The Dark River fr-2

by John Twelve Hawks

  A few minutes later, Jugger knocked twice and opened the door. “You ready?” he asked.

  Several Free Runners sat on the staircase and others were squeezed into the hallway. Mother Blessing stood in the living room near a table with a small microphone lying at the center. One of her Irish mercenaries, a tough-looking man with a white scar on the back of his neck, was directly outside the house.

  Gabriel picked up the microphone and switched it on. A cord led to a stereo receiver that was attached to different speakers. He breathed deeply and heard the sound coming from out in the hallway.

  “When I was in school, we were all handed a big history text-book on the first day of classes. I remember how hard it was to shove it into my backpack every afternoon. Every historical era had a color-coded section, and the teacher encouraged us to believe that-at a certain date-everyone stopped acting medieval and decided they were in the Renaissance.

  “Of course, real history isn’t like that. Different worldviews and different technologies can exist side by side. When a true innovation appears, most people aren’t even aware of its power or implications for their own lives.

  “One way to see history is that it’s the story of a continual battle: a conflict between individuals with new ideas and those who want to control society. A few of you may have heard rumors about a powerful group of people called the Tabula. The Tabula have guided kings and governments toward their philosophy of control. They want to transform the world into a giant prison where the prisoner always assumes that he’s being watched. Eventually each prisoner will accept his condition as reality.

  “Some people aren’t aware of what’s going on. Others choose to be blind. But everyone here is a Free Runner. The buildings that surround us don’t intimidate you. We climb the walls and jump the gaps.”

  Gabriel noticed that Cutter, the head of the Manchester Free Runners, was sitting against the wall with a plaster cast on his broken arm. “I respect all of you, and especially this man, Cutter. A London cab hit him a few weeks ago when we were racing and now he’s here with his friends. A true Free Runner won’t accept the conventional boundaries and limitations. It’s not a ‘sport’ or a way to get on television. It’s a choice we’ve made in our lives. A way to express what’s in our hearts.

  “Although some of us have rejected certain aspects of technology, we are all conscious of how the computer has changed the world. This truly is a new historical era: the Age of the Vast Machine. Surveillance cameras and scanners are everywhere. Soon the option of a private life will disappear. All these changes are justified by a pervasive culture of fear. The media is constantly shouting about some new threat to our lives. Our elected leaders encourage this fear as they take away our freedom.

  “But Free Runners aren’t frightened. Some of us try to live off the Grid. Others make small gestures of rebellion. Tonight I’m asking you for a larger commitment. I believe that the Tabula are planning a decisive step forward in the creation of their electronic prison. This isn’t just a few more surveillance cameras or a modification of a scanner program. It’s the final evolution of their plan.

  “And what is that plan? That’s the question. I’m asking you to sort through the rumors and see what’s real. I need people who can talk to their friends, explore the Internet-listen to the voices carried by the wind.” Gabriel pointed to Sebastian. “This man has designed the first of several underground Web sites. Send your information there and we’ll begin to organize resistance.

  “Remember that all of you can still make a choice. You don’t need to accept this new system of control and fear. We have the power to say no. We have the right to be free. Thank you.”

  No one applauded or cheered, but they seemed to support the Traveler as he left the room. People touched Gabriel’s hand as he walked past them.

  It was cold out on the street. Mother Blessing motioned to Brian, the Irish mercenary who was waiting on the sidewalk. “He’s done. Let’s go.”

  They got into the back of a delivery van while Brian slid into the driver’s seat. A few seconds later the van was moving slowly, passing through the fog on Langley Lane.

  Mother Blessing turned her head and stared at Gabriel. For the first time since he had met the Harlequin, she didn’t treat him with complete contempt. “Are you going to make any more speeches?” she asked.

  I’m still going to search for my father, Gabriel thought, but he kept that plan to himself. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “You remind me of your father,” Mother Blessing said. “Before we went to Ireland, I heard him speak a few times to groups in Portugal and Spain.”

