The Traveler's Companion

by Chater, Christopher John

  Dark matter?

  What was the Zone made of and why did it respond to the human imagination? When in its normal state, it was nothing but darkness. Pitch black, however, wasn’t quite the right description. He and Beth had once gone to Carlsbad Caverns where he couldn’t so much as see his hand directly before his face, but he could breathe in the crisp air, feel the ground beneath him, and hear the wind barreling through the caves. Even outer space had the decency of being unforgiving. Here it was pure nothingness.

  He was also curious to know what caused the manifestations to dissolve so quickly. In reality, corrosion could erase almost all signs of modern civilization in a thousand years, but here buildings vanished in a matter of hours. Were the mentally erected buildings in the Zone made of the same bricks and mortar as the buildings of reality? Without the right scientific equipment, he couldn’t be sure. Angela would be helpful in this case, because she could isolate molecular structures and she possessed an atomic clock capable of precise measurements in any environment. But using her in this capacity was risky. C.C. Go would never be far off. As Gibbons had pointed out, privacy here was impossible.

  Iverson navigated the crooked street until he got to the stop sign. He decided to go in the direction of the marina.

  He went past the numbered piers, the boats in the harbor, and the plethora of souvenir shops. But why weren’t there any people? Did manifesting human beings in the Zone need to be a separate thought? A city with startling detail, but humans not included?

  Go’s criticisms of the city seemed unfounded. To Iverson, it looked perfect. In fact, the authenticity was startling. He had no idea how he had manifested it. How could he have consciously recalled all of this? Had his subconscious mind been invoked? CIA case studies on hypnosis proved that amazing details of events could be extracted from subjects. Maybe this was similar.

  But even if the Zone could bypass conscious filters and summon details hidden in the subconscious mind, it might not be enough to explain what he was witnessing. At this point, no explanation could be too bizarre or too farfetched. He considered the Copenhagen Interpretation, a theory introduced by physicist Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg explaining that the universe existed as an infinite number of overlapping possibilities. Matter could be in an infinite number of possible locations at once, but it wasn’t until it was observed that it became manifest. Maybe instead of observing possible realities, in the Zone they were created by thinking of them.

  There was also the many-worlds interpretation. Rather than a determined future, reality offered infinite possible outcomes. All outcomes existed in a vast number of universes. With no space-time in the Zone, the future, the past, and the present could become a malleable kaleidoscope wherein he could simply choose the outcome of his pleasing. Was he now in a future universe, a future San Francisco?

  Marina Boulevard eventually led to Highway 101. The toll entrance of the Golden Gate Bridge was ahead. The massive red structure was a staple of the city, and today it was beautiful in the midmorning light. He whizzed through the toll booth and onto the bridge. Looking west, the ocean seemed to go on forever. Was it just an illusion? Would sailing into the horizon send a ship over a great waterfall like on some type of pre-Columbus map?

  Once he got to the other side of the bridge, he went past the Vista Point turnoff and decided to stay on the 101 to see how far it went.

  A few miles north he arrived at the Waldo Tunnels. As he approached the entrance, he slowed to a stop. A rainbow was painted on the outer rim. He set the parking brake, kept the car running, and got out to look around. His footsteps echoed inside the tunnel, and he noticed that, oddly, no light was coming from the other side. Soon he came to a wall of blackness. He reached into it, his hand lost. The city ended here.

  Iverson went back to the car and drove back towards the city.

  * * * * *

  He gunned it through a red light and parked in a red zone in front of Saks Fifth Avenue department store in Union Square. He snatched the Auto Club map off the passenger seat and stepped out of the car.

  He went through the double doors of Saks and took a quick look around. As he had suspected, the store was stocked. This was Ladies’ Apparel. Lithe mannequins modeled the latest fashions, collars up, necklines low. No one was less knowledgeable about fashion than he; he hadn’t shopped for clothes in more than a decade. How then was he the creator of all this? He went by a rack of blouses and felt the soft silk. The sensation reminded him of Beth. This would be a treat for her, for many women, but especially for Beth.

