The Hidden City Read online

  “You don't have to worry about all these things, Philip. Every member of the Council and every Initiate of the City possesses that beautiful gift which you two call ... telepathy, I presume, along with other many many spiritual gifts, that we had uncovered over a long course of the time, through our spiritual practice,” he said, smiling.

  Prival paused for a brief moment, and then he continued.

  “As I was saying, Philip, we have a machine that is capable of doing all these things. Don't ask me when and how it was created, and what technologies it implies, because that may go back hundreds and thousands of years, and no one knows actually anything about it, at least here, in this room. All that we, the Elders do, is once every 100 days, the Council convenes and studies the data that the Machine provides us with. Then we carefully select at most two individuals that strongly match our searching parameters, which we then bring to our City, if the variables indicate a compatibility that is higher than 98%. In your case, the general variables reported were higher than 99.6%, and you also had a special connection to each other, but usually, this is not the general case.”

  Upon hearing these, Margaret looked surprised at Philip, who returned her the same look.

  “The uniqueness that we are talking about here,” continued Prival, “depends on the variables that we set in our computer, and the variables we set have to be in agreement with all the members of the Council. We have a vibrant community in our City, where we share our thoughts, our desires, our creativity, our peacefulness, and above all, our unconditional love, and we certainly want to keep that. You can think of this City as a ‘city of love', where everything is done beginning with what the other one wants, and especially what the other one needs,” Prival said, and then looked at Margaret with a friendly face, “but I prefer calling it simply the Emerald City. Here, selfish behaviors and negativity were never a part of our City. The Creators took care of that way before we got here, anyway.”

  Margaret was perplexed and didn't know what to say; it was too much information for her, all of a sudden, and it was clearly not what she was expecting. Philip shifted slightly in his chair, trying to understand more of what Prival had just told him, trying to come up with any pertinent questions that would enlighten them sooner about everything that was happening.

  “But … why us?” Margaret asked suddenly, with a boldness that suddenly nullified the timid air she had before.

  “I will clarify this question for you in a moment, Margaret,” said Prival. “Your profession requires a certain effort, certain conduct, and a certain dedication. All these resonated perfectly with the variables we introduced into the system exactly 100 days ago, and especially, if I may add, your emotions and your thought patterns are exactly what our community is looking for. One of our Cubes was in the solar system where you two were stationary, behind that natural satellite, and since we don’t get the chance of seeing a matching variable of 99.6% every day, we took a chance in approaching your ship. We did not find anything that would prevent you from existing here. Not only one thing. That's why I chose you both,” said Prival, and reached for the glass of water on the table.

  Margaret was surprised. She was actually flattered but didn’t know how to respond. Everything made sense somehow now, but at the same time, everything seemed to her like a made-up story, like a dream, or like something that only happens in a fantasy video book.

  “Can you tell us more about … this city?”

  Philip seemed to have found a few new questions, in his rather confused mind, that was now starting to clear up, and he was eager to find quick answers to as many questions as possible.

  Prival looked at him with appreciation and responded promptly.

  “All you need to know about our City, or about our planet is that it practically doesn't exist in the Universe you know.”

  Philip made a face that suddenly betrayed his absolute astonishment. After a few long moments, Margaret muttered, with a surprised face.

  “Then, where are we, for God’s sake??”

  Prival paused for a few moments, acknowledging her sudden question, smiled, and continued.

  “We are on a planet that used to be in the known Universe that is now outside the space-time continuum matrix, more precisely out of phase with 0.0004 microns. Those who existed before us on this planet, the Creators as we call them, have succeeded in this work of impressive magnitude.” All the Council’s members approved with a murmur. Prival continued. “They are also the ones who created this formidable Machine that we have, through which we have found you, through which we found everyone that lives here.” He paused briefly, looking at Philip, and then continued. “As far as we know, the Creators also managed to create two massive energy fields, similar in nature to the magnetic field of the planet, which rotate in an opposite direction to each other, at a distance of 300 miles from the planet's surface, which are powered and regulated by the Machine. Their effect is to isolate the space-time matrix of the planet, and thus, they can cancel the passage of time on the entire surface of the planet. These energy fields act also as a planetary shield, a weather control system, and they manage to hide the planet from any curious eyes. If anyone is passing through our space, they can basically go through our planet, without knowing that it exists in this space, at all. So you can say that here,” Prival said with a smiling but mysterious face, “we are practically suspended in time and space.”

  Prival explained with such calmness that the two could not believe they actually heard this. But taking into consideration the events that happened in the last 2 hours, they could expect anything.

  “I mean ... isn't there ... time here?” Margaret said in a low voice as if she couldn't believe it.

  Prival nodded.

  “Yes, everything that exists on our planet is like this since ... since the Creators left. Nothing is aging here, but of course, time continues to pass in a very slow motion here as well, in a matter of speaking. One hundred days that pass in the known Universe equal to half a day that passes here. But the Machine alos ensures that aging is practically nonexistent.” He paused briefly for a gulp of water and then he continued.

