“Is someone watching us?”
Boone shrugged his shoulders. “That’s always a possibility, Doctor.”
“Someone has to be watching us because they just opened these doors.”
“I’m carrying a radio frequency identification chip. We call it a Protective Link. The chip tells a computer that I’m in the building and approaching an entrance point.”
They stepped into the elevator and the door glided shut. Boone waved his hand at a gray pad built into the wall. There was a faint clicking sound and the elevator began to rise.
“In most buildings, they just use ID cards.”
“A few people here still carry cards.” Boone raised his arm and Richardson saw a scar on the back of his right hand. “But everyone with a high security clearance has a Protective Link implanted beneath their skin. An implant is a good deal more secure and efficient.”
They reached the third floor. Boone escorted Richardson to a suite with a bedroom, bathroom, and sitting room. “This is where you’ll spend the night,” Boone explained. “Sit down. Make yourself comfortable.”
“What’s going to happen?”
“It’s nothing to worry about, Doctor. Someone wants to talk to you.”
Boone left the room and the door clicked softly. This is crazy, Richardson thought. They’re treating me like I’m a criminal. For several minutes, the neurologist paced back and forth, and then his anger began to dissipate. Maybe he really had done something wrong. There was that conference in Jamaica and what else? A few meals and hotel rooms that had nothing to do with his research. How could they know about that? Who told them? He thought about his colleagues back at the university and decided that several of them were jealous of his success.
The door swung open and a young Asian man walked in carrying a thick green binder. The man wore a spotless white shirt and narrow black necktie that made him look neat and deferential. Richardson relaxed immediately.
“Good evening, Doctor. I’m Lawrence Takawa, the special projects manager for the Evergreen Foundation. Before we start, I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed reading your books, especially The Machine in the Skull. You certainly have come up with some interesting theories regarding the brain.”
“I want to know why I was brought here.”
“We needed to talk to you. Clause 18-C gives us that opportunity.”
“Why are we meeting tonight? I know that I signed the contract, but this is highly unusual. You could have contacted my secretary and arranged an appointment.”
“We needed to respond to a particular situation.”
“What do you want? A summary of this year’s research? I sent you a preliminary report. Didn’t anyone read it?”
“You’re not here to tell us anything, Dr. Richardson. Instead we want to give you some important information.” Lawrence motioned to one of the chairs and the two men sat facing each other. “You’ve done several different experiments over the last six years, but your research confirms one particular idea: there is no spiritual reality in the universe, human consciousness is simply a biochemical process within our brain.”
“That’s a simplistic summary, Mr. Takawa. But it’s basically correct.”
“Your research results support the philosophy of the Evergreen Foundation. The people who run the foundation believe that each human being is an autonomous biological unit. Our brain is an organic computer with its processing capabilities determined by genetic inheritance. During our lifetime, we fill our brain with learned knowledge and conditioned responses to different experiences. When we die, our brain computer is destroyed along with all its data and operating programs.”
Richardson nodded. “I think that’s clear.”
“It’s a wonderful theory,” Lawrence said. “Unfortunately, it’s not true. We’ve discovered that a fragment of energy exists inside every living thing, independent of the brain or body. This energy enters each plant or animal when they’re born. It leaves us when we die.”
Richardson tried not to smile. “You’re talking about the human soul.”
“We call it the Light. It seems to follow the laws of quantum theory.”
“Call it whatever you want, Mr. Takawa. I don’t particularly care. Let’s assume, for a moment, that we do have a soul. It’s in us when we’re alive. It departs when we die. Even if we accept a soul, it has no relevance to our lives. I mean, we can’t do anything with the soul. Measure it. Verify it. Take it out and place it in a jar.”
“A group of people called the Travelers are able to control their Light and send it out of their body.”
“I don’t believe in any of that spiritual nonsense. That can’t be proven in an experiment.”
“Read this and see what you think.” Lawrence placed the green binder on the table. “I’ll be back in a while.”
Takawa walked out and, once again, Richardson was alone. The conversation was so strange and unexpected that the neurologist didn’t know how to react. Travelers. The Light. Why was the employee of a scientific organization using such mystical terms? Dr. Richardson lightly touched the cover of the green binder with the tips of his fingers as if the contents could burn him. He took a deep breath, turned to the first page, and began to read.
***
THE BOOK WAS divided into five sections, each numbered separately. The first section summarized the experiences of different people who believed that their spirit had left their body, passed through four barriers, and crossed over into another world. These “Travelers” believed that all humans carried energy within their body like a tiger trapped in a cage. Suddenly, the cage door swung open and the Light was free.
Section two described the lives of several Travelers who had appeared during the last thousand years. A few of these people became hermits and went off to live in the desert, but many of the Travelers started movements and challenged the authorities. Because they had stepped outside the world, Travelers saw everything from a different perspective. The author of section two suggested that Saint Francis of Assisi, Joan of Arc, and Isaac Newton had been Travelers. Newton’s famous “Dark Journal,” kept hidden in a library vault at Cambridge University, revealed that the British mathematician dreamed he had crossed barriers of water, earth, air, and fire.
