The Boy Who Would Rule the World

by Brian Toal

  "Kidnapping? I don't know what you are talking about."

  "CNN and several other stations are running ads indicating Chris has been kidnapped and his parents have offered a two-hundred-thousand-dollar reward for his return."

  "Really!" Beth expressed surprised astonishment. "I can't imagine why. I know the police in Detroit posted him missing at my insistence, but I didn't know they had posted a reward. My goodness who would pay?"

  The couple by the window had given up all pretext of social courtesy and were now craning forward to see the boy who had been reported kidnapped on CNN.

  "I don’t know who would pay, but somebody has been doing some bull-shitting.”

  "Really? Well, I’ve been wondering all along why you two were involved with my nephew. In fact, I’ve been wondering why, when Chris found himself all alone, he didn't just call home or go to the nearest Police station for help. Maybe there is something to this kidnapping story after all."

  "Fuck you!" Jon took a step forward. "We didn't kidnap him. Nobody did. Chris has been free to do whatever he wanted. It was all a set-up by your husband."

  "I told you. I’m not exactly sure what my husband might have told you. Many of his friends were killed a short while ago and, so emotionally he is not well. I can't be responsible for what he said. But, I am responsible for my sister and her son. I’m asking you now - what involvement did you have in preventing my nephew from reporting his whereabouts to the Police?"

  The couple beside them were speechless, looking wildly around for some member of the ship's crew to rescue the boy that had been kidnapped, apparently by the very perpetrators now standing in the aisle.

  "I didn't want to turn myself in to the Police..." Chris spoke up "...Uncle Charlie has friends in the police force and they would have arranged to have me arrested and taken me back to Detroit."

  "But, of course they would have taken you back to Detroit. That’s where you live.”

  "I can't go back to Detroit, because Uncle Charlie has brought that thing from Canada there. Remember when I lost control in the hospital, in Dr. Murance's office? That was because Uncle Charlie had just arrived in Detroit - but I didn’t know it then."

  Beth shook her head desperately trying to look hurt and confused. "Chris...Chris, you have got to stop talking about this thing from Canada. It’s old news. As far as I know NorthCan has cut it up for scrap metal. It’s gone. Forget it!"

  Chris sighed. "I don't think so."

  "Hey!" The young man sitting beside Beth leaned forward and interrupted them. "Is that the kid who was reported kidnapped on CNN a couple of days ago?"

  Beth turned and smiled at him. "Isn't it interesting how rumours can get started? Yes, this is the boy and as you have overheard, there seems to have been a terrible misunderstanding between him, his apparent captors and his mother."

  "So, it is him! I knew it. I recognized his face as soon as he sat down." The young man turned to his girlfriend. "I knew it!"

  "Well, you can now tell everybody he has been rescued." Beth turned to Chris and grabbed hold of his hand. "Shall we forget all of this talk and go see your mother?"

  Chris nodded. "Yeah, I want to see my mom."

  TWELVE - FOUR

  Gus Pagliaro manually checked the latching mechanism of the massive steel bow doors. The locking pins holding the two doors closed were firmly in place, like they always were, and he sauntered over to check the small room next to them which held the electric winch used to pull the ship in close to the dock when it was out of service for the night. It too was spotless, the thick ropes neatly coiled.

  He turned and wandered back into the hold, moving between the rows of cars and trucks, bright in the overhead fluorescent lighting. The double, gasoline tanker truck, its red Petro-Canada lettering indicating its contents loomed before him. With a grunt he bent down before the maze of valves and sniffed. The air smelt of oil and old car exhaust. No gasoline fumes. He moved to the smaller tanker behind and did the same. All the valves were closed tight. He passed behind its rounded rear end and stopped.

  The bus in front of him was full of people!

  The four of them passed by the cafeteria and Chris again longed for an afternoon snack. He had given up trying to figure out past events. His Aunt Beth said his mom was on board. She certainly didn't seem to be possessed by any malevolent being and Chris knew she couldn't be affected this far from Detroit. So, it was possible he had been wrong about his Uncle Charlie's intentions. Maybe he had arranged to have his mother sent back to Detroit because of the better medical care. He just didn't know. He would worry about Uncle Charlie and his friends later.

  "Where’s my Mom?" Chris asked as they reached the top of the stairs leading to the car decks below.

  "We had to take a bus." Beth replied, motioning Chris and his friends to precede her down the stairs. "I’ve never been to Vancouver before, but when we arrived at the airport and got your message, I learned that there was a bus that ran right onto the ferry and then continued to Nanaimo. It was perfect for us."

  "Oh."

  "Right down to the bottom." Beth urged, as Chris paused at the middle deck.

  "I didn't think people were allowed to remain on the lower decks when the ferry was underway." Carman said, as she followed Chris down the stairs.

  "Well, everyone else on the bus stayed put. So, Chris' mother decided it would be best if she did too...straight ahead towards the front." She ushered the three younger people ahead of her, as Jon pulled open the heavy, metal door at the bottom of the stairs. "We are in the middle further up."

