Cathedral of Dreams

by Terry Persun

  The boy smiled. “I made the angel based on a dream.”

  “Your dream?” Keith said.

  “That's all there is. Even you are me,” the boy said. “We share an image.”

  “But you said that I'm free.”

  “Free to do what you want, but I'm still there, inside you, monitoring, living.” The boy raised his chin, as though asking if there was anything more.

  Keith didn't say anything else for a moment, then blurted out, “What about the others? Are they free?”

  “Yes. Like you. I can only suggest, pique their curiosity. I live through them, but so many come back to me. I don't want them here.

  I know here. I want them out there.” The boy pointed somewhere beyond Keith.

  He felt relief at first. He was free from the system. Free to make his own decisions, not the illusions of decisions he had made so far. But with those feelings brought other, sadder sensations that filled his body with a great sense of being completely alone, even though he knew that wasn't true. A terrible separation occurred inside him, a tearing of his spirit, his heart, and in many ways his mind. How would he ever know if a thought were his alone or nudged by the system? Yet, when the boy said that Keith was free, he felt a physical sensation that acknowledged it as truth, a twisting and pulling feeling in his chest, and a similar snapping loose in his mind. There would be no more guidance that he could rely on. The angel, he knew, would never appear to him again. “Goodbye,” he said.

  When Keith turned around, everyone was still staring past him. “We'd better go,” he said. “I'm not too sure how much longer this can go on.”

  “Is the system breaking down?” Nellie asked.

  “If I were to guess, I'd say it grew beyond the physical. That's the only way it could be inside us. That's the only way it could want anything. Maybe it monitored our emotions for so long that it learned them. Does it matter? Does any of this matter? The only thing we need is to get out of here,” he said. “Find a door.”

  Philip sent a man up the side of one of the computer racks to get on top. He also found three men with guns. The rest huddled around until the man who climbed the shelving discovered an exit and relayed its approximate location.

  “This way,” Philip said. The whole army of unchipped residents followed him, the men with the guns marching to either side.

  Keith kept close to the front of the line. Nellie held to his shirt part of the time and pushed ahead of him every once in a while. At the times she led him, Keith figured that her aggressiveness had gotten the better of her. But it was all right. He liked that about her and was glad to follow for a change.

  When they reached the door, Philip hesitated long enough for Keith to recognize that he was unsure if it was safe to go through.

  Then it was too late. Philip shoved at the doors. They were secured shut. He waved a gunman over and ordered him to blast the lock off.

  The doors fell open, and only residents stood in the hall, surprised at the noise.

  Keith caught up with Philip and they walked out together.

  “Is it letting us go?” Philip asked.

  “That's my guess. But it doesn't make all the choices. There are the others we have to worry about,” Keith said.

  “This is too crazy for me,” Philip said.

  Keith grinned at him and slapped his shoulder. “Get used to it.”

  Philip shook his head. “Which way?”

  Keith stood straight and thought about where they were standing in relation to where the lab was. The maze of shelves had confused him for a short while, but he was getting his bearings. “We'll go out the front,” he said.

  “Just walk out?”

  “The boy said that it wanted us to go, so let's go.” Keith led the group forward toward what he had surmised was the front of the building.

  “How far?” Philip asked.

  “Quite a ways.” Keith swung around. “Is there any way we can get this group to spread out and mingle with the crowd?”

  Some of the residents moved closer to the walls and others continued as though nothing was amiss. Keith figured that the system was busily focused on its escapees. It had placed safety nets along the way in case some of the residents weren't emotionally ready for some reason. That meant that it never could control them totally. If they got in a jam, the weak ones would sacrifice themselves. If they weren't strong enough to make it past the doctor, they'd be brought back in. The system knew Bradley was out there. It was all making more sense, even though there were mysteries every step of the way. Keith chalked them up to a system at play, or performing a trial and error to see what works best. He really didn't know, couldn't know, what the system had evolved into.

  The group spread out, but continued through the halls and past the shopping areas. When Keith looked back at them, he noticed the three men with guns stayed together, Philip and Lori in front of them by a short distance. At his side, Nellie walked without touching him. She was strong and sure in her movements. He felt he was as much following her as she was following him. But he knew the way. He could see it in his head. Still, on occasion he asked the boy to appear and show him the way.

  Nothing happened. He was alone.

  “Buck up,” Nellie said. She must have noticed his slowing speed or his hesitation at the next turn.

  Keith smiled at her. Internally, he thanked her not just for the boost to his confidence, but for noticing him as closely as she did. He stepped it up as he headed down a long hall.

