“And are you all religious?” Maya asked.
“I’m a Christian,” Antonio said. “Martin and Rebecca are Jewish. Joan is a Buddhist. We’ve got a whole spectrum of beliefs here, but our spiritual life is a private matter.”
Rebecca glanced at her husband. “All of us were living in the Vast Machine. But everything began to change when Martin’s car broke down on the freeway.”
“I guess that was the starting point,” Martin said. “Eight years ago, I was living in Houston, working as a real estate consultant for wealthy families that owned commercial property. We had two houses and three cars and-”
“He was miserable,” Rebecca said. “When he came home from work, he’d go down to the basement with a bottle of scotch and watch old movies until he fell asleep on the couch.”
Martin shook his head. “Human beings have an almost unlimited capacity for self-delusion. We can justify any amount of sadness if it fits our own particular standard of reality. I probably would have trudged down the same road for the rest of my life, but then something happened. I took a business trip to Virginia and it was an awful experience. My new clients were like greedy children without any sense of responsibility. At one point in the meeting, I suggested that they give one percent of their yearly income to charities in their community and they complained that I wasn’t tough enough to deal with their investments.
“Everything got worse after that. There were hundreds of police officers at the Washington airport because of some kind of special alert. I got searched twice passing through security and then I saw a man have a heart attack in the waiting lounge. My plane was delayed six hours. I spent my time drinking and staring at a television in the airport bar. More death and destruction. Crime. Pollution. All the news stories were telling me to be frightened. All the commercials were telling me to buy things that I didn’t need. The message was that people could only be passive victims or consumers.
“When I got back to Houston, it was about 110 degrees with 90 percent humidity. Halfway home, my car broke down on the freeway. No one stopped, of course. No one wanted to help me. I remember getting out of the car and looking up at the sky. It was a dirty brown color because of all the pollution. Trash everywhere. The noise of the traffic surrounding me. I realized that there was no reason to worry about hell in the afterlife because we’ve already created hell on earth.
“And that’s when it happened. This pickup truck stopped behind my car and a man got out. He was about my age, wearing jeans and a work shirt, and he was carrying an old ceramic cup-no handle-like something you’d use for the tea ceremony in Japan. He walked up to me and he didn’t introduce himself or ask about my car. He looked in my eyes and I felt like he knew me, that he understood what I was feeling at that moment. Then he offered me the cup and said ‘Here’s some water. You must be thirsty.’
“I drank the water and it was cold and it tasted good. The man pulled up the hood of my car, tinkered with the engine, and got it going in a few minutes. Now, normally, I would have just given this man some money and been on my way, but that didn’t feel right, so I asked him home for dinner. Twenty minutes later, we got back to my house.”
Rebecca shook her head and smiled. “I thought that Martin had gone out of his mind. He met a man on the freeway, and now this stranger is eating dinner with our family. My first thought was that he was a homeless person. Maybe a criminal. When we finished eating, he cleared the dishes and started washing them while Martin put the children to bed. The stranger asked me about my life and, for some reason, I began telling him everything. How unhappy I was. How I was worried about my husband and my children. How I had to take pills to go to sleep at night.”
“Our guest was a Traveler,” Martin said, looking straight across the table at Gabriel and Maya. “I don’t know how much you know about their power.”
“I’d like to hear anything you can tell me,” Gabriel said.
“Travelers have gone outside our world and then they’ve come back,” Martin said. “They have a different way of looking at everything.”
“Because they’ve been outside this prison we live in, Travelers can see things clearly,” Antonio said. “That’s why the Tabula are scared of them. They want us to believe that the Vast Machine is the only true reality.”
“At first, the Traveler didn’t say very much,” Rebecca said. “But when you were with him it felt like he could look inside your heart.”
“I took off work for three days,” Martin said. “Rebecca and I just talked to him, trying to explain how we had ended up in this situation. After the three days were over, the Traveler checked into a motel in downtown Houston. Every night, he would come out to the house and we started to invite some of our friends over.”
“I was the contractor who built the new bedroom in the Greenwalds’ house,” Antonio said. “When Martin called me, I thought he wanted me to meet some kind of preacher. I went over there one night and that’s when I met the Traveler. There were a lot of people in the living room and I was hiding in the corner. The Traveler looked at me for about two seconds and it changed my life. It felt like I had finally met someone who truly understood all my problems.”
“We learned about Travelers much later,” Joan said. “Martin contacted other people through the Internet and found out about the secret Web sites. The crucial thing to know is that every Traveler is different. They come from different religions and cultures. Most of them only visit one or two realms. When they return to this world, they have different interpretations of their experiences.”
“Our Traveler had visited the Second Realm of the hungry ghosts,” Martin explained. “What he saw there made him realize why people are desperate to feed the hunger in their souls. They keep looking for new objects and experiences that can only satisfy them for a short time.”
