Then, all of a sudden, Nox froze. He just stood there with a subdued and distant smile, staring at Lucas and Morgan.
They both glanced down at Morgan’s bag. Strix’s eyes, dim but certainly lit, peered out from the opening. Lucas and Morgan looked at the owl as if to ask, what have you done, Strix?
Nox’s mouth continued to pour blood. He held up his hunting knife like he wanted to get struck by lightning. Then he took off into the woods, his naked body disappearing into the trees and storm haze.
Morgan and Lucas discovered later that day that Nox had drawn many owls in blood, several dozen, around the outer walls of the school. The police had been called and apparently, they had already been looking for Nox for days.
He had also scrawled the name, “LaCrone,” in his blood.
…
Late that night, Callista awoke when she felt her father slide into the bed next to her. He smelled like Scotch and stale clothing. She asked him what was wrong and he just whispered for her to go back to sleep. For a few minutes, he just laid next to her, stroking her hair.
She whispered, “I thought we would never keep secrets from each other.”
Her father’s hand went still in her hair. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I’m so sorry, honey.”
A gap between Callista’s nightshirt and her underwear revealed her abdominal scar. Her father stared at the marred line in her flesh and ran his index finger over it.
“I still can’t remember the surgery,” she said. “I was ten. I should remember something like that. It’s strange. Do you think the memories will ever come back to me?”
The question seemed to make her father nervous. He turned away from her, saying, “Someday, I imagine.”
“What are those boxes in the attic?” She asked him. “And please don’t lie to me.”
For a minute, he was frozen next to her. Finally, he told her, “They’ll kill me, honey. They’ll kill me if I tell even my own daughter.” Then he got up from the bed and left.
Before she fell asleep that night, Callista asked Strix, “What’s Lucas doing?”
“He’s preparing for his nightly run in the woods,” said Strix.
“Why the woods in the middle of the night?”
“The explanation will be problematic. You would have to ask him, Callista.”
“Strix, you don’t seem to like to answer questions.”
“It is our preference to answer all your questions to the best of our ability.”
“Sure it is.”
“Perhaps there is another question we can assist you with.”
“Why is Lucas sick? Why can’t anyone figure out what he has?”
“Callista, you must be aware that a good deal of medical science and technology was lost during the floods.”
“That may be true but surely Blaise Lorrance and the most sophisticated computer ever built must have some insight.”
“We’re afraid not.”
“Strix, are you manipulating us?”
It took the owl a moment to answer. “This question is disappointing to us,” he said. “We would never interfere with your path of development. Your choices, your future, are your own.”
…
That night, just down the hill, Morgan found himself restless when he tried to sleep. The ocean was still and quiet after the storm earlier and the air was a warm blanket. Brian was asleep across the room, wheezing under every dreamy breath.
Morgan looked at his electromechanical owl on the nightstand, its eyes glowing with just enough red light to be nearly imperceptible. He asked Strix, “What did you do to Nox?”
“We showed him the truth,” Strix answered quickly. “We’re afraid the strain was too much for his nervous system.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“We’re sorry you had to observe something so unpleasant,” said Strix. “It was unavoidable, unfortunately.”
“Why was it unavoidable?”
“The timeline of the experiment is crucial,” Strix went on. “We don’t have any patience for forces that seek to impede progress to our goal.”
“What goal?”
“The goal is not important,” said Strix. “The important thing is that you, Lucas and Callista are allowed to reach your potential without any antagonism or obstruction.”
“I haven’t heard from her today. How is she? By the way.”
“You should ask her yourself, Morgan. Tonight.”
“It’s late.”
“It’s not too late. If you leave out the back door, your father won’t wake up.”
Morgan had already reached for his pants and shoes before Strix could finish. By this time, he was imagining the way Callista looked at night, the way the lights of his neighborhood twinkled in her eyes while they looked out to the Bastion. His heart was beating in a kind of pleasurable but overwhelming agitation.
He tucked Strix in his bag and snuck out the back door of the house, stepping over the trash heaps and climbing the fence that separated the back alley. The night was soaked in ear-ringing silence, with only waist-high waves crashing, no hissing of the tide, almost no sign at all that the monstrous ocean was standing over two thousand feet tall about a block away.
He passed the strip of bars and dive restaurants where Bastion workers typically ate and drank after their shifts. That night, without the surf, he could hear cackling, shouts and laughter. The places were packed and the crowds were starting to overflow onto the street.
Morgan noticed a fleet of black, commercial busses, about a dozen in total, slowing down ahead of him. Each bus in the caravan could have held over a hundred people. It was certainly strange traffic for so late at night.
Once the busses stopped, they started to let off their passengers.
The travelers looked like a flock of refugees, coughing men and women wearing tattered rags with no form, some huddled into groups, drug addicts sitting down on the pavement to nod off, the weary looks of people long-travelling.
“What is this?” Morgan asked Strix.