  Chris stepped across the metal deck plates and then moved between two tractor trailers as Carman and Jon followed his lead.

  "What are all you folks doing on the bus?" Gus stood by the driver's seat, looking back at the ranks of people sitting in their seats. "Don't ya know you are not supposed to be down here? You're all supposed to be up on the passenger decks."

  Charlie walked around from the front of the bus, where he had been waiting, and stood on the bottom step below the deck hand. Gus' red fluorescent vest with the yellow reflective cross on both the back and front flashed above him as he turned to look at the new arrival. "You too." He added. "All you people are supposed to be up top."

  "Weell..." Charlie drawled, as he held the leather blackjack against his back, "...we chartered this bus and we thought we’d like to stay together."

  "Ya can't." Gus looked down at him. "Everybody's supposed to go up to the passenger decks during the voyage. Next thing I know ya'all will be smok'in and throw'in butts out the windows. Ya got to go up top."

  "Okay." Charlie answered reasonably. "Let me tell them."

  Gus took a few steps up the aisle as Charlie climbed the stairs behind him and, as Charlie reached the level floor of the bus and spoke, "listen up folks...." Gus turned to face the offending passengers, adding his malevolent stare to Charlie's words. He never heard or felt the leather blackjack whistle through the air to crash against the side of his head.

  "Cut in behind that gasoline truck." Beth urged as Chris was about to walk on past its gigantic bulk.

  "Okay." Chris slid behind it, the flat end of the chartered bus rising up in front of him.

  "That's our bus." Beth said cheerfully as Charlie climbed down from the doorway, his hands locked about the limp wrists of a man dressed in the reflective suit of a ferry employee.

  "Uncle Charlie!" Chris screamed. Both of them standing rigid looking at each other for a long moment, Charlie still holding the upper body of the deck hand, Chris halfway around the rear of the bus.

  This can't be happening. Chris thought. His Uncle Charlie was definitely part of it. He knew that for certain. This had to be a trap!

  He twisted around, pushing against the rear of the bus for leverage. "Run!" He screamed at Carman and Jon who were only inches behind him. He dodged around them, almost running directly into his Aunt. She reached for him and he stiff armed her in the stomach and dropped to his knees, pivoting and ro
lling away from her grasp. Then he was under the bulk of the gasoline tanker, its rounded belly rising up on either side above him. He skittered all the way under, turning as he reached the other side.

  His Aunt was running away from him, down the car deck and towards the interior of the ship. WHAM, he whacked his head against a maze of valves above him, knocking him back down to his knees.

  Carman and Jon appeared around the end of the tanker, breathless and bewildered. He reached up and grabbed one of the valves, pulling himself out from under the trailer. Men's voices, hoarse shouting, erupted within the closed confines of the hold.

  Chris turned and ran towards his friends. "What’s going on?" Carman yelled as he reached them.

  "My Uncle is here! It’s got to be a trick. Run!" He grabbed Carman's arm pulling her around with him. "Get back upstairs!"

  Feet pounded on the metal dock plates as the bus unloaded, men in business suits, others in blue jeans leapt off the bus. Women in expensive skirts or masculine suits of black and blue, crowded in with them. Jonathan Whitmore held up the rush for a moment as he lumbered down the steps. The aisle between the bus and the refrigerated trailer was packed with a hoard of humanity rushing towards the rear.

  "Run!" Chris yelled again. He was ahead of Carman and Jon, his smaller body allowing him to dodge and turn faster than his larger companions. Still, the metal floor was slick with drips of oil and grease and as he turned into another aisle, he almost slid entirely under the steel bumper of a tractor-trailer. Quickly he pulled himself back up. Behind him he could hear Carman's tortured gasps as she dodged between and around the sheer sides of the parked trucks. Each aisle was a long steel wall of multi-coloured metal. Each trailer fifty-three feet long, with the tractor beyond that. Each turn they made committed them to another endless corridor. The stairway had to be close.

  Beth ran like she had never run before. Every once of energy committed to pushing herself faster and faster. She sprinted straight down the aisle, the Tilden Rental truck visible only yards ahead of her. She had to let it know the boy was here. The place where it usually resided within her was only a warm darkness, no communication, only commitment.

  The roll up tailgate was unlocked and with a grunt she heaved up on the latch. Sharon whipped her head around as Beth threw open the door. Beth could feel its questioning presence within her.

  Then she was once again part of it.

  His mind was whirling, cataloguing pictures, trying to determine a method of attacking the hordes behind him.

  He would do it on the stairs. He would PULVERISE them on the stairs!

  He was almost there. One more row. He careened off the back of a flatbed truck carrying a load of cut lumber. The rough ends tearing through his nylon windbreaker and T-shirt, burning the skin of his shoulder. The dark red door leading to the stairway was ahead of him. A green sign overhead indicating the stairwell to the passenger decks. He twisted his head, looking for Carman and Jon. They were right behind him, Carman pushing off the rear of the lumber truck with one hand...

