An hour later, she knelt in absolute stillness as the last inverted man twitched and became still. She had followed the threads of awareness from the machine in her head toward the burst of Manna that had started it. As her eyes opened, she gasped. Because of the strength of the sensation, she had assumed the User was a block or two away, no more. But she was wrong. He—and it was definitely a he—was more than 2,000 miles away.
That evening, she and three senior Acolytes boarded a plane to Los Angeles. From there, she picked up their quarry’s trail and left for Las Vegas. Sonia’s encounter with the man in the casino was both the most humbling and the most exciting of her life. He had survived. Not just defeating the team of experts they had used to capture him, but her Manna-fueled onslaught. She had returned to New York thoughtful and focused. It was going to take more than just her power to destroy him. But she would destroy him. She would harness the combined power of all the Acolytes with her if necessary. Mason could wait. She had encountered the most powerful User in recorded history. Surely this would be enough to summon her master. And, thanks to a candid photograph taken in the Casino, she now had a name for the final sacrifice: Sebastian Varden.
28
Las Vegas
The garden turned out to be the patch of ground hemmed in by the horseshoe of trailers. Mee just stood and stared. Bob was startled by the incongruity for a second, then his military training kicked in and his gaze swept the area, first left to right, then up. In his army days, he would have been looking for entrances, exits. Checking for vulnerabilities, weak points - useful knowledge for both defenders and attackers. His military brain analyzed the information - because of the rocky hill it backed onto, the only way in or out of the garden was through the back door of any one of the seven trailers. From the north, south or west, it was hidden by the way the trailers were arranged. From the east, the rocky scree-sided hill blocked the view. Which left above. And dozens of umbrellas, parasols, gazebos and various faded pieces of material covered the entire area. From above, from a plane or helicopter, the whole place would be effectively camouflaged. But why would you want to hide a garden? Bob cleared his throat.
“Why would you want to hide a g-,” he said. Then he stopped using his training and looked properly for the first time. Because of the total shade provided by the makeshift cover, the garden never saw any sunlight. Bob was no horticulturalist, but he knew enough to work out that total lack of sunlight would prevent photosynthesis. In other words, nothing could grow. And yet what he was looking at wouldn’t have looked out of place in the finals of some community gardening competition. Every shade of green was on display, plus orange, purple, white, yellow, reds peeping through at intervals between the lush canopy. Bob recognized some thin leafy tendrils pointing out of the rich, dark soil near him. They were carrots, he knew that. Where the hell did rich, dark soil come from in a desert?
The woman who’d introduced herself as Diane laughed openly and good-naturedly at the bewildered expressions on the faces of Mee and Bob.
“We forget how it feels, seeing it for the first time,” she said. She walked down a grassed pathway, which neatly bisected the space before branching off in both directions to allow access to other areas of the garden. Mee hung back a little, her brain whirring with questions. Bob walked at Diane’s side. He was a practical man and he was struggling with the events of the previous forty-eight hours. A friend had died, come back to life and moved at inhuman speed. His beautiful dog had been cruelly killed. And now he, Mee and Seb were being pursued by some kind of ruthless secret military unit, probably with the knowledge and funding of the government. And one word was on his mind, begging to be spoken. He gave in to the pressure.
“Irrigation!” he said. Diane lifted an eyebrow.
“How do you do it?” he said. “You don’t have a single channel cut into the dirt here, no hosepipes coming from the trailers. And it would take gallons every day to keep this going. I saw carrots. What else do you have growing here?”
Diane thought for a moment.
“As far as I remember,” she said, “we have onions, garlic, shallots, leeks, peas, zucchini, eggplant, cabbage, broccoli, bok choi, cilantro, celery, lettuce, chicory, artichokes, tomatoes, peppers, soybeans and lentils.”
