Here She Found Juvenile Red Jays Living Together in Another Bird’S Abandoned Nest

ANAMNESIS ê a novel

ê WILLIAM KEEFER Copyright © 2016 William Keefer All rights reserved Illustrations by Alyssa Dennis ISBN-10: 0692763538 ISBN-13: 978-0692763537 Published by Jupiter Publications First Edition williamkeefer.com

anamnesis noun an-am-NEE-sis

- Loss of forgetfulness.

- Medicine. A case history obtained by asking questions of a patient.

- Platonism. Recollection of knowledge gained by the soul in other incarnations.

- Christianity. Liturgical statements memorializing the Last Supper, Passion, Resurrection and Ascension.

- Immunology. A rapid and effective immune response to a known antigen.

Part One

ê THE NARROW PATH

Jungle vines encircled Bonnie’s heart and tree branches lifted her into the sky. - Logan Wheeler, La Cana Anomaly

IT WAS A rainy day in La Cana National Park, and Bonnie Delamarca stood on a forest trail in a green plastic poncho. Drops of water ran down the side of her face and off of her chin. She was lean and tan from her months in the Colombian rainforest. Her people in Winnipeg would marvel at her appearance, if she sent them back a photo. Bonnie felt disengaged living in Canada, but in the Amazon, she existed fully in the present. It was not a matter of choice. Working in the rainforest was dangerous, and she needed to stay aware. Her instincts kept her safe as she climbed trees searching for Red Jay nests. Her inner voice spoke clearly, but lately it frightened her with some of the things it said. She stood frozen on the trail, lost in an internal debate about which way to go. To the east was the route back to her camp. She was done with her fieldwork for the day and due back. To the west lay the corner of the park where she found juvenile Red Jays living together in another bird’s abandoned nest.

Luis, the head of the field study, was ecstatic when she discovered the juvenile band. The Red Jay is a close relative of the American crow, whose young live together until they find mates and claim territory. Five Red Jay young living together was a sign of health for the species. But then Luis spotted loggers working at the western border of the park—less than a kilometer from the nest—and he forbade her from going near the area. “And so it begins,” he said. “¿Que?” Bonnie asked. “The end of the Red Jay,” he said. Bonnie faced west and thought of the rosewood tree that was home to the birds. She wondered if they were ok. She knew she should head back to camp, but stood unmoving on the trail. Her body refused to let her go. She felt a sensation of being physically drawn to the west. It was like a thirst. There was an emotional draw as well. When she thought about walking back to camp, a black cloud descended on her, but the thought of finding the young Red Jays again filled her with peace. She shook her head and took a step back to camp. A wave of sadness rolled over her and her throat went dry. She then took a step back west and felt a bit better. But the relief quickly faded. The depression and thirst rose again, and she continued to stumble toward the Red Jay. She tried to hold her ground, but it was like standing against an ocean tide. The bad feeling grew again, and she recoiled west. Her mind battled her instinct to run to the birds. Luis told her to stay away from the loggers. A confrontation would jeopardize the study. She fell to her knees and crawled a few steps to the east. Her stomach contracted into a painful knot, and she retreated back to the west and felt the pain diminish. She looked up at canopy trees swaying in the wind. Something extraordinary was happening, and she was open-minded enough to consider a strange possibility. Was the rainforest itself telling her to

go to the juveniles? “You are the forest,” her inner voice said. It spoke with wisdom and authority greater than her conscious mind. Her resistance broke and she ran west down the trail. With each step, a feeling of euphoria grew. The rain lessened and a ray of sunlight burst through the forest canopy, forming a rainbow in the mist. It was a sign. This is what she was meant to do. Without her, the juveniles might die, and with them could die the hope of their species as well. She would keep herself safe somehow.

WHEN SHE WAS a teenager in the Canadian prairies, Bonnie tamed robins in her backyard. Her technique was to remain utterly still for an hour while holding breadcrumbs on her outstretched palm. The birds sensed no threat from her and eventually hopped onto her hand. There was something hidden behind their little black eyes that she wished to discover. She became an ornithologist—a scientist who studied birds. In the rainforest of southern Colombia there was a bird called Cyanocorax cruentus—the Red Jay to the wider world, and the “Heart Bird” to the local Indians. Hunted for its glimmering red feathers and intricate nests, it was once thought to be extinct. On a visit to La Cana National Park in southern Colombia, Luis became the first ornithologist in three decades to see a living Red Jay. He secured funding for a field study, and Bonnie responded to his job listing for a one-year research position. She was writing her PhD thesis on avian behavior, and the Red Jay was of the Corvid family, among the most intelligent of the birds. Luis warned her that La Cana was a dangerous place. It was still haunted by remnants of FARC—the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Loggers and paramilitaries were a new threat. But blood rushed to Bonnie’s face when she looked at

photographs of the Red Jay online. She knew she was going to La Cana even before Luis wrote her back.

SHE JUMPED PUDDLES and dodged branches as she ran down a forest path carved over the eons. She startled a howler monkey that jumped away from her approach. Another kilometer down the trail, the jungle thinned out into a marshy plain. She crossed it quickly, jumping from mound to mound of grass across pools of water. She rejoined the trail and continued for half a kilometer before emerging onto a new dirt road along La Cana’s border. Splintered trees lay on the road’s edge, as if a freight train had burst through the forest. She heard the grind of chainsaws in the distance. She left the road and continued along a creek bed, scrambling across rocks on the shore until the rosewood tree that held the nest came into sight. She pulled out her binoculars and spotted a flutter of scarlet wings high in the tree. She heard a man call out and the sound of a tree falling down. The juveniles were agitated by the sound and lifted into the air as one. They ascended a thermal in a semicircle across the sky, and then spiraled down toward the Earth again and dove toward Bonnie. The scarlet birds flew in a figure eight around her, calling out a song in unison. The Red Jay was known for its chorus-like singing, and Bonnie had not heard this song before. It was repetitive, like a mantra. The figure eight loops got tighter and tighter until she felt the flutter of wings against her skin. The birds were interacting with her, but she had no explanation for the behavior. After thirty seconds of aerobatics they flew off, darting east away from the sound of the loggers. Bonnie watched the place in the trees where the birds disappeared, hoping to see them return. The creek bed, covered by

the jungle canopy, was like a black tunnel. Ten minutes passed and they did not come back. She heard the sound of another tree falling. The loggers were getting closer. The rising voice of her unconscious convinced her to climb the bank toward the dirt road, and walk through the forest toward the dangerous men. She moved through the heavy undergrowth quickly and silently, as if she had walked in the rainforest all of her life. She reached a clearing where a big swath of trees had recently been cut. In the clearing’s center, workers were securing a twenty-meter-tall oil derrick tower. These were not loggers. They were after the wealth that lay below the ground. An armed guard sleepily watched the construction. The sun came out and warmed the skin on Bonnie’s arms. She wished for bad luck for the oilmen. Like finding lucidity in a dream, what she asked for came to pass. On the wood scaffolding around the drilling rig, a worker accidentally shot himself in the leg with a nail gun when a finger spasm compressed the trigger. The nail lodged near his knee and he screamed savagely. A moment later, one of the front-loaders rolled over into a pit near the tower, spewing dirt into the air and landing on its side with a crunch. Bonnie stepped into the open. She did not wish for anyone to be hurt. Another worker climbed onto the scaffolding to help the injured man, but every step he took was the wrong one. One end of the steel derrick tower slipped into the marshy ground, and the platform teetered. The man tried to backtrack, but his movements only unbalanced it more. The scaffolding collapsed horizontally into the derrick with great force, toppling the whole rig. The worker with the nail in his leg managed to roll to safety, and the other man escaped with a broken ankle. The three accidents occurred within a single minute. As the dust

cleared, the armed guard raised his rifle and scanned the tree line. He spotted Bonnie standing at the corner of the clearing and ran toward her. She stepped back into the forest, and found a path through the plants, like they had grown just the right way to allow her through. She heard the guard cursing behind her as the thick undergrowth caught him. Bonnie stopped running when she was a kilometer away. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. It reminded her of Indian drums she once heard coming from the eastern edge of La Cana. Luis said it was the sound of a shaman calling his village to a ceremony.

Even the wealthy can’t escape the sorrow of the modern world. There is pain in their hearts that comes from living in fear instead of love. - Journals of Jack Palehorse

THREE THOUSAND MILES to the north, the man who owned the collapsed oil derrick sat at his wife’s funeral. Elliot Greene was the second generation of an oil dynasty, a former prodigal son whose fortune grew to eclipse his father’s. He looked back with satisfaction across the packed pews in Temple Sinai in Manhattan. The elite had come out in force for the funeral of his wife, Sarah. There was the former mayor, in the fourth row. Oil executives sat shoulder to shoulder with media moguls and hedge fund billionaires. A famous rapper was in the fifth row with his actress wife. He and Sarah had served together on the board of a charity for New York City youth. The paparazzi outside were elated. Sarah’s obituaries were filled with praise for her philanthropy work. It was Elliot’s money but he agreed that she used it well. Her support of child welfare charities and wilderness preservation groups countered criticism of child labor and environmental violations by Greene & Co. He worried that a major news publication might point

out the irony, but none ever did. Sarah handed him another boost with her death. She was threatening to file for divorce when the cancer diagnosis came. She agreed to put the divorce off until she recovered. If Sarah’s lawyers had probed too deeply into his affairs, it could have brought his empire down. Now Elliot got to play the grieving widower of a beloved woman with his reputation and fortune intact. His mistress had even obliged and sat in the rear of the synagogue hidden behind a pair of sunglasses and a scarf. But there was one piece missing. His daughter Riley and son Adam sat with him in the first row. Next to Riley, there was an empty place in the pew for Imogen. Elliot had hoped that the funeral would bring him together with his estranged daughter, but she was nowhere to be seen. Riley leaned her head on Adam’s shoulder and tears flowed from her eyes though the service hadn’t begun. A rabbi stepped to the altar. Elliot heard the wooden doors to the sanctuary open and looked back to see two more mourners appear. He recognized Imogen and smiled with relief. But who was that man next to her? He looked like a derelict that had wandered in off the street. He had a gray beard and long hair tied in a braid. He was dressed in a worn dark suit with an outmoded tie over a crumpled dress shirt. There was something familiar about him that Elliot strained to place. Imogen took the old man’s arm and helped him to a place in a pew halfway down the aisle. He limped as he walked. The hair stood up on Elliot’s neck when he finally recognized Jack Hobson. The years had not been kind but there was no mistaking him. Imogen violated Elliot’s carefully controlled world by bringing him here. She continued down the aisle to her place at the front of the sanctuary. Her sharp green eyes met her father’s sternly, as if warning him not to object to Jack’s presence. She sat down next to Riley, who took her hand. Elliot studied the ridge on Imogen’s upper right cheek

where the bone had failed to properly set after her accident. The doors closed and the rabbi began the opening prayers. For the first time since Sarah died, Elliot felt a lump in his throat. He didn’t want his conflict with Imogen to deepen. She didn’t stand a chance. Several times during the service, Elliot looked back to the rear of the temple. Jack was an apparition staring back at him. Imogen caught him looking and leaned over to hiss in his ear. “He’s here for Mom. Please just leave him alone.” Elliot listened to the El Malei Rachamim prayer, which said that the deceased was sheltered under the wings of God. He knew that Jack’s presence here was a sign. Things could fall apart. He saw that now. He needed to be prepared for whatever unfolded. The prayer ended and the temple’s ten-thousand-pipe organ rang out with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4, 2nd movement, which was Sarah’s favorite. Riley and Imogen cried in each other’s arms, and Adam had his head in his hands. A single tear rolled down Elliot’s cheek. Whatever happens with Jack, he must find a way to keep the family together.

I was as ambitious as my father, but my ambition ran 180 degrees from his. - Imogen Greene, from Jonathan Duncan’s History of the Invisible Army

THE NEXT DAY, Imogen and Jack stood facing the bronze statue of a bull in a belligerent posture on the cobblestone near Wall Street. It was after 9 pm, but there was still a crowd of tourists waiting to get their photo taken with the statue. Imogen was dressed primly in a business skirt, with a white blouse and dark tights and a briefcase bag over her shoulder. Her long, curly black hair was pulled back tight. Jack wore a denim suit and dark boots, like a cowboy. They stood away from the crowd and studied the bull. Imogen came here to find her courage. She had always hated the statue. It was a false idol of unfettered economic growth, like the golden calf that Moses found the Israelites worshipping when he came down from the mountain. Her mother was gone and there was no reason to delay Operation Alpha any longer. But worry caused the pavement to drop out from under her feet, and she took Jack’s arm to steady herself. She breathed deeply but it didn’t calm her. Doubts rose relentlessly in her

mind, and she wanted to collapse into a ball on the sidewalk. “Pass through your fear, Imogen. This is how it begins. With yourself. From this act, the revolution will flow.” “I’m afraid of my father,” she said. “My mom told me on her deathbed to beware of him. She thought he had something to do with what happened to you and Ayashe.” “We should not fear him. We are doing this for him too. The truth will set him free.” “I wish Ayashe was here,” Imogen said. “Maybe one day she will find her way back.” “Jack, I’m second-guessing the plan.” “Remember the improbable events that led to this moment. The coincidences. They are signposts that light your way. You are caught up in something important.” She nodded. Imogen never expected to lead a revolution, but it was true the universe seemed to lift and carry her there. There was an order to how everything unfolded. “I see the Ghost Dance in your eyes,” Jack said. “You have its spirit.” The coincidence of him mentioning the Ghost Dance took her breath away. That morning there was an article in her social media feed about the 19th-century Native American movement. “I just read about the Ghost Dance,” she said. The article said that Wovoka, a Paiute prophet, taught the people a circle ceremony he called the Ghost Dance. He said that the Ghost Dance would bring a transformation in which the white man would leave Native lands, the buffalo herds would return, and the ghosts of their ancestors would join them on Earth again. “But didn’t the Ghost Dance end with the massacre at Wounded Knee?” she asked. “The Ghost Dance is not done,” Jack said. “It is just waiting to be dreamed again.” “Then you, me, Danny, and the others—we are the circle. And

this is the ceremony.” He smiled and the deep lines on his face made him look older than his sixty-five years. “You understand.” Imogen left Jack and continued up Broadway toward Greene & Co.’s headquarters. The last time she set foot in the heart of her father’s empire was when she was seventeen, and she went to a party to celebrate the company going public. Her grandfather had died the previous year, and Elliot wasted no time in arranging the IPO of the closely held company. By the end of the first day of trading, his shares were worth more than a billion dollars. Imogen remembered the unrestrained glee in her father’s face that day. She never saw him so happy. But one billion was not enough for him. His eyes grew hunted as he fixated on doubling his fortune again and again. She took a right off of Broadway and put on a New York Yankees baseball cap to obscure her face. The skyscraper housing Greene & Co. was sixty stories tall. She walked across the building’s plaza, which posted rules forbidding any type of protest or encampment. There was a red cedar totem pole, of the kind made in the Pacific Northwest, placed by the building entrance. It was as if her father’s company, whose focus was to transform the natural world into commodities, stole the indigenous symbol in a brazen attempt to protect itself from the spirits of the Earth. She walked around to the side of the skyscraper and checked her phone. There was no text from Danny calling it off. At exactly 9:30 pm a service door swung open and she stepped inside. Danny closed the door behind her. He was dressed in a jacket and tie with black polished shoes. He told Imogen he dressed better than his co- workers because he was held to a higher standard on account of his race. But it was just a mask. Behind it, Danny’s true life was flowering. They didn’t have much time. He had checked the area for security

cameras. There was several on the street, but none between the service door and the stairs. But if one of the security guards saw her coming in from outside he might be on his way now to investigate. “Are you ready for this?” he asked. She nodded. He led her down a hallway. “You’re the one taking the real risk,” she said. “I’m the boss’s daughter. I’ll be all right. You have your job to worry about.” “I’ve been waiting for this moment all of my life,” he said. She registered how calm he was. At the stairwell, she hugged him goodbye. “Good luck,” he said. “See you soon,” she said. She headed up to her destination on the twelfth floor. There was a camera at each floor of the stairway, and she kept her head down when she passed them, hiding her face under the baseball cap. She hoped that the guards monitoring the screens would think her a late-night office worker getting some exercise. She didn’t stop until she reached the twelfth floor. She was sweating, but more from fear than physical exertion. As promised, Danny had propped the door with a wedged pen. She opened the door and no one was in sight. She sat down on the floor under a cubicle to catch her breath. Greene & Co.’s legal and compliance departments were located here. For as long as it existed, the corporation aggressively fought litigation and regulatory oversight. It was accused of covering up environmental mishaps, slave labor and bribes of politicians. She asked her father about the allegations. He laughed them off and assured her that the Greene family had done no wrong. He said they deserved their privilege. For a time she believed him. The corrupt system depended on the rich to close their senses to the reality of the world as much as it did the poor. She sat for another moment in the cube, clearing her head. She had to be ready for any outcome. If security showed up, she needed

to appear calm and be ready to talk her way out of it. The General Counsel’s office was on the southeast corner of the floor. She stood up and straightened her clothes, and walked across the floor. She tried the door to his office but it was locked. The door was made of reinforced steel and looked like it was made to survive an armed assault. Imogen had taught herself basic lock-picking online and brought tools, but the lock used a rotating disc system that was out of her league. She went to the cubicle nearest to the door. Mail showed her that it belonged to the General Counsel’s secretary. She tried the drawers of the secretary’s desk and they were locked. But the desk had cheap locks she could pick. She pulled her tools out of her bag and started with the top drawer. She inserted a hook pick into the lock to catch the tumblers, and then used a tension wrench to turn the cylinder. She pulled open the drawer and found a key hidden under papers. She tried the key in the General Counsel’s door and it turned. His office had wall-sized windows that looked down on the New York Stock Exchange. There was a large mahogany desk with no computer or papers on it. Just a photograph of the General Counsel and his family. There were no signs of the controversies that made the company infamous, but a sterile smell in the air made Imogen think it was a bad place. She reached into her bag and pulled out a recording device, hidden in a wooden disc with adhesive on one side. The device was of intelligence grade and expensive. It was going to keep recording for months. Imogen got on the ground and affixed the bug to the bottom of the General Counsel’s chair. It camouflaged well with the wood. She knew that he wouldn’t send emails that exposed improper maneuvering by the company, but the recording device would capture his phone calls and meetings. When the time was right, the Invisible Army would reveal what they heard.

She left the office, made a mold of the key, and returned it to the secretary’s drawer. She had just gotten back to her feet when a door to the floor opened, thirty feet away. A security guard stepped through. “Good evening, miss. Can I ask what you are doing here? Imogen smiled warmly at the guard. She had planned what to say in this situation. “I’m with my boyfriend, he works here—Ian Murray.” “Where is he? “He went down to the street to get a taxi. I was about to use the bathroom.” “How long ago did he go down?” the guard asked, walking casually toward her. “You must have just missed him,” she said. “He just got on the elevator.” The guard took another few steps forward. “Miss, you’re going to have to come with me.” She thought about running, but as if anticipating her flight, the guard took the last few steps and grabbed her arm tightly. “You’re hurting me,” she said, but he didn’t loosen his grasp. “I know you’re lying about your boyfriend. We’ve been monitoring the elevators since we saw you running up the stairs. You’re going to have to come downstairs with me.” He led her out to the elevators and one was waiting. He pushed the lobby button. Imogen was sure her plans would get further than this. But since there were so many things that could go wrong, faith was her only choice. The guard was silent on the way down. Imogen knew that it meant she was in trouble. When the elevator opened in the lobby, another security guard was waiting there. They led her into a security office and sat her down in a chair. “Let me see your bag,” the second guard said. As he looked through it, the other guard stood over Imogen.

“This is your last chance to explain what you are doing here before we call the police,” the first guard said. She was silent. The second guard pulled the lock-picking tools out and held them in his hand. “Holy shit,” the first said. “Look in the outer pocket,” Imogen said. They were the first words she said since the guard put her in the elevator. The second guard unzipped the pocket and held it open to make sure there was nothing dangerous inside. Then he pulled out two stacks of hundred dollar bills. It was twenty thousand dollars. The demeanor of the men changed at the sight of the money. They stared in fascination like devout pilgrims looking upon a religious relic. Ten thousand dollars each would have a big impact on their lives. “You can keep it all if you let me walk out of here,” she said.

The Red Jay is deeply interconnected in the matrix of the rainforest. Many species will suffer if it becomes extinct. - Field notes of Dr. Luis Cadena

DEEP IN THE Amazon, Bonnie listened to Luis whistle a melodious tune as he packed their equipment for a trip into the field. She was sitting outside at the picnic table, finishing her morning coffee. The research camp sat in a natural clearing in the forest. It consisted of two rough wood buildings: the laboratory where Luis slept and a small cabin that was Bonnie’s home. There was a well with a hand pump for water, and a solar panel for charging their electronics. Luis stepped outside with his backpack on, still whistling. He looked like an old accountant, with thinning hair and thick glasses. “Is that a Red Jay song?” Bonnie asked. “It is. I’ve been trying to understand how their songs work. There is complexity and variation, like a language. I find that it helps me to whistle them.” “What do you think that one means?” “They sing it in the morning. I think it means that all will be as intended.” She smiled. “That’s nice.”

In their four months together, Bonnie and Luis had become friends. She came to La Cana as his student, but now he deferred to her opinions. He said she reminded him of other great animal behaviorists he had known. Still, they rarely talked about anything other than work, and after dinner Luis would retreat to his laboratory to work for the few hours before bed. Bonnie enjoyed her time alone. She would walk to the river and strip off her clothes and take a moonlight swim. Her own body, with her skin softened by the water, the canopy above and the nocturnal animals calling out, was more than enough for her. She lifted her backpack off the ground and put it on. “Ready?” she asked. They were headed to visit a Red Jay nest that sat high in the branches of a kapok tree. “Vámonos,” he said. They headed down the hill to the river, and crossed it on the trunk of a felled tree. She followed Luis down a narrow path that cut through the forest. He had a machete with which he periodically struck down foliage growing into the path. His lean muscles flexed as he swung the blade. She could hear a great variety of birds calling out—macaws, toucans, guans, even hawks from high above the trees. There was a steady hum of insects. The canopy broke at times to show a blue sky with swiftly moving clouds. The rainforest was life pushed to its fullest, and Bonnie wanted it to envelope her. She did not expect to be so comfortable here. Her parents frightened her with tales of kidnappers and parasites, but her mind was clear and her body hummed with energy. She breathed the forest in and out, and it nourished her. They passed over a swampy area, where planks of wood were laid down here and there to keep a path over the little lakes. They startled a black Caiman alligator that disappeared into the dark water. “I saw a manatee here once,” Luis said, “looking curiously up at

me from the deep.” They returned to solid ground and climbed through the undergrowth to the top of a hill, where a kapok tree stood with branches mushrooming thirty meters above the ground. Bonnie pulled a rope ladder out of her bag. The ladder was attached to a long rope, itself tied to a long string with a rubber ball on the end. She deftly threw the ball over one of the tree’s broad branches, pulled up the ladder and tied off the rope. “Go on up, Bonnie. The Red Jays trust you.” Luis held the ladder as she climbed, and she found a rhythm that took her to the top. When she reached the thick tree branch, she hoisted herself up slowly so she wouldn’t frighten the birds. The hand-shaped leaves of the kapok tree dappled the sunlight. She tied a safety rope and continued up the thick branches. Five more meters up, she pulled herself up level with the nest. Sitting calmly in the nest were two Red Jay. This was the original pair that Luis had discovered. Their scarlet feathers were luminous in the morning light. The nest was a wonder of nature, built from marsh reeds bent and weaved together into hexagons. She thought it looked like a crown a god might wear. A golden beetle climbed over the nest in plain sight of the Red Jay. Insects were a big part of the birds’ diet, but they ignored this one. Luis told her about seeing a beetle on a nest once, and he wondered if it was yet another species that cooperated with the Red Jay. She pulled out her camera and focused the telephoto lens on the beetle. The birds looked at her quizzically with their deep black eyes. She put away her camera and walked out on the branch toward the nest. The Red Jay flew out of the nest to a higher branch, but they continued to sing their synchronized song. “Good morning to you too,” she said. She pulled the beetle off the nest, and placed it in a plastic case. She measured the two eggs, and then sat back down to listen to the Red Jay sing. After a while, she climbed back down to the ground.

“They stayed and sang to you,” Luis said. She smiled. “Yes.” “No lo entiendo.” He shook his head in amazement. “They never let me get so close.” Bonnie pulled the plastic case holding the beetle out of her bag and held it up to him. “Here is your scarab,” she said. He looked the beetle over. “It was cleaning their nest, like you thought,” she said. “Remarkable. You make my dreams of the Red Jay real.” Bonnie laughed. She was still getting used to thinking of herself as a good field scientist. Winter days in Manitoba were tough for bird watching, but the Amazon had more challenges. She put away the rope ladder and Luis continued to study the beetle. The wind picked up and she heard a tap-tap-tap in the distance to the west. “Do you hear that?” she asked. His face darkened. “It’s the oil derrick,” he said. “It’s running.” Only a week had passed since Bonnie saw it go down. They had rebuilt it so fast. She thought of the Red Jay juveniles, nesting close to the drilling in the rosewood tree. She closed her eyes and imagined the young birds together in a hole in a tree. It was a vivid image, like a film reel playing. She could see the chests of the sleeping birds gently inhaling and exhaling. She opened her eyes and the vision dissolved. “The juveniles are ok,” she said. Luis sat on the ground, looking dejected. “The Red Jay will not survive the development of La Cana.” “Then we don’t have any time to waste with our research,” she said. “Come on. Let’s go to the next nest.” He followed her as she led the way another kilometer down the trail. She stopped when she saw a flash of red feathers ahead.

“Look,” she whispered to Luis as he caught up with her. They pulled their binoculars out of their bags. A Red Jay pair was flying around a tree with a thick, coiled vine hanging off it. They pecked at the vine. “They look like they are tending it,” Luis said. “Clearing competing plants. Removing parasites.” The birds continued for a few more minutes and then flew off into the canopy. They walked to the vine. There was a chunk of it missing as if had been cut away by a machete. Luis smiled enigmatically. “What is it?” Bonnie asked. “Banisteriopsis caapi. Also known as Ayahuasca. It’s an ingredient of the healing tea that Amazonian tribes drink.” “Are the Red Jay getting high off it?” “Unlikely. The psychoactive compound is in another plant that the vine is mixed with.” “Then what are they doing?” “Indigenous people have lived in balance with the ecosystem for eons. Drinking Ayahuasca in ceremony is an important part of their culture. They call it a plant teacher and believe it is the source of their knowledge about how to survive here.” “Do you think the Red Jay tends the vine because it helps keep the people of the Amazon in balance?” Bonnie asked. “Red Jay–human cooperation would certainly be an amazing discovery. But no one would believe us.” “What do the Caro say about the Red Jay?” she asked, referring to the Amazonian tribe whose territory included the eastern portion of La Cana. La Cana was created in part to protect this tribe, who sought isolation from modern civilization after encountering mur- derous rubber slavers. “I wish I knew. I only saw them once, when two men walked through the camp while I was working in the laboratory. They were gone before I came out to greet them.”

“So, they know we are here.” “Yes, the Caro hunt in our part of the park as well. It seems they decided to tolerate us. But the oil drilling might make them change their mind.”

The revolution is inevitable. Our goal is to hasten it before too much of the world is destroyed. - Imogen Greene, social media

ELLIOT GREENE’S MANHATTAN mansion was ensconced within the top four floors of a Midtown skyscraper. The residence had a private entrance on East 42nd Street. The door to the street was made of bulletproof tinted glass and guarded by an armed man. In the weeks since his wife’s death, Elliot had slowly purified the palatial apartment of the memory of Sarah. Her plants were the first to go. He found them messy and temperamental and full of their own life, and preferred the consistency of marble, steel, and stone. His interior designer was in the process of swapping furniture and painting rooms in more muted tones. He told Adam and Riley that it was Sarah’s deathbed wish to donate her possessions to charity. They took what they wanted, and left a few things that Imogen might want in a closed room. The apartment was almost ready for Elliot’s mistress to move in, but he had to tread carefully. Only two of his three children were still talking to him. He sat at his marble desk in his home office, dressed in a dark suit.

His meeting this morning was too sensitive to be held at Greene & Co.’s headquarters. His wavy, receding hair was slicked back Wall Street–style. His skin received professional care and was healthy and taut. He was a frontman for a powerful corporation and his appearance was as important as everything else. He read through emails on his phone as he waited for his guest to arrive. After its initial setback, the exploratory oil well at La Cana was a success. The Colombian government approved the expansion of operations, and full drilling would commence soon. La Cana Oil Field was one of the last untapped reservoirs of easy oil in the world. He hid it from shareholders that Greene & Co.’s best assets were running dry, but La Cana would pull the company out of a death spiral just in time. Meanwhile, Elliot was finding his way into secret hubs of power. The curtains were falling away. The people who controlled the world were welcoming him over to their side. He was spending more time at the Union House, a prestigious social club uptown. Carl Rush, a hedge fund titan, invited him to join. They became friends after Imogen started seeing Rush’s son Nate. Elliot used to disapprove of Imogen dating boys who weren’t Jewish, but he was ecstatic to be drawn closer to Rush. The two of them operated in remarkably independent streams. To have access to Rush’s contacts and resources would have a major impact on Elliot’s place in the world, to the tune of billions of dollars. Rush felt very bad about the way that their children’s engagement ended, and he invited Elliot to join the Union House as part of an effort to make amends. And so Elliot got what he wanted after all. All he had to do was convince Imogen to drop the assault charges against Nate. Elliot’s assistant, Richard, appeared in the doorway to his office. “Ray Jansen is here, Mr. Greene.” “Send him in.” Elliot stood up as Jansen stepped through the doorway. He was

dressed plainly in a short-sleeve, button-down shirt and black slacks. He carried a bag over his shoulder. Elliot motioned him to a chair facing his desk. Jansen moved slowly as he walked across the room. Like a man who needs to restrain his power, Elliot thought. Jansen was on loan from Henry Holman of the Union House. Holman owned several large military contractors and said that Jansen was his most dangerous employee. Jansen was rumored to have fought in the Battle of Tora Bora and attended the hanging of Saddam Hussein. Holman said that President Water secretly awarded him the Distinguished Intelligence Cross for killing so many people in clandestine military operations. Elliot was happy to pay his exorbitant fees. He would do anything to protect Imogen from Jack Hobson. He was the one who brought Jack into her life.

ELLIOT FIRST MET Jack a decade earlier when Jack led a group of Cheyenne Indians to Greene & Co.’s New York headquarters to protest the gas mining of their Montana reservation. Jack, half- Cheyenne and an indigenous rights activist, alleged the company gained the right to mine through fraudulent means, and that the work poisoned the water supply. Elliot was more idealistic in those days. It was one of his characteristics that attracted his wife Sarah to him. He disapproved how the family business kept getting embroiled in controversies, and he took the initiative in offering the protesters a deal. He would personally go to the reservation to investigate the claims if Jack and the protesters went home. When Elliot told his father about the plan, Leonard Greene applauded what he thought was a cynical effort by his son to end the protest. “I intend to lead a full investigation of the allegations, Dad,” Elliot said, facing his father down in the Chairman’s office. “We can afford to be ethical now. You’re not an immigrant entrepreneur with your

back against the wall anymore. There is a lot we can gain from good press.” “You are a fool, Elliot,” his father said in his dense old world New York accent. “Our company’s mission is to drain the resources of other lands. One day you will understand that our backs are always against the wall. The only way to deal with people like Hobson is to swat them down.” Elliot brought his family with him to the reservation. Jack and the tribal leaders treated them as welcome guests, and thirteen-year-old Imogen struck up a friendship with Jack’s daughter, Ayashe. Elliot’s tests showed that the water was as contaminated as the protesters claimed. He visited children who were sick from drinking it. The tribe’s financial manager told him that they cut education programs to pay to truck in clean water. Elliot and his wife were invited to participate in a sweat lodge ceremony. They stayed in the lodge a long time, listening to the songs and sweating by the hot stones. “There’s only one thing for the company to do,” Sarah said when they were back alone in their room. “I know,” Elliot said. When they returned to New York, Elliot made a statement to the press. “The oil and gas leases with the Cheyenne people were negotiated without proper procedures. Greene & Co.’s assessments of non-contamination were not correct. I will ask the Board of Directors to void the leases and negotiate new agreements with the reservation.” His father voted no, but the rest of the Board was unanimous in approving Elliot’s plan. No one at the company had ever challenged Leonard like that before, but he was not angry. “I am an old man and you are my only son,” he told Elliot in private. “When you are CEO you will understand why I made the hard choices I did.” Elliot benefited from good press, and he and Sarah were

welcomed into New York society—an honor not bestowed on his father. Their new lifestyle was expensive, and Elliot threw himself into his work. His innate business acumen revealed itself, and his father was delighted. Two years later, Elliot was promoted to company President as part of his eventual transition to head of the corporation. As Elliot advanced, Jack’s work as an activist continued. Elliot was disappointed when Jack joined a campaign against environmental violations and worker abuse at a Greene & Co. site in Mexico. He gave the Cheyenne reservation a fair deal, and he believed that Jack was trying to take advantage of him. This time the company played hardball. The Mexican protesters were violently dispersed and business there continued as usual. But Jack would not leave the company alone. Almost every year his name came up in a new protest, except that now he called himself Jack Palehorse. Elliot knew Jack was trying to force him to stay true to his former ideals, and it enraged him. One day Elliot went to see his father to talk about him. Leonard was nearing eighty and the job was a strain on him. He was ready to hand over the reins. “You were right, Dad,” he said. “I should have crushed Jack at the beginning.” “You understand now that success is a dirty affair,” Leonard said. “I built this company from nothing, and have kept it going by using all the resources available to me.” “What resources do you suggest we use against him?” “There are men on the payroll of this company you have never met. They do jobs for the company that have to be done. You will need people like them when you move into this office.” “Then, you will take care of it?” “Yes,” his father said. Elliot was not prepared for the brutality of what followed. The day after Jack’s conviction for the sexual abuse of his daughter, his father retired and Elliot became CEO and Chairman.

When Leonard died six months later, Elliot received the remainder of his holdings in the corporation. He no longer had misgivings about calling on his special employees from time to time to ensure that the source of his fortune remained a valuable company. He never expected to see Jack again.

JANSEN DID NOT wither under Elliot’s gaze like many others did. “Have you found Jack?” “Not yet. He did not return to his trailer park in Oklahoma City.” “Then he is still here. It’s what I was afraid of. For some reason my daughter believes he is innocent, even though Ayashe’s blood was found in his underwear. Imogen has a radical streak, and I believe he might be exploiting her naïve political beliefs. What have you found out about her?” “Your daughter has a secret life on the Internet. My specialists connected her to profiles on social media. She associates with hack- tivists and militant radicals. They seem to be planning some kind of hacking attack.” Elliot sighed. Jansen pulled a folder out of his bag and handed it to him. “This is content that Imogen has posted under her pseudonym, Rachel Verde.” “Rachel was her grandmother’s name,” Elliot said and looked at the first page in the folder. It showed the profile page of Rachel Verde. The image was a drawing of a hooded woman in a plastic mask with a mustache and goatee. Black curly hair like Imogen’s was sticking out from the sweatshirt hood. The planet Jupiter loomed behind the figure. Her profile description read: “Break Your Trance. The Truth Will Set You Free. Expect the Unexpected.” “She’s wearing a Guy Fawkes mask. It’s associated with Anonymous, the hacker collective.”

“I know,” Elliot said. “What’s the significance of Jupiter?” “We haven’t determined that yet.” Elliot flipped through the pages. There were posts from Imogen about political corruption, the abuses of corporations, and the Caliphate crisis. “We are going after the companies that poison our food,” she posted on an Anonymous listserve. “That siphon our savings for financial schemes, that pollute us with drugs, that give us cancer, that sacrifice our sons and daughters for war, that commit crimes against the Earth. This will be a forced audit of corporations and the government agencies that fail to regulate them.” He seethed to see that some of her posts concerned his company. Imogen wanted to bring his whole world down around him. “This is a serious problem we need to solve, Ray. What do you suggest we do?” “The best way to find Hobson would be to put a tail on your daughter.” “No, we can’t do that. She’s always been abnormally perceptive.” “We are very good, Mr. Greene.” “We can’t risk it. If she found out that would be the end of our relationship, and might cost me my other children too. You need to get someone close to her. We need to find out how bad this is.” “I have the perfect guy.” “Who is he?” “He’s a veteran who I worked with in Afghanistan. He survived an IED bombing during the war. He’s an IT specialist and has worked as an operative for me since coming home. Your daughter would like him. He’s the idealistic type.” “I need to know that Imogen will be safe.” “Your daughter’s safety will be insured.” “Good. I blame Jack for Imogen’s involvement in this mess. He must get a particular satisfaction out of manipulating my daughter. I hired you because I was told that you were skilled at handling fluid

situations. Jack must be stopped.” “We don’t hesitate when something needs to be done. We follow our own law.” Elliot smiled and held out his hand. Jansen’s grip was strong. “I look forward to a long business relationship,” Elliot said.

La Cana Oil Field straddles Colombia and Peru. If you do not begin drilling soon, Peru will drain the whole field out from under you. - Greene & Co. presentation to the Colombian government

TWO DAYS LATER, Bonnie was on her rounds, heading west down a forest path to survey a Red Jay nest, when she saw two men ahead, standing beside all-terrain vehicles. They held machine guns and wore the black uniform of the paramilitary. Luis warned Bonnie to steer clear of soldiers like them. In the war with FARC, the paramilitaries were accused of atrocities against civilian sympathizers of the leftist guerillas. Now they protected the oil prospectors infiltrating the jungle. Bonnie turned to go back the way she had come, but a third soldier stepped out of the jungle and onto the path, blocking her way. He wore a black scarf tied around his face so that his nose and mouth were covered. His eyes were so bloodshot that they appeared to be bleeding. Bonnie raised her hands to show she was unarmed. The paramilitary pressed the barrel of the gun against her chest, touching the steel against her skin. She took a step back.

Everything in the world is made of energy, she thought. She could taste the energy. It was a metallic flavor on the roof of the mouth. She could see the energy. The air, the jungle, everything was shimmering as the paramilitary swayed hypnotically back and forth before her, his index finger gently resting on the trigger of his gun. Within the black steel of the rifle, the unstable energy of the gunpowder awaited its release. The other two paramilitary men walked forward. One of them was older, with gray speckled hair and leathery skin, as if he spent his whole career out in the sun, commanding men. He wore sunglasses and had silver epaulets on the shoulders of his uniform. There was a scar across his neck. Bonnie knew she should be frightened but she wasn’t. Her muscles felt loose and her vision was clearer than she ever remembered it being. “Buenas tardes, señorita,” he said. “My name is Colonel Carlos Herrera. I presume you are the Canadian girl working with Dr. Cadena.” “Yes.” “What were you doing snooping around the oil site last week?” “There are birds there that we study.” “The security of La Cana has been placed under our authority,” Herrera said. “Drilling operations are expanding. You are no longer welcome in the western portion of the park. This is the line you must not cross,” he said, pointing to a fallen tree by the path. “We have permission to be in La Cana.” Herrera’s smile disappeared and his face grew blank. It was the look of a killer. “You do not understand, Canadiense, so we will write the message in pain upon your body.” Bonnie noticed a circle in the dirt around her, as if it marked a place that she was supposed to stand. A paramilitary made a move to grab her, but she sidestepped him and jumped back. She had never been in a physical fight in her life,

but her hands formed fists and swung at the soldier as he came at her again. The soldier smiled at her flailing hands but then her left fist unexpectedly struck him directly in the center of his face, breaking his nose. He grabbed ahold of her and the blood pouring from his nose splattered onto her face. She kneed him in the groin and he doubled over. Herrera laughed hysterically. The other soldier raised his rifle, but the colonel lowered the muzzle with his hand. “Run, Bonnie. If we see you again, you will know our vengeance.” Bonnie wiped the blood from her eyes with her hand and gave Herrera one last defiant look. His eyes grew wide and the color went out of his face. She did not wait to find out why his mood had changed again, and took off running down the path back to the east. She ran for a kilometer, driven by adrenaline, and then stopped to catch her breath. The insect sounds grew louder, and their songs were vibrations that she felt on her skin. The line where her body ended and the jungle began was blurring. She looked at her hands, with the paramilitary’s blood on them. She noticed how narrow her wrists were and how strange her long fingers looked when they were balled into a fist. She couldn’t understand how she had bested a veteran of the Colombian Civil War, but it happened. She was almost back at camp when she saw another figure ahead on the path. Her muscles tensed in fear. The man was standing in front of a large gray tree, with roots that grew out of the trunk and into the ground. She walked forward cautiously and saw that it was not a paramilitary, but a Caro hunter, dressed in a loincloth and leather shoes and holding a bow at his side. A dead spider monkey was slung over his shoulder. A red star was painted around his left eye, with eight rays reaching out like the points of a compass. As Bonnie approached, he smiled widely. “Hola,” she said.

He whistled a familiar tune of a Red Jay song to Bonnie and then stepped off the trail into the forest. She watched him walking away quickly through the undergrowth. Before he disappeared, he turned back to look at Bonnie one more time and laughed. She continued on half a kilometer to camp. Luis was just returning himself from visiting a Red Jay nest in the west. “Bonnie, you’ve gone native,” he said. “What do you mean?” “Your face is painted like a Caro’s. You must know that they mark themselves like that with the blood of an animal after a hunt. For good luck.” She walked to the mirror that hung over the sink outside. The blood of the paramilitary was smeared into a star around her left eye.

What is synchronicity? Synchronicity is coincidence meaningful to the observer. It is your consciousness reflected on reality. It is a sign you are on the right path. The Invisible Army was brought together by synchronicity, and we followed it into the unknown. - Daniel Evens, testimony before the US Truth and Reconciliation Commission

DURING DINNER WITH Danny and his grandmother, Imogen’s eyes kept returning to the faded red birds painted along the ceiling molding. They were captured in flight, dipping, soaring and turning, each one different and evocative in its own way. They resonated with Imogen, as if from a dream she had forgotten. “They’re pretty, aren’t they?” June asked, smiling at Imogen. “They really are.” “Danny’s grandfather painted them. Edgar took up art in his old age.” “What kind of birds are they, Mrs. Evens?” Imogen asked. “He never said,” June replied. “I think he made them up.” Imogen turned her head to look at them all. Each wall of the dining room also held a portrait. There was Jesus with a burning heart by the kitchen door. Nina Simone looked out to the Brooklyn

street, and a framed photo of Bobby Kennedy was behind Imogen. A painting of Martin Luther King, Jr. hung on the wall facing her. “I love the portraits,” Imogen said. “I was at the March on Washington,” June said. “I heard the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.” “I told her, Grandma,” Danny said. “It must have been amazing,” Imogen said. “Love was a force that flowed through Dr. King. He spoke God’s words. It’s such a shame the world doesn’t have someone like him now. “It’s time for everyone to become like Dr. King now,” Danny said.” “Yes, but I’m afraid that some people will never accept love,” June said. “Danny and I are going to expose the lies that feed hate,” Imogen said. June smiled admiringly at her and then Danny. “I wish you both success. You have worked so hard keeping this roof over our heads, Danny. But I’m old, and it’s time for you to follow your heart. Your grandfather always said that what matters in life is the positive impact you have on the world.” “Thanks, Grandma.” “Maybe one day you two will sit here with your grandchildren and tell them what you did when the world needed you.” Imogen giggled. “She likes you,” Danny said. “I do. You have such beautiful green eyes, Imogen. Like the sun shining through the forest. Sometimes you just have a feeling about people.”

AFTER DINNER, IMOGEN helped June clean up and then Danny

poured them each another glass of wine. “I’m going to show Imogen my office, Grandma.” “Thank you for dinner,” Imogen said. “Such a pleasure to meet you,” June said. Danny and Imogen walked up the stairs of the old brownstone, with its ornate wood fixtures still in place after 150 years. Danny’s grandparents bought this home decades ago, when Bed–Stuy was a different place, and he was raised here after his mother died. The neighborhood used to be the heart of black Brooklyn. It was changing quickly under gentrification, but they still had old friends on the block. There were more portraits running up the wall of the staircase. Rosa Parks and W.E.B. Du Bois. Malcolm X and Langston Hughes. As they walked down the hallway of the second floor toward Danny’s office, the portraits became more obscure. Danny identified the ones that Imogen didn’t recognize. “This is Melvin Tolson, a poet. Paschal Randolph, a mystic. Sun Ra, a Jazz musician.” “I know him. He says he’s from Saturn,” Imogen said. Danny opened the door to his home office. The walls of the room were covered with astrological charts and esoteric symbols. There were images of African textiles with fractal geometric shapes. Imogen held up her wrist to show Danny her fractal tattoo. “A Sierpinski triangle?” he asked. “Yup. So what are you working on here?” “Searching for the philosopher’s stone, I guess.” “What’s the philosopher’s stone?” “Alchemists believed it is a substance that turns other metals into gold. But Carl Jung said it was a metaphor for discovering the eternal in one’s own soul. It is about overcoming fear and learning to live as your true self in the present moment.” “How’d you get into this stuff?” Danny studied the symbols around his office. His deep-set and

expressive eyes were like children turning over stones, searching for hidden things. He settled on a photo of Africans dressed in masks for a ceremony. “I am looking for what was lost when my ancestors came here as slaves. In the West, spiritual science is underground, even though quantum theory is overturning materialist science. That’s not how it was for my ancestors in Africa. They lived in unity with spiritual truth in the old ways. Modern people need to renew their connection to the source, and that is what I am working on here.” Imogen leaned into a wall to look at a star map that charted the course of Jupiter for the year. “You believe in astrology.” “I believe all of reality is connected, on a far deeper level than we know. The stars and planets in the sky reflect who we are and what happens. The universe is fully meaningful. You can learn to interpret its signs.” There was a symbol drawn on a piece of paper that was taped above Danny’s desk.

