A faint grin turned up in the corner of his mother’s mouth. “What would you do without me?” She asked.
After she left, Lucas tried to sleep but the spot on his back burned and ached. Sweat beads budded over his entire body but, at the same time, he felt attacked by a cold draft. His heart pounded and his hands started to shake.
“What’s wrong with me, Strix?”
“Nothing is wrong with you,” said Strix. “Quite the contrary.”
“Then why do I feel like this all the time?”
Strix asked him, “Is your body your own, Lucas?”
“Huh. What do you mean?”
“Or does it belong to someone else? The society you live in? Your mother? Is your body your own?”
“I don’t know. I think so.”
“Take a deep breath,” Strix told him. “Now, listen to our voice very carefully.”
The owl used motors to raise his plastic wings. A noise, like a buzzing, started in Strix’s body.
“Listen carefully, Lucas. This will quiet your mind. Please focus on our voice.”
The hum became louder until it made Lucas feel dizzy. His head felt as though it was floating out of the room. The sound frequency was a powerful lullaby and hurled Lucas quickly to his dreams.
…
Morgan’s father was asleep, sprawled on the sofa when Morgan arrived home just before morning. The war was on TV and an open bottle of anxiety pills lay on the floor.
Morgan closed the door and the clack from the latch sent one of Killian’s eyelids open.
“Being out this late,” he mumbled, “you better be coming back with some damn money.”
Morgan noticed that the bottle of rationed anxiety pills on the floor did not have his father’s name on it. The pills had been prescribed for Morgan’s little brother.
“Those are Brian’s,” he said to his father.
“I ate all mine,” Killian said, opening both eyes into a cold stare. “What do you suppose I do?”
“I don’t know. Maybe just deal with it.”
His father sat up on the couch, shooting Morgan a grim look. “Pretty mouthy this morning,” he said. “If I wasn’t so comfortable right now, I’d knock you across the room.”
Morgan didn’t say anything. He started for the stairs but his father stopped him.
“Do you know what tomorrow is?” Killian asked.
“It’s Brian’s birthday.”
Killian snickered, saying, “I guess that’s true. But I always think of it as the day I died.”
Morgan started to walk away but his father went on.
“I died ten years ago,” Killian said. “This isn’t life. The day your brother came into the world, my wife’s life ended and so did mine. Now all I’ll ever do with my life is feed and water you two little bastards and clean barnacles from the stinking Bastion.”
“Your life isn’t over,” Morgan told him. “Just a few years, when I’m eighteen, Brian and I are leaving. You can have this whole place to yourself. Don’t worry about doing anything for us.”
“Let’s just see if you two make it that long,” said his father. He pointed at the TV, saying, “Looks like the war is heating up. There’s rumors of a draft coming. I know you don’t like the war but it won’t matter. They’re going to send your ass to the front naval lines in Old Nevada anyway. People don’t last long there.”
“Did you know that we used to be the same country? There was no East and West before the war. No one talks about that.”
“Sounds horrible,” said Killian. “I can’t imagine ever sharing a country with those Western bastards. If I wasn’t too old and my life wasn’t behind me, I’d enlist. I’m not a lily-livered conscientious objector or coward like you. I’d show those California shits what’s up.”
“You know, you’re right,” said Morgan. “They really could use you. You’d make a perfect torpedo.” Then he started up the stairs.
“Little turd,” commented his father.
When Morgan got upstairs to his room, Brian was in the middle of a dream and didn’t wake up. Sweating and trembling under the sheets, his younger brother looked like he was dying of fever. His disease’s neurological effects made his sleep sometimes frightening to watch, like he was fighting off demons.
Morgan stood over the bed, placing a wrapped present on Brian’s bedside table. It was an old book, actually an archeological relic he had bought in an antique shop, about the Grand Canyon, now a long-drowned seascape.
…
Chapter 12
Belasi LaCrone
A few nights later, Callista found herself in a jumbled state of being both awake and asleep. She couldn’t move. It felt like she was being swaddled against the mattress by her own sheets.
The only things she could see were Strix’s eyes glowing red and pulsing. The throbbing light seemed to electrify her body, sending waves like armies of ants up and down her legs and arms. She tried to talk but her jaw seemed pinned shut.
She could only see the owl’s eyes, the beating light in her brain.
…
She woke up the next day with Strix’s eyes beaming brighter than the morning light. The machine had been waiting to speak with her. She went to the foot of her bed and sat across from the owl.
“Good morning,” said Strix. “We hope you’re feeling rested after your sleep cycle.”
“Besides the weird dreams, I’m OK,” she said. “Maybe a little…”
“Today,” said Strix, cutting her off, “We’re afraid you’ll have to miss school for more important matters.”
“I don’t think my dad will let me miss school today.”
“For that reason, we suggest you keep the information to yourself. Can we trust you to do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Callista, we remind you that you and your father have made a commitment to this project.”
“What do you want me to do?”