“Not bad,” said Bob, “considering they’re not getting water. Or sunlight.” He stopped. There was something that had been bugging him, now he knew what it was. Underneath the canopy, the entire garden should have been dark, but it wasn’t. Somehow it was being lit, but not by any kind of lighting Bob was familiar with. No one area was brighter than another and the overall effect was that of mid-afternoon sunlight. He checked for the source of it but came up empty. No light bulbs, no lamps, no nothing. Whatever technology was at play here, every gardener in the world would want it.
At the center of the garden was a section that had been allowed to retain its native quality - that of dry, thin, dusty soil. There were pebbles strewn across it. As Bob and Meera got closer, what seemed random at first revealed itself to be words, spelled out by careful placement of hundreds of small stones.
μαθαίνουν διδάσκω περιμένετε
“Greek?” said Mee. Bob turned and looked at her.
“You’re full of surprises,” he said. “What does it say?”
Mee wrinkled up her nose.
“I know what Greek looks like,” she said, “but I wouldn’t have the first clue what it says.”
Diane turned to face them.
“Learn, teach, wait,” she said. “It’s what we try to live by.”
“Is that it?” said Mee. “No big holy book?”
“No,” said Diane. “No book.”
“Not even a leaflet?” said Mee. Diane shook her head.
“Website? Social media?”
“No,” said Diane. Mee considered for a moment.
“Now I’m confused,” she said. “You’re some kind of religious community, right?”
“That’s as good a description as any,” said Diane.
“So people join you, right? Become part of the community?”
“Yes they do,” said Diane.
“But you have no books in the stores, no leaflets and no online presence at all. So how come you haven’t died out? How long have you people been going? How many of you are there? And why have I never heard of you?”
“Let’s sit down,” said Diane. The grass was dry, the earth beneath yielding and comfortable.
“The Order is a very private community,” she said. “Private, not secretive. It started between 1700-1800 years ago in the Middle East. Our founder was a hermit who devoted his or her life to discovering the nature of reality as experienced by humans. We don’t know for sure whether it was a man or a woman. It’s certainly unimportant. But most anecdotal accounts speak of a man, so that’s the pronoun I’ll use. He didn’t follow any particular wisdom tradition, although it is very likely that he would have been influenced by Buddhism, Hinduism and, possibly, early Christianity, which was going through quite an upheaval at that time.”
“In what sense?” said Bob.
“Well, it had been adopted as the official state religion by the Roman Emperor Constantine,” said Diane. “A mixed blessing, at best. It probably ensured the survival of Christianity as a religion, but the compromises involved split the early church. There was a very strong movement by zealous followers away from the watered-down version - as they saw it. Thousands of them moved into the deserts. Small communities sprang up. Some went further and sought absolute solitude.”
“And your founder was one of them?”
“In a way, yes, we believe so. But not as a Christian. Just as a hermit, a holy man, an ascetic. He spent many years alone before having some kind of experience, a vision of sorts, after which he left his cave and began to travel. During this time, he would camp just outside settlements and wait. He might remain there for a few months, during which time, local people would seek him out for spiritual guidance. So
me would stay. He would move on and leave them to continue practicing what he taught.”
Mee took off her sneakers and scrunched fresh grass between her toes.
“He did this for five or six years before his death,” said Diane. “His followers simply kept up his work. As each community grew, one or two would feel called to move on. They did as our founder did, camped outside town limits and waited.”
She waved an arm in front of her, indicating the garden and trailers.
“That’s how this community began,” she said, “back in 1953.”
“So people come to you?” said Mee.
“Yes,” said Diane. “Searchers of a certain kind always find us in the end. Some stay, some move on.”
“How many of you are there?” said Bob. Diane seemed to consider for a moment. Whether it was a question she didn’t want to answer or just one she didn’t have a ready figure for wasn’t clear.
“There are small communities near about fifty towns or cities in the US,” she said. “I’d imagine there are a few thousand of us in this country.” She hesitated for a moment, as if unsure how much information she could divulge. Then she took a short breath and continued. “As far as I’m aware, every country in the world has at least one community,” she said. “Europe has many more members of the Order than we do in the States. But we’ve always been a very small organization.”