“What’s this?” Imogen asked, touching the page. “It’s the alchemical symbol for tin. It’s also the astrological symbol of the planet Jupiter.” “Jupiter again. You know, I used Jupiter in a profile photo. I was inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey. Humanity needs to evolve like we did in the movie.” “In astrology, Jupiter symbolizes consciousness expansion and joy,” Danny said. “It uses the sign for tin, not gold, because it is accessible to everyone.” “It looks like a 4 and a 2 blended together.”

“Yes, 42. Does that number mean anything to you?” “Hmm. Yeah. In Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the ‘answer to life, the universe and everything’ is 42. But I thought that was a joke.” “42 is the angle from the light-source in which a rainbow can be seen,” Danny said. “I like rainbows,” Imogen said, and laughed at herself. “They symbolize unity and wholeness.” “Oh, here’s another 42! My grandmother Rachel was born in 1942 in occupied Czechoslovakia. She meant a lot to me growing up. She was one of the few small children to survive a concentration camp.” “I see a lot of 42s in my personal environment too,” Danny said. “More and more all the time. Some people believe the number is a sign of the divine.” Imogen noticed herself in a mirror across the room. She put her glass of wine on the desk and touched her hand to a bump on her upper right cheek. “The scar flushes when I drink,” she said. “I call it my ‘kiss of wine’ because it looks like lips.” “I think it looks cool,” he said. “I kind of like it too. Do you want to know where I got it?” “Yes. I have wondered.” “Two years ago I was a different person who lived a different life. You wouldn’t recognize me then. I had a fiancé. I still can’t believe I let it get so far with him that we ended up engaged, because he really is a bad person. One night he got too drunk, as he often did, and we ended up in a screaming fight. He smashed a bottle across my face, shattering my cheekbone.” “I’m sorry.” “It was a wake-up call and helped get me to where I am now. I don’t mind having the scar as a reminder of who I used to be.” “Who were you?” “I used to be a spoiled rich girl, Danny. I called myself an artist. I was addicted to cocaine. My parents blamed my grandfather for

leaving me so much money. They said it took away my motivation to make something of myself. I started dating Nate. I think mostly to make them happy. He worked in finance, was good looking and came from a family even richer than ours. He made me stop doing drugs, even though he drank too much several times a week. The parties continued, but they were the kind of parties that my parents approved of, with people of a certain economic class. When Nate proposed to me, my father was so excited. Things got worse after our engagement. Nate escalated his drunken abuse. After he hit me with the bottle, my dad pleaded with me to drop the charges, to tell the police that it was an accident. Apparently, his friendship with Nate’s father was too important. I only agreed because I didn’t want to have anything to do with Nate ever again, in court or anywhere. Two days after I got the cast off my face, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. Two days after that, a friend told me they had seen my father out with another woman.” “Tough times,” Danny said. “My identity was shattered. I felt untethered. But I also felt truly aware for the first time. I recognized that my father was a negative force in the world, and I had traveled with him like his shadow in the night. I had done little in the world except consume. My family had taken the world’s resources for ourselves, and the wealth felt like black oil running through my blood.” “No one chooses where they come from,” Danny said. “I vowed to change the arc of my family history. I was born rich for a reason. To be the fifth column for the revolution. By chance, I met like-minded people, and the Invisible Army crystallized around me as if all I needed was the intention. First there were Ji-yu and Stan—a couple I met in my building. She was a former financial analyst and he was a professor of economics. They were active in Occupy. Then there was Zach, the Anon I met years ago at a party and then ran into again on the subway. He organized a meeting for us with other Anons, and that’s where we conceived of Operation

Omega.” “Those chance meetings show synchronicity, Imogen. Like seeing recurring Jupiter symbols. You are on your right path now and the universe is letting you know.” “Meeting you was lucky. It was a miracle I even went to the Greene & Co. holiday party since I was barely talking to my father. My mother begged me to go. She was on her deathbed and I couldn’t say no.” “You were wearing jeans and a t-shirt,” Danny said. “I felt an instant connection when our eyes met,” she said, “like I knew you already in my unconscious.” She had a thought, but it was too soon to say it out loud. Maybe that’s what love at first sight is: a recognition by two people of their future experience together the moment they meet. “I felt the connection too,” Danny said. “It was an invisible vibrating string connecting us across the room the rest of the party.” “If this is our right path, does that mean everything is going to work out? Omega is such a gamble.” “We have to be diligent. We could be arrested before the day comes. We are walking a tightrope.” “I’m not going to falter,” she said. “We never know what fate is going to bring,” he said. “There may be hard lessons.” Then Danny smiled. “But I have a feeling that we are going to be ok.” She put her arms around him and leaned in. Their lips touched softly and her tension relaxed. “I’m happy,” she said.

THREE DAYS LATER, Imogen attended a hacker conference in Manhattan. She listened to speakers on digital civil liberties and counter-surveillance. She participated in a team competition to attack

and defend a network. It was informative, but her primary purpose at the conference was to recruit conspirators. She was the connector of the Invisible Army, the one who was able to find the exact person they required the moment the need arose, but she was still empty handed as attendees returned from lunch. Suddenly, the chaotic crowd in the room became momentarily structured, as if choreographed to do so. It was so beautiful that it took her breath away. The people parted to reveal a man with hair buzzed short and a pair of eyeglasses balanced on his nose. He was staring directly at Imogen. She felt the emotional connection she felt with the others—her heart pumped harder and her cheeks grew warm. She noticed that he was standing in front of booth number 42, a bookseller. It was Danny’s lucky number. As she walked across the room, he turned to browse the books. She watched him look at a book on the environment, then one on politics and the economy. The common theme of the books was crisis. “Do you know what these books are saying?” Imogen asked him. He turned around and looked surprised that she was speaking to him. “What are they saying?” “They are telling us to act.” “I guess the problem is knowing where to start,” he said. “We begin with the knowledge that a better world is possible,” she said. “Human beings are capable of so much more. The world under control is the problem.” “Aha, an anarchist,” he said and held out his hand. “My name is Neil.” “Imogen.” “I’m more of a libertarian myself, but I happen to agree with you. It’s not about left and right anymore—it’s about collaboration versus authoritarianism. So how do we overthrow the control system?” “Secrecy keeps us in chains. We reveal the truth.”

Neil smiled. “And you want me to help?” “Yes.”

When the rainforest rebelled at La Cana, Bonnie Delmarco was its sharpest weapon. - Writings of Isabel Fitch

BONNIE DREAMED OF a big rosewood tree being chopped down by loggers. The sun silhouetted the tree’s leaves, and they rustled furiously as the tree came crashing down upon her. She opened her eyes. She was in her cot in her cabin, and it was still dark outside. She felt a painful thirst. She took a long drink from her water bottle but it didn’t help. She saw the vivid image from her dream again—the tree falling down. The Red Jay juveniles needed her. The forest was calling her to defend it. She shook her head to dispel the thought. Years of academic study taught her that the world was material and governed by cause and effect, not dreams and instincts. What could she do? Colonel Herrera barred Bonnie and Luis from the western half of La Cana. Four Red Jay pairs lived in that part of the park along with the juvenile group. Half of their research subjects were out of reach. It was a disaster for their study. Luis lost hope that they would complete their work. He feared they would soon be banished from La Cana entirely. But Bonnie

continued her field work as passionately as before. Earlier that week, she observed a Red Jay pair return to their nesting tree with a newborn mussurana snake that they carried together in their talons. The mussurana was a snake eater. The birds deposited it at the base of the tree, and for several days tended the little snake, keeping it in the vicinity and at one point mobbing and frightening off a tamarin monkey that tried to catch it. While watching another pair, Bonnie spotted a grown mussurana snake—two meters long and bright red—living in the vicinity of their nesting tree. She theorized that the Red Jay cooperated with the mussurana as protection for their eggs from other snakes. Luis supported her theory, but the discovery did not cheer him. “The Red Jay are becoming more beautiful before they disappear,” he said. “Like the setting sun.” The dream of the falling tree convinced her that he was right. The Red Jay would not survive the commercial development of La Cana. She dressed and left her cabin as the purple light of the dawn rose. Luis was not awake yet. She headed west down the trail. Two hours later, she stood at the base of the rosewood tree that held the juveniles’ nest. The grind of chainsaws and the calls of men told her that loggers were close. She looked through her binoculars to the nest but there was no sign of the Red Jay. She pulled herself up onto a branch. She climbed up to another branch and then another, making quick progress, without using a climbing rope. The Red Jays’ nest was empty, but they had been here recently. From her perch high in the tree, she looked over the canopy and saw that the loggers were a few hundred meters away, working deep into the park. As she watched, a big hardwood tree fell. The leaves of the old-growth tree trembled as it came crashing down, and she saw birds take to the air, their nests lost. The loggers were close enough that they might get to the rosewood tree before the end of the day. She climbed down quickly, navigating the branches easily. She felt

that something was protecting her. The more she believed it, the more it seemed to come true. She jumped off the final branch and landed on the forest floor. She felt an overwhelming urge to confront the loggers, despite the danger. She stepped around the trunk of the tree and made her way through the jungle until she saw them. There were nearly a dozen men working. They had tractors dragging out the trees they had cut. A bulldozer worked on a road. They selectively took the most desirable wood, but each tree that fell brought down smaller trees. The less valuable wood was piled up in the clearing to be burned. The men stopped their work one by one as they noticed Bonnie. A paramilitary man guarded them, and he drew his rifle on her. One of the loggers held up his chainsaw like a phallus. The other loggers laughed. She did not know what she was supposed to do now. Her left hand shook uncontrollably. It happened sometimes when she was nervous. “Todos tienen que salir,” she said. You all must leave. No one heard what she said over the sounds of the machines. The guard advanced and backed her up against the rosewood tree trunk. “YOU ALL MUST LEAVE,” she yelled. He looked at her with a perplexed grin and pointed his rifle at a point between her eyebrows. She was a fool to return here. The violence that her family and friends had feared for her in Colombia—it was coming to pass. There was little chance of escape. But she was wrong—there was a chance. In fact, there were many unlikely chances to ensure her survival. The guard reached out and grabbed Bonnie’s arm roughly. A moment later, the scream of tearing wood from above signaled the fall of a mahogany tree being cut by the loggers. The men were professionals and skilled at controlling the direction in which their

trees fell. However, all loggers know that the unexpected happens eventually. Because the big tree started to fall before the cut was completed, the uncut portion of the tree acted as a hinge and the trunk swung around and crashed down toward the loggers and their equipment. The men scattered but the trunk crushed one of them. The guard did not let go of Bonnie’s arm as the pandemonium unfolded, and instead tightened his hold. This was a grave mistake. Five meters away, one of the loggers started a chainsaw to cut the downed mahogany tree and free his colleague. It was a dangerous tool, the chainsaw, and required regular maintenance. At that moment, the chain snapped and then, in another unlikely turn of events, spun around the bar and was fired through the air, catching the arm of the guard and tearing into his flesh. He staggered away from Bonnie. With rage in his eyes, he muttered “bruja” and pulled the trigger of his rifle. The bullet missed her and lodged in the tree trunk behind her. He fired and missed again. She escaped from sight around the side of the trunk, and disappeared in the undergrowth. She stopped to watch the loggers through the plants. The gash on the guard’s arm bled profusely. He let his rifle drop and struggled to pull his belt off to make a tourniquet for himself. The loggers had seen enough. One man was dead and their paramilitary guard was defeated. They yelled “La Bruja” into the jungle. She heard enough fear in their voices to know they would not come back. After they drove away, Bonnie returned to the rosewood tree and leaned against its trunk. She felt calm despite the violence that had exploded around her. She felt like she was part of the forest now—a force of nature—although it defied reason. She remained there for a long time, breathing deeply and listening to the sounds of animals and insects, which seemed to rise and fall with her breaths. An hour passed, then she heard synchronized calls of Red Jay above her. She looked up to see the juveniles return to the

nest. She counted five. All still lived. Their bright red feathers flashed in the green of the tree leaves, and they leaned over the branch to look down to her below. All the mystery on Earth was contained in their eyes.

The powerful seizures that ravaged Isabel’s neural architecture should have left her completely disabled. Yet she remained functional as her brain found non-conventional ways to think. Hers was one of the world’s most unique minds. - Laura Castone, Paradise Found

ISABEL FITCH, ELEVEN years old, lay in her bed in her Salt Lake City home. The shades were drawn to stop the nuclear light of the afternoon sun from keeping her awake. Her round eyes were hidden behind her overgrown bangs, and the duvet cover was pulled to her chin. She breathed deeply like her doctor said to do when she was anxious and hyperventilating. In through the nose and out through the mouth. Her dad stood over her, holding her hand and caressing it. She closed her eyes. “Sleep, Izzie, sleep,” he said. She thought her mom was coming home today, but she called to say she needed to keep traveling. Isabel was disappointed. She went to the playroom and pulled the clothes off the dolls and tore off their heads. Her little sister got mad and they had a fight. Then her dad said she had to go rest because she might have a seizure. She already

had two that week. He took her upstairs and helped her take a pill. Isabel did not mind being put to bed lately because she liked her dreams. Even before the medicine pushed her to sleep, a dream began behind her eyes. She gave a little moan and her father brushed her bangs away from her face. She watched a red bird soar over a river running through a forest. She followed him, dipping and turning with him as he flew high above the canopy. She smiled as the wind blew through her hair. The weight of the world lifted away. She admired the bird’s scarlet feathers. When the bird turned his head, Isabel caught a glimpse of his eyes. They were deep and black. The bird glided a thousand feet over the forest and then caught an updraft and turned in a wide arc. Isabel’s eyes watered in the rushing air. Upriver, a settlement came into view. It was like a small town had been dropped in the middle of the wilderness. There were solar panels gleaming from the roofs of every building. Farmland surrounded the settlement. The forest went right to the edge of the fields. This was a different world, Isabel understood, but it was a good world. She didn’t feel nervous. She let the bird guide her through the sky. The bird arced toward the settlement and then folded his wings against his breast to descend down toward a circular clearing on the edge of the town. There was a simple stone pyramid in the center of the field, built of rocks and cement, with its point two stories in the sky. It seemed the bird was about to crash into the pyramid when he threw his wings open and caught the air, coming to a graceful halt on the structure’s peak. He became still. His feathers rustled gently in the wind blowing through the river valley. The red bird stood on the top of the pyramid, still as a statue. Only his dark eyes moved, systematically surveying the surroundings.

Something too far away for Isabel to see caught his attention. She looked where he looked and then she saw. There were people walking into the field down a footpath that led from the town. They gathered at the base of the pyramid and looked up at the bird. More and more people came. They looked up silently, with smiles on their faces. The bird flapped his wings and lifted into the air. He flew in circles around the pyramid, descending closer to the ground with each loop. Isabel struggled to keep up with him. She fell behind and found herself standing on the ground. She walked among the silent rows of people. They didn’t see her, and were different than the people she knew. She felt an electrical charge coming from them, like how the air feels before lightning strikes. The red bird flashed by as he raced around the pyramid. Her body tried to call her back out of the dream but she resisted. There was a harsh vibration in the air. When she looked into the people’s eyes she became lost in them and it made her nauseous. She doubled over to throw up, but nothing came. She felt a hand on her shoulder. One of the people had seen her—not with his eyes, but with other sight. He was a kindly old man and wore a white robe with blue and red stripes. He smiled down at the place where he knew Isabel stood. She felt peace travel across her body from the place that he touched her.

WHEN ISABEL CAME out of her seizure, her dad’s hand was on her shoulder, but she didn’t recognize him, or know who she was either. Her mind gradually put itself back together again, like a crashed computer going through its rebooting process. Her head throbbed, and she kicked the blankets off her bed. She touched her right temple with a trembling hand. Her eyes struggled to focus. There was something in the window behind her dad. It looked like

a tangle of writhing multi-colored snakes. Then it was like a tiny star, breaking into rainbows and then back into white light. The light particles drifted across the room slowly and touched her skin. A wave of warmth flowed over her and her headache faded away. Then the strange light turned off and her room was normal again. She looked up at her dad. She opened her mouth and just a little sound came out. “Close your eyes, Izzie,” he said. “You had a seizure and you need to rest.” “I dreamed of a red bird, Daddy. It was like a heart with wings.”

Nothing will change until the system is smashed. - Neil Garrett, from Jonathan Duncan’s History of the Invisible Army

DANNY KNEW THIS day would come, but that didn’t make it any easier. He stood on Broadway in downtown Manhattan wearing the uniform of a building management worker. It was D-Day for Operation Epsilon. Lunchtime pedestrians crowded the sidewalk and walked quickly past. Danny was in disguise, but his grandfather really was a maintenance worker in Manhattan office buildings, painting offices and fixing things, until the day he died. Every day he put on a uniform like Danny was wearing now. Now Danny and June were the last two leaves on the tree, and Danny was risking everything for the Invisible Army. He believed in the mission. From racism to war, the world’s problems were the result of constricted consciousness. People were taught to fear and hate, even though it brought them misery. There was a better way. The Invisible Army’s dream was to lift the veil away to reveal a new path. But his hands shook at the thought that he might be arrested for what he was about to do.

He pulled a photograph out of his pocket. He printed it out at home and brought it along for courage. It showed an infant clinging to his dead mother amid the rubble of an American drone attack. The woman’s face was damaged beyond recognition, limbs were missing and her clothes were shredded. She was nearly completely de- humanized, but the child would not let his idea of her be destroyed. The eyes of the boy were devastating. Danny knew that somewhere, thousands of miles away, he was longing for his mother and dreaming of her face, as he chose to remember it, unbroken. Neil Garrett stepped out of the crowd, also wearing a building worker uniform. His light brown hair was military short. On his shoulder, he carried a bag of tools, cables, and connectors used for IT installation. He gave the sign of the Invisible Army, an open left hand with the thumb to the chest. Danny responded with the same. Their two left hands facing each other made a pair of hands in prayer. “Good to meet you, Neil.” “Likewise.” His eye contact was brief and obscured by the frames of his glasses. “Let’s head up,” Danny said and unlocked the door of the building. It was an old pre-war apartment building, the kind that was once cut up into countless tenement apartments. Imogen rented a studio there for the Invisible Army’s operations in the financial district. They climbed to the fourth floor and Danny unlocked the apartment. There wasn’t much furniture in the room. Just a card table with some chairs around it and a futon. He walked to the window. There was a big peace march against the invasion of the Caliphate due to make its way down Broadway from Union Square. He strained his ears but did not hear the protesters yet. He turned back to Neil. “Imogen says you’re good,” Danny said. “I worked on military IT networks in Afghanistan for the Army.

Being shot at out in the open is a good motivator for efficiency. What are your qualifications?” “Corporate IT.” “I’ve been doing more corporate work myself. Beats Kabul.” “How was it there?” “It was ok. I barely fired my rifle. Six months into the tour I was with half my unit in a Humvee when we ran over an IED. I was the only survivor.” “Imogen told me. I’m sorry. Why did you go?” “The place I come from in Texas a lot of people went. We thought it was our duty. I don’t feel that anymore. America gains nothing from these wars. There is nothing for us to win.” “Do you think this march is going to make a difference?” Danny asked. “Maybe if people started fighting the cops.” “Violence won’t stop a war,” Danny said. “You can never tell what will set the spark.” “The point is coming when this war will be impossible to stop,” Danny said. “The mainstream media is on board as it was in the lead- up to the Iraq War.” “You’re right. Americans need to wake up.” “Omega is going to wake them up,” Danny said. “You sound like a believer.” “What chance does Omega have if we don’t believe in it?” Neil grunted and looked at his watch, and then leaned over his tool bag to check his equipment and supplies. He improved the organization of the bag. There was something off about him. Imogen’s blind trust of new recruits frightened Danny at times. She seemed to operate wholly on intuition. But he acknowledged that she had been right about people so far. The Invisible Army would not exist without her. “Why is a libertarian like you hanging out with radical progressives anyway?”

“Yeah, I’m a conservative. So what? I think America should be a place where people can make their own rules and take care of themselves. To take nothing from outsiders and have nothing taken from them in return.” “And those with nothing will remain that way,” Danny said. “After we set things straight,” Neil continued, “are a lot of black men like you going to come live on my cattle ranch in Texas? I don’t think so, but I am also not going to take anything from the black man, which is more than you can say for most places in the country now.” “You got a point there, Neil.” “You and Imogen can have your rainbow paradise, and we’ll have the world we want. The states can make their own ways.” “Sounds good to me, cowboy.” They looked out the window and caught the first sight of signs and banners in the distance. They heard a roar of chants punctuated by horns and whistles. “Here they come,” Neil said. “Let’s go to our position,” Danny said.

IT WAS NO secret there was a major protest against the invasion planned in Manhattan. The protest’s itinerary was posted on social media. There were other protests happening in cities around the globe. The ones in Asia and Europe played out as expected. Hundreds of thousands of people rallied to show their opposition and the media hardly covered the marches. The New York protest didn’t have a permit, so protesters were required to stay on the sidewalk. Danny knew the police had plans for a number of different scenarios. They had set up metal gates to corral the people, slow down the protest, keep it off Wall Street and

away from the unfinished Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans Memorial in Battery Park. But they didn’t anticipate the Invisible Army’s plans. Danny and Neil stood on the sidewalk, blending in with other bystanders as the march approached. It was led by a group of women dancers wearing brightly colored headscarves. The dancers kept spilling into the street, to the irritation of the police, who had to keep directing them back onto the sidewalk. Photographers gathered like paparazzi just ahead of the march. The women suddenly took to the street as one, swinging their hips and twisting their arms in a choreographed routine. The police seemed uncertain what to do. They were not trained to respond to dancers. So they just stood and watched the women. Then a white- uniformed police lieutenant stepped forward to arrest one of them, but she danced away from him. He eventually grabbed ahold of her and tackled her to the ground. With his knee on her back, the police lieutenant turned his stubby nose to the air. Amid the chants and drums of the crowd, there was the whine of a fire alarm. The alarm had been pulled in an office building on Broadway, just as the march began to pass. The man who triggered it evacuated onto the sidewalk with everyone else in the building. He nodded at Danny from across the street. He was Invisible Army too. Just down the avenue, a fire alarm went off in another building. Soon there were too many people to fit onto the sidewalk, and the crowd spilled onto the street. The office workers mingled with the protesters. Some of the workers were amused by the protest signs and began to chant along. The police tried to keep everyone on the sidewalk, but there were too many people. Danny heard the police lieutenant bark orders to his men to let the march continue down Broadway. Once it passed the congestion, he said, they would force it back onto the sidewalk. But the fire alarms cascaded down Broadway, and more people spilled out of office buildings along the parade route. A news helicopter flew over the sea of humanity on Broadway.

An alarm went off in the building outside of which they stood. “That’s us,” Neil said, over the wail. An emergency door opened on the sidewalk, directly next to Danny and Neil, and people filed out. Neil grabbed hold of the open door and they headed up the stairs, against the flow of the evacuating workers. With their building services uniforms on, no one questioned why they were there. “Is this a fire drill?” a woman on the stairs asked Danny. “No, ma’am.” They reached the fifth floor of the building. It was the headquarters of an IT security consulting firm whose clients included Wall Street firms, government agencies, military contractors and big pharma companies. A keycard access door protected the fifth floor, and they waited in the stairwell for someone to come out. For a moment, Danny hoped that no one was left on the floor and they would have to turn back. But then there was a shadow in the glass door. Neil held a keycard out as if he were about to swipe the door. The worker coming out saw the card in Neil’s hand, and the uniforms that he and Danny wore, and let them in. The Invisible Army member who pulled the alarm worked on the seventh floor. She identified the building services company that managed the building and provided her building ID as a model that Danny copied. She also provided a schematic of her floor, which gave Danny and Neil an educated guess where they needed to do their work on the fifth floor. She was on the street now with everyone else. According to procedures, the fire evacuation would end when the fire department deemed the situation safe. However, with fire alarms going off all down Broadway and the streets jammed, it would be some time before the firemen arrived. The floor was deserted. Neil stood on a desk and pushed open a panel of the dropped ceiling. He shone a flashlight on the jumble of

wiring that ran above the ceiling. “Not here,” he said. He then tried another panel a few yards away and shook his head. Danny climbed a desk across the room and found what they were looking for. It was the backbone of the IT network, the main line through which all of the computers onsite and offsite communicated with each other. The network was protected by powerful firewalls to keep hackers out, but the security experts who designed it did not anticipate the cable being tapped from the inside. Neil climbed up onto the desk. “Yup, that’s it,” he said. “Pass me that transmitter.” Danny handed Neil a wireless device that was designed to transmit data over a cellular network. It had been built by Neil from a cell phone and was registered to a stolen identity. He progressed quickly through the install. A green light told him that it was transmitting successfully. “Let’s go,” he said. On their way out they passed the first people returning to the office. Outside, the sidewalk was clearing. The end of the march was a few blocks south now. Danny and Neil shook hands. “See you next time,” Danny said. Near the construction walls of the Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans Memorial, hundreds of riot police were gathered. They were beating their batons on their shields in a steady drum, waiting for the protesters to arrive.

IMOGEN OPENED THE door of her apartment to let Danny in. She was wearing jeans and a black t-shirt that read “Last Chance for a Ghost Dance.” It was late. After the downtown operation, Danny went back to his office to catch up. He stepped inside and they

hugged and kissed. She lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment in Alphabet City. It was a small but nice place. The furnishings were minimal, but there was color everywhere. A luminous painting on the wall mirrored a Moroccan rug. There were red birds painted along the top of one of the walls, just like in Danny’s dining room. “My grandfather’s birds.” Imogen smiled. “I want to paint all four walls.” “You must have really connected with them.” “I did. I’ve been dreaming about them.” “In the occult, the magical language of initiates is called the ‘language of the birds.’ It’s a language written in symbols.” “Can you read it?” Imogen asked. “I’m learning.” They sat on the couch facing each other. Imogen’s irises seemed infinitely complex, with little green flames darting in them. Her chest rose and fell gently with a breath. Her heartbeat pulsed on her neck. Danny noticed all of these things before she spoke. “I talked to Winston. The device you planted already sent him information about the security protocols of the firm’s clients.” “Great.” “What did you think of Neil?” “He knows what he’s doing but I’m a little surprised he’s helping us, given his politics.” “Neil is willing to do anything to stop the war,” she said. “We are offering him a way.” Danny nodded. “We need all the help we can get,” she continued. “What we are planning is great, but the whole thing is almost out of control. We are putting the pieces together and rushing as fast as we can.” “I’m grateful to be part of this,” Danny said. “For so long I was like a revolutionary cell of one, waiting for someone else to start the

revolution so that I could join. But maybe the revolution needed me to join it before it could begin.” She nodded. “It’s true,” she said. “We rise as one.” “Once I came to trust you, it was an easy choice,” he said. “It’s like jumping into a river to save a drowning child. For moral people, there is no choice but to leap into the river. Except in our case, we are not trying to save one child, but millions of them.” “That is a good way to think about it. It makes me less anxious when you put it that way.” He took her hand. “You never seem nervous to me, Imogen.” “I am, a lot of the time. Sometimes I feel like a puppet in some cosmic play; the way things have unfolded. It’s like Omega has a life of its own.” “I believe that something is guiding us,” Danny said. “You do? What?” “I don’t know. Something that comes from a deeper place and works through us.” “Comes from a good place?” she asked. “Yes.” “Maybe you’re right,” she said, and leaned closer to him, and he felt the warmth of her skin. “Let’s go to bed,” she said softly. While Imogen brushed her teeth, Danny took off his slacks and work shirt and climbed under the covers. Imogen came out of the bathroom and she took off her jeans, her shirt, and bra, and dropped them on the floor. He had not seen her without clothes. “I don’t want to hide anything from you,” she said. She slipped a nightshirt over her head and climbed into bed. Imogen studied the tattoos that Danny normally hid under his business shirts. He had a tattoo of a serpent curling around his left elbow, and on his right arm between his elbow and shoulder there was a portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr. “Darkness cannot drive out

darkness,” it said under the portrait. “They’re beautiful,” she said. “Thanks.” Danny pulled her closer to him. She rested her head on his chest. There was a siren on the street below. Red, white and blue lights flashed over the ceiling, and then the sound faded. Imogen climbed up on him and touched her lips to his. They kissed tenderly and then she began to move on top of him and they kissed deeper. He lifted her shirt over her head and he considered her body for a moment. Then he sat up and she pulled off his shirt. After they made love, Imogen fell asleep with her head resting on his chest. Danny stayed awake for a little while longer, thinking about how he held the spark to ignite the world in his arms. And if the fire engulfs him too, then sacrificing himself for love will be the greatest honor of all.

The Incans traveled deep into the jungle to find the Red Jay. They called its plumes the feathers of the gods. - Logan Wheeler, La Cana Anomaly

BONNIE DID NOT tell Luis about how she drove the loggers away. It was like someone else’s memory. The woman running through the forest was not the self she knew. What she had done would end their research mission. Preoccupied with worry, she went about her tasks in a daze. Two days after the incident, Luis heard rumors about what happened during a visit to town. He was a man of science and did not believe what people were saying. They said Bonnie brought bad luck to the enemies of the forest. They said her hair stood on end as she cast her spells and made accidents happen. Luis confronted her about the rumors when he returned to camp. “It’s true. Things went wrong for them as soon as I arrived.” “You should have told me,” he said. “It puts us in danger.” “I know. I’m so sorry, Luis. I just don’t want us to leave.” “They are calling you La Bruja,” he said. “The Witch.” “There is something supernatural here. Since I arrived in La Cana I’ve had a sensation of physical power running through my veins, like

my adrenal glands are working on overdrive.” “You are an extraordinary researcher,” he said. “An inspired scientist. But unfortunately, we have to leave La Cana now. I will not see you hurt. What happened was not your fault. It was merely a string of coincidences that was blamed on you. You will have my re- commendation as you apply to other projects. The Red Jay will have to go on without us.” She shook her head. It was her fault for going to the forbidden area of the park. “I’m sorry, Bonnie, but we always knew this could happen. We will leave at noon tomorrow.”

SHE SPENT MUCH of that night awake thinking about all their unproven theories about the Red Jay. Luis hoped to recruit a linguist to investigate whether the bird had a spoken language, but now that discovery would not come to light. The Red Jay was one of the most amazing creatures on Earth, but it was time for it to disappear back into the mist. She rose before sunrise to visit a Red Jay nest for the last time. As the first light appeared, she headed down the trail. One of their eggs had hatched a few weeks ago and the chick had grown to a healthy fledgling. She climbed the tornillo tree without a rope, and crawled down a branch to the nest. The three Red Jays were home, waking up to the day. The fledgling had lost his baby feathers, and was stretching his wings in the morning sun. The adult birds watched Bonnie calmly. She noticed an object hanging from a branch over the nest. It was two crossed pieces of wood, with vines wrapped around them to form a diamond pattern like a spider web. Colorful beads hung from tassels on the bottom. It reminded her of a North American Indian dreamcatcher. It was evident that the Red Jay was important to the

Caro too. Bonnie sat down cross-legged, two meters from the nest. She left her notebook inside her backpack. Since she was saying goodbye, she wanted to connect to the Red Jay on an emotional level. She breathed deeply and fixed her eyes on the female adult. The bird looked back at her, as if she wanted to connect to Bonnie too. She silenced her thoughts and looked into the black eyes. The three birds began to sing, quietly at first and then louder. The melody rose and fell in beautiful, dissonant waves. The fledgling climbed the hexagon wall of the nest. Still, the female did not break Bonnie’s gaze. There was a subconscious transfer of information—it felt like a cool breeze. Bonnie understood that the Red Jay was crucial to the interconnected Amazonian system, which in turn all life on Earth relied upon. The wind picked up, rustling the leaves of the tree. The fledgling stood on the edge of the nest and rapidly flapped his little wings. When he jumped from the nest, Bonnie felt like she was falling too, and she grabbed the branch to steady herself. The wind blew strongly now, and the sun burst through the swaying branches like a strobe light. Bonnie saw a shape pass in front of the sun. It was not the moving branches. It was an object above the forest canopy. She saw white feathers. It was like a giant, primordial bird soaring across the sky. Then there was another soaring shape to the left. The big white birds were all around her. The Red Jays flapped their wings and flew out of the nest down to their fledgling below. The wind fell with their departure, and the Caro charm became still. Bonnie looked up to the sky and watched a wispy white cloud turn over upon itself in the air. Perhaps clouds were all she had seen. She sat for a time on the tree branch. Her consciousness felt altered, like she was dreaming with her eyes open. La Cana was a place of mysteries, beyond her capacity to understand. She climbed down the tree slowly, as if playing a role in a ritual.

The fledgling ran across the ground, and his parents stood watching nearby. He beat his wings vigorously, but did not catch the air. He had entered the most vulnerable stage of his life and could spend three days on the ground before his wings were strong enough to take him into the air. Bonnie knew the survival of the little bird was not her responsibility. If an animal found and ate him, then that was his fate. But Bonnie felt a responsibility to protect the Red Jay species from the humanity that threatened it. This was her calling, and she and Luis needed to make a stand. By refusing to leave La Cana they could draw attention to the Red Jay’s plight. She needed to convince Luis. Bonnie left the Red Jay and headed back down the trail to camp. She was less than a kilometer away when she heard the sound of gunfire. She froze. There was another blast of a gun. Luis had a rifle, but that was an automatic weapon. The camp was under attack. Her friend was paying for what she had done. She ran down the path. Maybe she did have powers. Maybe she could stop them. Closer to camp, she saw smoke billowing up over the trees. She emerged into the camp clearing. There was no one in sight, but Luis’s laboratory was in flames. Their work was lost. She screamed to see Luis crumpled on the ground just beyond the fire. She ran to him and pulled him away from the heat of the flames. He was covered in blood and bullet holes. The fire reflected in his open eyes, and his face was twisted in despair. Bonnie burst into tears and leaned down to touch her cheek against his. A voice inside told her to be careful—the gunmen could still be close—but she needed to mourn him. Luis was such a kind man. Like a father to her. The rifle butt hit her on the back of her head, and she collapsed unconscious onto his body.

WHEN BONNIE’S EYES opened again, she was sitting in the backseat of a truck driving on the highway. Her hands and feet were bound with rope. Her head throbbed where she had been hit. Two paramilitary soldiers sat on either side of her, and her clothes were covered with Luis’s blood. She remembered his lifeless body and moaned in despair. The man in the front passenger seat turned around. It was Colonel Herrera that she met in the forest. The one who she defied by returning to the western half of La Cana. “Ah, Canadiense,” Herrera said. “You are awake.” “What have you done?” she hissed at him and tried to get her arms out of the rope. The soldier on her right put his hand on the hilt of his knife. “We saved you,” he said. “A rogue FARC unit attacked your camp and killed the doctor. We got there just in time to chase them off before they killed you too.” “I don’t believe you,” Bonnie said. “Believe what you wish,” he said. “You are going home now.” “I will return to La Cana and continue our work.” “Your authorization is being revoked. La Cana is for the Colombian people now.” “You should have killed me too.” “Don’t tempt us, silly girl. We don’t need the attention your death will bring. It’s time for you to get shipped back to Canada.” Bonnie was used to being underestimated. She was among the most dangerous of human beings, a person who is completely open- minded and adaptable, who responds without fear or surprise to every development, and who has the courage to take the correct path, no matter how strange, even if it leads to her own destruction. She turned to look out the window at the trees on the side of the road rushing by. In her head, she made a silent vow: I will return to La Cana. ê

It is only through ordeal that the new world will be born. - Journals of Jack Palehorse

IN HIS APARTMENT on the top of Manhattan, Jack thought of the long-ago, when all was in balance. Before Geronimo ran through desert hills and Crazy Horse thundered on his mount, before this America was born, the people were one with the land. He shook his head to dispel the daydream. He found it hard at times to stay present in the modern world. He was sitting at a battered writing desk, holding a newspaper with large, cracked hands. He put the newspaper down periodically to make notes in a black journal. The apartment furnishings were sparse and looked like debris from a natural disaster. The bed was a steel cot. An old plastic chair sat beside the wooden desk. He had a well-worn duffel bag that held his clothes as if he were ready to leave at a moment’s notice. He only read newspapers to read between the lines, and the articles were full of signs that a US invasion of the Caliphate was coming. The Invisible Army didn’t have much time. He put the newspaper down next to a tablet computer on the desk. The device was highly secure, with Jack’s thumbprint and a

password required to activate it. Unauthorized access resulted in the immediate deletion of all of its memory. There was a stylus pen for him to write notes to the documents on the screen. They were close, Imogen and the others, but some of the words they said were wrong. They wanted to answer hate with hate. It was the same mistake he made with Greene & Co. He got pulled into the cycle of hate. He made his villains stronger, until they devoured him. He stood up from the desk, straightening his back with difficulty. He walked to the window, dragging his left leg. His knee had not healed right after being shattered by another prisoner. He looked down on the street scene below. Dominican girls wearing tank tops leaned on each other. Two old men held playing cards on a stoop. Teenagers and children shouted. He found great beauty in the scene. It was life. It was the now. Jack lived a hard life after getting out of prison. His wife died of cancer soon after he was released. His daughter Ayashe got deep into drinking and drugs, and broke contact. There were times he almost got a footing again, but then he would be chased out of neigh- borhoods as a registered sex offender and have to start again. Finally, he found solace at a trailer park outside of Oklahoma City where every resident was a registered offender. He expected to die there, but then Imogen materialized and asked him to join her revolution. He agreed to answer the call one more time. She found an apartment for him in Inwood and visited him once a week to bring groceries and discuss their plans. He went to the kitchen and warmed a bowl of soup. He was grateful for the food. People like him, who had been swallowed by the darkness, were conscious of each spoonful they put to their lips, because being alive and having warm soup to eat was a miracle to them. Every day in the late afternoon, he took a walk in Inwood Hill Park, two blocks away. The park held the only natural woods in Manhattan. According to legend, it was the site where the Dutch had

bought the island from the Lenape Indians for trinkets worth $24. Jack liked to sit there and listen to the trees. He sat down in a chair by the door and put on his boots, and then walked down two floors to the street. The park came into view. The big trees in the park were like a skyline. He believed that plants had spirits, and you could talk to them. They lived more in the eternal than in this world, and this made them wise. He was crossing the street to enter the park when a silver SUV stopped and two men jumped out. One of the men had a long beard and wore cargo shorts and the other a black suit. Jack recognized them for the dangerous men they were. They each grabbed one of his arms. “Jack, you’re coming with us,” said the man in the suit. He did not resist as they tossed him in the back of the SUV and sat down on either side of him. The driver floored the accelerator, and they drove through the streets to a highway. Jack sat silently. They said nothing more to him after plucking him off the street. He knew that Elliot Greene had come for him. They took an exit into the Bronx. The silence of the men made Jack think they planned to kill him. He did not imagine that he could stop them. So then it is over, he thought, and felt relief. It was time for him to go to Seana—the Cheyenne camp of the dead—which lay just past the horizon down the long fork of the Milky Way. Jack’s wife waited for him there. They pulled onto a service road and came to a stop on a vacant lot by the banks of the Bronx River. They pulled him out of the car. The man with the beard yanked his arm back until he nearly broke it. Jack looked out over the riverbank. Junk was piled around the shoreline—a kitchen sink here, a weather-worn sofa and a pile of pipes there—like remnants of a building that had been dismantled. So this was the place of his death. He remembered his daughter, lost somewhere. He prayed she would find her way again. He thought of Imogen. He hoped her

dreams for the world would come true. They held Jack by either arm and the man in black faced him. “Any last words, Mr. Hobson?” “Tell your master I was not afraid,” Jack said. The man’s face showed no response. His eyes looked dead. “I have done what I believed what was right in life,” Jack continued. “This has made me many enemies, but I do not fear death. You should know I am not a guilty man, despite what he told you.” “I don’t care what you did or didn’t do, old man.” “Tell me your name, since you plan to kill me.” “My name is Ray Jansen, but my enemies call me Ghost Maker.” Jack nodded. “Very well, Ghost Maker. Then do what you must.” He was already on his way to the camp of the dead, breathing clean air as he walked through the night. Jansen pulled leather gloves out of his jacket pocket and put them on. He assumed a boxing stance and swung his fists. He hit Jack’s head again and again, with precision blows. Jack found a place beyond the pain and endured it. His legs went out but the men held him up. There was a hairline break in his skull and he gushed blood from a broken nose. Jansen pulled a long knife from its holster in his belt. He spun it around in his hand to show his skill. Then he thrust it into Jack’s stomach and up toward his heart.

JACK HAD BEEN in this space before—the place between worlds. He had participated in visionary ceremonies from the Arctic to the Amazon that lasted days and took him to the edge of life. Death came to him again in all its glory and beauty. Psychoactive chemicals released into his dying brain and expanded his perception of time, showing him his whole life at once. He lingered on a

memory of his wife and daughter, walking hand in hand with them through a grassy field in the prairies. Alice was young and happy, and Ayashe was just a child, skipping through the long grass. Alice kneeled over him where he lay on the riverbank. She was older now, and smiling. “Come with us,” she said. A point of light appeared in the sky behind her head and grew into a second sun. The rays of light seemed to embrace his broken body. He heard Ayashe’s voice in the light. “Come on, Dad!” she called out to him. “Why is Ayashe there?” he asked Alice. “Everyone is here, Jack. Everyone reaches Seana one day.” He was off the ground now, and looked down upon his broken and bloodied form lying on the riverbank. He still lived. He was being called to death and that meant he still had a choice. He turned to his wife’s apparition. “Ayashe is not gone,” he said. “We are still together here in the world.” Alice’s sad eyes told him that he would not see his daughter again. “Stay awhile longer if you can,” she said. “You have always been so brave. You deserve to be a witness of what is going to happen.” Jack heard a clanging of church bells and then he was in his body again. His shirt was drenched in blood from the gaping wound in his stomach. His face was swelling from the beating, and his left eyelid felt like a sandbag. It was a solace to him that he was battling to stay alive. He wanted to die well. The men who did this to him were gone, but Jack was not alone. Through his open eye, he watched fireballs dancing above him on the riverbank, trailing serpentine tails like comets. There were seven of them, each tinted with a different color of the rainbow. Jack was a shaman and knew the spirits of the invisible world. He was wise enough to know that most spirits were reflections of the unconscious parts of our selves. But these entities carried a greater

power than he had ever encountered. They seemed more real than he was. A persimmon orb of light stopped before him, and grew shining wings. The feathers moved in intricate patterns and eyes appeared from underneath them. Scores of black eyes stared upon him. “YOU SEE US,” the entity said and Jack heard the voice booming in his head. As it drew closer, Jack lost all understanding of what he was seeing. The being was a blur with too many wings and too many eyes. But then it was upon him and there were just two eyes, and these eyes looked into his with quiet and powerful sympathy. It felt like his own soul staring back at him. “What are you?” “We are the divine. We are what was torn asunder. My name was Hermes. I was Thoth. Now I am the angel Gabriel.” Jack’s brain swelled and pushed against his cracked skull. He was on the edge of death, but would not let go. He stared at the angel’s eyes until they became windows. He saw a red bird that dipped and wheeled around jungle trees. There was a young woman who was with the birds, protecting them. Gabriel whipped his wings. “The world is not ready for our secrets, but die and you shall know them.” Jack shook his head. The angel’s wings spread wider. “LET GO, PALEHORSE, AND YOUR SOUL WILL JOIN US.” Still, Jack stared into Gabriel’s eyes and did not die.

