The Traveler (33 page)

With Gabriel's motorcycle hidden in the back of the van, Maya drove north to Las Vegas. She saw dozens of road signs advertising casinos, and then a cluster of bright towers popped up on the horizon. After cruising past several motels outside the city, she checked into the Frontier Lodge—ten individual rooms designed to look like log cabins. The shower stall had green stains bleeding from the faucet handles and the mattress was saggy, but she placed her sword beside her and slept for twelve hours.

Maya knew the casinos would have surveillance cameras, and some of the cameras might be connected to Tabula computers. When she woke up, she took out a syringe and injected facer drugs into her lips and the skin below her eyes. The drugs made her look overweight and dissipated, like a woman who had a drinking problem.

She drove to a mall and bought cheap, flashy clothes—Capri pants, a pink T-shirt, and sandals—then visited a shop where an older woman wearing a cowgirl costume was selling makeup and synthetic wigs. Maya pointed to a blond wig sitting on a Styrofoam head behind the counter.

"That's the Champagne Blonde model, honey. You wanna wrap it up or wear it?"

"I'll put it on right now."

The clerk nodded her approval. "Men just love that blond hair. It drives 'em crazy."

Now she was ready. She drove down the main boulevard, turned right at the half-sized EiffelTower, and left the van in the parking lot of the Paris Las Vegas Hotel. The hotel was an amusement-park version of the City of Lights. It had a small version of the Arc de Triomphe and painted façades that resembled the Louvre and the Paris Opera House. The ground-floor casino was an enormous room with a domed ceiling that glowed with a dark blue color like an endless Paris twilight. Tourists wandered down cobblestone streets to blackjack tables and rows of slot machines.

Maya walked along the strip to another hotel and saw gondoliers rowing tourists down a canal that went nowhere. Although each hotel had a different theme, they were all basically the same. None of the gambling rooms had clocks or windows. You were there and nowhere at the same time. When Maya first entered a casino, her acute sense of balance helped her realize something most tourists would never understand. The ground floor was slightly tilted so that gravity would pull visitors in an imperceptible manner from the hotel section to the slot machines and blackjack tables.

For most people Las Vegas was a happy destination, where you could drink too much and gamble and watch strange women take off their clothes. But this city of pleasure was a three-dimensional illusion. Surveillance cameras watched constantly, computers monitored the gambling, and a legion of security guards with American flags sewn on the sleeves of their uniforms made sure nothing truly unusual would ever occur. This was the goal of the Tabula: the appearance of freedom with the reality of control.

In such an ordered environment, it would be difficult to trick the authorities. Maya had spent her life avoiding the Vast Machine, but now she had to trigger all their sensors and escape without being captured. She was sure the Tabula computer programs were searching the Vast Machine for a variety of data—including the use of Michael's credit card. If the card was reported as stolen, then she might have to deal with security guards who knew nothing about the Tabula. Harlequins avoided injuring citizens or drones, but sometimes it was necessary for survival.

After checking out the rest of the hotels on the strip, she decided that the New York–New York Hotel gave her the most options for escape. Maya spent the afternoon at a shop run by the Salvation Army where she acquired two used suitcases and men's clothes. She bought a toiletry kit and filled it with a can of shaving cream, a half-used tube of toothpaste, and a toothbrush, which she rubbed on the concrete outside her cabin. The final detail was the most important: road maps with pencil marks indicating a coast-to-coast trip with New York City as the final destination.

Gabriel had left his helmet, gloves, and motorcycle jacket in the van. Back at the tourist cabin, Maya pulled on the riding gear. It felt as if Gabriel's skin, his presence, surrounded her. Maya had owned a motor scooter when she lived in London, but the Italian-made motorcycle was a large and powerful machine. It was difficult to steer the bike, and whenever she shifted gears she heard a grinding sound.

That evening she left the motorcycle in the New York–New York Hotel parking lot and used a pay phone to reserve a suite. Twenty minutes later she entered the hotel's massive atrium and approached the front desk carrying her suitcases.

"My husband made the reservation," she explained to the desk clerk. "He's flying in later tonight."

The clerk was a muscular young man with a blond haze of close-cropped hair. He looked as if he should be running a summer sports camp in Switzerland. "Hope you two have a fun weekend," he said, and then asked for some form of identification.

Maya handed over her fake passport and Michael Corrigan's credit card. Numbers flowed from the desk computer to a master computer and then onward to a mainframe somewhere in the world. Maya watched the clerk's face intently, looking for a slight tension if the words
stolen card
appeared on the monitor screen. She was ready to lie, to run,
to
kill if necessary—but the clerk smiled and gave her a plastic card key. When Maya entered the elevator she was required to slide the card into a slot and punch the correct floor number. Now the hotel computer knew exactly where she was: in the elevator going up to the fourteenth floor.

