Read Dark River for Free Online Page B

typing. Let the computers chase this ghost, he thought. I’ll find Gabriel in the next two days.
    He finished his message a minute later and sent it off to Berlin. By the time he reached the tarmac, hidden software programs awoke within captured computers all over the world. Fragments of computer consciousness began to assemble like an army of zombies sitting quietly in an enormous room. They waited without resistance, without consciousness of time, until a command forced them to start searching.
    In the suburbs of Madrid, a fourteen-year-old boy played an online fantasy game. In Toronto, a retired building inspector posted comments about his favorite team in a hockey forum. A few seconds later, both of their computers worked a little bit slower, but neither noticed the change. On the surface, everything was the same, but now the electronic servants obeyed a new master with a new command.
    Find the Traveler.
    ** CHAPTER 4
    Gabriel pressed a button on his cell phone and checked the time. It was one o’clock in the morning, but noises still rose up from the street. He could hear a car horn and a distant police siren. A vehicle with a loud stereo was cruising down the block, and the thumping bass of a rap song sounded like the beat of a muffled heart.
    The Traveler unzipped the top half of his sleeping bag and sat up. Illumination from a streetlight leaked in through the whitewashed windows, and he could see Hollis Wilson lying on a folding cot six feet away from him. The former martial-arts teacher was breathing steadily, and Gabriel decided that he was asleep.
    It had been twenty-four hours since he had learned that the people of New Harmony were dead and his father was still alive. Gabriel wondered how he was supposed to find someone who had disappeared from his life fifteen years ago. Was his father in this world or had he crossed over to another realm? Gabriel lay back down on the cot and raised his left hand. Late at night, he felt receptive to the attractions— and dangers— of his new power.
    For a few minutes he focused on the Light inside his body. Then came the difficult moment: still concentrating on the Light, he attempted to move his hand without consciously thinking about it. Sometimes this seemed impossible; how could you choose to move your body and then ignore that choice? Gabriel breathed deeply and the fingers of his hand twitched forward. Little points of Light— like the stars of a constellation— floated in the shadowy darkness while his physical hand was limp and lifeless.
    He moved his arm and the Light was reabsorbed by his body. Gabriel was shivering and breathing hard. He sat up again, pulled his legs out of the sleeping bag, and placed his bare feet on the cold wood floor. You’re acting like an idiot, he told himself. This isn’t a party trick. Either cross over or stay in this world.
    Wearing a T-shirt and cotton sweatpants, Gabriel slipped through a gap in the tarps and entered the main part of the loft. He used the bathroom, then walked over to the kitchen area to get some water from the sink. Maya was sitting on the couch near the women’s sleeping area. When the Harlequin was recovering from her bullet wound, she had spent most of her time sleeping. Now that Maya was able to walk around the city, she was filled with restless energy.
    “Everything okay?” she whispered.
    “Yeah. I’m just thirsty.”
    He turned on the cold-water tap and drank directly from the faucet. One of the things he liked about New York City was the water. When he’d lived in Los Angeles with Michael, the public water always had a faint chemical taste.
    Gabriel walked back across the loft and sat beside Maya. Even after the argument about his father, he still enjoyed looking at her. Maya had her Sikh mother’s black hair and her German father’s strong features. Her eyes were a distinctive pale blue, like two faint dots of watercolor floating on a white background. Out on the street she concealed her eyes