Everything was dark except for flashes in the sky. They had containers in the back and hoses to siphon gas with if they found any. The regular stations around New Eden had long before gone dry and shut down. And the problem was, the men from New Eden were using up too much gasoline in the search for more, having to go further and further away from their refuge. Everything was dark in the world but for the cones of the headlights, and one of those was growing dim.
“Let’s go back,” Alex had said. “There’s nothing out here.”
“Try again tomorrow,” Doug added. “When we can see something.”
“Yeah,” Jefferson agreed. “Yeah, okay.”
He steered the truck onto a dirt road to back up and turn around, and suddenly there in front of them, standing in the glare of the dim-eyed headlights, was a group of twelve faceless, black-garbed Cypher soldiers. The creatures were staring up at the tortured sky, their weapons also upraised.
“Oh shit!” Andy shouted, and Doug shouted frantically Shut up, shut up. Jefferson tried to slam the truck into reverse and peel Firestones, but something slipped, and the gears ground together with a noise to wake the Confederate dead in their moss-covered graves. Several of the Cyphers took note of this, and turned their faceplates and their weapons upon the shuddering truck.
“They’re gonna kill us!” Alex yelled, nearly in Jefferson’s ear.
Jefferson saw no way out but the way he had always known: plow forward and damn it all. He found first gear and sank his foot to the floorboard. The truck crashed into some of the Cyphers even as others were blurring away, into whatever zone or dimension they were able to enter. Brown liquid splattered across the windshield. The dim headlight blew out. “Go, go, go!” Alex shouted. They were speeding along a dirt road at over seventy miles an hour, hitting every bump between here and the lap of Jesus.
Looking back through the swirl of dust, Doug gave a strangled moan.
Jefferson saw in the sideview mirror a rush of white-hot flame coming at the truck, like a floodwater of fire. In an instant it was upon them, too fast for him to avoid; there was no outrunning the speed of that flame, no way to escape it. The fire ate the back of the truck and melted the tires and exploded the gas tank, and as it turned the interior into a blast furnace Jefferson Jericho…
…found himself sitting on a terrace overlooking a green-shadowed garden. At the center of the garden was a silvery pond. Yellow and red fruit that resembled apples, but were strangely shaped, hung from the trees. The air smelled of air conditioning, a little metallic. He realized he was wearing a white robe of some kind of silky material, and on his feet were white sandals that might have been rubber. He looked at his unburnt hands and ran a hand through his unburnt hair, and he gasped aloud at the idea that indeed—in spite of all of his sins—he had been admitted to Heaven. He nearly wept.
And that was when she glided out onto the terrace, wearing a gown that sparkled with a million colors under the artificial sun, and she smiled at him with a mouth that still needed some work, and she said in a voice that was like listening to a dozen voices in a dozen registers at once, “I have been reading. It is written…the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Is that not correct, Leon Kush Man? Or prefer you do Jeffer Son Jericho?”
As Jefferson tried to stand up and, off-balance, fell to the glistening stones that floored the terrace, she stood over him with a blinding white glare at her back, and she lifted her too-long arms toward him and said, “No fear of me. I have saved you. Do I speak well?”
Yes…yes…you speak well…yes.
“I am learned. Learn ing,” she corrected herself. “So much to…” She cast about for the right word. “Absorb,” she said. “I am a…” Again there was a pause while she gathered her words. “…lowly student,” she went on, her voices rising and falling while Jefferson Jericho thought he had not entered Heaven but had been pulled into Hell. “Ah!” she said, with a faint smile below the unblinking red-tinged eyes. “You must explain to me that concept.”
Somewhere in that time, he slept. When he awakened he was sitting in his blue Adirondack chair overlooking New Eden in the morning light, dressed in the same clothes he’d been wearing when he and the three other men had left the night before, and there was a little irritation—like a Tennessee mosquito bite—at the back of his neck. He felt woozy and weak; what was wrong with the sunlight? Where was the sun? The light had a blue cast, and the sky was white and featureless. And the clothes he had on…the same, but not the same. The material of his shirt…the same gray-on-white stripes, but…the fabric had a faintly oily feel, as did the khaki trousers, as if they’d been manufactured from an unknown synthetic.
“Regina!” he called as he stood up and stumbled toward the house. “Regina…baby!”
He learned he’d been gone for two days. Doug Hammerfield, Alex Smith and Andy Warren had not returned. And something had changed about New Eden. It was soon discovered that trying to drive, walk, or bike out of New Eden brought you right back to New Eden. There was no way out. It was an eternal circle, one for Dante’s appreciation. And the damnedest thing was, you were just turned around without realizing it, and there you were…home again, in the realm of the High Rollers.
At six o’clock in the morning, twelve noon and six o’clock in the evening white squares of what appeared to be chunks of tofu appeared on the dinner tables, along with smooth metal receptacles of a chalky milk-like substance. No one could stand and watch the items appear; they were just there, between breaths and eyeblinks. No one could likewise watch the receptacles disappear and yet they did, even put in a box and locked away in a cupboard. They could not be dented or crushed. The food and drink had a slightly bitter taste, yet they filled the stomach and even became habit-forming. Some said they believed this food gave them the most beautiful dreams, and they began to sleep their lives away.
There was no rain, no storms, no change of weather. It was always a blue-tinged sunny day with a featureless white sky. The light bloomed in the morning and faded in the evening. The grass stopped growing but remained green, like artificial turf. The leaves on the trees never changed, and never fell. The Fourth of July was Halloween was Thanksgiving was Christmas was New Year’s Day was Valentine’s Day, no difference. New Eden had running water and electricity. Bulbs never burned out. Toilets never stopped up or overflowed. Nothing needed painting, unless you wanted to paint. Nothing in the houses—dishwashers, garage doors, clocks, DVD players, washing machines—ever broke down. When the garbage was taken out, it was removed from the green bins by unseen and unheard maintenance crews.
New Eden had become the most perfect place not of this earth, for Jefferson Jericho and the others had come to grasp the truth through many late night council sessions. Their dream town now existed in some other dimension, some other slice of space and time, protected by the Gorgons from the war that ravaged the real world.
Protected, as well, from the Cyphers. From all pressures and worries of the tormented earth. Food and drink were supplied, and all the essentials of human life down to soap and dishwashing detergent. Even the toilet paper never ran out, but was on a continuous roll that replenished itself when necessary. Some found the paper to be very thin, and smelling somewhat like the disinfectant of a hospital room.