The Golden City

by John Twelve Hawks

“And some of you may ask: ‘Is there any value to privacy?’

  “All new ideas are dependent of some kind of mental privacy—the potential for peace and reflection. The Vast Machine provides information about us and gives the authorities a wide variety of ways to manipulate our thoughts with a subtle power. Everything we hear and see can be shaped to create certain prejudices. Free will—that is, our ability to make real choices about significant issues—becomes an illusion. Gradually, we are surrounded by targeted messages that destroy the opportunity to make own decisions.

  “Freedom of thought isn’t the only value attacked by the culture of surveillance. The Vast Machine also gives governments the power to control our actions. At the beginning of this message, I said that ideology is dead. But a new kind of pernicious nationalism has appeared along with the spread of religious fundamentalism. Both groups want to use the new technology to control their citizens.

  “And an equal danger exists in democracies. Many elected leaders want to restrict freedom because it appears more efficient or simply because they can. Instead of controlling technology, they serve it. Day by day, the Machine gains power over its creators.

  “Some of you have seen the future clearly. For these people, it feels as if we are trapped in a gigantic mall, frightened but hiding our fear, trudging from store to store, carrying objects purchased for some reason—now forgotten. Celebrities appear and disappear on monitor screens while music continues to play.

  “When people believe they have no real power, their only choice becomes what to consume. Our society’s constant emphasis on buying things has nothing to do with the loss of morality. We feel powerful when we buy something, so we are easily manipulated to buy more.

  “I’ve spoken about freedom throughout this message, but for many of us the word has lost its meaning. The faces on television use the word freedom as the justification for war and the expansion of the Vast Machine. The word ‘freedom’ is used to sell airplane tickets and lawn mowers.

  “Freedom is the ability to think, act and express our views. In a free society, our rights are respected as long as they don’t harm others. A political system that allows freedom has validity no matter how you view mankind.

  “If you believe that humanity is greedy, violent and intolerant, then free thought challenges bad leaders and corrupt institutions.

  “If you have a positive view of humanity, then you can see how freedom allows new ideas and technical innovation. Religious and political dictatorships lumber down the road like an old truck spitting out foul exhaust. The entire country can’t turn in a new direction when the scenery begins to change.

  “The Vast Machine carries us toward a world where free thought and the expression of those thoughts becomes difficult—and, sometimes, impossible. And the politics of fear gives our leaders the justification for more control.”

  Gabriel picked up the photographs. “And sometimes, the threat is exaggerated or even false. Here in California, the Evergreen Foundation made fourteen children disappear. But they are alive—and safe—and their story will validate my message. Of course there are real terrorists, and we should defend ourselves against their attacks. But the anthrax incident in Tokyo, the bombings in Paris, and the poisoned food in Australia are events deliberately created to establish a permanent system of control. Look behind the curtain and ask yourself: who really benefits from these changes?

  “Some of us have had enough of fear and manipulation. In the next few days, we will appear in the chambers of power and in the street. Join us. Stand with us. Who speaks for freedom? It’s your choice.”

  43

  P riest switched off the video camera. Gabriel’s face disappeared from the monitor, and few seconds later a message appeared on the screen. Video statement received and recorded. Quality good. I’ll attach the key and send out immediately. My body is captive, but my spirit flies. The Nighthawk.

  The Traveler sighed and pressed his hands against his eyes.

  “You okay, Gabe?”

  “I don’t feel like talking to people. Call Simon Lumbroso and tell him to activate the groups.”

  “Good idea. Then we should find some place to hide.”

  “No. We need to find my brother.” Gabriel got up from the desk. “Boone said that he was staying at the El Dorado Hotel.”

  Priest called Simon as they got back in the car and head north to the beach area. The Traveler was quiet and slumped against the door. He stared out the windshield as patches of street lights glided across this face.

  “What are you going to do when you meet your brother?”

  “Michael will see what happened as a setback, but he won’t give up. The half gods of the Fifth Realm have changed the way he views reality.”

  “Do you want me to kill him?”

  The Traveler looked surprised. “You really have become a Harlequin.”

  “He wants to destroy you, Gabriel. It’s my obligation to keep you alive.”

  “I’m the one who needs to deal with Michael. He’s my brother. We’re connected to each other.”

  The mobile phone rang, and Priest slipped on an ear piece. Simon was calling from Rome. “Tell the Traveler that his message has gone public.”

  Like a wave gaining size and power, Gabriel’s speech began to appear on computers all over the world. Priest knew that it was all because of a complicated package of programming code that that could replicate itself and spread to other machines, but he found it easier to see the Revelation Worm as a creature hiding on the bottom of a river. The Traveler’s speech only needed to be sent to one computer. Within seconds, the programming key activated the hidden worm. While the speech was being copied multiple times, the worm’s command function took over the computer’s video play capability. Then it was in control, and it insisted that Gabriel’s speech appear on the monitor screen. After the speech was broadcast, the individual worm withered and died, but the key continued to spread through the Internet.

