DreamLife

DreamLife is a technology firm featured in the fifth season of Criminal Case, appearing as a central figure throughout the season.

Gone Pear-Shaped
Shortly into the investigation of iPear founder Paul Gigs, DreamLife founder Rozetta Pierre started promoting her company, claiming that iPear was done for with Paul's death. Later, after arresting Paul's killer, Amir and the player asked Rozetta for tickets for the launch party of DreamLife's new VR game. At the launch party, Rozetta unveiled the new game, which allowed players to shape a world exactly to their dreams. She then introduced everyone to the game's virtual hostess, Juniper.

Murder on the Dance Floor
After arresting Kalua Kaboom's killer, Jones and the player stumbled across DreamLife once again when they learned that Tony Marconi's security company, Hawk Eye Security, was guarding DreamLife's satellite in the middle of the forest. Tony told them that DreamLife had been very hush-hush about the satellite, which caused him to grow suspicious of DreamLife. Jones and the player then confronted Rozetta about hiring Tony's security firm. In doing so, Jones also attempted to bring up the satellite, but his concerns were brushed off by Rozetta.

Buzz Kill
After arresting Beckett Blanton's killer, Amir and the player went to the coworking space where various DreamLife VR players were hanging out and found VR player Annie Schmidt with a VR headset, who (per Martine) was weak and malnourished as she had not eaten in many days. Annie said that she wanted to keep playing the game because she was living her dream life, allowing her to forget her day-to-day real-life obligations, like eating and taking her medication. The team then returned her medication to her, telling her to give the VR game a break. However, she refused to stop playing, which made the team now be aware of the negative effects of DreamLife's VR game.

Downward-Facing Dead
After arresting Scott Morris' killer, Amir alerted Gloria the player to the fact that Rupert, who had grown obsessed with the VR game, had gone missing. After Gloria and the player found Rupert's VR headset in the zen garden outside the yoga studio where Scott was killed, Cathy learned, per the game's code, that the game contained lighting tricks that would make players keep playing. Gloria and the player then interrogated Rozetta about the mind tricks, who feigned innocence and claimed not to know about the lighting tricks.

Game Over
DreamLife became central in this investigation as Juniper, their virtual hostess, was murdered at DreamLife's booth at the Tech Convention by an explosive VR headset. The way Juniper was murdered caused mass controversy with angry VR players who were afraid that their headsets would also explode. Later, after Juniper's killer was arrested, Chief Parker demanded that the team uncovered DreamLife's intentions. Thanks to Tony, Jones and the player learned (per Ramirez) that a mysterious cult called The Higher Truth was also contributing to his security firm's account. Additionally, Alex Turner and the player found a hard drive at DreamLife's office which Cathy was able to use to confirm that the game's lighting glitch was designed on purpose.

After gathering enough evidence against DreamLife, Jones and the player confronted Rozetta, who revealed that she had fired the team who was responsible for developing the game, still claiming that she had nothing to do with developing the glitch. She then said that DreamLife had designed an ending to the faulty game in order to give the players closure. However, before Jones could ask her questions about The Higher Truth, she said that she had no reason to look into her donators. Gabriel and the player were then able to help Rupert quit the game with the game's new ending and help him recover from his obsession.

At the end of the investigation, Chief Parker declared that the team's next move would be to investigate The Higher Truth because of their ties to DreamLife.

The Lost City
After arresting Karen Boulder's killer, Jones and the player talked to Skylar Sage about The Higher Truth. She said that they were followers of The Enlightened One, who supposedly imparted his wisdom gained from The Higher Truth. She also let slip that he talked to his followers in the tea room, so the team went there and found the cult leader's speech. Per Cathy, the fingerprints on the speech were that of Steven Crowe, who the team last met five years prior to the case. They talked to Steven, who said that they believed the messenger of The Higher Truth came in the form of the satellite that crashed in the forest a year prior. Steven denied being connected to DreamLife, claiming that he was beyond "material concerns" before he left in order to meditate.

The Truth Hurts
After arresting Steven Crowe's killer, Gloria and the player went to Steven's room to find out where the cult's money was allocated. There, they found a microchip which (per Cathy) contained the last will and testament of many cult members who pledged their personal assets to DreamLife. After Grayson Rosewater denied knowledge of the scam, the team searched through the victim's room once more and found a surveillance camera with footage of Grayson telling Rozetta Pierre that DreamLife's satellite project would gain enough funding through the cult.

