meals to earn.

“Monitor Harka Tweel?” A uniformed officer came in to retrieve her.

She bounced to her feet. “That’s me.”

“Your station is ready.”

She nodded and was handed over to the team in the biohazard gear. She had been assured that she would be fine. The plague that infected the Edinar was not known to infect the people of Horalthia. That did not mean that those bringing the infected out of cold sleep were stupid.

Everyone entering the waking arena was wearing biohazard gear. Everyone with the exception of the monitors.

Monitors were volunteers and military personnel trained to insert their minds into that of a sleeping Edinar citizen. The purpose was to keep the Edinar calm during the thawing process and the plague treatment. If they woke too early, they could compromise their treatment or even stress themselves to death.

A Horalthian with the right training could monitor and calm the diseased alien. Harka had opted for the training, and now, she was being put to work.

Station nine was going to be her home. The cryo chamber was already set and her station was pushed into place. The medics settled her in place and attached all the long-term life support that she needed before they sent her into a light coma that freed her mind.

Six months to freedom. Just six months.