The Lost Train of Thought Read Online Free

better explain.” Administrator Sandeye looked up to the mezzanine. “Dr. Seymour, will you please stand up.”
    In the back of the second-floor balcony, a pale lab-coated figure tentatively rose. No one sat within five feet of him, for few were the Seemsians who longed to be in the presence of one of the infamous Bed Bugs.
    “Um. Well, you see . . .”
    The technicians whose sole responsibility was to concoct the Nightmares of The World were not known for leaving their laboratory often (if at all) and the disheveled doctor’s voice was quaking uncontrollably.
    “Relax, Dr. Seymour.” Eve Hightower lent some support from down below. “We’re all co-workers here.”
    “Thank you, Your Honor.” The Bed Bug lifted his green visor to reveal bloodshot and sensitive eyes. “When mixing a Dream, we use ingredients especially designed to create a heightened Reality— so the messages, experiences, and visions the recipients receive will stick with them until morning and beyond. The Dream in question, which I believe was a modified #532, is especially difficult to shake because it also includes elements of a Nightmare.”
    “Does that answer your question, Judge Altman?” asked Administrator Sandeye.
    “Oh yes, ma’am,” said the little old lady, who still could not believe she was in the presence of so many Seemsian luminaries (let alone the Second in Command herself). “I believe that about covers it.”
    Administrator Sandeye nodded and turned to the rest of the tribunal. “I would only ask that the court consider leniency in this case.”
    “Your request is duly noted for the record, ” Judge Alvin Torte coldly nodded to the stenographer, who was tasked with keeping track of every syllable in every trial. “But leniency is more of an issue for sentencing.”
    Whispers rippled through the press box, which was over-flowing with Wordsmiths and reporters from the Daily Plan. Judge Torte was known to be a strict constructionist when it came to interpreting the Plan, which was why most experts believed he would come down hard on the side of a guilty verdict. But if the defendant was worried on the inside, he didn’t show it. Fixer Drane sat expressionless on the stand, taking notes and waiting for Torte to continue.
    “What I’d like to get are some opinions about the defendant’s wanton disregard for the Rules, especially when it comes to the subject of his younger brother.”
    Torte, of course, was speaking of Fixer Drane’s alleged violation of another sacred Seemsian law: the Keep Your Mouth Shut Rule. 5. Upon his acceptance as a Candidate at the Institute for Fixing & Repair, Becker had been granted a semi-exemption of this clause, because he was only ten years old at the time and still living at home with his parents. This gave him the freedom to tell tall tales and bedtime stories about The Seems to Benjamin, who was often troubled by deep-seated fears and unanswerable questions.
    But last summer, when Benjamin stumbled upon two identical versions of his brother— the real Becker and the inflatable Tool known as a Me-’2™—no mere semi-exception to the Keep Your Mouth Shut Rule would do.
    “Zis is an outrage!” A flamboyant figure with smears of paint and Ingenuity all over his smock jumped to his feet in the eighteenth row. “I have had ze personal pleasure of instructing Benjamin Drane, and I tell you, ze boy is a natural!”
    Figarro Mastrioni, the famed Maestro of Sunset Strip, was perhaps the greatest artiste to ever grace The World’s sky at dawn or dusk. He also owed Fixer Drane a favor, which he was happy to repay by giving Benjamin art lessons.
    “Someday zis Benjamin will make ze sky itself weep!”
    “This isn’t about Benjamin Drane’s talent as an artist, sir,” Torte replied from his place on the bench. “You of all people should know better than to disclose the secrets of The Seems to someone who hasn’t been vetted by Human Resources!”
    “Bureaucrats in their ivory