Cathedral of Dreams (20 page)

Stacy and Brent got up to leave. Brent reached for Keith's plate.

“You coming?” Stacy said.

“In a few minutes.” Keith didn't want to go with them. Why go back to the place he just escaped from?

“We shouldn't have bothered you,” Brent said. “You need to be alone where you can focus on our next move.”

Keith smiled as they left. He didn't have anything to say. There was no next move as far as he could tell. They already had their own idea for what was going on with him anyway. There wasn't much he could do to alter their thinking.

He contemplated Stacy's last comment for a moment. There was no need to kill anyone. The Newcity residents wouldn't fight. They couldn't. Stopping Bradley could be much easier than any of them realized. If they blew up his weapons, it would take months for him to prepare again. A short term fix, for sure, but a non-violent one. He felt as though he understood the situation better than either party, as odd as that sounded even to him. Could it be due to the removal of the chip? To his unrestricted mind?

He reveled in the clarity of thought he'd gained by having the chip removed. But the most recent clarity – intimacy with the essence that was the barn, personal sensations shared with the insects – bothered him. He held out his hands and stared at the wrinkles in his palms. Turning his hands over, the knuckles pushed against his skin; the nails, with their white moons, laughed at him. It would be an understatement to suggest that he was not the same, that everything had changed for him. Add to the strangeness of the shift in his perceptions the fact that he continued to see apparitions, people beyond who was already there, and Keith feared for his own sanity. Of course there was always the idea that Newcity still had a hold on him, and that as the seven of them approached the city the images would become stronger. So far, he had followed their lead. What if he didn't? What if he fought back?

For now, the issue to worry about was the pending violence, and although the violence was surely kicked up a few notches, all the talk of killing didn't have much of an effect on him. Perhaps that's what Stacy exhibited, a lack of full understanding about what killing meant. He rubbed his jaw, still somewhat sore where Bradley had backhanded him. The anger in the tent had hurt more than the physical contact.

He shifted his thoughts to the beauty of the sunrise that morning, to erase the deepening gloom settling into him from thoughts of killing. Closing his eyes, he shifted to images of the sunset from the night before, which he had watched intently as the colors folded from one into another throughout the sun's last moments. The process was slow, beautiful, and filled him with feelings he could not explain. Those feelings returned as he reviewed the memory.

The spread of available emotions was extensive and widening further every day, but the ones he actually experienced were more real. They could be called up in memory and re-experienced almost as clearly as they were during the event that created them.

So, again, when he turned his thoughts to killing, he had difficulty sensing what that entailed physically. He literally couldn't sense it. The closest thing he had to the idea of death was from the movies that he'd watched. Even as he recalled them, no large swing in emotion occurred. He had no point of reference.

It was less than an hour later that the others were prepared to get back on the road. Their narrow escape had turned into a roadside rest, a break in the monotony of driving. Yet Sam had requested that Will and Rebecca continue to monitor the road even as the rest of them piled into the van.

A breeze swept through the barn, the scent of morning slipping in to arouse everyone's spirits and hurry their movements. It appeared to Keith that only he noticed how nature was as much in charge of their activities as they were that morning. The natural need for nourishment, the cool breeze exciting them into action, and the heavy presence of the barn as it pressured them to move on, to go back into the world from where they came. The natural signs shifted and turned all around them without their knowledge. The escapees acted on those signs without knowing that they were doing so. Keith alone seemed to comprehend how it all came together like an orchestra of life. Regardless of their mission, the others appeared to be following a plan that the world had devised, except for a few nudges from the boy and angel.

Keith went along with the escapees even though he was certain the world was involved in their decisions. Nature stood out as a coarse control. And if that were true, then the apparitions were the fine controls. Again, he thought of going counter to the boy's lead, to the angel's words, but why choose to go contrary to the world's motion when staying in its flow was so much easier? The question continually at the forefront was whether the boy and angel were part of the world's plan or part of Newcity's?

Once Rebecca climbed into the van, Will slid the barn door open. He leaned into it and again the bearings squealed and the door jerked as he shoved. Once it was open, he jogged to the van and leaped into his seat. Sam backed out of the barn, swung the van around, and retraced their tracks.

They were driving along a short while when Robert asked, “What if they parked someone at the crossroads?”

“I only saw one vehicle,” Brent said.

“Doesn't mean there wasn't another one,” Robert said.

Brent turned to Keith. “Well?”

“I'm getting nothing. Keep going,” he said.

“We'll go with that,” Brent said.

It wasn't long and they came to the crossroads and turned left toward the city. “They probably thought we took another route in,” Sam said. “There are multiple ways to get into the city.” Nonetheless, Sam speeded along faster than Keith remembered him driving the first part of their trip. The tension of those inside the vehicle rose in the air, even though there was little talking. Keith felt an array of emotions, including uncomfortable, worried, and then fearful. He listened and watched for signs, for the boy and angel, but received nothing he could interpret into a change in what they were already doing. Stay the course was what the non-message said.

As the road lulled some of them to sleep, Keith planned his escape. He wanted nothing to do with killing anyone. He figured that they would have to stop somewhere to regroup. They couldn't drive up to Newcity and announce why they were there, although that might be what Sam and the others expected him to do. But it was not something he was prepared to engage in. He'd wait until they were in the city before he ran off. Not that he'd be safer there, but with knowledge of more places to hide, escape would be easier. He had no idea what he would do after that.