Mee stood up, stretching like a cat. A low bell rang outside one of the trailers.
“Meditation,” said Diane. “Thirty minutes. Please join us if you wish.”
The others had started to emerge from the trailers, all carrying either a small cushion or what looked like a wooden step. They walked up the path and sat down. The wooden steps turned out to be seats designed to help you kneel comfortably for a long period, your legs tucked underneath. A couple of people had brought spare cushions or seats, offering them to Bob and Meera. Mee hesitated, then—to Bob’s surprise—nodded and accepted a wooden stool. Bob stood and winced, rubbing his knee ruefully.
“I’ll take a rain check,” he said. Lo, settling on a cushion, looked up at him.
“Try a walking meditation,” she said. “Walk as slowly as you can, aware of each step. Breath normally.”
Bob shook his head. “Think I’m a bit old for this kind of thing,” he said, “and you’re not gonna catch me chanting. Sorry.”
Lo held his gaze. “No chanting,” she said, “no ritual. Think of it as a scientific experiment. Your only job is to observe.”
“Observe what?” said Bob. “The garden?”
“Of course,” said Lo, chuckling, “but not just that. Your thoughts, too. Just be aware of them. Don’t judge them, don’t push them away. Just acknowledge each thought when you become aware of it, then gently go back to walking. And breathing.”
“No mumbo-jumbo?” said Bob.
“No mumbo-jumbo,” said Lo.
“Ok,” said Bob. “Thirty minutes walking meditation. More like limping meditation, though.”
He walked away from the seated group until he got to the perimeter of the garden. A narrower grass path ran around the entire space. He looked back at the seated group. Some had eyes shut, some open. The silence had deepened quickly and perceptibly. He heard the distant cry of some kind of mountain cat, the call of a bird and an answer from its mate, the chirp of insects and the whisper of wind through scrub and across dust. He put his right foot forward. Slowly. Then his left. Then the right again. He felt a bit of a fool for the first five minutes, then decided to try it properly. In amongst this Eden-like lushness, in the presence of members of an ancient religious organization who’d probably been doing this for thousands of years, he walked slowly around their garden. At first, it was physically and mentally difficult. His knee was still sending jabs of pain back to his brain and his brain was slotting those regular jabs into a cycling nightmare cluster of uncontrollable thoughts, memories, images. Marcie in a pool of blood…the moment in Iraq when he had realized he was lying down when a second before he’d been standing…his daughter Kim slamming the door…Marcie as a puppy…Seb lying dead in a clearing…calling Kim’s number and listening to the phone ring and ring…looking down at his ruined knee and not knowing which shreds of skin and bone were his and which were Tom’s…Seb running like a deer on steroids…Marcie.
Bob stopped on the path and shook his head, trying to clear it. He looked at his watch. Four minutes had passed. It had seemed like forty. Bob took a couple of deep breaths. He wasn’t a quitter. He put his right foot onto the grass, then slowly brought the left in front of it. Before his foot had touched the grass, he saw Marcie again, dead. This time, he didn’t flinch away, he just silently acknowledged the thought currently lodged in his brain. Emotions flickered through him - rage, guilt, despair, hope, love, rage again. He started to fantasize about tracking Marcie’s killer, trapping him up in the mountains. Putting a bullet through his leg, then following the trail of blood so he could finish him. With a hunting knife. He recoiled with horror from the images welling up inside him, then he remembered not to judge his thoughts. And he tried. It was pretty much impossible. But—finally—he managed to return his attention to the walk. Left foot. Right foot. The images kept coming, the thoughts kept swirling. Left foot. Right foot. Eventually he found a rhythm. The thoughts started to seem less important. Still there, just without the fullscreen, surround sound treatment. He walked on.
