“You’re giving off a serious Hal vibe here.”
She just stared at him, and her eyes, if anything, swelled up even darker, fuller.
“You know, like from 2001, A—”
“Space Odyssey, Clarke’s masterpiece. I know it. I know him.”
“You do?” He scratched at the back of his head. “Uh, was he… one of us? I mean, I always wondered, with his prescience on ideas and shit, maybe…”
“Stay focused, Orlando.”
“Okay, so what? We’re all like playthings in a video game?”
“Or more like players.”
Orlando thought for a moment. “Oh, then… it’s a choice kind of thing. We chose this reality, this avatar type player that we’re controlling, but don’t know it? Immersed in the game.” He nodded. “I like it. It works.”
“Thought you would. But again, I am not entirely sure either. It is a surmise, based on the facts, and centuries of experience I gleaned from my other host.”
The elevator slowed quickly, and Orlando grasped the side as it came to a stop.
“Oh, and get ready, Mr. Natch.”
“What for?”
She turned to him, grinning and letting out a chuckle as she ducked to the side, flattening herself against the wall while the doors opened.
“The guards up here. Armed. And angry.”
18
Caleb stood on the rooftop edge, looking down the face of the Masonic Lodge. The chopper started up, blades whirling, wind kicking up from his back, swirling with the winds coming from the east, over the buildings of Manhattan.
He smelled smoke coming from somewhere in the distance, as the sun dipped below the skyscrapers, as the clouds rolled over the horizon toward him. Cars were on fire down there, and flames were spreading in other places. Traffic was stalled, cars left in places as motorcycles tore through the streets, and others just abandoned their vehicles and sought refuge elsewhere. He saw some huddled in groups or alone in doorways, with their smart devices out, hopefully watching Victoria’s recording and taking some solace.
Calm was needed, and Caleb thought that maybe in some small way, this shared suffering and monumental confirmation of something beyond the material world would bring people together in a way nothing else could. People were certainly re-evaluating everything, from their own petty squabbles, to relationships, to the meaning of life and God and what happens after death.
Speaking of which…
Caleb heard the pilot calling him, but waved him off, holding up his index finger, asking for time.
He had to go with that last thought, with his previous impression of who Raiden might really be, what he had found in Antarctica, who this mysterious ‘brethren’ could be and…
Yes, what happens when we die?
He thought of his father. Thought of Lydia. All those he had known and lost.
Did they pass on, and are they… elsewhere?
Or is it as some thought, and we get a choice?
Stop those questions, he thought, and ask the right one.
The one he’d been thinking about ever since the President had said it downstairs.
How did he know my father?
The winds kicked up, pushing him forward and back, then more gently as he closed his eyes and the sun dipped lower and darkness cascaded over his inner sight, to be replaced by:
Base camp, Kathmandu, Nepal. A breeze warmer than expected ruffles the tents and flutters the Himalayan banners. A mirror held to a face…
Philip Crowe stares back. His eyes, so much like Caleb’s, who won’t be born yet for another fifteen years. A thick beard, grown for warmth in anticipation of this sacred quest, this bucket list item Phillip has fantasized about for years. He puts the mirror down, checks his bags, securing the straps on the harness and backpack and sled, and he steps out of the flap. Gazes past the bustling activity of other climbers and adventurers readying their supplies. The yaks and guides eating and drinking in preparation for the long ascent.
Far up there, in the perfect visibility of this August morning, the pinnacle awaits, without a hint of the dangers or difficulty ahead.
“Piece of cake, this,” says a voice at his side. Thick accent, the man is just a youth himself, barely out of his teens. Bronze skin, a slight attempt at a mustache, and dark eyes brimming with excitement below a bushy head of black curls.
“Good morning, Hassid.” Phillip expels a deep breath. “I sure hope you’re right, although nothing this spectacular should come without heroic effort.”
“True words, my new American friend.”
Phillip smiles. “And you, where are you from? Last night over tea far too strong to be purely medicinal, you claimed to be ‘a man of the world’”.
“Are we not all that?” He grins back, then dons some thick black sunglasses he must have picked up at the bazaar. They still have a price sticker on the side. “But I was born in Pakistan.”
Phillip glances at him. “Ah, then well met, Hassid of Pakistan.”
“Well met indeed! I feel, my friend, we are on the same path.”
Phillip’s gaze follows the winding road past the markers and the warning signs, past the fluttering banners and the yaks getting their final rest. A trio of black birds circle lazily, hungrily overhead. “That we are. And I’m glad for the company.”
“What is it exactly you seek up there?”
Phillip squints as the sun glints off the snowy white heights, and fishes for his own sunglasses. “Enlightenment.”
“Ah. Then we both have come to the right place. One of the wonders of the world, surely.”
“Natural ones, for sure. From such a height, I can only imagine the transition we could experience. Our souls and bodies, at the top of the world.”
His new friend nods. “For me, it is not only this that calls me. Everest is but one of many such experiences I have tugging at my soul.”
Phillip gives him a sideways look of respect. “Then perhaps we will meet again, should we survive this ascent.”
“I have a feeling we shall. Survive for sure, and for sure, our paths will cross again.”
Phillip closes his eyes and trembles. His breath catches, and he gives his friend a sudden look of concern.
“What is it?”
“I… I don’t know. Sometimes I… see things.”
“Like in your head?”
“Yes. Sometimes they’re real, sometimes, not. Or not yet.”
Hassid laughs and adjusts his belt and jacket. “Perhaps you have the gift of Sight. My mother had it. Claimed I was destined for great things. That I would become like Shiva himself one day.”
“God of all or Destroyer of Worlds? Which incarnation?”
Hassid flashes him a look of admiration. “You know your mythology. Our mythology.”
“I have a lot of… interests. In many studies. Can’t read enough.”
“Commendable, my friend. Very un-American of you!”
“Hah, thanks. But seriously, I saw something.”
“Tell me, oh seer, of my great and noble destiny? Perhaps my mother was right, and all my questing and traveling leads me to some ultimate treasure, some wondrous artifact of the gods bestowing ultimate power and magic control of the universe!”