The Traveler (26 page)

Time passed. It could have been a few seconds or several minutes. As his luminous body drifted lower, the power—the attractive force—gained strength, and he started to get frightened. He had a vision of Gabriel's face and felt an intense desire to see his brother again. They should face this together. Everything was dangerous when you were alone.

Closer.
Very close now. And he gave up struggling and felt his ghost body collapse into a globe, a point, a concentrated essence that was pulled into the dark hole. No lungs. No mouth. No voice.
Gone.

***

MICHAEL OPENED HIS eyes and found
himself
floating in the middle of a dark green ocean. Three small suns were above him in a triangular arrangement. They glowed white-hot in a straw-yellow sky.

He tried to stay relaxed and assess the situation. The water was warm and there was a gentle swell. No wind. Pushing his legs beneath the water, he bobbed up and down like a cork and surveyed the world around him. He saw a dark, hazy line that marked a horizon, but no sign of land.

"Hello!" he shouted. And, for a moment, the sound of his voice made him feel powerful and alive. But the word disappeared into the infinite expansion of the sea. "I'm here!" he shouted.
"Right here!"
But no one answered him.

He remembered the transcripts from the interrogated Travelers that Dr. Richardson had left in his room. There were four barriers that blocked his access to the other realms: water, fire, earth, air. There was no particular order to the barriers, and Travelers encountered them in different ways. You had to find a way out of each barrier, but the Travelers used different words to describe the ordeal. There was always a door.
A passageway.
One Russian Traveler had called it
a slash in a long black curtain.

Everyone agreed that you could escape to another barrier or back to your starting place in the original world. But no one had left an instruction book on how to manage this trick.
You find a way, a
woman explained.
Or it finds you.
The various explanations annoyed him. Why couldn't they just say: walk eight feet, turn
right.
He wanted a road map, not philosophy.

Michael swore loudly and splashed with his hands, just to hear a sound. Water struck his face and trickled down his cheek to his mouth. He expected a harsh, salty taste, like the ocean, but the water was completely neutral, without taste or smell. Scooping up some of the water in his palm, he examined it closely. Little particles were suspended in the liquid. It could be sand or algae or fairy dust; he had no way of knowing.

Was this just a dream? Could he really drown? Looking up at the sky, he tried to remember news stories of lost fishermen or tourists who had fallen from cruise ships and floated in the ocean until they were rescued. How long had they survived?
Three or four hours?
A day?

He dropped his head beneath the surface, came up, and spat out the water that had leaked into his mouth. Why were three suns in the sky above him? Was this a different universe with different rules for life and death? Although he tried to consider these ideas, the situation itself, the fact that he was alone without sight of land, asserted itself in his mind. Don't panic, he thought. You can last for a long time.

Michael remembered old rock-and-roll songs and sang them out loud. He counted backward and chanted nursery rhymes—anything to give him the feeling that he was still alive. Breathe in. Breathe out.
Splash.
Turn. Splash some more. But each time, when he was done, the little waves and ripples were absorbed by the stillness around him. Was he dead? Perhaps he was dead. Richardson could be laboring over his limp body at this exact moment. Maybe he was almost dead and, if he allowed himself to go under, the last fragment of life would be washed from his body.

Frightened, he picked a direction and began to swim. He did a basic crawl, then a backstroke when his arms got tired. Michael had no way of gauging how much time had passed. Five minutes. Five hours. But when he stopped and bobbed around again he saw the same line on the horizon.
The same three suns.
The yellow sky.
He let himself go under, and then came up quickly, spitting out water and shouting.

Michael lay faceup, arched his back, and closed his eyes. The sameness of his surroundings, its static nature, implied a creation of the mind. And yet his dreams had always featured Gabriel and the other people he knew. The absolute solitude of this place was something strange and disturbing. If this was his dream, then it should have included a pirate ship or a flashy speedboat filled with women.

Suddenly he felt something touch his leg with a quick slithery motion. Michael began to swim frantically. Kick. Reach forward. Grasp the water. His only thought was to go as fast as possible and get away from the thing that touched him. Water filled his nostrils
,
but he forced it out. He shut his eyes and swam blind, with a pawing, desperate motion. Stop. Wait. Sound of
his own
breathing. Then the fear passed through him and, once again, he was swimming nowhere, toward the endlessly receding horizon.

Time passed.
Dream time.
Space time.
He wasn't sure about anything. But he stopping moving and lay on his back, exhausted and gasping for air. All thoughts disappeared from him except for the desire to breathe. Like a single piece of living tissue, he concentrated on this action that had seemed simple and automatic in his past life. More time passed and he became aware of a new sensation. He felt as if he were moving in a particular direction, pulled toward one part of the horizon. Gradually the current grew stronger.