  “Did he ever mention his family?”

  “He told me that you and your brother met Thorn when you were little boys.”

  “And that’s it? You guarded my father for several months and he never said anything else?”

  Mother Blessing gazed out the window as they took a bridge across the river. “He said that both Harlequins and Travelers were on a long road, and sometimes it was difficult to see the light in the distance.”

  Camden Market was where Maya, Vicki, and Alice had stepped off the canal boat and entered London. In the Victorian era it had been used as a loading point for the coal and lumber carried on the boats. The warehouses and shipping yards had been converted into a sprawling market filled with little clothing shops and food stalls. It was a place to buy pottery and pastry, antique jewelry and army surplus uniforms.

  Brian dropped them off on Chalk Farm Road, and Mother Blessing led Gabriel into the market. The immigrants who ran the food stalls were stacking up chairs and dumping chicken curry into bin bags. A few colored lights left over from Christmas swayed back and forth, but the edges of the market were dark, and rats scurried through the shadows.

  Mother Blessing knew the location of every surveillance camera in the area, but occasionally she stopped and used a camera detector-a handheld device about the size of a mobile phone. Powerful diodes in the device emitted infrared light that was invisible to the human eye. The lens of a surveillance camera reflected this narrow-spectrum light so that it glowed like a miniature full moon in the device’s viewing port. Gabriel was impressed by how quickly the Irish Harlequin was able to detect a hidden camera and then move out of its range.

  The east end of the market was filled with old brick buildings that had once been used as stables for the horses that dragged carts and omnibuses through the streets of London. More old stables were in tunnels called the catacombs that ran beneath the elevated railroad tracks. Mother Blessing led Gabriel through a brick archway into the catacombs and they hurried past locked shops and artists’ studios. For twenty feet, the tunnel walls were painted pink. In another area the walls were covered with aluminum foil. Finally, they reached the entrance to Winston Abosa’s shop. The West African was sitting on the concrete floor stitching an animal skin to the top of a wooden drum.

  Winston got to his feet and nodded to his guests. “Welcome back. I hope the speech was successful.”

  “Any customers?” Mother Blessing asked.

  “No, madam. It was a very quiet evening.”

  They stepped around the African drums and ebony statues of tribal gods and pregnant women. Winston pushed back a cloth banner advertising a drum festival in Stonehenge, revealing a reinforced steel door set into the brick wall. He unlocked the door, and they entered an apartment of four rooms attached to a single hallway. The front room had a folding cot and two television monitors that showed images of the shop and the entrance to the catacombs. Gabriel continued down the hallway past a small kitchen and a bathroom to a windowless bedroom with a chair, desk, and cast-iron bed. This had been his home for the last three days.

  Mother Blessing opened up the kitchen cabinet and took out a bottle of Irish whiskey. Winston followed Gabriel into the bedroom. “Are you hungry, Mr. Gabriel?”

  “Not right now, Winston. I’ll make some tea and toast later tonight.”

  “All the restaurants are
still open. I could buy some take-out food.”

  “Thanks. But get what you want. I’m going to lie down for a while.”

  Winston shut the door, and Gabriel heard him talking to Mother Blessing. He lay down on the bed and gazed up at the single lightbulb that hung from a cord in the middle of the ceiling. The room was chilly and water oozed from a crack in the wall.

  The energy Gabriel had felt during the speech had faded away. He realized that he was just like his father at this moment-both bodies were lying in a hidden room, guarded by a Harlequin. But a Traveler didn’t have to accept these limitations. Light could search for Light in a parallel world. If he crossed over, he could try to find his father in the First Realm.

  Gabriel got up and sat on the edge of the bed, with his hands on his lap and his feet on the concrete floor. Relax, he told himself. In the first stage, crossing over felt like prayer or meditation. Closing his eyes, he imagined a body of Light within his physical body. He sensed its energy, tracing its outline inside his shoulders, arms, and wrists.