It will be up to future historians to name the war we are fighting from Africa to South Asia. Labels do not matter to the soldiers keeping us safe. - Gloria Fitch’s dedication of the Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans Memorial

SEVEN MILES FROM the Bronx River, the NYPD worked to clear an intersection in midtown Manhattan for Gloria Fitch’s motorcade to pass. Cops yelled and sirens blared. Gloria was grateful for the delay to read an email from her daughter’s doctor. Isabel was not doing well. She suffered from Lennox–Gastaut syndrome, a form of epilepsy that came on soon after her seventh birthday. As Gloria’s political star rose, Isabel’s health declined in an opposite downward arc. The Republican Party arranged for one of the country’s best neurologists to treat Isabel, but her slide continued. Gloria wondered if God was sending her the message that she belonged home with her family. Gloria was an unknown Utah state senator when she announced her candidacy for President on the anniversary of her brother’s death in Afghanistan. She intended the campaign to be symbolic, an effort to raise attention to national security and veteran’s issues. But she

had a way of talking about war that made it sound safe and right to ordinary Americans, and she was invited to the first Republican presidential debate, where she shined with memorable one-liners. The party establishment lined up behind her. She was the perfect storm. There had never been a Latino, Mormon, or Republican woman president and she was all three. She won the nomination and was now gaining on President Water, the Democratic incumbent, in polls. She put her phone away and took a deep breath. In rare moments like this when she found herself alone with a minute to spare, she ran through a mental exercise of imagining time unfolding before her, in the manner in which she hoped that God would permit it to unfold. Isabel’s doctors will further their breakthroughs in her treatment. They will discover the right combination of drugs to bring her seizures under control. She’ll make strides in school as she transitions to a normal adolescence. In six months, they will be living in the White House. Gloria will bring the Word of God back to Washington, and be forceful against God’s enemies. But in victory she will show her compassion, and will be as powerful a force for peace as she was for war. History will see her as a great missionary. Gloria believed that if you can imagine it, then you can pray for it and then it can come true. She opened her eyes as the limousine pulled to a stop outside of the Union House. The limestone façade of the elite social club was golden in the midday sun. The Secret Service made sure the block was secure and then an agent opened the limo’s door. Elliot Greene stood grinning outside the entrance. He was an early backer of her campaign because he said she was the only candidate with the guts to take on the Caliphate. Now he was working as a bundler for her PACs, and she had come to the Union House to meet two billionaires he lined up for her. “You look happy, Elliot,” Gloria said. She leaned in to give him a hug.

“Things seem to be working out for us, Senator Fitch,” he said. “Glad to hear it.” Elliot introduced her to the club manager and footmen, and then raised a hooked right arm. “May I escort you in?” “That is kind of you,” she said. He led her into the lobby of the club, and up the grand staircase that curved up two flights to the second floor. From the lobby, the white undersides of the staircase gave the architecture the appearance of an eyeball. A footman opened the door of a meeting room for them and closed it as they stepped inside. The banker Carl Rush rose from an armchair and stepped forward to shake Gloria’s hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you at last, Mrs. Fitch,” he said. “Likewise,” she said. The other billionaire in the room was the elderly Henry Holman, who sat in a wheelchair. He wore a solemn expression as if it was no thrill for him to meet with a presidential candidate. Of course, he had met many candidates and presidents. Gloria heard that, as a young man, he had taken part in a presentation by defense contractors to President Eisenhower at the White House, and it was rumored that his overenthusiastic pitch caused Eisenhower’s souring on the military-industrial complex. Holman was an ancient man now, but no one dared refer to his age in his presence. Even after he passed a hundred, his power and riches continued their upward arc. To people who shared his beliefs about conservatism and free enterprise, he was an inspiration. To his enemies, he was a wraith: pale and shriveled like a corpse but an- imated by some malevolent spirit. Gloria leaned down to shake his hand. He gripped her hand like a crab. “You have been such an inspiration, Henry.” “Charmed to meet you,” he said. His tongue flicked as he spoke.

“Please take a seat,” Elliot said. He poured four glasses of champagne. “I know that today is a solemn day for you, Gloria,” Elliot said. “Your brother and so many other brave soldiers are finally getting the honor they deserve.” “Thank you,” she said. “We here at the Union House believe in you. That’s why we have agreed to fund a PAC to defeat President Water. The three of each will contribute $100 million, and we are working to line up another $200 million in donations from other club members.” “That is good news indeed, Elliot. Thank you, gentlemen. Now may I ask what role you hope me to play?” Gloria spoke with a new authority in her voice. She was adjusting to the strange arc that her life had taken. “Indeed,” he said. “You are a national security candidate who is dedicated to protecting the country from the Caliphate. You will play the role you promised.” Gloria considered what these three men had to gain from the war. She was not so naïve to believe that they only wanted to bring freedom to the world. The benefit to Holman as a military contractor was evident. Elliot, with his big oil holdings in the Americas, would gain from an oil crisis in the Middle East. What Carl Rush had to gain was less clear. She should ask her staff to find out more about his stock positions. “And what if the Caliphate accepts the UN peace proposal?” she asked. A laugh came from Holman. “The demands will not be accepted, Mrs. Fitch,” he said. “Then we will have war,” she said, “and then a greater peace.” Elliot raised his glass and the others followed suit. “To you, Gloria Fitch, and a greater peace,” he said.

GLORIA DELIVERED A powerful speech at the dedication of the Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans Memorial downtown that afternoon. As she talked about the sacrifice of her brother, Army Lieutenant Peter Velazquez, the wind picked up and billowed the black curtain behind her. She grasped the side of the podium for support and spoke with force. She felt like a ship captain steering a vessel through a storm. After her speech, she called two veterans onto the stage with her. One walked on prosthetic legs and the other’s face was disfigured in a bombing. They were members of the “Victory Network,” the grassroots organization for veterans she founded after her brother’s death. Too often she had seen wounded veterans exploited by antiwar activists and isolationists. To her, missing limbs and other war injuries were badges of honor. She visited soldiers in hospitals and their homes and asked to see their scars. With their permission, she would then touch them, cupping the stumps of limbs in her hands, running two fingers down the cracks where their skulls had been shattered. She told them that they were heroes, not victims, and that they were still needed. The men pulled on ropes on either side of the stage, and the curtain came down. The memorial consisted of a ring of seven granite monoliths reaching fifteen feet high. The center monolith was engraved with a black five-pointed American star. Full-grown oak trees—helicoptered in during construction—surrounded the ring. It reminded Gloria of a pagan shrine in the woods. In front of the monoliths, there was a sweeping modernist sculpture made of marble. It was named “Eagle Rising from the Destruction” and made by an American sculptor of Syrian descent named Paul Halbi. The sculpture was an abstract form of a bird, meant to evoke both a phoenix and an eagle, rising in jagged and chaotic forms symbolizing terrorism and conflict. The base of the sculpture was made from steel salvaged from the ruins of the World Trade Center. In front of the

sculpture, there was a podium that rose to waist level and had a top like a sundial. A park ranger approached Gloria and handed her a glass key. He escorted her to the podium and directed her to insert the key into the slot there. Gloria said a prayer quietly and turned the key. Images of her brother were projected on the monoliths, inter- spersed with text showing his name and then the date and place of his death. A video of Peter appeared just right of the sculpture. He was smiling and joking with a cameraman in the desert in tan camouflage fatigues. He was a handsome young man. His arms were golden in the desert sunset. “Anything you’d like to say to the people back home?” The sound came from hidden speakers. “Hi Mom and Dad. What’s up, sis? I miss you guys, but I’m glad to be out here saving the world.” He laughed at something someone said off camera, and then another video clip showed him firing his weapon over sandbags. His base was under attack. He stopped firing and sat down against the sandbags looking exhausted. The video ended with a still image of Peter and the five other men in his unit. Gloria wiped tears from her cheeks. Peter and four of the men in the image were killed in an IED bombing in Afghanistan. These men were also memorialized in videos, which could be viewed by visitors to the memorial or seen online at any time. The Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans Memorial was the first war memorial for the social media age, which Gloria felt was appropriate, as most of the dead grew up with the Internet. There was only one soldier in the photograph who lived. His name was Neil Garrett. Gloria had reached out to him years ago, but he had not answered. Perhaps when she was President, he would meet her and tell her about the end of her brother’s life.

All the magic of the Amazon is science we are starting to learn. - Dr. Carmen Cevallos, Centro de la Botánica Amazónica

COLONEL HERRERA TOOK Bonnie to a National Police base in a small town north of La Cana. The police sat her down to interview her and her Spanish broke down and she put her face in her hands. When she collected herself, she told them about the threats from Herrera and how he was responsible for the attack. The National Police general just laughed her off, saying that the Colonel was a good man. He said that the evidence was irrefutable that FARC rebels attacked the camp. Bonnie spent a sleepless night at the base, and the next day they took her to a small hotel in town. They left her alone in her room, and she lay on the bed and stared up at the white stucco ceiling. She traced the ridges and bumps of the plaster until her eyes hurt. It was all she could do to keep from remembering the sight of Luis dead. After an hour alone, she heard the sound of a helicopter landing somewhere nearby. Thirty minutes passed, and there was a knock on the door. She opened it to find a well-dressed young man. “Hello, Bonnie. My name is Lawrence Richter and I am from our

consulate in Bogotá. I’m here to take you home.” He handed her a Canadian passport. She shook her head. “I’m sorry you had to make the trip. I don’t plan to go home.” “It is clear to me that you are still in shock,” he said. “I suggest you ask your parents whether or not you should stay. They are anxious to have you safe and sound back in Winnipeg.” “They will respect my decision.” He frowned and touched his hand to his carefully parted hair. “You are not safe here. I would think you would know that by now.” “I will keep myself safe. I promise. I absolve you and the Canadian government of all responsibility for my safekeeping.” His face screwed into a condescending grin. “Bonnie, absolving the Canadian government of its responsibilities is not a power that you have.” “There’s nothing you can do. I have six months left on my Colombian work visa.” “Actually, there is something I can do. In the interest of your personal safety, I will ask the Colombian government to revoke your visa.” Bonnie shrugged her shoulders and stood up from the bed, pocketing her new passport. “Are you going somewhere?” he asked. “If we’re all done here, I’m going for a walk.” “Night is coming, and it’s not a good idea for you to be outside alone.” “I’ll be ok.” Bonnie got up from the bed and started lacing up her shoes to go. “Tell me, Bonnie, what exactly do you plan to do if you stay in Colombia?” “I haven’t figured it out yet. But I feel like I am meant to be here.” “It is irrational to think anything is meant to be. You really should

come with me to the airport.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I will not.” He sighed. “Well, prepare yourself, because the day will come soon when you get shipped home, whether you want to or not.”

DUSK WAS FALLING when Bonnie left the hotel. Her feet stepped heavily on the pavement. She felt far from the forest where she found her physical grace. The temperature was dropping and her coat was left at the camp. She wasn’t headed anywhere in particular. Walking helped her think, and she needed to process the horror of what happened. She walked five blocks through town and then down a dirt road with agricultural fields on either side. She let the memories come. She saw Luis’s body in the dirt. The memory of his blank eyes persisted as she walked. By the time her tears stopped, night had fallen. When she got back to the hotel, she lay down on her bed and realized how hungry she was. She hadn’t eaten since the morning. The authorities assumed she would be on a flight back to Canada by now. They made no arrangements for her other than paying for the hotel room for the night. The diplomat who visited her did not give her any pesos, and the money she had stashed in her backpack was gone. She found a couple of coins only. It might be enough to buy some food at one of the cafes near the hotel. She felt very alone and began to consider the possibility of going back to Winnipeg after all. What choice did she have? There was another knock on the door. She opened it to find a woman with short curly hair and a kindly smile holding a bowl covered with tin foil. She looked to be in her early 40s, maybe ten years older than Bonnie.

“Buenas noches, Bonnie,” the woman said, “I am an old friend of Luis’s. My name is Carmen.” “Hello,” Bonnie said and hugged her. “Please come in, Carmen.” “I found out you were here and had to come see you. It’s what Luis would have wanted.” Carmen explained how she knew Luis from the National University of Colombia. She ran the Centro de la Botánica Amazónica on the Putumayo River. “We conduct cutting edge research on plant intelligence and indigenous medicine.” “He mentioned you,” Bonnie said. “You look hungry,” Carmen said. “Eat.” Bonnie gratefully accepted the bowl. “It’s sancocho—made from chicken, plantains, yucca, and potatoes.” After Bonnie finished, Carmen asked her about Luis’s death. She cried as Bonnie told the story. Luis was such a gentle man. Bonnie told her more than she told the National Police. She said she was responsible for the massacre, because of what had happened with the oilmen and the loggers. Carmen’s mascara-smeared eyes grew wide as she talked about bringing bad luck to the park’s intruders. “I believe you, Bonnie. Stranger things than that have happened in the rainforest.” “I don’t want to leave it, Carmen.” “If you want to stay, you can volunteer at the Centro de la Botánica, at the edge of the jungle. We can use a hand. We use captive birds and other animals in our experiments. We’ll give you room and board, and you can stay as long as you need.” The weight on Bonnie’s heart lifted for the first time since the attack. “Thank you,” she said softly.

THE NEXT MORNING, they met outside the hotel and drove south through farmland and jungle to the banks of the Putumayo River, just across the river from Peru. The Centro de la Botánica was a complex of buildings and agriculture fields. Carmen gave Bonnie a tour and introduced her to the scientists and farmers who worked and lived there. There were patients too, undergoing carefully monitored medicinal plant treatments. Carmen waved at a group of them having breakfast together in the sun. The fields held a great variety of trees, vines and flowering plants used in indigenous Amazonian medicine. As they walked down the rows, Carmen identified the plants for Bonnie and told her about their uses. There was Uncaria tomentosa—known as cat’s claw—a vine used for anti-inflammation and treating tumors. A group of young Couroupita guianensis trees grew into the sky. Carmen said they were cannonball trees and used to treat a variety of body and blood ailments. There was a line of Nicotiana rustica tobacco plants, used by Amazonian healers for shamanic purposes. At the end of the field, at the edge of the jungle-line, shaded by palm trees, there were Banisteriopsis caapi vines climbing manmade wooden trellises. The bark-covered vines twisted around each other on wood lattices that simulated the trees where they grew in the jungle. “This vine is used for Ayahuasca,” Carmen said. “We call it yagé in Colombia. These were the first plants we planted when we built this place eight years ago. Have you tried Ayahuasca?” Bonnie shook her head. “We have an Asháninka healer here—Juan Ríos—from Peru. He’s a scientist too, but his methods are different. He works here on the medicinal research programs. He also leads regular Ayahuasca healing ceremonies for our patients. It is powerful medicine for the psyche.” Carmen studied Bonnie’s eyes like she was trying to gauge her reaction.

“I know the vine,” Bonnie said. “The Red Jay has some relationship to it. They seem to tend it. We wanted to figure out why.” Carmen nodded as if she wasn’t surprised. “Every Friday evening, there is an open ceremony that staff can attend. Many of us do.” Bonnie had not done a psychedelic drug since high school. The difficult visions and vomiting she heard Ayahuasca induced made her frightened to try it. Yet maybe it was destined to be. “That’s wonderful,” she said bravely. Carmen led her out of the field and past white plaster buildings that held laboratories to a geodesic dome that was a high-tech greenhouse. “This building cost five million US dollars to build. A real estate baron in Bogotá donated the funds after a spiritual transformation in the jungle. He said that the plants came to him in visions and asked for his help in healing humanity.” There was a complex system of automated shades and ventilators on the roof and sides of the greenhouse. Electronics ran under the ground, as if all the plants were plugged in. “What happens in here?” she asked. “We are studying plant cooperation and intelligence. Let me show you something.” Bonnie followed her around the side of the greenhouse. There was a shed built on the side. They walked inside and Carmen closed the door behind them, leaving them in the dark. She flipped a switch and the underground of the greenhouse lit up with ultraviolet light. Bonnie could see the tree, plant and fungi roots growing amid the soil. There were wires and electronic sensors mixed in with the roots as well. “Much of a plant’s mass is below the surface of the ground,” Carmen said. “That’s where a lot of communication and social activity among plants takes place. Some plants communicate with each other underground via fungi, like a kind of forest Internet. The roots

of many plants can recognize their own roots and those of their offspring, and behave differently when they encounter them. Of course, these interactions happen on a relatively slow time frame because they’re plants, but this laboratory has been operating for two years so we have a lot of data already.” Bonnie leaned into the glass, to look closely at the roots and wires. “We also do important experiments above ground,” Carmen said. “We introduce animals and insects in a systematic manner to test how the plants interact with their environment. This is the program I want you to work on.” “Sounds amazing,” Bonnie said. “I’m grateful.”

BONNIE SETTLED INTO her new job at the Centro, and worked quietly at her tasks. There were other young researchers who reached out to her, but she was distant so they let her be. But Carmen never let her miss a meal, and she stopped by her room every evening to talk or just say goodnight. She said that helping Bonnie to overcome her trauma was a tribute to her friendship with Luis, and a way of dealing with her own grief. As an animal behaviorist specializing in ornithology, Bonnie had knowledge of veterinary medicine. The experimental plant ecologists were impressed by her skill. The animals they introduced into the greenhouse were meant to interact with the plants as they would in the wild. Bonnie relaxed them, which made the experiments more accurate. Every day her longing for the Red Jay diminished an increment, like an addiction fading. She began to doubt her vow to return to La Cana. How long could she survive alone in the park, besieged by paramilitaries and oilmen? It was a fantasy—she was coming to accept this. There were other ways she could pay tribute to Luis’s memory. She thought about returning to Canada, seeing her friends

and family, and getting involved in a bird study closer to home. On a Sunday evening, the Centro had a party with drinks and dancing. Carmen invited Bonnie to dance. It was therapeutic— dancing with her. After the party, they drank wine on the hood of Carmen’s truck and looked at the stars. Bonnie wanted to kiss her, but she wasn’t sure she felt the same and didn’t get up the courage. After the party, Bonnie went to bed in her little sleeping quarters. The room fit just a twin bed and a small desk. Her window was open to the sounds of the rainforest, which began down the road and stretched on for thousands of miles into Peru, Brazil, and beyond. She closed her eyes, but couldn’t sleep. She got out of her bed to press her face against the window screen and look out through the dark toward the jungle. The more she looked, the more she could see. She perceived the trees—first the shape of the treetops, and then the individual leaves. She could make out the sounds of a multitude of insects and animals. She lay back down but was full of energy and couldn’t sleep. When she closed her eyes she saw the Red Jay juveniles, flying a tighter and tighter loop around her in the riverbank. She decided to take a walk to the forest so she could stand under the canopy and remember what it was like to be in La Cana. She put on her jeans and a long-sleeve shirt to protect her from biting insects. Outside, the night air had grown cool. As she walked down to a path, her eyes fixed on the treetops of the virgin trees at the forest line. There was one tree that was taller than the others, and its leaves rustled in the wind. The crescent moon sat in the sky directly above the tree. Since it was close to the horizon, the sliver of moon looked huge in the sky. Away from the city as they were, she could make out the shadows of its craters on the dark part of the moon. It would be nearly two weeks before it was made whole with light again. Directly above the tree, in a straight line from the peak of the tree, was a bright star. Bonnie remembered someone at the party talking about Jupiter being close to the moon in the night sky, and Bonnie

knew that’s what she saw. There was something about how the three objects were aligned— the tree, the moon, and Jupiter—that took Bonnie’s breath away. It gave her hope that her own life could come into alignment again, and that this could happen here with Carmen and the plants at the edge of the rainforest.

The universe dreamed me, and one day the dream of me will end. - Journals of Jack Palehorse

JACK’S EYES OPENED as he lay dying on the shores of the Bronx River. There was a jogger standing over him. He was a young man with dark curly hair. He wore fluorescent orange running shoes with white wings embroidered on the sides. “Help is on the way,” he said. Then Jack slipped back to the unconscious state that his battered body needed. He returned to awareness briefly in the operating room. A piece of his skull lay on a surgical table. His chest was being sewn up. The doctors realized he was awake and injected him with drugs that sent him back down. Then Jack was conscious only in dreams, and he only dreamed of one thing: he was tottering on the edge of a cliff, grabbing at long stalks of grass to keep from falling. The grass kept coming up by its roots as he pulled, and he would grab a new bunch that also came up at its roots, forcing him to grab at another while all the time he slipped backward, always an instant from his death. He spent so long struggling to pull himself up the cliff’s edge that

he had time to take in the surroundings. The cliff rose five hundred meters above a green ocean that crashed into jagged rocks below. It was always daytime. The sky was vibrant blue, crossed by clouds con- stantly turning in upon themselves. It made his eyes spin to look at them. There were times in which he nearly succeeded in pulling himself up, finding a grass stalk that was momentarily firm, and he looked over the cliff’s edge to see a lush forest stretching out over the land. At the edge of the jungle, trees and other plants swayed from side to side like sea grass under the waves. In the distance, light flashed in the clouds over the jungle. It looked like lightning, but each flash was a different color. He knew it was the celestial spirits he saw on the riverbank. They were in the forest and he wanted to go there too. But he always slipped back again, flailing his arms like an old clown as he grabbed at the stalks to keep from falling to his death. Faster and faster he clutched at them, until his hands were just a blur, but still the abyss drew him down.

The angels waited for us to invite them back in. - Writings of Isabel Fitch

ISABEL CLIMBED OUT of bed as she heard the sound of car wheels on the gravel driveway. She looked out the window and saw two black SUVs and a police car come to a stop. Her mother was finally home after four days on the campaign trail. She walked down the stairs, panting as she went. The front door was open and she stood in the doorway in her pajamas. Moonlight shone through the grove of box elder trees at the end of the driveway. Her mother was silhouetted in the white light, hugging her father and lifting her sister into her arms and laughing. Isabel wished she were there. She wanted to be normal like Jenny. Gloria noticed Isabel standing in the doorway. “Izzie!” Gloria called out. She jogged to the door and lifted Isabel up into her arms. “Thanks for coming to greet me, sweetheart. I know you’re tired and it means a lot to me.” “I wanted to see you. I missed you, Mom.” “I missed you too. Let’s go upstairs and get you back in bed.” “Ok.”

Isabel’s head hummed as her mother led her up the stairs. The hallway lights were streaked and haloed in her vision. Her mother asked her questions and she answered, but she felt far away. Gloria took her into the bathroom, where she helped her to pee and then brushed her teeth. Isabel drifted in and out as her mother spoke to her softly. “I’ve been asking the angels to watch over you, Izzie. To keep you safe and make you healthy.” As usual, Isabel was thinking of the red birds in the jungle that crowded her dreams. “Are angels birds, Mommy?” Gloria wiped toothpaste off her face. “No, honey. Angels are more like people, but they are like the greatest people that have ever existed. They love God so completely that he gives them wings, and they fly over the Earth protecting people in need—like you, Izzie.” Isabel looked at her reflection in the mirror for a moment. “Then why am I still sick?” “Angels are busy—they have a lot of people to help. Your father and I have been praying every day for your guardian angel to visit you. Before you go to sleep tonight, you can pray for your angel too. Maybe the three of us praying together will be loud enough for God to hear and then he will send you an angel.” Isabel worried there were too many birds flying around her for an angel to find her. If it flew over their home, all it would see would be the fluttering of red wings. The angel would fly on and look for another child to save. But she did not say this to her mother, who carried her into her bedroom and tucked her into bed. Her mom didn’t like it when she talked too much about the birds. “Time to rest, Izzie. Time to sleep.” She kissed Isabel on the forehead and turned off the bedside light. She walked to the doorway and paused. In Isabel’s brain, electrical currents flowed erratically across

twisted neural pathways. She appeared to be lying in her bed peacefully, but was trapped in a low-intensity seizure. They happened several times a day. The little seizure passed and her eyes came back into focus. She saw her mother standing in the doorway, and on her shoulders she saw the head of a baboon. Isabel took a fearful intake of air. The baboon heard and walked back to her bed. Isabel closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep. She heard a snuffle and wheeze, and kept totally still. She didn’t want the baboon to make a shrill cry and attract the rest of its troop. It pulled away and Isabel opened her eyes to see her mother leaving the room. Her cheeks were soft and pink, not coarse and black like the face of a baboon. Her hair was straight and silky. Isabel closed her eyes. She breathed deeply and started to drift away. Then a buzzing sound awakened her. There was something else in the room. It was jarring to sense, like the sound of a jackhammer getting closer. The vibration reverberated in her ears. She wanted to run to her parents, but her arms and legs wouldn’t move. She tried calling out but could make no sound. A bright light grew outside and the sound stopped. There was a shining form at the window that looked like a dandelion undulating in a gentle wind. Then it was more like a sea anemone. Then a white swan covered in innumerable feathers. The feathers moved like they were attached to a hundred different wings. The form passed through the glass like a ghost. Isabel smelled cinnamon. She sat up. An angel had found her. She was not disturbed by its strange appearance. It drifted through her window in a graceful flutter and settled on the end of her bed. She reached out and a human hand grew from the glowing form and met her touch. Her pain diminished. A figure expanded from the hand. The angel was fair-skinned, with long dark hair. There were tattoos of vines running down its arms, shifting and moving as if they were alive. Wings grew from its

shoulders like a flower blooming, and its eyes were filled with light. “Are you a boy angel?” Isabel asked. Its shining violet eyes were ringed in jewels. She heard a voice in her head. “I am Raphael, the healer. Once I was Haurvatat, a feminine spirit.” “Are you here to help me?” “Yes. You have an important role to play.” “Are you going to make me better?” “Yes, but you have challenges ahead. You are a prophet, someone who sees the truth. But you are a child, so no one may believe you.” “I don’t want to be a prophet.” “It is your destiny.” Tears formed in Isabel’s eyes. Raphael moved his wings and edged closer to her. His illuminated eyes grew brighter and were circled by auras of rainbow light. He rested his hands on her shoulders. The drugs in her system became inert and she blinked her eyes, seeing the world with clarity. Her anxiety and weariness faded. “Am I better? Am I normal?” Isabel asked. “You are better, but you will never be normal. Rest now and get your strength back. I will see you again in your dreams.” Isabel lay back on her bed, as the angel asked, and soon fell asleep. That night, as her body lay resting in her bed, Raphael took her dreaming consciousness up to the part of the night sky where the moths go, when they are not drawn to human lights to die.

The plants carry us over the threshold of initiation. - Interview with Juan Ríos

INSIDE THE GEODESIC dome at the Colombian botany center, Bonnie held the spiny rat tenderly in her hands. The voice of Julia Santos, director of the experimental plant ecology program, came over the intercom. “Bonnie, please put on your gloves.” She ignored her and calmly carried the animal forward to the brush. The dome reached more than fifty meters tall and held a great variety of plants and an artificial stream. It was built around two existing Brazil nut trees, and other grown trees were brought in by truck. Bees captured in the jungle were introduced to pollinate the nut trees, and mature fruit was now ripening on the branches. The scientists planted seedlings around the trees—close enough for contact via the fungi mycorrhiza network underground or chemical signals through the air—both measured by sensors in the greenhouse. They aimed to test whether mother trees consciously nurtured their young. The experiment already had exciting results. Using automated shades on the greenhouse roof, the scientists deprived the seedlings

of sunlight, yet they remained healthy. Radiation injected into the mature tree, harmless to the plant, was detected in growing levels in the seedlings, indicating that the mother tree was responding to the distress of her young by elevating nutrient transfer through fungi. Remarkably, the mother tree also shed some leaves at the place where she was blocking the sunlight. The introduction of the spiny rat into the experiment was intended to test plant reactivity even further. Bonnie placed the animal on the ground. It turned its head and looked back at her inquisitively, and then ran into the undergrowth. This breed ate the leaves of nut tree seedlings. Bonnie returned to the control room and sat down with Julia and two other scientists. The hungry spiny rat hid for a time and then emerged into the open to head to one of the seedlings. “Plants have defenses they activate when under attack from insects,” Julia said. “Like chemicals released to alert predators that caterpillars are available for a meal. Mammals are thought to be safe from such defenses. It’s because we’re more recently evolved.” The spiny rat started eating the leaves of one of the seedlings. Within a few minutes, half the leaves were gone. Suddenly, one of the baseball-sized fruits of the mother tree struck the ground hard close to the rat, which darted back into the undergrowth. Dr. Santos looked at Bonnie and smiled. “Don’t get too excited, Bonnie,” she said. “The trees have been naturally shedding fruit for weeks. After ten minutes, the spiny rat cautiously returned to the seedling it had been eating. As soon as it climbed onto the plant, another fruit rocketed down from the sky, striking even closer this time. The animal raced away again. “Wow,” Bonnie said. “Could the tree be reacting?” “It would be extraordinary,” Julia said. “It would mean it could drop nuts at will.” “Even if it could, how would it know?” Bonnie asked. “Plants don’t have a nervous system. How can they have intelligence? How

can they be conscious?” “We are forward-thinking scientists here,” Julia said. “Conscious- ness is not created by the nervous system. It is a force that exists in everything, and is what gives the universe its form out of probability. Our nervous system is a receiver of this consciousness. Our brains filter it and allow us to function in a more individualistic way that is essential to our survival. But the mind is a double-edged sword. People can get lost in their minds, and live at odds with the real flow of their lives. Plants do not have that issue. Without nervous systems, they exist in the realm of pure consciousness.” “It must be nice,” Bonnie said. “Plants’ consciousness is in perfect alignment. Theirs is a world of interconnection and peace. They have a lot to teach us about cooperation. Hopefully, you will get to experience some of their consciousness in the ceremony tonight. Bonnie felt a jab of fear to be reminded that her first Ayahuasca ceremony was that night. For the last three days, she had been on a simple vegetarian diet, to prepare her body for taking the medicine. She was anxious about what the experience might bring, but knew she needed healing. The trauma of finding Luis murdered was still with her all the time. She told Carmen how she was afraid to revisit the memories, but Carmen told her not to worry. She said that the medicine was gentle, and would only show her what she needed to see. Anyway, she said, it was ok to be afraid. The experience might be an exercise in overcoming fear, with benefits to her day-to-day life. “I’m nervous that the ceremony will be hard, Julia.” “That’s what you are after. You will be letting go of negative parts of yourself, and that can be difficult. You’ll be thankful by the time it’s over.” The spiny rat, abandoning the seedling, hid for a time and then emerged near the other mother tree, which was also surrounded by its young. It started eating one of its seedlings, and soon a nut came

down again and sent the animal running. “It must be the trees,” Bonnie said. “We will take a look at the nut stems to see if it is even physically possible.” “It seems like too much of a coincidence otherwise,” Bonnie said. “Synchronicity happens. It has interfered with our findings before. Like the universe is having a joke with us.” “What causes it?” “Synchronicity is consciousness ordering reality, like how water freezes into patterns. We don’t understand the source. It could be us, it could be the trees, it could be God. It could be everything at once.” “It must be a problem for objective experiments,” Bonnie said. “Synchronicity is a variable to consider. We have to think about our own state of mind, as the observers.” Bonnie thought of the turmoil churning in her own head. “Maybe I’m responsible.” “Synchronicity is a good thing to experience,” Julia said. “People undergoing psychological healing often perceive more synchronicities.” They watched the spiny rat return from the undergrowth again, threaten a seedling, then get frightened away by a falling fruit once again. “That’s enough for now,” Julia said. “We don’t want to hurt the rat. Also, you should rest before the ceremony.” She handed Bonnie the net to catch the animal, but she didn’t need it. The spiny rat let her lift it up out of the undergrowth and carry it back to its cage.

AT SUNSET, THE people of the Centro gathered in a wood structure by the edge of the river for the ceremony. The building was a type of longhouse known as a maloca, with a thatched roof and single room

open to the elements. Carmen directed Bonnie to a place next to her, on a mat across from where Juan Ríos—the shaman—was going to sit. The mats were spread out evenly—a couple of meters apart—to ensure people had an individual experience. “Since it’s your first time, Juan wants to keep a close eye on you,” Carmen said. Bonnie brought a water bottle and a blanket to keep warm as the evening cooled. She placed them beside her mat and leaned her back against the wall. Her heart beat strongly in anticipation. She looked at the people seated on mats around her to see if they were as nervous as she was. Half of the attendants were patients who had come to the Centro for treatment of psychological ailments like anxiety, depression, and trauma. She knew some of them. They all seemed calm to Bonnie tonight. They told her they were grateful to Ayahuasca for its healing. A man across the room met Bonnie’s eyes. He was a Western- trained psychiatrist studying the effects of the plant medicines. He smiled gently. Bonnie realized that he considered her a patient at the Centro too. She supposed Carmen did too. Julia arrived with three other members of the experimental plant ecology team. A farmer, his wife, and teenage son followed them in, and found places. Juan entered the maloca just as the sun was setting below the rainforest canopy. He was wearing a kushma, which was an Asháninka robe with multi-colored stripes. “The three stars on his headband represent Mercury, Saturn, and Jupiter,” Carmen said. His two assistants carried buckets, which they handed out to the participants in case they needed to purge. Carmen explained to Bonnie that she shouldn’t be afraid of vomiting. It meant that negative energy was leaving the body and she would feel better afterward. “Buenas tardes, Maestro,” Carmen said as Juan walked to his place. He smiled shyly at the greeting.

Carmen had told Bonnie all about him. He was nearly seventy— although he looked younger. He had been drinking Ayahuasca several times a week since he was ten years old, as was the tradition of healers in his tribe. His tribe had resisted conquest for centuries, and so formed an unbroken link with the wisdom of the past. He traveled widely and believed it was his personal mission to bring plant healing to the world. This was why he agreed to leave his center in Peru for a six-month commission at the Centro. He sat down and lit a cigar of ceremonial tobacco. He blew the smoke into a bottle holding the Ayahuasca. The medicine was a blend of the vine that the Red Jay tended, and chacruna, a dimethyl- tryptamine-containing plant that also grew at the Centro. He poured the tea into a small cup that his assistants handed out to the people one by one. When it was Bonnie’s turn, she closed her eyes and made a silent prayer for a positive experience, and then drank the thick liquid down. After drinking, the attendants sat silently in the growing darkness. Bonnie listened to the river running through the forest nearby. After twenty minutes, Juan began singing icaros in Asháninka to call up the plant spirits. In the light of the crescent moon, Bonnie could see the other participants in the maloca. Some were lying down under their blankets. Carmen was sitting up with her eyes closed and her face relaxed in peace. She was wearing white, like many others there, so that the spirits could find her. The rhythmic and repetitive songs brought up hallucinogenic visions for Bonnie. Beautiful geometric shapes appeared before her eyes—a pattern of overlapping circles that looked like flowers. Gold- en wheels spun around her. She became hyperaware. A block in her mind released and her senses were flooded with information. She felt the rotation of the Earth. She felt the building swaying gratefully on its support beams. She looked at the people around her and saw them as vibrating

strings of multi-colored energy. There were golden strings reaching between them and out of the top of their heads into the sky. Juan Ríos met her eyes, and she was connected to him by a golden vibrating string. She understood that human beings are all connected to each other and the universe, and all is one. The vision seemed more real than the reality she knew before. She sensed an alien presence at the ceremony. Her left hand began to shake uncontrollably, as if signaling to the entity she was there. Her hand had shook like this before and she never understood why. It was her mark, she realized now. It was even echoed in her last name: Delamarca. It was a French name but had a meaning in Spanish: “Of the mark.” She looked at the part of the room where she sensed the presence, and saw a human-like figure of light gradually materialize. Glowing blue embers rose from the form and drifted across the room to land on Bonnie’s skin. Wings grew around the figure and shook themselves out, growing larger. It was a woman, with two eyes shining with white light and a third eye on her forehead shining red. All three eyes gazed at her, and each eye was an abyss. Bonnie recoiled in fear and felt the need to purge. She groped around for her bucket, finding it just in time. She wretched into the bucket. A dark fizzy liquid came out, mostly water because she had not eaten since lunch. She saw steam rising up from the black hole of the bucket, and wondered if it was bad spirits being expelled. Her stomach settled, and she took a deep breath and found the courage to look up again. The bright light emanating from the entity’s form dimmed to a gentle blue light, like dusk on a sum- mer night. She smiled at Bonnie and barriers fell in her mind. She remembered myths she didn’t know she knew. The entity was many things. She was Ameretat, the ancient archangel of life. She was Isis, the Egyptian goddess of nature and magic. She was Sophia, the personification of wisdom. She was Mary, mother of God. She was Pachamama, the Inca goddess of Earth and

time. She was the light of the Shekhinah, the female presence of God from Judaism. Around the angel spun a ring of swaying leaves and vines like a mandala. She was Mother Earth. She was life’s hearts together. “There is no need to be afraid,” Ameretat said in her head. “The world shifts toward the good. You are playing a role. You are a protector of La Cana. What happens there is meant to happen. This story has been unfolding for a long time. Balance is returning to the world.” The light of Ameretat faded away, and Bonnie found herself with just the people again under the pale illumination of the moon. Juan sang songs of gratitude in Spanish to the plants. Bonnie grew introspective, and her fears rose to be dissolved in the pure consciousness. She perceived how the events in her life were all part of a larger story. She understood how through everything she was propelled along a path, how one thing happened because of another. She suffered loss because it was required for the journey. She saw the face of Luis like in a dream, and he was smiling at her. Insights struck inside Bonnie like tuning forks. There was a proper alignment to the universe, and the plants were teaching it to her. The world was changing. The future shone like a gem. She was a player in the transformation. She was exhilarated and laughed out loud. It was a great honor and a joke at the same time. For the first time since the attack at La Cana she felt at peace.

Non-violence is the narrow path to victory. - Imogen Greene, social media

A NEW YORK subway train came upon Imogen and Neil with little warning as they walked the track between the Bowling Green and Wall Street stations at two am. The tracks rattled and they dashed forward down the tunnel, searching with their flashlights for a recess in the wall built for track workers to take shelter. They found one just as the train turned the corner. They crowded into it and switched off their flashlights. Neil closed his eyes as the train raised a dusty wind onto their faces. The roar of the train was deafening, like the sound of the IED that tossed his truck into the air in Afghanistan. It brought a flashback. He hung upside down by his seatbelt in the exploded vehicle. Through the smoke, he saw the blood of five men mixed with charred and twisted metal. Pete Velazquez was crumbled on the roof of the truck, trembling like he was freezing. “Are you ok, Neil?” Imogen asked. The train was gone and they were still standing close in the track shelter. “Neil?”

“I’m ok,” he said. “Do you think the conductor saw us?” He stepped away from Imogen and back onto the track. “He looked like he was reading a newspaper to me, but maybe. Let’s keep moving in case they send someone down here after us.” She continued down the track ahead of him. Her angular shoulder blades stuck out around the straps of her tank top like wings. Her flashlight shone through the beams of the tunnel and made shifting shadows on the walls. They were on an exploratory mission to a switching station that controlled the subway line. It was Neil who conceived of the subway operation. He said Omega would not succeed without it. According to his plan, on the day of Omega, the Invisible Army would spread rumors of terrorist attacks in Manhattan and shut down subway lines to create panic. The chaos would aid operatives infiltrating targets throughout the city. The Invisible Army’s leadership council approved his plan in a split decision. Despite being undercover for Imogen’s father, Neil wanted Omega to succeed. He kept Danny’s involvement secret from Elliot. He found the Invisible Army’s progressive views repugnant, but he saw eye-to-eye with them on how war and corporate conspiracy damaged America. Yet the revolution was not going to be what they expected. He was the only one who saw all of the puzzle pieces. He had no master—not Imogen, Ray Jansen or Elliot Greene—but he was going to use them all to stop the war. Then he could finally put the ghosts of his dead comrades to rest. They continued down the track. The subway was a leaky, anti- quated underground. There was a hidden world of service tunnels, underground offices, storage rooms and abandoned areas that com- muters never saw. Some of the technology was over one hundred years old, and the MTA struggled to keep up with maintenance. Elec- trical systems shorted out in rainstorms and wires were chewed by rats. They reached the signal room. There was a padlock on the door

that looked like it dated from the 19th century. Neil pulled a wrench out of his backpack and hit it three times until the lock broke. The sound of him striking metal against metal echoed through the tunnel. He pulled open the door, and a cloud of dust billowed out. Imogen took photos of the electronics and wiring in the room. Neil noted the make and models of the switching equipment and sketched a diagram of the wiring. Imogen took photos of his notes. After twenty minutes, they were done. They closed the door and left it unbolted. They took the broken padlock with them so that if any maintenance workers came to the room they would think that the lock had been misplaced, rather than broken. Two hundred yards down the track toward Wall Street, Neil dropped the padlock, wrench, and his notes down a storm drain. Imogen pulled the memory card out of the camera she had been using and slid it into a hidden pocket in the waist of her jeans. She put a new memory card into the camera that held a few random personal photos, in case they were picked up on their way out of the tunnel. They didn’t encounter any more trains. The light of the Wall Street station eventually came into view and they made their way cautiously to the edge of the platform, without stepping into the light. “See anyone?” Imogen whispered. “There is a man on the bench on the other track, about halfway down the platform. Do you see?” He had a dirty blanket wrapped around him. He was leaning awkwardly on the bench that had been designed with seat dividers to discourage the homeless from lying down. He turned around to face them. “I thought it was Jack for a second,” Imogen said. When Jack went missing, Imogen hoped he had gone underground, but Neil knew that he was dead. Neil was the one who told Jansen where Jack was staying. He was sorry to give him up—

Imogen said he was the soul of the Invisible Army—but more lives would be sacrificed before this thing was through. Other than the homeless man, the subway platform was empty. They were still in the dead of night before the early rush hour began. They stepped onto the platform and dusted themselves off as they walked toward the subway exit. Neil wiped a smudge of dirt off Imogen’s cheek. They were about halfway down the platform when a pair of policemen emerged. Imogen took Neil’s hand and they walked toward the cops. The cops were on a patrol, and they gave them a hard look. Neil and Imogen had worn dark clothes but dirt and dust from the subway tunnel was still visible. Neil watched Imogen muster her best over-privileged, rich girl glare and stare the cops down, daring them to say anything. They decided it wasn’t worth it and let them pass. Out on the street, the financial district was a ghost town. They walked down a side street of old cobblestones that were slick from the light rain that was falling. Imogen’s green eyes were luminous in the streetlights. Neil found her attractive in a New York City sort of way. Despite Jansen’s order to not lay his hands on her, he wished it could happen, but she was with Danny. The thought of their black and white flesh together made his blood rise. He wondered if Imogen was romancing a black man as an act of rebellion against her father. Perhaps Omega was just one giant rebellion against Elliot. Well, everyone has his or her own reasons, he thought. As they said goodbye, Neil saw the faces of his dead friends again, floating in the air, forming an opaque layer over reality. He blinked hard and they disappeared. He watched Imogen walk away. Soon she will see how far he’ll go to make the revolution succeed. He hoped that one day she would understand why he did what he did.

Earth is the spirit world, and has always been. Humanity has forgotten this but we are remembering. - Journals of Jack Palehorse

JACK WAS IN his hospital bed in the Bronx, lost in his eternal dream of clinging to a cliff’s face over the sea, when there was a flash in the blue sky. He pulled on a stalk of grass that held, and then another, and then suddenly he was standing on solid ground atop the cliff’s edge. At long last, the dream changed. He looked toward the tree line of the forest. The plants were swaying, inviting him forward. He took another two steps and his feet left the ground. He was flying. He rose over the top of the rainforest canopy, with his feet swinging high over the treetops. He was close enough to the trees to hear the rustling of the leaves and the calls of birds inside. He was drawn deep into the rainforest. A grassy hill overlooking the jungle came into view. He descended to the ground to stand on his own feet again. He was not alone. Fifty meters up the hill there was a blurred white shape. His brain strained to process what he was seeing. It was

a flock of white doves, gathered on the ground to feed. Then it was a swarm of fluttering white moths. Then his sight reached another level of perception. A towering angel stood on the hill. In the dream, Jack knew the angel’s name. It was Michael, of the terrifying grandeur. Jack floated up the hill, and his feet touched down beside the angel. A golden light emanated from the center of Michael’s chest. Jack saw a multitude of black-domed eyes open across his body, but none of them looked to him. The angel seemed oblivious of his presence. Michael raised his muscular arms into the air. There were outlines of geometric shapes over everything: circles that intersected squares, spirals that cut across the sky, lines that connected all things to each other. As Michael moved his arms, the geometric grid shifted and turned. The angel seemed to conduct reality itself. The planet Jupiter crossed the sky with its many moons dancing around it. A crimson light appeared in the eastern sky. A form emerged and flew across the sky forcefully, like a jet on its approach to the runway. Jack found he knew the name of this angel too. It was Ahriman, burning in red light, the spirit of stone and mechanization, who wanted to turn the world to dust. His wings were twenty meters across, and his movement caused waves in the grid of the cosmos, like a shark bending the water surface before it breaks. Information flowed into Jack’s mind. It was anamnesis. He saw how the angels journeyed in synchronization with humanity through history, like two strings weaved together through time. He heard the words of the Qu’ran, describing Gabriel as having six hundred wings. He saw images of the Hindu god Varuna with his one thousand eyes. He saw a vision of Nonoma, the Thunderbird, from his Cheyenne religion. He was with René Descartes when an angel told him nature would be conquered through measure and number. He sat in Persia with Zoroaster, three thousand years ago, as the prophet conceived of the angels as players in a dualistic struggle between good and evil. Zoroaster imagined heaven and hell, and split creation in two. He

envisioned the apocalypse, and shattered cyclical time. As humanity trudged through linear time, Zoroaster’s dark angel Ahriman was triumphant, reducing people to machines and obscur- ing the spiritual nature of reality. Ahriman craved the peace of no-life and stood opposed to the other angels, who served life. The two forces were evenly matched on Earth. Only awakened human hearts would tip the balance. Michael turned his many deep black eyes upon Jack. “THE REUNION IS NEARLY AT HAND,” he said. Ahriman broke into a hundred red birds. Then a burst of rainbow light exploded out of the flock and rushed over Jack.

