The Traveler's Companion (25 page)

“I told you not talk to me about brain scans here! We don’t know who’s monitoring us!”

“You were unencumbered by relationships before this and now you’ve been forced to act as caretaker for beings that are unstable. You’ve taken on too much responsibility. I think some time outside the Zone would be a good idea.”

“I can’t leave her. Not yet.”

“We’ve failed to achieve our primary objectives.”

“We have to stop Go,” Iverson said, tightening his hold on his wife’s hand.

“I don’t think that’s possible, Doctor.”

“Anything’s possible in the Zone.”

As he held her hand, he felt calmer. This Beth had a calming effect on him. It was a strange irony that the Beth who was helpless without him was the one that bothered him the least. She lay peacefully, expecting nothing from him. For now, all he wanted to do was be with her. Everything else would have to wait.

* * * * *

When Gibbons entered the room, he didn’t look happy. Despondently he said to Iverson, “It didn’t work.”

“What do you mean it didn’t work?” Iverson asked.

“I mean, wherever that place was, it wasn’t his lab. They tracked the GPS signal from the phone and found nothing more than a room with some medical equipment. There was nothing there to create any type of dimensional rift.”

“Damn it,” Iverson said.

“Arrests have been made, but so far no one’s talking.”

“Now what?” Iverson asked.

“Plan B,” Gibbons said.

“Which is?”

“We’re going to take out C.C. Go.”

CHAPTER 18

As promised, Iverson teleported back to the top floor of the Four Seasons Hotel, to the lab where they were holding the ephemera. The doctor’s office Mr. Go had manifested for Beth was gone, but the room they were conducting the experiments in was still there. The scientists were gone and the rift into reality had closed up. The cells, as Iverson quickly realized, were now empty. Had the ephemera been freed?

The sound of shuffling feet came from across the room. It was the homeless man, now making his way up to the glass wall of his cell in a drugged stupor.

Iverson quickly went to open the cell door. He carefully approached the man, not wanting to startle him. He put a hand on his shoulder and imagined perfect health for him. Within seconds, the drugs began to lose their affect.

“Where am I?” the man asked, startled by the stark enclosure he suddenly found himself occupying.

“You were kidnapped, but I came for you. Do you know what happened to the others?”

“I have no idea. These men . . . they grabbed me . . . that’s all I remember.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Iverson said.

“Where to?”

Iverson had imagined a more harried prison break and hadn’t planned on where to take the ephemera once he had freed them. He took a second to think it over.

“Where would you like to go? I can take you anywhere you want. Anywhere in the world.”

“I’ll go wherever you want me to go,” the man said, smiling.

“So far, hotels haven’t worked out very well for you,” Iverson said.

The man laughed.

“Some of our people are staying on the beach. Let’s go see them.”

Iverson teleported them to Ocean Beach. The refugee camp, however, was gone. There was no trace of them, only sand.

“I guess they went home,” Iverson said. He then had a terrific idea. “How would you like a place to call home? You can have the biggest house in the city. Anywhere you want. Just name it.”

“How about something with a view?”

Iverson put his arm around him. They began walking down the beach, thrilled with their project. “Which view would you like? Ocean or bay? Bridge or city?”

“How about all of that?” the man asked.

Iverson laughed. “Of course. A five bedroom house on the hill with a panoramic view. Coming right up. But I just realized. If we’re going to give you an address, you should probably have a name.”

“Yes. I need a name.”

“What about a distinguished title to go along with it? Or an occupation to help pass the time?”

“I think I’ll just be a man of leisure.”

Iverson laughed. “I like that idea.”

As Iverson tried to think of a name for the man he had his arm around, when the man began to vanish.

“No. Wait,” Iverson said.

But it was too late. He was gone.

Shocked, Iverson turned to face the city, looking for someone, anyone. A hole of loneliness was opening up within him, overwhelming him with panic. There were no cars on the highway. Was everyone gone?

He manifested the Rolls Royce on the side of the highway and teleported himself into it.