  He wasn’t much of a shopper, so he left the store. When he got back out onto the street, he wondered which direction he should go in next. According to the map, Chinatown was only a few blocks away. In San Francisco, however, a few blocks of its steep hills were tantamount to walking miles anywhere else. Teleportation would be faster, though there were safety concerns with this type of travel. The teleportation theoretically possible in reality worked by copying information, sending it, and then replicating the information in another place. The original used to make the copy would have to be destroyed to avoid redundancy. Gibbons never mentioned anything about a copy of himself. This type of teleportation also had a speed limit set by Einstein’s special relativity, but he believed that Gibbons had surpassed the speed of light many times over when he had materialized in his bedroom. Though it sounded just as fantastical as teleportation, he believed Gibbons had achieved superluminal speeds by traveling through wormholes.

  Iverson closed his eyes and pictured himself in Chinatown. It didn’t feel like anything was happening, but when he opened his eyes he was standing before a Chinese archway guarded on either side by stone lions.

  Oddly, the weather suddenly changed. A foggy mist rolled in and before long it was drizzling. Had he also replicated Northern California’s capricious weather? He folded up the map, put it in his back pocket, and went into Chinatown.

  The modern architecture of the city was gone, and now there were Asian roofs with Chinese characters adorning signs and awnings. Streetlights were made of multi-colored bases, jade colored poles, and topped with light bulbs housed in miniature Chinese pavilions. Rows of bulbous red lanterns were strung over the street, block after block, like a trick of mirrors. A banner overhead read: “Celebrating the National Day of the Republic of China.”

  Plenty of stores were selling trinkets aimed at tourists, products stuffed in cardboard boxes and lined up on the sidewalk. But he had yet to see a shopkeeper to make the transaction.

  While walking by an alleyway, something caught his attention. He doubled back. There, in the middle of the street, surrounded by trash and getting soaked in the rain, was what looked like someone on a hospital bed.

  Walking slowly, getting closer, he began to recognize the face.

  He stopped.

  This had to be a trick. A bad joke.

  Her face was the color of old newspaper. A long scar, swollen bright red, ran along one side of a shaved scalp.

  He felt his heart sink into his stomach. His throat was as dry as a desert despite the rain dampening his face.

  It was Beth.

  It was just after the second surgery when surgeons had attempted to remove the golf ball-sized tumor from her brain. He remembered that day vividly. It might as well have been yesterday. A moment burned into his brain forever.

  In a panic, he ran over to the gurney. He put two fingers to her wrist to check her pulse. Her arm felt light and frail, as if the slightest touch could break it. Months before the surgery she had lost a substantial amount of weight. She could barely keep food down. Often, in the middle of a sentence, she would suddenly gaze out into nothing. Words sometimes wouldn’t come out as anything more than gibberish. Her hair had been falling out in clumps.

  She had a pulse.

  “Beth?” he said.

  He pried open her eyelids to see her pupils. She must be in a coma, he thought. But how had she gotten here?

  It hit him like a
ton of bricks. This wasn’t real. He had forgotten again. This was an alternate dimension, matter was malleable here. Reanimated wives were tricks of the Zone. Beth must have been manifested when he had conjured up the city. Was this what Mr. Go meant when he said that manifestations often reflected the personal state of the creator?

  Real or not, he couldn’t leave her here in the rain. He scanned the neighborhood for a safe haven. A hotel down the street was the best choice, but he wondered if it was too far to push her safely. With the steep hills, it could be dangerous for both of them. He had to try. He got a grip on the metal frame of the bed and began to push. The soles of his shoes slid on the pavement and the hard plastic wheels vibrated erratically against the wet cement. It started to rain harder.

