The Dark River

by John Twelve Hawks

  The community center was made up of four large buildings around a courtyard. One of the buildings was the Upper School for older students, eight rooms that were designed for online learning. A router in the storage room was connected to a cable that led to a satellite dish on the mesa above them. There were no telephone lines at New Harmony, and cell phones didn’t work in the canyon. People either used the Internet or the satellite phone kept at the community center.

  Alice turned on the computer, removed her cello from its carrying case, and positioned a straight-backed chair in front of the Web cam. She connected with the Internet and a moment later her cello teacher appeared on the large monitor screen. Miss Harwick was an older woman who had once played for the Sydney Opera.

  “Have you practiced, Alice?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Let’s start with ‘Greensleeves’ today.”

  Alice drew the bow back and her body absorbed the deep vibration from the first note. Playing the cello made her feel bigger, more substantial, and she could hold on to that power for a few hours after she stopped playing.

  “Very good,” said Miss Harwick. “Now let me hear section B again. This time focus on your pitch in the third measure and—”

  The monitor screen went black. At first, Alice thought that something was wrong with the generator. But the electric lights were working and she could hear the faint hum of the computer fan.

  While she was checking the cables, a door squeaked open and Brian Bates walked into the room. Brian was a fifteen-year-old boy with dark brown eyes and blond hair down to his shoulders. Helen and Melissa thought he was cute, but Alice didn’t like to talk about things like that. She and Brian were music friends; he played the trumpet and worked with teachers in London and New Orleans.

  “Hey, Celloissima. Didn’t know you were practicing tonight.”

  “I’m supposed to be having a lesson, but the computer just went off.”

  “Did you change anything?”

  “Of course not. I went online and contacted Miss Harwick. Everything was okay until a few seconds ago.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll fix it. I’ve got a lesson in forty minutes with a new teacher in London. He plays for the Jazz Tribe.”

  Brian put down his trumpet case and pulled off his parka. “How are the lessons going, Celloissima? I heard you practicing on Thursday. It sounded pretty good.”

  “I’ve got to come up with a nickname for you,” Alice said. “What about Brianissima?”

  Brian smiled as he sat down at the computer. “Issima is a feminine ending. It’s got to be something different.”

  Pulling on her coat, Alice decided to leave her cello at the community center and go back to the house. A door from the performance room led to a storage closet. She stepped around a potter’s wheel and left the cello leaning against the wall in a corner, protected by two plastic bags of ceramic clay. That was when she heard a man’s voice coming from the performance room.

  Alice returned to the partially opened door, peered through the gap, and stopped breathing. A big man with a beard was pointing a rifle at Brian. The stranger wore brown-and-green camouflage clothing like the deer hunters Alice had seen on the road to San Lucas. Dark green camouflage grease was smeared on his cheeks, and he had special goggles with a rubber strap. The goggles were pushed upward on his forehead, the two eyepieces combining into a single lens that reminded her of a monster’s horn.

  “What’s your name?” the man asked Brian. His voice was flat and neutral.

  Brian didn’t answer. He pushed back the chair and got up slowly.

  “I asked you a question, pal.”

  “I’m Brian Bates.”

  “Anybody else here in this building?”

  “No. Just me.”

  “So what are you doing?”

  “Trying to go online.”

  The bearded man laughed softly. “You’re wasting your time. We just cut the cable to the mesa.”

  “And who are you?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that, pal. If you want to grow up and get laid, own a car, stuff like that—then you better answer my questions. Where’s the Traveler?”

  “What traveler? Nobody has visited this place since the first snowfall.”

  The man motioned with his rifle. “Don’t be cute. You know what I’m talking about. A Traveler stayed here with a Harlequin named Maya. Where’d they go?”

  Brian shifted his weight slightly, as if he were going to sprint for the door.

  “I’m waiting for an answer, pal.”

  “Go to hell…”

  Brian jumped forward and the bearded man fired his rifle. The gunshots were so loud that Alice jerked away from the door. She stood in the shadows for a full minute, the sound still vibrating through her body, and then returned to the light. The man with the rifle was gone, but Brian lay on his side, as if he had fallen asleep on the floor, curled around a bright pool of blood.

  Her body was the same, but her Alice-self—the girl who had laughed with her friends and played the cello—had suddenly become much smaller. It felt as if she were living inside a hollow statue, looking out at the world.

  Voices. Alice stepped back into the shadows as Brian’s killer returned with six other men. They all wore camouflage clothing and radio headsets with little microphones that curved around to their mouths. Each man carried a different kind of rifle, but all the weapons had a laser-sighting device attached to the barrel. The leader—an older man with short hair and wire-rimmed glasses—was talking softly into his headset. He nodded and switched off the transmitter clipped to his belt.

  “Okay, Summerfield and Gleason are in position with the thermal sensors. They’ll stop anyone trying to escape, but I don’t want that to happen.”

  A few of the men nodded. One of them was testing his laser sight, and a little red dot danced across the white wall.

  “Remember—the weapons you’ve been given have been registered under the names of people who live here. If for some reason you have to use an unregistered weapon, please keep track of location, target, and number of shots fired.” The leader waited until his men nodded. “Okay. You know what to do. Let’s go.”