In the 1930s, Joseph Stalin decided that Travelers were a threat to his dictatorship. Section three described how the Russian secret police arrested more than a hundred mystics and spiritual leaders. A physician named Boris Orlov examined the Travelers held at a special prison camp outside Moscow. When the prisoners crossed over into other realms, their hearts beat once every thirty seconds and they stopped breathing. “They are like dead men,” Orlov wrote. “The energy of life has left their bodies.”
Heinrich Himmler, head of the German SS, read a translation of Orlov’s report and decided that the Travelers would be the source of a secret new weapon that could win the war. Section four of the report described how Travelers captured in occupied countries were sent to a concentration camp research facility under the supervision of the notorious “Death Doctor,” Kurt Blauner. The prisoners had sections of their brains removed and they were subjected to electroshock and ice baths. After the experiments failed to come up with a new weapon, Himmler decided that the Travelers were “a degenerate cosmopolitan element” and they became targets of the SS death squads.
Richardson felt no connection to the crude research performed in the past. People who thought they traveled to alternative worlds were suffering from abnormal activity in certain sections of their brains. Teresa of Avila, Joan of Arc, and all the other visionaries were probably epileptics with temporal-lobe seizures. The Nazis were wrong, of course. These people weren’t saints or enemies of the state; they simply needed modern tranquilizers and therapy to deal with the emotional stress of their illness.
When Richardson turned to the fifth section of the book, he was glad to see the experimental data was obtained using modern neurological tools like CAT scans and magnetic resonance ima
ging machines. He wanted to know the names of the scientists, but all that information had been crossed out with a black pen. The first two reports were detailed neurological evaluations of the people who had become Travelers. When these individuals went into a trance, their bodies went into a dormant state. CAT scans during this period showed virtually no neurological activity except for a heartbeat response controlled by the brain stem.
The third report described an experiment at a Beijing medical facility where a Chinese research group had invented something called a neural energy monitor. The NEM measured the biochemical energy produced by the human body. It showed that Travelers had the ability to create short bursts of what Lawrence Takawa had called the Light. This neural power was incredible, up to three hundred times stronger than the weak force that ran through a typical nervous system. The unnamed researchers suggested that the energy was connected with the ability to travel to other worlds.
Still doesn’t prove anything, Richardson thought. The energy overwhelms the brain and these people think they’ve seen angels.
He turned the page to another report and read quickly. In this experiment, the Chinese scientists had placed each Traveler in a plastic box-almost like a coffin-with special devices to monitor energy activity. Every time a Traveler went into a trance, an intense burst of energy was released from his body. The Light triggered the monitors, passed through the box, and escaped. Richardson searched through the footnotes, trying to find the names of the scientists and the Travelers. In each research report, a few words appeared like a casual comment at the end of a long conversation. “Subject returned to protective custody.” “Subject no longer cooperative.” “Subject deceased.”
Dr. Richardson was sweating. It was stuffy in the room; the ventilation didn’t seem to be working. Open the window, he thought. Breathe some cold night air. But when he pulled back the heavy curtains, he discovered a blank wall. There were no windows in the suite and the door was locked.
11
A Bengali wedding store was at the south end of Brick Lane. If you walked past the gold saris and pink party decorations, you entered a back room where you could connect to the Internet without being traced. Maya sent coded messages to Linden and Mother Blessing. Using the shop owner’s credit card, she placed online obituary notices in Le Monde and The Irish Times.
Died in Prague from a sudden illness: H. Lee Quinn, founder of Thorn Security Ltd. Survived by his daughter, Maya. In lieu of flowers, a contribution should be sent to the Traveler’s Fund.
Later that afternoon she got a response on a Harlequin blackboard: a brick wall near the Holborn station where a message could be scrawled like graffiti. Using a piece of orange chalk, someone had left a Harlequin lute, a line of numbers, and the words: Five/ Six/Bush/Green. That was easy to decipher. The numbers gave the time and date. The meeting location was 56 Shepherd’s Bush Green.
* * *
MAYA SLIPPED A handgun into her raincoat pocket and slung the sword carrying case over her left shoulder. Number 56 Shepherd’s Bush Green turned out to be a discount movie house in an alleyway next to the Empire Theatre. That afternoon, the theater was showing a Chinese kung fu movie and a travel documentary called Provence: Land of Enchantment.
Maya bought a ticket from the sleepy young woman in the booth. Someone had scrawled three interlocking Harlequin diamonds near the entrance to theater two, so she walked inside and found a drunk sleeping in the third row. When the lights dimmed and the film started, the man’s head flopped backward and he began to snore.
The movie had nothing to do with rural France. Instead, the soundtrack was a scratchy recording of the American jazz singer Josephine Baker singing “J’ai Deux Amours” while the screen showed news footage and historical photographs taken off the Internet. Any citizen who had wandered into the theater would have decided that the movie was visual gibberish, a mix of unconnected images of pain, oppression, and terror. Only Maya realized that the film presented a concise Harlequin view of the world. The conventional history given in schoolbooks was an illusion. Travelers were the only real force of change in the world, but the Tabula wanted to destroy them.