  “Shortly before they left, the Creators brought us here. You may be wondering who we really are, or who are the Elders. We, the thirty-two Elders, as we are known here, are in fact monks from a monastery on Kriya, a habitable planet only 3.2 light-years from here. The creators visited the monastery a long time ago and fell in love with our way of being and with the community in our monastery. They began building this city and soon after they revisited Kriya and convinced a group of monks from that time to come and take care of their ‘little experiment’, as they like to call it. We are those monks, and since then, we have remained exactly as we were ever since we came here,” he said, smiled, and then he continued briefly. “We have agreed to come here because they offered us the chance to pursue our simple lives in a secluded city, where time is practically nonexistent, and that was something that we couldn’t refuse. I think almost 200 years have passed since then, more precisely, 196 years. We like to keep a calendar to mark the passage of time, as we used to do when we lived on Kriya.” A few Elders from the oval table giggled softly.

  Prival looked at them kindly and resumed his discourse.

  “In the beginning, the City was small, including just a few buildings, a few stone houses, and of course, this Building, where the Machine was placed. Over the course of time, we managed to enlarge this building where the Council is usually gathering and to extend the City through the forest that you have seen before coming here. Before the Creators left, they upgraded the Machine so it can find possible candidates for our community, which ensured the continuity and further expansion of our City.”

  Prival paused, drank a few sips from his glass, and then continued.

  “Since we came here, the City has been very prosperous and constantly expanding. Because every 100 days, one or two new people come into our city, we had to build more and more houses, from
the materials that we have around us, to accommodate them. There are enough materials around us that come from the forest and from the mountains, and since we respect nature and everything around us, we always had plenty of construction wood and stone. You see, we praise the old values here, and we respect the earth. We do have the technology but we chose to live a life based on spiritual values, and construct everything out of materials we find in nature. There is also one big ocean, about a third the size of the planet, which is located on the other side of the planet, but that is very far away from our location, and only a few of us here venture there, from time to time.”

  Prival paused, sensing the need to allow some time for the two to assimilate the new information they had received, and perhaps to give them a chance to ask a few questions.

  Philip took advantage of the brief pause, and said, with a trembling voice:

  “But how do you know we'll actually … stay here?”

  Prival looked at him for a few long moments and then said with a calm voice.

  “The Machine never lies. It was right for hundreds and hundreds of years. When we look for someone in the Galaxy, there is, of course, a random factor that we also take into account in the remainder percent, but we always detect the desire to live a spiritual life, the desire for simple community life, and the desire to live somewhere far away, where the agglomeration of the big cities has not reached yet, in the silence of the pristine nature ... and I don't think it has failed us this time,” Prival said, looking over his round glasses at the two of them, benevolently, and carefully arranging his robe.

  Margaret looked at Philip as if trying to dodge.

  “I ... I … ”

  Philip looked at her in surprise.

  “You never told me you cared for a life like this, Maggie,” he mumbled. “I've always wanted a quiet life myself, maybe somewhere in the countryside, somewhere far away, living in a small cottage, when I will retire but you … you were always living for the dynamic life of the cities. I thought … "

  Prival nodded and added.

  “And all these are beyond the desire to also have a fulfilled spiritual life. We detected this desire in both of you, in rather high percentages, which determined us to send the Cube to your location, to check again everything again, in detail. ”

  Margaret said with a low voice.

  “The Probe … ”

  Prival nodded and smiled.

  “It was there for almost 6 hours, but you couldn’t see it, because it was cloaked. We sent it to re-check the variables because we thought at first the 99.6% percentage was a mistake in the Machine software routines, but the … Probe, as you call it, re-confirmed it several times. So you can think of yourselves as one of the most privileged citizens of our city: a percentage of 99.6% is rarely found, exactly like a perfectly clear emerald is.“

  Prival paused for a few moments and then continued.

  “To understand more, Margaret, this is our way of interacting with the normal universe. We have almost 860 Cubes that work in cooperation with the Machine, which is scanning the known space far and wide, through them. A few of them have failed over time, and they are now stationary in orbit, but 1600 years is a long time, and the Creators seem to be sometimes late in helping us fix them.”

  A few giggles were heard in around the long table.

  “Nevertheless, the technology inside the Cubes, if I understood correctly from one of the Creators, is related to quantum holoportation. Don’t ask me what it means … we’re only monks, not scientists.” Prival paused and then he resumed his discourse, trying to add a little bit more to his explanation. “But I know that through holoportation they can get to any point in the known space, almost instantly. And this, my dear ones, is also the only way anyone can reach our planet,” Prival concluded.

  Philip was dazzled by Prival’s discourse. He simply did not know what to say. Margaret looked at Prival for a few moments and then she said slowly as if she didn’t want the other Elders to hear her.

  “We only wanted to teleport inside that Probe. We detected a breathable atmosphere and … and I strongly felt that it might be connected to our relics,” she said, almost mumbling, with a child’s face.