The bell sounded again. Bob stood still and looked toward the center of the garden where people were stirring, picking up cushions and stools, returning them to the trailers. He realized he had lost track of time completely - it could have been sixty seconds or sixty minutes since he’d looked at his watch. Perhaps there was something in this stuff after all. He wasn’t sure what, exactly, but something.
Mee sat still for a few more minutes before getting up. For her, the only shock about the last thirty minutes was how natural it seemed. Like coming home. She thought she might begin to understand what Auntie Anita was talking about. Then again, Auntie Anita wasn’t as screwed up as her. And she didn’t have a dope habit. And she didn’t sing rock music. So, Auntie could be the nun of the family - Mee would do what she was best at.
They spent the afternoon catching up on some sleep. Mee closed her eyes as soon as her head hit the pillow. In the next trailer, Bob lay awake for nearly an hour, going over the last few days in his mind. None of it made much sense. The guys who threatened them—and killed Marcie—were obviously extremely dangerous. Still, Bob had to admit he felt more alive than he had at any point during the last twenty years. The last thought in his mind before he finally succumbed to sleep was, “No stove in this trailer either.”
That evening, after a simple but delicious vegetable stew, Diane and Lo took them back into the garden. This time they went into a corner, where the lush grass was replaced by the native earth of the desert. Before anyone spoke, Diane and Lo exchanged a long look, as if they were still weighing the consequences of what they were thinking of doing. Finally, Lo nodded slightly, the two of them smiled and Diane sighed before turning to Bob and Meera.
“What I’m about to tell you rarely gets spoken about outside the Order,” she said. “When someone joins us, they have usually reached a developmental stage which means they are open to understanding what we do. And why we do it. We would usually only share this information with members of our community.” She stopped, seemed unsure how best to continue, then sat in the dirt and invited Lo, Bob and Meera to do the same. The women sat beside her but Bob shook his head.
“Bad knee,” he said, “and today’s been tough on it. Sorry.”
“I understand,” said Diane. “Before I go on, it might be easier if I show you something.” She looked at them soberly. Bob nodded, Mee said nothing.
Diane put the palm of her hand on the ground. Her breath was slow and deep. Bringing her other hand forward, she dug her fingers into the earth, scooping a handful of soil between her palms. Bob was impressed by what he assu
med was the sheer physical strength of the woman - the dirt was hard-packed, solid. Then she molded the earth slightly as if it was clay. Mee moved closer, her eyes widening. Where there had been browns, grays, yellow, suddenly there was a luscious polished red and a little deep green. Something was taking shape in Diane’s hands. Mee couldn’t find a way to process what was happening in front of her. Bob, having grown up in the 50s and 60s, was reminded immediately of the TV his father had kept in the den. It never had a clear picture when first turned on. Saturday mornings Bob had to tune the dial to find The Lone Ranger. At first it seemed nothing was there in the snowstorm of swirling pixels, then within a second or two, a picture would emerge; just a hint at first, then blacks and whites, some definition, then—suddenly—there was the mask, the hat, the horse as if they had been hiding in there the whole time. It was the same now. First, dirt - unformed, then a hint of something different, swirling pixels then suddenly this. An apple. As if it had always been there. Juicy, red and green, shining, like it had just been plucked from a branch. Diane held it toward Bob.
“Try it,” she said.
He took the apple, half expecting it to have no more solidity than smoke. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Diane’s hands. He knew this was no magic trick. It felt like an apple. He sniffed it. It smelled like an apple. He took a bite and chewed the crisp juicy flesh, a burst of freshness on his tongue.
“Best damn apple I ever tasted,” he said and handed it to Meera. She didn’t hesitate, just took a huge bite and chewed contentedly.
“Not half bad,” she said. “You know that town you’re camped outside? The big shiny place with a sign saying Las Vegas? Well, they have shows. Big shows. With a bit of work, you could have a residency and a TV special. Might have to work on the act a little, though. Apples won’t cut it. I’m thinking tigers. Maybe elephants.”
The World Walker Series Box Set Page 22