The two-room suite had a huge television. The furniture and bathroom fixtures were larger than anything to be found in a British hotel. Americans were fairly big people, Maya thought. But it was more than that—this was a conscious desire to feel overwhelmed by grand furnishings.

Maya heard screaming and then a deep grumbling sound. When she pushed open the curtains, she saw that a roller coaster was on the roof of a building about five hundred feet away from the window. Ignoring the distraction, she ran water in the tub and sink, used a bar of soap, and dampened a few towels. In the suite's living room, she placed the road maps and a pencil on a side table. A paper bag with greasy wrappers from a fast-food restaurant was left beside the television. With each piece of trash and clothing, she was constructing a little story that would be read and interpreted by a Tabula mercenary. It was about ten minutes since the credit card number had entered the Vast Machine. Returning to the bedroom, she opened the suitcases and placed some of the clothes in a drawer. Maya pulled out the small German automatic that she had found at Resurrection Auto Parts and slipped it beneath a folded shirt.

The gun was the ultimate proof that she had been at the hotel. The Tabula would never believe that a Harlequin would deliberately give up a weapon. If the police discovered the gun, it would be registered in their database and the Tabula computers that were searching the Internet would detect it immediately.

Maya was rumpling up the sheets and blankets when she heard a faint click in the outer room. Someone had pushed a key card into the door lock and now he was opening the door.

Her right hand touched the sword case. She had the Harlequin desire to attack—always attack—and destroy the threat to her safety. But that wouldn't accomplish the true goal, to confuse the Tabula with false information. Maya glanced around the room and saw a sliding glass door that led to a balcony. She drew the stiletto and approached the curtains; it took her a few seconds to cut two strips of fabric.

The floor creaked in the outer room as the intruder walked softly across the carpet. Whoever was outside the bedroom door paused for a few seconds and Maya wondered if he was gathering the courage to attack.

Carrying the strips of curtain, she pushed open the sliding door and stepped onto the balcony. Warm desert air surrounded her. The stars hadn't appeared yet, but green-and-red neon lights flashed in the street below. No time to make a rope. She tied both strips to the railing,
then
went over the side.

The curtains were made of thin cotton and unable to support her weight. As Maya lowered
herself
, one strip ripped apart and broke away. She dangled in the
air,
holding on to the other strip, then continued her descent to the next floor.
A voice from above.
Maybe he saw her.

There was no time to think or feel or be afraid. The Harlequin grabbed the iron railing and pulled herself onto a balcony. Once again, she drew the stiletto and saw that she had cut the palm of her hand.
Damned by the flesh.
Saved by the blood.
She pulled open a sliding glass door and ran through an empty room.

One of the reasons Michael enjoyed living at the research center was the way that the staff seemed to anticipate his needs. When he returned from the barriers the first time, he had felt fragile and dazed, not quite sure about the reality of his own body. After a few medical tests, Dr. Richardson and Lawrence Takawa brought him up to the first-floor gallery to meet General Nash. Michael asked for orange juice and they had returned five minutes later with a six-ounce cardboard carton, probably taken from a janitor's lunch box.

Now he was back from his second experience crossing the barriers and everything was prepared for his comfort. On a side table in the gallery was a glass carafe of chilled orange juice. Next to that was a silver tray displaying fresh-baked chocolate-chip
cookies
as if a team of apron-wearing moms had been making preparations for his homecoming.

Kennard Nash sat opposite him in a black leather chair and sipped a glass of wine. When they first started their conversations, Michael was surprised that the general never took notes. Now he realized that the surveillance cameras were always working. Michael enjoyed the fact that everything he said and did was so important that it had to be recorded and analyzed. The entire research facility was dependent upon his power.

Nash leaned forward and spoke softly. "And then the fire started?"

"Yeah.
The trees began burning. That was when I found a path that led to a town in the middle of nowhere. All the buildings were burning, too."

"Was anyone there?" Nash asked. "Or were you alone?"

"At first I thought the town was empty. Then I walked into this little church and saw my brother, Gabriel. We didn't talk to each other. He was going through a passageway that probably led back to this world."

Nash pulled a cell phone out of his suit-coat pocket, punched a button, and spoke to Lawrence Takawa. "Copy the last five seconds of our conversation and send it to Mr. Boone. He needs this data as soon as possible."

The general snapped the phone shut and picked up his glass of wine. "Your brother is still a prisoner of a terrorist group called the Harlequins. Obviously, they've trained him to cross over."

"Gabriel was carrying our father's Japanese sword. How is that possible?"

"Our research indicates that certain objects called talismans can be carried by a Traveler."

"I don't care what they're called. Find one and get it for me. I want a weapon when I cross over."

General Nash nodded quickly as if to say,
Whatever
you want, Mr. Corrigan. No problem. We'll arrange it.
Michael leaned back in his chair. He felt confident enough to make his next demand.

"That is—if I decide to visit the different realms."

"Of course you will," Nash told him.