…
Callista dressed for school and even carried her books with her, just in case she saw her father on her way out. However, when she got downstairs, he wasn’t there. He wasn’t in the house at all. It was unprecedented for him to leave for work without saying goodbye or checking on her.
She found Morgan Battle leaning against the mailbox in front of her house.
“So what’s the caper today?” He asked her. “Strix wouldn’t tell me much.”
“He wouldn’t tell me much either,” she said. “Just said to meet you and go to an address downtown.”
“Beats school, I guess.”
“Strix also said to pick up Lucas at his house.”
“Oh,” said Morgan, surprised and perhaps disappointed it wouldn’t be just the two of them. “He didn’t mention Lucas was coming. But, sure, yeah, let’s go get him.”
When they arrived to Lucas’s tenement, all the windows were covered in aluminum foil and there were several warning signs to trespassers. His home was the most rundown on the block, with chipping paint and salt stains on the windows. The place looked like an old ship that had been dredged up.
Callista knocked on the steel door and heard activity right away. Lucas’s mom, Aura Monkshood, opened up and shot them both an annoyed look. She was dressed in a long, colorful tee shirt that looked like it could have been washed over a thousand times. She stood in the doorway, staring at Morgan and Callista like unwanted salesmen.
“Is Lucas home?” Morgan asked carefully.
“No, he isn’t. Why?” Do you want to hurt him like everyone else does?”
“No…we,” Callista answered, “we’re friends of his.”
“That’s nonsense,” she said. “He tells me about all his friends.”
Behind her in the hallway, Lucas staggered over, looking tired, almost drunken, with his eyes droopy and red and his expression lifeless. Merely the effort to walk to the doorway seemed to exhaust him. He tried to talk to his visitors but he couldn’t catch his breath.
“Get out of here!” Hi
s mother shouted.
“We’re sorry,” said Callista, who backed away from the door.
Lucas looked at her and Morgan with a hazy sadness. Then the door slammed.
“I thought my dad was bad,” commented Morgan.
“He didn’t look right,” said Callista. “Something seemed really wrong with him.”
“There’s always been something wrong with Lucas,” said Morgan. “We’ve gone to school together for years and he’s been sick every second. No one at school knows what’s wrong with him and he doesn’t talk to anyone. It gets the rumors going. I’ve heard whatever he has is deadly and he’s the only diagnosed case.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“It doesn’t help that he refuses to talk to anyone.”
While they walked away, Callista kept looking back to the tenement. “Strix said he was supposed to come with us,” she said. “We’re supposed to do this together.”
“If you want to get into a fight with that lady, then go ahead,” said Morgan. “All I know is Strix told us to go somewhere and I’m supposed to do whatever that bird says.”
…
Strix’s directions took them to the very center of the city, the financial district of high-rises that acted as a nerve center for the Eastern part of the country and a sizable portion of the remaining world. Glass and polished steel rose from the ground like crystals of stalagmite, forming a grid of skyscrapers surpassed in scale only by the Bastion.
Streams of suited businessmen filed from one building to another with determined looks and freshly-shaved faces. The financial district was the unofficial capital of the East, held secure by the Bastion, which sat like a massive mirage on the horizon. A cloud of spray hung over it in the distance like clump of frozen fog.
Morgan and Callista continued along the route that Strix had given them, ending up in the district park. Hundreds of exotic trees and plants bordered the various walkways. In the center of the park, a massive bronze statue sprung from the lawn.
The statue of Blaise Lorrance stood over fifty feet tall. It was a depiction of the man during construction of the Bastion, with the inventor staring out to the sea with a set of blueprints in his hands. The look on the bronze face mixed wonderment and resolve.
The inscription at the bottom read: Blaise Lorrance: The man who showed imagination can tame even the mighty ocean.
They walked toward the statue just as Strix had instructed. Surrounding the sculpture, a ring of park benches sat mostly unoccupied. On one of them, an old man sat, hunched over and reading a tattered book.
He looked up from his text with a smile and his triangular face contained a look of surprise. Morgan and Callista immediately recognized the face of Blaise Lorrance.
“I didn’t expect to see the two of you,” he said. “Where is your friend, Lucas?”
“Strix told us to come here,” said Callista.
“That’s very curious,” said Lorrance. “Did he say anything about why?”
“He’s your robot,” said Morgan. “We figured you would know why.”
“I’m sorry, Morgan,” said Lorrance, “but that isn’t the case. Strix can be as much a mystery to me as anyone else.”
“Why would he bring us all the way here to talk to you?” Asked Callista.
Lorrance smiled, saying, “The answer to that question will prove interesting when it finds us.”
Morgan was frustrated at the response. He asked Lorrance, “Listen, I love getting paid and keeping my dad off my ass but this is getting ridiculous. Is this experiment just to see how much you can jerk us around?”
Lorrance started laughing, but a cough overtook him. “Morgan, Morgan, Morgan,” he said. “I do admire the direct approach. I assure you the goal of the experiment is not to antagonize you.”
“Then what is the goal?” Callista asked him.
