John Hawks - The GoldenCity

“There. Do you see it?” Pickering pointed at the door. “That’s the entrance to the map room.”

“So how do we get there? Can we climb up from inside?”

“No. I tried. I thought you’d know what to do.”

Maya paced back and forth, trying to figure out a way to get across the fifteen-foot gap between the pillar and the reading room. A rope was useless unless she could climb to the top of the ceiling. They could build a ladder from pieces of wood and old nails, but that would take too much time, and their activity would be noticed by the patrols. Still silent, she turned away from Pickering and climbed up the staircase to the top level of bookshelves. She grabbed the metal railing and began to push it back and forth. Books fell off the walkway with a flutter of white pages and hit the floor below.

Pickering scurried up the staircase and stood beside her. “What are you doing?”

“Grab the railing,” she told him. “Let’s see if we can break it off.”

Together, they pushed and pulled the railing until a section broke free of the walkway. Maya lay the section flat, and then shoved it forward until the one end rested on the spire like a narrow bridge.

“I knew you’d think of something,” Pickering said.

Maya adjusted the scabbard strap and stepped onto the improvised bridge. It shifted, but didn’t collapse. She took a first step, then another-trying not to look down. The railing flexed slightly when she reached the center, but she took a few more steps and reached the other side.

Using her club as a pry bar, she ripped the door from its hinges and entered the map room. It was a windowless storage space about the size of a walk-in closet. The walls were lined with shelves that held black cardboard storage boxes. Each box was tied shut with a silk cord and labeled with faded numbers.

Maya grabbed a box from the shelf and placed it on a table. At that moment, escape seemed possible, but she tried to control her emotions. Slowly, she untied the cord, opened the box, and found a faded lithograph of a creature in human form with wings and light emerging from its body. An angel. Beneath that lithograph was another angel, wearing different colored robes.

Furious, Maya ripped open two more storage boxes, stacking them on top of each other. She found full-color prints of angels carrying swords or gold caskets. Illustrations ripped from books. Water-colors and wood-block prints. But the subject was always the same: Angels on earth and in heaven. Angels floating and flying and sitting on golden thrones. Black angels, white angels and even one with six arms and green skin. But no trace of a map anywhere.

She heard a banging from outside the room. Holding one of the cardboard boxes, Maya stepped out of the doorway. Her improvised bridge had been kicked away and was lying on the rubble three stories below.

Pickering stood on the edge of the walkway, smiling triumphantly. “Don’t go anywhere,” he giggled. “I need to find one of the patrols.”

“They’ll kill you.”

“No they won’t. They know me. I can find anyone who’s lost or missing-even a demon like you.”

“What about the maps, Pickering? I just found a map that shows a passageway under the river.”

“Show it to me. Let me see it.”

“Sure. No problem.” Maya waved the box. “Just help me get off this platform.”

Pickering considered the idea and then shook his head. “There can’t be a map because there’s no way off the island.”

“Help me and I’ll defend you from the wolves.”

“If I stayed with you, we’d both be killed. You still have hope, Maya. That’s your weakness. That’s why I could lead you to this place.”

As he turned and hurried away, Maya reached into the box and tossed a handful of brightly colored angels into the air. The prints and illustrations fluttered downward into the gloom. Hope. That’s your weakness .

Now, it was gone.

Michael woke up and took a shower in a suite decorated with flowers. Two dozen red roses drew his eyes to the bedroom dresser. A spray of white hawthorn blossomed from a crystal vase near the bathroom sink. Little cards had been attached to these offerings-personal messages from Mrs. Brewster and other members of the Brethren. Good luck , announced one. You carry our hopes with you on your journey .

Michael had no illusions about the sincerity of these statements. He was still alive because the Brethren believed that he could help them increase their power. When the monitor screen attached to the quantum computer flashed the words come to us , he knew that the executive board would demand that he cross over. That was his role-to go off into the darkness and come back with technological miracles.

He pulled on a T-shirt and sweatpants and walked into the living room. An hour ago, the security staff at the research center had placed yet another elaborate flower arrangement on the coffee table, a Japanese village with straw-yellow orchids twined around a ceramic pagoda.

Standing at the window, Michael gazed at the Neurological Cybernetics Research Facility, a windowless, white box of a building that looked like a sugar cube dropped from the sky. Now that he was a Traveler, he didn’t need special drugs or wires inserted in his brain to cross over. But going back into the building was a public act, a demonstration of his unique power. It was clear that he was no longer a prisoner, but becoming a member of the Brethren had only increased his enemies. If he returned with some new form of technology, then his position would be much stronger.

The six realms were parallel worlds, alternative realities. He had already crossed over to the Second Realm of the hungry ghosts. The First Realm was a version of Hell and Michael had no intention of visiting that dangerous place. There was a Third Realm that was filled with animals, but that wasn’t the place to find an advanced civilization using a quantum computer. Michael had decided that the beings who sent the message were either in the Sixth Realm of the gods or the Fifth Realm of the half gods. He had read the diaries of past Travelers, but none of them could describe these worlds in great detail. The half gods were supposed to be clever, but jealous of everyone else. The gods lived in a place that was difficult to find-a golden city.

Although the Brethren assumed they controlled him, Michael had his own agenda. Yes, he needed to gain access to advanced technology, but he was also looking for an explanation for his own actions. It was a waste of time to study philosophy or pray in churches if a superior being could give him a direct answer.

Did the gods possess magical powers? Could they fly through clouds and toss thunderbolts with their hands? Perhaps the human world was simply an enormous anthill, and the gods stopped by to blow up the mounds with firecrackers or flood the passage-ways with water. And then, every few hundreds of years or so, they would drop morsels of knowledge in the dirt so that humanity would be inspired to keep working.

Someone knocked softly. When he opened the door, he found Nathan Boone and Dr. Dressler waiting for him in the hallway. Boone was as stolid as ever, but the scientist looked nervous.

“How you are feeling, Mr. Corrigan? Did you have a good night’s sleep?”

“I guess so.”

“The staff is ready,” Boone said. “Let’s go.”

They took the elevator to the lobby and walked outside. The wind was coming from the northeast and the tops of the pine trees beyond the wall swayed as if an army of woodcutters were attacking them with chain saws. When they reached the white building, Boone waved his hand. A steel door slid open and they entered a large room with a glass-enclosed gallery twenty feet above the concrete floor.