“You like that building?” Martin heard the voice of the boy sitting at the table with the girl.
“Oh, no, actually I hate it!”
“Why do you hate it?”
“It reminds me of all the slave times of the Anglo’s, that’s why?”
“Well, yeh, they were depressing times no doubt, but that guy was a genius, for his time.”
“What guy?” Martin asked sharply.
“H.H. Richardson”, the boy answered.
“Who the hell was he? Sounds like a perfect Anglo name, to me,” Martin briskly answered, scooping up the last of his food.
For the first time the girl spoke, “He was the greatest architect of that time. The building and bridge you see there are world famous. It’s called the ‘Bridge of Sighs’”, she said, looking at Martin while sipping a light, lemon colored drink.
“So what?” Martin answered her. “It still represents an ugly time in the world. Don’t you agree?”
She looked at him and replied, “I do agree, but you know, some good things were done by those people,” she answered shyly.
“Where are you from, girl?” Martin asked.
“That’s none of your business,” the boy interjected. “June, let’s just finish our lunch and get out of here,” he said.
“We’re both from Canada,” she answered.
“That’s a switch,” Martin countered. “Many of the Anglo’s from here went there. So why did you come here?”
“We’re both committed to this country and its goals. We’re socialists and we want all people to have the same opportunity to succeed. My country buckled under pressures and allowed Americans and all sort of bigoted people into the country. So we came here to study,” she ended.
“Study what?” Martin asked calmly.
“’Comparative Societies’ is the name of the Masters Program. It’s designed to compare world social structures and the governments that run them,” the boy answered.
“So why do you defend some guy named H.H. Richardson? An Anglo no doubt, who made a fortune off the
capitalist system of that day?”
“Well we believe, June and I, that to understand societies and civilizations you need to appreciate their valid or positive points, not just discard all that they did. That’s why we were so interested in Alleghenia, primarily Pittsburgh, to finish our Masters and develop our Doctor’s treatises. This is a perfect place to study the great achievements of the past inhabitants and their abysmal failures. That building over there is a perfect example.
You know it was a jail for a long time?” he said excitedly.
“I didn’t know that,” Martin answered.
“You are right though. Although it is a masterpiece of American architecture, it also epitomizes what was wrong at the same time. It housed poor people, black, Irish, Slav’s - those who could not pay for valid defenses.
So you see, you’ve picked out the centerpiece of our thesis.”
“That building is your centerpiece.?”
“It is. It represents exactly what we are studying. We hope to go to Paris next year to continue in our Comparative Societies path,” the girl piped in between her friend and Martin. “That’s why we eat here all the time. We can see our doctorates painted on the sides of those dark, sandstone walls,” she laughed.
Martin smiled and said, “That’s funny. I’ll be in Paris, myself. Maybe we’ll bump into each other again. It’s seems funny to me to see such enthusiasm about a building that represents such bad times, but I understand why you’re doing it. Well good luck and thanks for talking with me. See you in Paris.” He got up, took his empty tray over to the cleaning area and walked out the front door. He looked over at the courthouse with a different opinion of its value. ‘Maybe there is something in what they said,’ he thought as he looked back to the cafeteria window. They were waving at him as he headed down the sidewalk towards the incline that ran up the side of the Bluff to the Security Office.
Martin got off at the top after a slow ride up the steep hillside. He walked along a narrow, cement street to a red brick building marked, “SECURITY HQ.” He looked past it to the City below. It was an incredible sight. He could look all the way to where the three rivers met. He turned the handle of the door, stepped into a reception area where a wide shouldered black woman sat behind a counter. As he approached, she looked first at a clock on the wall and then at Martin with a broad smile.
“What can I do for you?”
He explained to her that he was searching for a missing Anglo who had already been put into the Security Watch list that morning. He explained to her that he believed the Anglo may be using a long abandoned walkway to make his escape. He began to tell her of the urgency of his request, when she interrupted him and said she would be glad to help him and the Administration. She understood the need to help and walked around to the front door which she locked. She said, “The office is closing”, where upon she laughed and added, “Don’t worry, Security never closes, this is just the Administrative Office.” She asked Martin what exactly he needed.
Martin went into an explanation of the data that Sloan may have taken and its potential damage to the country.
He said he thought he may be using the trail called the Great Allegheny Passage to make his escape and he needed maps of the trail, if Security had them.
When he was done, she cleared her voice and stated that she was Hillary Newsome and understood his concern.
She would do all she could to help him. She had a broad, flat face with a wide smile. Hillary asked Martin for the exact spelling of Kurt’s name. She entered the data file and noted an entry in Kurt Sloan’s profile at 8:30AM that morning from Angel Torres, a Security Analyst. She added that Mr. Torres was one of their leading analysts and that he would not have entered the data unless he felt it had come from a valid source. She said based on Mr. Torres’s request, all communication networks and transit facility systems in the State and country, had begun screening Sloan’s photo and data profile as a Security Alert.
At that point Martin again stated that he thought that Sloan was going to try and get to Columbia by way of the Allegheny Passage and asked if Security would have a complete video scan of the trail. He repeated to her the original name of the walkway, the “GREAT ALLEGHENY PASSAGE”, and that it was built between
Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. around 2008. He added that it basically went southeast through the Laurel Mountains.