Michael heard water flowing past his ears and then a faint roaring sound, like a distant waterfall. Moving into a vertical position, he forced his head up and tried to see where he was going. In the distance a fine mist was rising into the air and small waves broke the surface of the ocean. The current was powerful now and it was difficult to swim against it. A roaring sound grew louder and louder until his own voice was overpowered by the noise. Michael raised his right arm into the air as if a gigantic bird or an angel could reach down and save him from destruction. The current pulled him on until the sea appeared to collapse in front of him.

For an instant he was underwater, and then he forced himself toward the light. He was on the side of an immense whirlpool that was as big as a crater on the moon. The green water was swirling around and around to a dark vortex. And he was pushed along by the current as it dragged him deeper, away from the light. Keep moving, Michael told himself. Don't give up. Something within him would be destroyed forever if he allowed the water to fill his mouth and lungs.

Halfway to the bottom of this green bowl, he saw a small black shadow about the size and shape of a ship's porthole. The shadow was something independent from the whirlpool. It vanished beneath the spray and foam, like a dark rock hidden in a river, only to reappear again in the same position.

Kicking and thrusting with his hands, Michael fell downward toward the shadow.
Lost it.
Found it again. And then he threw himself into its dark core.

Most of the glass-enclosed gallery that ran around the interior of the Tomb was used by the technical staff, but the north side of the building could be entered only through a guarded door. This private viewing area was carpeted and filled with a sectional couch and stainless-steel floor lamps. Small black tables and straight-backed suede chairs were set beside the tinted windows.

Kennard Nash sat alone at one of the tables while his bodyguard, an ex—Peruvian policeman named Ramón Vega, poured Chardonnay into a wineglass. Ramón had once murdered five
cop
 per miners foolish enough to organize a strike, but Nash valued the man for his skill as a valet and a waiter.

"What's for dinner, Ramón?"

"Salmon.
Garlic mashed potatoes.
Green beans and almonds.
They'll bring it over from the administrative center."

"Excellent. Make sure the food doesn't get cold."

Raman went back to the anteroom near the security door and Nash sipped his wine. One of the lessons Nash had learned from twenty-two years in the army was the necessity for officers to remain separate from enlisted men. You were their leader, not their friend. When he worked in the White House, the staff followed the same procedure. Every few weeks, the President would be brought out of seclusion to throw a baseball or light the national Christmas tree, but for the most part he was protected from the dangerous randomness of unscripted events. Although Nash was a military man, he had particularly warned the President against attending any soldier's funeral. An emotionally unstable wife might weep and scream. A mother could throw herself on the coffin while a father demanded a reason for his son's death. The philosophy of the Panopticon taught the Brethren that true power was based on control and predictability.

Because the Crossover Project had an unpredictable outcome, Nash hadn't informed the Brethren that the experiment was actually going on. There were simply too many variables to guarantee success. Everything was dependent on Michael Corrigan, the young man whose body now lay on the table in the middle of the Tomb. Many of the young men and women who took 3B3 had ended up in mental hospitals. Dr. Richardson complained that he couldn't gauge the correct dosage of the drug or predict its effect on a possible Traveler.

If this had been a military operation, Nash would have given full responsibility to a junior officer and stayed away from the battle. It was easier to avoid blame if you weren't in the same area. Nash knew that basic rule—had followed it throughout his career—but he found it impossible to stay away from the research center. The design of the quantum computer, the construction of the Tomb, and the attempt to create a Traveler were all his decisions. If the Crossover Project was successful, he would change the direction of history.

Already the Virtual Panopticon was taking control of the workplace. Sipping his wine, Kennard Nash allowed himself the pleasure of a grand vision. In Madrid a computer was counting the keystrokes of
a tired
young woman inputing credit card information. The computer program that monitored her work created an hourly chart that showed if she had achieved her quota. Messages would automatically tell her
Good work, Maria
or
I'm concerned, Miss Sanchez. You're falling behind.
And the young woman would bend forward and type faster, even faster, so that she wouldn't lose her job.

Somewhere in London a surveillance camera was focusing on the faces in a crowd, transforming a human being into a string of numbers that could be matched with a digitized file. In Mexico City and Jakarta electronic ears were overhearing phone calls and the constant chatter of the Internet was being monitored. Government computers knew that a certain book was bought in Denver while another book was being checked out of a library in Brussels. Who bought one book? Who read the other? Track the names.
Cross-reference.
Track again. Day by day, the Virtual Panopticon was watching its prisoners, becoming part of their world.

Ramón Vega slipped back into the room and bowed slightly. Nash assumed that something had gone wrong with dinner.

"Mr. Boone is at the door, General. He said you wanted to see him."

"Yes, of course. Send him in right away."

