Cathedral of Dreams (12 page)

“I don't understand any of this. If it's so good for you now, why do I feel such sadness being here with you?”

“You feel sadness, I don't. But listen, things are about to change. They're coming for you.”

Keith's eyes widened and he began to rise again.

His father held out his hand and motioned for him to stay seated. “Not Newcity, but the people who live out here. They know when someone goes free. But rest assured there are always those who are happy to go inside.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Just like there are those who would rather sleep than be in the world. Even in this world, most have remained asleep to what's truly here, the beauty, the multitude of senses.”

Keith waited for his father to speak again, but a knock came to the door. The sound caused his father, the most physical of the three illusions, to waver and shift.

“When I'm needed, call me,” he said as he disappeared.

Keith didn't know what to do, so he rose to his feet and started to walk around the sofa. But those who were behind the door opened it and rushed inside. Five men and women came at him and he cowered in fear, pulling his hands close to his chest and tucking his chin in. His first thought was to wonder how these people could find him when the Newcity police could not, but he didn't ask. He waited to find out what they wanted.

From behind the first few people came a familiar voice, a woman who broke through the others and wrapped her arms around him and held him. His mother's completely gray hair stopped at her shoulders. Her clothes were rumpled and old. Her eyes sagged. Her frame felt frail and weak.

Keith didn't know how to react. She didn't feel as familiar as his father, yet she was the most real. She
was
real. He checked himself, and there was no sense of sadness. “Then…” he looked around at the others.

His mother shook her head. “No, your brother and sister are in there,” she pointed toward the outside city he had just left, but Keith knew what she meant — Newcity.

She reached for the closest man. “This is Roger.” She pointed to the others one at a time. “William. And this is Sam.” She switched to the other woman, “And Sandra.” Everyone nodded as they were introduced. They all looked older than Keith by at least ten years, his mother by much more than that. But Keith had seen so few older people that he couldn't guess at her age, not that it mattered.

“Come with us,” Roger said, “we'd better go. There's a lot to be done.”

“Where are we going? Is there food?” Even in the excitement, Keith's hunger had returned as a burning, almost nauseating fact.

“Of course,” William said. “And you can meet the others.”

“The others?” Keith wasn't used to so many people gathered around him, touching him as though he had asked them to. As he was ushered outside into the night and down the sidewalk toward a large van, he felt himself get angry.

“Not many,” William said. “Most of those who get out of the complex don't make it past the doctor before they're re-chipped and back in service.”

“In service?” Keith questioned.

Roger opened the van door and Keith edged in between Sam and William. His mother rode in the front with Roger, and Sandra sat in a broad seat behind the three men.

“Could you not sit so close?” Keith asked.

“Still doesn't want to be touched,” Sandra said. “That'll change soon enough.”

Keith didn't know what she meant, but the two men scooted away to give him more room. His anger abated and he relaxed for the ride. Since he had never been inside a motor vehicle before, he eased into the motion except when there was a jolt or bounce.

The sky had remained cloudy and there were few streetlights, so the darkness outside the windows encompassed his entire view. If he stretched his neck, he could see out the front where the van's headlights showed little more than the road. He did notice the air become cold and the smells to sharpen. The people inside the van remained relatively quiet.

Once again, Keith nodded off. The motion of the van and the sound the tires made against the road lulled him to sleep. By the time he awakened, there was light emerging from over a far hill. The view caught his breath. It gave him a start and he woke up completely. “Oh,” he said.

DAY 4

“It's beautiful, isn't it?” Sandra said from behind him.

“More than that,” Keith replied. “It's frightening.” Feelings rose in him that he could not recall ever having. Complete awe was the one that overtook him. He could hardly believe the vista before him. Hills rolled on, changing their appearance as they got farther away. In the distance, the hills turned to blocks of bluish gauze, illusionary, looking as though they were about to fade into the background of sky.

The van's nose pitched down slightly as they traveled into a valley. Scenery sped past, and as he stared out the side window, the landscape blurred into a wash of color. The sun peaked a far hill to the right, throwing shadows across the road. They drove into and out of the shadows, the light inside the van getting dark, then light, then dark again.

Keith had seen all this on the television from time to time, when he watched movies with the others, but had never been exposed to it in reality. There were no words for how this experience made him feel, no words for the sensations, the emotions, all coming at him simultaneously as the van of people bounced and thrummed over the hard surface of the road. He didn't want to blink his eyes for fear of missing something. He wished they had awakened him earlier so that he could have seen this as they approached. He took a deep breath and shivered, not so much from the chill in the air, but from the staggering view.

About a third of the distance down the hill, Roger made a right turn onto a side road. The sun glared through the front window and Keith had to squint and put his hand over his eyes. He turned his head and saw that they were traversing down a narrow roadway, tall grass and bushes rushing past. The van slowed, and it wasn't long before they turned onto a dirt road, which bounced the van around as they progressed. The bushes turned into trees, and soon the sun didn't glare through the window so forcefully. A canopy of green shaded them.