  The six men went away, fitting the goggles over their eyes, but the leader remained in the room. Pacing back and forth, he spoke occasionally on the headset. Yes. Confirmed. Next objective. The leader ignored Brian’s dead body—almost as if he hadn’t noticed it—but when a thin line of blood trickled across the floor, he gracefully stepped over it and kept moving.

  Alice sat down in a corner of the storage room, drew her knees up to her chest, and closed her eyes. She had to do something—find her mother, warn the others—but her body wouldn’t move. Alice’s brain kept producing thoughts, and she watched them passively as if they were fuzzy images on a television screen. Someone was crying, talking loudly—and then she recognized a familiar voice.

  “Where are my children? I want to see my children….”

  Returning quietly to the door, Alice saw that the leader had brought Janet Wilkins into the room. The Wilkins family came from England; they had just joined New Harmony a few months ago. Mrs. Wilkins was a plump, fussy woman who seemed to be afraid of everything—rattlesnakes, rockslides, and lightning.

  The leader held Mrs. Wilkins’s arm tightly. He guided her across the room and made her sit down on the straight-backed chair. “There you go, Janet. Make yourself comfortable. Can I get you a glass of water?”

  “No. That’s not necessary.” Mrs. Wilkins saw the dead body, and then she turned her head away. “I-I want to see my children.”

  “Don’t worry, Janet. They’re safe. I’ll take you to them in a few minutes, but there’s one thing I need you to do first.” The leader reached into his pocket, pulled out a piece of paper, and handed it to Mrs. Wilkins. “Here. Read this.”

  A video camera on a tripod had been placed in the room. The leader set the camera five feet away from Mrs. Wilkins and made sure that she was in the
viewfinder. “Okay,” he told her, “go ahead.”

  Mrs. Wilkins’s hands were shaking as she began to read: “‘In the last few weeks, members of New Harmony have received messages from God. We cannot doubt these messages. We know they are true….’”

  She stopped reading and shook her head. No. Can’t do this. Standing behind the video camera, the leader drew a handgun from his shoulder holster.

  “‘But there are disbelievers among us,’” Mrs. Wilkins continued. “‘People who have followed the teachings of the Evil One. It’s important that we perform a cleansing act so that all of us can enter the Kingdom of Heaven.’”

  The leader lowered his gun and switched off the camera. “Thank you, Janet. That was a good first step, but it’s still not enough. You know why we’re here and what we’re looking for. I want information about the Traveler.”

  Mrs. Wilkins started crying, her face contorted into a mask of sadness and fear. “I don’t know anything. I swear….”

  “Everybody knows something.”

  “The young man isn’t here anymore. He’s gone. But my husband said Martin Greenwald got a letter from a Traveler a few weeks ago.”

  “And where is this letter?”

  “It’s probably in Martin’s house. He has a little office there.”

  The leader spoke into his headset. “Go to the Greenwald house in sector five. Search the office for a letter from the Traveler. This is level-one priority.” Switching off his radio, he took a step toward Mrs. Wilkins. “Anything else you can tell me?”

  “I don’t support the Travelers or the Harlequins. I’m not on anybody’s side. I just want my children.”

  “Of course. I understand.” Once again, the leader’s voice was soft and comforting. “Why don’t you join them?”

  He raised the handgun and shot her. Mrs. Wilkins’s body fell backward with a thump. The leader looked down at the dead woman as if she were a piece of trash left on the floor, then slid his gun back in its holster and left the room.

  Alice felt like time had stopped and restarted in a herky-jerky manner. It seemed to take a very long time to push the closet door open and walk through the rehearsal room. When she reached the hallway, time went so fast that she was conscious of only a few things: the concrete walls, the beckoning doorway, the man with the steel glasses at the other end of the corridor who raised his gun and shouted at her.

  Alice went the other way, pushing the door open and running out into the night. It was still snowing and very cold, but the darkness surrounded her like a magic cloak. Her face and bare hands felt like they were burning when she emerged from the grove of juniper trees and approached the house. The lights were still on inside; that had to be a good sign. When she passed beneath the archway she reached out and touched the flowering tree that Antonio had carved into the gate.

  The front door was unlocked. Alice entered the house and saw that the dinner dishes were still on the table. “Hello,” she said softly. No one answered. Moving as quietly as possible, she inspected the kitchen and then entered the living room. Where was she supposed to go? Where were the adults hiding?

  Alice stood still and listened for voices, anything that would tell her what to do. The wind blew snowflakes against the windows while the space heater hummed softly. She took a step forward and heard a faint dripping sound, as if water were leaking out of a kitchen pipe. The sound came again—a little louder—then she circled around the couch and saw a pool of blood. A drop of blood trickled down from the loft and splattered on the floor.

  Her body began moving again and she slowly climbed the staircase to the loft. There were only fourteen steps, but it felt like the longest journey of her life. Step. Another step. She wanted to stop, but her legs kept moving. “Please, Mommy,” she whispered as if she were begging for a special favor. “Please…” And then she was up in the loft and standing next to her mother’s body.

