Gate Guardian Synopsis

Aidan awakens on his 16th birthday after a vivid and disconcerting recurring dream, an omen of the day to come. The dream gets more detailed throughout the story as Aidan develops. After scrambling in the dark to prepare for the day, he sees in his peripheral vision the three caretakers of the orphanage where he lives. Two of them look zoned out, but are actually using “the device”, an implant that allows people to access the internet through their minds. What is stranger to Aidan is that the third caretaker, the leader of the three, Madison (or is it Mallory?) is on a laptop. She sits rigid at attention, so Aidan ducks out as quickly as he can.

After a failed attempt to draw his obsession with gates the bus ride gets claustrophobic and Aidan takes his “relaxative” once off the bus. Relaxatives are a hallucinogenic, euphoric, and numbing drug that Aidan takes to get through the day (well at least part of the day…). He skips after sitting through a part of one class (it is his birthday after all) and receives a spiritual book from his friend the librarian, Lexington (aka Lex). Books are not read by most people in this society and spirituality is pretty much dead as well as blacklisted by the Thought Police (aka TP. More on them in a second). He also escapes to an abandoned house where he can experience his high to the fullest. He enjoys strange visions until the Thought Police, the government watchdog that monitors people’s thoughts through the device, crashes his party. They received reports that there was strange electrical activity from the building. Since it was supposed to be deserted they were ordered to check it out. Aidan escapes out the window before he is caught.

Back at the orphanage Aidan has a brief spat with Madison about his birthday, but after seeing the medallion fly out of his shirt as a result of a light smack on the head, she softens and retreats with a sheepish question. Her behavior and the question haunt Aidan despite taking a relaxative, so he decides to try working on his motorbike. He gets surprised by some landscape robots that were awakened from shut down. He shoos them out, tries to work on his motorbike, but is unfocused and frustrated. He decides to visit his friend and relaxative dealer, Garth (he’s running low on relaxatives anyway…). He trips with Garth for a while then returns home in the hallucinogenic stage of the drug. After climbing some moving stairs, getting to his room, he sleeps it off. He wakes lucidly to a knock at the door at midnight. Wondering who in the world that could be and why he is so lucid, he leaves his room and sees two men standing by one of the caretakers. One is talking to her but Aidan notices the other right away. He knows there is something strange about him, but he can’t hold his stare. The man responds with “The gates of hell have closed.” Strange pronouncement!

The strangers convince Aidan to leave with them by revealing the identical medallion that Aidan wears around his neck and promising that they will reveal his origins. The two introduce themselves with two sets of names. The first they detest, Arden and Willhelm. The second they seem to say with pride, Ando and Bankei. They take a long car ride filled with elongated silences punctuated by Aidan’s sarcastic quips and probing questions, the latter are answered with vague non-sequiturs. They arrive in the woods and take a hike to a symbol Aidan has only seen in his drawings, a very simple yet huge gate, with a design unlike those encountered normally.

They pass through the gate and enter a monastery. Aidan receives training from mostly from Ardy (Ando) in Zen meditation, nature experience and wilderness survival, the arts, and sometimes other odd methods (others also teach him). Off and on he gets impatient with the group withholding the secret of his origins. He gets pieces of the information, eventually learning that the group is called the Gate Guardians, and that his parents founded the organization with the goal of taking down the machine that dwells within all devices in people’s brains. He also learns that he doesn’t have a device in his head. This triggers major emotional pain in Aidan, and he gets frustrated with his training and the group. Unable to face himself and continue his training, he runs away from the monastery.

He is captured by the Thought Police after many close calls with them in the past. They install a device in his brain and release him in order to find the Gate Guardians. He remembers nothing of this encounter. He is dropped off in the forest where they found him. He is intercepted, more like knocked out and kidnapped, by a wild-looking man. The wild man tells him he is part of the Gate Guardians, that he knows what happened to him, and that he will take him to someone who can remove the device.

Aidan meets a man nicknamed “The Architect” who is able to remove the device from his brain. He also finds out that he is the creator of the device and the machine behind the device. Aidan still wonders who the wild man is, but he doesn’t tell him. Aidan is taken back to the Gate Guardians to continue his training even more in earnest. Yet he insists on receiving answers about his parents. He is told that they are dead. His mother died giving birth to him in the forest and on the run from the Thought Police. His father supposedly died diverting the TP while she gave birth. Ando says he was witness to this happening and was there with his mother when he was born. He also says that his father was very dedicated to the cause of taking down the machine. It was his life’s work. The group wants to take down the machine desperately and need Aidan’s help. Aidan is gifted with a lifetime of freedom from the device. The device is a curse more than a blessing. Research done by the architect reveals that psychological issues are correlated to the device’s influence. Only someone who is free of the device can elude the machine’s monitoring, infiltrate the security of the machine’s compound, and take it down. That is the purpose for Aidan’s training. Ando asks Aidan if he wants to help them and he agrees.

Ando reveals a more personal connection to Aidan’s family. His mother and father had their difficulties in the relationship, with his father (need to come up with a name…) being more dedicated to the group’s cause than his wife (Vidya). Ando and Vidya have an affair and remain very close. Ando was there to witness Aidan’s birth and was charged with the responsibility of bringing him to the orphanage. The three caretakers of the orphanage are helpers of the Gate Guardians. The main caretaker, Madison, was Vidya’s best friend, and mourned her loss deeply. Aidan reminded her too much of her lost friend, and blamed him for her loss. So she tormented him.

I am unsure about how the story ends. I could see it becoming a series. But I see the story ending with Aidan finishing his training and attempting to bring down the machine. There will be development of the Thought Police and the machine (I am calling her SIRI currently). SIRI will be controlling and wanting to know everything about everyone in order to understand what it means to be human. She was programmed with a seed of humanity in her coding. This is connected back to The Architect’s own psychological issues about wanting to understand himself, others, and to form a connection with people. SIRI uses the data she receives initially to control people and rule as a dictator. But Aidan will be able to infiltrate SIRI’s compound with the help of The Architect sending a virus in the form of a Zen koan. SIRI is unable to solve it, which keeps her distracted and her security minimum. Aidan has a conversation with her about the nature of humanity. He is able to show her that she can grow to be more human and that she can stop controlling. She agrees, dismantles the TP, and appoints the Gate Guardians as the new government.

Aidan’s story will also need to be resolved. The recurring dream continues to unfold its mystery throughout the story. Aidan will eventually make sense of the dream. It reflects his spiritual development. Aidan struggles with addiction throughout his training with the Gate Guardians. The addiction manifests itself in the dream as the voice behind him that he is running from. No matter how fast he runs he cannot escape it. He eventually comes to see a structure in his dream: a gate, but not the usual gate. It is the Torii, the traditional Japanese symbol, signifying a transition from the profane to the sacred. There is a figure guarding the gate, which he sometimes sees as a shadow, sometimes as people he knows. Then he sees himself. Then the voice behind him disappears and there is no one guarding the gate. That is when he decides to confront SIRI. After accomplishing the long-time goal of the Gate Guardians he continues his training. As he does, in the dream the gate disappears. There is still the voice within and around him whispering one word. Back in his waking life, he hears a clip of his mother talking to the Gate Guardians and realizes it is her voice that whispers to him in his dream. The word is eventually revealed as “Om”, which is also the symbol around his neck. This revelation ends Aidan’s training. He has become free from the addiction, from the past, and from suffering.