Journey Through the Mirrors (4 page)

“What about being on vacation?” Logan yelled after her. He saw that Jamie and Jordan had made their way out of the water and were now building an elaborate sand castle together. The photographer whom Logan had abruptly dismissed was standing near them and taking a picture of it. He also seemed to be giving the kids some building tips. Valerie was right, Logan thought. It is all choice.

He checked his PCD. It was almost 11:00
A.M.
He rose and called the children, spinning his finger in the air to indicate that it was time to wrap things up. Logan had started to place his belongings in his well-worn backpack when Valerie returned with a stressed look on her face.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

“Potential new case,” Valerie said. “We’re being asked to look into the destruction of a well at a natural gas plant in the African Union, actually in the North African Commonwealth. Some are saying that the Republic of South Africa is involved. But I’m not going to deal with it; I’m
choosing
to let Sylvia and Chetan handle it until I get back.”

Logan chuckled.

“Dad,” Jordan said excitedly, “let’s get a picture taken of all of us.” Logan saw that the man with the camera had returned with the children.

“Yeah, let’s get one,” Jamie said.

Logan nodded. He was not about to shoo the photographer away again.

“OK, come together,” the man said, and they did, bunching closely. “Smile for the world. No, big, big, big smiles.” The camera clicked a few times, and the man projected a 3-D image for everyone to see. “Beauti-ful,” he said.

“Thank you,” Logan said, holding out a few universal credits as a tip, while Valerie helped the children stuff their belongings into their bags.

“Thank you very much, sir,” the photographer said, as he accepted the money. “I like to make people happy. Show me your PCD, and I’ll transfer the photos.” Logan pulled out his PCD and placed it against the back of the man’s camera to allow the transfer. “There you go,” the man said, before giving a slight bow and walking away. “Your smiles are captured forever.”

“ ’Bye,” Jamie said, waving to him. “Thanks for helping us with the castle.”

The man waved back.

“See, he just wanted to make people happy,” Valerie said.

Logan nodded. “Everyone ready?” he asked, swinging his backpack
over his shoulder. The kids kicked around in the sand, looking for anything they might have forgotten, before leading the way back to the hotel. “We’re off to the pyramid.”

The man with the camera walked along the shore, incoming waves sliding over his bare feet and ankles. He put his camera into a small gray shoulder bag and placed a call on his PCD. “Yes, they’re here,” he said, now speaking without the Mexican accent. He stopped and gazed at the island in the distance, where he could see the flag flying on the peak of Nevado de Toluca. “I will,” he said. “You should receive the photos shortly.” He ended the call and kept walking.

2

Perfection is a dangerous thing. For how then does one evolve and journey forward after it is achieved?

—THE CHRONICLES OF SATRAYA

MEXICO CITY, 11:30 A.M. LOCAL TIME, MARCH 20, 2070

After changing, Logan, Valerie, and the children met their guide, Carlos, in front of the hotel and set off for the National Institute of Anthropology and History, which was in one of the most impressive pyramid cities in the world, Teotihuacán. “We should be there in an hour,” said Carlos, who was seated in the front of the van next to the driver. “The city, which is located approximately fifty kilometers northeast of Mexico City, is believed to have been established in 100
B.C.
and grew to become the sixth-largest city of the world by
A.D.
600. Historians tell us that as many as one hundred twenty-five thousand people lived at Teotihuacán.”

“Are you getting all this down?” Logan asked Jordan, before turning back to Carlos. “My son decided to do his school report on ancient pyramids around the world.”

“Wonderful,” Carlos said, while Jordan pulled out his PCD to take
notes. “I will make sure to tell you everything I know. But new discoveries are being made there every day. While Teotihuacán was an important trading city and a spiritual and cultural center for Mesoamerica in the first half of the first millennium, it is still a place of great mystery today.”

“Why?” Jordan asked, typing feverishly.

“Well . . .” Carlos paused for dramatic effect. “It was built by an advanced civilization that disappeared as mysteriously as it arrived. No one knows who built the city, no one knows why it was razed by fire and then abandoned in the year
A.D.
650, and no one knows its original name.”

