Lovers of Babel

by Valerie Walker

  “The Book of Wisdom? I haven’t heard the name in years. Why is it that a stranger has come to my office unannounced to discuss a book that no longer exists?”

  “Is that why you closed your door Dr. Stein? Because you didn’t want anyone to hear our silly conversation about an ancient text that has gone extinct?”

  I sat down in the chair across from Dr. Stein’s desk.

  He laughed then walked back to his chair.

  “What is it that you wanted to discuss, Mr. Riley? I can squeeze in a little time for a history lesson.”

  “In your dissertation you expressed that your research came from the actual book. You happened to come across one of the only books in existence at that time.”

  “Well, yes I did. It would’ve been quite hard to write an entire dissertation on a book without having read it. Amias – can I call you Amias – what exactly do you want?”

  “In your paper you talk about an old religious speaker named Alex Leon who owned the last copy of the Book of Wisdom. That was the exact book you used for your dissertation.”

  “Well yes that would be the correct conclusion to make. By the time I got my hands on the book, however, Mr. Leon had been dead for a long time. Why do you mention him?” Dr. Stein asked curiously.

  “From what I gathered from my research about Mr. Leon I know that he had kids and grandkids. I found that out after you submitted your dissertation. Bits and pieces were released to the public and this sparked a debate. One of the leading voices in the debate was German Leon, Alex Leon’s great great great grandson.”

  The doctor paused.

  “You want to find him? What exactly will you ask him, Amias? The Underground is vast and the destruction from the apocalypse was too. Is it answers you want, or the actual Book of Wisdom? Because if you think that book is floating around here, you’re insane.”

  Dr. Stein stood up from his seat.

  I stood up too.

  “Am I? That book caused a civil war. You remember that don’t you doctor? I know for a fact that somebody somewhere protected that book from total destruction.”

  “And you think that person is Alex Leon’s long lost great grandson? Well, I certainly couldn’t begin to know if that were the case. But even if I did, why on earth would I give that information to a complete stranger? You look pretty young Amias. You don’t know of the old world. Let me enlighten you. That book is dangerous. It was forbidden to read before Armageddon and I suspect it still is. Do yourself a favor young man: focus your research on less controversial topics.”

  Dr. Stein was walking toward the door.

  “What a shame. I expected you to be more passionate about this, seeing as how you dedicated years of your life’s work on it. You wrote that dissertation with so much conviction, but now you seem completely uninterested in even holding a discussion about it. Mm…I wonder if the Authorities have anything to do with that.”

  My words obviously pricked the doctor, because he stopped walking and stood completely still for a while with his back facing me.

  “What I wrote in that book is ancient history. The ideas and concepts were no longer relevant. I was just a young and impressionable researcher like you who wanted to make a difference. Truth is, that book is irrelevant,” the doctor wasn’t convincing me.

  “I don’t believe you. That book started a war. I need to know what’s in it. Please, Dr. Stein, just tell me where I can find German Leon.”

  He turned and looked at me with a forlorn expression.

  “I don’t know where to find him. The last I heard, he made it Underground. In the old world he lived in London, but that could’ve changed after we moved Underground.”

  I nodded pensively.

  “Amias, whatever you’re thinking of doing with that book, just stop. You’re opening up a can of worms. You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into,” he urged me.

  “Oh, but I do. I know exactly what I’m doing, but I can promise you that no one else will know about it.”

  I walked to the door and put my hand on the knob looking back at the doctor.

  “You’ve read the entire Book of Wisdom haven’t you?”

  He dropped his gaze.

  “Did it change your life like the others, doctor?”

  Then, he simply walked back to his desk and sat down with his head bowed.

  I left his office with a new lead: German Leon could be alive and living in Underground London. I took this new information with me on the lightning rail back to Washington that same day.

  Once I got back to Washington I started more extensive research into the history of the Leons. According to the information I gathered about German, he was a medical researcher who stopped researching after ten years to focus more on his wife and kids. Also, his reputation in the medical community had taken a beating when he was caught conducting experiments to cure cancer using only organic substances. There was an unspoken rule amongst doctors to keep all research within the confines of synthetic science in order to maximize profit. In other words, cancer would never be cured because if it were to be cured doctors and insurance companies would make less money. Chemotherapy was the product and cancer was the consumer. German thought this was unethical and could no longer practice medicine with a clear conscience.

  I discovered that the Leon family was very wealthy. This confirmed what Dr. Stein said about German Leon making it Underground. After Alex realized his last Book of Wisdom was losing government backing, he sold the book to the C.I.A. for an undisclosed amount of money. According to his family history, after this exchange, Alex immediately retired and moved his family to one of the richest neighborhoods in Dubai. It was said that Alex kept the original copy of the Book of Wisdom somewhere secret. Some conspiracy theorists think that Alex gave his copy to his grandson while on his deathbed and that grandson passed it down as a family heirloom.