  Simon called several more times as Gabriel’s two-level strategy started to unfold. The middle class citizens involved in the Resistance were sending out the first of what would be thousands of emails to journalists and elected officials. They demanded an investigation into the Evergreen Foundation and challenged the new laws against personal freedom.

  These citizens were what Gabriel had called the “Voice in the Forum,” but the “Voice in the Street” was also getting organized. It was early morning in Europe. Small groups of Free Runners hurried through streets of a half-dozen cities, putting up posters and spraying graffiti. Who’s in charge? Listen to the Traveler! Defend your freedom before it disappears!

  Priest turned on the car radio and found a news station. When the announcer came on, it sounded like he had just run down a hallway to the microphone.

  “They’re alive! The children are alive! A few minutes ago, the Antelope Valley Sheriff’s Department announced that the fourteen missing children have been found at an abandoned mining operation near Rosemond. Four dead adults were found at the site and law enforcement personnel are attempting to—”

  Gabriel leaned forward and switched off the radio.

  “Don’t you want to hear what happened?”

  “It’s already in the past.”

  “What are you talking about? This is going to change everything.”

  “This is just one battle. The conflict will never end.” Gabriel peered through the windshield as if he was searching for a lost friend. “We do have one advantage over the Tabula. Because they worship power, they have a hierarchy and a few centralized locations for their equipment and employees. They may seem strong and efficient, but they’re actually more vulnerable than we are.”

  “We’re just a lot of groups.”

  “That’s right. The Resistance is a collection of different groups with different motivations, but the same general goal. We’re hard to find, hard to destroy.”

  “That might be true, Gabe. But all this is happening because you appeared.”

  “My father has spent years trying to understand why the Travelers exist. Some are k
illed. Others die in obscurity. Some teach a lesson that survives for a period of time and then fades away. Maybe we’re some kind of cosmic anomaly that must keep appearing, again and again, to guide the six realms in a certain direction.”

  They parked a few blocks from the El Dorado Hotel and got out. Priest had taken a bed sheet from Boone’s room, and he wrapped it around the assault rife so that it looked like a wad of dirty laundry. The two men passed through the hotel lobby and took an elevator up to the fourth floor.

  “Did Boone tell you the room number?” Priest asked.

  “412.”

  “Let me handle this. I’ll get us inside.”

  As they headed down the hallway, Priest saw a room-service tray on the floor. He concealed the dirty plates beneath their plastic covers, then picked up the tray with his left hand while his right hand clutched the rifle.

  “Knock on the door, Gabriel. Then step back.”

  Priest stood in hallway with a big smile on his face as a young Asian man wearing a handgun in a shoulder holster answered the door.

  “Room service for Mr. Corrigan.”

  “He didn’t order—”

  Priest threw the tray and all its contents directly into the mercenary’s face. As the man stumbled backward, Priest laid him on the floor with a leg sweep, then clubbed him with the butt of the assault rifle. On the edge of his vision, he saw Gabriel slip into the bedroom. First he secured the area, making sure there were no other bodyguards, then he heard the two brothers arguing.

  “No, you won’t!” Michael shouted. “That’s not going to happen!”

  Priest ran across the living room and yanked open the bedroom door. There was an open suitcase on the bed and a smaller bag on the breakfast table. He stepped around the corner of the bed and stopped.

  Two bodies lay motionless on the floor—alive, but lifeless, empty of their Light.

  44

  T he four barriers of air, earth, fire and water stood between the different realms. For some Travelers, the barriers were their only experience in a different reality. They would have a nightmare that they were drowning in a whirlpool or wandering alone across a barren plain. The experience could be so terrifying that Travelers never wanted to return to that place. They would spend the rest of their lives afraid of sleep, clinging to the familiar world that surrounded them.

  * * *

  When Gabriel opened his eyes, he was falling through blue sky. His brother was far ahead of him, a black speck of anger and desire, as small as a starling flying through a cathedral. Michael shifted his body, reached the passageway and disappeared. And Gabriel followed him, gliding across the sky toward a shadow.

  * * *

  Darkness. When he opened his eyes again he was standing on a desert plain. There were no mountains or canyons to be found in this earth barrier—just coarse red dirt, cracked and weathered from an eternal drought. Michael was about a mile away, kneeling on the earth like an athlete who had lost his footing. When he saw Gabriel coming toward him, he jumped up and began running. Both brothers sensed where the passageway was hidden, but Michael appeared cautious and uncertain. Twice, he stopped as if he was going to face his brother, then he changed his mind and started running again. Gabriel widened his stride and tried to shorten the distance between them. But Michael reached the passageway and disappeared.

  * * *

  Gabriel passed quickly through the dark green waves of the water barrier and suddenly he was standing in an empty town surrounded by a dead forest. This was the fire barrier, and everything around him was burning. If he stayed here long enough, he could watch the endless cycle of destruction and renewal.

  A massive wall of smoke rose up from the burning trees. Orange sparks and bits of ash drifted through the air. The two and three-story buildings were linked by a sidewalk made of pine and the loose boards squeaked and shuddered as he ran toward the town church. Smoke pushed its way through key holes and letter slots. Gabriel glanced through a window and saw a barber chair on fire as if a flame creature had sat down for a shave.