“But wait,” Jamie broke in. “You said the name. You said we’re going to Teo-something.”

“Teotihuacán,” Jordan said.

“Yeah, that name.”

“Very good,” Carlos said. “Teotihuacán is what the Aztecs called it when they found the ruins beneath lots of dirt and vegetation in the fourteenth century. They were so amazed by the city’s well-organized geometric layout and monumental structures that they named it Teotihuacán, which means ‘the place where men become gods.’ ”

The van jolted, causing Jamie to grab her father’s arm.

“As you can see,” Carlos explained, “the roads outside of Mexico City are still in poor condition.”

Logan looked out the window, noticing a change in the landscape. The arid landscape contrasted sharply with the tropical and well-manicured suburbs of Mexico City. “Didn’t the World Federation of Reconstruction allocate money to this part of Mexico?” he asked.

“Certainly doesn’t look like it,” Valerie said. “Look at all the crumbling homes out here.”

Carlos nodded. “The homes have been abandoned since the Great Disruption. During those terrible times, most of the people left the countryside and moved closer to the city.”

“And this part of Mexico was never cleaned up,” Logan inferred, eliciting another nod from their guide.

“Ancient sites like Teotihuacán did not seem essential after the devastation. The whole central plateau was hit hard by the earthquakes.” The van swerved right and then left as it maneuvered around potholes on Route I32D leading out of Mexico City. “Even though the WFR was recently defunded, we have strong hopes that with a native Mexican like President Salize now in office, the government will allocate monies to this region of the North American Federation. If resources were made available, I’m certain this area would flourish once again. The people here work hard. This area has a rich tribal heritage. Farming is in their
sangre
.”

Jamie looked at her older brother quizzically. “
Sangre
means ‘blood,’ ” he told her.

Carlos turned and smiled at both children, then pointed to a dilapidated farmhouse in the distance. In a field nearby, a man was steering a plow pulled by a large animal. “Even without electricity or running water, some people stayed, continuing to work the land, because they heard about the terrible violence and lawlessness in the city. There was no better place to go, so they struggled to survive here, growing mostly wheat and corn. Then
Las Crónicas de Satraya
arrived. The books gave people hope.”

“Did you grow up out here?” Valerie asked. “You speak of the countryside with great affection.”

“Yes,” Carlos said. “I grew up north of here. In a town called San Isidro. My parents spoke of the books until the day they passed.” He turned to Logan. “Your parents were great people. They helped many by giving them the books.”

“Yes, they accomplished a lot in those difficult times,” Logan said, wishing yet again that he had known his parents’ true identities when they were still alive. The vast majority of what he knew of his parents’ past came from Mr. Perrot, Valerie’s father and his father’s best friend,
who had shown him photographs of their time in Washington organizing the remnants of the government and the dissemination of the books throughout the world. Mr. Perrot and Logan’s parents had formed the Council of Satraya for that purpose. Made up of them and the other three people who had discovered original sets of the
Chronicles
along with a few of their family members, for seven years the Council had worked relentlessly to deliver copies to those who needed them. It had been an idyllic, productive time, until the group’s leadership splintered at the hands of Fendral Hitchlords, who attempted to commandeer the organization for his own political purposes.

“Dad, check out those bridges!” Jamie called, breaking Logan’s reverie. “Are they strong enough to hold a car? There’s nothing supporting them.”

“Those bridges are made from hydrodized metal,” Carlos said. “The really strong stuff you might have learned about in science class. They discovered it when they mined the Themis Four asteroid ten years ago. The bridges are one of the few projects the WFR was able to help us with. Fissures in the earth opened up during the earthquakes. Without the bridges, the residents of these outlying areas would not be able to commute to the city to work.”

“How deep are the cracks?” Jordan asked, while taking pictures.

“No one knows,” Carlos said. “Some say they lead to the center of the earth.” There was an awed silence as Jamie moved closer to her brother to get a better look out the window.

“Look at those mountains,” Jordan said then, pointing at a craggy purple triad in the distance that rose into the blue sky.

