The Traveler fr-1

by John Twelve Hawks

  “You used to be a Harlequin,” Vicki said. “It’s a sin to work for the Tabula.”

  “Sin is such an old-fashioned word. Of course, you Jonesie girls have always been old-fashioned.”

  “You’re scum,” Vicki said. “Do you understand that word?”

  Shepherd gave her a benevolent smile. “Think of all this as a particularly complex game. I’ve picked the winning side.”

  53

  Maya and Hollis were about four miles from the entrance to Arcadia when they saw the Tabula helicopter. It rose into the sky and circled over the church camp like a raptor looking for prey.

  Hollis turned his pickup truck off the road and parked in the Jimsonweeds growing near a retaining wall. They peered through the branches of an oak tree and watched the helicopter head over the ridge.

  “So what do we do now?” Hollis asked.

  Maya wanted to punch the window, kick, and shout: anything to release her anger. But she forced her emotions into a little room inside her brain, and then locked the door. When she was a child, Thorn would make her stand in the corner, then pretend to attack her with a sword, knife, or fist. If she flinched or panicked, her father was disappointed. If she stayed calm, he praised his daughter’s strength.

  “The Tabula won’t kill Gabriel right away. They’ll interrogate him first and find out what he knows. While that’s going on they’ll leave a team at the church camp to ambush whoever returns.”

  Hollis peered out the window. “You mean somebody’s waiting there to kill us?”

  “That’s right.” Maya slipped on her sunglasses so Hollis couldn’t see her eyes. “But that’s not going to happen…”

  ***

  THE SUN WENT down around six o’clock, and Maya began to climb the hill to Arcadia. The chaparral was a tangled mess of dry vegetation; it had the sweet, sharp odor of wild anise. The Harlequin found it difficult to move in a straight line. It felt as if the branches and vines were grabbing at her legs and trying to pull the sword case from her shoulder. Halfway up the hill, she was blocked by a thicket of manzanita and scrub oak that forced her to search for an easier path.

  Finally she reached the chain-link fence that surrounded the church camp. She grabbed the top bar and pulled herself over. The two dormitories, the swimming pool area, the water tank, and the community center could be seen clearly in the moonlight. The Tabula mercs had to be there, hiding in the shadows. They probably assumed that the only entry point was the driveway that led up the hill. A conventional leader would position his men in a triangle around the parking lot.

  She drew her sword and remembered the lesson on soft walking she had learned from her father. You moved as if you were crossing a lake covered with thin ice: extend your foot, judge the ground, and finally step forward with your weight.

  Maya reached an area of darkness near the water tank and saw someone crouched beside the pool house. He was a short, broad-shouldered man holding an assault rifle. As she approached him from behind, she heard him whispering into the microphone of a radio headset.

  “You got any more water? I’m out.” He paused for a few seconds, then sounded annoyed. “I understand that, Frankie. But I didn’t bring two bottles like you did.”

  She took a step to the left, ran forward, and swung the sword at the back of his neck. The man fell forward like a slaughtered steer. The only sound was the clatter of his weapon falling onto the concrete. Maya leaned over the body and pulled the radio headset off the dead man’s ears. She heard other voices whispering to each other.

  “Here they are,” said a voice with a South African accent. “See the headlights? They’re coming up the hill…”

  Hollis drove his truck up the driveway, stopped in the parking lot, and switched off the engine. There was just enough moonlight to see his silhouette inside the truck cab.

  “Now what?” an American voice asked.

  “Do you see a woman?”

  “No.”

  “Kill the man if he gets out of the truck. If he stays there, wait for the Harlequin. Boone told me to shoot the woman on sight.”

  “I only see the man,” the American said. “How about you, Richard?”

  The dead man wasn’t answering questions. Maya left his weapon on the ground and hurried toward the community center.

  “Richard? Can you hear me?”

  No answer.

  Hollis remained in the pickup, distracting them from the real danger. Maya found the next Tabula at the second point of the triangle. Kneeling by the community center, he pointed a sniper rifle at the truck. Maya’s footsteps were silent on the hard-packed ground, but he must have sensed her approach. The Tabula turned slightly and her sword blade hit the side of his throat. Blood sprayed from a cut artery as the man collapsed.

  “I think he’s getting out of the truck,” the South African said. “Richard? Frankie? Are you there?”

  She made the quick, certain choice of a Harlequin in combat and sprinted toward the women’s dormitory. And yes, the third man was standing near the corner of the building. The Tabula was so frightened that he was talking loudly. “Can you hear me? Shoot the man in the truck!”

  Emerging from the shadows, she slashed at his right arm. The South African dropped his rifle and she attacked again, cutting the hamstring tendons behind his left knee. He fell forward, screaming with pain.

  Almost over. She stood beside the man and gestured with her sword. “Where are the two prisoners? Where did you take them?”

  The mercenary tried to get away, but she swung the sword again and cut the hamstrings on his other leg. Now he was flat on his belly, crawling like an animal, his fingers digging into the soft dirt.

  “Where are they?”

  “They took them to Van Nuys Airport. Loaded them on a…” He groaned and his body jerked forward. “Private jet.”