When the team confronted Grayson again, he admitted to being a DreamLife employee. He said that when he discovered the existence of a cult that worshiped the satellite, he joined the cult, easily gained Steven's trust, convinced him to ask his members for money, and simply agreed with Steven's mass suicide plan in order to gain funds for DreamLife. The team then arrested Grayson, with him laughing at the team for thinking the dome was hiding a satellite before he was taken away. The team then tracked down Rozetta, who claimed that she fired Grayson after discovering his inhumane plan to get funds for the company. She also rebuked Grayson’s statement about the dome not hiding a satellite.

Muddying the Waters
After arresting Jordan Coprolite's killer Jones and the player talked to CCN reporter Louis Leroux regarding the satellite crash. He said that when he saw a light streaking across the sky, he rushed to its landing site to film it, but he could not see the satellite as scientists and DreamLife authorities were already closing the area off. He then directed the team to the West Bridge for audio recordings of some interviews from that night. The team found a casette tape, which (per Jasper Everett) proved that the object under the dome was not a satellite.

They then talked to Grayson, who said that he had hidden proof regarding DreamLife's activities near the bridge in exchange for better prison conditions. The team then went to the bridge and found a pile of blueprints, which (per Jasper) proved that DreamLife was hiding a meteorite in order to have exclusive access to it.

Behind These Walls
After arresting Mason Bloom's killer, Tony came and told Gloria and the player that there were plenty of scientists entering and leaving the dome, and that he also got his employees to reveal the flight number of one of them. They found the flight number in the maple orchard, which (per Cathy) belonged to geologist Mortimer Pickering, who attended Oxford University at the same time as Rupert. Upon learning of Mortimer's intentions, Rupert volunteered to impersonate him and infiltrate the dome to gain information on DreamLife, previously learning about geology from Jasper. Chief Parker authorized the plan while the team would look out for Mortimer.

Dead Men Tell No Tales
After arresting Joshua Gibson's killer, Cathy told Jones and the player that Mortimer Pickering's flight arrived ahead of schedule. They looked for him at the pirate bar, where he was last seen, to intercept him before DreamLife got to him. They found his phone, which (per Cathy) proved that Mortimer was staying in the Glitz Hotel and had so far made no contact with DreamLife. They informed Chief Parker about their findings.

Later, Chief Parker told the team to intercept Mortimer at the Glitz Hotel during an upcoming lifetime award ceremony for Celine Dernier.

Light My Fire
After arresting Celine Dernier's killer, Gloria, Rupert, and the player talked to Mortimer in the reading room, where he told Rupert (in a secret language which Mortimer and Rupert made up at the University of Oxford) that DreamLife had given him a bugged device, which was in his bag in the reading room. Rupert and the player found the device, which Cathy modified in order to have the bug disabled and to have Rupert recognized as the device's owner.

Afterwards, they talked to Mortimer, who said that Rozetta Pierre had contacted him to study a "rare geological specimen". He quickly turned suspicious, however, after having to sign various non-disclosure agreements, receiving the bugged device, and hearing from Rozetta that the radiation in the dome was harmless, contrary to what the company had said to the public to keep them off the dome. Afterwards, Mortimer agreed to switching with Rupert while he stayed in the police's witness protection program.

Blood in the Water
After arresting Mayor Martha Price's killer, the DreamLife device informed the team that Mortimer Pickering would be picked up at 6pm that day. Cathy then rigged Rupert's watch to act as a communication device to the team: pressing its crown once would alert the team of his safety and pressing it twice would allow him to make an emergency call to the office. After they told Chief Parker that everything was in place, Gloria told the team that Mortimer had gone to the park. She and the player then found him sightseeing in the park and promptly took him to Rupert so they could perform the switch.

After all the events, Cathy and the player were able to see a DreamLife agent pick Rupert up from the Glitz Hotel to take him to the dome.

Domesday
After Rupert successfully infiltrated DreamLife's dome as Mortimer Pickering, he called Jones and the player about a murder happened under the dome. The team then entered the dome and collected the electrocuted body of manager Fred Drucker from one of its platforms. During the murder investigation, the team flagged several employees of DreamLife as suspects, including Rupert (disguised as Mortimer), the security officer who picked Rupert up previously, Barb Bellamy, scientist Ernesto Vega, dome architect and caretaker Dan Scruffinsky, and CEO Rozetta Pierre.