Kennard Nash knew that if he had been sitting in the Truth Room, the left side of his cortex would have
glowed
a deceitful red color. He disliked Nathan Boone and felt nervous when the man was around. Boone had been hired by Nash's predecessor, and he knew a great deal about the inner workings of the Brethren. During the last few years, Boone had established his own separate relationships with the other members of the executive board. Most of the Brethren thought Mr. Boone was brave and resourceful: the perfect head of security. It bothered Nash that he wasn't in complete control of Boone's activities. He recently discovered that the head of security had disobeyed a direct order.

Ramón escorted Boone into the gallery, and then left the two men alone. "You wanted to see me?" Boone asked. He stood with his legs spread slightly, his hands behind his back.

Nash was supposed to be the leader, the man in charge, yet both men knew that Boone could walk across the room and break the general's neck in a few seconds. "Sit down, Mr. Boone. Have a glass of Chardonnay."

"Not right now." Boone strolled over to the window and gazed down at the surgical table. The anesthesiologist was adjusting a heart sensor on Michael's chest. "How's it going?"

"Michael is in a trance state.
Weak pulse.
Limited breathing.
I'm hoping that he's become a Traveler."

"Or maybe he's half dead. The 3B3 could have fried his brain." "Neural energy has left his body. Our computers seem to be tracking the movement fairly well."

Both men were silent for moment, staring out the window. "Let's assume that he really is a Traveler," Boone said. "Can he die at this moment?"

"The person lying on the examination table can cease to be biologically alive."

"But what would happen to his Light?"

"I don't know," Nash said. "But it couldn't return to his body." "Can he die in another realm?"

"Yes. We believe that if you're killed in another realm, you're trapped there forever."

Boone turned away from the window. "I hope this works."

"We need to anticipate all possibilities. That's why it's crucial that we find Gabriel Corrigan. If Michael dies, we'll need an immediate substitute."

"I understand."

General Nash lowered his wineglass. "According to my sources, you pulled back our field agents in California. This was the team looking for Gabriel."

Boone didn't seem disturbed by the accusation. "Electronic surveillance continues. I also have a team searching for the Harlequin mercenary who placed a false clue in Michael Corrigan's apartment. I think it's a martial arts instructor who used to be affiliated with the Church of Isaac Jones."

"But no one is actually looking for Gabriel," Nash said. "You've disobeyed a direct command."

"It is my responsibility to protect our organization and help us achieve our goals."

"At this point, the Crossover Project is our primary goal, Mr. Boone. There's nothing more important."

Boone stepped closer to the table like a police officer about to confront a suspect. "Perhaps this issue should be discussed by the executive board."

General Nash looked down at the table and considered his options. He had avoided giving Boone all the facts about the quantum computer, but it had become impossible to keep the secret.

"As you know, we now have a working quantum computer. This isn't the time to discuss the technological aspects of this device, but it involves suspending subatomic particles in an energy field. For an extremely brief period of time these particles disappear from the force field and then they return. And where do they go, Mr. Boone? Our scientists tell me that they travel to another dimension—another realm."

Boone looked amused. "They travel with the Travelers."

"These particles have returned to our computer with messages from an advanced civilization. At first, we received simple binary codes and then information of increasing complexity. This civilization has given our scientists new discoveries in physics and computers. They've shown us how to make genetic modifications in animals and create the splicers. If we can learn more of this advanced technology, we'll be able to establish the Panopticon in our lifetime. The Brethren will finally have the power to watch and control an immense group of people."

"And what does this civilization want in exchange?" Boone asked. "No one gives anything for free."

"They want to come into our world and meet us. And that's what we need Travelers for—to show them the way. The quantum computer is tracking Michael Corrigan as he moves between the different realms. Do you understand, Mr. Boone? Is it all quite clear?"

For once, Boone looked impressed. Nash allowed himself to enjoy the moment as he refilled his glass. "That's why I asked you to find Gabriel Corrigan. And I'm not happy about your refusal to follow orders."

"I pulled back the field agents for one reason," Boone said. "I think there's a traitor in this organization."

Nash's hand trembled slightly as he put down the wineglass. "Are you sure about this?"

"Thorn's daughter, Maya, is in the United States. But I haven't been able to capture her. The Harlequins have anticipated all of our actions."

"And you think that a field agent has betrayed us?"

"It is the philosophy of the Panopticon that everyone should be watched and evaluated—even those in charge of the system."

"Are you saying that I have something to do with this?"

"Not at all," Boone said, but he stared at the general as if he had considered the possibility. "Right now I'm using the Internet team to track everyone who has a connection to this project."

"And who will examine your own activities?"

"I've never had any secrets from the Brethren."

Don't look at him, Nash thought. Don't let him see your eyes. He peered out the window at Michael's body.

Dr. Richardson paced nervously beside his motionless patient. Somehow, a white moth had slipped into the climate-controlled environment of the Tomb. The doctor looked startled as it emerged from the shadows and fluttered in and out of the light.