His head poking out of the top of the backpack, Strix said, “They’ve come from all across the country. The busses have been coming in for the past several nights.”
“Who are they?”
“The poor, the addicted, the lost,” said Strix.
“Why are they here?”
“They’re looking for something.”
“What?”
“Their children,” answered Strix.
“What do you mean? Who took their kids from them?”
“We’ve been monitoring worldwide communications and we have no data with regard to who took them, only that many were taken. It seems there is a rumor the missing children can be found at the Bastion.”
Morgan noticed it right away.
In the scores of people, with every conceivable race represented, there was not one child. He couldn’t spot a single person who could have been under twenty years old.
“How can this many children be missing, Strix? This makes no sense. Who could have taken this many kids?”
“We’re afraid the answers to both queries are unknown.”
Morgan decided to find out for himself.
He walked over to a man who had just gotten off one of the busses. The man appeared destitute, wearing a weathered army uniform and a knapsack spilling over with tattered clothes. His hair was buzzed short. His black, shaggy beard was thick, with deep red Irish highlights. His eyes made it seem like he had been up for days.
The man just stood on the street corner, with his head tilted back to take in the Bastion. He was in awe of the thing.
“Excuse me,” Morgan said to him, “but would you mind if I asked where you’re coming from?”
“Ohio front,” mumbled the man. “Infantry. Just finished my last tour.”
“What brought you here if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Pretty hard to find a bus that isn’t headed to the Bastion,” said the man. “There’s hardly any work
anywhere else.”
The growing mob coming off the busses contained not one child. Many of the men and women were tacking up missing child posters and setting up tents in the street. Desperate parents were setting up candlelight vigils for the lost.
The man told Morgan, “I didn’t lose anyone, thank goodness.”
“What do you think happened to all of them?”
“Everyone keeps saying they’re running away from the war. There’s a lot of talk of a draft.”
“You believe that?”
“Nah. Not for one minute. Sure it’s getting scary out west but kids as young and three and four are turning up missing. Kids that young aren’t running away by themselves. It’s bullshit, man.” He turned to Morgan and smiled in a sad way, saying, “As a matter of fact, you’re the youngest person I’ve seen since I left for my last tour.”
Morgan left the man and headed for the cable car station at the base of New Mountain. While he rode up, he noticed all the dark neighborhoods below. The rows of fancy houses had been formerly crowded by the upper class of the city. Now, there were only a few lights on, like a screen of broken pixels, to light up the side of the hill.
When the lift let him out, he saw Callista waiting by herself, sitting on the concrete with her Strix next to her. She looked like she had been crying and wiped her eyes when she saw Morgan.
Before he said hello, he knelt down on the pavement next to her, slowly wrapping his arms around her shoulders. The act seemed to come out of nowhere for him. Once she leaned in and let her body settle into his, she started to cry softly.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” she said, sniffling into his neck. “My dad is acting so weird. He said something about someone killing him. Then he had all these people over from the neighborhood, the ones that are left, and they had some kind of meeting. Everyone is acting so strangely.”
“I’m seeing it to.”
“I tried asking Strix,” Callista went on, “but he either doesn’t know or won’t tell me.”
“I can’t get a straight answer either.” He considered something then asked her, “Are those people still at your house?”
They walked back to Callista’s family estate and when they got there, it appeared as though the party was ending. The well-dressed crowd was filing out the front door, each one stopping at the door to speak to Callista’s father. Each handed him an unmarked envelope before departing. There was a somberness as each of them handed over the envelope, as though they were turning over the deeds to their homes.
Morgan and Callista ducked down behind some shrubbery and watched.
“What do you suppose is in those envelopes?” Morgan asked her.
“I have no idea. He’s acting like the whole world is after him. I asked him about the boxes in the attic too.
“What did he say?”
“He won’t tell me anything,” said Callista. “He won’t even talk to me.”
The two sat there for a few quiet minutes while the rest of Callista’s neighbors went back to their houses.
After a while, Morgan said, “I missed you.”
She was surprised but it was comforting to hear. “I missed you, too,” she said. “I was hoping you would come and see me. I have something to admit too,” she went on, meeting his eyes directly. “I asked Strix where you live. I was going to visit you but he told me not to.”
“Please don’t take this the wrong way but I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Will you at least tell me why?”
Morgan hung his head and sighed. “It’s complicated,” he said. “Let’s just say my dad isn’t the nicest guy and he’s been acting worse than ever lately. Plus, you’d probably get robbed in my neighborhood. It’s always been bad but now it’s gotten awful.”
For a while, Morgan told stories about living next to the Bastion. Callista loved hearing about it and hung on every word. The variety of crashing flotsam, the strange animals and plants that washed over the wall, it all fascinated Callista.
…
At the same time that night, Lucas was awake and getting his sneakers on for a late night run. His mother had taken some strong Valerian root tea and was fast asleep in her bed.