  That's when he heard the first explosion. The blast must have been enormous for it to shake the building the way it did. Bradley had no idea what kind of firepower he controlled and no idea what it would take to blow a hole through the building. Keith had suspected the truth since he found out that Bradley was a psychologist working under Rene. But here was the proof. He waved his hand for the others to follow more quickly as he stepped into a slow jog down the hall. If Bradley went after the system itself, there was no telling what would happen.

  Philip came up near him. “They're behind us,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “Some Newcity Security and some unchipped security.”

  Keith heard shots behind him and began to run. If he was right, there was a left turn and several hundred feet of open hallway before they could bust into what he recalled on his work terminal as the reception area. There had been numerous maintenance problems there.

  He reached for Nellie, who actually ran faster than he did and pulled him along until he stumbled. She slowed and he caught his balance. “Left,” he said. Just as they turned the corner, Philip yelled for Lori and the others to keep following Keith, while he halted the gunmen and positioned them as protection.

  There was no second explosion. Keith suspected that everyone who had stayed in the lab with Andrew were dead and wondered how the Newcity system could do that. Had it become interested in peak emotions? If so, the spike would be horrible and wonderful at the same time, depending on how attached to human life the system had become. He couldn't consider what that would mean. He had to fulfill his first goal now, which was to get these people out of Newcity before Bradley blocked all entrances.

  Glass doors lead into a reception area, but no one occupied the space. It looked as though it had not been used for a long time. Light poured from outside through a bank of windows several stories up and against the outside wall. The glass looked dingy and stained but light filtered through as though the sun were directly on the other side.

  Keith felt elation at seeing the sunshine, at being this close to getting free of Newcity for what he hoped was the last time. When they arrived, the doors were naturally locked. Keith kicked at them with his foot, but they were solid. He turned around and screamed for everyone to step aside. “Philip, shoot the glass.”

  Philip tugged on one of the gunmen and transferred the order. The man swung around and shot several times into the glass, putting tiny holes into what was now a fractured but still standing glass door.
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  Once the man turned back and exchanged shots at those approaching down the hall, Keith kicked the glass loose and made a hole large enough for them to rush through. Inside the large domed area, he realized that the outside doors would be locked as well. His shoulders slumped and he shook his head.

  “Look,” Nellie said.

  Keith glanced back to her and saw that Philip had anticipated the situation and had sent one of the gunmen running down the hall. Shortly behind him Philip and the other two gunmen began to run.

  Keith got out of the way.

  The gunman started shooting before he got to the door. By the time he hit it dead on, it flew open into the light.

  Keith had never seen the front of the building. It was one story above ground level, with a long line of stairs leading to the street. The only trouble with the stairs that they now had to travel down was the hundreds of people sitting on them.

  It didn't take long for the people on the stairs, a mixture of what looked like homeless families as well as shop owners and vendors, to notice the open doors. It was as though they got up in unison and charged up the stairs.

  Philip and two of the gunmen were being chased down the hall by unchipped, and shooting, security, while Keith and the others were being blocked by a mass of outsiders.

  “Into the crowd,” Keith yelled. He grabbed Nellie by the hand and ran forward. People either parted or fell in front of them, but he continued his drive down the stairs. He didn't look back. He knew that those who chose to follow would and those who didn't would get caught between the mob and the shooting security. There would be more deaths to add to those who most likely died in Bradley's blasting of the lab. It was mayhem, but there was no choice but to get through.

  Nellie held to him even through the stumbling masses. Others had caught up to them and created a stream of people going down the stairs while the largest number went up the stairs. With a quick glance over his shoulder, Keith noticed Lori behind them. He heard screams as some of the people – he didn't know which ones – were shot. He silently hoped that Philip had made it through.

  Nellie tripped next to him and fell onto someone coming up the stairs. She pulled him to the side and over the same person.

  Keith could feel the crunching of bones under him, but was pulled back upright onto the concrete stair as Nellie found her footing. Only a few more stairs and they'd be on the street. Which way should they go?

  Chapter 23

  A thick crowd of people stormed the Newcity doors. The masses ran around cars parked on the street like a wild river flowing around rocks. The drivers of those cars jumped from their vehicles and followed the crowd up the stairs. So many trying to escape and so many trying to get inside.

  Keith pulled Nellie close. They stood on the street letting the hoards brush against them as they passed. “To those cars,” he said, aiming her toward a recently abandoned vehicle. “Can you drive?”

  Before Nellie could answer, Lori yelled from behind him. “I can.”

  Even with the gunfire coming from inside, the crowd never turned to get away. They shoved past those going the opposite direction. Nellie and Keith held one another.