  I had plenty of information about German’s grandfather, but not enough to tell him whether German was still alive. And if he was, that didn’t mean he would have the book. After all, he never met his great great great grandfather. The chance of a family heirloom surviving the destruction of the world was unlikely. Still, that book contained such power that it seemed indestructible. I need to find German to get closer to finding the Book of Wisdom, but how do I find a needle in a hay stack?

  The Underground is one third of how large the world was before the apocalypse. All seven continents still had a piece of land, but it was Underground and the population in each continent was significantly smaller than the former world. I know that before the apocalypse, in order to enter the Underground, you had to be a citizen of that particular country. Although the system in the Underground changed to a one world type of structure, before the apocalypse no one could cross a territory unless they had a proper VISA and were citizens. German was from the UK and before the apocalypse he resided in London, England. If he was able to purchase a spot underground he would’ve entered there and possibly stayed. I just booked a round-trip ticket on the lightning rail to Europe, destination: Underground London, England.

  September 20, 2134. Clink Hotel. Underground London, England – I want to make sure I journal about each and every detail of my quest for the Book of Wisdom. The train ride here was much more enjoyable than the one to Ohio. Inside it looked like a modern subway with LED monitors on the back of every chair equipped with cordless head phones that were placed just inside the ear lobe. The interior was pure white and the seats were fire red. The lightning rails are always full of people traveling to different parts of the Underground. It is the fastest way to travel and it’s also the most comfortable. Depending on how long the journey is there are small individual rooms for passengers who want to nap in private. The longest journey is eight hours and that’s from one end of the Underground to the other. There are no windows because the train travels inside a very narrow tunnel. There are twenty trains in the Underground that travel from country to country and to states in between. Throughout t
he city streets there is always the low murmur of the train speeding by through the tunnel. I’ve always loved this mode of transportation.

  I arrived in London at night across the street from the glowing Westminster Abbey. The streets are lit with fire lamps like the ones before electricity. This is the part of town where everything has a vintage London feel and there are red telephone booths on almost every corner for the sake of nostalgia. I checked into the Clink Hotel just a few blocks up the cobblestone street. When I got to my room I immediately started looking for German Leon in the digital residential pages. There were only two names that showed up in the whole of London. I cancelled out the one who was listed as 60 years old since my research calculated his age to be somewhere in his early 30s.

  The residence was ten miles away in the small ocean town called Brookshire. Tomorrow I will take a trolley to see Mr. Leon who has a wife and two kids, one of whom is mildly autistic. From what I’ve researched about him, he loves his son deeply and for the past two years since his birth he has slaved day and night trying to find a cure for his son’s autism.

  The next night – In the break of day, I could see the brick house from a distance and was reluctant to knock on a complete stranger’s door in the middle of the day to discuss his great great grandfather who had been dead for over a century. I needed to collect my thoughts. I began to rehearse what I was going to say to Mr. Leon when suddenly a tall man was running toward me with a limp two-year-old cradled in his arms. Following him was a frantic woman dressed in a lab coat with her hair in a bun. I jumped out of the way and watched them as they ran toward the brick house that I was preparing to approach. I realized it was the Leon family and ran after them to try and help in some way. This was the perfect way to break the ice.

  “Sir!? I’m a doctor. Is there any way I can help?” I asked as I stepped inside their home. “I saw you running and it looks like an emergency…”

  “Oh yes please. My son is autistic and struggles with epilepsy, but he hasn’t had a seizure in years. We were just on our way back from picking up my wife from the factory when he collapsed in the middle of the street!”

  “Here, let me push his head back and raise his chin so that his airway is clear.”

  With one hand on the boy’s ginger head I placed my other hand into the boy’s mouth and pulled out his tongue.

  “This is so he doesn’t choke. Now, grab some ice and place it on his head to bring his temperature down.” I said to the wife.

  German’s son stopped convulsing and his body released the tension.

  “He’ll need plenty of water to rehydrate. It seems that dehydration caused him to go into a seizure, but it looks like he’ll recover easy since the episode was short. From now on he should drink plenty of water throughout the day,” I advised.

  “Thank you so much for your help, Mr…”

  “Amias. You can call me Amias since this is a slightly informal meeting.”

  “Okay, Amias. I am German Leon and this is my wife Sarah and our son Dominic. I have a daughter who is in school now. I had previously worked in the medical field for almost 10 years, but for some reason I freeze up when it comes to treating my own flesh and blood. Tell me, how on earth did you happen to be on this street at such an opportune time?” German asked insistently.

  I searched my brain for the best answer. I needed him to trust me. Even though I helped his son I needed to ease my way into the topic of his great grandfather and the Book of Wisdom.

  “Well, um, I’m in town for research from the states and I was taking a stroll along the countryside and happened upon your street by accident. You’ve got quite a pair of legs on you Mr. Leon. You must be a runner,” I added to divert the subject.

  “Oh call me German please. Well, I ran cross country in school, but I think it was my parental instincts kicking in.”

  “Like the woman from the old age who lifted a car off of her baby. It’s funny what the human body can do in times of distress.”

