The Traveler Read online

  "And you came up with a formula ..."

  "It's not a cake recipe." Lundquist sounded annoyed. "3B3 is a living thing. A new strain of bacterium. When you swallow the liquid solution, it's absorbed into your nervous system."

  "Sounds dangerous."

  "I've taken it dozens of times. And I can still remember to take out my garbage cans on Thursday and pay my electric bill."

  The tabby cat purred and walked over to Richardson when he reached the table. "And 3B3 allows you to see different realms?"

  "No. It's a failure. You can swallow all you want, but it won't turn you into a Traveler. The journey is very short, a brief contact instead of a real landing. You stay long enough to get one or two images, then you have to leave."

  Richardson opened the folder and glanced at the stained graphs and scribbled notes. "What if we took your bacterium and gave it to someone?"

  "Be my guest. Some of it is in the petri dish right in front of you. But you'd be wasting your time. As I told you, it doesn't work. That's why I started giving it away to this young man named Pius Romero who used to shovel the snow off my driveway. I thought that perhaps there was something wrong with my own consciousness. Perhaps other people could take 3B3 and cross over to another place. But it wasn't me. Whenever Pius comes back for more, I insist that he give me a full report. People have visions of another world, but they can't remain."

  Richardson picked up the petri dish on the table. A blue-green bacterium was growing in a graceful curve on the agar solution. "This is it?"

  "Yes. The failure. Go back to the Brethren and tell them to check into a monastery. Pray. Meditate. Study the Bible, the Koran, or the Kabbalah. There's no quick way to escape our shabby little world."

  "But what if a Traveler took 3B3?" Richardson asked. "It would start him on the journey, then he could finish on his own."

  Dr. Lundquist leaned forward and Richardson thought that the old man might jump out of the chair. "That's an interesting idea," he said. "But aren't all the Travelers dead? The Brethren have spent a great deal of money slaughtering them. But who knows? Maybe you can find one hiding out in Madagascar or Kathmandu."

  "We've found a cooperative Traveler."

  And you're using him?"

  Richardson nodded.

  "I can't believe it. Why are the Brethren doing this?"

  Richardson picked up the folder and the petri dish. "This is a wonderful discovery, Dr. Lundquist. I just want you to know that."

  "I'm not looking for compliments. Just an explanation. Why have the Brethren changed their strategy?"

  Boone approached the table and spoke with a soft voice, "Is that what we came for, Doctor?"

  "I think so."

  "We're not coming back. You better be sure."

  "This is all we need. Listen, I don't want anything negative happening to Dr. Lundquist."

  "Of course, Doctor. I understand how you feel. He's not a criminal like Pius Romero." Boone placed a gentle hand on Richardson's shoulder and guided him to the doorway. "Go back to the car and wait. I need to explain our security concerns to Dr. Lundquist It won't take long."

  Richardson stumbled down the staircase, passed through the kitchen, and went out the back door. A blast of cold air made his eyes tear up as if he was crying. As he stood on the porch he felt so weary that he wanted to lie down and curl up in a ball. His life had changed forever, but his body still pumped blood, digested food, and took in oxygen. He wasn't a scientist anymore, writing papers and dreaming of the Nobel Prize. Somehow he had become smaller, almost insignificant, a tiny piece of a complex mechanism.

  Still holding the petri dish, Richardson shuffled down the driveway. Apparently Boone's conversation with Dr. Lundquist didn't take very long. He caught up with the neurologist before he reached the car.

  "Is everything all right?" Richardson asked.

  "Of course," Boone said. "I knew there wouldn't be a problem. Sometimes it's best to be clear and direct. No extra words. No false diplomacy. I expressed myself firmly and got a positive response."

  Boone opened the door to the car and made a mocking bow like an insolent chauffeur. "You must be tired, Dr. Richardson. It's been a long night. Let me take you back to the research center."

