Journey Through the Mirrors by T. R. Williams Page A

particular spot one meter off the ground. He pulled back the magnet, and the stone it attracted slid from the wall, causing a hidden door to his left to open. The man left the magnet in place and walked through the doorway, causing lights to come on. A table was at the center of the room, and the walls were lined with stainless-steel shelves and boxes and other items. The man grabbed a Gore-Tex bag from beneath the table and squatted down in front of one of the shelves. On the lower shelf, he saw ten stacks of electronic bearer bonds, EBBs. One by one, he placed each stack of forty in the bag. After the Great Disruption, paper money became less popular, but everyone agreed on the need for some form of currency that could not be manipulated by unscrupulous governments. The result: EBBs, palm-sized pieces of glass that could be micro-encoded with any desired amount of Universal Credits by sanctioned central banking authorities. The EBBs could not be tracked, and whoever possessed them held claim to them without question.
    After the man had put all of them into the bag, he went over to anothershelf, where he found a large silver case with a security keypad attached to it. He grabbed the case and placed it on the ground. The man typed a series of numbers on the keypad, and the case opened. Inside was the prize he was looking for: nine leather-bound books and a blue journal. Satisfied, he closed the lid, put the case into the bag alongside the EBBs, and zipped it closed. He pulled from his chest pocket a small aerosol can and sprayed it all over the bag, paying special attention to its zipper. The green foam quickly dried into a rubber-like coating, making the bag waterproof. He returned the can to his chest pocket, swung the bag over his shoulder, and left the hidden room. He pushed the dislodged stone back into place, watching as the door to the hidden room closed. Then he removed the magnet from the wall.
    The man made his way back to the well and down the slippery stone stairway. Once again, he ducked through the opening in the well wall to the other side. The waterproof bag floated alongside him as he backtracked through the tunnels and returned to the iron-barred door. He pushed aside the bodies of the two dead agents, then closed the barred door and this time locked it with the brass key. He quickly waded to the end of the dock and swung the large bag into the boat before climbing in himself. He started the motor and sped onto the lake, disappearing into the thickening fog. He heard coyotes howling in the distance.

8
You will never be bigger or smaller than what you do.
    —THE CHRONICLES OF SATRAYA
    NEW CHICAGO, 6:10 P.M. LOCAL TIME, MARCH 20, 2070
    Mr. Perrot waited anxiously for an update on Jamie’s condition, but neither he nor Jasper had heard from Logan or Valerie in the last hour, and his PCD calls to them hadn’t gone through because of a disruption of the communication network in Mexico’s Central Plateau. All they could do was wait and continue diligently to prepare for the commemoration to keep their minds occupied, something Mr. Perrot was clearly still struggling with. The news of Jamie’s injury, the rash of earthquakes, the unexpected emergence of Madu Shata—it seemed strange, if not ominous, for them all to happen at once.
    “Jamie will be fine,” Jasper said, alert to Mr. Perrot’s consternation. “No sense worrying about something we can’t control.”
    “Agreed,” Mr. Perrot replied. He put the lid back on a box that he’d been rummaging through. “I haven’t found anything in these boxes that is worth sending to the commemoration. Does Logan have any more of Cassandra’s possessions here?”
    “Yes, there’s much more in the vault, along with his mom’s mosaics.”
    Jasper walked to a solid metal door near the corner of the work room, typed a series of numbers onto a keypad, and then placed his eye in front of the retina scanner. An extended beep sounded, and the lock on the door