The GoldenCity

After a light breakfast, they would leave the apartment and shop for food and supplies on the side streets near the Piazza Navona. In the afternoon, Maya would take a nap while various tutors came to the apartment. Priest was learning Italian, and a college student was teaching Alice history, literature and mathematics. Linden had returned to Paris. With his help they were beginning to accumulate a collection of fake I.D. cards and cloned passports that would enable them to travel anywhere in the world.

Simon Lumbroso usually arrived at seven o’clock, bringing a bag of fresh fruit or a carton of gelato. They would cook supper at the apartment or stroll through the quiet evening streets to a restaurant in the old Jewish Ghetto. The staff spoiled Alice with special desserts and everyone asked about Maya’s l’arrive bendetto-the blessed arrival of her child.

Maya refused to read newspapers or watch television, so Simon was her main source of information on what was happening in the world. Some changes had taken place in the days that followed Gabriel’s speech. In the United States, the Guardian Angel Program was cancelled and most parents had removed the RFID chips from their children’s bodies. A mandatory I.D. card law was rejected by several European countries, and the Germany legislature made it illegal to monitor store purchases that did not involve dangerous products.

An organization called We Stand Together was started in Britain and quickly spread to a dozen other countries. Initially, the group criticized the activities of the Evergreen Foundation, but now each chapter was involved with local issues involving personal freedom. While this was going on, the Free Runners continued to organize informal demonstrations against the Vast Machine. Jugger had come up with a slogan-No More Fear!-and these three words were scrawled on walls and bridges all over the world. In Spanish-speaking countries, the slogan had evolved into the words No Más next to the cartoon image of a little man looking frightened. Along with the graffiti, there were local demonstrations like the infamous “Poke in the Eye” night in Glasgow when the lens of every surveillance camera in the city was sprayed with black paint.

All of these public activities were reported by the media while other developments took place in the underground culture. People created blogs and chat groups that explained how to create a parallel identity. They published pamphlets and set up websites that challenged the politics of fear.

After Simon described all the latest developments, he would take out a large white handkerchief and wipe his brow. “Gabriel’s speech made a big splash like a rock tossed into a pond. In some places, the water is the same again. But the ripples spread out and we don’t know how they’ll change the world.”

***

It rained Tuesday night, and the following day was hot and humid. When Simon arrived in the late afternoon, they decided to stroll over to the park that surrounded the Villa Borghese. Alice had memorized the maze of narrow streets in the old city, and she led them east to the Piazza de Popolo, a large cobblestone oval with an obelisk at the center. They cut across the open space and followed the zigzagging stairway that climbed up the Pinicio Hill to the gardens. As usual, Alice led the way like a scout guiding them through a forest. Maya and Simon followed. The baby started kicking inside her about halfway up, and Simon stopped several times to point out a distant building.

Priest followed them, carrying his sword in a black tube with a shoulder strap. Maya still had a knife strapped to her left forearm, but her own sword was stored in a closet back in the apartment.

Alice reached the top of the hill first and waited for them in the main square that overlooked Rome. If they stood beside the wall, they could see most of the city-from Monte Mario to the Janiculum. The dust and pollution of that summer’s day softened the light. The church domes and marble monuments had the yellowish-white color of antique ivory found in a museum.

They strolled down a pathway to the Giardino del Largo at the center of the park. Huge pine trees and Lombardy poplars sheltered them from the sun until they reached an artificial lake near the center of the garden that Alice called “the Sea.” In the summertime, the lake water was green with algae and dotted with lily pads. Families rented aluminum rowboats and spent afternoons bumping into each other and tossing bread crumbs at the swans.

Maya sat down on a park bench and ate two biscotti. Directly across the lake was an Ionic temple dedicated to Aesculapius, the god of health; it felt like good luck to gaze at his statue.