“The Vast Machine keeps us dissatisfied and frightened,” Antonio said. “It’s just another way to make us obedient. I gradually realized that all these things I was buying weren’t making me any happier. My kids were having problems at school. My wife and I were talking about a divorce. Sometimes I would wake up at three o’clock in the morning and just lie there, thinking about what I owed on my credit cards.”
“The Traveler made us feel that we weren’t trapped,” Rebecca said. “He looked at all of us-just a group of ordinary people-and helped us see how to make a better life. He made us realize what we could do on our own.”
Martin nodded slowly. “Our friends talked to their friends and, after about a week, we had a dozen families coming to our house every night. Twenty-three days after he arrived, the Traveler said goodbye and went away.”
“After he left, four families stopped coming to the meetings,” Antonio said. “Without his power, they couldn’t break away from their old habits. Then some other people went on the Internet and found out about Travelers and how dangerous it was to oppose the Vast Machine. Another month went by and we were down to five families. That was the core of people who wanted to change their lives.”
“We didn’t want to live in a sterile world, but we didn’t want to give up three hundred years of technology,” Martin explained. “What was best for our group was a mixture of high tech and low tech. It’s sort of a ‘Third Way.’ So we pooled our money, bought this land, and came out here. The first year was incredibly difficult. It was hard to set up the wind turbines so that we’d have our own independent power source. But Antonio was great. He figured it all out and got the generators working.”
“By that time we were down to four families,” Rebecca said. “Martin talked us into building the community center first. Using satellite phones, we were able to go online. Now we give technical support for the customers of three different companies. That’s the main source of the community income.”
“All the adults at New Harmony have to work six hours a day, five days a week,” Martin explained. “You can work at the community center, help at the school or in the greenhouses. We produce about a third
of our food-our eggs and vegetables-and buy the rest. There’s no crime in our community. We don’t have mortgages or credit card debts. And we have the ultimate luxury: a great deal of free time.”
“So what do you do with that time?” Maya asked.
Joan put down her glass. “I go hiking with my daughter. She knows all the trails around here. Some of the teenagers are teaching me how to hang glide.”
“I make furniture,” Antonio said. “It’s like a work of art, only you can sit on it. I made this table for Martin.”
“I’m learning how to play the cello,” Rebecca said. “My teacher is in Barcelona. Using a computer cam, he can watch and listen to me play.”
“I spend my time communicating with other people on the Internet,” Martin said. “Several of these new friends have come to live at New Harmony. We’re now up to twenty-one families.”
“New Harmony helps spread information about the Vast Machine,” Rebecca said. “A couple of years ago, the White House proposed something called the Protective Link ID card. It was voted down in Congress, but we’ve heard that it’s currently being used by the employees of large corporations. In a few years, the government will reintroduce the idea and make it mandatory.”
“But you haven’t really broken away from modern life,” Maya said. “You have computers and electricity.”
“And modern medicine,” Joan said. “I consult with other physicians on the Internet and we have basic group insurance in case of severe illness. I don’t know if it’s exercise, diet, or lack of stress, but people rarely get sick around here.”
“We didn’t want to run away from the world and pretend to be medieval farmers,” Martin said. “Our objective was to gain control of our lives and prove that this Third Way of ours can work. There are other groups like New Harmony-the same mix of high tech and low tech-and we’re all connected by the Internet. A new community just started in Canada about two months ago.”
Gabriel hadn’t spoken for a while, but he kept staring at Martin. “Tell me something,” he said. “What was the name of this Traveler?”
“Matthew.”
“And what was his last name?”
“He never gave us one,” Martin said.
“Do you have a photograph of him?”
“I think we have one in the storage chest.” Rebecca stood up. “Should I…”
“No need for that,” Antonio said. “I’ve got one.”
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a leather memo book that was stuffed with lists, old receipts, and building plans. Placing the book on the table, he thumbed through the pages, then pulled out a small photograph.
“My wife took this four days before the Traveler left. He ate dinner at my house that night.”
Holding one edge of the photograph like it was a precious relic, Antonio handed it across the table. Gabriel took the photograph and stared at it for a long time.
“And when was this taken?”
“About eight years ago.”
Gabriel looked up at them. His face showed pain, hope, joy. “This is my father. He was supposed to be dead, destroyed in a fire, but here he is-sitting next to you.”
40
Gabriel sat beneath the night sky and examined the frayed snapshot of his father. More than anything, he wanted Michael to be there with him. The brothers had stood beside the charred remains of the farmhouse in South Dakota. They had driven around the country together, whispering at night when their mother was asleep. Was Father still alive? Was he looking for them?
The Corrigans had searched for their father constantly, expecting to see him sitting at a bus stop or gazing out the window of a café. Sometimes, when they entered a new town, the brothers would glance at each other, feeling tense and excited. Maybe their father was living here. Maybe he was close-very close-just drive two blocks west and turn left. It was only when they reached Los Angeles that Michael announced that the speculation was over. Father was dead or gone forever. Let’s forget about the past and move on.