HIS EYES OPENED. He was in a hospital bed, with his chest wrapped in bandages. There was a respirator tube in his mouth. He lay there quietly for a time, thinking of the dream. He sat up and the stitches holding his chest together felt painfully tight. He pulled the tube out of his throat, and the respirator machine beeped in protest. It was the early morning. He leaned forward to the respirator machine with effort and switched it off. He remembered being taken by the men to the river, and how they beat him and stabbed him and left him to die. He felt the spot where the doctors temporarily removed part of his skull to allow his concussed brain to swell. His hair and beard were short after being shaved for his surgery. He swung his legs onto the floor and stood up. The blood rushed out of his head and he nearly passed out, but he kept on his feet. He pulled off the heart monitor and yanked the intravenous tube out of his arm. He stood in the darkened hospital room. Clothes were folded on a table in the corner of the room. He walked in small steps over to the table. He brought the clothes back to the bed to dress. It was a long process and he breathed heavily from the

exertion. His body urged him to lie down and go back to sleep, but he denied it. He walked across the room again, taking bigger steps this time, and it made his organs hurt. By the door, there was a tray of medical tools and he picked up a scalpel to cut off the hospital identification band he wore that said “John Doe.” He walked down a hallway that opened up into a larger room with administrative desks. There was a nurse sitting there working on a computer. The apparition of Jack suddenly appearing startled her. He walked toward the exit, and she opened her mouth to say something. Jack told her with his eyes that it was all right for him to leave. “Good luck,” she finally managed to say as the automatic door slid open. He walked down the sidewalk, moving through his pain. He reached an elevated subway station and slowly climbed the stairs. He needed to find Imogen and tell her what happened to him. He didn’t have any money and stood at the subway turnstile wondering what to do when a young man swiped him through. “Bless you,” Jack said. People kept their distance from him on the platform. He could feel a wet feeling in his shirt and knew his wound was bleeding again. A child who approached him was pulled back roughly by his mother. On the train, a woman leaned over him and asked him if he was all right. He nodded and she left him alone. At Union Square, he got off the train and climbed the stairs, resting every few steps. It was five avenues and five streets to Imogen. He shuffled down the street. His body pleaded for an opportunity to rest and to heal, but he kept going. He made it two avenues before a policeman stopped him. “You’re not looking too good there, buddy,” the cop said. “Shouldn’t you be in the hospital?” “I was in the hospital, but I left,” Jack responded hoarsely.

“Are you headed to a shelter?” the cop asked. “I am not homeless,” Jack said. “We’re going to have to search you.” Another officer appeared. “What did I do wrong?” “Injuries are an indicator of criminal activity.” The cop patted down Jack gingerly, looking for weapons and drugs. He was careful not to touch those places on his shirt where the blood showed through. “What is wrong with you? Are you sick?” “I was attacked.” “Let’s see your ID.” He knew that the cop intended to check for any outstanding warrants. But Jack had left his ID in the Inwood apartment when he went for a walk and Jansen took him. “I don’t have any ID. My name is Jack Palehorse.” “Well, Jack, are you aware that it is against the law to walk around New York City without identification?” Jack looked at him stone-faced. “You have two choices. Either you come down to the station for not having an ID, or you check into a homeless shelter and let the Department of Homeless Services sort you out.” “I am not homeless.” “Then you are going to have to come to the station.” The other policeman, who had been hanging back, stepped forward. He was older than the first cop. “Listen old man, just go to the shelter. We know you’re homeless. It’s written all over your face. You can check out of the shelter tomorrow.” Jack didn’t want to go to the police station. He was a convicted sex offender. He had slept at homeless shelters before. It would be all right. Tomorrow he would find Imogen. They took him to a paddy wagon parked on Sixth Avenue and opened the back. There were six men sitting on the benches. The cop

helped Jack up and then closed the back. They drove crosstown and then up the FDR Drive. The seven men in the back of the van hardly spoke, except for one who mumbled incoherently. From the RFK Bridge, the wagon took the exit for Randall's Island in the East River. The ramp looped down below the bridge and they drove on a road to Ward's Island. They stopped at a homeless shelter complex. The back of the wagon was opened and the men were told to get out. What remained of Jack’s strength was gone, but the man on the bench next to him helped him down. Jack stood on his own feet and walked with the other men to the shelter intake. He just had to make it to a bed, and then he could rest. Jack gave his name as “Jack Palehorse” when he checked in. The shelter administrator told him to go to the medical office. Instead, Jack climbed up to the second floor and found his bed among the hundreds in the room. A man in the neighboring bed shook his head and spoke to no one in particular. “I don’t want a dying man next to me.” Jack tried to speak, but he could not form the words. He lay on top of the sheets, with one of his legs hanging over the cot’s edge. He put his head back and fell unconscious.

HE WOKE UP that afternoon to find himself alone in the dormitory. The other men were at lunch. He was hungry and thirsty but too weak to rise. The men filtered back in. The neighbor who had complained about him before brought Jack a cup of water. He lifted his head up to give him a sip. “Take a drink, friend. You will not die today.” Jack lifted his hand to take the cup. His hands touched the brown

hands of the man, and together they tipped the cup. He took a long sip. He moved his lips and found that he could talk. “Thank you,” he said. “My name is Eddie.” “Jack.” He took another drink of water. It revived him. “Eddie, I am not going to die, and I am not going to stay here. Tomorrow I’m going to go back to the city.” Eddie laughed. “Unless you have cash you won’t be going back to the city anytime soon. You have any money?” Jack shook his head. “Only other option is in the morning when they hand out three hundred free bus cards for all seven hundred of us. But a new guy like you, who can barely walk on his own, don’t expect that you are going to get to the front of the line. You can try and beat the fare but they have undercover cops on the bus now. They don’t want us scaring away the tourists, so they try and trap us on this island.” Jack nodded his head. He should have known that all of his struggles were one. One victory makes another until the drama is won. The homeless cannot be denied. “I will lead the people here on a march to Manhattan,” Jack said. “Just like that. You can do that?” Eddie asked. Jack sat up straighter in his cot. “I will explain that we will save the world by saving ourselves. If people like us in this shelter can stand up, we can inspire other people to do the same, and then the whole world will change with us.” Some of the other men nearby started to listen. It was the sound of Jack’s voice that drew them in. It was a kind of voice that they had not heard in years. “Are you a preacher?” Eddie asked. “I preach the liberation of mankind.”

“The liberation of mankind,” Eddie repeated. “That’s going to begin now, here, with us?” “It is coming, with or without us.” “People here are beat down and afraid,” Eddie said. “It might be harder than you think to get them to join you.” “There is nothing to be afraid of anymore. All of this is meant to be.” With that, Jack’s head dropped back onto the bed. He spoke too long before he was ready. Eddie gave him another drink of water. Then he helped Jack up off the bed. “Let’s get you to the nurse,” Eddie said, “and then I want to hear more about saving the world.”

Nothing could keep Bonnie from the Red Jay and that was her burden. - Logan Wheeler, La Cana Anomaly

THE PEACE THAT Bonnie experienced during the Ayahuasca ceremony continued to blanket her consciousness the next day. She went for a walk with Carmen through the Centro de la Botánica’s fields. The leaves and flowers of the plants were more complex and colorful than she remembered. “It’s so beautiful here,” Bonnie said. “The medicine is still in your system,” Carmen said. “It’s showing you another way to see. You don’t have to give up seeing this way.” “I think I learned a lot of things last night." “I’m glad.” “The universe is following a plan. It’s not my fault that Luis died. Everything is going to be ok.” “It’s true. It can be hard along the way, but the light is always there, shining on us.” “I saw something like an angelic being.” “It’s not uncommon to experience entities during ceremonies. Usually, they are just a reflection of some part of yourself.”

“It felt so real.” “The meaning of visions is not always clear. It could be some time before you understand.” “She spoke to me. She called me the protector of the Red Jay.” They stopped to admire the cannonball trees, which were blooming with big orange and yellow flowers. “There may be a chance for you to see a Red Jay somewhere else,” Carmen said. “But I can’t promise anything.” The thought of seeing a Red Jay made Bonnie’s heart race. “How?” “I’m going into the field tomorrow, to collect plant samples. I’m hiking to a place I’ve been before, further up the river. I saw a Red Jay there once, a few years ago. I don’t know where it was nesting. I saw it flying in the sky. We can camp there for the night. It’s a beautiful spot, overlooking jungle-covered hills.” “It will be nice to be there with you,” Bonnie said, “even if we don’t see a Red Jay.”

THE NEXT MORNING, they drove west and then hiked for five kilometers along the banks of the Putumayo River. Bonnie helped Carmen to photograph plants and harvest samples along the way. Just before dusk, they reached the place where Carmen had once seen the Red Jay. Bonnie took her binoculars out and scanned the sky. The sky was alive with birds, but she saw no sign of a Red Jay. She sat down with Carmen to watch the sun drop below the canopy. The river lay below them down the slope. Ahead of them sat great green hills, nearly mountains in size, covered in ancient trees. As she and Carmen set up their tent, a smile lingered on Bonnie’s lips. “¿Que pasa?” Carmen asked.

“The forest is beautiful.” Carmen admired the sunset. “Yes, it is,” she said. “With or without the Red Jay.”

IT WAS A clear night and they unzipped a flap on top of the tent, so they could look at the stars. The Milky Way was dense in the sky. Bonnie moved closer to Carmen and laid her head on her pillow. They breathed in the cool, pure air. “Things are changing in the world,” Carmen said. “I think the plants are helping us, and not just in ceremonies. Humans are realizing that we are all part of a system on this planet. The Earth is calling on us to become caretakers.” Bonnie felt love rising in the night, as if it was flowing out of Carmen’s heart and into her own. “Everything is good,” Bonnie said. “The forest will reclaim the land. The Red Jay will survive.” Carmen took her hand. “I am becoming enamored with you, Bonnie Delamarca.” Bonnie didn’t respond, but edged closer to her. They listened to the calls of the nocturnal jungle animals. They felt like the last people on Earth. “How does that make you feel, to hear me say that?” Carmen asked. Bonnie wanted to be honest with her, so she said what she felt, even though it might ruin the mood. “My last girlfriend said being in love with me was like watching a lost balloon disappear into the sky. It makes me a little worried for you.”

AT DAWN THE next morning, they hiked hand in hand back to the car. They were silent for a long time as they drove along the bumpy highway. Finally, Bonnie gave a long sigh and spoke. “Maybe I could start a non-profit in memory of Luis. I could get grants to go back to La Cana.” “That’s not a bad idea, but it can’t be anytime soon. It’s too dangerous there. In the future, maybe it will be different.” “In the future, the Red Jay may be extinct.” Carmen was quiet. Bonnie knew she was right. “I know it’s not realistic, Carmen. In the best-case scenario, I won’t get funding for months. By that time, my Colombian work visa will probably be revoked, if it isn’t already.” “Let’s take this one day at a time. We can go to my family’s ranch tonight. You need a chance to relax. My mother will make a feast and we can go horseback riding tomorrow. It’s not far from here.” “I would like that,” Bonnie said. She put her arm around Carmen as they drove. They were sixty kilometers from Carmen’s hometown when Bonnie saw an exit sign for road she knew went past La Cana. “Are we close to La Cana?” she asked. “Yes, close. Twenty kilometers.” Bonnie considered asking her to stop the car and let her out. She only had the supplies she brought for this excursion, and they were low on food and water. Anyway, Carmen would never let her go, and she didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to say goodbye to her. She would find a legitimate way back to La Cana someday. She looked out the window and up to the treetops, searching for a glimpse of the Red Jay. It might be the last time that she saw one. There was just a single white cloud in the sky. At that moment, Carmen’s truck underwent multiple catastrophic failures. It was a well-serviced vehicle that was only a few years old, but nothing can survive bad strokes of luck inflicted repeatedly. In a one in a million outcome, the right front wheel struck a

pothole, sending a shockwave to the axle, which caused the steel to split along a flaw in its manufacturing. The broken axle spun around a dozen times, held together by centrifugal force, and then one jagged end tore up the underbelly of the car. The other end of the broken axle slammed into the pavement and shattered further, sending shrapnel back to pierce the right rear tire. This happened in an instant, and then Carmen was driving the vehicle on just one functional wheel. She was driving faster than she should have on the rough road, seventy kilometers an hour, and she could not stop the truck from veering sharply. The centrifugal pull on the vehicle was terrifying, like a rush of wind wrought by an angry god. Bonnie screamed and the truck caught the slope of a tree trunk and flipped, just as the road was beginning a decline. The truck rolled down the hill. The moment slowed in time for Bonnie. On the first roll, the windows smashed, and Carmen’s head struck the pavement. On the second roll, Bonnie was thrown out of the passenger window. She cleared the metal frame of the window and flipped head over heels through the air. She narrowly missed a tree branch and landed on her back in a bush. The truck rolled on, finally coming to a stop one hundred meters down the road. Bonnie lay on her back, gasping for air. The wind was knocked out of her and she worried her back was broken. Finally, the air returned. She made an accounting of her body and found no source of serious pain. She sat up. Her back was ok. She looked at her arms. There were a few light scratches and that was all. She stood up and found she could walk. The truck was sitting upright but was thoroughly wrecked. White smoke flowed out of the smashed hood. She found Carmen sitting peacefully in the driver’s seat with her eyes closed. She was gone. Tears welled in Bonnie’s eyes. She kissed Carmen’s cheek and tasted blood. She backed away from the vehicle and sat down on the

highway tarmac with her head in her hands. She finally stood up again and went back to the vehicle to search the wreckage for Carmen’s mobile phone. She found it on the road, broken into pieces. She looked up the highway in either direction. There was no movement, no vehicles approaching. A few hundred meters up the road, she saw the exit sign for the road to La Cana. She spotted her backpack at the side of the road. It had been tossed undamaged from the car too. This was not a coincidence. Her destiny was with the Red Jay and she could not deny it. She should have begged Carmen to let her out of the car. Maybe the accident never would have happened if she did. It was like a curse, she thought, but not on her, only on people that got close to her. Bonnie pulled Carmen out of the car, and laid her down in front of it. She covered her with a blanket. The next vehicle that came along the highway would find her. She stumbled back down the highway toward the road to La Cana, with tears flowing down her cheeks. She needed to be alone with the Red Jay and its enemies. No more innocent people had to die.

Earth is our mother. Jupiter is our father. - Writings of Isabel Fitch

THE GENERAL ELECTION campaign was in full swing, but Gloria still managed to make it home to Salt Lake City every night or two to see her family. Being with Isabel now that she was doing better was more precious than anything, and Gloria limited travel to the East Coast so that she would be closer to Utah. Isabel was two weeks without a seizure. She arrived home in her motorcade from the airport just before midnight. Jenny and Isabel were in bed, and Gloria stood at Isabel’s door for a time, watching her sleep. Isabel had a little smile on her face as she dreamed. She had not felt such hope for her daughter in a long time. The next morning, Gloria rose from bed while Aaron slept and went to Isabel’s room. She was awake and sitting at the plastic table by her bed, drawing with crayons. “Hi Isabel,” she said and leaned down to hug her. “Hi Mommy.” Gloria looked at what she was drawing. It was the planet Jupiter,

complete with rainbow-colored bands and the Great Red Spot. Isabel only took up drawing in the last month. She seemed incapable of it before. Most of her drawings were rudimentary sketches of the red bird and a blond-haired girl that she dreamed of every night. This drawing was of a strikingly higher quality than anything she had done before. “Isabel, that’s wonderful! Did you learn to draw Jupiter in school?” “No, Mom.” She finished filling in the Great Red Spot and then put down the crayon. “I dreamed about it last night. I went there.” “Wow. Can we put this on the fridge?” “Ok,” Isabel said and smiled with pride. Gloria knew it was an emotion that she had not felt for a long time. Isabel jumped up from the desk and ran to show her dad the Jupiter drawing. “Look Dad!” Aaron sat up and took the paper from her. He put on his reading glasses and turned on his bedside lamp. He was speechless. “This is incredible,” he finally managed to say. Gloria leaned in the doorway beaming. “I’m so proud of you,” he said and hugged Isabel. She seemed lighter on her feet, like she was a new person. “Let’s go have breakfast,” Gloria said. They woke up Jenny, and then she and Isabel ran down to the kitchen. Their parents followed after them hand in hand. “Do you know what Jupiter means, Gloria? Astrologically speaking?” “I don’t,” she said. “It means luck and expansion. It’s perfect. The miracle we were hoping for has happened. Isabel’s getting better fast. Her consciousness is growing.” “I hope you’re right.” When they got to the kitchen, they found Jenny on the counter,

pulling the ingredients to make pancakes off the shelves. Aaron opened the front door open and then returned to the kitchen with a newspaper. He put it down on the counter and Gloria read the headline. “Caliphate Makes Military Incursion Into Jordan; Six Fighters Killed.” The news broke the peace of the morning. “Things are escalating,” Gloria said. “We will invade,” Aaron said. “A full-blown war.” “Looks that way,” she said. Isabel was standing looking up at them, listening to her parents speak. “War is wrong,” she said. Gloria was surprised to hear her interject. Isabel had never shown interest in adult talk before. “Why do people have to hurt people?” Isabel asked. “Sometimes our soldiers have to go to war to protect us from the bad men who want to hurt us,” Gloria said. “Maybe they won’t hurt us if we leave them alone,” Isabel said. Gloria was not going to argue with her daughter. It was wonderful to just hear her speak so well. “Maybe you’re right,” she said.

ISABEL’S JUPITER DRAWING inspired Aaron to plan a family outing to the Arthur C. Clarke Planetarium downtown. From a political standpoint, the visit would show Gloria’s dedication to science. She had run as a religious fundamentalist in the bruising primary campaign, and needed to shed that image in the general election. At the same time, she could put to rest rumors about Isabel’s declining health, which President Water cruelly suggested was a potential dis- traction. Aaron went online and saw that there was a planetarium show

called “Our Living Solar System.” He bought tickets. The Fitch family exited their SUV at the entrance of the Clarke Planetarium within a phalanx of Secret Service officers. Sharpshoot- ers positioned on roofs above scanned the area in their gun sights. There was a police helicopter in the air, and two Secret Service drones hovered above the street. Before they stepped inside, the Fitch family turned to wave at the campaign press photographers. Isabel stood tall and smiled widely. She was happy to be out like a normal girl. Jenny was holding her hand. They beamed together in the sun. They walked into the planetarium. In the center of the lobby, there was a hanging sphere upon which a 365-degree image of Jupiter was projected. The line holding the sphere was so thin that it gave the illusion of Jupiter being a holographic image. “Look!” Isabel said and let go of her mother’s hand to run and take a closer look. Jenny followed her. The girls leaned over the guardrail. Isabel fixed her eyes on the planet looming before her. Jenny soon became bored and wandered back to her parents, but Isabel intently watched it slowly rotate. The Great Red Spot appeared from the other side. It was like an eye meeting Isabel’s stare. Gloria put her arm on her daughter’s shoulders. “It’s time to go to the movie, honey.” Isabel waited a few more moments until the Red Spot disappeared again. “Ok, Mom.” The Fitch family was led to their seats in the theater and handed 3D glasses. Isabel and Jenny put them on and made faces at each other. Gloria and Aaron said hello to the people sitting around them. It didn’t feel like a campaign event. The Fitches were like family to the people of Salt Lake. There was no question that Gloria would win by a landslide here. The film started suddenly with the burning sun rising with a roar up the four-story screen. After the sun, the film took them on a

three-dimensional tour of the planets, the asteroid belt, and the far Kuiper belt where dwarf planets like Pluto reside. The journey ended with an approach to Earth. “Life flourishes on Earth because our planet sits in the so-called hospitable zone—the ideal distance from the sun—neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to persist on our planet’s surface. While life is theorized to be able to develop in more inhospitable conditions, our planet’s Goldilocks position in the solar system allows it to be a paradise of biological diversity. Compared to many other suns, ours is stable and long-lived, which has allowed the evolution of complex human life. “But human life on Earth does not just have our planet and our sun to thank for our existence. We would not be here today if it were not for Jupiter, Saturn, and the moon.” A giant gas planet appeared. It looked like Jupiter with its horizontal bands of colored gas, but there were more storms. A dozen Red Spots raged across the visible face. “Early in the history of the solar system, Jupiter is theorized to have roamed the inner solar system like a wrecking ball, destroying early rocky planets. At the time, Jupiter was in a slow motion death spiral with the sun, drawn closer and closer by the currents of gas that flowed in the early system. “In most other solar systems with Earth-like planets, the rocky planets are found too close to the sun to harbor life. Jupiter smashed these protoplanets into each other, and from the debris Earth and the other inner planets formed. Jupiter pulled in comets that brought water to Earth. One of the early planets that Jupiter may have dislodged was a Mars-sized planet that crashed into the proto-Earth over four billion years ago.” Isabel gasped at the 3D representation of the violent collision. “The destructive event changed the course of Earth, eventually creating conditions ideal for life. The cataclysm blew off Earth’s thick Venus-like atmosphere, which might have suffocated life. It strength-

ened Earth’s nickel–iron core, which is responsible for the magnetic field that protects us from the sun’s deadly radiation. It smashed the Earth’s crust, which led to the formation of the tectonic plates, bringing land to the water-covered planet and greater diversity of life. “But that was not the end of Jupiter’s gift to the Earth. The debris around Earth coalesced into the Moon. The gravity of the Moon slowed and stabilized the spin of the Earth, calming 500-mile-per- hour winds and extreme climate swings. The Moon brought the tides that make the oceans a dynamic place.” “Eventually, the gas that had drawn Jupiter into the inner solar system dissipated, and Saturn pulled Jupiter back out to its current position. A highly stable inner planetary system emerged, with Earth having a nearly circular orbit that protects our planet from violent temperature swings. “Life on Earth has benefited from a series of fortuitous events that made advanced life possible. Taken separately, each character- istic is highly improbable. Taken together, the probability is so small as to be effectively impossible. What occurred was a miracle of chance, or a miracle of God.” The film ended with a family sitting by a campfire and looking up at the night sky. “Don’t forget to thank the lucky Jupiter next time you see it in the night sky. You wouldn’t be here without it.” When the lights came up, Gloria asked Isabel how she enjoyed the movie. “I liked it, Mom. Now I know why the angel showed me Jupiter in my dreams.” “I liked it too, Izzie.” Gloria came here to show her respect for science, but she found the film faith-affirming. The series of unlikely events that led to perfect conditions for life on Earth only meant one thing to her: the universe was the product of intelligent design. “It’s like what the angel told me, Mommy. It’s all perfect. There is

nothing to be afraid of. Everything is working out as it should. The angel said that all we have to do is love.” Gloria had never heard Isabel speak words like these before. Maybe an angel really was speaking through her. Then her mind leaped to what this could mean: perhaps the angel was using Isabel to reach her. Because God wanted Gloria to bring peace. The thought brought her a pang of fear, because the war she promised was far from the way of peace.

I have lived many lives to arrive here, the place I am needed most. I am living the greatest life of my soul. - Journals of Jack Palehorse

JACK SPENT TWO days recovering in the second-floor dormitory of the Ward’s Island homeless shelter, attended by Eddie and the nurse. His stitches stopped bleeding and there was no sign of infection. Meanwhile, the shelter grew overcrowded. There were no more beds, so men slept on the ground. Food was scarce while the shelter awaited more supplies. Tempers flared and men fought and were arrested. On the third day, Jack was well enough to rise from bed. He shuffled around the room, talking to the men, learning their names and listening to their stories. He had a direct way of speaking that made them want to answer his questions. Most of the men were brought down by circumstances beyond their control. He told them that it did not need to be this way. He said they could change their lives just by becoming aware. They listened to what he had to say. They saw his scars and knew that he had it worse than them. Yet he still had hope. His deep-set eyes latched onto theirs and his rumbling voice shook them awake.

What he said had force. Every word he said changed the world a little bit, and sentences caused noticeable shifts. Eddie and two other men accompanied Jack outside to look for edible and medicinal plants. Christopher, a lanky man with dread- locks, helped him down the stairs. He told Jack that his words were like sparrows, flying about the room, clearing out the cobwebs and foul air. Walter, an old white man who had once worked on a farm, followed after them. He was a decade older than Jack, with wiry arms from a lifetime of labor. He said that alcohol took him to the streets, but the more he listened to Jack speak the less he wanted a drink. The grounds of the shelter were ill kept and overgrown with wild plants. “These are not weeds,” Jack said. “That is just a word that people use who don’t know the uses of plants. These plants are here to help us.” He showed them a waist-tall plant with dusty-looking leaves. “This is lamb’s-quarters. Most of the plant can be eaten. It’s less bitter in the spring, but it will still be good for us.” “Should I pull some up?” Eddie asked. “Yes, it will make us stronger. We can share it with the other men,” Jack said. He pointed at a lawn taken over by little green plants with yellow flowers. “Those dandelions can be eaten too. Roots and all,” he said. “They help balance people with diabetes.” “I’ll get them,” Christopher said. “Leave a few. It will help the plants grow back sooner.” “Right.” Walter spotted something and leaned down to look into the grass. “Any use for plantain, Jack?” He pointed at a leafy ground plant. “Yes, it can heal our wounds.” They gathered arms full of the plants and cleaned them with a tap outside. Then they went to the kitchen and made a salad while Jack ground the plantain into a salve. They headed back up to the second-

floor dormitory. Jack used the salve on his wounds and then shared it with two other men. As the salad was passed around, he walked to the center of the room. As always he was limping from his old knee injury. “You are not lost,” he said loudly so that everyone in the room could hear what he had to say. “There is a purpose to our suffering. Everything in life happens for a reason. Your lives are as important as any others.” The men looked up. Jack stood with his back to the window, where the sun was setting. His eyes glinted like diamonds within the halo of light. “None of you wanted to end up here. Maybe you have lived on the streets for years. Maybe you just found yourself there. All of you have probably asked at one time or another, why did this happen to me? Some of you may think you have the answer for this. Maybe you have done bad things. Maybe you have been in and out of prison. Let me tell you now that I have been a prisoner too, and sometimes good men are sent to prison while the worst men stay free.” “Amen,” Walter said. “Some of you are completely innocent and ask, ‘Why did life crush me down this way?’ All you ever wanted to do was work and live an honest life. Why did life take away your home and toss you like jetsam into the sea? When you look up at the sky and ask these questions, it is because you desire meaning in life. Listen up. I am here to tell you the meaning of your suffering.” “Tell it,” Eddie said. “When life tore you down it set you free. Life has been cruel, believe me I know, but it has brought you to this moment. You may not know it yet, but we stand on the brink of a new world. It’s going to be a world built on love. We will cooperate with the Earth and each other, because we are all one.” “That’s true,” said a new man who Jack hadn’t met. Jack walked to the foot of his cot.

“Do you feel things changing, friend? I call it the Invisible Revolution, because the news doesn’t report on it. The poor and dissatisfied are waking up, finding themselves together in the moment, and realizing that they can change the world, just by standing together. Humanity can’t be held back any longer. War and hunger don’t have to be. All men can contribute and make a life. Forget about the past. Forget the misery. The past is an illusion. The only thing that exists is the now. Take in the moment. We don’t have anything to lose anymore. We will rise to our life’s purpose. We will be our own redemption.” “We’re ready,” Christopher said. “In two days’ time, we will leave this prison and march on the city. Let everyone come. We’ll push people in wheelchairs if we need too. There are young people who will help us. They will bring signs and food and water for the march. They will broadcast to the world what we are doing. It may take all day to get there. We will show the world that we are awake.” “And what are we going to do after that, old man?” asked a man standing in the doorway. Jack squinted his eyes and saw that it was David Wescott, an ex-con who led the gang in control of the floor below. Wescott took over dispensing supplies and dictating sleeping arrangements while administrators looked the other way. He took a few steps into the room. “After the police arrest you and the television cameras go somewhere else, how will that be your great moment? When they take you to jail and you are even worse off than now?” “The revolution cannot be stopped,” Jack said. “In fact, it’s already happening. The question is, Where do you want to be when it goes pop? Do you want to be standing on your feet? Do you want to be part of it? The sight of our ragged army marching will be like a herald blowing. And once the horn starts blowing it's not going to stop.” Wescott shook his head. “Words like these always end with police

batons,” he said. “But lead your fools away if you wish. We could use the extra beds.”

THE PROTEST PLANS ended when Andrew Callahan, Chief Administrator of the shelter, handed out fifty photocopies of Jack’s sexual offender profile. As word spread, Jack sat on his cot in the corner of the second floor, flanked by Eddie, Christopher, and Walter. When Jack looked them in their eyes and swore he was framed for the sex assault, they knew it was true. Christopher said he had been framed before too. As a tall black man he stood out, and police tended to pick him out of the crowd when they needed a suspect. Whenever a man came closer, threatening Jack, Christopher stood up and forced him back. Just before dinnertime, a police officer walked to Jack’s bed and told him that the Chief Administrator wanted to speak with him. Eddie walked Jack through the room. Men cursed at him and called him a child molester. One man spat at him. The cop just smiled. Eddie helped Jack down the stairs and into Callahan’s office. “I’ll be right outside, Jack.” Callahan sat at his desk. He had a heavy frame and was balanced on his chair like a boulder. He gestured for Jack to take the seat facing him. He took a good look at Jack and shook his head. “Plenty of rough looking men have passed through these walls, Hobson, and you would feel at home among the worst of them.” “I wear my scars proudly.” “Then why did you check into my shelter under your alias?” “It’s my true name.” “It must have been disappointing to see your plans fall apart so quickly when the men learned that you were a dirty old pervert. I haven’t even told them that the child you molested was your own

daughter.” Jack was silent. He intended to withstand every trial inflicted upon him. “This place isn’t safe for you anymore. If somebody throws a punch at you, you’re going to fall apart. But the City of New York in its benevolence has agreed to help you. Tomorrow morning, we will be putting you on a flight back to Oklahoma. Maybe you still have some relatives there and you can persuade them to take you in. We’re even going to help you start a new life by giving you eight hundred dollars. How about that?” Jack shook his head. “No, thank you,” he said. “Listen, we offered David Wescott the same deal and he’s jumping on a plane tomorrow for Florida. I don’t have to tell you that New York is a hard place to be homeless. You would do much better back home on the range, Jack.” “Mr. Callahan, all I need is three dollars to take the city bus out of here.” Callahan sighed. “No, we don’t want someone like you wandering around the city, drawing attention to himself by standing on a soap box, and then grabbing tourist kids when no one is looking. If you don’t get on that plane tomorrow, I am going to call the District Attorney’s office and ask them to prosecute you for failure to register in New York as a sex offender.”

LATE THAT NIGHT, Eddie helped Jack through the darkened dormitory. Christopher held the stairway door open. He motioned for Jack and Eddie to hurry. The night security guard was in the bathroom. Jack moved slowly down the stairs, so Christopher lifted him in his arms. They stepped out of the front door to find a Department of

Homeless Services van idling. “The shelter isn’t going to miss the van until the morning,” Eddie said. “We’ll call them and tell them where it is.” He opened the passenger door and Christopher deposited Jack into a seat. Walter was at the wheel. He hit the gas. “I wasn’t going to let them take you,” Christopher said. “You saved me,” Jack said. “We believe in you,” Eddie said. “We are part of something bigger now. A revolution.” Walter drove the van up the entrance ramp onto the RFK Bridge. The Manhattan skyline came into view, lit up beautifully as if it was the best of times. The city was a place of fierce power. It couldn’t be conquered by force—only through love.

FARC can rise from its ashes. Every helicopter brought down will be a significant blow to the government. - Intercepted communication from FARC Commander Pablo Cañes

IT WAS AFTER midnight, and a FARC convoy roared down the road that led to La Cana National Park. Lieutenant José Vicente Humberto sat with his commander in an SUV that followed the lead pickup truck through the darkness. Not since a secret jungle rally in Ecuador years before were so many of FARC’s reconstituted Squad 24 together in uniform. The rebels rarely took to the open highways en masse anymore, even under the cover of darkness. Once they had controlled these roads, but then the US outfitted the Colombian Army with helicopters. FARC was driven deep into the jungle in the turning point in the long conflict. Their leaders made peace and Squad 24 put their uniforms away to focus on the drug trade. The revolution faded. The arms trader who gave them three kilos of cocaine in exchange for surface-to-air missiles was too dangerous to meet without a show of force. So Squad 24 traveled in a military convoy to make the trade. They prepared to engage any government forces they encountered

along the way. José found it exhilarating to be out in the open again like it was the old days. Only the lead truck had its lights on, so as to discourage interest by helicopters and surveillance aircraft. The convoy slowed. “¿Qué haces?” Commander Cañes barked into a walkie-talkie. What are you doing? “Una extranjero,” the driver of the lead truck responded. A foreigner. The convoy came to a stop. “I said stop for no one,” Cañes said into the walkie-talkie. “This is no time to trifle with hostages.” “This could be an ambush,” José said. He peered into the darkness. There was a blond girl standing at the edge of the pavement at the jungle line. There were splashes of blood on her clothes and her hair was matted. She was calm, like a ghost with nothing to fear from mortal men. “I think it may be La Bruja,” José said. “The one whose camp was attacked by the paramilitaries.” “Find out,” Cañes said. An urge to refuse the order flashed in the reptilian part of José’s brain, but he complied and opened the door. He drew his rifle and summoned four men out of the truck behind him with a hand signal. The disheveled foreigner stood calmly with her arms at her side as the soldiers fanned out. They searched the jungle on each side of the road and found no sign of an ambush. Then they shone their flashlights and rifles on her. What had kept José alive through many dangerous situations was his ability to register people’s capacity for violence, and to fight only when he could win. Bonnie had a power that he could not quite place, something held tight like a coil. Was it just a trick of the moonlight, or did a circle ring the ground where she stood, as if the dust feared her? José approached her with his palms facing up.

“Hola,” she said. “Good evening, señorita. We are FARC.” “I’m Bonnie.” “From La Cana?” “Yes.” “What are you doing here?” “I’m going back to La Cana.” “It’s a long walk from here.” “I know. Will you take me there?” José let a laugh slip. “You are brave to be willingly taken by FARC,” he said. “Wait.” He walked back to his commander’s vehicle. “La Bruja wants a ride back to La Cana,” he said. “If the stories are to be believed about how dangerous she is, perhaps we should shoot her dead now,” Cañes said. “Give the word.” “No. I am a rational man, and for that reason I accept that there are forces in the universe that I do not understand. It is surely a blessing or a curse to encounter the Canadian witch at this auspicious moment. FARC’s future hangs in the balance of whether or not we safely deliver these weapons to our base. We should tread carefully. We’ll take her to base and let General Silva decide what to do with her. Go sit with her in the last vehicle of the convoy.” José helped Bonnie up into the cab of the pickup truck. There was another soldier there, holding a heavy machine gun. She sat down on an ammunition crate, and steadied herself as the truck picked up speed. José sat down in the cab, seeking shelter from the wind. Bonnie sat up straight on the crate, and her loose hair blew away from her face. Her eyes focused on some steady point out in the dark, and she hardly moved as the truck jostled down the road. José found something otherworldly in her appearance. As the moonlight moved across her face, she seemed angelic in one moment and then demonic in the next. The other soldier in the back was

apparently less impressed because he moved toward her through the cab. He leaned forward and put his hand on the front of her shirt. Bonnie reacted quickly, kicking him in the chest and knocking him back. His shoulder hit the side of the truck bed, and he jumped back to his feet enraged. He pulled a long knife from his leg holster, and raised it to bring it down on Bonnie when he was struck in the head by a low tree branch. He would have been knocked entirely out of the truck if José hadn’t grabbed his pant leg and held him in. He was unconscious and an angry bump formed on his forehead. José laid him in a pile at the back of the truck bed and took his seat again. “Lo siento,” he mouthed to Bonnie.

AN HOUR BEFORE dawn, the convoy was a few kilometers from the dirt road that led to their headquarters when a Black Hawk helicopter reared up over the trees. Its blades thundered as it flew over the highway and out of sight. The convoy increased its speed. José cursed. The surface-to-air missiles were unassembled and packed away. He stood with his rifle pointed toward the sky, waiting for the helicopter’s return. Bonnie stood up too and rested her hands on the top of the truck cab, as if she was standing at a podium. “Get down,” José yelled, but she just looked forward into the sky. The highway curved to the east and the convoy came around the corner to find the Army helicopter hovering above the highway. Before the rebels could fire, the helicopter let loose with its heavy machine gun. Bullets lit with blue light pierced the walls of the trucks and shattered their windows. The drivers swerved to escape the barrage and then drove under the helicopter, which swung around to come after them. Miraculously, the only rebel who was hit was the unconscious

soldier who had assaulted Bonnie. His chest was torn open. José lay face down on the truck bed, his hands covering the back of his head. He looked up to see Bonnie still standing, but facing backward now toward the helicopter that trailed them. The helicopter fired a Hellfire missile, but it flew wildly away into the jungle and exploded. A second missile launched but its ignition sputtered and it dropped to the ground without exploding. The helicopter then accelerated to fire its machine gun again. José fired his automatic rifle in a steady stream. The helicopter was armored so as to withstand small arms fire, but it had its weak- nesses: joints and connection points where a bullet could cause major damage. Against the odds, one of the bullets struck the rear rotor blade and broke it off. The pilot lost control and the helicopter slammed into the highway tarmac behind them, exploding in a ball of fire. The rebels cheered. José stared at Bonnie in the growing light of the morning. She was still standing up in the bed of the pickup truck, and she was uninjured. Her blond hair whipped around her head like flames. She met José’s eyes and smiled. The driver of the convoy slowed and awaited further instructions. “Lieutenant,” said Cañes’s voice out of his radio. “Yes, Commander?” José said. “Escort Bonnie to the entrance to La Cana, and quickly. More Army will be coming soon.” José avoided Bonnie’s eyes as they drove ahead to La Cana. He suspected that her witchcraft saved their lives, but he was not so foolish to believe that she had any allegiance to FARC. The dead soldier that lay between them was proof of that.

Ahriman long sought to block the evolution of humanity. He fed on the despair of people who lived as unconscious fear machines. - Writings of Isabel Fitch

ISABEL’S MOM TUCKED her in and kissed her goodnight, but she couldn’t fall asleep. Her home was filled with strangers filming a television interview. There were so many people around her mom now that she might become President. Isabel turned on her bedside light and climbed out of bed. She sat down at her plastic tea party table to play with her solar system mobile, which her dad hung for her from the ceiling. She usually had no trouble falling asleep. The anti-seizure pills that her doctors gave her made her drowsy, like a deep fog had settled on the world, dimming light and muffling sound. She told her parents that she didn’t need the drugs because an angel protected her. But her mom said they couldn’t go against the nation’s best doctors. The seizures had stopped, but her dreams were scarier. The girl who studied the red birds was in a terrible car accident. After she told her parents about the nightmares her dad bought her the solar system mobile. He said it was better for her to dream of

Jupiter than the young woman in the jungle. Isabel rotated the planets with her hand. Earth and Jupiter were warm to her touch. Saturn and Mercury were cold. As she shifted the planets into certain configurations, the haze in her head lifted. Through trial and error, she adjusted the orbits until she found the alignment that felt best. Jupiter blocked Saturn from Earth’s per- spective, and Mercury was on the far side of the sun. She felt joy. A gust of wind blew through the bedroom, and the planets shifted out of alignment. Isabel put her face in her hands. She heard the sound of beating wings growing louder and louder, like they belonged to a dragon with a wingspan a hundred yards wide. The sound stopped and she opened her eyes. An angel was back in her room again. The other one she had seen was white, like the pictures at church, but this one was red. It looked like it was covered with the hair of a Raggedy Ann doll. The red angel shifted his feathers, and the white light of his core shined through the spaces. He drifted closer—his wings hissing as he moved—until he loomed over Isabel where she sat at her little table.

DOWNSTAIRS, THE TELEVISION interview of Gloria and Aaron was underway. They sat in front of their fireplace in chairs brought in by the news program, facing a network anchor. The election was five days away. Television lights shined down on them, and the cameras hummed quietly. The interviewer turned the discussion to foreign policy. “Our worst fears are coming true, Senator Fitch. Damascus is surrounded and Baghdad is threatened again. There have been incur- sions into Jordan and terrorist attacks from Europe to Asia. Coalition bombing has been unable to stop the Caliphate advance. Will we see a ground invasion under a Fitch administration?” One month before, Gloria would have considered this a softball

question. Her hawkish promises about expanding the war got her where she was. Another opportunity to talk about America fighting for freedom would only benefit her. But her opinion was shifting, like a giant steamship coming about. Isabel told her that love was all that mattered. She recognized the words of God from her transformed daughter. Gloria told her campaign manager about her doubts about the war. He pleaded with her to keep to the script until after Election Day. When she was President, he said, she could explore other solutions to the crisis. But saying what she believed was her way. She gave an enigmatic smile to the interviewer. “Nothing is set in stone, Brian. We must exhaust all diplomatic avenues before we send our soldiers to war.” “You have consistently pledged invasion before tonight, Senator Fitch. Have you changed your mind?” “I owe it to the American people to explore all possible options. I believe that is the duty of any responsible president.” As she finished her sentence, Gloria noticed that the lights shining on her and Aaron had taken a red tint. She wondered why the crew changed the lights in the middle of an interview.

UPSTAIRS, THE ANGEL’S words thundered in Isabel’s head. “I AM AHRIMAN.” The sound of his voice was like the vibration of a terrible machine. Isabel ground her teeth and wrung her hands together. A patch of feathers moved aside, revealing six wide black eyes. It was painful for Isabel to look into them. “Don’t hurt me,” she said in her thoughts. “THE ANGELS SAY YOU ARE IMPORTANT. A LEVER. SO YOU MUST WITHSTAND ME.” Isabel’s neurons fired frantically and her head throbbed with heat.

She recognized the feeling of a seizure coming, like a fire burning her away.

THE INTERVIEWER LEANED toward Gloria. “Senator Fitch, I need to push you further on this. No one on the Republican or Democratic side in this campaign has been as big a hawk as you. You speak of diplomacy, but no country has diplomatic relations with the Caliphate. Moreover, the United States has a long- standing policy not to negotiate with terrorists. How is a diplomatic solution even possible?” The lights shifted redder. Gloria took a breath. Something was wrong. She glanced at her advisors and the television crew and they didn’t seem bothered by the strange light. They were waiting for her to answer the question. “Brian, Jesus said ‘Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.’ While I will never compromise the security of United States, I will also never start a war without a diligent effort to avoid it.” At that moment, Gloria realized what was bothering her. There was something wrong with Isabel. She could not deny it. She stood up. “I need ten minutes,” she said. She took off her microphone and leaned down to Aaron to whisper in his ear. “I need to check on Isabel. Stay here. I’ll be right back.” He nodded. His face showed worry too. When Gloria reached the staircase, she saw that the red light came from the second floor. The people sitting on the stairs seemed oblivious of the glow. To Gloria, it was like someone had plugged a red-tinted bulb into the hallway light. Gloria froze as she reached the top of the stairs, feeling like her legs were stuck in concrete. She looked down the hallway and saw

that the red light was coming from under Isabel’s closed door. Something was hurting her daughter. She struggled to get her legs working again. Defying her fear, Gloria managed to take a step in the hallway. Then she took another step and another. She flung the bedroom door open and gasped at the sight of a demonic being hovering over Isabel. It was covered in crimson feathers moving in a furious blur. It looked like an autumn tree thrashing during a storm. Black eyes appeared amid the maelstrom and stared at her. She saw power and knowledge in the six eyes that she could not fathom. There was also a bottomless rage. She had to close her eyes. When she opened them again, the creature was gone. The red light faded and then the room went dark and cool. She ran to her daughter and hugged her. “Mommy,” Isabel said softly. “Are you ok, Izzie?” “It hurt.” Gloria brushed the hair away from her daughter’s forehead and kissed it. “Tell me everything again, Isabel. Tell me about the angels and the red bird and the girl in the jungle and everything else.”

