Dreams Unleashed Read Online Free PDF Page A

feel," she responded.
    "We both complain, but then we don't want to stand up to the council."
    "I know, we should be ashamed of ourselves." She winked.
    "Whenever people start talking about shame, that's when I exit stage left," I commented, bagging my groceries in my cloth bag.
    "Bye, hon," Summer offered with a wave of her hand.
    Driving up to my house this beautiful spring day, I admired how the tulips, which lined my driveway, had come into bloom. After three years, the bulbs had finally matured into big Pacific Northwest-sized tulips.
    Who would've ever known that Washington would be one of the best places in America to grow tulips?
    I loved that tulips were full of vibrancy and classic shape, and for a few short weeks, they were full of living perfection. After planting nearly a hundred of them when I first moved to Bellingham, I hoped that an explosion of color would ease my culture shock from my coast-to-coast move.
    As I left my BYD in the driveway, I looked up at the house and was grateful that this home, with its Craftsman style, had nurtured me in this new place. I loved that it was built with classic architecture, along with the new generation of SmartWired home computer technology. I felt that my home was my friend, an ally and a protector.
    As Lulu and I left the car and walked up the steps, the front door unlocked and opened automatically, using face recognition technology installed near the front door. Lulu ran in the door to drink water from her pet fountain, then to play with her toys.
    She loves our home as much as I do , I thought.
    As I moved through the door and into the open foyer, the front door automatically closed behind me. The lights turned on as I entered each zone. In the kitchen, I unloaded everything from the Co-Op onto the counter.
    "Hello, Sinéad. New age mix," I said, addressing my SmartWired home computer.
    I decided to call the home's computer Sinéad, in honor of Sinéad O'Connor. I was nineteen years old when the Irish musician's biggest CD, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got , was released, and after attending her concert, I was hooked by the power and passion of the petite artist. Of course, Sinéad's independent personality also appealed to me. Whenever I felt powerless, I would play O'Connor's music to rejuvenate my spirit and remind me that I had purpose.
    Naming my SmartWired home Sinéad, in the spirit of rebellion and independence, seemed right to me. SmartWired technology did have an ugly reality: it allowed the U.S. government to track its citizens. In 2015, being tracked by anyone in the government never turned out well for the individual. So the day that I closed on my house, and before moving in a week later, I had some help from an alternative repairman from the underground.
     
     

Chapter 4
    SHANGHAI, CHINA
    The Year 2015
     
     
    I landed at Shanghai Pudong International airport at one thirty-five PM on Tuesday for my meeting with the turbine manufacturer.
    "Twenty-three hours in a coach seat. What could be more awful?" I muttered.
    Only three hours into the flight, while I was attempting to sleep, a seemingly feeble old woman from a few rows ahead sauntered toward me and snatched the airline's mini-pillow from beneath my head.
    Before I could protest the loss, the old woman leaned into my face and slurred the raspy whisky words, "I need this more than you do."
    Repulsed by her pungent elder spittle, I sarcastically whispered, "Now isn't this terrific," and wiped my moist face as the drunken magician returned to her seat.
    I was fuming and considered alerting a flight attendant, but then I remembered that an air marshal was likely on board and would probably enjoy restraining me. I could see him saying, "Go ahead, make my day." These days it was a very bad idea to make a big deal of anything while a mile high. So I sucked it up, swallowed my anger, and found it impossible to sleep during the next twenty hours of the transatlantic flight. Back and forth I slid and