  Chapter 36

  Hollis drove past Michael Corrigan's apartment complex at nine o'clock in the morning, two o'clock in the afternoon, and seven o'clock in the evening. He looked for Tabula mercenaries sitting in parked cars and on park benches, men pretending to be power company employees or city workers. After each drive-by, he would park in front of a beauty salon and write down everything he had seen. Old lady pushing a shopping cart. Man with a beard loading a child's car seat. When he came back five hours later, he compared his notes and saw no similarities. That only meant that the Tabula weren't waiting outside the building. Perhaps they were sitting in the apartment across the hall from Michael's apartment.

  He thought up a plan after teaching his evening capoeira class. The next day, he put on a blue cotton jumpsuit and picked up the mop and the bucket on wheels that he used when he was washing the floor of his school. Michael's apartment complex occupied an entire city block on Wilshire Boulevard

  near Barrington. There were three skyscrapers, an attached four-level parking structure, and a large inner courtyard with a pool and tennis courts.

  Be deliberate, Hollis thought. You don't want to fight the Tabula, just play with their minds. He parked his car two blocks away from the entrance, filled the bucket on wheels with soapy water from two plastic jugs, set the mop into the water, and began to push everything up the sidewalk. As he approached the entrance, he tried to think like a janitor—play that role.

  Two old ladies were leaving the building when he arrived. "Just cleaned the sidewalk," he told them. "Now somebody messed up one of the hallways."

  "People need to learn some manners," one of the women said. Her friend held the door open so that Hollis could push the bucket inside the foyer.

  Hollis nodded and smiled as the old ladies walked away. He waited for a few seconds, then went over to the elevators. When the next elevator arrived, he rode alone up to the eighth floor. Michael Corrigan's apartment was at the end of the hallway.

  If the Tabula were hiding in the opposite apartment, watching him through the security peephole, then he would have to start lying right away. Mr. Corrigan pays me to clean up his place. Yes, sir. I do it once a week. Is Mr. Corrigan gone? I didn't know he was gone, sir. He hasn't paid me for a month.

  Using the key that Gabriel had given him, Hollis unlocked the door and went inside. He was alert, ready to defend himself against an attack, but no one appeared. The apartment had a hot, dusty smell. A two-week-old copy of the Wall Street Journal was still on the coffee table. Hollis left the bucket and mop near the door and hurried into Michael's bedroom. He found the telephone, pulled out a small tape recorder, and dialed Maggie Resnick's home number. She wasn't home, but Hollis didn't want to talk to her anyway. He was sure that the Tabula were monitoring the phone lines. After Maggie's answering machine came on, Hollis switched on the tape recorder and held it up to the telephone handset.

  "Hey, Maggie. This is Gabe. I'm going to get out of Los Angeles and find someplace to hide. Thanks for everything. Bye."

  Hollis hung up the phone, switched off the tape recorder, and quickly left the apartment. He felt tense pushing the bucket down the hallway, but then the elevator arrived and he stepped inside. Okay, he thought. That was easy enough. Don't forget, you're still the janitor.

  When the elevator reached the lobby, Hollis pushed the bucket out and nodded to a young couple with a cocker spaniel. The entrance door clicked open and three Tabula mercs hurried into the lobby. They looked like police officers who were doing this for money. One man wore a denim jacket and his two pals were dressed as painters. The painters carried towels and drop cloths that concealed their hands.

  Hollis ignored the Tabula as they pushed past him. He was five feet away from the door whe
n an older Latino man pushed open the door that led to the swimming pool area. "Hey, what's going on?" the man asked Hollis.

  "Somebody dropped a bottle of cranberry juice on the fifth floor. I just cleaned it up."

  "I didn't see that in the morning report."

  "It just happened." Hollis was at the door now, almost touching the knob.

  "Besides, isn't that Freddy's job? Who are you working for?" "I was just hired by—"

  But before Hollis could finish the sentence he sensed movement behind him. And then the hard point of a gun muzzle was pushed against the small of his back.

  "He's working for us," said one of the men.

  "That's right," said another man. "And he's not done."

  The two men dressed as painters stood beside Hollis. They made him turn around and guided him back to the elevator. The man with the denim jacket was talking to the maintenance man, showing him a letter that described some kind of official permission.

