The Golden City

43

Priest switched off the video camera. Gabriel’s face disappeared from the monitor, and few seconds later a message appeared on the screen. Video statement received and recorded. Quality good. I’ll attach the key and send out immediately. My body is captive, but my spirit flies. The Nighthawk.

The Traveler sighed and pressed his hands against his eyes.

“You okay, Gabe?”

“I don’t feel like talking to people. Call Simon Lumbroso and tell him to activate the groups.”

“Good idea. Then we should find some place to hide.”

“No. We need to find my brother.” Gabriel got up from the desk. “Boone said that he was staying at the El Dorado Hotel.”

Priest called Simon as they got back in the car and head north to the beach area. The Traveler was quiet and slumped against the door. He stared out the windshield as patches of street lights glided across this face.

“What are you going to do when you meet your brother?”

“Michael will see what happened as a setback, but he won’t give up. The half gods of the Fifth Realm have changed the way he views reality.”

“Do you want me to kill him?”

The Traveler looked surprised. “You really have become a Harlequin.”

“He wants to destroy you, Gabriel. It’s my obligation to keep you alive.”

“I’m the one who needs to deal with Michael. He’s my brother. We’re connected to each other.”

The mobile phone rang, and Priest slipped on an ear piece. Simon was calling from Rome. “Tell the Traveler that his message has gone public.”

Like a wave gaining size and power, Gabriel’s speech began to appear on computers all over the world. Priest knew that it was all because of a complicated package of programming code that that could replicate itself and spread to other machines, but he found it easier to see the Revelation Worm as a creature hiding on the bottom of a river. The Traveler’s speech only needed to be sent to one computer. Within seconds, the programming key activated the hidden worm. While the speech was being copied multiple times, the worm’s command function took over the computer’s video play capability. Then it was in control, and it insisted that Gabriel’s speech appear on the monitor screen. After the speech was broadcast, the individual worm withered and died, but the key continued to spread through the Internet.

Simon called several more times as Gabriel’s two-level strategy started to unfold. The middle class citizens involved in the Resistance were sending out the first of what would be thousands of emails to journalists and elected officials. They demanded an investigation into the Evergreen Foundation and challenged the new laws against personal freedom.

These citizens were what Gabriel had called the “Voice in the Forum,” but the “Voice in the Street” was also getting organized. It was early morning in Europe. Small groups of Free Runners hurried through streets of a half-dozen cities, putting up posters and spraying graffiti. Who’s in charge? Listen to the Traveler! Defend your freedom before it disappears!

Priest turned on the car radio and found a news station. When the announcer came on, it sounded like he had just run down a hallway to the microphone.

“They’re alive! The children are alive! A few minutes ago, the Antelope Valley Sheriff’s Department announced that the fourteen missing children have been found at an abandoned mining operation near Rosemond. Four dead adults were found at the site and law enforcement personnel are attempting to-”

Gabriel leaned forward and switched off the radio.

“Don’t you want to hear what happened?”

“It’s already in the past.”

“What are you talking about? This is going to change everything.”

“This is just one battle. The conflict will never end.” Gabriel peered through the windshield as if he was searching for a lost friend. “We do have one advantage over the Tabula. Because they worship power, they have a hierarchy and a few centralized locations for their equipment and employees. They may seem strong and efficient, but they’re actually more vulnerable than we are.”

“We’re just a lot of groups.”

“That’s right. The Resistance is a collection of different groups with different motivations, but the same general goal. We’re hard to find, hard to destroy.”

“That might be true, Gabe. But all this is happening because you appeared.”

“My father has spent years trying to understand why the Travelers exist. Some are killed. Others die in obscurity. Some teach a lesson that survives for a period of time and then fades away. Maybe we’re some kind of cosmic anomaly that must keep appearing, again and again, to guide the six realms in a certain direction.”

They parked a few blocks from the El Dorado Hotel and got out. Priest had taken a bed sheet from Boone’s room, and he wrapped it around the assault rife so that it looked like a wad of dirty laundry. The two men passed through the hotel lobby and took an elevator up to the fourth floor.

“Did Boone tell you the room number?” Priest asked.

“412.”

“Let me handle this. I’ll get us inside.”

As they headed down the hallway, Priest saw a room-service tray on the floor. He concealed the dirty plates beneath their plastic covers, then picked up the tray with his left hand while his right hand clutched the rifle.

“Knock on the door, Gabriel. Then step back.”

Priest stood in hallway with a big smile on his face as a young Asian man wearing a handgun in a shoulder holster answered the door.

“Room service for Mr. Corrigan.”

“He didn’t order-”

Priest threw the tray and all its contents directly into the mercenary’s face. As the man stumbled backward, Priest laid him on the floor with a leg sweep, then clubbed him with the butt of the assault rifle. On the edge of his vision, he saw Gabriel slip into the bedroom. First he secured the area, making sure there were no other bodyguards, then he heard the two brothers arguing.

“No, you won’t!” Michael shouted. “That’s not going to happen!”

Priest ran across the living room and yanked open the bedroom door. There was an open suitcase on the bed and a smaller bag on the breakfast table. He stepped around the corner of the bed and stopped.

Two bodies lay motionless on the floor-alive, but lifeless, empty of their Light.