  When he finally got to the hotel, he put his hands to his knees and sucked in a few breaths. His lungs were burning and the veins in his legs felt like they were pumping needles, but he was quick to return to the task. He pushed the bed to the entrance, held open the front door with his foot, and pulled the bed into the lobby. He called the elevator, and when it came he lifted her from the bed and carried her inside. While cradling her in his arms, he managed to extend one finger to select the second floor button.

  Once inside the room, he carefully set her on a brown polyester bedspread. The rain had dampened her face and hair. He got some towels from the bathroom and patted her down until she was dry. She looked peaceful.

  He went and grabbed a desk chair, dragged it over to the side of the bed, and sat down. What if she woke up? he wondered. What would he say to her? What would she say to him? He was no longer the young man she had once known. With his graying, unruly beard and fan of wrinkles around the eyes, she might not even recognize him. She was still only thirty years old.

  This isn’t really her, he thought, shaking his head. The likeness, however, was uncanny. She was even wearing her wedding band. He had worn his for nearly a year after her death, until it began to feel as heavy as a dumbbell and every time it touched a hard surface it seemed to clank as loud as a car crash.

  He looked at his hand and saw that he was now wearing his old wedding ring. He took it off his finger and turned it to see the inscription inside: Forever. The Zone was staggering in its ability to extract total accuracy from the mind of its visitors. Buildings looked as real as they did in reality, felt as real. Homes had furniture, appliances, and electricity. Cars had engines. One could cut oneself with a manifestation and bleed.

  But who was this woman before him?

  Was she human?

  She was clearly corporeal. She had a pulse. If he had an EEG, he felt confident it would register brain activity. But did she have emotions, thoughts, desires? Had he created a sentient being or was she just a figment of his imagination?

  He continued to watch her sleep. Hours went by. She never woke up, never said a word, barely even seemed to be breathing.

  After a few hours, she dissolved.

  To his surprise, he felt a sense of emptiness. He wanted to bring her back. Nothing in this place was better than watching his wife sleep.

  * * * * *

  After a few hours sitting alone in the hotel room, Iverson decided now was a good time to check on Angela.

  He closed his eyes, cleared his thoughts, and pictured Angela in his mind. Again nothing physical seemed to be happening, but this time, when he opened his eyes, he found himself in total darkness. The hotel room was gone. San Francisco was gone. The only thing he saw was a small speck of light, far off in a sea of blackness. It was getting larger by the second. It was coming at him. Then in a flash he was in a different room.

  Through diaphanous linen curtains, he could see outside to a small rectangular lap pool. The smell of the ocean was being carried into the room by a cool breeze.

  He pushed aside the curtains. Angela was lying on her stomach on a lounge chair, wearing a gold two piece bathing suit. She was listening to music on an MP3 player, her eyes closed, her legs up and swinging around like a wobbly gear system.

  It was bright outside, warm but not hot.

  “Angela,” Iverson said.

  When she didn’t respond, he went over to her and removed an ear bud. “I’m here, Angela.”

  She opened her eyes. Initially she smiled at him, but after a moment she asked, “Are you okay, Doctor Iverson?”

  “I’m fine.”

  She removed the other ear bud and sat up. “Your insular cortex—”

  “Are we alone?”

  “Yes. Director Gibbons doesn’t like the sun and Mister Go is parasailing.”

  “We have to be careful. We can’t talk about brain scans in the field.”

  “I understand, Doctor, but I’m concerned for your health. Did something traumatic happen?”

  Iverson sat down on the lounge chair next to hers and gazed out at the ocean. The water was a clear, blue-green color. In the shimmering distance was the low hum of a motorboat. White water was coming off the sides of the boat like wings, and a rope tethered to the stern was towing a parachutist.

  “Where are we?” Iverson asked.

  Angela looked at his hands and asked, “Why are you wearing a wedding ring, Doctor Iverson?”

  Iverson curled up his fingers to hide it. He stammered and said, “Part of the experiment.” He quickly took it off and put it in his pocket.