  The front door slammed open. Alice crouched down in the shadows, a few inches away from the bed. A man had entered the house. He was talking loudly into his headset microphone.

  “Yes, sir. I’m back at sector nine….”

  There was a splashing sound and Alice peered over the edge of the loft. A man wearing camouflage clothing was pouring a clear liquid over the furniture. The sharp smell of gasoline filled the air.

  “No kids here—only the targets in my sector. Raymond caught two people running for the trees, but they were both adults. Affirmative. We took the bodies inside.”

  The man tossed the empty fuel can onto the floor, returned to the entryway, and lit a wooden match. He held it in front of his face for an instant and Alice saw, not cruelty or hatred, but simple obedience. The man tossed the match on the floor and the gasoline immediately caught fire. Satisfied, the man walked out the door, closing it behind him.

  Black smoke filled the room as Alice stumbled down the staircase. There was a single window on the north side of the house, about six feet above the floor. She pushed her mother’s desk against the wall, clicked the latch open, and crawled outside, falling onto the snow.

  All she wanted to do was hide like a small animal curled up in a burrow. Coughing and crying from the smoke, she passed through the carved gate one last time. A chemical odor filled the air; it smelled like a garbage fire at the dump. Alice followed the adobe wall to a patch of bear grass and began scrambling up the rocky slope that led to the ridge above the canyon. As she climbed higher, she saw that all the houses were burning now, the flames flowing like a luminous river. The canyon got steeper and she had to grab at branches and clumps of grass, pulling herself upward.

  Near the top of the ridge, she heard a cracking sound and a bullet hit the snow-covered dirt in front of her. She threw herself sideways and rolled back down the hill, covering her face with her hands. Her body went about twenty feet, then hit a thornbush and stopped. As she began to get up, she remembered what the leader had said at the community center. Summerfield and Gleason are in position. Thermal sensors. And what did the word thermal mean? Heat. The gunman could see her because her body was warm.

  Lying on her back, Alice began to scoop up snow with her bare hands. She covered her legs with snow, then lay flat and pushed snow over her stomach and chest. Finally, she buried her left arm and used the right arm to cover her neck and face, leaving a little opening around her mouth. Her bare skin began to tingle and burn, but she stayed beside the thornbush and tried not to move. As the cold penetrated her body, the last particle of her Alice-self flickered and faded and died.

  1

  M ichael Corrigan sat in a windowless room at the Evergreen Foundation’s Research Center, north of New York City. He was watching a young Frenchwoman as she wandered through the Printemps Department Store in Paris. The surveillance cameras in the store reduced everything to black and white and shades of gray, but he could see that she was a brunette, fairly tall, and quite attractive. He liked her short skirt, black leather jacket, and her shoes—high heels with thin straps tied around her ankles.

  The scanner room resembled a private facility for showing movies. It had a large flat-panel video screen and speakers built into the walls. But there was only one place to sit—a butternut-brown leather lounge chair with a computer monitor and keyboard on a pivoting steel arm. Whoever was using the room could type directions into the system or slip on a phone headset and talk to the staff at the new computer center in Berlin. The first time Michael sat in the chair, he had to be guided through the use of scanning programs and backdoor access channels to surveillance systems. Now he could do simple tracking operations on his own.

  The young brunette was walking through the beauty-care section. Michael had checked out the store a few days earlier and was hoping that his target would take the escalator upstairs to the Printemps de la Mode section. Although surveillance cameras weren’t allowed in the individual changing rooms, there was a hidden camera in the public area at the end of the hallway. Occasionally the Frenchwomen would come out wearing linge
rie so they could study themselves in a full-length mirror.

  MICHAEL’S PRESENCE IN the scanner room was just another indication of his growing influence among the Brethren. He was a Traveler like his father, Matthew, and younger brother, Gabriel. In the past, Travelers had been seen as prophets or mystics, madmen or liberators. They had the power to break free of their bodies and send their conscious energy—their “Light”—to other realities. When they returned, they had visions and insights that transformed the world.

  Travelers had always encountered resistance from the authorities, but in the modern era a group of men called the Brethren began to identify Travelers and kill them before they could challenge the established order. Inspired by the ideas of Jeremy Bentham, an eighteenth-century British philosopher, the Brethren wanted to establish a Virtual Panopticon, an invisible prison that would contain everyone in the industrial world. The Brethren believed that once the population assumed they were being watched at all times, they would automatically follow the rules.

  The true symbol of the age was a closed-circuit surveillance camera. Computerized information systems had formed a Vast Machine that could link images and information to monitor large populations. For thousands of years, those in power had tried to ensure the permanency of their particular system. Finally, this dream of social control had become a real possibility.

  The Brethren had entered Michael’s and Gabriel’s lives when they were growing up on a farm in South Dakota. A team of mercenaries looking for their father had attacked their home and set fire to the buildings. The two Corrigan brothers had survived, but their father had disappeared. Years later, after being raised by their mother off the Grid, the Corrigans ended up in Los Angeles. Nathan Boone and his men first captured Michael, and then Gabriel. They transported both brothers to the Evergreen Foundation’s Research Center.