As he drove back into town, he didn’t see one person along the way. Only half-aware of where he was going, looking down streets and up buildings, he turned right on Taylor Street and something got his attention. A man was walking up the steps of Grace Cathedral, a man who looked exactly like Dr. Riley. What the hell was he doing here? By the time Iverson brought his attention back to the road, it was too late. He yanked the wheel to avoid a parked car, but he overcompensated. Yanking the wheel again made the car slide sideways, and suddenly it felt like someone had usurped control of the car, an invisible force that was putting the car on a collision course for the entrance of an underground parking structure. The driver’s side slammed into a cement column, the whole world felt like it was crashing down all around him. The sound of twisting metal pierced his ears. His head was flung sideways and went through the driver side window. Everything went black.

In and out of consciousness . . . the sound of bending metal . . . someone shaking him . . . “Wake up!” He couldn’t move. Blackness.

* * * * *

Whiteness.

Iverson opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was a gold star. Below the star were the words: SF Staff Parking. A name tag read: Aaron Harold.

Aaron was a black male ephemera about thirty-five years old, the parking attendant for the structure Iverson had just crashed into. He was now hovering over Iverson with an expression of concern. “You all right, man?”

Pain. Lots of pain. Iverson’s chest felt as if someone had collapsed it in with their fists. The ground was cold and hard beneath him. Breathing was difficult.

“You’re going to be okay,” the man said.

When Iverson tried to sit up, he felt dizzy. Everything hurt. He stayed still, took a few breaths, and then closed his eyes to imagine perfect health for himself.

“What happened?” Iverson said, sitting up. He was still shaken up, but he felt physically fine.

“I can’t believe it,” the man said. “You were dead. You should just relax.”

“You performed CPR on me?” Iverson asked.

“That’s right. Did I break some ribs?”

“No. I’m fine. Thank you.”

Iverson remembered now. He had seen Dr. Riley walking up the steps to the church. What was he doing here?

Iverson stood up and brushed the broken glass off his clothes. His shirt was soaked with blood and he could feel it drying up on his skin and making his hair stiff.

“Hey, man. You should chill,” the parking attendant said.

Iverson saw the car wrapped around the column, the entire driver’s side collapsed. It was a miracle he had survived.

“I’ll be back to clean this up in a minute,” Iverson said.

As Iverson was running up the stairs to the entrance of the church, he heard the attendant say, “Hey! The church is closed today!”

When Iverson turned back, Aaron was gone. Vanished. Had he disappeared minutes earlier, he wouldn’t have been around to save Iverson. He could barely believe his luck.

The front door to the church was locked.

Iverson stopped for a moment to consider that it might not have been Dr. Riley that he had seen. If it were, it could have just as easily been a manifestation, a version of him created when Iverson had last done maintenance to the city. Since he had unintentionally created his wife, it wasn’t unreasonable that he had done the same thing with Dr. Riley. Mr. Go had touched on the topic of intention when creating something in the Zone, but it was a slippery concept. Did anyone really fully understand the complexity of the unconscious?

But why was the church closed in the middle of the day? The sign clearly said it was open every day from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Who was around to lock it up?

He went around to the side of the building. The double wooden doors he found there were locked as well. He gripped the brass door handle, shut his eyes, and imagined his hand was a vice. He squeezed. The metal succumbed as if it was wet clay, and after a crisp snap, the door popped open. He brushed the glittery flakes off his hand, stuck his head inside the sanctuary, and, when he saw that the coast was clear, he stealthily made his way behind a row of pews. There were voices echoing inside.

In the front of the church, flood lights illuminated a hole in the floor. Three men were gathered around the hole while one was inside it. Two of the men wore lab coats. The third man was Dr. Riley.

“There’s nothing down there,” Riley said. He was bent over with his hands on his knees, talking to someone in the hole. “We’ve been to every church in town and we’ve run all the tests. This place is no different from any other building. What were you expecting to find?”

“All creations are autobiographical,” Go said, peering up at him from inside the hole in the floor. “Each part of this city reflects aspects of his unconscious mind.”

“Yes. In psychiatry, we call it active imagination. It’s used as a guide into a patient’s mental state. But I don’t know what you’re hoping to find in the floor.”

