Door Number Three by Patrick O'Leary
"Door Number Three" is a psychological narrative that delves into the intriguing intersection of dreams, time travel, and existential dilemmas. The story centers on psychiatrist John Donelly, who encounters Laura, a woman asserting that she has been left on Earth by an extraterrestrial race known as the Holock. Laura claims she has one year to prove her story's truth to someone, or she must depart from Earth. Initially skeptical, Donelly's perspective shifts as he experiences increasingly vivid dreams, which become entangled with real-world events, including the murder of a colleague.
As the plot unfolds, Donelly learns from Saul, who reveals the Holock are not aliens but beings from Earth's post-apocalyptic future, feeding on human dreams to manipulate humanity's ethical development. The narrative escalates as Donelly’s relationship with Laura complicates, leading him to discover her unexpected pregnancy and ties to the Holock. In a bid to rectify the situation and protect humanity's future, Donelly uses a time machine that allows him to navigate his past and future, confronting both government agents and alternate versions of himself. Ultimately, he faces a moral choice that could determine the fate of humanity, raising questions about belief, sacrifice, and the nature of reality.
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Door Number Three
First published: 1995
Type of work: Novel
Time of work: 1990, with parts set in the far future
Locale: The United States
The Story
Psychiatrist John Donelly is treating Laura, a woman who claims to have been left on Earth by the alien Holock. She claims that she has only one year to convince one person—anyone—that her story is true, or she will have to leave Earth. She says that the Holock take great interest in earthly affairs because entering human dreams is their primary form of entertainment. Donelly believes her story is an elaborate delusion, until strange events—and even stranger dreams—invade his mundane existence. His dreams become more vivid, each of them featuring the same ten-year-old boy. One of his colleagues is murdered the same night that Laura strikes him after he tells her he does not believe her. A detective investigating the murder tells Donelly that a Vietnamese soldier he killed during the Vietnam War has begun appearing in his dreams, asking him about Laura and the Holock.
Donelly meets Saul, Laura’s former “guardian angel” and the unwitting progenitor of the Holock. Saul reveals that the Holock come not from space, but from Earth’s own post-holocaust future, and that they devour dreams, preventing humanity’s ethical evolution to ensure their own eventual creation. He also says that Donelly’s child will be the savior of the human race. Donelly sleeps with Laura, who soon reveals her pregnancy and allegiance to the Holock, then disappears into the future.
To set things right, Donelly asks to use Saul’s time machine. This device induces a form of mental time travel that not only causes users to “blip” back and forth throughout their own lifetimes, but generates changes that ripple out into both the past and the future. Donelly soon finds himself on the run from government agents, who have made a deal with the Holock. He eventually tracks down Laura in the future, only to find her living with an alternate version of himself, the self that really slept with Laura, the one he finally agrees to kill in order to save the world and usher in a new golden age, free of the Holock.