The Traveler's Companion (6 page)

Iverson was nearly on Gibbons’s heels as they rushed down the hallway. A shadow was engulfing them, the hallway was going dark. With nothing under his feet, it looked like Gibbons was running in place. Iverson forced his attention on the door at the end of the hall. Everything else had vanished. As long as it was there, he would continue to run to it. He just kept focusing on it. Get through the door, he told himself.

Iverson grabbed the handle of the door first, but at full speed Gibbons was unable to stop. They both went tumbling into the conference room.

Go and Angela were in the midst of a conversation.

“I sometimes wonder if maybe energy forms the world we see,” Go was saying. “It shapes things . . . you know?”

Out of breath, his lungs burning, Iverson got up from the floor and tried to collect himself. Gibbons fell into a chair and cradled his head in his hands. Iverson began pacing back and forth as if his ass were on fire.

“You two all right?” Go asked after a drink of coffee.

Iverson, frenzied, wasn’t sure how to respond to the question. He wondered if Gibbons was right about them being drugged, but that didn’t quite add up.

“How did the offices look? I did it all from memory,” Go said.

“Maybe you could explain to us how it all just vanished before our eyes!” Gibbons said.

Go chuckled. “Oh, yeah. That happens. The manifestations don’t last. In time everything dissolves. My scientists think the blackness is a form of dark matter, which is really just a term they use to describe something they don’t understand. I don’t really get the whole science thing, to be honest. But I do have a theory. Maybe I’m talking out my ass, but no one else seems to have an answer. The tests they keep running on its composition have so far proved the Zone is immeasurable and incalculable. In my opinion that’s because the Zone is nothingness. It’s complete nothingness, in the most literal sense.”

Iverson finally sat down. He put his hands together pensively and noticed they were shaking. “You’re telling me you can create something with your mind?”

Go sighed. “Okay. I thought we were past this. Yes, I can create stuff with my mind. And so can you. In the Zone, anyone can. I thought you guys read the book.”

“I read it,” Angela said. She took a whiff of the rose and smiled at C.C. “The idea of true nothingness is intriguing, but is it possible in our universe?”

Go sighed, “I don’t know. But wouldn’t nothingness be fertile ground for matter?”

“You’re talking about what existed before the big bang,” Angela said.

“Exactly. Before the singularity that created our universe,” Go said.

“What are you doing to us, Go?” Gibbons asked. “Is it LSD? Is it what you gave Melissa?”

“I don’t do drugs, nor do I drug others,” Go said, putting his hands up defensively. Gibbons shot an angry glance at him, to which he replied, “Why don’t you just manifest something for heaven’s sake! See for yourself!”

Gibbons turned to Iverson and said, “Ryan. Do what the kid says.”

Iverson nearly leapt out of his chair. “Do what?!”

“Let him show you how to do it, and then just do it,” Gibbons commanded.

Iverson had no response to such a bizarre order.

“It’s easy,” Go said. “First lesson . . .” Go closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and connected his middle fingers to his thumbs, “. . . surrender to the moment.”

Iverson wanted to strangle him.

When Go reopened his eyes, he found all eyes on him. He donned a silly smirk and said, “Let’s get out of this office. It’s a little stuffy in here.” He went for the door and by the time he got to it, he realized no one was following him. “You want to know what the Zone is, right? Well, come on.”

Angela, now apparently a loyal follower, got up as instructed. She was still holding the rose.

Gibbons and Iverson remained seated. They just watched with horrified expressions as Go stood by the exit.

Go threw open the door. The room beyond had hardwood floors and mirrored walls. No windows. He entered with Angela in tow. “Come on!” Go shouted gleefully. “Okay, Angela. Creating something in the Zone is just like creating something in reality.”

When Iverson heard Mr. Go instructing Angela, he jumped up. She was a complex machine, but she couldn’t be creative. He had to intervene. Quickly, his shoes went from carpet to hardwood floors.

