The construction robot blasted sparks high into the misty sky but the process was quiet at the same time. Callista thought she could have even slept through the noise. There was a slight hiss from firing the welds but the sound faded easily into the ocean noise.
“What is that thing and what’s it doing to my house?” She asked her Strix.
The owl told her, “It’s an automated construction machine. It appears to be performing some renovations. Perhaps your father is strengthening the house for high winds. Those sorts of dangerous winds are predicted for the coming season.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“Perhaps to minimize electrical costs.”
“Stop it,” Callista told Strix. “It’s obviously something weird. I’ve never seen or heard of a robot like that. Where did it come from?”
“The Blaise Lorrance Company,” said Strix. “The Apex 712 autonomous construction system. Designed to build, remodel and repair with little to no noise or disruption to the environment. You can think of it as a brutish and highly-primitive cousin of ours.”
Callista watched as the robot finished welding some kind of metal frame into the backside of the house, near the attic. When the thing finished firing welds, it hoisted polished metal boxes into the framing. Each was about the size of a small bedroom and had the same titanium sheen as the Bastion.
Then the robot fitted in new sections of attic roof, making the house appear untouched. Finally, the robot’s arms and lifts collapsed into its base and the machine drove itself away.
With the strange commotion, Callista didn’t notice the driveway at first. It was well after three o’ clock in the morning but several fancy cars she didn’t recognize were parked outside.
Her first thought was that her father had realized she was missing and had called some of his colleagues for help finding her.
However, when she gently opened the back door to the house, no one was waiting for her. He hadn’t even realized she had left, which seemed amazing for the normally overprotective man.
She knew most of her father’s close business associates but the voices coming from the office that night belonged to no one familiar. Then she heard her father’s voice ring out from the office and down the hallway.
“I helped because I didn’t know why! This is insanity!” He shouted. “How could he propose something like this?”
Callista put her ear to the office door. She heard something in her father’s voice, something like total defeat.
“Listen,” he said, “I’ll do everything I’m told. I know how lucky we are to be part of this. I know how much I’m in your debt. Just help me understand. Just please explain to me what this map thing is. Why are we treating it like it’s more important than the constitution?”
Callista heard one of the men say, “We’re going to do you a favor, Mister Ellerly. We’re not going to let what you’ve said leave this room. However, we warn you not to ask these questions again. You’re aware of Mister LaCrone’s rules on the matter.”
Her father replied, “Have either of you even met this man, LaCrone?”
“Mister Ellerly,” said the other party, “just like you, we’ve never seen him in person.”
“How could a man just appear out of thin air?” Her father asked. “No history, no education, no information, no nothing.”
“Mister Ellerly, please,” responded one of his guests, sounding grave.
Her father asked him, “Does he know your secret too? Is that how he’s making you do all this?”
“Do you want me to tell Mister LaCrone that you’re tired of keeping your secret?”
“No, please,” said Callista’s father. “I’m sorry for speaking out of turn. Please forgive me.”
The tone of his voice made Callista’s stomach turn in a mixture of fear and disgust. She thought about flinging the door open because she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. However, she just stayed at the door listening.
She heard her father ask one of the men, “Does this have anything to do with Blaise Lorrance’s interest in my daughter?”
“The old man is senile,” said one of the men. “He has no idea what’s going on. Just indulge the man and his inventions. He’s harmless but not someone we can just remove from the picture.”
Callista heard the other man say, “He certainly isn’t the same man that built the Bastion, I’m afraid.”
She heard someone approaching the door, so she ran on her tiptoes down the hall to her room. After sitting Strix on her nightstand, she ripped off her jacket and shoes, threw them under the bed and tucked herself under the covers.
Her heart was still racing when her father came to check on her. He stood in the doorframe for what seemed like quite a while, just watching her. He eventually slid the door to a crack before he left.
“What’s going on here?” She asked Strix after her father was gone. “Something isn’t right.”
“Your father,” said Strix, “is in a difficult situation. He’s trying to protect you, his only family.”
“From what?”
“It’s difficult for us to say.”
“And what the hell are those boxes?” She asked. “What happened to our attic?”
“We’re afraid it’s difficult to say.”
“Why? Because you don’t know the answer or you know the answer and refuse to tell me?”
“We apologize Callista but this questioning is beyond what we’re able to answer at this time.”
“That’s even more cryptic.”
“Once again, we apologize.”
“Fine,” she said, turning away from the owl. She reached under her mattress, pulling out a bag of anxiety pills and an herb grinder. She mashed up two pills and rubbed the powder on her gums and mouth. “Taking it this way speeds it up. I’m going to sleep. I’ve had it with you.”
…
Despite her best efforts, Callista’s mind wouldn’t give way to sleep that night. She eventually relented and decided to talk to Strix again. “Are you awake?” She asked the owl.
“We’re always awake,” said Strix.
Callista got out of bed and went to her window. She stared out to the pitch blackness beyond the Bastion. The only breaks in the outer, empty space were the lights on top of the wall.