“I thought there might be something hidden here. Buried.”

“You want to know how he’s able to make her last so long. You think that he has some type of connection with God.”

Go gazed up at him. “Maybe he’s more spiritually developed, more in tune.”

“Did you really think you were going to find God here, C.C.?”

“Couldn’t hurt to look.”

“He’s a man of formulas and numbers, not deities.”

“How do you know there isn’t a link between the two?”

“After the discovery of the Zone, who can say anything for sure?” Riley asked with a sigh. He turned his wrist to look at his watch. “I think it’s time for us to leave. We’ve already gone over our limit. I’m going to open up a rift.”

A room was suddenly revealed within the sanctuary, a room with concrete floors and stainless steel walls. It was a stark contrast to the limestone floors and stained glass windows of the church.

Iverson’s heart started pounding. This was it. This was Go’s laboratory.

Go, Riley, and the two other men walked through the rift.

Iverson had to time it perfectly. If he went too soon, they would see him. If he waited too long, the rift would close.

He quickly made his way down the aisles of pews. He avoided the gaping hole in the floor and went to the threshold of the rift. This was beyond lucky. He could actually see into the laboratory. Into reality. He crossed over.

Gravity was brutal, and it pulled him to his knees and eventually onto all fours like a dog. But beyond the physical pain, returning to reality felt like coming home.

Blasts of steam suddenly came from the walls, from every direction, engulfing him. It was warm and made his skin prickle with sweat. Radiation bath, he thought.

Another sound of air pressure came from the walls, but this one was vacuous. The steam was sucked into vents in the floor. A bell sounded and a cone-shaped bulb above the door turned green. After a few moments, the door opened.

Someone entered the room, but Iverson was too fatigued to look up and see who it was.

“Doctor Iverson,” an accented voice said. “You must be coming with us.” Iverson guessed he was Swedish.

“I can’t,” Iverson said. His head hung between his shoulders.

“You are tired, Doctor? That is okay. We have place for you to rest.”

Iverson was lifted at his armpits and dragged out of the room.

* * * * *

When he regained consciousness, he was moving in a wheelchair along a tiled hallway. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious. There wasn’t a clock on any of the walls. He also wanted to know how much time had gone by since he had gone into the Zone. He estimated it had been about five hours. If they had entered the Zone at approximately 2 a.m. EST, that would now make it 7 a.m. EST, but from the accent of the nurse he thought he might be in Europe.

He was pushed into a room with a television, a couch, and one round table with four chairs. Because there were no windows, he thought this floor might be a sublevel. The nurse parked him in the center of the room.

“Where am I?” Iverson asked. His words were slurred because of the sedation.

The male nurse locked the wheels.

“What country are we in?”

Still no response.

“
Parlez-vous français? Sprechen sie deutsch? Hablas español?
” Iverson asked.

The nurse turned and walked away.

Iverson heard the sound of rubber wheels squeaking against the tiled floor. Someone was pushed into the room in a wheelchair and parked next to him, but he couldn’t turn his head to see who it was.

“Where are we?” Iverson asked. “Who are you people? What is this place?”

“This is Mister Go’s research laboratory,” a voice behind Iverson said. He recognized it as Dr. Riley’s. “You’re completely safe. You’ve been sedated. The nausea and fatigue you experienced after exiting the Zone is caused by a reduced resistance to environmental toxins. In the Zone, the body is purged of all impurities. When you return, the body is assaulted by our dirty reality. You spent a little too much time over there, so it will take you a few days to recover.”

“What happened to him?” Iverson asked.

Riley put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Too long in the Zone. He was there for nearly two days earth time. The human mind can only endure it for so long. We don’t know why. When we found him he was in a catatonic state. Our medical team fears it might be permanent. He hasn’t said a word in weeks.”

“How many other scientists did this happen to?” Iverson asked.

“Too many,” Riley said. “We didn’t understand what was happening until it was too late.”

“You can’t release the Zone to the public,” Iverson said.

“This morning a press conference will precede the Zone’s unveiling. But don’t worry, people will be warned against prolonged exposure.”