La Cana is a sacred place. Woe to anyone who violates it. - Field notes of Bonnie Delamarca

BONNIE HAD RETURNED to La Cana. She crouched on a tree branch in the early morning sun, wearing shorts and a tank top with a scarf tied around her head. A rifle hung on her shoulder. The camp clearing was in view in front of her. When José, the FARC soldier, dropped her at the entrance to the park at dawn, she pulled the rifle off the dead rebel in the back of the truck. José did not object. She walked two kilometers down the rough road to the camp. When she was close, she noticed smoke rising over the canopy. She climbed a tree. From the vantage point, she saw that the camp had become a makeshift cocaine manufacturing facility. Smoke rose from the wood stove in the hut where she used to sleep. Outside there were vats of sulfuric acid, kerosene, and other chemicals. There were bales of coca leaves under tarps. Several acres of forest adjacent to the camp had been cleared, presumably for the planting of more coca. Downhill, a waste pond held by-products from the production process. As Bonnie watched, a cocinero emerged from inside. He was

holding a cup of coffee and carrying a rifle, which he leaned on the side of the hut. He put the cup down and blinked his eyes in the morning light. Another cook emerged. He wore an old military cap. The two men said a few words and then got to work shoveling coca leaves into two plastic vats. Bonnie dropped to a lower branch and then jumped three meters to the ground. Her knees absorbed the force and kept her on her feet. The cocineros heard the sound of her hitting the ground and grabbed their rifles. She looked through the foliage and the man in the cap saw her first. “¡La Bruja!” he yelled and fired his rifle. The other cocinero started firing as well, shooting wildly into the underbrush. Bonnie calmly stepped behind the tree as the bullets cut the leaves and shattered wood around her. The sound of the bullets entering the trunk produced strange thuds. She leaned her forehead against the tree trunk and breathed deeply, trying to block out the snapping of the guns. She sensed the essence of the forest, the smell of the tree, the feel of its bark against her skin. She wanted to become part of the forest. She wanted to be its agent. She stepped out from behind the tree and into the path of the screaming bullets. They flew about her body and head as she walked forward, calmly stepping into the clearing. The cocineros kept firing as Bonnie approached, but their bullets just kicked up the dust around her. She took hold of the AK-47 around her shoulder and raised it toward the men. She closed her eyes and pulled the trigger, letting fate be the guide as she sprayed the bullets left and right. The men tried to run, but bullets cut them down before they reached cover. Another bullet exploded a vat of kerosene. The dis- placement of air caused by the explosion swept over Bonnie but she stayed on her feet. She opened her eyes and saw the camp in ruins. The cabin had

partially collapsed from the explosion and the chemicals were burning. The two cocineros were dead. Bonnie was sorry for the mess she made. The chemicals will seep into the ground and contaminate the Earth. She had to use her power carefully. She tossed her rifle into the burning hut. She had no need for a gun. She gathered some supplies and walked down the hill to the creek where she and Luis used to wash. The creek was polluted now, but she knew it would cleanse in time. She headed down a trail away from the camp. The path was nearly overgrown. She climbed past the vines and branches blocking her way. She would not cut them back with a machete. She wanted La Cana to be closed off from the world with her inside. She walked until she reached a renaco tree that held a Red Jay family. She climbed the tree and found an empty nest. There should have been a pair and their offspring here. There were no recent bird droppings or trace of eggshells. Her gut felt hollow. It was clear no bird had lived in this nest for weeks. She climbed until she reached the highest branch of the enormous tree. She could see the forest stretch on for kilometers in every direction. She saw great detail even in distant objects. She didn’t remember ever being able to see so far. She could see right out of Colombia into Peru south of the park. In the distance, two dots flew above the jungle canopy. The birds must have been two miles away. A skilled ornithologist looking through powerful binoculars would not be able to make out the species, but Bonnie knew they were Red Jay. She turned her head to the east. She sensed another pair closer than the other, less than a mile away, hidden in the trees. She could not see them but she knew they were there. A vision of them sitting on a branch flickered in her mind. She leaned her head back and scanned the forest with half-closed eyes. There were other Red Jays further away. She started counting as

the images passed through her mind’s eye. She knew most of these birds from her field research, but some were new. Thirty-three of these birds were in La Cana and more were on the wing and headed toward the park. This park was their sanctuary and she was the reason. She looked to the west and saw loggers at work in the distance. There were a bulldozer and two trucks. She heard chainsaws. She raised her hand and the bulldozer engine failed and chainsaws jumped. She kept her attention focused on the loggers. Things that could go wrong did go wrong with greater and greater intensity. Although they could not see her, the loggers knew it was La Bruja. Those who were spared helped the injured away from La Cana. Bonnie heard a buzz and turned to the north. A government plane was expelling a cloud of herbicide on a farm on the edge of the park. Aerial fumigation was ostentatiously being conducted to destroy coca plots, but Bonnie knew of nothing being grown there. It was for the oil drilling. She raised her hand again as if reaching out to the distant aircraft. The dark blue of the fumigation spray mixed with the black smoke of a failed engine. The wounded plane banked to the east and out of the park, back toward a landing field. As the sun began to set, Bonnie looked for more signs of men in the park. There must be many interlopers in La Cana hidden below the canopy—paramilitary, rebels, oil prospectors, poachers—but she could not sense them in the way that she saw the Red Jay. Tomorrow she would walk the trails of La Cana and show these people that they are not welcome.

The threats that America faces are not just from rogue regimes. 9/11 took us by surprise. There may be dangers today that are not fully understood. We will stand up to any threat to our existence, from wherever it may come. - Election night speech of President-elect Gloria Fitch

ON ELECTION AFTERNOON, Gloria invited her advisors to her home to eat BBQ and watch the returns. It was seven pm in Utah and the polls were still open, but news from the east was good. She had a clear lead in electoral votes. A news crew shot live video of the Fitch family watching television from a sofa in their living room. Jenny sat on Aaron’s lap. Gloria’s mother was at her side. Isabel was upstairs with her nurse. Worry over Isabel kept Gloria from feeling celebratory. A demon visited her daughter. The next day Isabel had an extended seizure, and then another seizure three days later. She had been feverish and anxious since. Mormons do not practice exorcism but Gloria was considering asking for a Catholic priest. Aaron didn’t know what to say when Gloria told him what she saw. It was like her words just bounced around his head and then out again. But what she saw was not a hallucination. God had set angels

and demons upon the world. And it had something to do with the bird scientist from Isabel’s dreams. She was real. Bonnie Delamarca’s disappearance in Colombia had made the news. Ohio fell into Gloria’s column and everyone cheered. The network called the election. Aaron hugged and kissed her. “You are going to be President,” he said. “You hold the world in your hands.” “God’s will be done,” she said. Aaron lifted Jenny in his arms, and they walked through the house and up the stairs, accepting congratulations along the way. They went to Isabel’s bedroom. Sonja, the nurse, stood up as they entered the room. Isabel was in bed. “How is she?” Gloria asked. “She’s ok. We watched some of the election. Congratulations, Mrs. Fitch.” “Thank you, Sonja. Did she eat?” “She ate a little, but then she started saying things that I can’t understand. They sound like foreign words. And she says them again and again.” Gloria sat down on the bed beside Isabel. “Yuli,” she said. “What, honey?” “Yuli Yarynich.” Gloria stroked her hair gently, running her finger behind her ear in the way that she liked. “Hi Izzie,” Gloria said. “Hi baby. Guess what?” Her eyes fluttered and she muttered some other words. Gloria helped her to sit up straight in bed. She wished Isabel were well enough to come to the ballroom and stand on the stage with them under the falling ticker tape. “We get to move to Washington, like we said we might. We are going to live in the White House.” Isabel seemed to look right through her mother with half-open

eyes. Then she closed them again. “Alexander Yakov,” she said. Gloria and Aaron leaned closer to her. “Igor Ogarkov.” “It sounds like she is saying Russian names,” Gloria said. “Nikolai Kvitsinsky,” she said. “Aaron, go get Alex Kotanov.” Alex was one of Gloria’s foreign policy advisors. Aaron nodded and left the bedroom. “Vitali Dvorkin. Vladimir Lebed.” Isabel was in a trance. Gloria shook her gently but she did not come to. “Yuli Yarynich. Valery Tsygichko.” She hugged her daughter, but it didn’t stop her from saying the names. “Alexander Yakov, Igor Ogarkov, Nikolai Kvitsinsky.” “We love you, Izzie.” Isabel’s eyes widened. There was a growing sound of panic in her voice. “Vitali Dvorkin, Vladimir Lebed.” Aaron returned with Alex. Gloria motioned him forward and he leaned over Isabel. Her voice was growing hoarse from repeating the names so many times. “Yuli Yarynich, Valery Tsygichko, Alexander Yakov, Igor Ogarkov, Nikolai Kvitsinsky, Vitali Dvorkin, Vladimir Lebed.” Alex’s eyes grew wide. “I know some of these names, Gloria. They are old Soviet generals. How does she know these names?” “We don’t know,” Gloria said, but she knew. The demon told her these names and they needed to find out why. Kotanov pulled up a blank piece of drawing paper from Isabel’s table, and picked up a colored pencil. “May I?” he asked. Gloria nodded.

He wrote down the names. “I will make some inquiries to find out the significance of these names, if you would like.” “Alex, please do so,” Gloria said. “Call us when you know more.” Gloria knew it was a warning. Something was coming.

THEY LEFT ISABEL to go downtown for Gloria’s victory speech. Jenny jumped up and down on the ballroom stage catching the balloons. As soon as they could, they went home. They found Isabel sleeping soundly. Gloria and Aaron watched her for a few minutes and then went back to their bedroom to get ready for bed. Gloria had just taken her suit off when her phone rang. It was Alex Kotanov. “Alex. Do you have news?” “Yes, Mrs. Fitch. Those names that Isabel said—Yarynich, Tsygichko, Yakov, and the rest—they were all indeed Soviet military. I found out what they had in common. I can’t think how she knew the names.” “Isabel has special gifts, Alex. She knows things.” Alex went quiet on the phone, before finally speaking. “I hope that this thing will not happen, Mrs. Fitch.” “What do those names have in common? “We know of one instance of them working together.” “What was the project?” “They were on a Soviet Army committee that planned the nuclear destruction of New York City. They chose the coordinates where each warhead would explode. Their one directive was to ensure the maximum devastation possible.”

Part Two

êê GHOST DANCE

Love will be unleashed. - Journals of Jack Palehorse

EVERY MORNING JACK rose like Lazarus from his bed. “Doing any better today?” Eddie asked as he limped out of the bedroom. He could see how Jack suffered just to walk. “Bit by bit.” The morning sun was shining through the window, and Jack put on the dark, wide-rimmed hat that Imogen gave him to protect the scar on his head. He said that it was the kind of Mexican-style hat that Wovoka, the prophet of the Ghost Dance, used to wear. Jack sat down to eat the eggs that Eddie made for him. Imogen didn’t want him to stay in the same apartment, where Jack could be found again, but he said he would not live in fear of her father. Eddie insisted on staying with him. Walter and Christopher moved into the downtown apartment used for staging during Operation Epsilon. They were with the Invisible Army now. Before the attack, Jack searched for truth organically, by wandering the streets and going where the spirit led him. In this way, he found exactly what he needed. Now that he was stuck in the apartment recuperating, Eddie agreed to continue the search for him.

Eddie trusted Jack from a deep place in his heart. He knew a good man when he met one. “Today you will find what we are looking for,” Jack said.

EDDIE TOOK HIS notes from Jack’s visions to a library, where he looked through books and searched the Internet. He was frustrated in his effort to find out relevant information on the red bird. There were many red-colored species that lived around the world. At the end of the day, Eddie made his way back to the Inwood apartment from the subway. He carried a heavy bag of library books and a pile of printouts from the Internet. He hoped that Jack would find something in the pages that he had not. The books Eddie carried weighed him down, but he still feared he was coming back empty handed. And that’s why he paused when he saw a man put a television on the curb a few blocks from the apartment. Living with nothing for so long, Eddie came to appreciate small opportunities for material gain that many people overlooked. “Hey brother,” he said to the young man who left the television on the curb, “does that thing still work?” The guy shook his head. “The power goes in and out and it only turns on half of the time. Take it if you want it.” It was an old, monitor-style television. If the power went on and off, then maybe something was loose and Eddie could repair it. He knew Jack wasn’t the type to watch television, but at least it would be worth something if he could fix it. He held the books and papers teetering on one arm, and the television in the other, and walked the final three blocks to Jack’s building and up the stairs. Jack was standing in the center of the room waiting for him when he opened the door. “Welcome back,” he said, turning his cracked lips in a smile. “Any

discoveries?” Eddie shook his head. He put the television on the floor and carried the books and papers to Jack’s desk. “Nothing grabbed ahold of me like you said it would. But I brought a lot of things for you to look at.” “That’s good,” Jack said. “And you brought something else.” He pointed at the television. “Yeah,” Eddie said sheepishly. “It’s not working right but I think I can fix it.” “Hmm,” Jack said, “I guess the television just kind of grabbed ahold of you. Maybe it will show us what we are looking for.” Eddie laughed. “I doubt that. I don’t think you’re going to like what they’re showing on television these days.” “Answers may be anywhere,” Jack said. Eddie took the television set to the kitchen table to work on. Jack sat at the desk to look at the books and papers from the library. In the big backpack that held everything he owned, Eddie kept a universal screwdriver and a few other tools. The little income he had mostly came from working odd jobs as a handyman. He found the right screwdriver bit, and unscrewed the television cover. He was not a mechanic, but he had a patient and thorough way of working that allowed him to fix many things. He carefully took the cover off the back of the set, and then leaned in to systematically study each part of the electronics and power supply, to try and find something broken that he could repair. Jack sat down to study the material that Eddie brought. Surely every bird in the world was pictured in the books. Eddie hoped Jack would recognize the one from his vision. “Any luck?” he asked after a time. “I don’t know,” Jack said. “Maybe I need to see them in flight. They have such a curious way of flying, as if they are writing cursive in the air.” Eddie finished screwing the television back together and then

plugged it in and pushed the power button. The screen came on and the power was steady. He flipped the channel and there was a clear color picture. It was a commercial for a drug that helped senior citizens with attention deficit disorder. Jack turned his head to the television. The light from the screen glinted off his eyes. The confused elderly folks were organized now, doing their taxes online and digging uniform holes in the flower bed with silver trowels. The sound of the an- nouncer’s voice was deafening, like a landslide falling upon them. Eddie turned down the volume. The commercial ended and another drug ad began. “In this hyper- fast, dynamic world, it can be hard to find the calm to sleep.” Do not worry: a shiny, blue butterfly is aflutter in the night. “It reminds me of the way the red bird flew in my vision,” Jack said, “flying around the girl with the blond hair." The blue butterfly flew into a starry sky. There is peace in the night. The elderly people are sleeping now, half smiles on their faces. The drug may be habit forming, but some habits are worth keeping. Some users may feel suicidal, but death is the soundest sleep of all. The program came back on and it was the nightly news. They were talking about President-elect Fitch. “The next president will have the responsibility of managing the Caliphate crisis,” the anchor said, “and will ultimately choose whether or not to lead the country into a ground war.” A few minutes later, another round of commercials began, and Eddie turned off the sound. Eddie had not watched television in a year. It was like dreaming with his eyes open. But the dream wasn’t his. “Do you want to keep watching, Jack?” “Just a little longer,” he said. The news came back on and Eddie turned the volume up. “And now we turn to an unusual story set in the war-scarred jungles of southern Colombia, where a missing Canadian scientist is believed to have joined remnants of FARC, the leftist guerilla group,

and participated in terrorist attacks against civilians and Colombian government forces.” The camera showed a photograph of a young woman posing on a mountaintop. Her lips were turned in a sweet smile. “She is the woman from my vision,” Jack said. “Bonnie Delamarca, age thirty-one, grew up in Winnipeg and studied ornithology at the University of Manitoba. She came to Colombia at the beginning of the year to participate in a scientific study of an endangered species of bird at La Cana National Park in the rainforest of southern Colombia.” There was video of two Red Jay performing aerial acrobats in an elaborate social interaction. “On September 1, Delamarca’s research camp was attacked by leftist guerillas who refused to lay down their arms when FARC made peace. They killed her Colombian colleague, Dr. Luis Cadena, but left her alive. She subsequently volunteered at a botany research center, and then was kidnapped while traveling in the field. The Colombian Army has since obtained footage of Delamarca present at a rebel attack in which an Army helicopter was downed.” “‘Delamarca may be suffering from Stockholm syndrome,” said Colin Mendez, identified as Canada’s ambassador to Colombia. They showed a photograph of Patty Hearst posing with a rifle for the Symbionese Liberation Army. “Stockholm syndrome is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when hostages express positive feelings and sympathy towards their captors, as a kind of survival mechanism,” said Dr. Michael Kahn, NYU psychologist. “The Canadian Embassy in Bogotá has said that the fate of Delamarca is in the hands of Colombian authorities,” the anchor continued. “In a statement to the media, Delamarca’s family con- tended that Bonnie is a victim and pleaded with authorities to rescue her.” There was another photograph of Bonnie, again smiling

pleasantly. “In addition to income from cocaine production and smuggling, kidnapping is a revenue source for the rebels. It is not known whether Delamarca’s family has been contacted with ransom demands.” The commercials returned and Eddie switched off the television. “Well, we know where to look now,” Jack said. “Yes we do,” Eddie said and blinked his eyes. Images of the Red Jay, with their blood-red coloring like the devil itself, flooded his mind.

President-elect Fitch drove America’s interest in Bonnie by repeatedly asking about her in her intelligence briefings. The CIA got the message that it was time for them to get involved. - Logan Wheeler, La Cana Anomaly

BONNIE ARRIVED WITH supplies to last just two days, but the jungle provided for her. She kept no permanent camp as she traveled through La Cana, observing the Red Jay and keeping humanity at bay. Luis had shown her berries to forage if lost in the forest, but she also found other food to eat: roots she dug up without knowing how she knew there were there, leaves she chewed, nectar she sucked out of flowers. The jungle was filled with poisonous things, but she trusted in the powerful inner voice that governed her instincts. One hot afternoon her water ran out, and dark clouds formed above the canopy. She fashioned a funnel with a palm leaf and quickly filled her water canteen. In the cool rain she washed off her sweat and dirt. La Cana was like a new Eden that revolved around her. Early in the morning, or before she went to sleep at night, she saw strange creatures on display: undiscovered species of amphibians, birds she

couldn’t identify, and rare reptiles and mammals, all who passed before her without fear. With her knife, she fashioned a fishing spear, and tossed it at a dark shape in the river. She had never fished like this before, but she didn’t miss her mark. She cleaned the fish and cooked it over a fire. The flames crackled and the smoke produced a pleasant fragrance in the air. She emptied the park of her fellow humanity. Two days after her return, she met two paramilitary soldiers on patrol. They ran from her, bloodied and terrified. The Colombian Army sent a helicopter against her, but she disabled it from afar and it made an emergency landing outside the park. The day after that, she saw a drone in the sky. She didn’t know if it had come to watch her or kill her, but she willed it to crash into a hillside. With no one left to bother her, Bonnie spent her days studying the Red Jay. Most of the Red Jay were in La Cana now, having traveled from their territories in three countries. An inner compass led her to each bird and they greeted her with songs. As they flew through the park, she raced after them along the forest floor, ducking branches and leaping across rocks and streams. She witnessed cooperative behavior rarely seen in birds. A pair took turns lifting bark off a tree so that the other could get at the insects underneath. Another stole food from a monkey: one bird distracting the animal by pecking at its tail, the other stealing the fruit it was eating. The birds ate their bounty together. One day, the Red Jays all flocked together in the center of the park and performed synchronized acrobatics. Bonnie found the spectacle so beautiful that she cried. Hour after hour, she filled her notepad with observations, until her ballpoint pen ran out of ink. The following day, she just watched the Red Jay, storing away her notes in her head. Perhaps it was better this way, she thought. Perhaps all of the observations were really for her alone. Maybe she would never leave La Cana.

Two weeks after her return, she heard a rumble of trucks in the distance. She headed down the trail toward the noise, and then climbed a tree with a view of the southeast edge of the park. She raised her binoculars to see half a dozen military trucks parked along the rough dirt road that followed the border of the park. There were soldiers with guns and men raising tents in a field. Bonnie, balanced on the narrow tree branch, willed disasters to befall these men, but nothing happened. It seemed they were out of range. Let them enter the park, she thought, and then we’ll see what happens.

The conspiracy was born from a web of conscious and unconscious intention. - Jonathan Duncan, History of the Invisible Army

NEIL WALKED ALONE down the esplanade that curved along the tide-wall of lower Manhattan. He was clean-cut as usual and dressed in a white, buttoned shirt tucked into tan slacks. The night before he spent the evening at his computer tying up loose ends with Operation Omega. He listened to the news in the background. A commentator said it was likely that war would come. Neil believed there was still a chance to stop it. The moment was almost here. He had to will himself to keep walking because he was so afraid. He put one foot in front of the other and took deep breaths. He imagined that he carried the souls of his dead friends in his chest. It was the only thing he could think of to keep himself moving. He carried them from Afghanistan to this place. Together they would stop the next war. Neil assumed that Jansen chose him for the bombing plot after seeing his Army medical file. He told his therapist that he had survivor guilt and a death wish, and fantasized about being blown up.

Jansen wanted to stage a bombing and blame it on Caliphate terrorists. He said it would renew the American spirit of war, and history would call them patriots. Neil didn’t know how high the plot went, but he knew Jansen wasn’t the type to work for free. He didn’t have to convince him. Disrupting a false flag plot was what Neil was looking for all along: an opportunity to throw his body like a wrench upon the war machine. They wanted to use him to start another war, but he was turning the tables on them. He secretly recorded his meetings with Jansen. When the government tried to blame the bombing on the Caliphate, the truth would be released. Outrage over the fraud would stop the war. He joined the line of people waiting to use the interactive features of the memorial. Visitors who didn’t request a special video could just wander through. The commission decided not to place a metal detector at the entrance because they wanted it to be a fluid public space, like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Neil had not visited the memorial’s website to see the videos of his friends. He lived with so many images of them already that he thought it would be dangerous to add more. As he waited, videos of the dead played on the trees and granite monoliths that ringed the memorial. A Park Service ranger gave Neil a card to write down the name of the soldier he wanted memorialized. He wrote down David Guillory, the driver of the Humvee. They were good friends. Directly ahead of him in line, a middle-aged man in sunglasses and a suit was handed a glass key by the ranger. He walked to the center of the memorial, placed the key in the sundial podium and turned it. A soldier with dark features appeared on the bark of a tree. Someone waiting in line gasped when his name appeared. It was the man who turned his gun against fellow soldiers in a mess hall in Afghanistan and then shot himself. It was controversial to deem him a war casualty and give him a video alongside the soldiers he had killed, but the memorial commission approved it in a split decision. The video

acknowledged the tragedy by ending with a long shot of the whole unit together. While the people’s attention was drawn to the video, the man at the podium dropped a bag off his shoulder and placed it quickly against the side of the memorial. He had the skill of a magician, and no one but Neil noticed. The bag was the exact color of the rough granite against which it rested, and no alarm was raised when he walked away and left it behind. Later, when the security camera footage was replayed at slow speed, people would understand what happened. A ranger handed Neil his key and directed him forward. He put one foot in front of the other and said the names of his dead friends in a whisper to give himself strength. He averted his eyes from the gray bag as he approached the podium. He stood with his legs in front of it and inserted the key into the podium top. An image of Dave Guillory appeared on the trees above the memorial. The leaves rustled in a light breeze. Text identified him as a US Army staff sergeant from Dayton, Ohio, who died in an IED attack in Kabul at the age of twenty-four. Neil thought it would be painful to see Dave here, but it made him happy. He took a deep breath. Soon they would be together in peace. He didn’t need to worry about saving the world anymore. That was for Imogen now. The screen above the podium showed a video of Dave sitting on top of an armored vehicle that was driving somewhere in Afghanistan at sunset, or maybe dawn. The soldier seemed lost in thought and gazed silently at the passing landscape. The camera held on him. The moment seemed to last forever. The pipe bomb’s explosion nearly blew Neil’s legs off as it flipped him into the air. He ended up on his back. People came to help him, but he couldn’t hear their voices over the ringing in his ears. Shredded leaves drifted down through the air. Neil looked up at the Eagle Rising sculpture towering above him. It was undamaged, ex-

cept for a few scratches. They put tourniquets around his legs, but it was too late. He closed his eyes and memories blossomed like flowers in his mind.

There are loners trapped in the matrix of the world-lie who carry out mass shootings to express their pain, and billionaires who unleash corporations like demons upon the Earth to express theirs. - Imogen Greene, social media

IMOGEN WAS WALKING through the East Village when she heard a dull boom in the distance. Ten minutes later, Ji-yu texted her to say there was a bombing at the War on Terror Memorial. One person was killed and two were injured. It had been a long time since a bomb had exploded in New York and Imogen was deeply unsettled. A significant increase in security could derail Omega. But it had always been a race against time. There was still so much they needed to do. She hurried back to her apartment, but stopped in her tracks when she came around the corner and saw a limousine stopped outside of her building. A limo was not an uncommon sight in New York City, but she was a billionaire’s daughter and she was afraid it was for her. She considered walking away but had work to do. She walked up the stairs to the door of her building. As she fished through her backpack for her keys, she heard the

door of the limo open. “Imogen,” Elliot said. She had not spoken to her father since the funeral. She turned to see him standing by the open door of the limo in a suit. “Shouldn’t you be in Utah celebrating with Gloria?” “I’ve come here because you are in danger.” “You’re the one I’ve always been afraid of,” she said. Elliot frowned. “You must come with me,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere with you.” She turned around and opened the front door of the building. “Your friend is dead, Imogen.” “What are you talking about, Dad?” “Your soldier friend from the Invisible Army.” The ramifications of this sentence hit Imogen in waves. Her father knew about the Invisible Army. And then the worst meaning of the sentence struck her. Her father just said that Neil was dead. “He’s dead?” “See for yourself,” Elliot said, pointing at a television inside the limo. She walked forward cautiously toward the limo and looked inside. The television showed a cable news channel. There was a photo of Neil, smiling in his US Army uniform. The anchor said he survived a terrorist’s bomb in Afghanistan only to be killed by one at home. He called him a hero. He said the terrorists had sent a message to President-elect Fitch. Imogen knew this wasn’t a coincidence. Her instinct told her that Neil had done this on purpose. The Invisible Army was supposed to be a force of peace. “You’re in trouble,” Elliot said. “Your revolutionary schemes are going wrong. You need to come home before it’s too late.” Imogen was so overwhelmed with her grief over Neil’s death that she wasn’t angry at him for spying on her. Did he know that Greene & Co. was a target? Tears ran down her cheeks. Elliot hugged her

and she let him. “Imogen, come home and be safe. Let’s forget the past and be a family again.” He took her hand to lead her into the limo. She held back. “Dad, did you hire someone to attack Jack?” Elliot looked into her eyes and did not blink. “No, I certainly did not. I investigated you because I was worried about you. It’s true that I was not happy that you got mixed up with Jack, but that’s water under the bridge now. I didn’t come to get you before now because I respect you. But after I saw that your friend had died, I knew it was too dangerous for you.” She bowed her head. He was right. It was all coming apart. She wondered if she was going to have to call off Omega. “Don’t tell anyone, Dad.” “I would never, Imogen.” He took her arm to lead her into the limo again, and she let him. She climbed to the back and collapsed in the seat. Elliot sat across from her with his back to the driver. He watched her quietly as she mourned. After a few minutes, he spoke. “We’re going to meet Riley now.” Imogen’s younger sister lived uptown. “I told her that Neil was your friend. We’re all going up to the new house upstate. You can spend the weekend decompressing and thinking about what you need to do now. We want to help you.” Imogen nodded her head. She needed time to think.

THEY MET RILEY at the heliport at East 34th Street. Like Imogen, she was a brunette with green eyes, but Riley was taller. The two sisters hugged. “I’m so sorry to hear about your friend,” Riley said. Imogen just nodded. They were escorted to their helicopter, and Elliot helped her

inside. His two security guards got in last. The helicopter lifted up over the East River and then flew north along the Hudson toward their father’s new weekend house, two hundred miles to the north. Imogen looked out of the window at the fall leaves and thought about Neil. She was thankful that the sound of the rotors made it too loud to speak. They descended toward a home that overlooked the Hudson River from a clearing in the trees. Imogen knew all about her father’s vanity project. The home cost over twenty million dollars to build and included a bunker underground. The home was equipped with everything he would need to survive if some disaster made the rest of the world unlivable. It was largely sustainable, in case the electrical grid went down. The solar panels were artfully disguised on the roof. The home had large, glass windows, which opened automatically and sealed airtight. He spared no expense to make the home perfectly insulated from chemical or biological attacks. It was a monument to fear and separation. A granite patio surrounded the home. They were sculptures scattered around the patio to give it life in the absence of landscaping. The helicopter landed on a lawn outside the patio. Elliot’s butler and cook were standing in uniform waiting to meet them. Riley and Imogen climbed out of the helicopter. A crewmember handed Riley’s suitcase to the butler to take it up to her room. The butler offered to take Imogen’s backpack too, but she shook her head and grasped the shoulder strap. Her laptop was inside and she wasn’t going to let it out of her sight while she was here. Elliot climbed out of the helicopter and straightened his clothes. Then he put his hands on his waist and smiled admiringly at his daughters. “It is so nice to have the family together again! I hope you like our new home.” Imogen already regretted having come here. Her father had caught her at a moment of weakness. She didn’t need him to keep her safe.

She wanted to be back in the city with her friends, remembering Neil and talking about what to do next. “I’ve seen this look on your face before, Imogen,” Riley said. “Let’s go inside. I want to talk to you.” “Ok.” She was sorry she wasn’t a better sister to Riley, but being closer to her meant being closer to their father. “I want to give you both a tour,” Elliot said. “Let us have a little private time, Dad,” Riley said. Imogen and Riley followed the butler into the house. Large glass windows stretched from wall to wall and revealed an expansive view of the river. The sun was setting behind stout green-gray mountains that rose up on the far side of the river. It reminded Imogen of a Chinese monastery, but without a single element of wood material. Marble moldings engraved with symbols and the shapes of animals ran along the walls. Modernist furniture was distributed sparingly around the room. There was a stuffed polar bear standing on two feet in the center of the living room. It hurt Imogen’s heart to look at it. Was her father celebrating his role in the destruction of the animal’s habitat? The butler showed the girls to their bedrooms. They went into Imogen’s room and Riley closed the door behind them. “I’m worried you’re mixed up in something dangerous,” Riley said. “I know you’re a radical.” “I don’t know anything about the bomb at the memorial,” Imogen said. “But I’m afraid that Neil might have blown himself up, even though they called him the victim.” “Why would he do that?” “I can’t figure it out. I thought he was against war. If they blame this on the Caliphate, it will be enough to start a war.” “How did you meet him?” She wanted to tell Riley about the Invisible Army, but she knew it would terrify her. She lived a more sheltered life than her older sister. “We met at a conference and went on a date.” There was some

truth in the statement. “Was it a good first date?” “No, it wasn’t, but we became friends.” Riley hugged her sister. “I’m sorry your friend died.” “Me too.” There was knock and Elliot opened the door. He smiled and clapped his hands together. “Girls, I would love it if you would come down for a drink before dinner.” “Ok Dad,” Riley said. Imogen noticed that her father had a manila envelope tucked under his right arm. “Riley, can I speak with Imogen alone for a minute?” She looked at Imogen and then nodded. She left the room and Elliot closed the door behind her. Imogen felt a rush of terror to be closed in with him, but it passed. “I want to have a relationship with you again,” he said, taking a step closer to where she was seated on the bed. “And I think we need to talk about the elephant in the room before that can happen.” “The elephant.” “Jack.” Imogen felt the impulse to accuse her father again of trying to kill Jack, but she suppressed it. She needed to hear what he was going to say. If he could somehow convince her that he had nothing to do with the attack, and nothing to do with his arrest years ago, then maybe they could have a relationship again. She looked into his eyes and waited for him to continue. “I was disappointed that you chose to get in contact with Jack again. He is a convicted child abuser.” “Dad, you know Jack. Do you really think he was capable of hurting his daughter?” Elliot sat on the edge of the bed.

“Imogen, you were young when Jack was arrested. You don’t remember how bad it was. We didn’t tell you how bad it was. You had been playmates with Ayashe and we knew the details would scar you.” “I know what they accused him of, and I don’t believe it’s true.” “There is something you need to see.” Elliot opened the envelope he was holding and pulled out a pile of color photocopies. The top photo showed a close-up photo of a bruise on someone’s thigh. The second photo showed bruises on a slender female arm from someone holding her too tightly. He turned the next page, watching for Imogen’s reaction. The third photo showed a girl’s face with a black eye. It was Ayashe. Her eyes seemed out of focus. “Why are you showing me these photos, Dad?” “You need to see what kind of man Jack was. So you can let go of him and his lies.” He showed her another photo. It showed bruises on Ayashe’s neck from someone choking her. Imogen knocked the photos out of his hands. “Why do you even have these? It’s sick.” “I want you to know the truth.” Imogen felt bad that Ayashe’s photos were lying on the ground like she had been discarded. It was true that she didn’t know how badly Ayashe had been abused. It made her angrier at the people who ruined her life and pinned it on Jack. “Do I have to say it again?” he asked. “I didn’t have anything to do with his death.” “What are you talking about?” “You don’t know?” “Know what?” “Jack was attacked by a group of hoodlums on the banks of the Bronx River. They thought he was a homeless man and they killed him.”

That was the moment that Imogen knew with complete certainty that her father had ordered the attack on Jack. “You wanted to kill him.” “I never wanted to kill him, Imogen. Nobody deserves to have died that way. It was a tragedy.” “He’s still alive,” Imogen said. “What?” Imogen didn’t say more. She shouldn’t have told her father that Jack was alive. Elliot suddenly stood up. “Well I’m glad to hear it,” he said, and then made a frustrated face as he realized how ridiculous the words were coming out of his mouth. Imogen looked down at her lap. She wanted her father to leave. She needed to warn Jack. “Take a little time to compose yourself, Imogen, and then head downstairs. The cook has put a lot of effort into your welcome-back dinner.” He walked out of the room. She put her backpack on and stood by the door. When her father reached the bottom of the stairs, she left her room and went into her sister’s. Riley was changing her clothes for dinner. “How’s it going with Dad?” she asked. “Riley, I need to borrow your phone.” “Of course.” “Go and try to keep Dad occupied.” “What’s going on?” “Please just do what I say, ok?” “Ok,” Riley said, and put a sweater on and left. Imogen got Danny’s number out of her phone and dialed him on Riley’s phone. She didn’t want to risk calling him on her own phone in case her father was monitoring it. And she was afraid of what her father would do to Danny if he found out about him.

He picked up on the second ring. “Hello?” “Danny, it’s me. You need to find Jack and take him to your place. My father is going to send someone to kill him. I’m going to text you his address. He doesn’t have a phone.” “Of course. I will. Did you hear what happened to Neil?” “I think Neil knew about the bomb. I think he meant to die. We’ll talk about it later. I’m coming to your place.” Imogen hung up and typed Jack’s address into a text. Then she deleted the sent message and cleared the call history. She left Riley’s phone on her bed. She went to the master bedroom, opened the window and climbed outside, dropping six feet to the ground. She ran across the patio and down through the woods to the road. She put out her thumb when a car came along, and it pulled to a stop. It held a couple of teenage boys who agreed to take her to a train station a couple towns away. She knew her father would send his henchman to the nearest train station looking for her, but they wouldn’t think to check at the next. The boy at the wheel drove fast. Imogen was unsure if he was trying to impress or frighten her. She smiled. “Is this as fast as you can go?” He pressed his foot to the accelerator. Imogen looked into the sky and noticed a cloud that seemed to be tracking the car as it sped down the country roads. The cloud grew bigger, like a bird stretching its wings, and then it was gone.

When the beast comes for you, jump into his jaws. - Writings of Isabel Fitch

IT HAD BEEN a good day for Jansen until Elliot called. The operation at the War on Terror Memorial went off perfectly. When he picked up the phone and heard it was Elliot, he wondered if Holman had brought him into the conspiracy. But Elliot was enraged. “Jack Hobson is alive.” “How do you know?” “My daughter told me so.” “Do you believe her?” “Yes, I do. Why didn’t you make sure Jack was dead before you left him?” “When we left him, he was dead. I stabbed him in the heart. He had no pulse.” “Shouldn’t you have followed up on his death?” “I don’t think it is advisable for me to question the authorities on the people you ask me to murder.” “I would think there’s some kind of process to this.” “It’s a messy business, boss. But don’t worry, if Jack’s alive, he will

be a dead man soon.” “Fine,” Elliot said and hung up. Five minutes later, Jansen was on the road, speeding toward northern Manhattan. In his heart he was back in Syria, chasing down a kill.

JANSEN FOLLOWED ANOTHER resident through the front door of Jack’s building and walked up the stairs to the third-floor hallway. He stopped at the door of the apartment and pulled a long hunting knife out of a sheath under his coat. He knocked on the door. An older black man opened the door just a crack, and Jansen slammed into it with his shoulder, knocking him back onto the ground. But the old man jumped right back to his feet and raised his fists. Jansen could tell he had been in a few fights before. He tried to grab his knife hand, but Jansen effortlessly evaded him and then plunged the knife into his gut. He could have killed him at that moment by twisting the knife, but instead he pulled it out. He might need to ask him a few things. The man fell to the floor. He touched his hands to the wound and blood flowed over his fingers. Jansen walked into the living room, with the knife held in front of him. It didn’t take him long to search the one-bedroom apartment and realize that Jack was not there. He cleaned the blade on the old man’s pants, sheathed it, and then dragged him into the living room. “Let’s talk,” Jansen said. “What’s your name?” He took shallow breaths of air and stared at him. “Eddie,” he finally hissed. “Where is Jack?” He looked at Jansen. His eyes were trembling from the pain, but they showed no fear. “Who?”

“Jack Hobson. Palehorse.” “I don’t know who you are talking about, man.” Jansen went into the kitchen and came back with a broom. He stuck the end of the handle into the wound. Eddie screamed. “Tell me where Jack is.” He could not catch his breath to speak. Jansen dug the handle in again. Finally, he stopped. “Where’s Jack?” Jansen asked again. Eddie breathed deeply and stared at Jansen. When he finally spoke it was in a growl. “I’ll tell you one thing, killer. I’m ready to leave this world. The angels are on wing in the sky and the end is near. Now’s probably as good time as any to get on to the next show.” He stuck the handle in again and Eddie passed out from the pain. Jansen sat down at the desk. Jack would come home eventually. Ten minutes later, he heard an approaching police siren. He went to the window and saw two officers get out of a cruiser in front of the building. He had been sloppy letting Eddie scream like that. He felt like he was losing control. Too much was being asked of him. Elliot Greene needed to remember that he was the one with the guns. He pulled his knife and cut Eddie’s throat without breaking stride as he walked across the room. He opened the window to the fire escape, but stopped to look back before climbing through. From now on he was going to make quite sure that his victims were dead. He watched Eddie bleed out and die, and then climbed out into the dusk.

The Invisible Army walks a dangerous path by fighting the old battles. The darkness on this world wants people at civil war because that makes us easier to control. - Journals of Jack Palehorse

AFTER LEARNING OF Neil’s death, Jack walked alone to Inwood Hill Park to be with the trees in the natural place. He limped up to the eastern ridge, where the park’s tallest trees grew amid strange glacial rock formations. He leaned against the rocks and looked up to the red oak and tulip trees. Red and yellow leaves were falling around him in the chilly wind. Autumn was giving itself up to winter. Jack believed that everything happened for a reason, and so Neil’s death had a purpose. But he could not understand what it was. The Invisible Army’s revolution was not unfolding as planned. More hard lessons were coming. He stared at the falling leaves and fractal shapes of the branches. By meditating on their complex forms, Jack believed he increased his connection to the source of all reality—what he called the spirit. The wisdom of the source flowed to him through the trees. Omega will go on, the rustling leaves told him. You are a shaman,

and you must transmute the tragedy of Neil’s death. You must hold the space of the Invisible Army’s dream. “And what of the angels?” Jack asked. The angels need your help too. Suddenly, Jack’s focus collapsed. He heard the sound of sirens in the distance. His instinct told him something else terrible had happened. He walked back down the hill and the three blocks toward his apartment, limping along as fast as he could. He came around the corner to see three police cars and an am- bulance parked in front of his building. There was a crowd on the sidewalk watching. Jack looked up to see a cop leaning out of the window of his apartment. Danny stepped out of the crowd, looking relieved to see him. “Jack,” he said. “What happened?” “Elliot Greene sent somebody to kill you.” “Eddie’s home,” Jack said. Just then the paramedics brought a stretcher out of the front door. A body bag was strapped on to it. Jack felt his bad knee buckling and gripped Danny’s arm to stay on his feet. It was too much to lose Eddie too. There was a limit to what he could take. “We need to go,” Danny said. “Elliot’s people might still be here.” Jack let him take him across the street. At the corner, Danny flagged down a car service. He helped Jack into the back and then got in beside him on the other side. “Bed–Stuy, Brooklyn,” he said to the driver. On the way back, Jack kept looking at Danny’s colorful t-shirt. On top of rainbow splashes of color, there was the outline of a diamond in front of an X. The diamond and the X was the same symbol used by Jack’s tribe, the Northern Cheyenne, on their flag. It signified the morning star—the symbol of hope. The synchronicity of the shirt was a reassurance. There was order in the seeming chaos of reality.

The car pulled to a stop outside a brownstone townhouse. Danny nodded at a man in a crowd gathered on a stoop across the street. The man crossed the street. “What’s up, Danny?” “Listen Ron, people may be coming. Dangerous men. Can you keep your eyes open and let me know if anyone shows up?” “Always. You don’t need to ask. We’ll keep our eyes out.” Danny helped Jack out of the car and up the stairs. June was waiting just inside. “Grandma, this is Jack. He’s going to stay with us for awhile.” “That’s wonderful,” she said. “Danny and Imogen told me about you. I’m happy to have you here.” Jack shook her hand. “Thank you, Mrs. Evens.” “Call me June."

TWO HOURS LATER, June called Danny and John to dinner. “Danny, please get some water for the table. I’ll make you some plates.” He had just set the glasses down on the table when his phone buzzed with a text from Ron. “Come outside,” it read. Danny stepped out of the front door above the stairs. Ron was standing at the bottom of the stoop, holding Imogen’s arm. “I caught her sneaking up to your house,” he said. “Ron, meet Imogen.” “Hi Imogen,” he said and let her go. “Nice to meet you, Ron,” she said, rubbing her arm. She walked up the stairs and hugged Danny. He put his arm around her and led her inside. “Did you get Jack?” she asked. “He’s here,” he said.

She hugged him again, longer this time. “But Eddie is dead.” Imogen’s eyes trembled. “It was my father. What have I done?” “It’s ok,” Danny said. “We are with you. Come inside.” “What a nice surprise,” June said when Danny brought Imogen into the dining room. “We’ll set you a place too.” Imogen ran to Jack and hugged him. Tears dropped from her eyes. “I’m so sorry about Eddie, Jack.” “We must continue.” June brought out dishes of fish, rice, and steamed vegetables. “Bless us oh Lord,” June said, “and these gifts we receive from your bounty. They felt like a family sitting there together, and it was a comfort amid their sadness. Imogen wiped away her tears and they ate silently. Jack studied the paintings of the Red Jay running along the top of the ceiling. Their resonance through time was strong. “I will leave New York,” he finally said. “Where will you go?” Imogen asked. “To the heart of it all. To the Amazon.”

An angel is just a human with wings. - Writings of Isabel Fitch

BONNIE SPENT THE night in a tree near the southwestern edge of La Cana. She slept without a safety rope, as had become her habit. Her eyes opened as the first light of morning appeared on the horizon. Bonnie knew that the soldiers were coming—her instinct told her. Then she saw them through the trees. They wore helmets and carried machine guns. They had their rifles raised as they marched single-file down a trail, covering the space ahead, left and right, behind and above. Their eyes scanned the jungle in grids, they stepped quietly to hear every sound, and even their noses were arched into the air. These are dangerous men, Bonnie thought. She hoped they wouldn’t damage the forest too much before she was done with them. She stormed down the branches to the ground. A soldier saw her and spewed bullets in her direction. Another soldier joined the barrage. Then a third caught sight of her moving again and fired a rocket into the jungle. She flew away through the undergrowth like a jaguar, slipping under branches and vines as the shrapnel from the missile shrieked around her. As usual, luck was with her and she was unharmed. She

made a wide arc around the soldiers, intending to flank them. If she could just see them, she could make them dead. The soldiers ceased firing. The cloud of smoke blew away and the shredded leaves settled, revealing a gash in the jungle. She watched them walk cautiously forward into the splintered timber, searching for a sign of La Bruja. Before she could imagine bad things happening to them—like a grenade clipped to their chest detonating—she saw a billowing shape soar over the trees. Her left hand shook uncontrollably as it had during the Ayahuasca ceremony. The form looked like a primordial bird with long, flowing white feathers. But it moved through the air like a sea creature, rising and falling like it floated at the bottom of the sea. It stopped in the air and looked upon her. The face took many shapes—a jaguar, a caiman alligator, a parrot, a frog. The being went behind a tree and out of sight. She remembered the angel she saw in her Ayahuasca vision, but this one was masculine and radiated vengeance, not peace. She watched the entity descend to the soldiers. He moved with the branches swaying in the wind, and they did not notice him at first. Then he passed in front of the sun, and one of the soldiers looked up and fired. The angel danced in the screaming bullets—seemingly torn apart—but each movement was intentional and no bullets touched him. The soldier lowered his rifle in fear and awe. Another soldier saw the entity and fired his weapon, tearing up the kapok tree. Then his rifle jammed. Two other soldiers tried to fire but the bullets lodged in their chambers too. One of them pulled the pin of a grenade and threw it at the creature. Everyone took cover, but the grenade’s lever did not drop. Bonnie walked forward. The vibrating wings of the entity ballooned wider over the soldiers. “Un ángel,” one of them said. “El Diablo,” said another.