Gibbons stayed.

“Simply imagine a rose. Picture it in your mind,” Go was saying to Angela.

She had her eyes closed, trying to do as he instructed.

“Angela is not particularly creative, Mister Go,” Iverson said.

“Nonsense. We’re all creative in one way or another. You do your daughter an injustice by saying that. You’d be shocked how well someone can do with a little instruction.”

“She just had a seizure. She needs to relax her mind. Why not show me?”

“If you insist,” Go said, “Have a seat.”

There were no chairs. Iverson sat on the floor and crossed his legs Indian style, his buttocks suffering the hardwood floor and his leg muscles stretching in places they hadn’t in years. He felt a little silly when a leather club chair miraculously appeared before Mr. Go.

Angela sat on the floor next to Iverson, setting her rose down beside her. She affectionately took her creator’s hand in hers.

“You’ve heard that scientists discovered a black hole in the center of our galaxy,” Go said from his plush throne.

Iverson felt like a school kid with Mr. Go as his teacher. “Yes, of course. In Sagittarius A,” Iverson said. He almost expected praise.

“Sagittarius A,” Go repeated thoughtfully. “It might seem counterintuitive to some, but to a creative person the idea of a black hole in the center of our galaxy makes perfect sense.”

“We exist in a spiral galaxy,” Angela said, “Scientists believe that the black hole’s intense gravitational pull crushes protons, which releases the enormous energy needed to rotate the galaxy.”

Iverson cringed. She sounded awfully robotic.

“There’s a void inside humans, as well,” Go said to her. “Everything we create comes from there.”

Pulling a wry expression, Iverson said, “I don’t understand.”

Go thought it over for a moment. “To create something, you have to embrace nothingness . . . the void inside you.”

Iverson looked to Gibbons for help. He was still sitting in the conference room, leaning to one side in the chair so he could hear. Obviously he had nothing to offer.

C.C. Go sighed impatiently. “This is going to be more difficult than I thought. Maybe I should call the printer. I may need a rewrite.”

A quick scan of his brain showed he believed the comment to be untruthful. “No, no, C.C. The book is fine. Please continue,” Angela told him.

“Okay, Doctor. Relax your mind,” Go instructed.

Every muscle in Iverson’s body tensed. He wanted nothing more than to leave this room, go out of the building to the smoking section, and light up a cigarette. But he remembered his lighter didn’t work.

Suddenly Iverson realized that Go and Angela were laughing at him. He searched their faces. “What’s so funny? Why are you laughing?”

Iverson brought up his hand and was startled to see that he was holding a lit cigarette. Shocked, he tossed it to the floor. It burned there for a second before he pounced on it with the sole of his shoe. Red embers scattered like fireworks and then turned to specks of dark ash. Amazingly, after a few seconds, the cigarette and its ashes were gone. Not so much as a mark was left on the hardwood.

“You did it,” Go said.

Angela applauded him.

“Maybe next time you’ll create something less self-destructive,” Go said. “Addiction is usually symptomatic of creative blocks. We’ll have to work on that. But for now, let’s break for lunch. I’m starved.”

Suddenly a door appeared.

Go gallantly offered a hand to assist Angela up from the floor. When she got to her feet, she searched around for her rose, but it was gone. “Where did my rose go?”

“I’m sorry, but the rose is gone. I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did,” Go said. He went over to Iverson and extended a hand. “Come on, Doctor Iverson. Get up off the dark matter. We’re going for dim sum.” After helping Iverson up from the floor, he went into the conference room to entice Gibbons out of the chair.

Iverson went to the door Go had manifested. It was an old-fashioned wood door with a wood frame and a Victorian style brass knob. Were he to look up “door” in the dictionary, he would not be surprised to find a picture of this door. When he opened it, there was an alleyway on the other side. Skyscrapers rose in the distance. Garlic-scented air struck his nostrils.