  Keith and his followers walked close to the cars, moving between them where there were fewer people to contend with. They found a blue vehicle that was designed to hold six and crammed seven inside. Lori climbed into the driver's seat, Keith and Nellie scrunched in beside her. Four others crowded into the back seat, including the gunman who had blasted the Newcity doors open.

  Lori backed the car about three feet, and pulled into the crowd. As the mass parted, she continued in a wide turn away from Newcity. She drove slowly, craning her neck to look into the crowd.

  Keith knew who she was searching for, and saw Philip three-quarters of the way down the stairs. Only one of the gunmen appeared to be with him.

  Then there was a loud pop and hiss from the left of the stairs. Once Keith saw the missile headed their way he yelled for Lori to drive faster.

  “I can't. I'll kill someone.”

  The missile hit the crowd and exploded. Blood and body parts flew past the car, smeared against the windshield, and thumped against the side. Everyone inside ducked except for Lori, who gave it more gas, running over several people as she turned.

  But Keith's body shifted in the wrong direction for the way that she was going. He sat up to find that she had swung the car back toward Newcity.

  “Philip,” she said.

  Keith looked out through the bloodied windshield and saw that Philip, caught in the wave of people, was still coming down the stairs against the current. He was the last of the group, having held off the Newcity security until the doors broke open. Some of the escapees had been wiped out by the missile, while others already occupied several cars near them.

  Through the horrible slaughter, Keith could see Bradley's men loading another missile into a two-man launcher of some sort. “You can't do this,” he yelled at the men. “We'll all be killed.”

  But there was no stopping Lori. She skidded over dead bodies and slammed into the curb near the entrance. A door opened in the back and Philip dived into the car. So did the other gunman. Now both gunmen were squashed into the back seat. With the window part way down, an arm reached out and began shooting toward Bradley.

  Keith saw Bradley's men hesitate and duck, but only for a moment until they realized that the gunman fired at random and mostly over their heads. It was enough time, though.

  Lori swung the car around and headed back to where they'd come from.

  The missile hissed. As the sound got louder, Keith yelled for Nellie to duck. The flying death slammed into the stairs and blasted a huge hole, throwing cement debris into the air. Chunks crashed against the car, smashing the windshield and pummeling the hood and roof. The car's engine quit.

  “Get out the other side,” Philip screamed.

  Doors flew open and the people toppled out. The two gunmen turned to use the car as a shield, but it was too late.

  Bradley's men had circled them. Among the dead and dying mob of people, about thirty men and women with rifles and pistols walked in a large circle around the car that Keith had occupied, as well as one other car that must have followed Lori out of pure panic and want of a better plan.

  “Drop your weapons,” one of the men said.

  The gunmen let their weapons fall to the ground and they all stood slowly. The people in the other car were still getting out. Keith had no idea how many of Philip's group had escaped, or where they would go, but there were only fifteen left here. He began to walk forward.

  “Hold it right there, Keith,” a man said.

  The man's voice was familiar. He was dressed in dark green clothes and wore a cap. It took a moment, but Keith recognized the man. It was Ben.

  “Not so special now, are you?” He stepped closer. “So, where are the rest of them?”

  “Inside,” Keith said, “where they wanted to be all along.”

  “Liar.”

  “He's telling the truth,” Nellie said stepping to his side.

  “Doesn't fucking matter,” Bradley grumbled from their right. He walked up to Keith and punched him in the jaw.

  Keith went down.

  Nellie squealed for Bradley to stop.

  Bradley shoved her out of his way and looked down at Keith. “You son-of-a-bitch. You could have saved them, but you let them die. Even Rene. You're no savior, you're a demon.” He shot his men a look of disgust and said, “Put them in the van. We're leaving.”

  “Why not just get rid of them?” Ben said.

  “I need to think about it,” Bradley said. “Now get them out of here. We've got to get on our way before they send others after us.”

  Bradley's men ushered the fifteen of them away from the bloody, body-littered street in front of the demolished Newcity stairs. The crowds had subsided with the few explosions, but the dead lay all around them. To the side of the Newcity stairs there were several vehicles parked, including a
large delivery truck whose open doors revealed it was filled with weapons. The door of one of several vans was opened. Ben waited as all fifteen of them were packed into the back of one van, several in the rear compartment, three sitting on the running board. Then he and another man got into the front two seats. He rode as passenger and held his gun so that it pointed into the mass of bodies.

  “You might as well settle in for the ride,” Ben said.

  “What do we do now,” Philip whispered.

  “Wait,” Keith said.

  Ben waved his pistol. “Let's say we make this a quiet ride unless I ask a question. Then you get to talk. How's that?”

  The people in the van nodded or moaned an answer, but no one spoke up.