The Brother

Chapter Six

“Where?” asked Jace. “ I can’t see the gates.”

“You see that green line over there? That’s the gate.”

Jace squinted his eyes and saw a thin green line which became more visible as Alby stopped the car a few meters from it. He tried to trace the path of the line and it seemed to go all the way on either side. So a line splitting two farmlands is a gate? He wanted to ask but decided not to.

With the car still hovering, Alby took out a small card from his pocket and stepped out. He took a few steps towards the line and stopped, as if waiting for something to happen. Jace was curious to see what was going on. And then he saw it.

The ground in front of Alby parted slowly, and a block of what looked like glass rose from it. It was about the same height as Alby’s waist who took the card and placed it on the block. A green light seemed to have flashed from the card as Alby smiled and came back.

“What was that?” said Jace as Alby mounted on his seat and was making himself comfortable.

“That’s what allows me to enter. The green line in front of you is a warning sign telling you that the gate is just a couple of meters ahead. The gate is an invisible wall, which is about thirty meters high and burns you, if you try to pass it without the card.”

“But I don’t have a card.” said Jace, a bit worried.

“Which is why I used the green card and not my regular blue. If I’m travelling alone, I use blue. If I’ve got companions, I want the city to know that I’m with them. So I use the green. This is all your brother’s idea.”

Jace just turned forward not knowing what to reply. Everything sounded like it was straight out of a sci-fi novel. He didn’t know what to expect anymore. He wondered if he could ever be surprised again after a day like this.

“I’m gonna move forward slowly. You may get a better idea of what’s about to happen.” said Alby and slowly put his foot on the accelerator. The car moved forward slowly, like a snail.”Here we go!”

The front of the car that was visible to Jace slowly disappeared into thin air. Not this again! Jace thought as the air seemed to consume the car slowly and remembered what happened the last time he went through one of those. It was working its way to the windshield when Jace braced himself for the pain that he was about to suffer.

Jace felt his fingers go numb as he pressed it against the underside of the seat. The soft leather was not doing much to comfort him. The dashboard of the car had disappeared and he turned to look at Alby who seemed to be amused.

“I’ll be honest with you. I’m having fun watching you. Nothing’s going to happen. Relax.” he said.”I go through this route every single day. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Jace didn’t say anything. He slowly placed his hands on top of his thighs and looked ahead.”Go ahead.” he said after noticing that the car wasn’t moving forward and the windshield was invisible.

“Sure”.

The car began to move forward and Jace reluctantly sat idle. He was fighting his urge to push himself back into the seat as his knees disappeared. He didn’t feel anything. Just a little cold but that’s it. Unable to hold on, he said, “Can’t you pass through already?”

“Whatever you say. I wanted to make it easier for you and you ended up getting scared. Certainly not my fault.”

Jace closed his eyes and felt the car pick up speed. He felt cold all over his body, like a wet cloth had been placed on him and removed instantly. He heard the sound of horn. He could hear people walking. Their footsteps making hard noise.

Jace slowly opened his eyes and saw that they were in a busy street. There were lines of stores on either side with people thronging in front of them. He remembered the video clips of people who were panic buying during the time of cyclone in West Bengal.

One thing that Jace noticed was that the people, as a whole, didn’t seem to belong to a specific community. He could see a woman who looked Korean on one side and a family of whites shopping in the other. He just took a moment to glance around. People here were really the descendants of refugees he felt as the diversity which he saw in front of him only seemed to increase.

This reminded Jace of Auroville, a city in India, with people from all over the world as residents. Though the majority were Indians, there were plenty of people from other nations. He remembered reading that Auroville did not belong to anyone, it belonged to humanity as a whole. And he understood the full meaning of it with the sight in front of him.

“MOVE!” Alby screamed at an old man,dressed in a tux, who was walking at the middle of the street with his back to the car. The man finally turned around, and looking at its impatient driver, lazily moved to the sidewalk and disappeared among the crowd.

“These people, they’re always…” started Alby but Jace didn’t hear the rest of it. He was too busy observing what lay in front of him. He could see the tall structures in the distance. All of them in a dark shade of gray. He could see that all the buildings seemed to have been made of concrete and left unpainted.

They were now in a more deserted side of the city. Jace assumed that this may be the residential area as it resembled Carimen with the placement of houses and their structures. The only difference was that the houses here were much larger and there were people who were sitting together in front of a few houses and talking.

The streets were always made of mud. No asphalt or gravel in sight at all.

“Why do people look so dull?” asked Jace and immediately felt stupid. These people are stuck in the middle of a war, there’s a good chance that they may have lost a family member.

“Well, there’s the war. And also, I think they didn’t get the groceries to survive for the next couple of weeks.” said Alby.

“What’s gonna happen in the next couple of weeks? Is there going to be another attack?”

“Well, yes. The Council believes that Stryke will hit us again with an even larger army than the one he used a few days ago.” said Alby. “I’ll just park this car over here”

Alby pulled over the car next to a building which Jace recognized as the one he had admired earlier. The tall structure resembled a screw as it seemed to twist into itself as it tapered at the top. People seemed to be moving around in a hurry and took no notice of the two individuals who were seated in the hovering car which slowly touched the ground.

The sound of the engine died down as the two of them hopped off and walked toward the door. At least the doors are normal Jace thought as he entered the building. He did expect to see the interior of the building to be so bright with walls that were pure white and marble floors. There was a fountain at the center with what seemed to be a statue of a group of people, all different communities joining hands.

There were strings of gold around the fountain, providing greater detail. He turned to look at Alby and couldn’t spot him. Jace’s heart fell as he quickly scanned the room. He was wondering if Alby had abandoned him in the middle of a city he was visiting for the first time.

Finally, he found the man moving about thirty feet ahead of him toward a counter with a blonde woman in it. Jace hurried after him and was soon next to him when he heard Alby say, “…a meeting with the Chief would be great.”

“He’s not free right now. You have to wait for a half an hour” she said and turned to Jace, then looked back at Alby. “Is this the boy you were talking about?”

“Yes, Minerva. That’s him”

“I have to say they look similar. I’ll do what I can to get you a meeting with the Chief as soon as possible”she said and pointed to the far end of the room. ”You can sit over there.”

“Now all we have to do is wait.” said Alby as they walked across the hall and sat in the comfortable seats and observed the people who were doing their job. All of them seemed to be elegantly dressed an seemed to be completely involved in their work.

For the first time, Jace felt uncomfortable about the clothes he was wearing. He looked at himself and saw that the blue T-shirt was covered in sweat and his white shorts, appeared to have a shade of brown on it. He looked up and saw Minerva walking towards them.

Now that she wasn’t behind a desk, Jace could see that she seemed to be sightly overweight and she wore a white blouse with a skirt whose color was somewhere between red and pink.

“Here.” she said and handed a small round object which was black in color and reflected the light falling on it. “Enter the room on the right and hand it over to one of the security officials. If they ask you the reason for your appointment, tell them that you are working under the order of Minerva. That should shut them up for some time.”

“Sure. Thanks.” said Jace and turned to Alby. “Thank you for everything you did.”

“No problem kid.” said Alby.

Jace turned to move towards the door located on the right wall of the hall while wondering about the strings that Alby and Jayram had pulled to get him through. Surely this woman was in a position of power and was probably doing them a favor by letting him meet his brother.

Or maybe the idea of a family reunion is really appealing to these people.