Carlos laughed. “They’re not all mountains. Do you see the massive gray shape in front of the purple one? That is the Pyramid of the Sun.”

Jordan pressed his face against the window to get a better look. “That thing’s huge!”

“It sure is,” Valerie said, also laughing.

Carlos nodded. “It is sixty-five meters high, about half as tall as the
Great Pyramid of Egypt, but just as broad at its base. It is the largest pyramid at Teotihuacán.”

“There’s more than one?” Jordan asked.

“There are three major pyramids: the Pyramid of the Sun; the Pyramid of the Moon, which is the second largest; and the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, which partially covers a temple dedicated to its namesake god.”

Some twenty minutes later, the van slowed down. Through the front window, they could see security personnel controlling the flow of traffic into the ancient city.

“Teotihuacán is very crowded today,” Carlos explained. “People come from all over the world to celebrate the spring equinox.”

“I know what that is,” Jamie said. “That’s when the day is as long as the night.”

“Today we celebrate the end of winter and the beginning of spring. Many people, including pilgrims dressed all in white, climb to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun when the sun is directly overhead at noon and hold their arms up high to receive the sun’s blessing and the special energy coming from the heavens.” Carlos turned and handed a printout to each of them. “I know you all have PCDs,” he said, “but I find people enjoy looking at an old-fashioned map of Teotihuacán when exploring the ancient city.”

“What are these little triangles? More pyramids?” Jordan pointed to marks along the ancient city’s main road.

“The Aztecs assumed they were burial tombs, but archaeologists discovered they were apartment houses. It turns out the Teotihuacános were not so different from us.”

Carlos told to the driver to turn off the main road and into the VIP lane. He displayed his credentials to the security guards, and their van was allowed to bypass the mile-long traffic jam, making its way to the entrance of the ancient city, where it stopped.

“Stay close,” Logan said to his children as he swung his backpack
over his shoulder and they all got out of the van. “And put your caps on so we can keep an eye on the two of you.”

Jordan and Jamie took bright red baseball caps out of their backpacks and put them on.

“This place is amazing,” Logan said, taking in the eight square kilometers of the geometrically laid-out ancient city. At the end of a long road, directly north, he could see one of the stone pyramids. Halfway down the road and to the right stood a much larger one. Many other, smaller pyramids, with flat tops, could also be seen throughout the complex. Tourists moved from monument to monument, some in open-top vehicles that resembled golf carts, others on foot. People of all ages were climbing up the steep stairways of the ancient structures.

“We are at the southernmost point of the city,” Carlos said. “The road we are standing on is known as
La Calzada de los Muertos
, the Avenue of the Dead. Two kilometers long and more than forty meters wide, it was the main transit road at the peak of the city’s development from
A.D.
300 to 600.”

“Why do they call it the Avenue of the Dead?” Jordan asked.

“You see all those
talud-tablero
structures on both sides of the road? Those are the structures I mentioned earlier. The Aztecs believed they were tombs, so that is why they named the road as they did.” Carlos pointed north to the farthest of the pyramids. “At the end of the avenue stands the Pyramid of the Moon. The smaller structure with the ornate carvings directly to our right is the Feathered Serpent Pyramid. This is where much of the celebration will be held tonight.”

“What about that gigantic pyramid in the middle that all those people are climbing? Is that the Pyramid of the Sun?”

“Yes, that is the one we saw from the van. Even though it is one of the largest in the world, I think the Moon Pyramid is the most interesting. They recently discovered a tunnel there that led to a chamber filled with treasures.” Carlos paused for a second, then added with spooky effect, “And a few skeletons.”

Jamie gasped, and her eyes opened wide.

“That’s so cool!” Jordan said, turning to his father. “Can we go see that?”

“I want to go, too,” Jamie added, with less enthusiasm.

“I’m not sure we are going to have time,” Logan said, checking his PCD. “We have to meet Mr. Montez.” He paused, seeing a Jeep approach; a man with a straw cowboy hat, a khaki shirt, and a neatly trimmed gray mustache was in the driver’s seat. “That could be him there.”