After collecting enough evidence, the team incarcerated Dan for Fred's murder. Dan explained that Fred threatened to falsely report to Rozetta that he was not doing his job, causing him to get fired and banished from his dome, which he viewed as his creation. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Soon after Dan was taken into custody, Rupert told Jones and the player to take a sample of the meteorite (which was the source of the radiation from under the dome) for analysis. They then took samples from a radiation gauge in the platform, which (per Amir) confirmed that the radiation was extraterrestrial in nature and may even have curative properties. They then went to Dr Vega to talk about the radiation, but he refused to answer any questions.

Meanwhile, Gloria and the player checked Lab 15-J for one more sweep of the dome. There, they found a plaque of CEO Rozetta Pierre and another man celebrating the dome's opening. Per Cathy, the man on the plaque was scientist Kai Gruber, who was interred in the Bromden Psychiatric Hospital. The team then talked to Dr Catherine Kelly, the dome therapist who signed Gruber's transfer to Bromden. Catherine told the team to ask Kai himself about what led him to be interred. After talking to Dr Kelly and taking Kai's lava lamp per her advice, the team talked to Kai, who was paranoid of Rozetta tracking him down and hurting him.

After all the events, Jones and the player talked to CEO Rozetta about their findings, but Rozetta simply told them that all their operations were perfectly legal. And after Jones asked her about Kai, Rozetta explained that he just couldn't handle the pressure.

Later, Rupert contacted the team, only for him to hang up after someone walked into the room he was in. The team then headed to the dome to ensure Rupert's safety.

Things Fall Apart
After losing communication with Rupert, Jones and the player rushed to the dome to ensure Rupert's safety. However, while searching the edge of the dome in the forest to find a way in, the team found Rupert's poisoned body. The team then decided to investigate the murder as Mortimer Pickering's murder instead of Rupert's in order not to attract DreamLife personnel's suspicion. The team suspected three DreamLife employees during the investigation: therapist Catherine Kelly, head security officer Barb Bellamy, and head geologist Philip Hoover; as well as Amir's boyfriend, Jasper Everett, and businessman Tony Marconi.

After collecting enough evidence, the team incarcerated Dr Catherine Kelly for Rupert's murder. Catherine then admitted to the murder and said that she had grown suspicious when the "Mortimer Pickering" who came to the dome did not remember her, as she and the real Pickering were dating in the university of Oxford. After remembering Pickering and Rupert used to switch places with each other in Oxford, she went to Rupert's bedroom to confront him. However, she caught him talking to the police via his watch. She then killed him by lethal gas and was sentenced to life in prison by Judge Powell.

After Catherine was arrested, Gloria and the player searched Rupert's room to find his favorite vinyl record to play at his funeral. There, the team also found a locked safe, where they found Philip's access card to the meteorite lab that Rupert had stolen. However, the lock to the lab (per Cathy) also required Philip's DNA. Jones and the player then talked to Philip to trick him into giving the team his DNA. After Philip revealed that he had eaten a sandwich and left it somewhere in Rupert's workspace, the team managed to find the sandwich there and then sent a sample of Philip's saliva to Martine, who was able to synthesize a DNA spray with Cathy's help in order to simulate Philip's breath. Chief Parker then authorized the team's infiltration into the lab, provided they do it in the dead of night as to not raise suspicion.

That night, Chief Parker told the team to head to DreamLife to infiltrate the meteorite lab.

A Rock and a Hard Place
The night after Rupert's funeral, Jones and the player headed to infiltrate DreamLife's meteorite lab on Chief Parker's orders. However, after successfully sneaking into the meteorite lab, the team found Barb Bellamy, the dome chief of security who was a suspect in two previous murder investigations, decapitated next to the crystal meteorite.

The team was given a twelve-hour investigation period per Judge Powell's negotiation with Rozetta Pierre, who accused Jones of the murder after catching him standing over the body. Besides Rozetta, who was a suspect in the investigation, the team also flagged four other DreamLife employees as suspects, including head geologist Philip Hoover, botanist Wendy Stokes, janitor Cyril Shelwater and lab technician Emilio Fuller.

Despite the time pressure, the team was able to get enough evidence and incarcerate Cyril for the murder. Upon admitting to the murder, Cyril said that he felt that the meteorite had magical powers. The night when Barb was killed, Cyril went to the meteorite lab to hug the meteorite in order to get "transformed" by it, but he was caught by Barb as he was starting the embrace. To stop her from getting in the way, Cyril grabbed a rock saw and decapitated her. Cyril was then sentenced to 20 years in prison with mandatory counseling for Barb's murder.