  Prival laughed.

  “The normal reaction of a space archaeologist, of course, if I might say if that would not offend you. But if you would have gone aboard the Cube, the result would have been the same, because the Cube was instructed to bring you here. Once you got on board, it would have sent you two here, in the exact same place where you arrived. Anyway, onboard the Cube, you would only find a few things, really: there is a poorly breathable air which smells like dust and iron rust, which we need for the rare inspections that we do sometimes, and its technology is so old that you wouldn’t have deciphered much, with all your gadgets and past archaeological knowledge. Every command and message is written in the old language of the Creators,” said Prival, and stretched out again after his glass of water. He drank it to the brim, slowly placed it on the table, and looked at the two with great understanding.

  “Now that we clarified most of the things that matter, and because it's kind of late, and I think we all agree with that,” he said, looking at the other Elders around the table, “we'd like to offer you a guesthouse, for a few days, in our City. Anyone who arrives in Emerald City is welcome to stay for as long as they want, and, after one day, they can decide if they will remain or if they will return back. A percentage of 99.94% choose to remain here, but after all, this is your choice, and no one will deny it.” Prival looked at the two with a slightly serious face, to see their reactions. Margaret and Philip still showed astonishment on their face, combined with the anticipation of the unknown that had managed to enter their lives.

  “But we had a mission,” Margaret said, “and our relics are of great importance to the City of Vatican. We cannot ...“

  “Don't worry, Margaret,” Prival interrupted her, “as I have mentioned earlier, here we are completely out of time, and everything is always waiting for you, right where you left it. Remember, 100 days spent here is the equivalent of half a day spent in the known Universe. Just imagine you live now in a temporal bubble, where time passes as slow as a snail,” he added, with a smile. “Whenever you want, you can go back and there is no one to stand against your desire. We made sure that the Cube will cloak your ship for an undetermined period of time, so you can rest easy tonight.”

  He paused and then added.

  “But it is rather polite to accept a monk’s offer to stay for at least a day or two in our beautiful city. The honor is on our side. One of the members of our Council will lead you to your guesthouse, which is actually not far from here, maybe a 15-20 minutes walk.”

  Prival looked at the two and saw their faces lightening a bit.

  “I am sure that tomorrow you would like to visit the City as well so that you will not leave here without having seen at least a part of it. Tomorrow, I will come to you to talk more about this. I can understand that the decision to stay here is not always an easy one, at least on the first day, but you have to rest tonight, and there’s plenty of time to think about everything tomorrow. The sun has already set. Consider everything that happens to you here as a short vacation, a vacation I know you both needed for a long time,” he concluded peacefully.

  For a few moments, Margaret didn't know what to say. Prival has managed to soften her hardened self, with his sincere discourse. She didn’t have anything left to say against it.

  “Thank you ... Prival. Your offer is very kind. We will take it,” she finally said, placing a hand on Philip's.

  “That’s good news, my beloved!” said Prival, with true joy in his voice. “Then, that will be all for tonight. Congratulations again for arriving in the Emerald City. Know that not everyone has the privilege of getting here, of visiting our sacred place, and especially of staying here,” Prival said, ceremoniously. “Talinn, one of the youngest Elders, will have the honor to take you to the house that we have prep
ared for you. I hope it is to your taste.”

  Prival and the members of the Council rose to their feet, greeted reverently, and then left the room silently, one by one. Except for one, which remained standing at the door.

  Chapter 4 - The guest house

  The Reception Ceremony was over and the Elders were quietly leaving the room. One of them approached them, bowed, and said kindly.

  “Hi. My name is Talinn. I have the great honor to take you to your vacation house. If you would just follow me,” he said and pointed towards the door. Margaret and Philip stood up from their chairs and exited the room in silence. On the corridors, the Elders that were present in the room, saluted them with a smile. They responded in kind, visibly overtaken by the emotion of the meeting. The finishing of Prival’s discourse acted like a great relief on Margaret. She almost forgot all her momentary worries, and the anticipation that was growing inside her at the thought of having a vacation house, even if that would be only for a few days, had managed to boost her morale, as they were both tired. As much as Philip was concerned, he was thinking that he was now part of an adventure that he had not anticipated in any way, and he knew that at least for a while, he had to go along with everything that was happening.

  Walking in silence on the rubbery translucent floor, they have reached the imposing door at the entrance of the building, and they stepped outside. The fresh air of the night that was just settling in and the two moons of the planet that were showing up in the sky brought them back to their present reality. Talinn led them quietly through the large main square, down on an adjacent street, that seemed to go down on a slight slope. To the left and right, one could see small houses, built out of wood and stone, with beautiful gardens, lit with many little orange lights. All the gardens were full of shrubs, small trees, plants that glowed softly in the night, flowers, birdhouses, and all sorts of wooden constructs. After a while, Tallinn stopped in front of one of the houses, which was on the left side of the road.