“Why can’t I sleep?” She asked the owl. “You seem to know everything.”
“We propose two reasons for your inability to fall asleep. One is that you’re thinking about Morgan Battle. Two is that you’re thinking about the large boxes you’ve seen. You know there are two inside the house.”
“I guess you do know everything.”
“Certainly more than any being that ever existed but we don’t mean to brag.”
“What are those boxes?”
“Callista, we believe our coming answer will only serve to frustrate you further.”
“Let me guess. It’s difficult to say, right?”
“Not all information is at our disposal.”
“I’m going to find them,” she said. “Can you help me?”
Strix told her that she needed to be very quiet while they made their way across the house. She walked on the balls of her feet, avoiding the creaky spots of hardwood in the hallway. She held Strix in front of her like a toddler with a teddy bear. His eyes lit the way.
“We never go up here,” she said to Strix when they got to the attic door. “It gets too hot and the ocean noise is loud.”
She slid over one of the tables in the hallway, stood up on her toes and pulled open the door on the ceiling. After unfolding the wooden step ladder, she climbed up with Strix tucked under her arm.
It was too dark to see anything up there, so Strix lit up his eyes and feathers.
The entire attic had been turned into a system of metal railings and supportive beams. The whole room looked like a construction site. Scaffolding ran to the center of the attic, where Callista spotted the two boxes.
Each titanium box was about as large as a s
mall bedroom. The Lorrance alloy matched the Bastion and Strix’s box. The cubes were anchored to the frame of the house. Above them, a system of doors had been built into the roof.
Each of the cubes had a sealed door on the side. When Callista touched one of them, it felt hard and cold as a piece of steel. She rapped on the side and a hallow sound rang out.
“What are these things?” She asked Strix. “Why would he hide them from me?”
“I’m afraid we do not have sufficient data to speculate,” Strix told her. “We suggest you look for any markings on the box, something that would identify a manufacturer.”
Callista brought Strix up to the door to the cube, letting his eyes light up the doorway to the thing. The only markings she could see did list the manufacturer. It read, “The Blaise Lorrance Company.”
“That’s indeed interesting,” said Strix. “We’re not aware of this particular relation of ours.”
“Why would my Dad install them and not tell me?”
“This is unknown to us. Perhaps it’s some kind of early Christmas present.”
…
Down the hill, Lucas couldn’t sleep either.
Usually by that time of night, sleep had long wrestled him into submission. That night, however, he felt a burning energy through his entire body. Instead of the ache of gravity that usually pinned him to the mattress, he felt lighter than air, as though his body wanted to spring out of the bed and run straight to the top of New Mountain. The vigorous sensation seemed so alien that it was alarming.
His lungs felt clear and he could smell the ocean on the other side of the Bastion for the first time he could remember. The drowned feeling in his head, like his ears and sinuses were filled with brine, had vanished. His heart pounded, not out of strain, but arousal and exhilaration.
“You don’t look right,” said his mother, who suddenly stood in the doorway. “What’s wrong, baby? Do you think we need to give you another dose tonight?”
“No. I think I’ve had enough. I’m just not tired.”
“Not tired?” She asked with her lift of her left eyebrow. “Something must be wrong. Maybe this batch of roots is weak.” She came back with four more of her homemade vitamin pills, holding them out to Lucas in her palm.
“I don’t think I need them.”
“I’m your mother. You need them. Now, don’t make me upset.”
She dropped the pills in Lucas’s palm and he threw them into the back of his mouth.
“That’s my little man,” she said, patting him on the head like a golden retriever. She handed him a glass of water and kissed him on the forehead.
After she left and the door closed behind her, Strix’s feathers lit up green and orange. The owl asked Lucas, “Did you do as we instructed?”
“Mmm hmm,” said Lucas, spitting out the pills he had held under his tongue. “I just pretended to swallow the other ones earlier, just like you said. If I get sicker, it’ll be your fault.”
“How do you feel now?”
Lucas took a deep breath while he considered the question. Every tissue in his body felt like a rain forest in spring.
He told Strix, “I think I feel great.”
“Stand up.”
Lucas got out of bed, standing up and putting his shoulders back into a powerful posture. “Wow, it feels so good,” he said. “What’s happening to me?”
“You’re alive, Lucas.”
“I don’t know how I’ll ever get to sleep again.”
“Perhaps we know of a method to help you sleep.”
…
Later that night, just before dawn, Lucas followed Strix’s instructions, putting on a pair of sneakers and an old tee-shirt, before sneaking down the stairs so his mother wouldn’t hear him. He had the owl in his backpack, with Strix’s red eyes poking up from the top.
After he made it half a block from his home, he asked Strix, “What do I do now?”
“We run,” said Strix, “or to be more accurate, you run and we ride.”
“I can’t run,” said Lucas. “My mom said the doctors have forbidden it. They said I could die if I exert myself too much.”
