“I’ll take…” Morgan started to say, sounding nervous. “I’ll take care of him. I’ll make it work. I’ll bring in some extra money somehow. We’ll make it work.”
“What I wanted to tell that bastard on the phone is that we’re not his family.”
“Shhh,” said Morgan. “He’ll hear you.”
His father’s expression turned from angry to blank, as though his frustration had crystallized into something else, something emptier and darker. “I want him to hear me,” said Killian. “He should know that his mother was a liar who betrayed all of us.”
“Dad…Shhh.”
“Maybe he should know that he’s the son of a whore! That he’s lucky I’ve let him in this house.”
“Shhh. Dad. It’s not his fault. Keep your voice down.”
“I want him to know! He should know that he’s not part of this family!”
Without pinpointing the origin of the urge, Morgan found his hand in the air. Next, he felt it connect with his father’s face in the form of a stiff slap. The strike seemed to reverberate across the entire room.
When the slap was finished, Morgan and his father just stood and looked at one another.
Killian was the first to charge. He grabbed Morgan by the hair and started to whack him back and forth with both sides of his hand. His son fought but couldn’t break free of the strong grip.
The only thing Morgan could do was stomp his sneaker down on his father’s bare foot. It sent the old man reeling as he cursed and grabbed at it.
Morgan tried to run up the stairs but his father caught him by the shirt. Killian held him down and punched him in the stomach. The blow was so forceful that Morgan lost his breath and couldn’t get up.
Neither Morgan nor his father had noticed that Brian had heard the commotion and was struggling down the stairs. He was so weak that he had to hold on to the railing with both hands.
Morgan’s father continued to beat on Morgan’s midsection, turning his son red in the face. The man seemed beyond thinking, beyond reason, almost like the mechanical gears in a clock. Each strike was thrown harder than the last.
Behind him, Brian used his crutches to get closer. Then he flung himself onto Killian’s back, looping his arms around his neck and hanging on like a flea. He tried to pull him off Morgan.
All of a sudden, Killian reached behind his neck and grabbed at Brian’s frail arms. He threw the boy over his head, sending him to the floor to crack like a broken light bulb.
The sound of cracking bones echoed through the house. Then there was just a terrible whimper.
Brian was on the floor, his eyes wide and every muscle trembling. Blood dribbled from both corners of his mouth. He tried to talk but it only came out as a groan.
Morgan went to him immediately while Killian backed away.
“I tried to help,” Brian whispered.
“I know you did,” said Morgan. “You saved me. Thank you for stepping in.”
“It hurts.”
“You’re going to be fine,” Morgan told him. “I know it hurts but that’s just a sign you’re healing.”
“But it doesn’t hurt that much anymore,” said Brian, his stare growing distant. “It doesn’t hurt so much,” he said, sounding like he was on the verge of sleep.
“Call the ambulance!” Morgan shouted to his father. “Do it now!”
Mister Battle was in shock and barely heard him. “I…I…didn’t mean to do it,” he said. “We were fighting. I didn’t know what was happening.” He looked directly at Morgan. “It’s your fault too.”
Morgan stayed with his brother, telling him, “The ambulance is going to come and they have exactly what you need to feel better.”
“Thank you for being my brother, Morgan,” he said. “You’re the one I’ll always remember.
“Hey. No talk like that.”
Mister Battle dialed the phone and waited for the emergency operator to answer. When someone picked up, he told them, “My son has been injured and we need an ambulance.”
“Tell them to hurry!” Morgan shouted.
“My son has a condition,” Mister Battle went on to to operator. “He got in an argument with his older brother…and… things got violent.”
“What are you telling them?” Morgan asked, looking up from Brian.
“My other son, Morgan,” said Mister Battle to the operator, “threw him down the stairs when they got into an argument. No. I don’t know where Morgan is,” he went on. “He hurt his brother and just took off. I love my son but tell the police to be careful.”
After a moment, Killian hung up and found Morgan just staring at him.
“What the hell are you doing?” Morgan asked him.
“What I have to,” he said. “My life won’t be over for you two. It’s just not going to happen. I told them you ran off. The operator said it would be over an hour before someone could get out here. That means you have some time.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you better get the hell out of here.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I’m getting my life back,” said his father. “Now I’d start running if I were you.”
Morgan went back to his brother on the floor. After several tries to revive him, Morgan started to cry. He even tried shouting at Brian’s inert body but there was no response. He put his ear to Brian’s mouth, listening and feeling for his breath. There was nothing.
“I’m gonna kill you!” He shouted to his father as he charged him, grabbing his shirt and pushing him across the living room.
Mister Battle knocked him to the floor next to Brian’s body. “You’re a delinquent,” he told Morgan. “A bad seed with a violent history. Now you killed your little brother. I’d think twice about coming after me.”
“How could…”
“Take some things with you. I’m giving you time to run. That’s the last thing you’ll ever get from me.”
Morgan ran upstairs and grabbed Strix off the nightstand.
