The third thing Ellis noticed was the city. He was in a small park surrounded by massive buildings. Each was unusual, few had sharp angles—not a single “box” in the bunch—and all were works of art. Shrunken down, they would be marvels on pedestals in any museum. But at dozens of stories tall, they were breathtaking. Most appeared carved from solid rock, free-flowing organic sculptures. The interplay of metals—copper, brass, gold, and silver—created designs inlaid as decorations on the buildings and in the plazas and walkways. Art deco met tribal expressionism; nature living in harmony with high-industry; the soft and the sharp, made and grown, all blending into something new. Above it all remained the blue sky, this one streaked by thin clouds.
The last thing Ellis noticed was that Pax had followed him through.
Turning, he revealed his wide-eyed surprise.
“How could you think I was going to abandon you?” Pax chastised him and displayed an irritated look so pointed that Ellis knew it was artificial. “Do you know where Pol’s office is? Would you know how to find it?”
“In the past I just appeared where I was going.”
Pax smirked. “You can’t just port into the GWC. I’m sure you couldn’t just port into the palace of the Prime Minister of the United States without announcing yourself first either. Not that Pol, or anyone else in the Grand World Council, has the power to execute people on a whim like people did in your day, but still—it’s not polite.”
Ellis couldn’t help smiling. He was so happy Pax was with him that he overlooked the errors in history. Yet as they began crossing the park, Ellis remembered the history-grams and wondered if they really were errors. Two thousand years was a very long time. Perhaps at some point the United States did have a prime minister who ordered executions.
Pax led the way across the open plaza on which huge burnished metal shapes were embedded. Ellis guessed they must make some clever design that was indiscernible from the ground but would be lovely from the windows of the buildings. As they walked, Ellis saw a large river snaking in the distance and weaving between buildings. On the water were all sorts of boats, from traditional sailing ships to more exotic vessels which looked like they were powered by glass sails. No freighters, however, no barges hauling goods the way he’d seen on the Detroit River. Everything in this world was for enjoyment, as if every inhabitant was on permanent vacation. Where were the factories? Where were the men with jackhammers fixing the streets? For that matter, where were the streets?
Seconds after he appeared, people began noticing him. Heads turned. Individuals halted and just stared. Once they started walking, eyes grew wide, and those watching moved out of their way. Some mouths opened as if to speak, but Pax did not stop, and together they marched on. Ellis decided not to look back but heard mutterings and imagined a gathering there, swirls of people drawn close, eddying in their wake.
Finding the Grand World Council was easier than Pax had led him to believe, because it stood out dramatically like other capitols. In this case the building was center stage and topped by a giant sculpture of the earth made of gold and copper. The Hollow World globe didn’t depict the continents on its shell, but rather the tectonic plates. Divisions of land and sea were lightly etched into the surface of the massive plate cutouts, appearing as ghostly afterthoughts, no more than spots on a dog. Europe and Asia shared a plate, but the Arabian Peninsula had its own. North America, South America, and Africa all had their own plates, but they were much larger than the continents themselves, because they included a portion of the ocean as well. Ellis noticed several others he couldn’t place. Some were quite small, like one just off the coast of the American Northwest, and another near the Antarctic. Ellis wondered if that’s where he was at that moment, on the tiny chip at the bottom of the world between the tip of what had once been Argentina and the Cape of Good Hope.
Inside, the building was bright and airy despite walls of glassy, black marble. Sculptures and mosaics filled the space. The largest spelled out HOLLOW WORLD in cleverly pieced-together shapes. Ellis thought the place looked more like an art museum than a government building—and a top-notch one at that. The temperature was the same inside as out, which spared him a coughing attack. Ellis reminded himself he wasn’t entering from the outdoors, just moving between rooms.
Few people were in the lobby, and Ellis didn’t see any desk or clerk. Pax walked directly to a blank wall and tapped on the polished marble. A touchscreen appeared, and Pax moved through a few menus until finding Pol-789. Underneath this was a list of names, and Ellis was surprised to see Ellis Rogerson it alongside Pax-43246018. Pax tapped their names, and a portal appeared beside them.
Stepping through, they entered a tiny office. Circular in shape, all the walls appeared to be glass, letting in the falselight and providing panoramic views of the city now far below. In the center was a beautiful round table etched with a detailed map that might have been a projected flat version of the Hollow World interior, while the table’s centerpiece was a rotating replica of the giant globe Ellis had seen on the building.
“ Welcome,” a very pleasant woman’s voice—a vox—greeted. “ My name is Balmore. Chief Councilor Pol will be with you shortly. Please have a seat.”
Ellis and Pax sat in two of the four chairs. Pax sat very straight, adjusting the frock coat and resetting the angle of the bowler hat, only to adjust it again a moment later.
“You don’t come here often, do you?” Ellis asked, discovering he was feeling quite at ease by virtue of lacking any preconceived impressions. If this had been the Oval Office, or a palace, he might have been intimidated. Instead, this was just a room with a fancy table, and Ellis had seen more impressive principals’ offices.
“I’ve only been to Wegener once, a long time ago, and I’ve never been inside the GWC, much less the Chief Councilor’s office.”
When the door opened, Pax jumped up, standing like a soldier at attention. Not familiar with protocol, Ellis followed suit.
The person who entered was another identical copy of Pax. That’s how Ellis saw everyone, even though he understood that, at only a few hundred years old, Pax was far younger than everyone else. Full names, he guessed, were an indication. Like Delaware license plates, or online user names, the lower numbers must indicate age of creation and perhaps social status. Ellis considered the numbers might also just show the popularity of that name, but the fact that a geomancer was called Geo made him think otherwise. Geo-24 was probably very old—only twenty-three Geos had come before—while Pol-789 would be younger, and Pax-43246018 would be a baby in comparison.
“Wonderful—you’re here,” their host greeted them. “I’m Chief Councilor Pol. So nice to meet you. Please sit down.”
Pol wore clothes, too, but had stolen fashions far older than Pax’s or Vin’s. The Chief Councilor was dressed in a bright-orange, Grecian-style toga, which was fastened at the shoulder by an ornate gold clasp in the shape of the tectonic world. Just as bald and dark skinned as the rest, Pol was the first to look normal to Ellis’s eyes, appearing as any of the Tibetan monks that he had seen on television or the cover of National Geographicmagazine. Pol greeted them formally, standing straight, with one hand in the fold of his robes like Napoleon.
“Thank you for seeing us,” Pax said, sitting down. Ellis did the same, his eyes still taking in the views.
Pol was equally fascinated by Ellis, even bending to see what parts of him were hidden beneath the table. “Wonderful. Simply wonderful.”
“Ellis Rogers is a real gift,” Pax agreed. “The only one of his kind. As I explained in the memo, Ellis Rogers is here from the early twenty-first century, long before the ISP was formed, before the first excavations of Hollow World, and even before Monsanto started the first subterranean farms. His world still ran on fossil fuel, ate slaughtered animals, and lived every day on the grass at the mercy of the weather.”