One of the men closed his eyes and began to pray. Another smiled strangely. Then the ten men fell to the ground as one. Bonnie thought that her power came from the rainforest, but maybe angels were in control all along. This one floated above the fallen men, and she walked toward him. Her desire to know the truth was stronger than her fear. The jungle was quieted again of all but its non-human sounds. She heard the insects and the call of the frogs in the marshes. A Red Jay sang out from somewhere, but she wasn’t sure if she heard it in her ears or her head. As she approached the entity, her mind lost its grip of what she was seeing. He was a spawn of silver salmon floating in the air. He was a roaring avalanche of snow. “My God.” She was dizzy looking up at him, like Earth was spinning away without her. Feathers moved independently like a thousand wings. A white light glowed from within. The angel drifted closer to Bonnie, and she heard the hum from his undulating appendages. “I am Raguel, guardian of harmony,” he said in her head. “The threat to the Red Jay has passed the threshold of dissonance.” He descended toward Bonnie. With her hand on a tree root for support, she rose to her feet. Raguel extended one of his arms down to her. She saw that the appendage was not covered by feathers, but countless little fingers with a luminous quality. She reached her hand up and touched him. She felt the flow of energy she knew when she protected the forest from its enemies. The angel pulled the feathers back to join the blur. Then a black eye appeared, then another, and then there were a dozen black eyes staring at her. The feathers vibrated faster. In the blur an object began to form, a human face. She saw eyes, nose, and lips, like in a three-dimensional flipbook. The face seemed familiar but she could not place it.

“Who are you?” she asked softly. The face became further defined. It was a woman’s face. The projection spoke in a strange gentle, whirring voice, like someone speaking into a mechanical fan. “I am consciousness.” “Are you an angel?” “The will of humanity called me forth into this dimension.” The tone of the voice was strange, but the accent sounded familiar to Bonnie. “You gave me powers.” “Reality is correcting. You are but one instrument of its res- toration. The changes are like earthquakes when tectonic plates shift and you are one of those earthquakes. You are a healer, and the blood on your hands is the blood of the Christ.” The face finally came into focus. It was Carmen. Bonnie’s stomach twisted painfully. It did seem really to be her in some way, to have her essence. “Carmen,” she whispered. Everything fell into place for Bonnie. Carmen needed to die. She was planning to take her further away, to her family’s ranch, but the Red Jay needed Bonnie back in La Cana. That was why she survived the fiery wreck without a scratch. “Please stop,” she said. “Take her ghost away.” The Carmen-projection swarmed out like disturbed bees. Then it reassembled and a new face appeared. It was Luis. “The Red Jay needs you,” the Luis-projection said. He looked sad as if his soul was still traumatized by the massacre. “Did the universe cause you to die too?” “Of course it did,” Luis’s ghost said. “The angels must leave, Bonnie. You will be left alone in La Cana. The survival of the Red Jay depends on you.” “I’m sorry you died, Luis,” Bonnie said. “All is as it should be. You must keep your faith. The world will

be reborn when people believe it is possible.” She nodded. Her life had taken a stranger direction than she ever imagined, but a new world was worth fighting for. “I will do what is intended,” she said. Luis faded and she saw the vibrating feathers of the angel again. “YESSS,” Raguel said, and transformed into the most beautiful bird that she could imagine, with great indigo wings covered in impossibly intricate feathers. Then he disappeared. There was a silver glimmer in the air and then the particles blew away, leaving Bonnie alone. She walked away from the bodies of the soldiers. Once she was a safe distance down the trail, she sat down and began to sob, remembering Carmen’s kind face and what the automobile accident did to it. She could still do her memory proud.

Our conventional view of reality is flawed because it does not take into account consciousness as a force of nature. - Frank Lashbrook, Project Stargate II study findings

INSIDE A COLOMBIAN Army tent just outside La Cana National Park, two CIA agents stood over a table covered with electronic equipment. A Colombian Army General, Rafael Guzman, sat with two colonels on the other side of the tent. They stared at a screen showing the GPS signals of the ten Colombian Special Forces commandos on a map of La Cana. The flashing dots had not moved in an hour. Frank Lashbrook, a bespectacled CIA agent, was more scientist than operative. He was a member of Project Stargate II, the secret program to identify military and domestic applications for psychic phenomena. The first Stargate project was launched by the US Army in response to a Soviet program in the late 1970s and lasted until the mid-1990s. It was relaunched by the CIA in 2012 in response to new discoveries in the field. Lashbrook worked on an Ayahuasca study that recorded impossible coincidences that swirled around the test subjects, as if their psyches brought order to reality. The experiment ended without the discovery of any practical applications for the CIA.

Lashbrook was reassigned to Colombia to investigate Delamarca. His partner, Richard Posta, fought in half a dozen conflicts in Latin America on behalf of the CIA. He wore a sidearm, and his primary mission here was to protect Lashbrook. He watched him analyze data from his experiments on a laptop. Every ten minutes or so, he lit a new cigarette. Suddenly, Lashbrook looked up, a grin on his face. “What?” Posta asked. “Have you heard of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab?” Posta shook his head. “Tell me about it, doc.” “It was a study at Princeton University on the interaction of human consciousness with physical reality. It confirmed observers have a statistically significant effect on supposedly random events. Do you follow? “Sure,” Posta said. “Consciousness makes reality. They covered that in Stargate training on the first day.” “One of the Princeton scientists then organized a new project in which random number generators were placed around the world. The devices showed that in a moment of great global impact, such as 9/11 or the death of Princess Diana, the random data became more structured. They theorized that synchronicity of feeling by billions of people caused the structuring, and thus proved the existence of a consciousness field.” “Ok. So what’s that got to do with what happened today?” Posta asked. “The six sensors I placed around the border of La Cana included random number generators like those used in the consciousness experiment. The numbers became structured today to a degree that I’ve never seen. It’s beautiful.” “What does it mean?” “Maybe some great event is about to occur. Studies have shown that the effect can extend slightly back in time. Or maybe a non-

human consciousness is acting upon the numbers.” “What? The Red Jay? Or is it the manatees?” Lashbrook shook his shoulders and laughed. “I really don’t know.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Then he thought of something and put them back on. “Rick, do you have a coin on you?” Posta fished a five-hundred-peso coin out of his pocket and tossed it to him. Lashbrook flipped the coin into the air and let it fall on the table. Heads. He picked it up and threw it again. Heads. Again and it was heads. Then heads, heads, heads. Then Posta tried the coin and threw heads five times in a row. “Jesus,” Posta said. “Something is strongly influencing chance,” Lashbrook said. “In every instant there are many possibilities, and the most unlikely possibilities are called miracles. Whoever controls chance controls the world, and the rest of us can only hope for mercy.”

The revolution is a living thing, reaching out to me from the ether. It wishes to be born into the world. - Journals of Jack Palehorse

JACK SAT IN a subway car traveling through Brooklyn. He wore his wide-rimmed hat and an overcoat that belonged to Danny’s grandfather. He sat utterly still as he watched the car fill with riders on their way to work. A child asked his mother if he was dead. “Don’t stare,” she said. Jack looked around the car. Other than the curious child, people were lost in their thoughts. There was much that worried them: terrorism, the Caliphate crisis, the election result, disease, lost jobs, unpaid bills, loneliness. They found themselves in a present that made them uncomfortable and fearful, so they lived in the future or the past, where they imagined being free of the burdens that weighed on them now. But trying to escape the present was like living a half- life. Their breaths were shallow and their heads throbbed. They tried to sedate themselves with their smartphones, but it wasn’t enough. Since the memorial bombing, police with body armor and assault rifles patrolled subway platforms. People went about their business uneasily, with the tension of the surroundings mirroring the anxiety

that they felt inside. In two days, Jack was traveling to Colombia. It wasn’t just the angels and Bonnie Delamarca who drew him there. He learned that Greene & Co. was developing La Cana National Park, which was home to endangered tribes as well as the Red Jay. He heard his indigenous kin calling for help. Since he was going to miss Operation Omega, he decided to spend the remainder of his time in New York speaking to the people. The seeds he planted now could come to flower in the spring. So he got on a subway train, where a captive audience could be found. Once the car was full, he rose to his feet, startling the riders around him. He teetered for a moment, but grabbed a pole to steady himself. He took a deep breath to gather his voice. When they came his words rumbled like thunder. “People of New York, good morning. I greet you at the turning point of history.” No one said anything in return to such a grand greeting, but a few looked up. He took off his hat and placed it on his chest. They saw his crushed nose and the scar on his shaved head. “Do not judge me by my ragged experience. My body is broken, but my mind is clear and I am free. I am not here to ask you for money. I am not here to talk to you about God. God is everything and so does not need to be named. Close your eyes if you must, but listen carefully, because there is something important that I must tell you. A day will come when you remember what you heard here today. “I am Cheyenne Indian. Once I fought for the rights of my people, and then I realized it was my destiny to fight for the rights of all people. The struggle has not been easy.” He lifted his shirt to show the long scar from Ray Jansen’s knife. “There are men who want to end my life for what I do. They are killers who move in shadows, hired by a man who believes he lives above the law.”

There were a few riders with their eyes on Jack, and others who listened, like a woman who took her earbuds out and tilted her head toward him. “The world is not what they tell you it is. The plutocratic state grows desperate as it careens toward its self-annihilation. They will ask you to give your sons and daughters to fight and to die as they struggle to keep their corrupt system going. Meanwhile, the destruction of the natural world continues. “I am here to tell you what you already know. The world does not need to be this way. We have all the resources and know-how to live in a world of abundance, where we can live in cooperation with each other and all living things.” “Yes,” a young woman said. Jack nodded at her and continued. “There is a revolution of consciousness underway in the world. The government and corporations expend resources to keep us under control, but the control is an illusion. Millions of people around the world are breaking the chains of their minds, and realizing that there is much more to life than they ever imagined. We are remembering our birthright.” Another rider gave his attention. “It is a great joy to see the world with this vision because it is a vision of love and the oneness of all things. All is sacred in the world, including us.” The train stopped at a station and people filed on and off. When it started moving again a few people waited for Jack to continue. “The world has waited many thousands of years—since the beginning of monarchical civilization—for this moment. But the future is not decided. The human heart needs to break free. There are no evil people, only people with closed hearts. By opening your heart and listening to your intuition, more hearts will open, and the world will change. As every act becomes the appropriate act, we will bring balance back to Earth.” A man nodded. Jack looked back at him with love in his eyes. He

felt like he was saying goodbye. At the next stop, he gritted his teeth and limped out onto the platform. This was the first subway car he spoke to today and he planned to speak to many more before he was done. He limped into the next car just before the door closed.

BY THE TIME Jack returned home that evening, he was so exhausted that he fell asleep while taking off his boots. June found him sitting with his chin on his chest on the bench in the foyer. “Jack,” she said. He opened his eyes. I am still alive, he thought. He smiled back at June. They had a bond—they were both activists from a bygone era. He listened to her stories about the civil rights movement and talked about people she knew. He told her why he was going to Colombia. She believed in his angels and hoped he would find them. It worried her that he was not sure if he would come back. “I finished your Ghost Shirt,” she said. “To protect you in the Ghost Dance. Would you like to see it?” She helped him up and then they walked hand in hand into the dining room. The Ghost Shirt lay on the dining room table. She stitched the shirt from leather to his specifications, with tassels hanging off the waist, neck, and sleeves. June used to work as a seamstress, and the shirt was authentic and beautiful. She lifted it up and turned it around so Jack could see both sides. Inspired by photographs of historical Ghost Shirts, she painted it with images that she believed would give strength to Jack. There were two red birds on the chest, to represent the Red Jay. A diamond intersected by an X evoked the Cheyenne flag. She painted a Native woman, in remembrance of Jack’s wife. On the back of the shirt, there were silhouettes of slaves in chains and civil rights protesters

marching, so that Jack could gain strength from the struggle of her and Danny’s people. Next to this was a serial number surrounded by barbed wire, to remember the suffering of Imogen’s family in the Holocaust. Finally, there was an image of people of all colors standing together in front of a burning heart. “It’s perfect,” he said.

Survivors speak of miracles, but there are miracles for the dead too. - Writings of Isabel Fitch

TWO DAYS LATER, Jack met Mari Cataldo of the Invisible Army at JFK to fly to Colombia on an evening flight. Jack was flagged for additional screening as soon as he entered security. Two TSA agents pulled him into a private room and asked him why he was traveling to Bogotá. He said he was traveling with a friend on a bird sighting expedition. They went through his suitcases and found materials and supplies that supported his claim. Before they let him go, they thoroughly searched his person. Under his jean jacket, he was wearing the Ghost Shirt. A TSA agent admired it. “Are you an Indian?” “Cheyenne,” Jack said. The agent lifted the shirt and saw the scar from Jansen’s blade. “What happened to you?” “I was attacked.” The agent shook his head. “Stay out of trouble on this trip, Mr. Hobson.” As Jack emerged from the screening room, Mari came forward

and took his arm. She was one of Imogen’s oldest friends, diminutive, and walked as if swimming with her hips. When Imogen was a trust-fund artist drifting around the world’s sunny places, she brought Mari along with her. When she decided to become a revolutionary, Mari joined the Invisible Army too. And like Imogen she came to love Jack. She was a Spanish speaker and volunteered to escort him to Colombia. “I thought we’d lost you,” she said. “Not yet.” They made their way to the gate and reached it just as the attendant announced boarding for Flight 421. Jack and Mari rose and joined the line of passengers, and then made their way down the tunnel to the aircraft. For the first time, a smile left Mari’s face. Jack saw fear in her eyes. Jack put a foot on the aircraft and closed his eyes. He had the clear premonition that he would not return. He opened his eyes and turned to Mari. “This is not for you. Go back.” “I need to be your guide,” she said. “The spirit guides me,” he said. “Go back.” She turned to walk back into the terminal, and Jack stepped over the threshold onto the aircraft alone.

THEY WERE TWO hours into the flight, flying over the Caribbean Sea, when the aircraft jolted violently. The pilot announced that they had lost power in a left wing engine, but with three other working engines, the aircraft was not imperiled. Then there was the sound of an explosion outside the right side of the aircraft. The passengers screamed. Jack looked out to see smoke pouring out of another disabled engine. The pilot said they needed to make an emergency landing and were looking for an island runway big enough to

accommodate them. Jack leaned his head back on the seat as the panic intensified around him. There was another jolt as the remaining two engines failed. The sounds of the vibrations of the jet as it went down reminded him of galloping horses. The aircraft was a five-hundred- ton glider. Jack imagined that the souls in the aircraft were a river crashing down a valley toward a great chasm. He prayed for their safe passage. The prayer became a whisper and then his mouth moved silently. The aircraft glided down toward the Caribbean Sea. The pilot told the passengers that he was attempting to land at a runway in Trinidad. But the plane was only one mile above the sea, and there was no land in sight. The cabin became strangely quiet. People prayed and wrote messages to loved ones. The pilot came on the intercom again. “Folks, I’m sorry to say a headwind is causing resistance and we are too far from Trinidad. We will be attempting an emergency landing on the sea. Please cooperate with the flight team as they prepare the cabin. We welcome your prayers.” Jack could see through the window how choppy the sea was below. He unbuckled his seatbelt and stepped into the aisle. He took off his jacket to reveal the Ghost Shirt. A stewardess yelled for him to sit down. He ignored her and held two headrests on either side for support. The plane jolted and rocked as it cut through pockets of turbulent air. Jack stared up at the plastic ceiling of the plane. He was trying to see through to the angels he believed might be on the other side. Jack had respect for all things in the universe, both living and inanimate. This aircraft was a silver bird whose time on Earth had passed. It was a temporary collection of atoms, filled with the essence of existence as he was. He asked the plane to let him see through the plastic and aluminum to the sky.

Suddenly Jack was standing on the curved top of the plane, with his feet firmly planted as the air rushed by. He felt his stomach and his scar was gone. He was a young man and his long black hair blew back around his head. He looked into the sky and saw an angel, flying thirty meters above and following the path of the plane. It was Ahriman, the red one. He looked like a crimson vulture with a thousand torn plastic bags hanging from his wings. Ahriman whipped his wings threateningly, but Jack was not afraid. “Speak with me, great being!” he called out. Ahriman grew fainter until Jack could see the stars shining through his translucent form. A second angel came down from the sky, shining with the blinding light of the source itself. His golden, feathery tendrils whipped in the wind. His black eyes opened and were terrifying in their infiniteness, but Jack did not look away. “You are Michael,” he said into the roaring wind. He heard the angel’s response in his head. “THEY ONCE CALLED ME METATRON. PRINCE OF THE COUNTENANCE. SECOND TO YAHWEH.” “Your name has changed through time.” “CALL ME WHAT YOU WILL. I HAVE NO REAL NAME.” “Why have you come to take the lives of the people on this plane?” Michael drifted down before Jack where he stood on the aluminum fuselage. The angel wore a Red Jay nest as a crown. He reached out with an appendage, like a hand made with feathers. Jack put his hand inside it. “You are one of us, Jack Palehorse,” Michael said. “See what we see.” Jack flew over a jungle town with Raguel, the avenger, with the body of a man, indigo wings, and the head of an eagle. Raguel hunted enemies of the Red Jay. He stopped in the air above a hotel that held the two CIA agents assigned to La Cana National Park. It was a

poorly built structure, and always had the possibility of collapse. At the will of Raguel this outcome occurred, and the floor where the agents worked fell from the third story to the first. Raguel then flew onto a building on the other side of town, where Colonel Herrera lay with his mistress. Raguel simply wished for his heart to stop and it did. “This in an intervention,” Michael said. “We do this for the good of the world.” “I do not intend to harm the Red Jay,” Jack said. The plane was closer to the sea now, with still no land in sight. “You are not the only significant person on the plane. Everyone has a part to play in what is about to unfold. Everyone is a gear in the clockwork of reality. Ten seats ahead of you, Ellis Lander, the supervisor of the CIA men, sits in a first class seat. He must die so that the Red Jay can break its vise.” “Why is the bird so important to you?” “It was a marker that was set long ago. If the Red Jay becomes extinct, so shall the human race.” The plane was just five hundred meters over the ocean now, gliding silently. “I will not live to see the judgment,” Jack said. “Not as you are. But you possess a spirit that most people have denied, and so you will haunt this world until the people find reunion with the spirit in themselves.” Then Jack was back in the aircraft in his old broken body. The plane was right over the sea, and spray from the wave crests touched the wings. He had the sensation of someone taking hold of his body and gently laying him down in a bed. It was a reassuring feeling: the soft tug of gravity, like the sea was welcoming him. The plane hit the waves like striking concrete and broke apart, and Jack’s spirit escaped. The sea rushed in and took the aircraft down to the deep. ê

Out of the corner of her eye, she began to see the divine. - Laura Castone, Paradise Found

AT THAT MOMENT, two thousand miles to the north, Imogen’s eyes opened. She was in Danny’s bed, in his grandmother’s house. She had her own room down the hall, but snuck into his bedroom in the night like a teenager. Danny held her close with his arms wrapped around her. The temperature was dropping outside and the old wood window was rattling. She thought of Jack the moment she woke up. She was afraid she would never see him again. She slipped out from under Danny’s arm and stood up. She walked to the window and looked out at the branches blowing in the wind. She crossed her arms in the chill. Her gaze settled on the eaves of a house across the street. Something was there. There was a shimmer in the air. She went closer to the glass but could not see what it was. A shadow lifted from the roof and into the sky. Something alien was awakening in her. “What is it?” Danny asked.

She turned back to see him sitting up in the bed. “What if all our dreams turn into nightmares?” she asked. “Then we’ll come up with new dreams,” he said.

At 4:21 am EST, there was an unanticipated comet strike on Jupiter, with six fragments colliding with the Great Red Spot. Forty- two minutes later, the light reached Earth and was spotted by the first ground telescopes. - Statement from NASA

JACK AND MICHAEL rose into the sky together like helium balloons. Five other color-tinged points of light followed them into the stratosphere. The angels’ wings billowed out as the bright light from their centers rose. Jack held his hands in front of him to see what form he had now, and there was nothing there. The curve of the blue Earth was below them. “Where is Ahriman?” Jack asked. The angel Ameretat approached him, shining with soft, blue light. To look upon her was to remember all the comfort that he experienced in his life. “He must stay behind,” she said. “The Earth is fear’s dominion.” The wings of the angels twisted and turned, and then they rocketed into space like six comets. Jack was pulled along. He looked back to his home, the Earth, as they flew away from it at increasing speed. It was a miracle. It was a world teeming with life that could be

a paradise for two billion more years. As they traveled into space, the angels joined Jack to their consciousness to unveil the mysteries to him. Humanity stumbled over Earth like a sleepwalking child. People built great pyramids and skyscrapers and sent men to the moon, but the ability they possessed was a pale shadow of their potential. They worshiped God because they could not perceive the God in themselves. Humanity endured terrible suffering in the separation, but the drama was drawing to a close. The marble disc of Jupiter grew in his vision. “There is our destination,” Ameretat said, and the true nature of the gas giant unfurled in Jack’s mind. Jupiter’s swirling bands of clouds and ancient storms were powered by the planet’s dizzying rotational speed, but the persistence of the Great Red Spot was the result of synchronicity, the organizing force of the cosmos. The aligning force of synchronicity was everywhere in the solar system, from the stability of the life-giving sun to the hexagon cloud formation on Saturn’s north pole. It was the breath of creation, life willing itself into being. But Jupiter was the most powerful agent of synchronistic change. The planet was instrumental in the formation of the inner solar system, giving Earth its ideal position from the sun, and hurled a protoplanet into Earth that caused the formation of the moon, essential for the evolution of life. After finding its stable place in the outer solar system, Jupiter continued to serve the Earth by pulling comets and asteroids into its gravitational field, thus removing threats to life. Yet Jupiter was not a guardian of all life on Earth. Sixty-five million years ago, Jupiter’s gravity hurled an asteroid onto a collision course with Earth. The destiny of the solar system was self-conscious life on Earth, and the destruction of the dinosaurs cleared the way for humanity’s evolution. The angels reached Jupiter’s outer moons and Jack felt the

gravitational embrace of the great planet. As they crossed into Jupiter’s radiation belt, the material form of the angels began to fade. They became more like thoughts, which was the true core of their being. They flew past Europa—the frozen water moon. Jupiter loomed before them, larger and larger. They descended toward the Great Red Spot at thousands of kilometers an hour. The angels collided with the upper clouds of the storm like hydrogen bombs exploding. Tendrils of red gas curled out six thousand kilometers and then were absorbed back into the planet’s gravity. Above Jupiter’s clouds, Jack watched the Great Red Spot changing, like a knot loosening. The ancient storm, resonator of synchronicity, was getting ready to transfer to humanity. Jack descended down into the glaring eye. It was his prayer for the new Earth.

The Heart Bird, as the Caro call it, is the truest name of the Red Jay. It is a vessel for the ancient wisdom of the rainforest. The Heart Bird’s songs unfurl in codes that mirror the divine order it perceives in the world. - Field notes of Bonnie Delamarca

BONNIE WOKE UP to ants biting her. She climbed out of her shelter of palm fronds and brushed them off. The morning sun shone hotly through the trees, and she lifted a hand to shield her face. The angels were gone. She was her old self again. She never questioned the source of her power in La Cana. It was so miraculous that she feared that the act of questioning would make it disappear. Bonnie felt reborn here. It was easy to forget herself and become the savior of the Red Jay, especially after Carmen died. Taking a stand against the extinction of a bird was a beautiful purpose for her life. She surrendered herself and the forest raised her up. But now the jungle seemed an inhospitable place, not suited to strangers like her. There were red welts on her skin from where the insects bit her. The rainforest was turning on her, to devour her. Jaguars would stalk her, and the men she terrorized would seek their revenge.

She stood up straight and closed her eyes. The angel said that the Red Jay’s survival depended on her. That meant she had to stay in this dangerous place. She listened to the sounds of the jungle: the frogs and birds, the screeching insects, the water flow of a creek nearby. She remembered something that Luis had told her about the Caro, how they ritually cleansed themselves before the hunt, to hide their scents and become one with the forest. She left her makeshift camp and walked through the trees, gathering dead branches of Palo Santo trees, which she took down to the edge of the creek. She used her last matches to light a fire. The wood produced fragrant white smoke. She took off her clothes and hung them on branches over the fire, and then climbed down into a pool of the creek to wash. When she was done, she stood naked by the fire and guided billowing white smoke over her body with her hands. A Red Jay called out from high above the trees. Kiri-kiri-kiri went its song. She understood what it meant: the spirit is here. The angels were gone but the power of the forest still flowed through her. She came from the North but she was accepted here. “Thank you,” she said. Beware, the forest responded. A vision of La Cana in flames flashed in her mind. Save the Red Jay, it said. She dressed, packed, and headed down a path to the nearest nest. She climbed the tornillo tree using safety ropes. The survival of the Red Jay was on her shoulders, and if she fell and broke her leg, the species might be lost. She reached the branch where the nest lay. She climbed on her hands and knees out along the branch. A glimpse of scarlet feathers told her that the birds were home. She lacked her former grace, but the birds were not disturbed by her noisy approach. They trusted her as their own mother. She leaned over the birds. There were a pair and one fledgling in the nest. The female’s feathers were brightest scarlet. All three birds

looked at her with their deep black eyes. She gently lifted the birds one by one and placed them in a bag. She wished she had a cage but the cloth bag would have to do. The birds did not struggle and curled up together at the bottom. She saw burning trees in her mind’s eye again. Fire was coming.

The MK-77 was a successor to the napalm bombs of the Vietnam War and used a kerosene-based fuel with white phosphorus and an oxidizing agent to keep it burning. - Logan Wheeler, La Cana Anomaly

FARC COMMANDER PABLO Cañes stood with his lieutenant José Humberto and five of their most trusted soldiers at the border of La Cana. Spies told them about the death of the Army commandos in La Cana. Cañes believed the black magic of La Bruja was to blame, but General Silva laughed. “There is no place in the revolution for super- stition,” he said. “The government cannot catch Delamarca, but we will, and the people will take note. FARC is rising again.” Silva was nowhere to be found today, and Cañes stepped forward across the threshold alone. He walked thirty paces into the jungle and turned around to face his men. After a few moments, he threw his head back and yelled: “¡ESTOY AQUÍ!” He stood silently, listening to see if the forest had a response. Finding himself still alive after five minutes, he motioned for José and the other soldiers to join him. They fanned out in pairs into the park. José headed north along a

dense deer path with Manuel, another young soldier. They took turns at the front, swinging a machete and cut their way through into an open, marshy area. They moved quickly, jumping between grass clumps over the water. Their eyes darted across the landscape, searching for a sign of Bonnie. José saw movement in a tree half a kilometer away. It was Bonnie climbing down. When José and Manuel reached the tree, she was gone, but they caught her trail heading west. They came upon her with her back to them, standing beside the rosewood tree. The four Red Jay juveniles were sitting on a branch at eye level. She reached out to take the first one and place it in the bag. She was so absorbed in the task that she didn’t process the sound of the men splashing through the creek toward her. Manuel was the first to fire. His bullet missed, and she snapped out of her daze and ran without turning to see who had found her. The Red Jay scattered. Manuel fired and missed again. Bonnie escaped around the back of the rosewood tree. She ran deeper into the forest, with the two soldiers close behind her. José raised and lowered his rifle as he ran, waiting for a clear shot. La Bruja’s knowledge of La Cana’s trails was impressive, and she gained ground. Losing sight of her, Manuel cursed. José motioned for him to be silent and they listened for the sound of her footfalls. He heard the sound of a breaking branch in the distance, and strained to hear another. Instead, he heard a strange whine that he heard once before. It took a moment for him to recognize it. It was a sound he heard years ago when the Colombian Air Force bombed his camp. He looked into the sky. He saw the distinct triangular shape of a B-2 stealth bomber, an American aircraft. He was knocked off his feet when the first bomb hit. It struck a kilometer away, in the heart of La Cana, felling hundreds of ancient trees with a blast wave and sending explosive

fragments deep into the jungle. The shock wave hit José and Manuel a moment before the shrapnel. Manuel managed to stay on his feet but was killed when a fragment of metal tore through his chest. Everywhere leaves and branches were falling, like the world was collapsing upon them. José got back to his feet and scrambled down into a creek bed. He ran through the burning debris. He saw Bonnie fifty meters ahead through the smoke. Above them, a group of bombers flew in formation. Bomb canisters trailed behind the aircraft and spun over themselves as they fell to Earth. “¡Protégete!” José yelled. Take cover. Bonnie climbed under a rock outgrowth on the riverbank with the bag of Red Jay. A moment later the first of the incendiary bombs struck, shaking the ground like an earthquake. The world turned to fire. José slid under the rock with Bonnie as the flames roared over the top of the creek bed. She was digging herself into the mud. Her eyes met his and they acknowledged a truce. José buried his face in the ground and prayed. The explosions ended, and waves of heat and toxic smoke rolled over them. Finally, it seemed safe enough to raise his face. The forest had turned to fire and smoke. Animals were burned alive where they cowered and birds where they flew. Bonnie sat up, with her back leaning on the side of the creek bed. She wiped the mud from her face. “I know you,” she said. “You are La Bruja,” he said. His throat was sore from inhaling so much smoke. She laughed, and it made her wince. Her hand grasped her bag and pulled it gently out of the mud. She opened it. The Red Jay inside were still alive. There was a flash of scarlet feathers as they flew out of the bag. The birds climbed high into the sky and away from the

fire as fast as they could. Bonnie rose to her knees, and reached over her shoulder to touch her back. When she pulled her hand back, it was red with blood. She twisted her body so that José could see. There was a deep burn where a fireball had struck her. Part of one of her ribs was showing. She sat back down in the mud carefully. “Do you have a map?” she asked weakly. José nodded and pulled a map of La Cana out of his backpack. He handed it to Bonnie and she laid it out on the ground. Using her hand, still wet with blood, she marked with bloody fingerprints the nesting sites of the Red Jay. “The Red Jay must be saved,” she said. Then she fainted from the pain. José folded up the map. It was too late. La Cana was burning. He would be lucky to escape alive. He left her in the creek bed and climbed up the bank. When he reached ground level he saw the full scale of the destruction. The forest was on fire in every direction he turned. He took a few steps and then the hot smoke collapsed his lungs and he fell.

It is a world of crises that I hand over to President-elect Fitch. - President Robert Water, televised address

PRESIDENT WATER STOOD alone on the White House North Portico, awaiting the arrival of his successor. Gloria Fitch and her family were not due to arrive for another fifteen minutes, but the President stepped outside a little early, to be alone. The autumn leaves of the oak trees on the North Lawn were golden in the morning sunlight. On the other side of the gate, a group of tourists recognized him from the distance and waved. The President lifted his arm. He still had movie star looks but his hair had turned entirely white in the last few years, as the office he long dreamed of holding wore him down. He had just firebombed a national park in Colombia. He would call it a military operation against ex-FARC terrorists, but environ- mentalists would pillory him. His one-term presidency was crashing toward an ignominious end as a result of Henry Holman’s conspiracy. His administration blamed the Caliphate for the memorial bombing, but Neil Garrett post- humously revealed that it was a set-up. Two weeks after his death, zombie computers delivered evidence to journalists showing how Ray

Jansen planned the bombing. A SWAT team surrounded Jansen at a car wash. He surrendered quietly and blamed it all on Holman. Holman deactivated his pacemaker when the police raided his office, and they found him dead at his desk. This was not good for the President Elect-elect. He was a major contributor to Gloria’s campaign. With the exposure of the conspiracy, Water thought he might be off the hook with the invasion, but the CIA produced evidence that the Caliphate had sarin gas–tipped missiles. The country was being led inexorably to war and it was beyond his power to resist. The door opened behind him and he turned to see his wife, Debbie, and his teenage daughter, Nadine. Debbie and Nadine came to his side just as Gloria’s motorcade passed through the gate to snake up the semicircle driveway to the North Portico. Gloria, Aaron, and their two daughters emerged from a limousine. “Gloria!” Water was glad to see her. Soon she would be taking over this mess. She wore a simple, navy suit. If it had epaulets it would pass for a military uniform. She stepped forward and they embraced. “Good morning, Mr. President.” Water shook Aaron’s hand, and then held his hand out to their youngest daughter. “Jenny, I presume.” “Hello, Mr. President.” Water kneeled down. “You must be Isabel.” He could see that Isabel was not well. She was dazed and barely standing on her own two feet, but she managed a smile. Water led the Fitches up the stairs and through the front door of the White House. Aaron lifted Isabel up into his arms. Debbie took them on a tour of the ground floor, and then the President excused himself and Gloria for their meeting in the Oval Office. The President and President-elect posed for a photo before the

meeting began, and then the photographer left them alone. Water closed the door behind him. He didn’t want anyone to hear the things they were about to say. They sat across from each other in leather chairs by the fireplace, under a portrait of George Washington. The President had asked for a fire to be built for their meeting because he thought it might be a reassurance. “What happened in La Cana, Robert? I heard reports that it was bombed.” “We destroyed it, Gloria. La Cana National Park is turning to cin- ders.” “My God, why?” “It was a threat to the world. The CIA recorded bizarre readings, and then two agents and their supervisor were mysteriously killed. No one could get in there. Something was changing reality—altering probability. The Joint Chiefs advised me to order a preemptive strike.” “Is Bonnie Delamarca alive?” “She is presumed dead. We’ll look for her bones later.” “When I asked you to investigate, I never wanted this.” “How did you know that La Cana was so important, Gloria?” “It’s my daughter Isabel. You know that she suffers from epilepsy and other problems. She also has… visions.” “Girls can be very intuitive.” “It’s more than that, Robert. She believed she saw angels. And then I saw a demon in her bedroom. It was filled with rage. You must believe me.” Water was getting used to hearing extraordinary statements from reliable parties. “Something is happening, Gloria,” he said. “I’m afraid this isn’t over. Astronomers have been unable to determine what hit Jupiter. The Red Spot is breaking up. The storm is ending. The planet is emitting an extreme amount of radiation. Scientists can’t explain it.”

“Isabel has had visions of Jupiter too.” “Then that confirms it: you are the right person for this job.” He laughed. “I’m in over my head, Gloria.” “Robert, I need to know what we are facing. It’s time for you to tell me the state secrets. Are we dealing with extraterrestrials?” Water laughed, but his face looked worried. “We’ve never seen anything like this, Gloria. There have been UFO phenomena since the 1940s. We’ve never been able to explain it or get hard evidence—other than some blurry images and radar blips. One theory is that UFOs are cultural hysteria erupting from the collective unconscious. Another is that they are inter-dimensional beings. Now I’m thinking maybe they are real.” “I expect we’ll find out soon,” Gloria said. “I think you made a mistake in destroying La Cana. It was brash and there might be repercussions.” The President looked into the fire. It was beginning to die down, and the logs could be adjusted to let more oxygen in. But Water knew that it would see them through their talk, so he didn’t reach for the poker to fix the fire. “Time will tell,” he said. “We have other matters to discuss,” Gloria said. “Yes,” he said. “A war.” “What’s your plan in the next few weeks?” “I wanted to leave the invasion up to you, Gloria. After all, promising war is what got you elected. But the Caliphate has weapons of mass destruction now. It will be time to strike soon.” “I’ve been having second thoughts, Robert.” “Christ, Gloria. It’s too late. Our troops are massing. And in no small part due to your warmongering.” “Hold the invasion off. I can take the heat.” “Why the change of heart?” “Maybe the time has come to give up on foreign wars and focus on ourselves.”

The President looked into the fireplace. The flames were gone and it was just black smoke. “I’ll do what I can, Gloria.”

Not even Ahriman could turn me from my path. - Writings of Isabel Fitch

AFTER THE WHITE House tour, the First Lady took Isabel, her sister, and her dad to the Rose Garden for lemonade and cookies. Isabel sat next to Nadine, the President’s daughter. After they finished their refreshments, the First Daughter stood up. “Want a tour of secret passageways in the White House?” she asked. Jenny jumped up. “I do!” she said. Isabel stood up too. “Are you sure you can manage it, Isabel?” her dad asked. “Yes,” she said. But then Nadine and Jenny were crossing the Rose Garden lawn, and she already lagged behind them, stumbling through the grass. Suddenly, a white light flashed in the air, and Isabel blinked her eyes. It was so bright. She looked back at her dad and the First Lady. They were just talking to each other, like they hadn’t noticed anything. She looked forward again. A miniature star floated in the air above the White House roof. It pulsed in geometric shapes—golden

hexagons and silver octagons—and then grew wings. “Raphael,” Isabel said. Rays of white light danced off his beautiful form. His dark hair blew in the wind. The violet discs of his eyes grew brighter and then broke into rainbow light that shined upon Isabel. She felt her energy returning. She wasn’t sleepy anymore. He healed her. “Thank you,” she said. “It is time for our last dance with humanity,” Raphael said to her in her head. “We will protect you, but you must be brave. Ahriman has grown stronger in our absence.” “I will be brave,” she said. He gave her a loving smile. She smiled back and then ran after Jenny and Nadine into the White House. They were waiting for her. They walked into the Center Hall on the ground floor, and then Nadine led them into the North Hall. She showed them a hidden door on the wall. “The Secret Service’s headquarters are located on the other side of this door,” she said. “They will do anything to protect you.” She took them along more corridors until they stopped at a steel door. Isabel jogged along after them. She was so happy to be feeling better. “Behind this door is a tunnel that leads across the street,” Nadine said. Isabel touched her hand to the cold steel. “I can’t even show you all the secret things around here,” Nadine whispered. “There is a big bunker under us.” “What’s a bunker?” Isabel asked. “It’s a place you can go if the country is under attack.” “Oh,” Isabel said. Her parents had not told her that the world was so dangerous. Nadine led them up to the second floor of the residence, where she showed them another hidden door cut into the wall by the Queens’ Bedroom. On the other side of the door, there was a

staircase that led up to the third floor. She took them through a sun- room out onto the parapet that ran around the White House roof. Nadine waved at a Secret Service man with a gun on the roof. He gave a little wave back. Then the three girls peered through the pillars onto the White House grounds. A vision unfolded in Isabel’s mind. A crimson light grew and the landscape turned to flames. She saw La Cana through the fire. The rainforest was burning with Bonnie and the Red Jay inside. The sight was like a knife turning in her gut. She doubled over on the ground, holding her knees. Jenny put her hand on her sister’s head. “Are you ok, Izzie?” She shook her head. “Lie down,” Jenny said. “Breathe deeply.” A Secret Service agent appeared. “Better take her to the doctor,” he said and lifted Isabel into his arms. The agent carried her back down through the residence. She did not see the world in front of her. She was soaring over a La Cana in flames. She saw skeletons of burned-out trees. He took her to the physician’s office on the ground floor. Her mom and dad met her there and the doctor gave her a pill. The drug raised a curtain between her and the thoughts of Ahriman. The vision ended and she cried softly at what she had seen. Twenty minutes later, Isabel felt well enough to travel back to their hotel near the White House. Her dad lifted her into his arms. She rested her head on his shoulder. In front of the White House, they said goodbye to the Water family. The President leaned down to Isabel. “It was nice to meet you, Isabel. I hope you feel better soon,” he said. She saw La Cana burning in the irises of his eyes. “No more bombs,” she said. The President’s lips moved without a sound. The First Lady broke the silence. “I like the way you’re talking,”

she said and patted Isabel on the head. Water found his voice again. “I’ll definitely keep that in mind.” He gave her mom a kiss on her cheek. “Gloria, it is always a pleasure to see you,” he said. He shook her father’s hand. “Will you be at the rededication of the Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans Memorial tomorrow, Aaron?” “Yes, Mr. President.” “You’re coming to New York too, Robert?” her mom asked the President. “You didn’t hear? Nobody told you?” He grinned, but it soon faded. “We need to get Americans feeling united in case we have to start another war.”

The apocalypse began with American bombs falling on La Cana. - Laura Castone, Paradise Found

BONNIE’S EYES OPENED suddenly where she lay in the mud of the creek bed. Was I having a nightmare? She turned her face to the sky. The smoke was so thick it was like night. No, the nightmare is real. She rose to her feet. The burn on her back stung, but she felt the rainforest’s power within her. She stared up at the cascading cathedral of smoke. She had a vision of the juvenile Red Jay, cowering in their nest in the rosewood tree. They were not yet lost. She climbed up the bank of the creek bed. The fire had passed this place. The ground was covered with embers that burned the soles of her shoes. She saw the burned body of the FARC soldier José. La Cana was as charred as the surface of Venus. Between her and the rosewood tree lay a wall of fire. Plumes of smoke rose from the burning trees like upturned waterfalls from hell. She scrambled back down into the creek bed. It had kept her safe from the fire and smoke before and perhaps it would again. She covered her face and arms with mud and headed down the creek toward the fire. She coughed and stumbled forward. She could see less than a

meter in front of her face. It felt like her back was on fire again. Then, suddenly, she was through and the air was clear. She turned back to see where she had come. The smoke cloud was heaving in the bed of the creek, like a living thing that could go no further. Some force was holding it back. She turned forward again and saw the rosewood tree towering above her. It still had its leaves, but they were wilted in the hot wind of the firestorm. She climbed the bank and found her climbing rope still lying where she left it when she ran from the FARC soldiers. She tossed the rope over a high branch, but nearly fainted from the pain of the motion on her back. She tied off the rope, took a few deep breaths and began to climb. The mud and blood on her hands made her slip, but the rope caught her and she climbed back up again. Three young Red Jays were in the nest. La Cana National Park was all they ever knew. She surveyed the park from her vantage on the high branch. Walls of flame a hundred feet tall raged and cyclones of smoke crossed the burned plains. It was clearing to the southwest. The fire had done its work there. The birds could escape that way, into the jungles of Peru. She lifted one of them out of the nest and walked out with him to the end of the branch. She tossed him out into the air and he flapped his wings and headed southwest. The other two birds understood and took to the air after him. Bonnie gazed upon the fires burning everywhere else. There were more Red Jay trapped, with young that could not fly. The angel called her the protector of the Red Jay, but what could she do against such a force of destruction? Then she remembered something that Julia Santos told her at the Centro de la Botánica: consciousness influences reality. She focused her attention on halting a fire spreading down a valley to a Red Jay family. Hope rose in her heart, and for a moment, the flames stopped.

Never in a time of such need for people to transform the world has there been such opportunity to succeed. - Imogen Greene, social media

AT THAT MOMENT in Manhattan, Imogen and Danny stood at West 43rd Street and Broadway, facing the electronic billboards of Times Square. It was just after five pm and workers streamed out of office buildings and mixed with tourists on the street. Their arms were around each other in the crowd. Operation Omega could wait no longer. The United States was on the brink of invading the Caliphate. Imogen expected it to come by the time that Gloria was inaugurated, and the only way to stop it was revolution. When Imogen heard that the President-elect was coming to New York for the rededication of the War on Terror Memorial, she proposed Omega begin on that day. Everything was not ready. Technical issues and security obstacles were unresolved. Some of the cells could fail and people would be arrested. Jack’s aircraft lay at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. Imogen allowed herself a day to mourn when she heard the news, and then dried her eyes and asked Danny to meet her here. The longer they waited the more opportunity the government had

to break the conspiracy. Any Omega team with a chance of suc- ceeding was expected to try, even it if was slim. That is what it meant to be in the Invisible Army. Changing the world was worth the gamble. The hundreds of hackers worldwide who signed on undertook less risk than operatives like Danny and Imogen. When Omega began, they would be safe behind multiple layers of encryption. The hacking operation was directed from Reykjavik, and labs were set up in a dozen countries around the world. Because the New York operatives risked so much, Winston at mission control decided to signal the start of Omega with something to inspire them. It took weeks of planning and diverted resources from other operations, but he wanted to show his friends in New York that the world was behind them. He told Imogen to come to Times Square at five pm, and look at the NASDAQ jumbo screen. The electronic display that wrapped around the cylindrical NASDAQ building went black. Danny started shooting video with his phone. A black, billowing flag, with a white rabbit head over crossbones, appeared on the nine thousand square-foot screen. The words "OMEGA OMEGA OMEGA" ran over the stock ticker. Imogen hugged Danny. She could feel energy jumping between them. “It’s here,” she said. “Praise God,” Danny said. He looked down at his phone to upload the video to Winston. They would post it all over the Internet. Hackers around the world would cancel their plans for the next day. “It’s not over,” Imogen said. “Look.” Danny raised his phone again. The words “BE PRESENT” flashed in rainbow letters on the jumbo video screens of One Times Square. Then the words moved to the NASDAQ screen. Danny sent the new video to Reykjavik and a minute later

received a message back. “The last message wasn’t us,” Winston wrote. “Apparently we’re not alone in this.”

It was the worst moment of my life, but it changed the world. - Writings of Isabel Fitch

THAT NIGHT IN Washington, Gloria brushed Isabel’s hair gently behind her ears until she fell asleep. She was quiet that night but Gloria was restless in the hotel suite. She caught a few hours of sleep before the morning, and then woke to the sound of her daughters playing in the next room. She went to the doorway. “Hi Mom,” Isabel said. Gloria smiled to see her feeling well. Her doctor visited after breakfast. He was happy with her recovery, and said she seemed well enough to travel. The Fitch family boarded a flight to New York, and then took a motorcade to Battery Park. They stepped out of their limousine at the edge of the park. There was a small Park Service vehicle waiting to take them to the memorial, but Gloria declined. The rededication ceremony was not scheduled to begin for thirty minutes. It was a sunny day and she wanted to walk through the park with her family and enjoy the weather. She took Aaron’s hand and Isabel and Jenny ran ahead, searching for the most beautiful red and yellow leaves.

