Cathedral of Dreams (16 page)

“Two reasons,” she said. “First, he believes others might be escaping through other parts of the building and that eventually everyone will leave at once. He's fearful of what would happen if Newcity poured that many paranoid schizophrenics into the world. And second, he needs our help. They're a small band of dissidents. What can they do alone?”

Keith listened quietly while Stacy explained how she and the others escaped by following the boy with the bullet hole in his forehead. How he wound them through the complex, often running into maintenance crews completing minor repairs. Because they were traveling in a group, the Newcity Police became suspicious and eventually attempted to arrest them. That's when one or two of the others fell back and were apprehended. “So that we could escape,” she said.

It didn't take much thought at all for Keith to guess that the system's illusion, the boy, had followed paths that he must have laid while running through his morning reports. He wanted to reject the idea, but it was so clear to him at that moment. “No,” he said.

“What is it?” Stacy sat upright and looked around even though there was nothing to see but the inside of the tent.

“You've got to go now,” Keith said.

“Are you all right?”

“I have to be alone, that's all.”

Stacy's passivity wouldn't allow her to resist his wishes and he knew it. She made her way out of the tent in a rush, the flap sending a breeze over him as she exited.

The system had used him to find a way out for the others. It also used him to create an escape route for himself. His consciousness, or subconsciousness, as it would seem, linked directly with that of the Newcity system. If he was still hearing the boy with the bullet hole in his forehead, that meant that he was still connected to the system. He must be. In which case, Ben was more likely to be right than Stacy. Newcity would know where he was as long as there was contact. But he hadn't seen nor heard the boy or the angel for a few hours now. Perhaps the connection had finally broken off.

Keith took out his notebook and jotted down some of the possibilities of what might be going on. He didn't outright reject what Stacy had told him, but did recognize that she probably wasn't thinking very clearly, that the escapees would keep to a simple conclusion. Since he looked like the boy with the bullet hole in his forehead, she automatically saw him as their leader. He led them out of Newcity after all, so why not lead them away from here as well? It made sense.

Bradley, on the other hand, appeared open and trustworthy one second and mysteriously vague the next. There was nothing simple about him. Keith had sensed an anxious anger under the surface of the man's outward congeniality and didn't know what to think of it. Then there was Sam and how frightened he appeared to be, yet curious about Keith's difference. Had Sam been an escapee at one time? Had he been integrated?

Keith jotted down the questions so that he could go over them later as he got more clues as to the truth. It could be, he wrote, that Stacy, like the rest of the escapees, was merely exercising her paranoia. Ben mistrusted Keith, where she mistrusted Bradley. The simplest possibility, clearly, was that Bradley was telling the truth and that he was helping the escapees to integrate. His uneasiness at times could be from all the responsibility he was forced to handle. As Stacy had put it, the outside world couldn't handle an inrush of millions of paranoid schizophrenics.

It wasn't long before people from the main group brought tables and set them up for lunch. Sam retrieved Keith from his tent, by standing outside and softly requesting him to come out and join the others.

Keith put his notebook and pen into his pocket and crawled out. His body felt sore from lying on the mat. He noticed each ache separately: the tightness in his hip and shoulder, a crick in his neck from leaning on his side while holding his head straight. The air temperature, as soon as he got outside the tent, dropped ten degrees, and he rubbed his hands over his arms.

“I'll have someone bring a jacket or sweater for you,” Sam said. “I'm sorry I didn't think of it earlier.”

“Thank you,” Keith said.

The others had lined up and were placing fruit and bread onto plates. There were a pot of soup and what looked like cornbread as well.

“You should get something to eat,” Sam said. He stood close to Keith and his voice was low.

Keith turned to him and asked, “Were you an escapee?”

Sam smiled and lowered his eyes. “No. But I appreciate your thinking so. I'm just more passive than the others. When you're born out here, it's a choice. This is what I choose. Bradley always tells me how lucky I am to be able to choose what others are forced to experience.”

“Would it matter if you didn't know the difference?” Keith whispered.

“Yes. It does to me now. Maybe if I were in Newcity I wouldn't be able to concentrate enough to know the difference, but knowing what I know out here, it matters a lot.”

“And the people in Newcity don't have a choice,” Keith added.

“Originally they do. Only a few are born inside. Although some choose a placid life over a complicated and potentially dangerous one, others are sold into Newcity.”

“Sold?”

Sam abruptly ended the conversation by announcing in a loud voice, “You should grab something now before it's gone.”

Sam was obviously uncomfortable talking about such subjects. But Keith wanted a response to one last question. He turned to Sam and looked in his eyes, something he would never have done in Newcity, something that came from a place so deep inside him that it frightened him, even as he did it. He asked, “Do you think that in some way, the escapees are changing their minds? That it's possible that they're making a different choice?”

Sam walked away in a hurry and stood near some of the other members of Bradley's group.

Keith thought he may have hit on something and planned to consider it later, when it was quiet and he had the time to think. Right now, the noise of escapees talking and piling food onto plates wasn't the time to think. He got in line behind one of the others. He had never been introduced to any of them except Stacy, who had introduced herself.