When the van stopped, dozens of people approached from a cleared area near the road. Roger had his window down and the air felt much colder. “Stay back, you guys. He's still a little anxious about being touched. Don't close him in.”

An older man approached Keith's mother's door. “You must be so happy,” he said.

She reached through the window and took the man's face into her hands and kissed him. Keith felt a surge of anger run through him, but didn't connect to where it came from.

“Come on,” William said as he exited the van. “You can stick with me for a while.”

“This one special or something?” a man about Keith's age asked as they passed. The man didn't look happy about it, and Keith sensed an instant dislike from the person. The feeling was mutual.

He followed closely behind William. Sam followed, his arms out to his sides producing an invisible barrier to ward off the people from getting too close to Keith.

Long tables had been set up under canvas canopies to keep the sun or rain out. The tabletops were lined with platters of food. Many of the people, Keith finally noticed, had plates of food in their hands. Eggs and fruit, bread and muffins; he smelled sausage. Where had it come from and how could he get some?

He slowed and turned toward the table, but Sam shoved him forward. “Keep going. We'll get food for you in a moment.”

Up ahead stood a tall square shaped tent. William ducked down and entered in front of Keith. Inside sat a thin-legged table with electronic equipment on it, a desk with a terminal and some other gear, and an older man who had the same broad face and raised cheekbones as his father.

The man got up and reached his hand out. “I'm your uncle Bradley.”

Keith reluctantly took the man's hand. The thick palm roughed Keith's soft hand with a scratchy earthiness he had never experienced before.

Bradley excused William and Sam and told them to get Keith some breakfast, then indicated for Keith to sit in a wooden chair.

“What is this place?” Keith asked.

“A temporary outpost, you might say.”

“Are the Newcity police looking for you?”

Bradley grinned and reached an arm to rest it on the table next to him. “It's complicated.” He tapped a finger. “And somewhat controversial.”

“How so?” Keith's curiosity vanished once Sam brought in a heaping plate of sausage and eggs and bread. “Oh, yes,” Keith said taking the plate and fork. “Thank you so much. You are now my best friend,” Keith said.

Sam laughed. “If that's all it takes…” he said before he left.

Keith shoved food into his mouth like he hadn't eaten for days, although as he recollected, it had actually only been one day. One day. He slowed with the thought, and looked around as he chewed. The tan tent glowed with the backdrop of sunlight coming through. The air felt warm inside. The equipment hummed and the people outside the tent were talking and laughing. The noise would have been unbearable had he been inside Newcity, but out here it all felt rather normal. He could have had less noise, but he was getting used to blocking it out while he was busy concentrating on other things.

He nodded while he thought.

“What is it?” Bradley asked.

“I'm finding that I can concentrate for longer periods of time,” Keith said, automatically answering the question.

“Glad you noticed. The truth is, you can focus now, where inside Newcity everything is scheduled and arranged so that you don't have to. In fact, it's not so much that you can't focus, as that you can't focus whenever you have a strong emotion along with it. That's how the chips work, little logic circuits you might say: one input and one output, two inputs and no output. Well, a nulling signal.”

“That's how they work?”

“You trade a life of security — food, shelter, peace — for a life where your emotions can run wild, where violence happens every day, where you often have to suffer for proper food and shelter. You trade a complicated life for a simple one, some say. I don't tend to agree.” Bradley closed his eyes for a moment. “Essentially, why build robots when you can program humans? Well, not really program, but coerce, convince, call it what you will.”

“So do people volunteer to go inside?” Keith said.

“You did.”

Chapter 9

K
eith held up his diminishing plate of food. “An hour ago, I would have done it again.”

“Some have. So now we provide some of the essentials—peace, security, and food—just like you'd have inside. Show you the contrast so that you can make a different decision.”

“Will I?” Keith liked Bradley, felt that he was being honest for the most part. Experience was the element Keith was missing. But maybe he was a little confused, too, concerning his dead father and a certain boy with a bullet hole in his head and an angel. He thought of her again and it dawned on him that the lump might be a single wing. For a moment his mind wandered to what might have happened to the other one. He swallowed a mouthful of food and found that his thoughts had shifted, but he was able to go back to his original stream and pick up where he had left off. Fascinating. It could be that his mind would be the most interesting part of his outside experience Newcity.

“You're smiling,” Bradley said.

Called back from his thoughts, Keith saw Bradley leaning forward in his chair. A moment ago there wasn't anything in view except his thoughts. Could he have been that deep inside his mind that it blocked out sight? He shook his head. “I'm just amused, I guess. How I can dive into thought so deeply that I can follow several paths in different directions. It's odd.”

Bradley nodded approval. “Now we're getting somewhere.” He cocked his head. “More breakfast?”

Keith saw that his plate had been cleaned. “You know, I think I would like more.”

“Sammy!”

Sam poked his head in right away.

“Another plate of food?”

“Right away,” Sam said while rushing in to take Keith's plate. He handed the fork back to Keith. “You can hold onto this.”