Gloria met strangers along the way—people walking and jogging through the park—who gathered around her and wanted to shake her hand. She lost New York State by a big margin to Water, and she was touched that people wanted to meet her. The rededication was to be a great political moment. When the bombing happened, her advisors all agreed that she should return to the memorial. It would be an inspiring event for a nation anticipating another war. After Neil Garrett revealed that he blew himself up as part of Holman’s conspiracy, Gloria felt more than ever that she must return, even though the political benefits were diminished. The memorial, with its programs for each individual slain soldier, served as a resting place for her brother and so many others. It needed to be redeemed so that the dead could rest in peace. Gloria looked up to the trees. An aircraft flew in front of the sun, flashing a shadow across the path. Two seagulls flew in symmetrical patterns above her. A hum rose in the air. Gloria wondered what was making the sound. She looked at the Secret Service agents, and they didn’t seem to notice it. Suddenly, there was a burst of light and a wall of fire roared toward them through the park, consuming everything in its path. Gloria flinched, pulling on Aaron’s hand. People emerged from the fire and smoke and walked by them, oblivious to the disaster. A woman, chatting into her cell phone, wore a skull’s head. An old man walking his dog, a child, a man jogging—all of them showed bones through open patches in their skin. Moments after it began, her vision ended. “Are you ok?” Aaron asked. She nodded. She remembered how Isabel said the Soviet names. The hallucination was a warning. What America had done to La Cana, God could do to New York. The Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans Memorial came into view, and one of Gloria’s staffers directed them to a Park Service building

behind it. The President was expected momentarily and then the ceremony would begin. As an advisor ran over her speech with her, Gloria noticed an older couple standing meekly nearby. The man’s skin was deeply lined as if he had spent most of his life in the sun. “Those are Neil Garrett’s parents,” an advisor said. “They want to speak to you.” Gloria motioned them forward and smiled warmly. She shook their hands. “Mr. and Mrs. Garrett, thank you for coming today.” “Mrs. Fitch, we want to thank you for the invitation.” “It’s important that we find closure, Mr. Garrett. I consider your son, Neil, a victim of war as well.” “Thank you,” Neil’s mom said softly, and Gloria hugged her. She was still holding her this way as the President and his entourage arrived. Water gave a wave to Gloria, and then the Fitches and the Garretts were led to their places. Aaron, Isabel, and Jenny were seated on the edge of the stage. Aaron took Isabel’s hand. As they waited for the President to emerge, Gloria looked at the solemn crowd of people seated around the memorial. There were a few familiar faces, but no sign of Elliot Greene. Her political benefactor was cleared of wrongdoing in the memorial bombing, but he was keeping a low profile. Gloria was quite certain that he would emerge sooner or later to claim the political favors she owed to him. Water appeared and walked to the podium. The crowd fell silent. “Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. It is with a proud and heavy heart that I make my first visit to the Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans Memorial. When I was unable to attend the dedication ceremony, I pledged to come here before the end of my term. But then the bombing of November 9 happened, and it seemed that I might not be able to keep my promise. But the Memorial Commission has done a fabulous job of putting this sacred place back together again, and I stand here at the rededication ceremony,

less than one month later. “They tell me that they built duplicate components for the various parts of this memorial, because a memorial commemorating wars fought against terror might itself become a target of terrorists. They stored the extra parts at a secure warehouse in Stonycreek, Pennsylvania, not far from where passengers heroically brought down United Flight 93 on 9/11. They told me that there is only one piece of this memorial that has no replacement, and it is the statue standing behind me. “‘Eagle Rising from the Destruction’ is the last work by the great American sculptor Paul Halbi. He died peacefully in his sleep, at age 82, shortly after delivering this masterpiece to the Memorial Commission. On November 9, ‘Eagle Rising’ suffered only minimal damage from the bomb here. On that day, the sculpture became what it evoked—a powerful symbol of the resilience of America. Like the eagle here, we must all keep rising.” The President turned to admire the towering marble sculpture. “I now have the privilege of introducing Gloria Fitch, the next President of the United States. Yesterday, President-elect Fitch and I had a sober discussion in the Oval Office about the peril the world now faces because of the acquisition of chemical weapons by the Caliphate. We talked about the diplomatic solutions we are pursuing, and what we can do to find a peaceful solution to the crisis. We also agreed that if a diplomatic solution is not soon found, war is the only option left. If war does come, I am confident that Gloria Fitch will be a highly effective commander-in-chief. She is America’s Iron Lady. But she cannot do it alone. All Americans must step up to do their part. May God bless her and these United States of America.” The crowd applauded, and Gloria stepped to the podium. She embraced the President briefly and then he sat back down at the side of the stage. Water waved at Isabel sitting at the edge of the stage and she waved back. He smiled to see her seeming so well today. At the podium, Gloria stood in silence, gathering her thoughts.

The teleprompter showed the opening lines of her speech, but she looked instead to the faces in the crowd. There were four-star generals, politicians, and families of slain servicemembers. They were all looking into her eyes. “Six months ago,” she said, “I spoke at the dedication ceremony for this memorial about how history would remember our soldiers who gave their lives fighting terror around the world. This memorial ensures that they will be remembered as individuals, with their sacrifices valued equally. “The Memorial Commission takes an inclusive approach when considering whether to memorialize soldiers here, recognizing that the costs of war are not always clearly defined. It is a controversial approach, but it strives toward reconciliation, and for that I admire it. “Neil Garrett was serving as an IT specialist in Afghanistan, helping to keep Allied forces connected, when his vehicle ran over an IED. Five fellow soldiers in the vehicle died in the bombing. My brother, Peter Velazquez, was one of the dead. Neil was the only survivor. He soon recovered from his broken wrist and concussion, but his psychological scars were deep and never healed. “I am not here to forgive Neil for what he did. His motives remain murky, but he was a suicide bomber—a terrorist plain and simple. On the day that he decided to blow himself up, there were men, women and children present here who could have died with him. They will never forget the terror of that day. “So Garrett cannot be forgiven, but we should acknowledge that he was a victim of war. We have to do more to help our veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, to reintegrate soldiers like Neil back into society, and keep them from hurting themselves or others. “I have always believed that there are wars that need to be fought. The United States is the protector of the free world, and has acted aggressively when necessary to protect our freedom. But President Water was right when he said that war is all of our burden to bear. We must not rush into war with the Caliphate. We owe it to our

soldiers and to innocent civilians. “Mr. President,” Gloria said, looking into Water’s eyes earnestly. “I believe that the United States should open direct ceasefire talks with the Caliphate. The days of America acting like a child in the schoolyard and cutting off communication with its adversaries are over. We should engage in no expanded military actions against the Caliphate before these talks occur.” Water gave Gloria a little nod. It was almost too slight to see, but Gloria saw it, and she nodded back. “Mr. Garrett, will you please come forward?” she asked. Neil’s father stood up from the side of the stage and stepped hesitantly forward. Around his neck, he wore the glass key to activate his son’s memorial video. “I hereby rededicate this memorial to all of our freedom-loving soldiers remembered here,” Gloria said. “We owe it to them to strive for a world without war. If we let the world be destroyed by violence and hate, then they will have died in vain.” She lifted the key from around Bill Garrett’s neck and inserted it into the slot in the sundial podium. Together they turned the key. Neil’s face materialized on the black granite monolith behind them. He was sitting in an open-bed truck, with a rural landscape passing by behind him. His face was serious, but when he looked into the camera a smile broke out. His name, branch of service, and years of life appeared on the slab, and then photographs of him projected around the monoliths and trees of the memorial amphitheater. He posed with his brothers and father in camouflage in a hunting party. He stood in a tuxedo with his prom date. He stood with Gloria’s brother and other fellow soldiers in front of their armored truck. He fastened cable to a telephone pole crowded with colorful banners. The disembodied voice of an interviewer spoke. “Why are you here, Neil?” His face appeared on the center monolith again. He looked years

younger as if the video was taken when he was a new recruit. He thought about the question. “It’s my responsibility. If my country asks for volunteer soldiers, I have no choice but to volunteer. I don’t want anyone to go to war in my place. I always knew that it was my destiny to be at the front lines.” The video held on Neil’s face for another moment. The IED bombing that killed his friends was six months away. There was sadness there, as if he knew what going to happen. Then the image faded. Gloria and Water bowed their heads. Before they raised them again, there was a white flash, and the world ended for them.

The forest was asleep until the Creator made the Heart Bird. - Caro saying

WHEN CARO VILLAGERS heard the thunder of bombs falling on La Cana, they gathered on a hill and watched the fire and smoke growing on the western horizon. The people were dressed in loincloths. They lived in balance with the Amazon and did not need to wear more. Only their healer was more elaborately dressed, with a necklace of jaguar teeth and a rainbow-colored headdress with plumes of Red Jay feathers rising out of the top. The shaman’s arms were painted in intricate geometric patterns, and a white star was painted around his left eye. The villagers grew hushed that morning when they saw him emerge in full ceremonial dress. Soon after, the aircraft screamed in the sky and the bombs began flashing on the horizon. “We must go deeper into the forest,” an elder said as the clouds of smoke grew in the west. “There is nowhere left to run,” the healer said. The Caro fled into the interior of the Amazon a century ago. La Cana was a haven, where they were able to practice their traditional ways and recover from the violence inflicted on their tribe. The Caro lived in equilibrium with the land—in truth. Outsiders lived in the lie

that the unbalanced world they made would last forever. When the loggers and oilmen came, the destruction of La Cana was reflected in the health of the Caro. There were diseases and unusual accidents, and conflict among the people. The healer knew the problems in the village were due to the disruptions in the forest. He took up his responsibility to return the balance. He listened to the songs of the Red Jay and studied their flight, like watching messages written on the air. The Caro believed that the Red Jay taught them language, and that the forest spoke through them. The Red Jay told the shaman that the heart of the world was threatened. He saw visions of the young woman from the north, fighting to save the Heart Bird. He asked the spirits to protect her against the enemies of the forest and the fire. “All the people of the world are one,” the shaman said. “The sick- ness of the outsiders is ours and we must heal it. We must ask the spirits to help them remember who they are.” “It is too late,” the elder said, pointing at the approaching flames. “Don’t you see the fire growing? It will burn us all.” “We will hold a great ceremony and ask for rain to stop the fires. If the Heart Bird dies then so shall we. The bird is like the wood beam that holds the maloca of the world together.” The villagers respected their healer above all others, but they whispered nervously among themselves, in fear of the fire. “Look,” he said, pointing to the trail that led into camp. “Our sisters and brothers are coming to help.” The people of a nearby Caro village walked single-file down the trail led by their healer, an elderly woman. She was very old and knew the most secret power of the Amazonian shaman: how to heal the land. The two villages crowded together into the maloca in a great circle, and drank Ayahuasca. The healers sang icaros of exorcism and healing. Together, the male and female voices formed a complete whole, as they called forth the spirits. They sang an icaro that

mimicked the synchronized singing of the Red Jay. It continued for over an hour. As they sang, the healer had a vision of a multi-colored golden temple, luminous and full of intricate details, rising from the jungle. The Spanish conquistadors had searched the Amazon in vain for El Dorado—the city of gold. He knew that the golden city was within. In his vision, he walked to the inner sanctum of a temple, which was guarded by a white bear, a wolf, and a lynx. Another man was at the entrance—a Native man from the North. He had a scar on his head and walked with a limp. They stepped together across the threshold and a white light enveloped them. The healer’s vision ended, and he sat quietly as the witch began a rain song. The winds seemed to rise with the breath of her song, like a storm beginning from the flutter of a single hummingbird’s wings. The people saw the wind and prayed. She sang with gentle force until the rain began to fall, splattering on the thatch roof. With renewed vigor, the two healers sang songs of gratitude to the spirits of the forest. The rainstorm grew and the winds shook the building. The people of the two villages laughed and hugged each other. On the horizon, the fire of La Cana dimmed in the deluge.

We were an autoimmune response from the spirit of humanity to the crisis. We were white blood cells throwing themselves against the illness. - Daniel Evens, testimony before the US Truth and Reconciliation Commission

THE PRESIDENT AND President-elect were dead. There were rumors of another explosion downtown snowballing on the Internet. The memorial bombing was just the beginning, people said. New York City was under attack again. Office workers trying to get out of Manhattan found the police blocking their way to the subway. There was smoke in the tunnels. Several switching stations were offline. With four subway lines down or dysfunctional, the MTA acknowledged that the subway was under attack and shut down the entire system. With nowhere to go, people regrouped in the lobbies of their office buildings, looking nervously toward the street outside. Others started walking to the bridges and ferries to get off the island. On television screens around the world, video of the memorial bombing was looped over and over again. Billions turned their eyes as one upon the sequence, connecting humanity as one mind.

President-elect Fitch and President Water watched a video of Neil Garrett projected on the memorial behind them. The image faded and they bowed their heads. There was a burst of yellow-white light. They slowed down the video to show that the explosion came from the Eagle Rising sculpture. They slowed the frames even slower to reveal a white blur that appeared just before the explosion, like a dove spreading its wings above the stage. It was above Isabel. She was holding her father’s hand when the white shape seemed to envelop her and lift her away. You could see Aaron trying to keep ahold of her, and then their hands releasing. The video was paused to show the moment when their hands pulled apart. It was like God and Adam reaching to each other on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. An instant later, the sculpture exploded and the camera was knocked over. It kept running with a broken lens, showing bloody people crawling away. Twelve people were confirmed dead, including Water and Fitch. News of the assassinations disturbed the Invisible Army operatives. For a few, it seemed too great a coincidence that the memorial bombing and Omega occurred on the same day. To those who knew Imogen’s identity, the coincidence was even more spectacular. They knew that Ray Jansen, the fugitive who planned the first bombing, worked for her father. Jack told them so. But their faith in Imogen was strong. They all experienced synchronicities around her before. It had steeled their faith in her. Of course, today above all others, they should expect more coincidences to occur. A handle of operatives abandoned their posts and headed home. The rest found their courage. Around the world, legions of hackers began their assault.

IMOGEN STEPPED OUT of a building onto Broadway downtown. Her hair was dyed blue and cut short, with bangs that hung almost over

her eyes. She wore a white blouse, black suit, and heels, and pulled a roller bag suitcase behind her. The assassinations disturbed her too, and she worried how Omega was affected. From an operational standpoint, the ratcheting up of chaos could be a benefit. But people would forever associate the assassinations with the Invisible Army. She wondered if her father was involved. The tyrants were revealing themselves now. She was sorry that she and her father were on different sides of the revolution, but she told herself that she was fighting to set him free too. She walked up Broadway and into Trinity Church. There was an old woman out front sobbing. “She’s gone. Gloria’s gone,” she said to Imogen. Inside the church, people were gathered in the pews, crying and praying. Some were there to mourn. Others because they thought the world was coming to an end. She walked down the center aisle toward the altar, pulling her roller bag behind her. In the seventh pew to the left, a woman was waiting for her, looking back nervously. She was Katie, an attorney with Newfood, an agrichemical company. The American-led company was headquartered in Switzerland to avoid paying US taxes. It had a long history of covering up the health risks of its products, from industrial chemicals that caused cancer to insecticides blamed for bee colony collapse and other ecological disasters. The long-term effects of its genetically modified crops were not known because the company’s executives formed a symbiotic relationship with politicians. Katie met Imogen at a yoga class. They became friends before Katie revealed where she worked. She was ashamed to mention it before. Imogen told her what the Invisible Army was planning, and Katie agreed to help. Imogen walked down the pew. She sat down next to Katie and they hugged.

“What’s going on out there?” Katie asked. “I think the assassinations are a coup, but we are going to stop it.” Katie handed her a thumb drive wrapped in a handkerchief. Imogen unfolded it on her lap. “I hope this helps,” Katie said. “It will.” Imogen unzipped the suitcase at her feet, revealing a custom computer connected to hard drives and wireless equipment. She plugged the thumb drive into a port and started uploading the data to Iceland. She zipped the suitcase back up again. “I’d better go now,” Katie said. “I guess I won’t hear from you for awhile.” “No, not for a while,” Imogen said with a smile. “But one day again you will.” Katie gave her a hug and walked away down the aisle, without looking back. Imogen checked the time on her cell phone. Her next meeting was in ten minutes, a few blocks away.

IMOGEN MET ANTHONY in a coffee shop on John Street. Anthony worked for M-8 Group, a defense contractor that had its headquarters in One World Trade Center. The company provided key technology to the US drone program and its employees were accused of raping and killing civilians in Afghanistan. Anthony agreed to hand over a trove of sensitive company email and documents, including suppressed military reports on collateral damage from drones. M-8 implemented rigorous security over its data. Employees were subjected to body scans and bag searches on their way in and out. No external laptops or camera phones were allowed inside. Security software flagged any unusual access by employees or attempts to copy data.

The week before Omega, Anthony smuggled a disassembled flash drive inside piece by piece, hidden in a compartment in his shoe. Today, he walked out with the chip. He handed it to Imogen and she inserted it into a thumb drive casing, and then plugged the drive into the USB port in her suitcase. She was careful not to let anyone else in the café see the inside of her suitcase, in case they thought that the flashing lights were a bomb. The manager of the coffee shop announced that the cafe was closing in fifteen minutes. “Are they going to find out it was you?” Imogen asked. Anthony smiled. “They’ll see what I downloaded. I’m cooked.” “We can protect you,” Imogen said. “We have a safe place you can go.” “No, it’s ok. I’m proud of what I’ve done and I’m not going to hide. They can imprison me, but they’re not going to be able to keep me there for long. I believe in the Invisible Army. I believe we’re going to win.” “Thank you, Anthony,” she said and hugged him. “I believe it too.” “Good luck today,” he said. “I’m going to stick around and finish my coffee.” “See you, brother,” Imogen said. Her next stop was Liberty Street.

SHE WALKED THROUGH the front door of the skyscraper that was home to the headquarters of Greene & Co. The lobby was crowded with workers trying to make calls on their phones. Danny was waiting for her there. She smiled to show him that everything was all right. “I like your new look,” he said, and she shook her blue bob and smiled. “Thanks.” “Success?” he asked.

“So far so good.” Unlike Katie or Anthony at M-8, Danny needed someone to help him pull the data they were after at Greene & Co. Her father was obsessed with security since finding out about the Invisible Army. They needed to network two computers together to get around data ex-traction blocks. Imogen volunteered because then they would be together when it was time to run. Danny stepped to the front desk with Imogen. One of the security guards had fled his post, and the second was arguing with a woman demanding a car out of the city. The third security guard looked distracted. “I need to sign in a guest,” Danny said, showing his ID card. Imogen gave the guard a fake New York driver’s license. He printed her a temporary pass and cleared her through the security gate. Imogen showed it to Danny. She was guest number 421. “A 42. Nice,” he said. “It’s also Jack’s flight number.” “You’re right. He’s with us.” They took the elevator to the eighth floor. The receptionists had gone home. Danny swiped his badge on the sensor and let them in. The floor was mostly empty. One worker was hurrying out, and stopped when he saw Danny. “There are reports of smoke and a strange smell at Times Square, Dan. This is worse than 9/11. I’m headed to the Brooklyn Bridge.” “Ok Paul,” Danny said. “Good luck.” He situated Imogen at a cubicle near his own, and launched software that he had specifically designed for this purpose. He returned to his cube and they started the transfer process. He funneled in financial data proving that Greene & Co. lied to shareholders and bribed politicians. He transferred documents that revealed the company’s use of slave labor and its violation of environmental rules. “It’s slowing down,” Imogen said. He walked to her cube to look

at her screen. “Damn,” he said. “The network is buckling because of the panic.” At that moment, the door opened and a security guard stepped onto the floor. “Everybody out, the building is getting shut down,” he called to them. Danny stood up. “I’m securing the network. Give me ten minutes.” The security guard walked forward. He was wearing a sidearm. “Who are you?” the guard said. Danny held up his office badge. “Daniel Evens. IT specialist.” The security guard looked it over. Then he pointed at Imogen. “And who are you?” “She’s my girlfriend,” Danny said. Imogen smiled and her cheeks flushed slightly. She supposed that he was her boyfriend now. “You have ten minutes,” the security guard said. They copied everything they could during that time, and then packed up and took an elevator down to the lobby. Outside the streets had thinned, but there were still people hurrying in one way or the other on the sidewalks. There was the sound of sirens in many directions. A plume of smoke rose above a building three blocks away. Imogen wondered what was burning. She tossed her heels into the trash and put on sneakers. They walked west, and a police car drove by at sixty miles an hour with its sirens blaring. A white van was parked near the corner of Gold Street, with the outline of a polar bear spray-painted on its side. Imogen and Danny crossed the street and walked to the open window on the passenger side. Ji-yu Jones leaned out of the window and beamed at Imogen. She was an attractive woman in her 40s. Her older, professorial husband, Stan, was in the driver’s seat. “Hey kid,” Ji-yu said to Imogen. Someone opened the van door

from the inside. There were two other operatives inside: Mari Cataldo and Laura Castone, who was just nineteen. They had been as busy as Imogen in gathering data. Danny and Imogen were about to climb in when a black SUV slammed on its brakes behind them. Two men wearing bulletproof vests and carrying assault rifles jumped out. They looked like military or police but wore no insignia. They surrounded the van. A third man, wearing a dark business suit and sunglasses, opened the back door of the SUV and stepped onto the sidewalk. It was Elliot Greene. “Hello Imogen. Well done. Now we’ll take that suitcase and all of the other data in the van.”

Everyone played his and her roles perfectly. That’s all any of us can do anyhow. - Laura Castone, Paradise Found

DAVID BAUMAN WAS sworn in as President of the United States in the entrance hall of the Vice President’s residence in Washington. Forty minutes had passed since the bombing in New York. President Water was pronounced dead at the scene, and it took the Secret Service thirty minutes to get the Chief Justice to Bauman’s home. He was shopping in the suburbs when the attack occurred. The swearing-in was a solemn event. Bauman’s wife, Marie, stood at his side. He thought that she looked like Jackie Kennedy at Lyndon Johnson’s swearing-in, poised but in shock. Bauman’s face was dead serious during the brief ceremony. He was truly saddened by the murder of Robert and Gloria. The President-elect’s husband and two daughters were among the eight others killed too—although they hadn’t identified Isabel’s body yet. At least Gloria and her family went together. Bauman feared Henry Holman was responsible for this bombing too. He hoped that was not true. Holman had deep government ties. Best to tamp down the investigation ASAP. Dark days were here

again, and he was in the driver’s seat now. New York City was in disarray. The subway was shut down and rumors of explosions and chemical gas attacks appeared at a frantic pace in the media, as if they were planted to sow chaos. After the swearing in, Bauman shook hands with the people in the room. Joint Chiefs Chairman Chuck Harford was there in full Army service uniform, his left breast covered in multi-colored service rib- bons. When Bauman came to shake his hand, Harford asked to speak with him in private. They stepped into a hallway. “Mr. President, we have verification on the location of the chemical weapons.” Bauman had been so preoccupied with what was happening in New York, that he’d forgotten about the Caliphate crisis. Starting the war would be a way to show the world that America was still in charge, despite the attack on its leadership. “So it’s time for the invasion to begin?” “Yes, Mr. President, the confirmation gives us UN authorization to commence. Our forces are ready. As we agreed, this is the moment to begin.” “Then you may launch the invasion, General. Good luck.” “Thank you, Mr. President.” The Secret Service was ready to fly President Bauman to the White House. He refused their offer to drive him the short distance to the helipad near his residence in the US Naval Observatory. The Observatory was a secure environment and Bauman wanted a few minutes to digest all that had happened. He took Marie’s hand and led her to the front door. This place had been their home for four years. He supposed they would move into the White House now, for the few weeks left in the term. They stepped outside. The weather was growing cold. “My God,” he said. “Robert and Gloria are dead.” Marie nodded and wiped her eyes. Bauman looked to the sky as they walked. It was vibrantly blue

and there were just a few white wisps of cirrus clouds arcing across the sky. A phalanx of Secret Service agents walked around them. He could hear the rumble of Marine One starting up on the helipad. Bauman felt the power of the office building in his veins and smiled, despite himself. Hell, it was all right to smile. They were no cameras around. At age seventy, he had reached the pinnacle of American politics. He knew it was only two months until he handed the reins over to the Vice President–elect, but what a two months it was going to be. They reached the top of the hill, and Marine One came into view. The President broke into a jog toward the helicopter, laughing despite himself and pulling the First Lady along with him.

Through the vortex of our collective trauma, the angels returned to history again. - Writings of Isabel Fitch

BONNIE SAT ON the branch of the rosewood tree, focusing all of her attention on the fire front threatening a grove of trees where a Red Jay nest lay. She envisioned the flames halting their advance down the valley. She didn’t know what else to do. It was her prayer for the Red Jay. The fire would advance, and then stop, and then advance again. Bonnie was afraid to look away, in case her thoughts really were having an effect. She struggled to stay conscious. The pain from the third-degree burn on her back had numbed, but she was feverish. She was dying. Her body needed to rest if she was to go on at all. Her eyes closed. She was slipping into a dream of a winter landscape in her Manitoba home, when she remembered the Red Jay and opened her eyes again. The fire roared down the valley. She could not stop it. When the flames reached the tree holding the Red Jay, she saw the two adults take to the air at the last moment. The tree burned and the

young were lost. The adults flew in a circle amid the smoke, uncertain which way to go. She scanned the landscape. It was all burning away. She leaned down on the branch and closed her eyes. Let the fire take me too, she thought and drifted away.

BONNIE WOKE AGAIN as she was slipping from the tree branch. She instinctively thrust her hands out to grab ahold of something, but the bark was slick in the pouring rain. As she fell into the air she had time for a thought: how strange that I die in a fall, after everything else that happened. She looked up at the rain drops falling through the tree leaves and awaited the crush of the ground. Instead, she fell into soft feathers, bouncing once and then settling into an embrace. The angel from her Ayahuasca vision had returned. Ameretat’s wings glowed with a beautiful blue light. The Goddess wore the face of Bonnie’s mother, who she had not seen in so long. Her eyes shined like jewels. Bonnie gazed into them intently, but she was too thirsty and weak to speak. “You flowered, Bonnie. You learned to see and hear again. You remembered.” Ameretat deposited her gently on the ground—on her side so that she did not hurt her back. Bonnie turned her mouth to drink from the rain pouring down. The angel rose into the tree and illuminated the leaves and branches like a tiny star. Bonnie closed her eyes and did not wake again until the Caro shaman was carrying her back to his village. He noticed her eyes flutter open and smiled. Although her body was slick with blood, he held her tight and she did not slip from his embrace.

When the people believe revolution is possible, then the lies of the system will bounce off their chests like bullets striking a Ghost Shirt. - Imogen Greene, social media

IMOGEN LUNGED AT her father, but one of his armed men grabbed her arm and held her back. The second pointed his rifle at Danny. Elliot took hold of Imogen’s suitcase. “What are you doing here?” she asked her father. Elliot smiled. “Did you think I was just going to stand by and let you destroy America and yourself?” Imogen told the others how her father ordered the attack on Jack, but she hadn’t told them he knew about Omega. She didn’t think he knew enough details to stop it, short of turning her in. She was afraid that they would call it off if they knew. She had under-estimated her father and now they were all going to pay the price. “Jack should have never involved you,” Elliot said, “but his need to enact some kind of righteous revenge against me was too much.” “I involved Jack,” she said. Elliot shook his head sadly. “I know what you’re trying to do, Imogen. Smash the power structure and rebuild it as some kind of

anarchist paradise. Like a bone that is broken to be reset. But you’re not the only one who can set the bone. This is as much as an opportunity for me as it was for you.” Elliot nodded at the second gunman, who climbed into the van and pulled out two other suitcases of stolen data. “So we, the caretakers of American prosperity and supremacy, must offer our heartfelt thanks for allowing us this opportunity to take the country in a giant leap forward. You, Imogen, will be coming with us. I’m sorry, but there is no future for people like your friend here.” He gestured at Danny. “The ark is full.” Danny took a step forward and the gunman pointed his semi- automatic rifle at his chest. The second dragged Imogen back to the SUV. “Get off me!” she yelled, kicking and struggling. He was in the process of forcing Imogen into the vehicle when a rock struck one of the windows. Then smoke bombs landed all around them. Elliot’s lips twisted into an uncharacteristic expression of panic. A barrage of projectiles flew through the air. There were brown and black faces in the smoke. Elliot shielded his face but was hit in the chest by a brick, knocking the air out of him. The gunman holding Danny pushed him to the ground and fired his rifle at the men rushing them. The attackers hid in the smoke and took cover behind cars. Danny got to his feet and tackled him, and then the second gunman started firing into the smoke. A teenage boy appeared suddenly from behind the white van and grabbed ahold of the machine gun muzzle. It kept firing, and the bullets struck the pavement and ricocheted away. The gunman punched and kicked at the boy, but he wouldn’t let go of the rifle. On the sidewalk next to the van, the first gunman got on top of Danny and raised a knife to bring down into his chest. Danny’s neighbor, Ron, grabbed his arm just in time and wrenched it back. A half-dozen other men Danny knew rushed out of the smoke and disarmed the other man. Then they beat them to make sure they stayed down. Elliot cowered on the ground beside the SUV.

One of Danny’s friends twisted Elliot’s arm and put his knee on his back to keep him down. The teenage boy who had grabbed the machine gun sat on the ground, bloodied but smiling. He wore a plastic white rabbit mask on the back of his head. Danny reached down to pull him up. “Nice job, Javan.” “My pleasure, Danny,” he said. Imogen hugged Ron and then Danny. “Nice one,” she said. “We look out for each other in my neighborhood,” Danny said, “because no one else will.” Ron pointed at the men lying bloodied on the ground. “What should we do with them?” “Leave them and their weapons and go before the police show up,” Danny said. “You saved the revolution today.” Imogen noticed a handgun lying under the van. One of the gunmen had lost it during the struggle. She reached down and picked it up. They could hear police sirens approaching. She walked back to where Elliot was lying by the curb. She pointed the pistol at his head. He lifted his hands. “Please don’t,” he said. “Why are you filled with such hate, Dad?” Elliot lowered his hands. “I don’t hate you, Imogen.” She tried to recall the father she loved when she was a child. She looked for that man in his eyes, but couldn’t find him. “I want you to leave me alone now,” she said. “Forever. Do you understand?” “Yes,” he said. Imogen dropped the pistol down the sewer grate and turned her back on him. The sirens were getting closer. Danny was leaning out of the open door of the van. “Let’s go!” he said. His neighbors and friends scattered in different directions.

As the van pulled away, Danny took Imogen’s hand and helped her inside.

STAN HEADED EAST toward a bridge to Brooklyn. On the sidewalk, people walked hurriedly out of the city. Some were carrying children and holding pet carriers. They looked like refugees. “That was your father?” Stan asked. “Yes, he found out about Omega,” Imogen said. “I’m sorry, everyone.” “It’s ok,” Stan said. “We’re still in one piece.” “Not exactly,” Ji-yu said. “What happened?” Danny asked. “The New York Fed operation failed. Amir was shot.” “No,” Imogen whispered. “Is he alive?” “We don’t know,” Ji-yu said. “Only one person got away. The rest of the team was arrested.” Imogen bowed her head. No one spoke for a few minutes after that. Ji-yu finally broke the silence. “So how’d you make out?” “We got everything we were after. Danny and I pulled a terabyte from Greene & Co. And M-8 and Newfood came through.” “Great,” Ji-yu said. “How did you all do?” Danny asked. “We got it all too,” Laura said. “We spoke with Bob in Jersey. They got in and out of the data center without a hitch. We’ll be rendezvousing with them in Brooklyn.” “How about DC?” Imogen asked. “We checked in with mission control while we were waiting for you,” Stan said. “Winston says they got uploads from the Pentagon, the FDA, the IRS, and five military contractors. He said that US Cyber Command launched a counter-attack, but they were too late.

Our hackers brought in a lot of data.” They pulled Omega off. Imogen gave a little laugh. She hugged Danny, and Laura hugged Mari, and then they all hugged each other. Imogen even hugged Stan while he was driving. “Watch it, beautiful,” he said. “We still have to get there alive.” Imogen felt Jack’s spirit with them. Traffic was heavy, but they finally made it to the Brooklyn Bridge, where the van was briefly in- spected by an officer and waved forward. “That was lucky,” Stan said. They inched across the East River. When they reached the halfway point and saw the Brooklyn sign, they all cheered.

Our leaders only pretend to be in control. They make policy and war, but history follows its own story. That is the great secret they keep. - Laura Castone, Paradise Found

PRESIDENT BAUMAN SAT at Water’s desk in the Oval Office. They wanted to take him to a bunker somewhere, but he declined. The incandescent television lights switched on and cast long shadows across the room. They adjusted the lights until they fell evenly on Bauman. A makeup artist fixed his hair, which had become unbalanced in the excitement. Then she toweled the sweat off his forehead and dabbed powder on his skin to reduce glare. Someone started to take Water’s family photos off the table behind him. “Leave them there,” he said. He wasn’t ready to see them go yet. The news from New York wasn’t good. The FBI confirmed that the blast came from explosive material built into the memorial sculpture. This attack was planned for a long time. The memorial bombings were connected. The first served to draw the victims for the second. Tough days lay ahead, but it was Bauman’s privilege to serve the

country during such a time. He would do all the dark things that needed to be done over the next two months, and then the Vice President–elect would at least have a chance to keep the country together. The hackers who launched their operation on the same day as the assassinations were called the Invisible Army. The NSA found links between Neil Garrett and one of the suspects caught at the Fed. Elliot Greene was arrested downtown after a gunfight with the hackers. His daughter was being investigated. The conspiracy kept growing deeper. Bauman scribbled a change to his speech and handed it to an aide, who updated the teleprompter. The director counted down with his fingers. The President blinked and sat up straight. “Good afternoon, my fellow Americans. I speak to you as President for the first time on a tragic and momentous day for the country. We are engaged in conflict on several fronts, but we are fighting back and we will prevail. “At 11:42 am, President Water and President-elect Fitch died in a terrorist bombing in New York City. Ten others were murdered in the bombing, and a dozen people are in hospitals fighting for their lives. “At 12:23 pm, after the President was confirmed dead, I was sworn in as President of the United States. I have been in contact with Vice President–elect Stanson, who is safe and is now the President-elect, according to the Constitution. “Approximately one hour later, our country came under co- ordinated attack from a terrorist hacker collective named the Invisible Army. We are investigating their involvement in the assassinations. While international in scope, the Invisible Army is based in New York. They believe in sowing chaos, but we have already turned the tide against them. Sensitive government and commercial networks are being secured, and authorities are moving to arrest suspects. The New York City Police and the National Guard are in control of New

York City. There were no additional bombings, as was feared. “We are a nation in shock and mourning for the loss of two great leaders: one who led us wisely during a challenging time for the country, and another who filled our hearts with her promise. These two great leaders met this morning to rededicate a memorial to those who died fighting for freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq. Americans will never forget Robert and Gloria’s courage and patriotism, or their belief that freedom was worth fighting for. I can assure you that neither President-elect Stanson nor myself will falter in this struggle, wherever it may lead us. We stand shoulder to shoulder.” Bauman paused and looked down for a moment. Then he looked back at the camera with emotion, imagining he was really looking into someone’s eyes. “I told you at the beginning of this speech that we were engaged in conflict on several fronts. America doesn’t choose when it must stand up and fight for freedom. Shortly after being sworn in, I was informed that the CIA confirmed the location of chemical weapons acquired by the Caliphate. This discovery gave the United States and its allies UN authorization to launch our invasion of the Caliphate. “One hour ago, I ordered the ground invasion to commence. We do not choose our crises, but bear responsibility as we must. I ask all Americans to bow their heads and say a prayer for President Water, Gloria Fitch, and the brave men and women risking their lives for freedom at this moment.” After twenty seconds of silence, President Bauman raised his head. He felt history swirling around him. “God bless the United States of America.”

The red one served the will of God as much as the other angels, but his path was one of destruction. - Writings of Isabel Fitch

AHRIMAN SOARED OVER the American plains. He flew above these lands ten thousand years ago when the people here were hunters traveling in small bands. He was weak then, a lesser angel, but the modern nation that rose here made him into a great power. He spread his crimson wings until they stretched one hundred yards wide. He flew over a highway, and a truck driver who saw him nearly lost control of his tractor-trailer. Ahriman was a waking nightmare. He saw the plan as clearly as the other angels. He was not bounded by linear time and had the wisdom of hindsight. But his duty was to oppose a more conscious world. He was the servant of fear. Peace meant his defeat. As he approached a US Air Force Base in South Dakota, he shifted himself off of the spectrum of human perception. His red wings took the shade of the sky, and radar passed through him like he was a ghost. He flew over the electrified fence, and a guard dog erupted in barks. The dog’s minder looked over the arid landscape

and saw nothing. A four-ton blast door protected the entrance to the missile silo, but Ahriman slipped through the steel atoms of the door and materialized in the control room with a crackle. There were two officers inside in command of ten intercontinental missiles. It was their responsibility to remain alert enough to execute a complex series of procedures and launch the nukes within twenty seconds’ notice. The men screamed in terror at the sight of Ahriman. He had grown more compact to fit in the small room but still reached from one wall to the other. His appendages whipped around the room like the tentacles of a squid. He was blood red—a demon that just came from torturing people in hell. He wrapped a serpentine limb around the neck of one of the men. The other tried to help, but Ahriman struck him hard and he flew across the floor and hit the wall. He increased the pressure on the man’s throat until he was choking. Then he opened his fearsome black eyes and stared into his bulging eyeballs. He saw the man’s life all at once. Everything he had ever seen and everyone he had known. The other man crawled into a service tunnel to escape, and Ahriman let him go. He had a more important task. He leaned over the consoles and commenced the launch process, according to the memories of the man he had just killed. He had no need for launch codes. All the sophisticated software protecting from unauthorized launch was just a veneer over the physical components of the system. There were circuits in the microchips designed to never meet without the codes held by the President, but Ahriman sent a burst of electricity into the system and jumped the circuits. He found his way to the brain of the missile and reprogrammed the nuke’s target from Moscow to New York City. The launch sequence required each officer to use both hands to physically turn four keys at the same time. This made the launch of a missile by one man impossible, but Ahriman had more than enough

limbs to handle the tasks. He stuck four feathers, each topped with a long needle, into the four launch keyholes. The appendage grew inside in the cylinders to compress the pins, and then the four feathers turned. Flashing red alarm lights showed that launch was underway.

The world moves with the love and fears of those who reside in it. - Journals of Jack Palehorse

FIRST LIEUTENANT COREY Hilma crawled deeper into the tunnel as the alarm went off. He found the missile commencing launch. He could hear the roar of the rocket boosters warming up through the wall. Hilma had long dreaded the possibility that he would have to launch the nukes here. He knew he would not hesitate to carry out the order, but he feared how it would affect his soul. Until then, his primary responsibility was to maintain the security of the weapons, and the monster breached it. The last option was to climb into the silo and physically disable the missile. He did not have much time. He heard the silo roof sliding open. His tools were back in the control room with the devil. But he had a pocketknife and it would have to do. He opened a service shelf into the missile silo. He was eight feet up the sixty-foot missile. The silo roof was entirely open now and the sun shined in. The rocket began to vent liquid oxygen to release pressure, and clouds of vapor billowed into the air. He swung his body over the shelf and dropped to the floor of the silo. It was a far

drop but he hit the ground without spraining anything. There was an access panel near the base of the missile that held a battery essential for the functioning of the boosters. But there was a special tool for opening it, and the panel was sealed so tight that Hilma could not even get the tip of the blade in. The rocket had to travel into space and back again and did not have a lot of loose parts. The liquid oxygen burned his skin but he knew it was nothing compared to the explosion of fire that was about to fill the silo. He heard the sound of his wife’s voice in his mind, telling him to get out. “I’m sorry,” he said. There were too many other people depending on him. He lay on the ground and reached his arm directly under the booster, searching with his knife for something to cut. He slashed at the booster until he broke the blade, and then he dropped the knife and searched with his hands for something to pull apart. The air pressure changed the moment before the rocket fired. Hilma looked up the length of the missile toward the sun. The beast was in the sky. It hovered like a red vulture, with six black eyes looking upon him. Hilma returned his focus to the booster. He found what he was looking for. There was a fuel line protected by a heat shield. He grabbed the broken knife and jammed it through the heat shield into the fuel line just as the rocket lit. Hilma was purified by fire before the demon could take his soul.

Anarchists and libertarians are joining forces to destroy the country. - President Bauman, White House press conference

THE INVISIBLE ARMY’S safe house was hidden in the back of a warehouse in Bushwick, Brooklyn. They had constructed a false brick wall to conceal the hidden rooms. In the secret annex, Imogen and the others worked around the clock coordinating the analysis of Omega data by their volunteers worldwide. Some one thousand people were confirmed dead in South Dakota from the nuke blast, and thousands more were being treated for radiation poisoning. The cause of the accidental launch was being investigated. Meanwhile, US-led Allied forces swept through Caliphate territory. Bombs rained, tanks rolled, and drones soared. The war gave the government a sense that it was still in control, and Americans felt vengeance being enacted, at least those who believed the Caliphate had a hand in the missile launch and assassinations. The sculptor was Syrian-American and it was hard for many to get past this, even after Holman and Jansen were implicated. The Invisible Army’s first releases came within two days. Doc- uments showed how Greene & Co. had knowingly used slave labor at

development sites. Transcripts of conversations from Newfood's legal department revealed the company was aware that many of its products were lethal to the ecosystem and human health. By the third day, the releases grew to a deluge. A pattern of bribery of public officials and regulators was revealed. Financial companies were shown to have brought risk and debt to a catastrophic level. The stock market, already weakened by the assassinations, nuclear disaster, and the war, fell thousands of points. Talking heads on news channels raised the specter of another Depression. The Invisible Army hoped people would react to the truth like an elixir and take to the streets demanding change. Instead, Americans retreated and stayed at home, with their eyes glued to the television news. The video of Isabel Fitch being taken by an angel topped three billion page views. On Sunday, churches filled with Americans who believed the end times had begun. Imogen said people just needed time to work through their fear. She said their awakening would come. Five days after Omega, Imogen and the others gathered around a computer screen to watch an address from President Bauman on the Invisible Army. “In response to the crisis, I have issued Executive Order 13,666 which will initiate emergency steps to preserve our security and the integrity of the financial system. The National Guard and FEMA are being mobilized to maintain order and aid law enforcement. All protest demonstrations will be temporarily banned. Bank withdrawals and stock transactions will be restricted. Internet access will be limited. “For most Americans, your day-to-day life will go on unchanged as before. Go about your business, comfort your children and pray for the country. New Yorkers will have a higher burden to pay over the next 48 hours because we have pinpointed the city as the headquarters of the Invisible Army. As I speak, the National Guard

has set up roadblocks at all bridges, tunnels, highways, and airports leading in and out of the city. All residents of New York City have been asked to return to their residences and remain inside if possible. A total curfew will be in effect starting at seven pm every night. The National Guard will be joining federal and state authorities in visiting residences to locate and arrest the suspects. “I know that New Yorkers will carry the burden that is necessary to preserve the world we know. I am confident that the crisis will soon be resolved.”

AS THE DRAGNET approached the warehouse in Bushwick that night, they shut down the computers and turned out all the lights. They lay down in sleeping bags on their yoga mats and, despite the danger, most fell asleep right away. They had slept little since Omega. Imogen lay with her head on Danny’s chest. He listened for sounds from the Army and police through the warehouse walls. Just before midnight, a group of National Guardsman broke down the locked warehouse door. They searched the building but did not locate the secret annex. When they left, the revolutionaries laughed with relief. The next morning, they were back up and running, searching through the troves of data for new documents to be disseminated. After two days, New Yorkers began resisting the martial law imposed on the city. There was a massive march down Broadway in Manhattan. A National Guardsman unit was ordered to use rubber bullets to disperse the protesters, but they refused to fire. President Bauman came under growing pressure to lift his executive order. The next night, Danny woke to the sound of a helicopter and turned his head to the ceiling. It was right above the warehouse. Then he heard the sound of people breaking inside. This time they were found. Imogen ran to turn out the light, but an explosion blew

out the wall before she reached the switch. Bricks smashed into her and knocked her off her feet. Soldiers with lights on their machine guns advanced through the dust cloud of the fallen wall. Stan put his hands up to surrender and they shot him dead. A soldier yelled for everyone else to get on the ground. Danny leaned over Imogen, pulling the rubble off of her. She was unconscious. “Get on the ground!” a soldier ordered. Danny lifted her out of the rubble. In the instant before the soldier squeezed the rifle trigger, golden light enveloped them. Danny hugged Imogen to him and felt their feet leave the ground. He had the sensation of rising rapidly into the air, like on an amusement park ride. He wondered if this was death. He had Imogen’s limp form in his arms and he held her tighter. He tried to speak but no words came out. All was dark, but he sensed them moving faster and faster through the air.

The Red Jay is the keystone of reality. - Writings of Isabel Fitch

BONNIE WOKE UP in the center of the maloca in the Caro village, in a bed they made for her there. Two colorfully dressed Caro—a man and an old woman—burnt Palo Santo wood and directed the smoke over her as they sang. She was feverish from infection. The woman healer gave her a sip of water and then put a chalky medicine in her mouth that she swallowed. As the shamans sang, Bonnie struggled to stay awake. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw a Red Jay flying through the smoke, its wings throwing off drops of blood as it tried in vain to rise above the flames. The people of the village gathered around the longhouse and looked in at Bonnie. Eventually, she could stay awake no longer and her eyes closed.