Go came up behind Iverson and draped an arm over his shoulders. He whispered into his ear, “When we get back from lunch, I’ll tell you how the Zone proves God exists.”

CHAPTER 5

Iverson, Angela, and Gibbons, much to their astonishment, had somehow left CIA headquarters, gone into the mysterious alleyway, and joined a throng of Asians at the streetlight of an intersection. Go had said this was the Central District in Hong Kong, as well as the location of his favorite restaurant. Iverson marveled at his surroundings like a tourist. With expensive retailers bordering congested streets, it looked just like any major American city, but here most of the store names included Chinese subtitles. Cabs were red instead of yellow. Asian faces outnumbered Caucasian. A city’s buildings were its true landmarks, and here it was impossible to miss the Bank of China Tower with its triangular frameworks and glass walls.

Only a few blocks away was the restaurant Go wanted to take them to. Asian waitresses dressed in gold and pink uniforms were pushing dim sum carts from table to table. Out the window was a panoramic view. A Chinese junk was making its way across Victoria Harbor, appearing somewhat anachronistic with motorboats whizzing by it and the backdrop of high-rise buildings lining the shores of Kowloon.

Gibbons took Iverson by the arm and stealthily ushered him to a booth near the exit, allowing Go and Angela to dine alone at a table near the window.

“It’s the drugs,” Gibbons said.

Iverson shook his head. “We can’t be having the same hallucination.” He picked up a pair of chopsticks and looked with amazement at the Chinese characters along the paper sheath. He removed the chopsticks and inspected them.

“If it’s not drugs, then what?” Gibbons asked. “Was there anything in that book of his about any of this?”

“I don’t recall anything like this.” Iverson broke apart the chopsticks, one crisp snap.

“Don’t be coy, Iverson. Give me some scientific basis for all this. For fuck’s sake, that’s what we’re paying you for,” Gibbons said.

“I can only speak theoretic—”

“Come on, Ryan!” Gibbons said.

Iverson sighed before just blurting it out: “We might be traveling trans-dimensionally.”

“Trans-dimensionally,” Gibbons said. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“Superstring theory, commonly referred to as a T-O-E: the theory of everything—” Iverson was interrupted by a loud sigh from his boss. “String theory endeavors to link Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity with quantum physics. Small vibrating strings of energy, smaller than the nucleus of an atom—in fact, several billion times smaller—represent the building blocks of our universe. What they’re calling ‘strings’ are really filaments vibrating inside electrons and quarks. It’s believed that their vibration dictates how matter becomes manifest.”

“The abridged version, please, Doctor.”

“I thought that’s what I was doing. Anyway, for string theory to work, there must have been more dimensions before the big bang, at least more than the three we perceive. Ten dimensions to be exact . . . eleven, if you include one for time,” Iverson said.

“You just get out of high school? This presentation is horrible,” Gibbons said.

“There’s a lot more to this, Mark, if you don’t mind.”

Gibbons rolled his eyes.

“String theorists, like the type Go wrote about in his author’s note, believe that our universe, as well as other universes, might all exist together on a membrane, what’s known as M theory. Imagine universes—multi-verses if you will—residing on this membrane and lined up like rooms in a hotel. Without getting into detail, one might be able to punch a hole in the wall and take a look into the next room.”

“Punch a hole?” Gibbons asked, squinting.

“Yes. You’re familiar with Einstein’s general relativity theory concerning the nature of space-time?”

“Just keep going, Iverson.”

“Einstein discovered that space-time can bend, and, during the immense gravitational forces of a supernova, it can even tear. If space can rip, the obvious question is: what’s beyond it? There are theories: parallel universes, anti-matter, the Wizard of Oz. Take your pick.”

Gibbons appeared perturbed by the task of absorbing all this information.

“I’m sure you’re familiar with CERN laboratories in Geneva and their experiments using the LHC.”

