John Hawks - The Golden City

“Do we have to break in?” Gabriel asked.

“There’s a key for emergencies. It might still be there.”

A clay pot filled with cactus was near the entrance to the school. Priest dug his fingers into the dirt and found a fake rock with a secret compartment. He took out the key, opened the door, and led Gabriel into the reception area.

The glass case with his karate and capoeira trophies was still there, but someone had added a new display. Now his framed photograph was hanging from the wall with a sign that said Hollis Wilson. Our Teacher. Our Master. Our Guide . Beneath the photograph was a shelf where people had left votive candles, gold medals won at recent competitions and folded pieces of paper. Priest unwrapped one of these messages and read: The warrior uses the power of the brain to be deliberate and the power of the heart to be instinctive . He had told them that. A lifetime ago.

“This is new.”

Gabriel laughed. “You always had a big ego. But I didn’t think you’d put up an altar to yourself.”

“That’s what it is. An altar. It’s like I’m dead.”

“Now you have the opportunity to see your legacy. It’s clear that you changed some lives.”

They walked past the two dressing areas and entered a long windowless room with a mirror on one wall and a little office at one end. Someone had installed a bookshelf and had cleaned up the messy desk. While Priest set up the web camera and attached the computer to an Internet cable, Gabriel called Simon Lumbroso.

“I think we’re going to offer the world a Revelation. Tell all the groups to get ready.”

Gabriel sat down at the desk and switched on the web camera. The Traveler’s face appeared on the monitor, but it was half-concealed by shadows. Priest turned on all the lights in the office and adjusted a desk lamp. When everything was ready, Gabriel went on-line and used the cell phone to contact the Nighthawk in London.

“This is your friend in America. It might be time for the message. I’m on your site right now. Can you see my face? What about the sound?” Gabriel lowered the mobile phone and turned to Priest. “We need the microphone in the backpack. He says it’s difficult to hear me.”

“No problem.” Priest plugged in an audio cord and attached a microphone to Gabriel’s shirt.

Gabriel switched off the phone and began adjusting the lamp. “Right now, all we can do is wait. Let’s see what happens out in the desert.”

Priest left the office, found the school’s refrigerator, and took out two bottles of water. He gave a bottle to Gabriel, then paced back and forth in the work-out room and watched himself in the wall mirror. What would happen when Tommy or Marco opened the school the next morning? Would they notice that someone had been there? He had spent years of his life in this room, teaching people, trying to show them a better way. Now Hollis Wilson had turned into a house god, a minor spirit protecting a new generation of students.

He heard the cell phone ringing and hurried back to the office. Gabriel was smiling as he talked to Maya. “That’s wonderful! Okay. I understand. Be careful and come back to the city as soon as you can. I’m sending out the message in five minutes.”

Gabriel switched off the phone and began typing on the keyboard. “The children are alive. Maya’s calling the local sheriff. She’s going to wait on a side road until the police show up at the mine.”

“What about Doyle?”

“He’s dead, and it sounds like Boone killed himself.”

“The Tabula won’t be happy.”

“Let’s give them something else to worry about.”

Words flashed on the screen. Sound good. Image good. Ready for transmission. Nighthawk . Priest felt alert and ready. For years, the Panopticon had grown larger and more pervasive. Now some of those walls were going to collapse.

Gabriel sat up straight in the office chair. “Give me ten seconds.”

Priest raised his hand and counted off the final seconds. Four. Three. Two. One.

And then the Traveler began to speak.

Hello, I’m Gabriel Corrigan. “I realize that it’s a surprise to see my face on your monitor screen. Some of you might be frantically pushing the ‘delete’ key or wondering if you should unplug your computer.

“The first thing I need to explain is that your computer hasn’t been harmed and none of your data has been lost. My message to you is a one-time event. When I finish speaking, this video will end and will never appear without your permission. You can erase it or play it again by searching on your hard disc for a file called revelation .

“Right now, I’m in the United States, in California, where something terrible has happened. Fourteen children have disappeared…” Gabriel held up a photograph of one of the kidnapped children. “Including a little boy named Roberto Cabral.”

“The people listening to this message have different nationalities and speak different languages. But all of you can understand how the loss of a child evokes powerful emotions. The parents living in California are frightened. They’re worried that they can’t protect their children.

“Towards the end of this message I’m going to share some news about the lost children, but first I need to explain why all this happened. The disappearances were not some random event caused by a madman. The children were kidnapped because of an elaborate plan created by my brother, Michael Corrigan, who is currently the head of the Evergreen Foundation,

“The Foundation is the public face of a group called the Brethren, a secret organization that has existed for many years. Their members hide in the shadows as they push and guide our leaders toward a system of pervasive social control. Anyone who has noticed the changes taking place all over the world can sense their presence and their power. The men and women who belong to the Brethren have one purpose: they want to control your life.

“Now some of you might be asking: ‘Is the Brethren a left wing or a right wing group? What is their political philosophy?’

“These kinds of questions aren’t misguided-just irrelevant. Ideology is dying in our new age. Political slogans have become code words for different cultural and economic groups. In most countries, left-wing and right-wing governments share the same goal: to strengthen the technology that watches our lives. This all-pervasive system of electronic surveillance is called the Vast Machine.

“Some of you have already become aware of this new system. One morning, you wake up, look around, and realize that surveillance cameras are everywhere. It feels like you’ve stepped into a massive electronic prison.

“But the cameras are only a small part of the Vast Machine. Every major government in the world is reading your email messages and listening to your phone calls with scanning programs that react to certain words and phrases. Security agencies and corporations monitor your bank and credit card activity. Your mobile phones and your car generate data about your location and activities.

“We can usually see the cameras, but the rest of our prison is invisible. Sophisticated software programs acquire information from your purchases, your work activity and your medical files to create a shadow image of your life. Separate databases are being combined into a total information system, and this data will be saved forever.

“Many people will gladly trade their personal privacy for small improvements in their lives. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ proclaims the honest citizen. ‘So why should I be worried?’

“We are being watched, but who is in charge of the watching? Although some of us freely offer up our private lives to the Vast Machine, we have no knowledge of how the information is being used and who is using it. Criminals can duplicate our identities. Corporations can manipulate our spending behavior. Governments can manufacture opinions and crush dissent. We are seen, but they are faceless. We are asked to live in a transparent house while the forces of power are concealed.