They passed through farmlands where Keith saw people on tractors in fields of green and gold. Sam drove up and over hills, trees on either side of the road, wires strung on poles and placed near the road. As they crested one hill the scene opened to a hundred squat buildings as a small town opened in the distance before them. More cars had entered the road, increasing in number as they approached the town. Maysville, a sign said.

The tallest building, as they came into town, stood five stories high. The rest were shorter, most two-story or single-story homes. He must have passed through some of these same towns two days earlier on his way from the city, but he had slept then. Now, before him was the world he had missed. Traffic lights forced them to stop and go, as Sam maneuvered the van through crowded streets. The people on the sidewalks, young and old, dressed in suits as well as casual clothes, all appeared to be on task, rushing to unknown destinations to perform unknown jobs. Storefronts displayed clothing, tools, flower arrangements.

“Lock the doors,” Stacy said.

A loud clunking dropped into the interior of the van.

“What is it?” Sam asked while glancing into the rearview mirror.

“They're staring. It's our clothes. We're all dressed the same,” she said.

Keith looked out the window in the direction Stacy indicated with her own stare. A small group of young men huddled around a corner. Each dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. The shirts had writing on them and were different colors. They watched as the van crept along in the congestive traffic of Maysville. One man pointed and the others nodded. They didn't appear to be dangerous or fearful of danger, as far as Keith could tell. “Maybe they're curious,” he said.

Stacy stirred and took a deep breath. She glanced around. “I don't know.”

“Sam,” Keith said, “have you ever lived out here? In one of these towns? Is there anything for us to worry about?”

“I have. I grew up on a small government-owned farm. The locals can be suspicious of people they don't know. A full van of strangers might make them nervous. We'll get out of town as soon as we can.”

“What did you do where you grew up?” Keith asked.

“Farm work. Then I got tired of slaving in the fields and put in for a reassignment.” He glanced into the rearview mirror as he talked to Keith. “I worked at the sewage plant for several years – which was even more labor intensive – until I met Bradley. I'd never go back,” he said. There was a pause before he added, “But I don't agree with Bradley either.”

“Didn't machines do a lot of the work for you?” Keith said, recalling how he lived inside Newcity.

Sam scoffed. “Technological advances stopped dead once Newcity and places like it went up. In fact, the outside world went backwards in time for all practical purposes. Originally, people out here were the ones who rejected the way technology was leading us. All those advances, and others I suspect, are inside there now. It was supposed to be nirvana, you know: no worries, jobs for everyone, comfortable living space, no disease, no violence. A cathedral of dreams you might say. That's what it was supposed to be. That's how they advertised it. But ask any of these guys and they'll tell you that even with the advances in technology, when you're stripped of your most important right as a human being, emotions, it's a living hell.”

“It doesn't sound much better out here. Government farming, sewage plants. I mean, I don't want to go back into Newcity, but what is there here?”

“Nothing right now. But with the people from Newcity, we could share the labor and begin to live normal lives again. My dad used to tell me that there were enough people to work that they got days off sometimes.” Sam turned in his seat to face fully forward. They were at the edge of town and he passed through the last traffic light and speeded up considerably. “Most of the people you see here are working to keep Newcity going. Most of the food produced goes there, the sewage plants all over this area are filled with Newcity shit, and the clothing, the furniture, you name it, come from out here. We work for you. And the more of you there are the more you work for you as well. It's a growing blemish on the surface of the earth. All it does is feed itself and rob us of our lives.”

Molly, who Keith had never heard a word from since they began their trip, reached out and took Sam's hand. “It was terrible in there, but I didn't know it until I got out.”

Ultimately, Keith agreed with her. Since he'd been outside, the world had assaulted him with heights of emotion he had never felt before. The clarity of thought was enough to make him want to stay, even if he worked in a sewage plant. “She's right,” Keith said. “We worked every day. We were allowed time in the evenings, but always felt slow now that I look back. The monotony couldn't have been handled without the chips.” He contemplated the differences. They had terminals in each residence and television and meals, yet there was nothing really to say to anyone. Television offered a world so unlike how he lived that it was nothing more than an abstract escape, and the food had become nothing but nourishment. That's how he remembered it now.

Outside of town, Sam pulled into a gas station. He asked if anyone needed to use the bathrooms and there were several takers. “Hurry,” he said. “We need to be on our way.”

Keith, Robert, and Will entered the bathroom, which protruded from the side of the building like an afterthought. The urinals were filthy and damp, and the floor sticky with what appeared to be dried piss. Keith almost threw up from the odor alone. “I don't know if I can do this,” he said.

“This isn't the worst I've seen,” Robert said. “Try not to breathe.”

Keith obeyed the suggestion and washed his hands thoroughly afterwards. Robert held the door for him as they left. Shivers ran down his spine when he smelled the clean outside air. The air felt warmer in the sun than it did inside the van. A slight breeze took some loose leaves for a walk across the parking lot. A flag at the front of the gas station flopped and fluttered in the wind. The sound of cars shushed past, riding the same air they stirred into excitement.

The girls were still missing, so the men stood and waited for Sam to fill up the gas tank. After replacing the nozzle, he pulled a wallet from his pocket and removed some bills.