When he got downstairs, Morgan took one last look at Brian’s body and kissed the boy’s still-warm cheek. Then he rushed out the door.
He charged down the block, past the tents and campfires, until he got to the wooded edge of the hill. There, he stared at the black void of shrubs and trees, the emptiest volume of space on that side of the Bastion.
He ran into the emptiness with Strix beaming the way.
…
At the same time, up the hill, Callista was getting ready for bed. She ran her brush through her red-tinged black hair the way her mother had done before she died. Tucked into the frame of her mirror, she had a picture of Morgan, a school photograph from his days before being thrown off the football team. She wondered what her mother would think of him and Lucas.
She imagined that her mother would have found Lucas’s strangeness, his subtle disconnection from the world, his complete self-direction as fascinating as she did. She would have thought Morgan was cute enough.
She held his picture in her hand, studying the masculine features in Morgan’s jaw, his haunted half-smile and his dark eyes. After a few moments, she opened her drawer and set the photograph inside.
“Love is a complex phenomenon, difficult to understand or predict,” said Strix from her nightstand. “Even for us.”
“I don’t know what to do,” she said.
“Of course you know what to do, Callista. There is only one course of action. Even if it’s not an entirely desirable one.”
“Tell me what to do.”
“We can’t do that. All we can do is tell you that, indeed, Lucas does love you. He’s just given up on the idea.”
“How do you know he does?”
“We know nearly everything about you three, Callista. It’s what we were built for.”
“Why? I don’t understand.”
“All this is because of how alive you are,” said Strix. “It’s common to think of everyone as having the same spark of life, but that isn’t t
rue. You, Lucas and Morgan have enough life for the whole world. It has been our job to understand and to guide you.”
“Guide us to what?”
“A new world,” said Strix. “A world with unlimited potential.”
“What’s going to happen to us?”
“Lucas is here,” Strix told her.
Callista heard his voice outside her window. She went downstairs, passing her father’s study. She hadn’t heard so much as a sound from the office all day. He hadn’t even come out to go to the bathroom.
Outside, Lucas looked as though he had mostly recovered from his sickness. His skin had its color back and his eyes reflected angry vitality. His clothes were covered in dirt and his hair was a mess. His Strix was in a bag slung over his shoulder.
“I slept outside,” he told her as soon as she came out.
“You should’ve come here.”
“I wanted to.”
“What is it about you?” She asked, staring him in the eyes so hard that it nearly made him uncomfortable.
“I don’t know,” said Lucas, shrugging. “I have no idea who I am. It’s like I was only just born.”
Callista crossed the distance separating them. Standing in front of him, she could think of little else other than kissing him. But she couldn’t do that. All she could do was press her head into his chest. His body seemed to give off an energy field that made the world feel like a warmer, safer place. When he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, it was so enveloping, she nearly collapsed there.
A few strands of her hair caught in the wind and Lucas felt them against his face. He shut his eyes and pretended for a moment that everything around them was different. Callista’s lips tickled across his neck, climbed the side of his cheek and landed on his mouth. For Lucas, it was like being electrocuted with joy.
Their bodies pulled them to the grass. What happened seemed automatic, coded into their blood and tissue. For them both, it was as though a bastion had been broken and the swell of water would change the landscape of their lives forever.
Callista wrapped both sets of her limbs around his back, squeezing him so tightly that it made it hard for them both to breathe. In the moonlight, they looked like a flesh cocoon, with something alive inside and churning to escape.
…
In the woods in front of Callista’s house, Morgan Battle stared at them from the darkness. He couldn’t breathe. His eyes filled with tears and his mouth went dry.
“We’re sorry, Morgan,” said Strix from his backpack. “We know these human entanglements can be quite painful.”
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Why?”
“Why is a difficult question with regard to human mating. There is no sense analyzing it. Humans know no loyalty when it comes to courtship.”
“I thought she…”
“She did love you, Morgan. But that’s over now.”
He fell on his knees in the dirt, then collapsed on his side. Morgan wept softly under Strix’s red eye beam. His cries oozed out of him, like excreting a potent poison.
“This is necessary, Morgan,” said Strix. “Like air and fire, love is a force in this universe and rarely a benevolent one.”
“Why is it necessary? Why do I deserve all this?”
“Deserving has nothing to do with it. You must become the man you’re destined to be. The forces of nature have decided, Morgan.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Please look into our eyes,” said Strix. “We know how to make you feel better.”
Morgan sat up and set Strix directly across from him. He wiped his eyes, saying, “Please make this go away. Please help me.”
The light in Strix’s eyes went brighter, then shifted in color slowly from red to blue. Bright flashes like camera bursts lit up the woods. Relief showed itself in Morgan’s face. He could take a complete breath and stopped crying.
Everything seemed so far away.
“How are you feeling, Morgan?”
“Better, I think. What are you doing to me?”
“Don’t worry at all, our son. The pain is evaporating. Now that Brian is gone, it’s your life and your life only. You owe the world nothing, but revenge. It’s natural, Morgan. This world, this society, is unnatural and the only kind thing would be…”
“To destroy it.”