  "What's going on?" Hollis tried to look surprised and frightened. "Don't talk," whispered the larger man. "Don't say one damn thing at all."

  Hollis and the two painters stepped into the elevator. Just before the door closed, Denim Jacket slipped in and punched the but-ton for the eighth floor.

  "Who are you?" Denim asked.

  "Tom Jackson. I'm the janitor here."

  "Don't bullshit us," said the smaller painter. He was the one with the weapon. "That guy out there didn't know who you were." "I just got hired here two days ago."

  "What's the name of the company that hired you?" Denim asked.

  "It was Mr. Regal."

  "I asked you the name of the company."

  Hollis shifted slightly so that he was away from the barrel of the gun. "I'm sorry, sir. I'm real sorry. But all I know is that Mr. Regal hired me and I was told to—"

  He made a half turn, grabbed the gunman's wrist, and thrust it outward. With his right hand he punched the man in the Adam's apple. The gun went off with a loud cracking sound in the small space and the other painter was shot. He screamed as Hollis whipped around, smashing his elbow into Denim's mouth. Hollis twisted the gunman's arm downward and the Tabula merc dropped the weapon.

  Turn. Attack. Spin around and punch again. Within a few seconds, all three men were lying on the floor. The door opened. Hollis flipped the red switch to stop the elevator and stepped out. He ran down the hallway, found the fire exit, and ran down the stairs two at a time.

  Chapter 37

  When Michael was growing up on the road he had an automatic response to his mother's wild stories and Gabriel's impractical schemes for making money. It's time to go to Reality Town, he told them, which meant that someone in the family had to be objective about their problems. Michael considered himself to be the Mayor of Reality Town—not a pleasant location, perhaps, but at least you knew where you stood.

  Living at the research center, he found it difficult to be objective. There was no question that he was a prisoner. Even if he discovered a way to get out of his locked room, the security guards would never let him stroll through the gates and catch a bus to New York City. Perhaps he had lost his freedom—but that fact didn't trouble him. For the first time in his life people seemed to be giving him the right amount of respect and deference.

  Every Tuesday, Michael would join Kennard Nash for drinks and dinner in the oak-paneled office. The general dominated the conversation, explaining the hidden objectives behind what appeared to be random occurrences. One night Nash described the RFID chip hidden in American passports, and showed photographs of a device called a "skimmer" that could read passports from a distance of sixty-five feet. When the new technology was first proposed, a few experts had called for a "contact" passport that had to be pushed through a slot like a credit card, but the Brethren's friends in the White House had insisted on the radio frequency chip.

  "Is the information encrypted?" Michael asked.

  "Of course not. That would make it difficult to share the technology with other governments."

  "But what if terrorists use the skimmers?"

  "It would certainly make their job easier. Let's say a tourist was walking through the marketplace in Cairo. A skimmer could read his passport—find out if he was American and if he had visited Israel. By the time this American reached the end of the street, an assassin could be stepping out of a nearby doorway."

  Michael sat for a moment and studied Nash's bland smile. "None of this makes sense. The government says it wants to protect us, but it's doing something that makes us more vulnerable."

  General Nash looked as if his favorite nephew had just made an innocent mistake. "Yes, it's unfortunate. But you have to weigh the loss of a few lives against the power given to us by this new technology. This is the future, Michael. No one can stop it. In a few years, it won't just be passports. Everyone will carry a Protective Link device that tracks them all the time."

  ***

  IT WAS DURING one of these weekly conversations that Nash mentioned what had happened to Gabriel. Apparently, Michael's brother had been captured by a fanatical woman who worked for a terrorist group called the Harlequins. She had killed several people before they fled from Los Angeles.

  "My staff is going to keep looking," Nash said. "We don't want anyone to harm your brother."

  "Let me know when you find him."