  Breathe in. Breathe out. And suddenly, his left hand fell off his lap and flopped down on the mattress like deadweight. When he opened his eyes, he saw that a ghost arm and hand had broken out of his body. The arm was black space with little points of light like a constellation in the night sky. Concentrating on this other reality, he moved the ghost hand higher, a little higher, and then all at once the Light cracked out of his body like a chrysalis emerging from its cocoon.

  25

  Standing on the porch of her two-story clapboard house, Rosaleen Magan watched Captain Thomas Foley stagger down a narrow side street in Portmagee. Her father had emptied five bottles of Guinness during supper, but Rosaleen hadn’t complained about his drinking. The captain had helped raise six children, gone out fishing in every sort of weather, and had never started a fight at the village pub. If he wants another bottle let him have it, she thought. It helps him forget about his arthritis.

  She walked into the kitchen and switched on the personal computer in the alcove near the pantry. Her husband was in Limerick for a training class, and her son was working as a cabinetmaker in America. In the summertime, her house was filled with tourists, but in the cold months even the birdwatchers stayed away. Rosaleen preferred the quiet season even though very little happened during the day. Her oldest sister worked for the post office in Dublin. She was always prattling on about the latest movie or a play she saw at the Abbey Theatre. Once she was even rude enough to call Portmagee “a sleepy little village.”

  Tonight, Rosaleen had enough news for a decent e-mail. There certainly had been some mysterious activities on Skellig Columba, and her father was the only true source of information about the island.

  Rosaleen reminded her sister that a year ago an older man named Matthew had gone out to the island with a red-haired Irishwoman who had suddenly become the leader of the Poor Clares. A few days ago, an even more exotic group arrived at Portmagee-a little Chinese girl, a black woman, an American man, and a young woman with a British accent. One day after taking them out to the island, their father was told to transport the so-called abbess and the American man back to the mainland. Whatever is going on is certainly strange, Rosaleen typed. This might not be Dublin, but we do have mysteries in Portmagee.

  Hidden within the computer was a spy worm that had infected millions of computers throughout the world. The worm waited like a tropical snake at the bottom of a dark lagoon. When certain words and names appeared, the program detected the new information, copied it, and then slithered off through the Internet to find its master.

  VICKI FRASER ENJOYED waking up in the dormitory room of the convent’s cooking hut. Her face was always cold, but the rest of her body was wrapped within a goose-down quilt. Alice was asleep in the corner and Maya was just a few feet away, her Harlequin sword within reach.

  The cooking hut was quiet in the morning. When the sun hit the building at a certain angle, a yellowish-white beam of light came through the slit window and slowly moved across the floor. Vicki thought about Hollis and imagined him lying beside her. His body was covered with scars from all kinds of fights and confrontations, but when she looked into his eyes she saw the gentleness there. Now that they were safe on the island, Vicki had the time to think about him. Hollis was a very good fighter, but she was worried that his confidence would get him into trouble.

  Around six o’clock, Sister Joan returned to the hut and began banging kettles around as she brewed tea. The three other nuns arrived half an hour later, and everyone ate breakfast together. A large jar of honey was in the middle of the dining room table. Holding the jar with both hands, Alice liked to pour gooey shapes on the surface of her porridge.

  The little girl still refused to talk, but she seemed to enjoy living on the island. She helped the nuns with their daily tasks, picked flowers and stuffed them into empty marmalade jars, and explored the island with a stick for a Harlequin sword. Once she guided Vicki down a narrow path cut into the side of a cliff. It was a hundred yards straight down to the rocky shore, where waves surged around the rocks.

  A little cave was at the end of the path. It had a stone bench covered with moss and a little altar with a Celtic cross. “This looks like a hermit’s cave,” Vicki said, and Alice seemed pleased with this idea. The two of them sat just outside the cave’s narrow opening while the little girl threw pebbles at the horizon.

