John Hawks - The Golden City

“If that’s necessary…”

The altar caught fire, dry wood crackling as it burned. Gabriel looked behind him and saw fire touch the dead roses held in a copper vase. The flowers shriveled slightly and were transformed into tiny points of flame.

When he turned back around, Michael was standing on a bench, trying to climb onto the frame of the stained-glass window. Gabriel sprinted across the room, grabbed his brother, and they fell onto the floor. Kicking and punching, Michael tried to break free while Gabriel held him tightly. They rolled sideways, knocking over the benches, and Michael rammed his elbow into his brother’s chest. He jumped up and scrambled back to the window. This time, he stacked up the benches and formed an improvised platform.

“You can stay here!” Michael screamed. “Stay here forever!” A ceiling beam broke away from the wall. It twisted as it fell, flinging off sparks, then hit Michael’s shoulder and knocked him to the floor. He lay stunned for a few seconds as another beam fell and then a third. Michael pushed his palms flat and tried to get up, but the weight held him down.

Gabriel saw the hate and rage in his brother’s eyes. He knew that he couldn’t save Michael, nor could he leave him to die. Sitting on the floor, Gabriel crossed his legs and waited. He accepted the moment, accepted it so completely that it felt as if all his questions had been answered. Breathe. Breathe again. And a luminous field appeared in front of him, infinite, expanding, accepting.

The only two streets in the town met at a central square with park benches and a stone obelisk covered with a circle, a triangle and a pentagram. Anyone standing by this memorial would have watched the final moments of the conflagration when flames cracked windows and burned their way through doors. Finally, the buildings themselves began to collapse, the burning timbers unable to hold the weight of the upper floors. The church with its wooden pillars and white copula was the last to go. It seemed to explode from within, creating a point of energy as bright and powerful as a new sun.

There was no air conditioning in their apartment in Rome -just a collection of antique electric fans. A fan occupied a side table in each of the eight rooms, and Alice Chen had decorated them with red and blue ribbons that rippled in the air whenever the blades were spinning.

Because of the September heat, they woke up early in the morning. Priest pushed the living room couches and club chairs against the wall and turned the area into a gym. After drinking two cups of espresso, he did his push-ups and stomach crunches on the white marble floor, then ran through a complicated series of martial arts exercises. When he was done with his own workout, he started Alice ’s karate lessons.

Now that she was seven months pregnant, Maya found it difficult to jump and kick, so she sat on a yoga mat, stretched her muscles, and offered advice. She and Priest would finish the morning workout sparring with kendo swords. She felt fat and awkward, but her reaction time hadn’t changed, and she knew a wide range of fakes and maneuvers. In a ten minute session, she could usually block Priest’s attack and jab him with her bamboo blade.

After a light breakfast, they would leave the apartment and shop for food and supplies on the side streets near the Piazza Navona. In the afternoon, Maya would take a nap while various tutors came to the apartment. Priest was learning Italian, and a college student was teaching Alice history, literature and mathematics. Linden had returned to Paris. With his help they were beginning to accumulate a collection of fake I.D. cards and cloned passports that would enable them to travel anywhere in the world.

Simon Lumbroso usually arrived at seven o’clock, bringing a bag of fresh fruit or a carton of gelato. They would cook supper at the apartment or stroll through the quiet evening streets to a restaurant in the old Jewish Ghetto. The staff spoiled Alice with special desserts and everyone asked about Maya’s l’arrive bendetto- the blessed arrival of her child.

Maya refused to read newspapers or watch television, so Simon was her main source of information on what was happening in the world. Some changes had taken place in the days that followed Gabriel’s speech. In the United States, the Guardian Angel Program was cancelled and most parents had removed the RFID chips from their children’s bodies. A mandatory I.D. card law was rejected by several European countries, and the Germany legislature made it illegal to monitor store purchases that did not involve dangerous products.

An organization called We Stand Together was started in Britain and quickly spread to a dozen other countries. Initially, the group criticized the activities of the Evergreen Foundation, but now each chapter was involved with local issues involving personal freedom. While this was going on, the Free Runners continued to organize informal demonstrations against the Vast Machine. Jugger had come up with a slogan- No More Fear! -and these three words were scrawled on walls and bridges all over the world. In Spanish-speaking countries, the slogan had evolved into the words No Más next to the cartoon image of a little man looking frightened. Along with the graffiti, there were local demonstrations like the infamous “Poke in the Eye” night in Glasgow when the lens of every surveillance camera in the city was sprayed with black paint.

All of these public activities were reported by the media while other developments took place in the underground culture. People created blogs and chat groups that explained how to create a parallel identity. They published pamphlets and set up websites that challenged the politics of fear.

After Simon described all the latest developments, he would take out a large white handkerchief and wipe his brow. “Gabriel’s speech made a big splash like a rock tossed into a pond. In some places, the water is the same again. But the ripples spread out and we don’t know how they’ll change the world.”

It rained Tuesday night, and the following day was hot and humid. When Simon arrived in the late afternoon, they decided to stroll over to the park that surrounded the Villa Borghese. Alice had memorized the maze of narrow streets in the old city, and she led them east to the Piazza de Popolo, a large cobblestone oval with an obelisk at the center. They cut across the open space and followed the zigzagging stairway that climbed up the Pinicio Hill to the gardens. As usual, Alice led the way like a scout guiding them through a forest. Maya and Simon followed. The baby started kicking inside her about halfway up, and Simon stopped several times to point out a distant building.

Priest followed them, carrying his sword in a black tube with a shoulder strap. Maya still had a knife strapped to her left forearm, but her own sword was stored in a closet back in the apartment.

Alice reached the top of the hill first and waited for them in the main square that overlooked Rome. If they stood beside the wall, they could see most of the city-from Monte Mario to the Janiculum. The dust and pollution of that summer’s day softened the light. The church domes and marble monuments had the yellowish-white color of antique ivory found in a museum.

They strolled down a pathway to the Giardino del Largo at the center of the park. Huge pine trees and Lombardy poplars sheltered them from the sun until they reached an artificial lake near the center of the garden that Alice called “the Sea.” In the summertime, the lake water was green with algae and dotted with lily pads. Families rented aluminum rowboats and spent afternoons bumping into each other and tossing bread crumbs at the swans.