“This isn’t true, Lucas. We suspect you know this at some level. You won’t die. You won’t even be in pain. Now, Lucas, run.”
Without any direction or destination, Lucas’s feet just started moving. At first, he felt like his legs were rubber and every stride was a hurdle. However, his body quickly balanced itself and he reached a brisk pace. The amazing thing about it was how great it felt, almost like he was a low flying plane.
To add to Lucas’s astonishment, he found that running made him feel powerful, like an attack helicopter, fully-armed and on mission. Strix told him to take the path to the woods at the base of New Mountain.
“You’re getting stronger,” Strix told him while he ran. “Everyday you’ll get stronger. Everyday you’ll become more of the man you were meant to be. This world won’t hold you back anymore, Lucas. Keep running.”
He charged up the hill until he reached a break in the trees. Staring down at the blanket of lights and the end of everything beyond the Bastion, his heart pounded with pleasure and the feeling of unexplored power. Steam swirled and lifted off his body as the night air danced against his skin.
“How do you feel, Lucas?” Strix asked him.
“Different,” was all he said.
…
When Lucas arrived home early that morning, he found his mother waiting for him at the kitchen table. The lights were all off in the house, so he was surprised to find her awake. At first, she didn’t even look up. She just sat with her cup of Yerba Mate tea.
“I couldn’t sleep,” said Lucas, “so I went for a walk. I wasn’t gone that long. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“They don’t like you, you know,” she said, still not looking at him.
“What do you mean? Who do you mean, ‘they’?”
“Don’t play stupid with me,” she said. “I thought we would never lie to each other.”
Lucas stood there with nothing to say. Eventually he mustered, “I’m sorry.”
His mother finally looked at him. Her expression contained a fearsome disappointment, even a loss perhaps. “I’m trying to protect you,” she said, “but it looks like you don’t want to be protected.”
“I’m sorry, mom.”
“I think it’s your chemicals,” she said. “In your brain. You’re not yourself. I think we need to change your medicine.”
“That’s OK, mom. I don’t feel that sick. I feel a little better as a matter of fact.”
“Is it that talking toy?” She asked. “I swear I’ll throw it in the fire.”
“Mom, I didn’t…”
“Still,” she went on, “For Doctor Lorrance to take a personal interest in my son is flattering. I don’t think I should blame your failure on him. He said you were special. Maybe he was wrong.” She looked him squarely in the face, asking, “Was he wrong?”
“No, he wasn’t. I promise.”
“The world,” she said, “won’t get its hands on my son.” She told Lucas to sit down while she made him one of her vitamin and herb tonics.
She pulled several tins from the shelf and measured out the ingredients. A handful of black seeds that looked like tiny bananas, a spoonful of green algae colored powder and a pinch of purple mushroom spores formed a grey paste in her mortar and pestle. Then she tore a small, purple flower from a plant on the counter and crumpled it in with her fingers.
She steeped it all in water she had boiling on the stove. “Your vitamin and mineral levels are off,” she said. “We’ll need a good strong dose to get you back on track.”
“What are all these plants you give me, mom?”
“It’s your medicine,” she said, looking surprised that he had asked. “You always take your medicine. Don’t forget what keeps you alive.”
Lucas sipped the familiar concoction, holding his nose the way he always did. The concoction bit the back of his
tongue with bitterness.
“I’ll never give up on you,” she said. “The doctors might give up. That’s why we don’t see them anymore. They failed you and turned their backs on you. We’ll never do that to each other.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been to one. Maybe we should…”
“They want you to die,” She said, holding his face in her palms. “They don’t understand what’s happening, so they want it to go away. They want you to go away. Is that who you want helping you?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Some day you will,” She said, before instructing him to swallow the grainy matter at the bottom of the cup. Then she told him, “Some day you’ll understand how much I’ve done to protect you.”
“I know how much you do for me.”
“No. You do not,” She scolded. “If you had an inkling of my sacrifice, you wouldn’t have abandoned me and lied tonight. Would you?”
“I didn’t…”
“Shh,” she stopped him. “I’m not going to force you to lie to me. I just hope you won’t break my heart and try something like this again.” She noticed the sweat on his shirt. “See how sick you made yourself,” she said.
Then she ordered Lucas to lift his arms so she should remove his shirt.
“I don’t want to, mom. Not right now.”
“Do you want a tumor to eat you from the inside out? Now, please, honey.”
She pulled Lucas’s shirt over his head. Then she brought her eyes to the skin on his back like she was reading a newspaper. She pinched at one of the fat rolls on his waist, making him wince.
“Oh, stop it,” she said. “I’m just looking for tumors.”
She found a spot on the small of Lucas’s lower back that interested her. “Looky here,” she said, taking a handful of ground herbs and rubbing it on the area.
The contact made Lucas shout out in pain. “Mom, stop!” He said. “Please! That hurts worse than normal.”
Break the Bastion Page 8