After Cyril was incarcerated, Gloria and the player found a box of crystals in the meteorite lab where Barb was killed. Per Mortimer Pickering's analysis of a core fragment, the meteorite was made of the (previously theoretical) element Berzelium. However, Mortimer could not explain more to the team about the effect of Berzelium as it did not exist on Earth.

After knowing that lab technician Emilio Fuller was less guarded and more enthusiastic than other DreamLife personnel, Gloria and the player decided to talk to him in order to trick him into telling them more information about the meteorite. When talking with the team, Emilio let slip that they injected a rabbit with Berzelium. The team then searched the meteorite lab and was able to found the rabbit there. After analyzing, Mortimer told the player that the Berzelium had suppressed the rabbit's immune system. Knowing that the meteorite had also been able to heal a plant (per Amir's previous analysis of a radiation sample), Mortimer concluded that Berzelium had two opposing effects: to enhance and to suppress an organism's immune responses.

After all the events, Chief Parker told the team that they needed to find proof of DreamLife's ill intent with the meteorite and that they were not to alert the press regarding their findings under the dome. The team then resolved not to stop before they brought DreamLife down.

Death in My Hand
After former mobster Tony Marconi reported to the team that one of his security guards from Hawk Eye Security, Keith Vaughan, found a body at the lake near the dome. Jones and the player rushed to there and found the body of Dr Ernesto Vega, the scientist who the team met during the murder investigation of manager Fred Drucker, with his skull clobbered in. During the investigation, the team flagged several people as suspects: security guard and ex-member of the street gang The Skulls, Keith Vaughan, reporter Louis Leroux, volunteer and Jones' girlfriend Zoe Kusama, hunter James Savage as well as the firm's food court employee Doris Black.

Mid-investigation, GBPD beat cop Mia Loukas discovered a sewer tunnel which leaded right into the dome while guarding the murder scene. Later, after gaining enough evidence, Jones and the player sorrowfully arrested Zoe for killing Vega.

Much to Jones's disbelief, Zoe confessed straight away, saying that she encountered Vega while she was looking near the dome to try to jog her memories. Upon seeing him, she remembered being strapped down in the lab while Vega was injecting her with various substances, using her as a test subject. Upon confronting him however, Vega only laughed at Zoe, saying nobody would believe a crazy, amnesiac woman. Welling up with anger, Zoe took a nearby rock and bashed Vega in the head until he died. Judge Powell then remanded Zoe in custody, pending a psychiatric evaluation.

After Zoe was incarcerated, her boyfriend, Jones, stormed out of the station, angry over DreamLife's treatment of Zoe, prompting Gloria and the player to go to the lakeside where Vega was killed to look for him. However, the team only found Jones's gun there. Per Rita's analysis, the gun was not fired but it had Tony Marconi's fingerprints on it, which leaded the team to go and talk to him, who said that Jones asked him to orchestrate Zoe's jailbreak. After he refused, Jones drew his gun and Marconi tackled him in retaliation. After their scuffle, Jones went to the security checkpoint, crying revenge. Following Tony's lead, the team went to DreamLife security checkpoint and found a security logbook stating that Hawk Eye Security took Jones into custody. Gloria and the player then talked to Marconi to have his employees release Jones, who apologized for his actions, explaining that the incident had left him a blind rage.

Meanwhile, Zoe divulged her regained memories to Chief Parker and the player. She was grabbed outside the library, shoved inside a black car, and sedated with chloroform before waking up under the dome with the people she was searching for when she was a social worker. All of them were subject to human experimentation, with everyone but her eventually dying. One day when she noticed her straps were loose, she pretended to be sedated then ran when Vega left her. She then found the sewer tunnel and broke the steel bars with a steel barrel, taking papers about the experiments that she lost during her escape.

Chief Parker and the player then went to the tunnel and found the DreamLife documents, which (per Amir) confirmed their findings regarding Berzelium and confirmed that DreamLife was synthesizing a drug called Protozane out of the material, but mentioned nothing of human experimentation. Afterwards, the team petitioned Judge Powell to shut DreamLife down, but she said she needed more evidence than Zoe's testimony to prove the existence of human experimentation and shut DreamLife down.

After all the events, Jones and the player decided to talk to Zoe, who revealed that she did remember that the room where she and other people were experimented on was Lab 88-B. Chief Parker then acquired a warrant to search Lab 88-B for proof of human experimentation.

Trivia

 * Their name and logo seems to be based on that of Dreamcast, a home video game console created by Sega that was available from 1998 to 2001.