Gibbons threw up his hands in sarcastic surrender.

“The LHC, or Large Hadron Collider, is a massive, twenty-seven kilometer particle accelerator designed to smash protons together at a fraction slower than the speed of light. This experiment recreates the conditions just after the big bang and allows scientists a glimpse into the origins of the universe. A controversial byproduct is the formation of what they call mini black holes. Black holes, of course, make people nervous, but these black holes are smaller than the nucleus of an atom. Millions of times smaller. The rumors that are going around about these experiments causing a chain reaction that could destroy the universe are speculative at this point. I personally can’t imagine black holes that size causing much of a fuss.”

“That’s comforting. Black holes aren’t so bad. Have we gotten to the point yet?” Gibbons asked.

“Yes. Smashing protons could, theoretically, provide a tear in the curtain of our reality at a quantum level and thus a gateway to another dimension. Theoretically.”

Gibbons actually seemed to be considering this.

“I should probably tell you that Angela found something in the security camera footage after we lost Melissa Fleming. It was an object vaguely resembling a hand . . . maybe someone was reaching out for her.”

“A hand?” Gibbons asked.

“That’s right. When Angela pointed it out, I thought she was mistaken; but considering recent events, I suppose there’s a chance it was a human hand. Someone took Melissa out of the infirmary and into God knows what.”

Gibbons simply stared at him.

“Do you have any idea what would happen if he’s discovered trans-dimensional travel?” Iverson asked. “He could move faster than the speed of light. There could be a parallel universe, an invisible neighbor that mirrors our existence exactly, and he’d have the capability to jump back and forth between the two realities, stealing weapons, gaining access to secret government facilities, all the while going completely undetected. He’d be the most powerful person in the world . . . in history.”

“We need to call this in,” Gibbons said.

“You want to call for help?”

“You understand what’s going on here, right? He’s brought us to China for a reason. Do you have any idea what Chinese Intelligence would do to us if they found us here with no passports and no record of entering the country? They’d fry us in a wok and serve us with plum sauce. He knows we can’t escape. How the hell would we get across the border? We’re stuck here.”

“I’m not sure we’re on the same page,” Iverson said. “Less than an hour ago we were in Langley, Virginia. Now we’re in China. The scientific implications are beyond staggering.”

“We have operatives here. One phone call. One phone call is all it would take,” Gibbons said, his attention shifting from the exit and then back to Iverson.

A server pushed a cart up to their table, steamer baskets stacked on top. She placed two small porcelain cups before them and poured them tea.

“Shit. How does dim sum work again?” Gibbons asked.

“You’re supposed to pick something off the cart. Be careful though, the Chinese have exotic tastes.”

“What do you mean?” Gibbons asked.

“Chicken feet, monkey brains . . . stuff like that.”

Gibbons looked at the cart and saw a plate of fried chicken feet. He pointed at it and said, “There’s the chicken feet!”

The server took the plate off the cart and placed it in front of him, the fried feet sliding and scraping against the porcelain.

“I didn’t want this,” Gibbons said, recoiling.

The young woman just giggled, obviously unable to speak English.

Iverson pointed at what he hoped was a vegetable plate. She served it to him and left.

“Let me have your phone, Iverson. I don’t have mine on me,” Gibbons said. He pushed the plate aside in disgust.

Iverson took out his cellular phone and put it on the center of the table. Gibbons snatched it and flipped it open. “You got service.”

“Good.”

Gibbons put the phone in his pocket and asked, “Is he looking over here?”

“What are you going to do, Mark? Are you going to make a break for it? I have to say that would really be a stupid thing to do. First of all, if he were holding us hostage, he wouldn’t be sitting on the other side of a crowded restaurant. Secondly, you can’t survive out there. This is China.” He made a gesture with his hand, suggesting he stay put. “Just wait. I have a plan.”

“This is what we call field work, Ryan. Get with the program. First rule of war: if you’re captured, attempt to escape.”