Hillary entered the data, looked into the screen, and said, “These are the coordinates and should cover that whole area. Do you want a disc or the hard copy,” she asked.
Martin said both and she punched in her request. She then said she was going to check the other offices while they waited for the report.
While waiting, Martin checked out the walls of the office which were filled with topographical maps and satellite pictures of the area. He had come full circle along the walls, when he spotted a topographical picture over a place called Ohiopyle, where he could make out a faded outline of a defined trail. He wondered if that was part of the walking trail that Sloan would be using. He noted how wild the area looked. The next few days would be quite an adventure, if he had to go into that terrain looking for Sloan.
Suddenly a grey terminal against the wall started humming and a stream of paper began to come out of a slot located in the front of the unit. Hillary must have heard the unit and came back. She let it run and when it stopped, she took the paper, folded the sheets into a book shape, and came over to Martin.
She handed Martin the folded hard copy and said, “At bit old fashioned, but here you go, Mr. McDonald. I think this is what you are looking for. Here’s the chip copy also,” she said. “You can run that off your datafile.”
Martin unfolded the first sheet which was in color showing a red stripe running through a map on the page outlining the trail. It was titled in all caps, ‘THE GREAT ALLEGHENY PASSAGE’. He folded it back into a neat book.
“This is it. When this report is finished, I will certainly make the Administration aware of your valuable assistance. Thanks so much.”
“By the way, Mr. McDonald,” she said checking her watch. “I would recommend you going over to
Observatory Hill to the DataSec Office. They can provide you with a GPS scan of the trail just by having the coordinate perimeters which I would be glad to send them. It will produce an actual visual scan of the trail as if you are flying over it yourself. It’s an amazing visual concept over the very trail this guy might be on. Would you want me to that?”
“That would be perfect, especially when the trail is being scanned. This will not be forgotten, I assure you,” he said to a beaming Hillary.
“Take the incline back down and the Tramway to the Point. Their office doesn’t close until ten. I’ll send the request ahead and good luck getting this Anglo,” she said.
Martin thanked her again and left. Darkness was moving in from the west in the form of dark, black clouds which to Martin meant rain. He was going to follow her advice and get this all done tonight. He walked toward the incline and waited for a few minutes until it came back up. The city below was still in the early evening light and from the sheer cliff that overlooked the city it looked like a sparkling pie wedge between the rivers.
Across the rivers he could see his destination, Observatory Hill, the highest point in Pittsburgh where the Data Center for Security was located.
After two quick tramway rides Martin reached the Center. He was guided into a small cubicle. A Security officer at the entrance checked his name and acknowledged his ID and clearance from Security. He punched a request into the keyboard and in a few minutes, a screen was filled by a satellite picture of the land mass between Pittsburgh to the left and a river in the far right corner. It stretched to a wall that surrounded the western portion of Columbia. Then he watched an overview from a laser guided satellite station that scanned the whole area that began at the Point all the way to the Potomac River. Martin could tell it was an older screening, maybe even from the archives of the U.S., because tape showed the walkway corridor before the wall had been put up around Columbia. It was dated 10/1/2038. He could see that the walkway was almost buried in growth at some locations, but still clearly defined, especially when it followed along the rivers. What had happened in the intervening years would make it more difficult for anyone trying to use it. “Sloan would never get far,” he said to himself. The screen went blank and the officer handed Martin a copy of the transmission he had just seen.
As he left, he knew he needed more proof of Sloan’s intentions in order to persuade the Administration to authorize a search. They would have to be convinced that he may have taken Aquifer information and that he was probably using the Allegheny Passage to escape. At that moment, he thought again of Maria, Raoul’s sister, who he had seen with Sloan at the house. Carla mentioned her in passing which may have been an oversight because she was now in France. Martin remembered the first time he saw them in the hallway coming out of Sloan’s room. About a week later, Sloan introduced her when they crossed paths on the front porch as Martin was leaving for school. They talked briefly and Martin knew immediately from her accent that she was Puerto Rican. He also remembered her angular body and dark beauty from both meetings.
He thought about his reaction after the second meeting with the beautiful Puerto Rican woman. His talks and argument with Sloan had made him wonder about his loyalty to the country. For some reason, his curiosity about Sloan grew when he saw him with the striking young woman from Puerto Rico. Because of Security
asking him to check on Sloan he decided to look into Maria. He found out that she had been accepted into the scholarship program in France. Martin realized that Maria obviously had a plan for her life, but he needed to get as much information as he could on Sloan and his intentions. Maybe Sloan would contact her if he got to Scotland. As he rode back over to the city from Observatory Hill, Martin realized he needed to communicate with Maria to find out if she might have some collateral information on Sloan. Raoul wouldn’t help him, but Carla had been very helpful. If Maria came through with any clue at all, he would have additional support for his request to Security to allow an official search for Sloan.
As he rode back down towards the City, the triangle formed by the rivers was outlined by lights along the riverfront. Martin was relaxed, knowing that he had accomplished more this day than he ever expected and he had much more to do.