  “What’s the destination?”

  “Westchester County, near New York City. The Evergreen Foundation Research Center.” The man rolled onto his back and raised his hands. “Swear to God, I’m telling you the truth. It’s the Evergreen…”

  Her blade flashed through the shadows.

  54

  The beams from the truck’s headlights skittered across the road as Hollis drove down the hill from the church camp.

  Maya leaned against the door with the Harlequin sword on her lap. She had been either fighting or running ever since she had arrived in America, and now she had failed completely. At this moment, Gabriel and Vicki were being transported to the East Coast in a private jet. And the Tabula had control of both Travelers.

  “We need to attack the Evergreen Foundation Research Center,” she said. “There are only two of us, but I don’t see any other option. Drive to the airport and we’ll catch a plane to New York.”

  “That’s not a good idea,” Hollis said. “I don’t have a fake ID and it’s going to be difficult to transport our weapons. You’re the one who told me all about the Vast Machine. The Tabula have probably entered every police data system in the United States and placed our photographs in a ‘fugitive’ category.”

  “Could we go on a train?”

  “America doesn’t have a high-speed rail system like Europe or Japan. Traveling that way could take four or five days.”

  Maya spoke loudly, showing her anger. “So what are we supposed to do, Hollis? We have to respond immediately.”

  “We’ll drive cross-country. I’ve done it before. It takes about seventy-two hours.”

  “That’s too much time.”

  “Let’s say a magic carpet took us straight to the research center. We’d still have to figure out the best way to get inside.” He smiled at Maya, trying to look optimistic. “All you need to get across America is caffeine, gasoline, and some good music. While we’re on the road, you’ve got three days to come up with a plan.”

  Maya stared unblinking out the windshield, then nodded slightly. It bothered her that emotions might be influencing her choices. Hollis was right; he was thinking
like a Harlequin.

  Cardboard shoe boxes filled with music CDs were on the seat between them. The truck had a pair of large speakers and two CD players stacked on top of each other. As they turned onto the freeway, Hollis loaded a CD and punched the play button. Maya was expecting house music with a thumping beat, but suddenly she heard the Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt playing “Sweet Georgia Brown.”

  Hollis found hidden connections between jazz, rap, classical, and world music. As they cruised down the freeway, he kept his left hand on the steering wheel while his right hand flicked through the CDs in the shoe boxes. He began a continuous soundtrack for their journey, merging one song into another so that a Charlie Parker saxophone solo flowed into Russian monks chanting which led to Maria Callas singing an aria from Madame Butterfly.

  The Western deserts and mountains seemed to glide past them like a beautiful dream of openness and freedom. Reality was not part of the American landscape; it was only found in the massive tractor-trailer trucks that raced down the highway carrying gasoline, plywood, and a hundred frightened pigs sticking their snouts through the gaps of a cargo container.

  While Hollis did most of the driving, Maya sat in the passenger seat and used her satellite phone and laptop computer to access the Internet. She found Linden in a chat room and explained in soft language where she was going. The French Harlequin had contacts with the new tribes forming in America, Europe, and Asia-mostly young people opposed to the Vast Machine. One of these groups met on a renegade Web site called the Stuttgart Social Club. Although none of these hackers actually lived in Stuttgart, the club shielded their identities and gave them instant communication. Linden told them that there was an urgent need to find out everything about the Evergreen Foundation Research Center in Purchase, New York.

  At first the Stuttgart Social Club sent Maya downloaded newspaper articles about the Evergreen Foundation. Several hours later, club members began to break into corporate and government data systems. A Spanish hacker named Hercules entered the computer of the architectural firm that had designed the research center and electronic blueprints started to appear on Maya’s computer screen.

  “It’s a big compound in a suburban environment,” Maya said, scrolling through the information. “There are four large buildings constructed around a central quadrangle. A windowless building is at the center.”

  “What’s the security situation?” Hollis asked.

  “It’s like a modern castle. There’s a ten-foot wall. Surveillance cameras.”

  “We have one advantage. I bet the Tabula are so proud and confident that they won’t expect an attack. Is there a way to get in without tripping all the alarms?”

  “The building that was designed for genetic research has four levels beneath the ground floor. There are water pipes, electric cables, and air-conditioning ducts that follow some underground tunnels. One of the maintenance points for the ventilation system is about two meters outside the wall.”

  “Sounds promising.”

  “We’re going to need tools to break in.”

  Hollis slipped in a new CD and the door speakers blasted out dance music by a group called Funkadelic. “No problem!” he shouted and the music pushed them forward across the immense landscape.

  55

  It was almost midnight when Gabriel’s body was brought into the research center. A security guard knocked on the door of Dr. Richardson’s room in the administration center and told him to get dressed. The neurologist slipped a stethoscope into his coat pocket, then was escorted outside to the central quadrangle. It was a cold autumn evening, but the sky was clear. The Tomb was lit from the inside and it seemed to float like a massive cube in the darkness.