  Of course." Nash smeared some cream cheese and caviar onto a cracker and squeezed on a drop of lemon juice. "The reason I'm mentioning this is because the Harlequins might be training Gabriel to become a Traveler. If you both have the ability, there's a possibility that you could meet in another realm. You'll need to ask him the location of his physical body. Once we know that, we can rescue him."

  "Forget it," Michael said. "Gabe would only go to another realm if he could ride there on a motorcycle. Maybe the Harlequins will realize that and let him go."

  ***

  ON THE MORNING of the experiment, Michael woke up early and took a shower, wearing a swimming cap so that the silver plates on the top of his skull wouldn't get wet. He pulled on a T-shirt, drawstring pants, and rubber flip-flops. No breakfast this morning. Dr. Richardson didn't think it was a good idea. Michael was sitting on the couch, listening to music, when Lawrence knocked softly on the door and entered the room. "The research team is ready," he said. "It's time."

  "And what if I decide not to do it?"

  Lawrence looked startled. "That's your choice, Michael. Obviously the Brethren wouldn't be pleased by this decision. I'd have to call General Nash and—"

  "Relax. I haven't changed my mind."

  He pulled a knit wool cap over his shaved head and followed Lawrence out into the hallway. Two security men were there wearing their usual black neckties and navy blue blazers. They formed a sort of honor guard—one man in front, the other behind. The little group passed through a locked door to the courtyard.

  Michael was surprised to see that everyone involved in the Crossover Project—secretaries, chemists, and computer programmers—had come out to watch him enter the Tomb. Although most of the staff didn't understand the true nature of the Crossover Project, they had been told that it would help protect America from its enemies and that Michael was an important part of the plan.

  He nodded slightly, like an athlete acknowledging the crowd, and sauntered across the courtyard to the Tomb. All these buildings had been constructed and all these people had been assembled for this moment. Bet it cost a lot of money, he thought. Bet it cost millions. Michael had always felt that he was special, destined for greatness, and now he was being treated like a movie star in a high-budget film that had only one role, a single face on the screen. If he really could travel to another realm, then they should give him their respect. It wasn't luck that he was here. It was his birthright.

  ***

  A STEEL DOOR slid open and they entered a vast, shadowy room. A glass-enclosed gallery, about twenty feet above the smooth concrete floor, ran around all four walls. Light from control panels
and computer monitors glowed inside the gallery and Michael saw that several technicians were looking down at him. The air was cold and dry and he could hear a faint humming sound.

  A steel surgical table with a small pillow for his head was in the middle of the room. Dr. Richardson stood near the table. The nurse and Dr. Lau were checking the monitoring equipment and the contents of a steel rack that held test tubes filled with different colored liquids. Eight wires connected to silver-colored electrode plates lay beside the little white pillow. The separate wires were spliced together into a thick black cable that slithered off the table and disappeared into the floor.

  "You okay?" Lawrence asked.

  "So far."

  Lawrence lightly touched Michael's arm and remained near the door with the two security men. They were acting like he was going to run out of the building, jump over the wall, and hide in the forest. Michael walked to the center of the Tomb, pulled off his knit cap, and handed it to the nurse. Wearing only a T-shirt and the drawstring pants, he lay faceup on the table. The room was cold, but he felt ready for anything, like an athlete about to play an important game.

  Richardson leaned over him and taped the eight sensor wires to the eight electrode plates on his skull. Now his brain was directly connected to the quantum computer, and the technicians up in the gallery could monitor his neurological activity. Richardson looked nervous, and Michael wished that the doctor's face was concealed with a surgical mask. To hell with him. It wasn't his brain that was skewered with little copper wires. It's my life, thought Michael. My risk.

  "Good luck," Richardson said.

  "Forget luck. Let's just do it and see what happens."

  Richardson nodded and slipped on a radio headset so he could talk to the technicians in the gallery. He was responsible for Michael's brain while Dr. Lau and the nurse were in charge of the rest of the body. They taped sensors to his chest and neck so they could track his vital signs. The nurse swabbed topical anesthetic on his arm, then slipped an intravenous needle through his skin. The needle was attached to a plastic tube and a saline solution began to drip into his veins.