“This isn’t war. It’s dim sum,” Iverson said.

“This kid is going to publish a book that will obliterate our way of life. The Internet was a problem; this is a catastrophe. A man can travel across the globe in a matter of seconds. Think of the economic repercussions. The threat to national security. How the hell would we secure our borders against something like this? The Zone is a menace to our way of life, Iverson. We need to stop it,” Gibbons said.

Iverson leaned forward and said in a whisper, “He keeps one of those remotes in his jacket pocket. Have you seen it?”

“The one with the red button on it?” Gibbons asked.

“That’s right. My guess is that a signal is being transmitted from a source somewhere, giving him access to the Zone. He mentioned that tomorrow morning the devices that come with the books will be activated. He must have one that works,” Iverson said.

“We need to get that remote,” Gibbons said.

“Better yet, we need to locate the source. If we can find the source, we can shut down the whole operation. Let Angela do her work. We’ll find it.”

“She takes too long. His book hits stores tomorrow. We need a more aggressive strategy. And since neither of us is trained for that type of engagement, we need to find the type of people who are. I’m going to go make a call.” Gibbons turned in the booth and asked, “Is he looking?”

“He’s coming over here,” Iverson said.

Gibbons quickly put his legs back under the table and sat up straight.

“How’s the food?” Go asked.

“Terrific,” Gibbons said, smiling nervously.

“Dim sum is an art form rarely taken seriously anymore. Think of all the possible arrangements one could have. It takes an enormous amount of imagination. Dim sum means food of the heart, and anything dealing with the heart deserves care and attention. Don’t you agree?”

Gibbons wasn’t really listening, but he nodded along.

“You decided to try the fried chicken feet. I’m impressed, Director. Bold choice,” Go said.

“It wasn’t exactly by choice,” Gibbons said.

“Your taste buds have probably been put to sleep by the CIA commissary. Time to revive them,” Go said.

“Why not?” Gibbons said, pulling the plate back in front of him.

“The food here is totally fresh. Freshest food in Hong Kong. Try it,” Go said.

“I’m curious, Mister Go. Earlier you said the Zone proves God exists. Would you mind explaining that to me?” Iverson asked.

“After lunch, Doctor Iverson. For now, enjoy. And don’t worry about the check. I took care of it,” Go said.

“Very generous of you, C.C. Thank you,” Gibbons said, forcing a smile.

Go went back to join Angela.

As soon as Go was out of sight, Gibbons swung his legs out from under the table, leapt out of the booth, and sprinted for the exit. He threw open the front door and bolted through the pedestrians on the street like a running back. He pushed some people aside and slammed into others, but eventually he was forced off the sidewalk and straight into traffic. He was vertical for a second longer, just before the screech of tires and the screams of onlookers.

* * * * *

A small crowd had gathered around the fallen American. C.C. Go was speaking to them in Cantonese. Iverson hoped he was instructing them to call for an ambulance. Gibbons was in bad shape. He lay in the middle of the street unconscious, scrapes on his face and head, his left leg definitely broken. Angela had scanned Gibbons’s body and reported to Iverson that he had six broken ribs and a ruptured spleen.

Iverson retrieved his cell phone from Gibbons’s pocket. When he flipped it open the number keys fell out as if they were broken teeth. The LCD screen was now a smoky gray color with a jagged line through it. Definitely no power.

Go knelt beside Gibbons and asked, “Is he still breathing?”

“Yes,” Angela said. “But he has some internal bleed—”

“You told them to call for an ambulance, right?” Iverson asked, intentionally interrupting Angela.

“No,” Go said.

“No? Then what were you saying to them?” Iverson asked.

“Don’t worry, Doctor. The director’s going to be fine,” Go told him. He reached into his blazer and retrieved the remote from the inside pocket. When he depressed the red button affixed to the center, everything went black. The city was gone. They were in total silence.