  When he reached the church, he yanked open the heavy wooden door and stepped inside. The rafters were burning, and embers glowed on the floor. Directly behind the altar, fire flowed up the walls like shimmering lines of water.

  Gabriel walked up the central aisle and stopped when he saw the passageway that floated on the surface of a stained-glass window. Had his brother already crossed over? If that was true, then Michael could be in any of the six realms. He could search for hundreds of years and never find him.

  The door squeaked on its iron hinges and Michael entered the church. He stopped when he saw Gabriel and smiled slightly. Even in this place, he played the role of the confident older brother.

  “Why are you standing there? Take the passageway.”

  “I’m staying here with you, Michael.”

  Michael shoved his hands in his pockets and strolled between the pews as if he was a tourist visiting a minor attraction.

  “I’ve experienced the whole cycle in this barrier. Everything burns down, and then it reappears again.”

  “I know.”

  “There’s no food in this place. No water. We have to cross over and move on.”

  “That’s not going to happen, Michael. You’re like a virus that infects everyone who comes near you.”

  “I’m a Traveler—just like you. Only I just see things as they are.”

  “And that means killing children?”

  “If that’s necessary ”

  The altar caught fire, dry wood crackling as it burned. Gabriel looked behind him and saw fire touch the dead roses held in a copper vase. The flowers shriveled slightly and were transformed into tiny points of flame.

  When he turned back around, Michael was standing on a bench, trying to climb onto the frame of the stained-glass window. Gabriel sprinted across the room, grabbed his brother, and they fell onto the floor. Kicking and punching, Michael tried to break free while Gabriel held him tightly. They rolled sideways, knocking over the benches, and Michael rammed his elbow into his brother’s chest. He jumped up and scrambled back to the window. This time, he stacked up the benches and formed an improvised platform.

  “You can stay here!” Michael screamed. “Stay here forever!” A ceiling beam broke away from the wall. It twisted as it fell, flinging off sparks, then hit Michael’s shoulder and knocked him to the floor. He lay stunned for a few seconds as another beam fell and then a third. Michael pushed his palms flat and tried to get up, but the weight held him down.

  Gabriel saw the hate and rage in his brother’s eyes. He knew that he couldn’t save Michael, nor could he leave him to die. Sitting on the floor, Gabriel crossed his legs and waited. He accepted the moment, accepted it so completely that it felt as if all his questions had been answered. Breathe. Breathe again. And a luminous field appeared in front of him, infinite, expanding, accepting.

  * * *

  The only two streets in the town met at a central square with park benches and a stone obelisk covered with a circle, a triangle and a pentagram. Anyone standing by this memorial would have watched the final moments of the conflagration when flames cracked windows and burned their way through doors. Finally, the buildings themselves began to collapse, the burning timbers unable to hold the weight of the upper floors. The church with its wooden pillars and white copula was the last to go. It seemed to explode from within, creating a point of energy as bright and powerful as a new sun.

  45

  T here was no air conditioning in their apartment in Rome—just a collection of antique electric fans. A fan occupied a side table in each of the eight rooms, and Alice Chen had decorated them with red and blue ribbons that rippled in the air whenever the blades were spinning.

  Because of the September heat, they woke up early in the morning. Priest pushed the living room couches and club chairs against the wall and turned the area into a gym. After drinking two cups of espresso, he did his push-ups and stomach crunches on the white marble floor, then ran through a complicated series of martial ar
ts exercises. When he was done with his own workout, he started Alice’s karate lessons.

  Now that she was seven months pregnant, Maya found it difficult to jump and kick, so she sat on a yoga mat, stretched her muscles, and offered advice. She and Priest would finish the morning workout sparring with kendo swords. She felt fat and awkward, but her reaction time hadn’t changed, and she knew a wide range of fakes and maneuvers. In a ten minute session, she could usually block Priest’s attack and jab him with her bamboo blade.

  After a light breakfast, they would leave the apartment and shop for food and supplies on the side streets near the Piazza Navona. In the afternoon, Maya would take a nap while various tutors came to the apartment. Priest was learning Italian, and a college student was teaching Alice history, literature and mathematics. Linden had returned to Paris. With his help they were beginning to accumulate a collection of fake I.D. cards and cloned passports that would enable them to travel anywhere in the world.

  Simon Lumbroso usually arrived at seven o’clock, bringing a bag of fresh fruit or a carton of gelato. They would cook supper at the apartment or stroll through the quiet evening streets to a restaurant in the old Jewish Ghetto. The staff spoiled Alice with special desserts and everyone asked about Maya’s l’arrive bendetto—the blessed arrival of her child.

  Maya refused to read newspapers or watch television, so Simon was her main source of information on what was happening in the world. Some changes had taken place in the days that followed Gabriel’s speech. In the United States, the Guardian Angel Program was cancelled and most parents had removed the RFID chips from their children’s bodies. A mandatory I.D. card law was rejected by several European countries, and the Germany legislature made it illegal to monitor store purchases that did not involve dangerous products.