While the stars glimmered overhead, Gabriel questioned the four members of New Harmony. Antonio and the others were sympathetic, but they couldn’t give him much information. They didn’t know how to find the Traveler. He hadn’t contacted them or left an address.
“Did he ever mention that he had a family? A wife? Two sons?”
Rebecca placed her hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “No. He never said anything.”
“What did he tell you when he said goodbye?”
“He embraced each of us and then he stood in the doorway.” Martin’s voice was strained, filled with emotion. “He said that powerful men would try to make us frightened and filled with hate. They would try to control our lives and distract us…”
“… with glittering illusions,” Joan said.
“Yes. With glittering illusions. But we should never forget that the Light was in our hearts.”
The photograph-and Gabriel’s reaction to it-did solve one problem. Antonio no longer believed that he and Maya were Tabula spies. As they finished the wine, Antonio explained that the community was protecting a Pathfinder and this person lived in an isolated location about thirty miles north. If they still wanted to go, he would take them there tomorrow morning.
* * *
MAYA WAS SILENT walking back to the Blue House. When they reached the front door, she stepped in front of Michael and entered the house first. There was a feeling of aggressiveness about this act-as if each new location was a place where they might be attacked. The Harlequin didn’t switch on the lights. She seemed to have memorized the position of each piece of furniture. She quickly inspected the house and then they faced each other in the living room.
“It’s okay, Maya. We’re safe here.”
The Harlequin shook her head as if he had said something very foolish. Safety was a false word for her. Another illusion.
“I’ve never met your father and I don’t know where he is,” Maya said. “But I just wanted to say that-maybe he did this to protect you. Your house was destroyed. Your family went underground. According to our spy, the Tabula thought you were dead. You would have been safe if Michael hadn’t gone back on the Grid.”
“That might have been the reason. But I still…”
“You want to see him.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Maybe you’ll find him one day. If you have the power to become a Traveler, you might meet him in another realm.”
***
GABRIEL CLIMBED THE ladder to the loft bed. He tried to sleep, but it was impossible. As a cold wind came down the canyon and rattled the window frame, Gabriel sat on the bed and tried to become a Traveler. None of this was real. His body wasn’t real. And he could leave it. Just. Like. That.
For an hour or so, he argued with himself. Assuming that I have the power, then all I have to do is accept that fact. A plus B equals C. When logic didn’t work, he closed his eyes and was swept away by his own emotions. He could find his father and talk to him if he could break away from this cage of flesh. Within his mind, Gabriel tried to walk from darkness into light, but when he opened his eyes he was still sitting on the bed. Feeling angry and frustrated, he pounded his fist on the mattress.
Eventually, he fell asleep and woke up at dawn with the rough wool blanket wrapped around his body. When the shadows disappeared from the corners of the loft, Gabriel pulled on his clothes and climbed down the ladder. No one was in the bathroom and the bedroom was also empty. He went down the hallway to the kitchen and peered through a crack in the door. Maya sat with her sword case on her lap and her left hand flat on the table, staring at a patch of sunlight on the red tile floor. The sword and the intense expression on her face made him feel as if the Harlequin was cut off from any real human contact. He doubted if there could be a more solitary life: always hunted, always prepared to fight and die.
Maya turned slightly when Gabriel entered the kitchen. “Did they leave us anything for breakfast?” he asked.
“T
here’s tea and instant coffee in the cupboard. Milk, butter, and a loaf of bread in the refrigerator.”
“That’s enough for me.” Gabriel filled a kettle and placed it on a burner of the electric stove. “Why didn’t you make something?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Do you know anything about this Pathfinder?” Gabriel asked. “Is he young or old? What’s his nationality? They didn’t give us any information last night.”
“The Pathfinder is their secret. Hiding him is their act of resistance against the Vast Machine. Antonio was right about one thing: this community could get in a lot of trouble if the Tabula knew we were here.”
“And what happens when we meet the Pathfinder? Are you going to hang around and watch me fall on my face?”
“I’ve got other things to do. Don’t forget, the Tabula are continuing to look for you. I’ve got to make them believe that you’re somewhere else.”
“And how do you plan to do that?”
“You said your brother gave you money and a credit card when you were separated at the clothing factory.”
“Sometimes I use his card,” Gabriel said. “I don’t have any of my own.”
“Think I could borrow it?”
“What about the Tabula? Aren’t they going to trace the card number?”
“I’m expecting that,” Maya said. “I’ll use the card and your motorcycle.”
Gabriel didn’t want to lose the motorcycle, but he knew that Maya was right. The Tabula knew the bike’s license plate number and a dozen other ways to track him down. Everything from his old life had to be discarded.
“Okay.” He gave her Michael’s credit card and the motorcycle key. Maya looked as if she wanted to tell him something important, but she stood up without a word and walked to the doorway. “Eat your breakfast,” she said. “Antonio is going to be here in a few minutes.”
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