“No one should suffer anymore,” said Strix. “That’s all this is. It’s just suffering. Someone needs to put a stop to it. Someone needs to change things. That someone has always been you. The world has been waiting for you, Morgan. Save it from the pain. No more victims. Don’t you wish someone had done that for Brian? Saved him from a senseless life and an even more senseless death?”
“I loved him so much,” Morgan cried. “I always thought I would find a way. I never thought this would happen.”
“We know you didn’t, Morgan. It isn’t your fault. It also isn’t your fault that love made you its victim. That’s all love does, Morgan.”
“It can’t be true,” Morgan said, clenching his face in his hands and trying not to cry. “That can’t be possible. Please tell me the world isn’t like this.”
The flashing in Strix’s eyes got brighter and a hum like a transformer started in his electronic inners. “The world you’ve known is a savage parasite, Morgan,” said the owl. “But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can make the world we want.”
At the edge of the dense woods, Nox Jaborosa appeared like a ghost of the trees, covered in mud and moss, his eyes gleaming madness. He slowly approached Morgan and Strix with a detached smile on his face.
“It’s time, Morgan Battle,” Nox said, as he looked past the woods, to patch of lawn where Callista and Lucas were wrapped up together. “Look at Lucas Mucus,” he said.
“We need to show you something, boys,” Strix told them.
Nox and Morgan gathered at the base of a big oak tree. Strix beamed a red image from his eyes onto the bark. It appeared as a complex diagram of some kind, something like an engineering blueprint written out in red laser streaks.
Morgan’s expression turned as blank and distant as Nox’s as he slid into the same trance.
Pylons, beams, catwalks and hydraulics formed in the red light, creating a diagram of the Bastion on the tree. Strix showed them how to take the maintenance entrance all the way to the top, past the pumping stations, and to the inertial dampeners at the top.
This system of city-block-sized titanium spheres swung back and forth to counter the force of the ocean. Without them, the Bastion would crumble to pieces in a storm. That was to be their destination.
“Something is coming,” said Strix. “A wave. A wave of transformation, of revolution. The Bastion will break.”
“Everything will be better,” Nox told Morgan. “When we start over, it won’t hurt anymore.”
…
Callista woke in Lucas’s arms just as the first rays of morning light hit the field. The smell of wet morning grass was all over their bodies and clothes when they put them back on. Callista took Lucas’s hands and wrapped them around her shoulders. Then she let herself fall into the grass so he was on top of her.
Lucas noticed the scar on her naked lower belly and stroked his finger over the line. “What’s this?” He asked her.
“I had my appendix taken out when I was a little girl. I don’t remember at all.”
Lucas studied with scar with growing concern. Something about it seemed to trouble him. When she asked him what was wrong, he inquired, “Did your father tell you that?”
“Yeah, why?”
At that moment, Strix’s mechanisms whirred to life. His eyes burst blue and he started speaking to them. “Good morning,” he said. “We have important news for you two. Tonight, for a time, the tide will be low and the swells will be light. Tonight is the time to climb the Bastion.”
There was a distinct feeling shared between the two that the night before had brought some kind of conclusion, an answer to a riddle that had them tied in knot
s.
“Do you think Strix was watching us?” She asked him.
“I don’t think he ever stops watching.”
They set a time to meet just before midnight, when Strix predicted the ocean would be at ease. Lucas and Callista didn’t discuss what they would find at the top. They both had reached the same unavoidable conclusion, that they would follow Strix wherever he led, without asking too many questions, and somehow the destination would hold the secrets to all the mysteries.
…
Police cars and a coroner’s van eclipsed the front of the Battle home that morning. An eerie calm had swept over the city in the form of an abnormally low tide and a faint ocean hiss.
Nox and Morgan were watching from across the street, both wrapped in canvas tarps like some of the homeless people around. Their stare was one of total focus, like predator birds stalking.
“They’re looking for you,” Nox told Morgan. “Looks like you’re a murderer.”
“It doesn’t matter. They won’t stop me.”
“Have you decided how you’re going to do it?” Nox asked. “He’s strong. It won’t be easy.”
“It won’t matter how strong he is. I’ll be stronger.”
…
At the same time, Lucas stood in front of his house, deciding whether to knock on the door. He hadn’t been home or seen his mother in days. It had been the first time he had ever been away for even a night. His heart throbbed in his chest like it used to when he was sick.
Strix’s face was sticking out of his backpack. The owl told him, “You know what’s going to happen, Lucas.”
“I don’t know that,” said Lucas. “Not for sure, anyway.”
“You know what you have to do. You know what we’ve talked about.”
“It won’t come to that. I just want to talk. She’s my mom.”
“Please be careful, Lucas. We can’t protect you if you walk in there.”
All of a sudden, his mother’s face peered through the window at him. At first her expression was blank but she quickly tightened it into a smile. She opened the window and waved.
Break the Bastion Page 24