  Alice treated Vicki like an older sister who was in charge of brushing her hair. She adored the nuns, who read her adventure books and baked raisin cakes for her tea. One evening, she even lay on a bench in the chapel with her head on Sister Joan’s lap. Maya was in a different category for the little girl; she wasn’t Alice’s mother, sister, or friend. Sometimes, Vicki watched them glance at each other with an odd sort of understanding. They seemed to share the same feeling of loneliness no matter how many people were in the room.

  Twice a day, Maya visited Matthew Corrigan’s body in the chamber beneath the supply hut. The rest of the time she kept to herself, following the stone pathway to the dock and looking out at the sea. Vicki didn’t dare ask what had happened, but it was clear that Maya had done something that gave Mother Blessing an excuse to take Gabriel and leave Skellig Columba.

  On their eighth day on the island, Vicki woke up early in the morning and saw the Harlequin kneeling beside her. “Come downstairs,” Maya whispered. “I need to talk to you.”

  Wrapped in a black shawl, Vicki went downstairs to the dining area, where there was a long table with two benches. Maya had started a peat fire in the stove and it gave off a faint heat. Vicki sat on one of the benches and leaned against the wall. A large candle burned in the middle of the table, and shadows passed across Maya’s face when she circled the room.

  “Remember when we first arrived in Portmagee and Gabriel and I went to find Captain Foley? After we left his house, we sat down on that bench by the shore, and I swore that I would stand by Gabriel-no matter what happened.”

  Vicki nodded and spoke softly. “That must have been difficult. You once told me that Harlequins don’t like to make promises…”

  “It wasn’t difficult at all. I wanted to say those words-more than anything.” Maya approached the candle and stared at the flame. “I made a promise to Gabriel and I intend to keep it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m going to London to find Gabriel. No one can do a better job of protecting him.”

  “What about Mother Blessing?”

  “She attacked me in the chapel, but that was just to get my attention. I’m not going to let her intimidate me again.” With an angry look in her eyes, Maya resumed pacing. “I’ll fight her or Linden or anyone else who tries to keep me from Gabriel. Different Harlequins have been ordering me around since I was a child, but those days have passed.”

  Mother Blessing will kill you, Vicki thought. But she stayed silent. Maya’s face seemed to glow with a fierce energy.

  “If this promise is important
to you, then go to London. Don’t worry about Matthew Corrigan. I’ll be here if he crosses back over to this world.”

  “I’m concerned about my obligation, Vicki. I did agree to stay and protect him.”

  “It’s safe on the island,” Vicki said. “Even Mother Blessing said that. She was here almost six months and didn’t even see a bird-watcher.”

  “What if something happens?”

  “Then I’ll solve the problem. I’m just like you, Maya. I’m not a little girl anymore.”

  Maya stopped pacing and smiled slightly. “Yes. You’ve changed, too.”

  “Foley arrives tomorrow morning with the supplies and he can take you back to the mainland. But how are you going to find Gabriel in London?”

  “He’s probably going to contact the Free Runners. I’ve been to their house on the South Bank so I’ll go there and speak to Gabriel’s friends.”

  “Take all the money in my knapsack. We can’t use it on the island.”

  “Maya…” said a wispy voice, and Vicki was surprised to see Alice Chen standing near the staircase. The child had spoken for the first time since she had come into their lives. Her mouth moved in silence as if she didn’t believe that sound could emerge from her throat. Then she spoke again. “Please don’t go, Maya. I like you here.”

  Maya’s face became the usual Harlequin mask, but then her mouth softened and she allowed herself to feel an emotion other than anger. Vicki had watched Maya act brave so many times during the last few months. But the bravest moment was now-right now-when she crossed the room and embraced the little girl.

  ONE OF THE British mercenaries who had flown to Ireland with Boone opened the side door to the helicopter’s cargo bay. Boone was sitting on a steel bench working on his laptop computer.

  “Excuse me, sir. But you wanted to know when Mr. Harkness arrived.”