"Don't threaten me, General. I'm not serving in your army. If you want to kill me, go right ahead. You'd be losing the most important element of this project."

"If you want money, Michael—"

"Of course I want money. But that's trivial. What I really want is full information. The first time we met you told me that I was going to help you achieve a technological breakthrough. You said we were going to change history together. Okay, now I'm a Traveler. So why do I have wires in my brain? What's the point of all this effort?"

Nash walked over to the side table and got a chocolate-chip cookie. "Come with me, Michael. I need to show you something."

The men left the gallery and strolled down a hallway to the elevator. "All this started several years ago when I was in the White House and developed the Freedom from Fear program. Everyone in America was going to wear a Protective Link device. It would have ended crime and terrorism."

"But it didn't work," Michael said.

"At the time, our technology wasn't that sophisticated. We didn't have a computing system capable of handling that much data."

As they left the building, two security men followed them across the quadrangle at the center of the research compound. The air was cold and damp and a dense cloud concealed the night sky. Michael was surprised to see that they were headed for the computer center. Only special technicians were allowed inside.

"When I assumed leadership of the Brethren, I began to push for the development of a quantum computer. I knew it would be powerful enough to solve complex problems and handle enormous amounts of information. With a bank of quantum computers, we could literally track and monitor the daily activities of everyone in the world. A few people might object, but most of us would gladly give up a little privacy in exchange for security. Just think of the advantages. No more deviant behavior. No more unpleasant surprises-

"No more Travelers," Michael said.

General Nash laughed. "Yes. I'll admit it. Getting rid of people like the Travelers was part of the plan. But that's all changed. Now you're on our team."

The security men remained outside when Michael and Nash entered the empty lobby of the computer center. "An ordinary computer runs on a binary system. No matter what the size or power, it has only two states of consciousness: 0 or 1. Ordinary computers may work very fast or in tandem with each other, but they're still restricted to these two possibilities.

"A quantum computer is based on quantum mechanics. It seems logical that an atom can spin up or down: 0 or 1. Once again, it's a binary system. But quantum mechanics tells us that an atom can be up or down or in both states at the same time. Because of this, different calculations could go on simultaneously and at great speed. Since a quantum computer uses quantum switches instead of conventional ones, it has an immense power."

They entered a windowless cubicle and a steel door closed behind them. Nash pressed the palm of his hand against a glass panel. A second door glided open with a soft whooshing sound and they entered a dimly lit room.

At the center of the room was a sealed glass tank, about five feet high and four feet wide, set on a heavy steel
pedestal.
Thick cables snaked across the floor from the pedestal to a bank of binary computers against the wall. Three technicians wearing white coats hovered around the glass tank like acolytes at an altar, but when General Nash glared at them, they immediately left the area.

The tank was filled with a thick green liquid that moved and churned slowly. Little explosions, like tiny bolts of lightning, kept flashing in different parts of the liquid. Michael could hear a humming sound and there was a burned odor in the air, as if someone had set fire to a handful of dead leaves.

"This is our quantum computer," Nash said. "It's a set of electrons floating in super-cooled liquid helium. The energy passing through the helium forces the electrons to interact and perform logical operations."

"Looks like a big fish tank."

"Yes. Only the fish are subatomic particles. Quantum theory has shown us that, for a very short period of time, particles of matter go off into different dimensions and then return."

"Just like a Traveler."

"And that's what happened, Michael. During our first experiments with the quantum computer we began to get messages from another realm. At first we didn't know what was going on. We thought it was an error in the software program. Then one of our scientists realized that we had received binary versions of standard mathematical equations. When we sent off similar messages, we began to receive diagrams that showed us how to create a more powerful computer."

"And that's how you built this machine?"

"Actually, this is our third version. It's been a continual process of evolution. Whenever we improved our computer, we could receive more advanced information. It was like building a series of powerful radios. With each new receiver you could hear more words, obtain more information. And we've learned about things other than computers. Our new friends have taught us how to manipulate chromosomes and create different hybrid species."

"What do they want?" Michael asked.

"This other civilization knows all about the Travelers and I think they're a little bit jealous." Nash looked amused. "They're trapped in their own realm, but they'd like to visit our world."

"Is that possible?"

"The quantum computer has been tracking you as you've crossed the barriers. That's why we placed the wires in your brain. You're the scout who's going to provide a road map for our new friends. If you cross over to another realm, they've promised to send us the design for an even more powerful machine."

Michael stepped closer to the quantum computer and watched the little flashes of lightning. Nash thought that he understood power in all its forms, but Michael suddenly realized the limits of the general's vision. The Brethren were so obsessed with controlling humanity that they weren't looking very far down the road. I'm the gatekeeper, Michael thought. I'm the person who controls what happens. If this other civilization really wants to enter our world, then I'll decide how that might occur.

He took a deep breath, and then stepped back from the quantum computer. "Very impressive,
General
. We're going to achieve some great things together."