For thousands of years, the killing was done by kings and religious leaders. A Traveler would appear in a traditional society and present a new vision that challenged the powerful. This person would gain a following and then be destroyed. Gradually rulers began to follow a “King Herod strategy.” If Travelers were more prevalent in certain ethnic or religious groups, the authorities would slaughter everyone they could find in that group.
By the end of the Renaissance, a small group of men who called themselves Brethren began to organize these attacks. Using their wealth and connections, they could kill Harlequins or track down Travelers who had fled to other countries. The Brethren served kings and emperors, but they saw themselves as being above the mundane expression of power. What they valued most was stability and obedience: an ordered society where each person knew his place.
In the eighteenth century the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham designed the Panopticon: a model prison where one observer could monitor hundreds of prisoners while remaining unseen. The Brethren used the Panopticon prison design as a theoretical basis for their ideas. They believed that it would be possible to control the entire world as soon as the Travelers were exterminated.
Although the Tabula had money and power, the Harlequins had successfully defended the Travelers for hundreds of years. The introduction of computers and the spread of the Vast Machine changed everything. The Tabula finally had the means to track down and destroy their enemies. After World War II, there were approximately two dozen known Travelers in the world. Now there were none, and the Harlequins were reduced to a handful of fighters. Although the Brethren remained in the shadows, they were confident enough to start a public organization called the Evergreen Foundation.
Any journalist or historian who began to investigate the legends about Harlequins and Travelers was cautioned or dismissed. Web sites about Travelers were infected with computer viruses that got out of control and undermined the rest of the system. Tabula computer experts attacked legitimate Web sites, and then made up false Web sites that connected theories about the Travelers with crop circles, UFOs, and the book of Revelation. Ordinary citizens heard rumors about the secret conflict, but they had no way of knowing if it was true.
***
JOSEPHINE BAKER CONTINUED to sing. The drunk continued to snore. Up on the screen, the killing continued. Maya watched television news footage of top officials in different governments, all of them older men with dead eyes and smug smiles who controlled armies of soldiers and policemen. They were the Brethren or their supporters. We’re lost, Maya thought. Lost forever.
Halfway through the film, a man and woman entered the theater and sat down in the front row. Maya slipped the automatic out of her coat pocket and clicked off the safety. She got ready to defend herself, and then the man pulled down his zipper and the prostitute leaned over the armrest and began servicing him. Josephine Baker and the images of Traveler destruction had had no effect on the drunk, but now he woke up and noticed the intruders. “You should be ashamed!” he told them with a slurred voice. “There are places for that, you know!”
“Sod off,” said the woman, and there was a loud argument that ended with the couple leaving and the drunk tagging along after them.
Maya sat alone in the theater. The movie froze on an image of the president of France shaking hands with the American secretary of state. When the door to the projection booth creaked open she stood up, raised her automatic, and got ready to fire. A large man with a shaved head came out of the booth and climbed down a short ladder. Like Maya, he carried his Harlequin sword in a metal tube slung over his shoulder.
“Don’t shoot,” Linden said. “It would ruin my day.”
Maya lowered her weapon. “Were those people working for you?”
“No. They were just some drones. I thought they’d never leave. Did you like
the film, Maya? I created it last year when I was living in Madrid.”
Linden walked down the aisle and embraced Maya. He had powerful arms and shoulders and she felt protected by his bulk and strength. “I’m sorry about your father,” Linden said. “He was a great man. The bravest person I’ve ever known.”
“My father said that you have an informant working for the Tabula.”
“That’s right.”
They sat down beside each other and Maya touched Linden’s arm. “I want you to find out who killed my father.”
“I’ve already asked the informant,” Linden said. “It was probably an American named Nathan Boone.”
“So how do I find him?”
“Killing Boone is not our immediate objective. Your father called me three days before you came to Prague. He wanted you to go to the States and help Shepherd.”
“He asked me to do that. I turned him down.”
Linden nodded. “Now I’m asking you again. I’ll buy the plane ticket. You can leave tonight.”
“I want to find the man who killed my father. I’m going to kill him and then I’m going to disappear.”
“Many years ago your father discovered a Traveler named Matthew Corrigan. This man lived in the United States with his wife and two sons. When it was clear that they were in danger, your father gave Corrigan a suitcase full of money and a sword once owned by Sparrow. Thorn was given the sword when he helped Sparrow’s fiancée leave Japan.”
Maya was impressed with her father’s gift. A sword used by a famous Harlequin like Sparrow was a precious object. But her father had made the right choice. Only a Traveler could fully use the power of a talisman.
“Father said that the Corrigans went underground.”
“Yes. But the Tabula caught up with them in South Dakota. We heard that mercs had killed everyone, but apparently the mother and the sons got away. They were lost for a long time until one of the brothers, Michael Corrigan, gave his true name to the Vast Machine.”
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