  “This is a reproduction of a hotel in Bali,” Angela said.

  “I see.”

  “We’ve been to several places in the last twenty-four hours: Mister Go’s native country, Papua New Guinea; Milan; and now here.”

  “He was born in Papua New Guinea?”

  “Yes. His parents were traveling through. He was only there a few months, until he was old enough to travel. He told us all about it while in infant form. I held him as he talked.”

  Iverson barely heard her, his mind back in San Francisco. “Good. You’re getting to know him.”

  “Not everything. I asked him the meaning of his initials C.C. and he said, ‘Cute and clever.’”

  “Interesting,” Iverson said plainly.

  “There’s something troubling you, Doctor. Would you like to talk about it?”

  “Have we been here for twenty-four hours?”

  “There seems to be some differentiation with Earth-time, but yes, we’ve been inside the Zone for twenty-four hours, sixteen minutes, and thirty-five seconds.”

  “Felt longer,” Iverson said.

  Seeing that she was getting a bronze color from the sun, he asked, “Go manifested ultraviolet light?”

  “Yes. But he said it wouldn’t damage my skin. He said it’s safer than a tanning bed.”

  “And the bathing suit. He manifested it?”

  She smiled. “Yes. But he joked that, unfortunately, he’s been able to make the manifestations last longer than usual.”

  “They’ve been lasting a long time for him?”

  “Some last longer than others.”

  “How about people? How long do they last?”

  “People?”

  “Has he manifested humanoids?”

  “No. It’s only been the three of us.”

  “What about structures? How long are they lasting for Mister Go?”

  “They vary. We’ve been in Bali for precisely ten hours. Only some minor topographical details have degraded so far,” Angela said.

  “Ten hours? Impressive.”

  “Like I said, he’s been making comments that his manifestations are lasting longer than usual,” Angela said.

  “His brain scans?”

  “Flooded with dopamine.”

  “Maybe that has something to do with it.”

  “He hasn’t touched me, Doctor Iverson. Several hours ago we were alone in his bungalow and I was nearly throwing myself at him. He resisted.”

  “He’s afraid. He’s not sure he can trust us. Don’t take it personally. You haven’t lost your touch.”

  She smiled.

  “Where’s the director?” Iverson a
sked.

  “He’s in bungalow four. Down that walkway.” She pointed.

  “Be back in a minute. When Mister Go comes in, would you mind telling him I’d like to speak with him?”

  “I will, Doctor Iverson.”

  He followed a serpentine cement path that went through a rock garden. When he got to a wooden door with vented slats and a number four on it, he knocked. This seemed to cause a loud thud inside, followed by some cursing.

  Finally a winded, cantankerous voice called out, “Who is it?”

  “It’s Doctor Iverson, Director.”

  Iverson heard the sound of quick footsteps and then the door was yanked open. The director was only wearing a towel around his waist. Red smear marks were on his skin beneath gobs of body hair. Maybe it was the lack of jacket and tie, but he looked slightly trimmer and possibly . . . younger.

  “Was I interrupting something?” Iverson asked.

  Gibbons left the door open and began to pluck his clothes off the floor, tucking them under his arm. While bent over, Iverson noticed Gibbons’s scalp seemed to have fewer sunspots. Was there some new growth? Was that gorilla’s finger slightly fuller?

  “Before you say anything, I was just getting a massage,” Gibbons said, pulling his pants up under the towel around his waist. “She dissolved just before you knocked.”

  Iverson went to sit in a rattan chair. After some hurrying around the room, Gibbons came to sit across from him. He was now wearing the gray slacks shredded by the car accident. His button-down white shirt was wrinkled. He didn’t bother to put on his shoes and socks. When he crossed his legs, Iverson noticed his feet were quite small. His toes were pale and hirsute.

  Slightly winded, Gibbons said, “I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon. How’s Frisco?”