Lorrance turned his eyes up to the sky and scratched at the white hairs on his chin. “I suppose,” he said, “only Strix is aware of that. You see, I didn’t discover Strix; he discovered me. The experiment has broken out of the lab, so to speak.”
“Do you know why we were chosen?” Asked Morgan.
“Not the slightest clue,” Lorrance answered quickly. “I designed the Strix algorithm and, let it loose. The computer chose you. It’s most curious though. I don’t understand why all three of you were living so close to one another. I must say that was a surprise. It violates every notion I have when it comes to statistics. It’s like you three were being drawn together before I ever even dreamed up the experiment.”
A group of tourists were taking pictures of the statue and noticed Lorrance sitting on the bench. They started to approach him with stars in their eyes and smiles on their faces. The old man turned his expression dark and let out a cold hiss, like a frightened feral cat. The group hurried away in the other direction.
“Sorry about that,” Lorrance told Callista and Morgan. “I don’t speak to people anymore. It’s simply not useful.”
“You’re talking to us,” Morgan commented.
“I suppose that must mean there is a good reason.”
Callista noticed something strange on the other side of the courtyard. Whatever it was quickly absorbed all of her attention. She started to walk across the courtyard to the street.
Huge polished titanium boxes, each about the size of a small bedroom, were being hauled on the back of several eighteen-wheel trucks. Policemen were stopping traffic to make room for the loads. Crews were ready on the street in front of the banks.
Callista watched them move several of the titanium boxes. Then, across the street, she saw her father speaking to several men in the crew.
“What’s he doing?” Callista whispered under her breath. “More of those boxes.”
“What do you think is in there?” Morgan asked Lorrance.
Blaise Lorrance seemed troubled at the sight of the boxes. His mouth fell and his skin went a shade paler. “I can’t be sure,” he said. “But I have my suspicions.”
“What’s my dad doing there?” Asked Callista. “We had two of those boxes arrive at our house.”
“I see,” said Lorrance, still staring across the street like a man watching an approaching wildfire.
Callista’s father walked into the Oceana Bank building with four of the men and disappeared out of sight. She stood there, watching the crews roll the boxes up ramps into the building.
“He didn’t say he was going to the city today,” she said.
“I’m sure he just forgot,” said Morgan. “I wouldn’t worry.”
“Perhaps there is a good reason he didn’t tell you,” said Lorrance.
“What do you mean?” She asked him.
“Perhaps he’s protecting you from something. He is your father.”
Callista asked him, “Is he protecting me from someone named LaCrone?”
Lorrance’s face went rigid and he sighed. “I knew you’d hear that name eventually.”
“So you know him?” Callista asked. “He has something to do with why my father is lying to me. We saw his name written in graffiti at the watchtower. Tell me who he is.”
Lorrance answered, “He’s what happens when society isn’t careful, when things go too far. He was my partner, you see. He and I had big ideas for the future. We both thought the Bastion would give humanity a second chance, that things would be different, that people would be different. When the war started, he changed. He didn’t think people deserved the Bastion. In the end, he thought we had made a mistake.”
Morgan asked, “What does he have to do with us or the experiment?”
“My hope is nothing,” said Lorrance, staring out to the Bastion. “I would suggest that the two of you don’t go looking for Belasi LaCrone. Can you both do that for me?”
After they agreed, Lorrance leaned on his titanium cane and started off in the other direction. A whistle, like a draft through a narrow crack in a window, crawled out of his mouth. Then he coughed something up into a red silk h
andkerchief.
“I’m afraid this is where I leave you,” He told them. “Please send Strix my regards.”
After that, he disappeared into a crowd of pedestrians.
…
When Callista got home that afternoon, she waited for her father in his study. He arrived a few hours later, carrying a hot dinner of prawns for them both. He smiled as soon as he saw her but there seemed to be worry in his eyes.
“How was your day?” She asked him.
“A bit long,” he answered. “But I’ve brought dinner for us.”
“What did you do today?” She asked him in a tone of accusation.
“Usual day,” he said, turning his head down to read some papers on his desk. “Just at the office.”
Callista’s expression fell to the floor. “You were at the office all day?” She asked. “You didn’t get out at all?”
“Nope. Meetings all day. Didn’t even get to see the sun.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her face stale at the presence of a lie between them. “You’re working so hard.” Then she asked him, “Do you remember those boxes you had delivered? What was that about?”
“Oh,” he said, his eyes wide, “that’s just building materials for the house, for the contractors.”
“Pretty fancy box for bricks and wood.”
“I suppose you’re right. I’m sure they charged me accordingly, though. How was your day?”
Callista told him about a generic day at school, not mentioning that she had been out to the city and had seen him. She found in his face an unease she hadn’t seen since her mother disappeared. Her father appeared troubled, as though something big and heavy was dangling over his head and threatening to fall.
…
Chapter 13
KingSlayers
When Lucas arrived to school the following day, Nox Jaborosa and his small but vicious posse were waiting by the front door of the building.
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