LATE THAT NIGHT, she awoke to find herself alone. She was a little better. She breathed softly in the darkness, feeling present in her

surroundings. She could hear the jungle animals singing outside. It was a language she was learning to understand. She closed her eyes and listened. She was just drifting off when she heard the sound of fluttering, like a thousand hummingbirds beating their wings. She opened her eyes and sat up in the bed slowly, so as to not strain the wound on her back. The sound stopped. A soft golden light appeared outside the maloca and gradually grew brighter. There was a scent like burnt cinnamon. In the growing light, Bonnie made out an undulating shape—a pit of colorful ser- pents writhing in the air. Feathers grew from the snakes and she heard a sound like the whirr of an old film projector. Faster and faster the feathery appendages vibrated until they were nearly trans- parent. A figure emerged out of the blur. It looked like a three- dimensional projection of a woman. She had her back to Bonnie. Dark hair fell onto her shoulders. She wore a spaghetti-strap dress and moved to silent music. Bonnie remembered this moment. This was her memory. It was Carmen. Carmen looked over her shoulder and smiled. Her hips swayed and she pursed her lips slightly. She was alone on the dance floor, inviting Bonnie out to join her. It hurt to see her. Bonnie turned her face away. “Bonnie,” the Carmen ghost said in a whirring voice. “Look at me.” She looked back. Carmen’s eyes held glittering rainbow-colored tears. “It’s ok to die, Bonnie.” She tried to see through the ghost of Carmen to what lay behind it. She pulled herself up from the straw bed. The pain from the wound on her back was intense, but she breathed her way through it. She placed a foot on the ground, and then her other, and then stood

upright, holding the wall for support. “Show me your true self,” she said. The Carmen-projection flickered, as if the signal was breaking up, and then changed into the face of a turtle, then a roaring bear, a tiger, a snake, and a Red Jay. It finally settled into a generic human face with indigo disks for eyes, like a living statue. It was Raguel. He spoke in a strange, low voice. “I have no true self. I am thought. I am the wisdom of animal consciousness.” Bonnie felt the words pressing against her face, as if they had physical form. “Why couldn’t you save Carmen?” “Countless living things have come and gone. We do not choose who lives and dies. Life is a sacred drama, and there is a purpose.” A memory entered Bonnie’s mind. She was lying with her older brother and sister on the grass lawn in back of their home in Winnipeg, watching the clouds cross the sky. She was twelve years old, and there were infinite possibilities in that moment. Countless ancestors had fought tooth and nail to survive and keep their children alive so that Bonnie and her siblings could be born. There were so many miracles that led to her birth. “Will I live to see the new world?” Raguel smiled at her with love, and it was a tangible healing force. There was color in the angel’s face now, and indigo light shined off his wings. “You will die, Bonnie. We are in the moment of your death.” The walls of the barn fell away and they were deep in the forest. She put her hand on her back and the wound was gone. “Look inside. Do you see now?” She saw how everything in her life was connected, and there was a meaning in everything that happened. She played a role in a complex system that radiated in every direction. Beyond her was one consciousness that grew larger and larger in her awareness. Carmen

and Luis were there. She was there too and they all were one. She understood. The three of them died to save the world. There was perfection to all existence. Her traumas were healed. “Yes, I see it now,” she said to the angel. “Is this heaven?” “It is the source—a place you will know again, but the Red Jay still need you. You must lead them to their new sanctuary. The integrity of this reality depends on their survival.” Bonnie’s consciousness shattered into two parts—each with its own spirit—and then these two pieces each broke into three, and then each shattered into seven pieces, so there were 42 parts of who Bonnie had been rising into the sky. There was much of her spirit in every piece because her will was so strong. What was Bonnie flew over the Amazon and infused the being of each of the 42 living Red Jay. The species was in disarray. Pairs had been split up, and the survivors of the firebombing of La Cana were scattered over a great area. Many Red Jays were alone, isolated from each other. They could not comprehend everything that Bonnie’s human consciousness brought, but they understood where she wanted them to go. They took to their wings and flew south.

When the time comes you will know what to do and you will do it. - Journals of Jack Palehorse

DANNY WOKE TO the buzz of a fluorescent bulb warming up. His eyelids fluttered open and he squinted at the harsh light. He was lying on his back on the rough floor of a bare concrete cell. The cell door was made of black iron and had a small barred window. He reached out for Imogen but she wasn’t there. “Imogen,” he called out. No one answered. He held his hands in front of his face and turned them over. He did not expect to wake up and find himself alive. After the government attack on the warehouse, he thought they were on their way to the afterlife. Perhaps this was it. He sat up and his body ached as if he was lying here a long time. He looked around the cell. It seemed like it was built a century ago. The paint on the walls was discolored and peeling and the iron bars were rusted. This could be a black site interrogation prison. At any moment agents might barge in to waterboard him. He looked at the rusty door and wondered if he could break it down. He got to his feet. He was sore but had no mark on his body. He

wore white cotton pajama pants and a matching long-sleeve shirt. Someone had put these clothes on him. A faint aura of light shined around his skin. He ate psychedelic mushrooms occasionally and it reminded him of the way they made things look: full of color and detail—reality unfiltered by the mind. The utter silence of the place made it seem like an abandoned prison. It had been a long time since he had been out of New York City and heard such an absence of sound. Maybe he was deep underground. His ears were ringing. They were still ringing from the explosion in the warehouse. He walked to the door of the cell, and found it to be unlocked. He stepped out into a long, dimly lit hallway. There were three doorways and then the hallway ended with a big, black furnace door. He walked cautiously forward. The next cell door was off its hinges and propped against the wall. This cell seemed to radiate despair. Even before he looked, he knew there was something bad inside. Piled high inside the cell were thousands of pairs of children’s shoes. They were cracked and dusty as if they had been lying here in this pile for decades. He recognized the symbol of a Nazi exterm- ination camp. The longer he looked at the shoes the more clearly he imagined the children that wore them. He was drawn deeper into the sadness, like a swimmer pulled into a whirlpool. The children’s figures became defined in the air, outlined with light, like ghosts. He watched them taking the shoes off and placing them in the pile. They were crying and their fear flooded over Danny. He became one of them and had to look away. He retreated back into the hallway and his heart beat audibly in his ears—a drum amid the silence. He had seen the video of Isabel being carried away by the angel and then something like that brought him here. This was divine intervention. He knew every vision had a message. He must not hide from what

this place was showing him. He stepped back into the doorway. The frightened Holocaust children were still there, standing in a gas chamber now. He knew what he needed to do. All the great teachers said the same thing: love is the answer. He projected love to the children with all the focus he could muster. He called on the spirits of his ancestors to aid him. “I’m giving it everything I’ve got,” he said, and lifted his arms to expand his chest and give his heart room. The children faded and the room was empty. He bowed his head and then stepped cautiously forward down the hallway. The next door was locked, and he looked inside through the bars on the window. The walls and floors of the cell were wooden, and chains with iron collars covered every foot of space. It looked like the hold of a slave ship. As with the other cell, the longer he looked the more he felt the suffering memorialized here. It was another nightmare of history, but this one dug deeper into him. He heard the screams of the abducted Africans. He saw the faces of children who never got the chance to be. He heard cries of mourning by the people left behind. He willed himself to keep looking, even though it was nearly unbearable. He could see men, women, and children chained to the hold. Suddenly, he heard a whip crack and found himself hanging in the chains, looking at himself looking through the window of the cell door. His pain and his thirst were excruciating. He screamed and it brought him back to the hallway. He fell to his knees and cried at the remembrance of American slavery. As his tears fell, he felt a weight lifting. When he stood up again and looked through the window, the cell was empty. He continued to the end of the hall. Through the black furnace door, there was another hallway. It was a better-maintained area that seemed more like a hospital than a prison. The last hallway exuded negativity but this one was the reverse. The door to the first room on the right was closed, but a warm

light shone out of a square window on the door. He looked through the glass. It was a child’s room. There was a table with a desk lamp beside a small bed with colorful sheets. A child’s drawings lay with crayons on a child’s green plastic table. The bed was unmade as if someone had just slept in it. He went inside and leaned over the table to look at the drawings. It was the Red Jay, again and again. This was the bird that his grandfather painted. The same one that Imogen saw in her dreams and Jack went to find in Colombia, because he believed it would lead him to the angels. “Isabel’s room,” he said. He continued down the hallway and had a premonition that he would find Imogen in the next room. He imagined her horribly injured, lying in a sealed incubator. He knew that thoughts had power. He forced the negative image from his mind and pictured her lying on the bed alive and well. He opened the door to reveal a room with a hospital bed against the far wall. There was the shape of a person under the white sheets. He felt his heart in his throat as he walked forward, but his best thoughts beat out his worst and he lifted the sheets to reveal Imogen alive in a hospital gown. “Imogen, wake up. We’re ok.” He took her hand and she stirred. “Wake up.” She made a small sound as she scrambled up from the depths and opened her eyes. “Hey,” she said. “Hi.” Imogen saw the strain in his face, and then the memory of the government raid swept over her. He saw her remembering and hugged her. “We’re ok, Imogen. We made it out.” She sat up and winced with pain. Her upper back was sore. She

put her hand down the back of the hospital gown. There was a bandage covering her shoulder blades. “What happened to me?” she asked. “You were hurt when the soldiers blew up the wall.” “How did we get away?” “An angel saved us.” She didn’t understand what he meant at first. “Jack’s angels?” “Yes. Like the angel that took Isabel Fitch. They saved us, Imogen. They brought us here for a reason.” With her left hand, she reached over her shoulder and slipped her fingers under the bandage. “Can you take a look?” She lifted her gown and lifted the bandage gently. A five-inch gash had been sealed together. “It looks ok,” Danny said. “Does it hurt?” “Just a little.” The air was cold and Imogen pulled the sheet back over her body. “Danny, did anyone else escape from the warehouse?” “I don’t know. There is someone else here. I think it might be Isabel. I can show you.” They looked around the room. There were no windows. Beside the bed, there was a little table with a small pile of folded clothes on it. The rest of the room was empty. She reached for the clothes. It was like what Danny was wearing. There was a white long-sleeve shirt, matching cotton leggings and underwear. “What is this place?” “I don’t know. I woke up in a prison cell, except the door was unlocked. I had visions.” “What kind of visions?” “Bad memories of planet Earth. I saw a concentration camp and a slave ship.”

Imogen had difficulty getting the gown over her head. “It hurts the new skin,” she said. He helped her get it off and then they put her white clothes on. “I’m ready,” she said when they were done. “Ready for what?” “To go find what brought us here.” They stepped into the hallway. “I think that room is Isabel’s,” Danny said, pointing back down the hallway. Imogen looked through the window and saw the Red Jay drawings on the table. She looked at the iron door that led to the dark hallway. “What’s back there, Danny?” “That’s where I saw the visions.” “I should see.” He nodded and took her hand. Perhaps they both needed to see it before they could go on. But when they got back to the hallway, it was changed. It was no longer dim and ruined and looked like the other modern hallway. The cells where he had seen the slaves and the Holocaust children were empty rooms. “I cleared it,” he said. “I guess you did,” she said and hugged him. Her touch resonated peace through his body. “I don’t know what’s happening,” he said, “but I think it’s going to be ok.” She leaned in and kissed him. “Let’s go find the angels,” she said. They walked back, past the room where Imogen had been. At the end of the hall, they opened a steel door to reveal concrete steps leading upward. There was another door at the top. The door opened into a completely different environment. Large glass windows showed a view of a stretch of river down in the valley below. The sun was setting. There were animal faces carved into marble moldings that ran around the ceiling. A white stuffed bear stood

in a stoic stance against one wall. “I know where we are,” Imogen said. “This is my father’s weekend house.” They knew Elliot Greene was in custody and charged with conspiracy. After everything else he did, it was failing to turn in his daughter before Omega that got him put behind bars. “That’s the Hudson River,” she said. “Those are the Catskill Mountains. We’re a couple of hours north of the city.” They went to each room. There was no one else in the house and no sign of Isabel. Danny put his hand on the knob of a door leading outside. It was unlocked. “Don’t open the door,” Imogen said. “Why not?” “We are supposed to stay here. I have a feeling. We are protected.” He let go of the doorknob. “So what do you want to do? Keep exploring?” “I think we should just wait,” she said. He nodded and they sat down together on a gray sofa with a view of the river. They sat silently, watching the brilliant orange light of the sunset beginning to dim on the river. She rested her head on his shoulder. An hour later, they were still sitting there, lost in thought, in- tegrating all that happened. A pale blue light outlined the mountains as dusk fell. Suddenly, an amber mass appeared over the Hudson. It looked like a flock of sunset-infused birds rolling over and over upon themselves. The form drew closer and seemed to float rather than fly. “It’s an angel,” Danny said. The entity paused in the air when it was a hundred yards from the window. It remained there suspended, with wings gently undulating in the breeze. Soft light shined through innumerable feathers. Danny

felt dizzy when he focused on a single part of the angel. Patterns too detailed to comprehend danced across the angel’s form. It drifted slowly closer, and Danny felt the approach in his chest—it was a crushing feeling. The angel took a more human-like shape with legs and arms held out to the side, like a man on a crucifix. Then the man appeared to burst into flames. A black eye appeared in the flames, and then another and another until they were numerous. The eyes swiveled one by one to look upon them. The deep eyes locked onto Danny’s and seemed to dig into him, like the angel was excavating his mind. It was painful. But then the worst was over, and the being held them more gently in his gaze. “It’s like Vishnu,” he said. “All those countless eyes and arms.” “I saw love in his eyes,” Imogen said. The angel spread his wings wide, like an eagle sunning his wings, beat them once and flew out of sight. They took a breath together. “This is really happening,” Danny said. “We are seeing what the prophets saw.” “Like mice in the night,” Imogen said. A sound came from behind them—something opening. They turned to a hallway leading from the living room. It was dark and they couldn’t make out the end of it. They heard another knock from that direction. A minute passed and there were no more sounds. The last light of day faded and no lights were switched on in the house. Danny took Imogen’s hand and they waited silently. Another few minutes passed, and then there was a rustle like a deck of cards being shuffled. A form materialized in the darkness of the hallway, like a billowing cloud of smoke on a moonless night. Then it was like the long, narrow leaves of a willow tree—pale orange instead of green. A human face materialized in the form. Shoulders and arms appeared, and the image grew sharper. The face was Jack’s—his eyes closed, focused in thought, struggling to wake up. There were flashes of imperfection in the three-dimensional image, like an old television

broadcast drifting in and out of reception. But when the eyes opened they did seem to really be Jack. When he spoke, the voice was like his too, but had a slight vibration to it. “Imogen. Danny,” he said. “Jack,” Imogen said. The Jack-projection took a step closer. “Are you really there?” she asked. “I’m dead. My bones are at the bottom of the sea.” Imogen took a step closer and reached her hand toward his face. Jack was just out of reach. “You’re with the angel now? In his mind?” “I am with all consciousness, but I travel with the angels for now. We want to help you in this transition.” “Are you ok, Jack?” Imogen asked. His eyes went white. He was looking inward. His pupils returned. “I know answers to questions that no one thought to ask. There is much knowledge and wisdom, and more peace than I ever imagined.” “I’m sorry about what happened,” Imogen said. “Eddie and Stan died too. I’m afraid that Omega was a mistake.” “No, it was part of the process. Everything happened for a reason. It was part of the unraveling of the old world. But the Invisible Army is just an echo of the true revolution.” Imogen reached forward and touched the ghost. Particles of light danced up her arm to her breast. “Can we see the angel?” she whispered. The image of Jack faded and the angel unfurled in serpentine rays of light. Danny and Imogen instinctively took a step back. The angel’s dark eyes pierced the light. Danny stared into them and the black discs became mirrors. An image of himself looked back and laughed. “Are you really an angel?” he asked. “God has many names, and angel is one. Gabriel is another.

Imogen and Danny are just names too.” “Why did you save us?” Danny asked. “Because you are the tipping point. You longed for love and peace and we heard the prayers. Your healing arcs were long, but the darkness you experienced pulled you back like a slingshot. Now you are flying into the light, and you are bringing the world with you.” “But it hasn’t been us alone,” Danny said quietly, thinking of all the others who made sacrifices. “It’s all one system,” Gabriel said. “Everything moves together. The universe provided people and circumstances to aid you in your alignment. The plants of this world helped too. More than you can imagine. There are many others like you, also stepping forth to their destiny. You are healing the world, within and without you. The planets are synchronizing to mirror this change. “Mercury, planet of mind, will pass behind the sun. Saturn, planet of tradition and lord of time, will be blocked by Jupiter, master of the present, in a Great Conjunction. Jupiter, unrestrained, will unleash its stores of joyful consciousness upon humanity.” “That’s happening on the winter solstice,” Danny said. A Great Conjunction was a rare astronomical event, and he had known about it for years. “We brought you here because your dream and the dream of the universe are one. It is a dream of the end of humanity’s amnesia. The end of the history of madness. The third eye opens and the universe becomes self-aware in humanity. You must complete your actualization so that the new world can be born.” “How?” Imogen asked. “Life is a puzzle to be solved,” Gabriel said. The angel’s light dimmed, and then he drifted back into the hallway. “Be brave and be grateful,” he said as he disappeared into the dark. “There is more healing to come.” ê

The stargate of human evolution opens in each of our hearts. - Writings of Isabel Fitch

THEY SAT ON the sofa in the dark after Gabriel left. The quarter moon rose over the Hudson. Imogen looked at Danny’s face in the dim moonlight. He seemed calm. “He said that we must complete our actualization,” she asked. “What do you think he meant?” “I think he means we must meet our potential.” “I always thought that Omega was my ultimate potential.” “Omega got you here,” he said. “But potential is more than just deeds. It is everything. It is balance and awareness. It is forgiveness and acceptance. It is becoming who you are supposed to be.” “That sounds like a lot for me to accomplish in a week,” Imogen said with a laugh. “Don’t worry, you’re almost there. Start with acceptance. The angels have chosen us as representatives of humanity. That is an incredible fact to accept.” “Yes, it’s hard to believe it’s true. We are in my father’s house with angels.” “And with Isabel.”

“We need to find her,” Imogen said. “Her parents died. She must be lonely and scared.” They took the stairs down to the lower cells of the home, and walked to the hallway where they had seen her room. There was light coming out of the window. They looked in to see her lying on her bed, reading a children’s book. Isabel wore all white too. On the cover of the book was a drawing of a jungle. Imogen opened the door. “Hello Isabel,” she said gently. “Hi.” She closed the book. Her face showed that she had been crying. “My name is Imogen. This is Danny.” “Raphael told me you were here, and that you would be coming for me.” “Is Raphael one of the angels?” Danny asked. “Yes. He’s been watching over me.” Imogen sat down next to Isabel. “Are you ok?” “Raphael told me that my mom and dad died.” “I’m so sorry, Isabel,” Imogen said and hugged her. “He made me feel a little better with his rainbow light. But he said it will take time before I don’t feel sad.” “Our moms died too,” Danny said. “It’s hard, but you will be ok. We are going to make sure you are all right.” “Raphael told me that the world is going to change,” Isabel said. “That’s what the angel Gabriel told us too,” Danny said. “He said people are going to stop hurting each other like they hurt my parents.” “It’s what we’re praying for,” Imogen said. “He also said that I’m going to see my mom and the Red Jay again.”

DANNY AND IMOGEN took the master bedroom, which had a river view through its big windows, and skylights to see the stars. They moved Isabel into Riley’s room down the hall. The house was stocked with food. It was mostly nonperishable but there were some vegetables left in the fridge from Elliot’s last visit. They made a big meal, and the three of them sat down together at the kitchen table. Isabel said she hadn’t eaten since the morning in New York. It was so long ago. She should have been too weak to stand, but somehow she was all right. The next day, they relaxed and found comfort in the quiet of the house. They attended to Isabel and helped her through her grief. Imogen held her in her arms and cried when she cried. Isabel spent a lot of time sitting in front of the white bear in the living room. Danny explained that it was not a polar bear, but a Kermode bear, a subspecies of black bear. “Native Americans call them ‘spirit bears’,” he said. “Did your father kill the bear?” Isabel asked. “No, he paid someone to do it for him,” Imogen said. She picked up a television remote off a table. “No, don’t,” Danny said. “I was going to turn on the news and see what was happening with my dad and the investigation.” “We can’t break the peace here,” Danny said. “What is happening is too important.” “You’re right,” she said. “We need to change this place. My father built this house with fear. We need to transmute it into something better.” They sat down in the living room together and meditated for a time. Then they talked about everything that happened to them. Isabel told them about her illness and Imogen talked about her dad. Their pain seemed to lessen as the words were said. Imogen found yoga mats in Riley’s room and she showed Isabel how to do some basic positions. Danny found a can of black paint

and a paintbrush in a utility room and painted an eight-pointed star on the floor of the living room. “What is it?” Isabel asked. “I dreamed of my mother last night,” he said, “and she was wearing a necklace with this star.” “What does it mean?” Imogen asked. “Esoterically, the eight points of the star represent the balance of material and spiritual, male and female. It is the fully aware human: the Buddha, the Christ.” “Is that what we are supposed to become?” Imogen asked. “I think that’s what all of us are going to become,” he said. When he was done with the star, he painted a black circle around it. “Within this circle, the new world will be born,” he said. More days passed and they made meals, talked, and put together a puzzle of Winnie the Pooh. They often sat in silence on the couch, watching the river flow through the big windows. The day of the Great Conjunction finally came. It was the winter solstice—December 21. Dramatic clouds formed above the Hudson Valley and made a spectacular sunset. Hours passed and still the angels did not come. They put Isabel to bed and lay down in their room. It was thirty minutes before midnight when they heard a sound in the hallway. It was a low hum. An angel opened the door and stood in the entranceway. She wore the form of an old woman, with green light shining out of her eyes, and delicate wings on her back. “I am Ramiel, the angel of mercy, the spirit of plants. I hold off the destruction so you may be redeemed.” “Is it time?” Imogen asked. “Soon,” the Ramiel said. “First a soul wants to speak with you.” Ramiel’s soft feathers vibrated and a human face formed. It looked around the room with a perplexed expression, as it struggled to grab ahold of consciousness. The facial features grew sharper.

There were black eyebrows and wavy hair. Imogen recognized her father. He saw his daughter too and smiled. It was the first time in a long time that they looked calmly into each other’s eyes. “Dad?” “Hello,” he said quietly. It seemed to hurt him to speak. “Are you dead, Dad?” “I’m not dead in your time, but I’m dead in all time. In all time, everyone is alive and dead forever.” The features of his face kept losing definition, and then sharp- ening again. The Elliot-projection tried to stay on the surface. “My physical manifestation will not make peace with you, but I am the part of his self that resides in the eternal. And the eternal wants you to find peace.” “I’m sorry for what happened between us,” Imogen said. “I was misguided in this reality. I called myself a realist. I believed the world could only be a better place for the few. I believed it was a zero-sum solution. I was wrong, but know that I always wanted to keep you safe.” “You didn’t keep me safe.” The Elliot ghost began to flicker in and out and lose its detail. “I know,” he said, in a lower, weaker voice. “My life was fear and ego. I inhabited lies, but beyond this reality lies are not possible. So I exist in the truth.” “You are still alive, Dad. We can’t I hear this from your real lips?” “The fear crushes me. I did so many bad things. I let my father send the men who hurt Ayashe. I tried to kill Jack. The fear has become disease in my body. I am dying. You are a fugitive and I am a prisoner. You will have no chance to see me before I am gone.” Imogen was sad to learn that she was going to lose her father too. “Do you have peace now, Dad?" The Elliot ghost tried to smile, but the sides of the lips only turned upward slightly. “I am with all consciousness, and that is peace. My self dissolves

away.” “Will you be reborn?” “God is reborn in every instance in all living things. Separation is an illusion.” The projection lost the resemblance to Elliot and became more like a mannequin. “I want to keep talking to you, Dad. I want to forgive you.” “Your heart will find its healing, Imogen. The angels are leaving you, and so will I.” “Where are they going?” Elliot’s eyes rolled back into his head, as he looked inward. “South to the rainforest, over the sea where Jack died.” “I love you, Dad.” “I love you too.” And with her forgiveness, Elliot released back into the source. Ramiel stood before them again. Her eyes shined with calm green light. “You’re ready now, Imogen and Danny,” she said. “Come with me.” They rose from the bed and followed her through the door. She drifted down the hallway, a few inches above the floor. The walls lit up with green light around her, and they felt their hearts being pulled along with her. Isabel poked her head out from Riley’s room. “An angel!” she called out. Ramiel turned back to smile at Isabel. “Come with us, Izzie,” Imogen said. “It’s happening.” Isabel took Imogen’s hand. “I’m going to see my mom again,” she said. Danny took her other hand, and the three of them walked slowly into the living room. It was bright with the light of the angels, who floated over Danny’s black star and gleamed with the colors of the rainbow. Imogen was surprised to realize that she knew the angels’ names.

Michael and Ameretat stood together. Gabriel and Raguel were to the right of Michael. Ahriman, shining with his fearsome red light, faced Michael in the circle. Ramiel took a place beside Raphael to the left of Ameretat. Only one point of the star was empty. The angels gazed upon them. Their collective attention was a fierce thing. Imogen felt her legs buckling. She didn’t feel strong enough to be in their presence. “YOUR TRIAL BEGINS,” Michael trumpeted in their heads. Imogen took Danny’s arm. “Are they judging us?” “A trial is something we must pass through,” Danny said. He sat down on the floor cross-legged and Imogen and Isabel did the same. “Breathe,” he said. “Focus. Be present.” Imogen witnessed the splendor of the angels. It was not easy to look upon them. They seemed so superior to her. Her ego splintered at the sight and pleaded with her to look away so that it may be saved, but she did not drop her gaze. She knew them. Michael, of golden light, was a reflection of God, infinite consciousness, the totality, the source. Gabriel, shining orange, was the messenger. The intermediary. “See us for what we really are,” Gabriel said. Raguel, beside him in indigo light, was an ever-changing creature—snake, bear, lynx, fox. Looking upon Ahriman caused fears to crash over her in waves. Her mind raced with anxious words. The revolution failed. She will be locked up like her father. She breathed in and out and willed herself to keep looking. She accepted her fears and they faded away. “You bring my fears to the surface to be burned away,” she said. Ahriman bowed his head, as in a greeting. The next angel, Ramiel, was eternal mercy and peace. Raphael, illuminated with violet light, was the healer. Imogen began to understand, unconsciously at first. The truth came like a word dancing on the tip of her tongue.

Ameretat shined a blue light that was sweeter than the light of the other angels. She was the sacred feminine, the balancer that was lost. She smiled, and Imogen sensed a familiarity in her gaze like they knew each other before. Imogen remembered that she dyed her hair the same blue as the angel. She understood. “The angels are the parts of us that we have forgotten,” she said. There was a murmur of joy from the angels. Even Ahriman smiled. “Yes,” Ameretat said. “Come to me.” Imogen stepped forward, and kneeled down before the angel. “Rise,” Ameretat said. “You will bow before no one.” Imogen got back to her feet. “The angels came when we made a wall against the divinity in ourselves,” she said. “Yes.” “Are you real?” Imogen said. “Do you have physical form?” “Our physical form is an illusion, and so is yours. You needed us enough and so we came to be. We are emanations from the collective consciousness of humanity past and future. We are the part of yourself, just coming to the surface, that you found too alien to comprehend, so you made these angel masks.” “Billions saw a glimpse of you at the memorial bombing,” Imogen said. “You are real to them.” “You will tell them what you learned. You have no gods but the one God that is you. Humanity was blind to all but the surface dimension of reality, but you are awakening and finding reunion with eternity. The consciousness that grows within you will be stronger than has ever existed on Earth. This blue planet will sing the song of the universe.” “What about Ahriman?” Imogen asked. “Is he part of us too?” “Zoroaster said he ruled the mineral world. But he has always been the manifestation of your fear. He was who the Greeks called Phobos. You must always be on guard against him, but he is also a

teacher. Fear reveals the way.” “It is a narrow path,” Michael said, “but you are walking it with your eyes open now.” Imogen stepped back to join Danny and Isabel where they were standing. Danny took her hand. “You made it through,” he said. “Look,” Isabel said. The angels dissolved into clouds of colored smoke, and began circling the ceiling. They were like snakes, translucent, but with human faces on the heads. Imogen reached for Isabel but she held her arms up to the angels flying around the room. “Take my hand,” Imogen said. “We don’t need the angels anymore.” “I’m going to see my mom now,” Isabel said. Raphael flew down to her and pulled her off her feet. She became a stream of white light, spinning with the other angels faster and faster in a circle around the ceiling. She made eight angels. “It’s happening,” Danny said. “The portal is opening,” Gabriel said in their heads. “Jupiter’s joy is coming. It is because of people awakening like you that it is so. Help us open it wide.” They knew what to do. Imogen took Danny’s hand and they imagined peace enveloping the world. Within the spinning lights, they saw Jupiter, planet of the ever- changing present, pass in front of Saturn, planet of tradition. Church bells rang out. They felt the unrestrained force of consciousness loosed from Jupiter. Then the angels became the spiral arms of a galaxy. A pin of light appeared in the black hole at the center of the galaxy, and ballooned out, like a supernova exploding. A wave of rainbow-colored light swept through the room, and they were almost swept off their feet. The room fell dark again and the angels were gone, but rainbows

still danced on the ceiling, like the light from car headlamps. Danny went to a window. “Look!” The rainbow wave crossed the Hudson and flowed over the Catskill Mountains, expanding in a perfect circle from the place where it had begun. They watched it disappear over the mountains, but they could still see its light reflecting off the clouds. Imogen felt a feeling of peace greater than she had ever known. “Danny,” she said. “I’m healed.”

We heal the world by healing ourselves. - Laura Castone, Paradise Found

THE RAINBOW WAVE expanded from the Hudson Valley, across the United States and over the Atlantic Ocean. It was before dawn in the Americas, and found most people as they slept. People woke in the morning remembering meaningful dreams. Worries that seemed hopelessly knotted in their minds when they went to sleep began to release. Those who were awake saw the shimmering rainbow pass through their reality. Some wondered if they had imagined it, but they soon heard reports that others had seen it too. It swept across the Old World in daylight, finding people in the streets, on the battlefields, in their workplaces, schools, and homes. Most believed that they had witnessed a holy event.

AS THE RAINBOW light faded on the horizon, Imogen put her arm around Danny. She felt flashes of inner calm before, but never like this. She knew that peace would be their default state now. The dark

days would be fewer and farther between. “Reality is coming back into alignment with the infinite consciousness that first dreamed it,” Danny said. “Mystics and occultists have prophesied this event for more than a hundred years. Human not loving themselves and each other caused a collective distortion in this world, and it is correcting now.” Danny’s deep brown eyes were filled with joy. She leaned up to kiss him, and he pulled her closer. “I’m so thankful we found each other, Danny.” “Me too. It was meant to be.” “Do you think Isabel’s all right?” “I think so. I think everything’s all right. I think it’s always been.” She nodded. “It has. And now the world will learn.” “We should leave here tomorrow,” Danny said. “We are still wanted by the police. People will resist their awakening. Their minds will hold on to the nightmare they are accustomed to. There is more struggle ahead.” “But once the awakening begins it cannot be stopped,” Imogen said. “And it started in every human heart.” “Yes.” She took his hand and they stood together for a time. All was quiet in the house now. She led him through the living room to the bedroom. He sat down on the bed and Imogen lit a candle. They kissed gently and then she took off the white clothes that the angels gave her—the shirt and leggings, the plain underwear—and lay down on the bed. Danny took off his clothes too and lay down. He lifted her into his arms and kissed her neck. She pushed him back on the bed and straddled him. She squeezed her thighs around him, and kissed him as she moved. Then Danny rolled her over and she wrapped her legs around him as he pressed into her. The unbelievable tension of the past weeks flowed out of their fingertips and toes like electricity. They voiced their pleasure,

knowing that there were no angels watching them anymore. Their lovemaking was a communion—God finding union through them. Imogen’s whole body trembled. Danny felt it too, and tears welled in his eyes as they reached the end together. They lay together silently for a long time, with Danny on his back and Imogen resting her head on his chest. He brushed her blue bangs away and kissed her forehead. From where they lay, they could see the first light of sun rising in the east. They closed their eyes and were soon asleep.

JACK VISITED IMOGEN in her dreams. They were standing together on a grassy plain. It was a primordial place, like somewhere in Africa long ago. Jack was the younger man she remembered from her youth, before her grandfather broke him down. “The Ghost Shirt held me from death,” he said, “so that I could watch over you and say goodbye.” “Did you see the rainbow wave?” “The rainbow wave was a symbol of the healing force from the source. Its form was illusory, but its power was real. It brought alignment and countless synchronicities. Millions worked for this day. People like you came together and formed a portal for infinite consciousness to heal this reality.” “How did we find our way, if the angels were a reflection?” “The inspiration that guided you came from yourself. By longing for peace, you awakened your eternal selves, who live in full awareness outside of time. It was you who showed you the way. The separation is ending. All is one.” Imogen noticed how Jack’s eyes had grown darker. They were nearly as black as the angel Gabriel’s. “You have the sight too, Imogen,” Jack said. “You are a time reader.” She touched her forehead. There was a third eye there, wide

and glaring. She understood that it had been there all along. Jack did not speak after that. It had been an effort to stay with her so long. He put all his remaining essence into his eyes, which gazed at her with love. “I love you too, Jack. Go to your family now.” He nodded and faded into Seana, into God, into rest.

IMOGEN AND DANNY were still in each other’s arms when they awoke. The sun shone through the windows and particles of dust danced in the air. They rose from bed and made breakfast, and then searched the house for supplies they could take on their journey. They were going to be on the road for a while. The world wasn’t going to change overnight and they needed to find a place to hide and wait it out. They gathered backpacks, camping gear, clothes, and five thousand dollars in fifties and twenties. Elliot Greene had many secret fears about where the world was headed and stocked his home accordingly. “Where are we going?” Danny asked. “To the bus station. To Canada. Jim Shepard of the Invisible Army lives in Winnipeg. He’ll take us in and we’ll be safe there.” “Where Bonnie Delamarca came from.” “Yes.” Thirty minutes later, they put on the backpacks and were ready to go. They leaned their foreheads against each other. It was their way of saying goodbye to the past. “Ready?” Danny asked. “I’m ready.” They opened the door and they walked outside. Winter had descended on the Hudson Valley. A cold wind blew over their faces, but they were dressed warmly in winter scarfs, gloves, and woolen

hats. They took a deep breath and set off across the patio, passing marble statues that Elliot had placed on the stone to liven up the exterior in the absence of landscaping. For someone with such little religious conviction, he had a strange affinity for statues of gods. They walked past Isis, Hermes, and Zeus. They were just dreams of what lay in the human heart. They took a stone stairway that led to a dirt path to the river, and started jogging down, hand in hand and laughing. Their backpacks bounced on their shoulders. Imogen suddenly had the instinct that she was pregnant. She was right: an egg inside had been fertilized. She slowed to a walk again and felt her stomach with her hand. Ahead of them, the river came into view. She smiled at Danny. He would make a good father, she knew. He smiled back at her and laughed. She did not know what the future held for them. The fertilized egg needed to implant into her uterus, and that may not happen, but for now, in that moment, there was more life!

I knew the jungle landscape from my dreams. It felt like home. - Writings of Isabel Fitch

ISABEL SAT BESIDE Raphael on a grassy hill overlooking a great expanse of rainforest. The morning sun was in the sky. This was not La Cana, but they were in the Amazon, in Peru. “Red Jays live here, Mommy.” The angel wore the face of Gloria Fitch, but it was more than just that. She had arms too, and a hand that held onto Isabel’s. Gloria’s legs were folded as she sat on the grass with Isabel. There was more color and life to this emanation than the other ghosts that the angels brought forth. Maybe it was because Isabel believed in her so much that the Gloria-projection took such a complete form. But it was also because Gloria wanted to be here with her daughter, comforting and healing her. Her vibrating skin shone with the light of love. “Yes, Izzie, Red Jay have come here.” Gloria pointed her luminous arm down the hill toward an ancient renaco tree. “Do you see that big tree down there?” Isabel nodded. “In that tree, two Red Jays live.”

Behind the mask of Gloria, Raphael was still healing Isabel in these last few minutes, running rapidly through thousands of little miracles to cure her neurological defects. The process was exhausting for Isabel, and her eyelids grew heavy and then closed, but she shook her head and opened them again. “Sleep, Izzie,” Gloria said. She grasped her mother’s hand tightly. She could keep her eyes open no longer, and she rested her head in her lap, where she fell asleep right away. Gloria’s form dissipated because it was Isabel that willed her here. Still, Raphael continued to caress Isabel’s hair tenderly for a few minutes, and then slipped out gently from under her so that she did not awake. Isabel’s head came to rest on a bed of grass. The angel unfurled his wings and lifted into the air. He regarded Isabel for another moment, and then turned away to float down the hill into the forest. The seven angels gathered in a forest clearing. After so many ages of waiting, the reunion was upon them. Like dandelions, they broke apart in the wind, releasing the essence of their consciousness into the world. Their energy nourished an awakening humanity, and the forest also breathed it in, because the Earth had healing to do too. A great pendulum swung back after being pushed in one direction for so long. As spring turned to sum- mer, the flowers bloomed brighter and the fruits on the trees were bountiful.

Manito Ahbee in Manitoba is known as the place where the Creator sits, and it was to there that Imogen and Danny went to learn to speak the words of the one consciousness. - Laura Castone, Paradise Found

THEY TRAVELED BY bus to Albany, and then west to Cleveland, where they spent a night in a motel. The next morning they caught a bus to Chicago, and then transferred to another bus to Minneapolis, and then another to Fargo. They were crossing the landscape like the rainbow wave. It was a long journey, but they both needed the time to integrate their experiences. They spent most of the ride staring out of the window in silence. Law enforcement authorities across the country had Imogen and Danny’s photos, but the police they encountered along the way looked right through them. Their eternal selves recognized them as saints and let them pass. In Fargo, they bought an old motorcycle with cash. Late that night, they drove it north on Route 29. They left the highway just before the border and rode across agricultural fields toward Canada. It was too dangerous to test their fate at the border without passports. Danny drove by the light of the moon, and Imogen

hugged his waist. It was a bumpy, muddy ride, but they laughed most of the way. They knew the universe was protecting them. They had more work to do. Once safely across the border, they rejoined the highway and headed north to Winnipeg. There they met Jim. He drove them out to a cabin he had on the Whitemouth River, an hour and a half from the city. It had solar panels for electricity and a wood stove for heat. Snow fell overnight and it looked like moonlight had settled on the Earth. As they settled into their new home, they reconnected online with the other Invisible Army members who were still free. The information released during Omega continued to ripple through the system. Four US Congressmen and three Senators resigned after Omega exposed their corruption. States began talking about revoking the corporate charter of a major corporation for the first time in over a hundred years. The stock of ethical and sustainable companies began to rise, breaking the market slide, as investors recognized the inherent value in those characteristics. A call for constitutional reform of campaign finance laws rose from the grassroots to a roar in the mainstream media and was debated in Congress. The Invisible Army destroyed the rest of the voluminous data they had seized. They could have taken down other companies and their executives with embarrassing disclosures, but the time for reconciliation had come. The healing wave had swept through all of them too. They understood that the best way to change the world was through positive action. The mission now was to aid the world in its awakening. They found new callings or refocused their careers. They were writers, system engineers, philosophers, and artists. People welcomed the guidance they provided. They convened in Manitoba in the center of the North American continent to learn from each other and take the messages home. Jack’s daughter Ayashe was among those who came. She said that her father visited her in a dream and told her to go.

A sympathetic politician arranged for them to hold an Ayahuasca ceremony in the Manitoba Legislative Building, which had been constructed on the model of King Solomon’s Temple by Masonic builders. Imogen and Danny sat with Ayashe and a dozen others in a circle around the eight-pointed black marble star under the rotunda. It was the same star that Danny painted on the floor of the Hudson house—the one his mother wore on a necklace in a dream. There were great synchronistic upheavals as human consciousness evolved. The disappearance of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter was one such event, but there were also amazing coincidences reported on the evening news. Every day marked a shattering of the crystall- ization of the previous day. The pain and suffering of humanity unraveled as the world moved with growing speed toward peace. Nine months after arriving at their refuge on the Whitemouth River, Imogen and Danny’s baby was born. They decided to call him Jack, but his deep, dark eyes reminded them most of the angel Gabriel.

The plants brought Isabel to me so that I could teach her their healing ways. - Interview with Juan Ríos

AT HIS PLANT medicine center in Peru, the Asháninka healer Juan Ríos had a vision of Isabel as he sat at a ceremony. He had dreamed of her ever since returning from the Centro de la Botánica in Colombia. In his dreams, she wandered from the hillside where the angels left her and became lost in the forest. She called out for help but nobody came. She walked through the night in the moonlight until she found a river and followed it upstream. She heard singing in the distance. A voice in his head told Juan that her arrival was at hand, and he rose from the circle in the maloca. His center was built on geothermal hot springs that mixed with a river that flowed past the longhouse. Clouds of steam rose off the river and were illuminated in the moonlight. Juan looked down to the edge of the river to see Isabel standing in her muddied white clothes. He climbed down to her as his assistants continued the ceremony. She was thirsty and exhausted, and he reached out his hand. She took it and held him tight. He walked with

her to his family’s home, where his wife fed her and his daughter gave her clean clothes to wear. From that day on, Isabel was the adopted daughter of Juan and his family. The word Asháninka means “We the Related,” and the Asháninka consider anyone who shares their views to be one of their people. Isabel had only her needs to offer at first, but Juan knew that a future of giving lay ahead for her. Isabel embraced her new life and learned Spanish and Asháninka. She participated in Ayahuasca ceremonies, and pledged to learn the plant healing tradition of her new father. She learned the names of all the plants in the forest. She asked Juan to pray for the Red Jay, and he said that of course he would, and always had. As the years passed, the bird was spotted with greater frequency in the forests around the healing center. A capable young woman emerged from the wreckage of Isabel’s early life. She was intelligent like her mother and patient like her father. A few foreigners who came to Juan’s center realized who she was, but they never revealed the secret. As time passed, she grew as strong as Bonnie Delamarca, who was her hero the year before the new world came. Sometimes, lying awake in her bed late in the night or early in the morning, she thought she heard the calls of the Red Jay in the distance. Other times, looking up through the forest canopy at the night, she would see dark forms pass over the light of the stars, and imagine she heard the slow beating wings of an angel. But she knew that the angels were gone. During one ceremony, there was a thunderstorm and Isabel looked out of the maloca to see seven Red Jay fly across the sky. Their beautiful red feathers shone in the lightning. They wheeled and dipped in the air around the maloca, calling out in their synchronized songs. Isabel knew that they were there to show their gratitude.

With little warning, a new age dawned. - Laura Castone, Paradise Found

JOY AND PEACE swept over the world. Those who resisted the transformation suffered the consequences of continuing misalign- ment. Those who embraced it experienced the paradise that reality could be. All of history led to this moment, when humanity learned to follow its heart. The old ego-mind patterns that led the world to the brink of ruin began to dissolve. Forward-thinking political candidates with little funding won landslide elections after supporters spread their messages on social media. Countries turned their resources to addressing the environmental crisis. The United States learned to conquer with peace. People adapted quickly to the new mentality, and art played an instrumental role in spreading the ideas of the new consciousness. Spiritual practice and shamanic ceremonies were a key part of a new global culture. The old ways were remembered—the attention to cycles, the rites of passage, the sacred feminine, the mysteries and magic—and modern culture recovered. Enlightened figures were em- ulated not worshiped, and there were many prophets in those times.

Heaven rose on Earth as people purged their fear and returned to love. The natural world began to recover as people learned to live in balance with their lands. One by one, countries found a regenerative path. Endangered species broke out of their traps, and the waters of the world grew thicker again with life. The Red Jay bred until they numbered hundreds. The birds helped stabilize the rainforest as its ecosystem healed. Carbon dioxide was absorbed back into the Earth by the greening planet. Decades later, Danny and Imogen traveled to Peru where they were reunited with Isabel at the healing center by the boiling river. She was a grown woman now and an Ayahuasquera at the center, now run by Juan’s biological daughter. They recognized her right away. In the evening, they sat down together for a ceremony in the maloca. As Isabel sang healing songs, their hearts opened as one and filled with the glory of the beautiful world they brought into being.

THE END.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

William Keefer was born in Washington, DC in 1975. He received a degree in English Literature from McGill University in Montréal and moved to New York City, where he has worked as a writer and private investigator. Anamnesis is his first novel. He is writing a sequel.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to my friends and family who read drafts of this novel. Thank you Jane Fleming Fransson, Michelle Corpora, Jessica Filippi, Anna Stein, Serena Jones, Sophie Keefer, and Alyssa Dennis for your help moving it along.

Books that influenced this novel include A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, The Ascent of Humanity by Charles Eisenstein, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck, The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram, The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, The Shaman and Ayahuasca by Don José Campos, Biocentrism by Robert Lanza, and Valis by Philip K. Dick. I watched Terence McKenna videos and found symbols and themes in the work of Jake Kotze and other synchromystics. Gratitude to everyone at Tonkiri and Mayantuyacu for lighting the way through the labyrinth.