As Keith stepped in line, the man in front of him backed away. “Please go on,” he said.

“I'm in no hurry,” Keith said.

Then several more in line backed away as well. “Please go,” a woman who stood several people down the line said. “Or we could get it for you? You could wait in your tent, or find a place to sit? Whatever you want.” She lowered her head.

One of the men from the main group must have been troubled by what was going on and charged in to break it up. “He's able to get his own food. Just finish up here. We've got other things to do.” He pointed for them to get back to the table and closed in behind the escapees, forcing them to step back into line.

The escapees shot into place, outwardly nervous about what had happened. Two stopped filling their plates altogether and walked away.

Keith stepped up to the table and ladled out two large portions of soup. A few steps farther down he grabbed two pieces of cornbread in one hand. He left the group and sat behind his tent.

Stacy joined him a few minutes later. “See what I mean?” she said, standing over him. “We'll do whatever you ask.”

“I'm not here to save anyone,” Keith said. “I'll be lucky if I can figure out what's going on at all. And then I doubt there's anything I can do about it. Besides, what do you need to be saved from? You have food and shelter and nothing to do all day.”

“Until we're integrated. Then everything changes. I don't know for sure, but I've heard stories and it's not good.” She leaned against a tree trunk.

Keith sat on the ground and ate, looking up at her every once in a while. “Maybe the system needed someone to fashion the boy's image out of and I won the lottery. And you can tell Ben and the others that I haven't heard from the boy for a long time now. The connection has been cut. I'm not a beacon.”

She looked disappointed. “I'll tell him,” she said. A few more short moments went by as she stared at him as though trying to figure something out, then she left without another word.

Keith felt a tinge of guilt about how he handled their conversation, but rationalized his response based on how uncomfortable he was with the way things were progressing. His frustration easily grew to anger. And the truth was that she expected something from him that he wasn't ready or willing to provide.

Sam came by for Keith's bowl well after he had finished eating. The bowl sat on the ground next to him, a small stream of ants already finding their way up its side. He had been watching them for a while when Sam rounded the corner of the tent and swung down and grabbed the bowl. “What was that about? Earlier?”

“Being nice to the new guy? Overly polite?” Keith said.

“No, there was something else. I saw how they looked at you.”

Keith turned his head away. “I don't know what you mean. I just got here. I don't even know their names.” Keith started to get up when several of Bradley's group came around the tent and grabbed his arms.

Sam stood back to let them through. When Keith shot him a confused look he said, “I'm sorry, but this is for your own good.”

“So what are you going to do with me?”

“Bring you along,” Sam said. “Something isn't right here and I have to let Bradley know. I didn't want to leave you with them after what I saw.”

When they dragged Keith around the tent, half of the escapees stood in front of them so that they couldn't get by.

“It's all right,” Keith said. “I'm just going to talk with Bradley.”

“You don't have to go,” said the woman who talked to him while they were in line at the food table.

“What are you going to do, hug us to death?” one of Bradley's men said through a large smile. He pulled on Keith's arm to move forward.

The escapees didn't move and Keith could feel the strength of their fear. He realized that they would push through their own terror to help him. They would stand firm until forced to move.

Keith raised his hands the best he could with the two thugs holding him. “Seriously,” he said, glancing around until he saw Stacy. “Can you call them off? I'm fine. I can take care of this. He just wants to talk.” He knew she'd listen.

“We'll have him back this afternoon,” Sam said to the crowd. His words appeared to help the situation even though Keith knew that they weren't sincere. Sam had no idea what would happen.

The escapees turned to Stacy who nodded affirmatively. “Let them go.”

The escapees parted enough for Keith and the others to pass through. Ben, surprisingly, had been one of those standing in the way and Keith wondered what might have changed his mind that he would want to help the others on Keith's behalf. That was unless Ben had other plans for Keith, plans his departure would foil.

On the way down the path Keith's abductors loosened their grips on his upper arms and allowed him to walk on his own. Where would he run to anyway? He had no idea where they were.

“Damned newbies,” one of the men said.

Sam didn't say anything in way of a reprimand, which got Keith to thinking about the apprehension and how unusual it was that Sam appeared to be in charge of it. Yes, he was a trusted member of Bradley's group, but his personality wasn't that of a leader or decision maker. What would bring him to such action unless he was truly worried for Keith?

The men yanked Keith around a corner, which brought him back to the situation. He knew where they were going and should have been more aware. Now they held onto him more firmly, which was something he could have avoided.

When they arrived at Bradley's tent, one of the men put a hand on Keith's head to get him to bend down as he entered. Inside the tent he could stand again. “Sit down,” the man who had called him a newbie said. Then he gave Sam a look of contention before leaving with the other man.

“Bradley will be here soon,” Sam said.

Keith heard Bradley approaching from outside, swearing as he got closer.

Bradley crashed into the tent and stomped to a stop. “What the fuck is going on now?”

Sam looked scared. “When he was…”

“I'm not asking you, for Christ's sake, I'm asking him,” Bradley stood close to Keith.