  Dr. Richardson and his guard met a private ambulance and a black passenger van at the entrance gate and walked behind the convoy like mourners following a funeral cortege. When the vehicles reached the genetic research building, two foundation employees got out of the van along with an African American woman. The younger employee said his name was Dennis Prichett. He was in charge of the transfer and was determined not to make any mistakes. The older man had spiky hair and a slack, dissipated face. Prichett kept calling him “Shepherd”-as if that was his only name. A black metal tube dangled from Shepherd’s left shoulder and he carried a Japanese sword in a scabbard.

  The young black woman kept staring at Dr. Richardson, but he avoided her eyes. Richardson sensed that she was some kind of prisoner, but he didn’t have the power to save her. If she whispered, “Please, help me,” then he would have to acknowledge his own captivity-and cowardice.

  Prichett opened the back of the ambulance. Dr. Richardson saw that Gabriel Corrigan was strapped to a gurney with the thick canvas restraints used on violent patients in hospital emergency rooms. Gabriel was unconscious. When the gurney was pulled out of the ambulance, his head lolled back and forth.

  The young woman tried to approach Gabriel, but Shepherd grabbed her arm and held her tightly. “Forget about that,” he said. “We need to get him inside.”

  They wheeled the gurney over to the genetic research building and stopped. No one’s Protective Link was authorized to enter the building. Prichett had to call security on his cell phone while the group stood outside in the cold air. Finally a technician sitting at a computer in London authorized the entry for their various ID cards. Prichett pushed the gurney through the doors and the group followed him.

  Ever since Richardson had accidentally read the laboratory report about hybrid animals, he had been curious about the top-secret genetic research building. There was nothing imposing about the ground-floor laboratories. Fluorescent ceiling lights. Refrigerators and lab tables. An electron microscope. The building smelled like a dog kennel, but Richardson couldn’t see any lab animals-and certainly nothing that could be called a “splicer.” Shepherd led the young woman down the hallway while Gabriel was wheeled into an empty room.

  Prichett stood beside Gabriel’s body. “We think Mr. Corrigan has crossed over to another realm. General Nash wants to know if his body is injured or not.”

  “All I have is a stethoscope.”

  “Do whatever you can, but hurry up. Nash is going to be here in a few minutes.”

  Richardson pushed the tips of his fingers against Gabriel’s neck and searched for a pulse. Nothing. He took a pencil out of his jacket, jabbed the sole of the young man’s foot, and got a muscular reaction. While Prichett watched, the neurologist unbuttoned Gabriel’s shirt and pressed his stethoscope against the Traveler’s chest. Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Then, finally, a single heartbeat.

  Voices came from outside in the corridor. Richardson stepped away from the body as Shepherd led Michael and General Nash into the room.

  “So?” Nash asked. “Is he all right?”

  “He’s alive. I don’t know if there’s been any neurological damage.”

  Michael went over to the gurney and touched his brother’s face. “Gabe’s still in the Second Realm, looking for a way out. I had already found the passageway, but I didn’t tell him.”

  “That was a wise decision,” Nash said.

  “Where’s my brother’s talisman? The Japanese sword?”

  Shepherd looked as if he’d been accused of stealing something. He handed the sword over and Michael placed it on his brother’s chest.

  “You can’t keep him restrained forever,” Richardson said. “He’ll develop skin ulcers like patients with spinal cord injuries. His muscles will start to deteriorate.”

  General Nash seemed annoyed that anyone had raised an objection. “I wouldn’t worry about that, Doctor. He’s going to stay under control until we change his mind.”

  ***

  THE NEXT MORNING, Richardson tried to stay out of sight in the neurological laboratory located in the library basement. He had been given access to an online chess game running on the research center’s computer and the activity fascinated him. His black chess pieces and the computer’s white pieces were little animated figure
s with faces, arms, and legs. When they weren’t moving across the board, the bishops would read their breviaries while the knights steadied their horses. The bored pawns were constantly yawning, scratching themselves, and falling asleep.

  After Richardson got used to the chessmen being alive, he moved up to something called the second interactive level. At this level, the chessmen insulted each other or gave suggestions to Richardson. If he moved a piece the wrong way, the chessman would argue about strategy, then grudgingly move to the next square. On the third interactive level, Richardson didn’t have to do anything but watch. The pieces moved on their own and the superior pieces killed the weaker ones, battering them with maces or stabbing them with swords.

  “Working hard, Doctor?”

  Richardson looked behind him and saw Nathan Boone standing in the doorway. “Just playing a little computer chess.”

  “Good.” Boone walked over to the lab table. “We all need to challenge ourselves continually. Keeps the mind alert.”

  Boone sat down on the other side of the table. Anyone glancing into the room would have thought that two colleagues were discussing a scientific issue.

  “So how are you, Doctor? We haven’t talked for a while.”

  Dr. Richardson glanced at the computer screen. The chessmen were talking to each other, waiting to attack. Richardson wondered if the chessmen believed that they were real. Perhaps they prayed and dreamed and enjoyed their little victories, not realizing that he was in control.

  “I-I would like to go home.”

  “We understand that.” Boone offered a sympathetic smile. “Eventually you can return to your classroom, but right now you’re an important member of our team. I was told that you were here last night when they brought in Gabriel Corrigan.”