  “That’s right. Can I get you an ErgoChill from the fridge? Or perhaps whiskey to take the edge off?”

  German’s wife was still tending to her son on the couch.

  “A whiskey sounds good. Thanks!”

  As German walked to the kitchen I asked Sarah if I could look around their home.

  “Your family is very eclectic I see.”

  “Oh please give yourself a nice tour. I would show you around myself but,” she pointed at her son.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m quite the scavenger.”

  I’ve never been one for humor, but I wanted to lighten the mood.

  I made my way into the din where there were wooden floors and floral furniture. The room hadn’t the slightest hint of modernity which made me hopeful that German would find use for an ancient text. I looked around inspecting everything. Then I noticed a deformed looking cactus plant inside a glass case sitting on an end table. I thought it was strange to incase a plant, but I chocked it up to terrible interior decorating skills. There was a brick fireplace to the left of the cluttered room and on the mantel were twenty different pictures and collectibles. The pictures were of various vacations and school photos that the family had taken over the years. There was one old photograph that stood out from the rest. It was of a man who looked to be in his mid-twenties holding a cell phone. I picked it up for a closer look.

  “Oh, I see you’ve found my great great great grandfather,” German remarked startling me.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin, but I kept my composure quite well.

  “This is your grandfather? I guess I should’ve realized he was an ancestor seeing as how he’s holding a 21 century cellular device. Those things haven’t been used since the turn of the century.”

  I grabbed the whiskey from German’s hand.

  “Yes you’re right about that. Things have changed a lot since then.”

  “So, what was his name if you don’t mind me asking?”

  I hoped I didn’t sound too interested.

  German paused.

  “His name was Alex and he was a preacher.”

  Bingo. I was closer to my goal, but needed a convincing transition into the Book of Wisdom topic.

  I sensed that German noticed I was preoccupied with the photo.

  “So, what type of research did you come here to do?”

  My mind went into overdrive.

  “Oh, well I’m a mind sciences researcher and I’m writing a report on the progression of the human mind from the 21 century to now. I came here because there’s a science library with a lot of rare material I could use.”

  “How interesting.”

  I gulped the whiskey.

  “Um, by chance, your great great great grandfather wouldn’t happen to be Alex Leon the Evangelical pastor would it?”

  “Yes. Although he wasn’t exactly well known,” he answered skeptically.

  “Oh of course he was! At least among the religious community he was. He caused a revolution in the theology community when he claimed to have the last copy of The Book of Wisdom. A famous psychological researcher even wrote a dissertation using his book some decades later.”

  “Yes well the subject was taboo, but my grandfather was fearless.”

  German pushed back his glasses and looked to be in thought.

  “That book was more than taboo. It caused an all-out war in the streets. People were changed after reading that book. Imagine what would’ve happened to society if he wasn’t forced to give the book to the CIA It’s hard to believe that something so monumental is vanished.”

  “Nobody wanted that book. It got to a point where society hated anything associated with it, but a small population of people loved it. My great grandfather was one of them. He was backed into a corner once the book was taken off the market. The CIA wanted him to stop preaching from it and forced him to give up his copy. You’re right, if the CIA hadn’t confiscated the last Book of Wisdom maybe society would be better, but even so, the entire world went up in
smoke and the book went with it,” German stated flatly.

  “Did it? Your grandfather believed in that book more than anyone. I seriously doubt that he would’ve let them have his only copy. That book was his link to life. Apparently, some conspiracy theorists believe that he kept a copy for himself and hid it.”

  “That was a century ago. I haven’t even thought about it, but if my grandfather did keep a copy it would’ve been to make sure it was safe from sketchy researchers,” he hinted.

  I didn’t flinch. I was preoccupied with German’s collection of books. There was a wooden bookshelf across the room behind the couch that housed about a hundred books. This was surprising to me because after the apocalypse, most books were destroyed in the fire. There I was standing in a room with the biggest collection of books in the entire Underground.

  “You have a lot of books I see. I’ve never seen so many at one time. Mind if I take a look at your collection?”

  German looked reluctant, but acquiesced.

  I walked over to the bookcase and began inspecting. I saw many books with famous titles like, To Kill a Mockingbird, Moby Dick, Brave New World, and The Great Gatsby. Then I noticed a book at the edge of the middle shelf that was leaning to the side. It was being propped up by the shelf instead of standing upright like the rest of the books. I looked through the space where the book was angled. I noticed a book hidden in back of the shelf. I could feel the hairs standing up on my arms.

  “We got these books as gifts from some friends who lived in the old world,” he said attempting to distract me.

  I looked at him with a sly smile.

  “German, do you know how important family heirlooms are? They are the physical link that ties us to the past. I mean look around you. Everything in the Underground that hasn’t been made here is from the old age. I think the people who lived on the surface knew their days were numbered so they tried to leave as many things safely behind as possible. Your grandfather wanted to keep that book safe.”

  “What if he did? Where would he hide it and how could it survive for centuries without being destroyed?” He said defensively.