In DreamNet, the past is 
almost a character of its own. It constantly pulls at many of the older people in the story, most of all DreamNet’s founder, Charles Lenderson. Having been born in 1984, Charles has been witness to many world changing events, and can actually remember a time before the widespread use of the internet and cell phones. Even as he longed for his personal halcyon days of old, he built the product of the future. DreamNet, like other virtual worlds before it, made recreating and capturing the past easier than ever, and yet it’s still not nearly enough for him.
By 2081, the world that we know right now is in the far distance, through a thick fog of forgotten details, and the events that have yet to happen are only marginally more ingrained in memory. The days of the Panic, in which the ice caps rapidly melted over several years and inundated coastal cities across the world. The Three Flashes of nuclear detonations in the Middle East. The short-lived but bloody reunification war that made two Koreas into one again. The landing on and colonization of Mars. After all of these things have transpired, and a system was created to allow people to share dreams globally, many wonder what will happen next. And Charles, seeking to make history relevant again, may have something in mind.
As scavvers scavenge across the ocean in seek of treasure left behind when the tides come in, patiently waiting for the biggest haul yet once New York City goes under, Charles waits in his lonely penthouse tower, looking for someone to help bring his final plans to fruition. He looks patiently out at the abandoned skyline, and perhaps looks once more at the photograph of his old team in Greenland, operating a dam to block and refreeze water – a dramatic attempt to slow the rising of the water, though not nearly as impressive as the effort Europe underwent to block the Mediterranean Sea.
Ever since then, and haunted by the tragedies and mistakes that stand out in a mostly jovial past, Mr. Lenderson has done everything possible to ensure that he leaves an untarnished legacy behind. And he isn’t done yet.