John Hawks - The Traveler

Hollis ignored the Tabula as they pushed past him. He was five feet away from the door when 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 button 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.

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.