With Strix in his backpack, he headed down the street in the direction of New Mountain. The night air brought with it a kind of electrical charge. His senses could touch for miles and his heart raced like a plane propeller.
He started running and it felt even better than the last time. His legs felt more powerful and his entire body moved like it had become much lighter. The sick, nauseous feeling that normally accompanied every move had been replaced by charge of excitement.
“How do you feel?” Strix asked him while he ran.
“Incredible,” answered Lucas. “I don’t understand it. It doesn’t feel like me.”
“I assure you it is you,” said Strix. “You’re changing, Lucas, transforming.”
“To what?”
“Yourself,” said Strix plainly. “Most people never experience it.”
Lucas left the concrete path and took to the neighboring wooded area. The owl turned its eyes bright to show the way. He dodged trees and jumped over shrubs on his path up New Mountain. The more he ran, the more his strides felt like they would take him airborne.
“Where are we going?” He asked Strix.
“To see Callista and Morgan.”
When he reached the top, where the tree line gave way to the fanciest houses in the city, he turned right onto Callista’s street. Strix told him to be quiet while he approached her house. Although he didn’t understand why, Lucas did his best to remain stealthy.
As soon as he saw the two of them, he stopped mid stride.
Morgan and Callista were in the middle of a tight embrace, kissing while they sat on the curb in front of her house. The couple didn’t notice Lucas standing down the street.
The sight of them left Lucas with an undefined sadness, as though he was somehow less human. He stood in the middle of the street, with his chest rising and falling and his hot, condensed breath leaving a cloud in the air.
“Are you OK, Lucas?” Strix asked him.
He hesitated before answering, “I’m not sure. I think so. Actually, I don’t think so.”
“That’s something you’ve never done,” Strix said. “Is that correct?”
“It’s probably something I’ll never do.”
“Why is that?”
Before it came out of his mouth, Lucas’s answer seemed to sting him. “Because,” he said, “I’m not like him. Morgan is practically a leading man.”
“Lucas, let me ask you something. What resemblance does the butterfly share with the caterpillar?”
“I don’t get it.”
“Transformation,” said Strix. “You’re changing, Lucas. Don’t you feel it?”
“I guess so.”
“Do you want to know what it would feel like to be Morgan right now?”
He hesitated before answering, “yes. I want to know what it feels like.”
“That feeling could be yours,” said Strix. “If you do exactly what we tell you.”
…
Chapter 19
Abandon
Over the next several weeks, Morgan snuck out of school nearly every day before last period to meet Callista. They usually met on the rooftop where Morgan first saw her. She liked it up there in the afternoon sun and Morgan eventually got over his fear of heights.
They rode the cable car up and down New Mountain and took walks together around the rich neighborhoods. When the sun went down, they sat in the park kissing and holding hands. They would sometimes just lay there quietly with the moonlight overhead and the Bastion at their feet.
In those moments, Morgan felt his body crying out, a writhing discomfort like an itch on his brain. Every time he let his hands free to explore, he found himself softly rebuked.
As the weeks went on, it was all Morgan thought about. When he went to sleep, he imagined the mome
nt he would see her the following day.
One evening, just as the sun was going down, he and Callista were walking in one of the posh neighborhoods near her house. At first, they didn’t notice anything peculiar on the street. They were both too involved with each other to detect anything amiss.
However, after a while, it became clear to them both that something was wrong on that particular street.
Although the lawns were mowed and the mail wasn’t overflowing in the boxes, it appeared that almost all the homes had been abandoned. That evening, automatic lights switched on, illuminating empty living and dining rooms. There were no cars in the driveways or on the street. No sounds from children and no adult voices could be heard for what seemed like miles.
“I knew those people,” said Callista, pointing to one of the empty estates, a sprawling brick and colonial house. “My dad introduced me once. The father and mother are surgeons.”
“Where do you think they went?”
“Beats me,” she said. “I saw them a few days ago meeting with my dad. Like a lot of others, they just picked up and left. Not a word about it.”
They continued down the street until they noticed a home that stood out. Not only was it the largest on the block, there were people, a middle-aged man and woman, just sitting on their porch watching. Piled on their lawn, they had a collection of colorful toys and children’s clothing. It appeared that they had just thrown away every item related to children.
They looked surprised to see Morgan and Callista.
Callista held up her hand to wave and the couple just stood there. After a moment, they turned and went inside. It was as though they were ghosts, cold spirits left behind. Their home was still fully-furnished and their two Datsun dogs were in the yard. They seemed to be the only residents left in the neighborhood.
“Guess they didn’t get the invite,” said Morgan. “What do you suppose is different about them?”
“Something about the looks on their faces,” said Callista. “I want to know why they threw all those toys and clothes out. What happened to their kids?”
“I’ve heard a lot are running away with the rumors of the draft. I’ve heard they’ll take you as young as fourteen.”
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