  It came without warning. One moment he was sprinting alongside the flatbed trailer - the next he was crushed. Over-whelmed. Incapable of thought or coordination. Robbed of his vision and senses.

  It erupted within his brain like flowering explosion. His eyes wide with pain and shock he tripped and skidded along the deck. Before him flowed an inescapable torrent of visions. Anything and everything that he had researched poured through his brain, flooding his faculties, incapacitating his motor-reflexes. His Optic Centre was flooded with torrents of pictures, graphs, texts, indexes, volumes upon volumes - so much information that his vision was overwhelmed, lost within the rush of data. He pressed his hands over his eyes, knowing he could no longer see anyway and struggled to get to his feet.

  "Chris!" He heard Carman scream close by his ear. Then he felt hands yank at his arms, hauling him across the cold metal plates. A cacophony of voices exploded behind him. Moments later dozens of hands were pulling and tearing at his body. Carman screamed again. This time in pain and terror. Men's voices shouted, reverberating off the surrounding metal.

  He was being dragged, his feet flopping uselessly behind him. Never had it been so strong. He was incapable of resisting. His own thoughts lost, torn away from his control in the torrent of information pouring through his brain.

  There was a rolling crash. Metal against wood. Dimly he was aware he was still on the ship. The smell of the ocean, the vibration of the engines against his knees as several hands held him upright. It was unrelenting. Sucking his brain dry of facts and figures at such a rate his own consciousness was unable to break through. Total overload. He felt himself being hoisted into the air and a moment later dropped onto a hard floor. He scrabbled at it with his figures. A wooden floor, different than the ship. Hands pushed at his body. Pushing him across its surface. Then the rolling crash repeated itself. He was in something.

  He rolled onto his back and let it finish him. He had no way to resist.

  TWELVE - FIVE

  "Chris..." the whispered voice pushed through the blackness, warm breath, hot against his cheek. There was a terrible weight on his chest. Heavy and warm. "Chris..." The voice repeated urgently. A voice from his past.

  It was over. Total darkness where before there had been a fever of light, an uncontrollable blaze of images. Now there was nothing but the living weight above him, pressed tight all over his body. He tried to move away, but even his hands seemed to be bound around it, pulling it to him. Slowly he opened his eyes. Blackness. Thick with heavy moisture. Long hair, silky across his face and falling into his mouth.

  "Chris..." The soft voice spoke again. His mother's voice. He felt her breath on his cheek and against his lips. She was there with him. Entrapped, cocooned within a single heavy hood.

  "Mom!" He whispered, hardly able to draw a breath with her weight on his chest.

  "Chris...Oh Chris..." He felt her lips press down against his face, kissing him through the mat of her hair spread across his skin. "Chris, what have they done to you?"

  "I don't know..." He tried to comprehend his surroundings. His mother was bound securely to him, her arms pinned under his back, with his own hands bound behind her waist. Even his legs and neck seemed to be attached to her, the smooth weight of her muscled thighs tight against his calves and her shoulders bound tightly against his own. "Where are we?"

  "Oh, Chris..." He felt her nuzzle him once more. "Are you all right?"

  "Yeah, I think so. But I can't move."

  He felt her move above him. "They tied us together so you couldn't do anything."

  He understood. Yes, he certainly could not do anything. He couldn't see anything to change and even if he could, it would be only his mother's face. "Where are they?"

  "I don't know. I think they all went somewhere else on the ship. I heard your Uncle Charlie telling a whole crowd of people to go back upstairs."

  "Mom!" Chris gasped, the pressure was terrible. "See if you can roll off me a bit. "I can’t breathe."

  "I tried earlier, but I couldn't roll you over."

  "I can't breathe..." He gasped again.

  "Okay, move with me." He felt his mother move her weight. "I’m going to try and roll over to my left. Okay?"

  He heard her draw breath and as her muscles tensed, he pushed with right leg and foot as best as he could and together their weight shifted, lying side by side on the wooden floor, his forearm trapped painfully underneath her hip.

  He sucked in a lung-full of heavy air. Chocking as some of his mother's long hair entered his throat. "Mom, there’s not enough air in here."

  "Breathe slowly Chris. Just breathe slowly and we’ll be fine. It’s a canvas bag. There should be enough air coming in through the pores."

  "What are they going to do with us?" Chris asked as he attempted to slow his breathing rate.

  "I don't know. It’s you they want, not me. I’ve been in the hospital for almost a week and they didn't bother me there. In fact
, your Aunt was quite interested in my well-being."

  "Probably, because she wanted to use you to get me."

  "Yes, probably."

  "But you knew I couldn't come back to Detroit."

  "Yes, I know. But it didn't work. It’s here, right beside us in this truck."

  "Oh, no!" Chris moaned.

  "I don’t think it means you any harm. Apparently, you are quite important to its needs."

  "How did it ever leave Detroit? I figured that it would have conscripted a whole bunch of people to its cause by now and it wouldn’t be able to leave them behind. They would be free and rational without its control. How did it manage to travel here?"

  "It came on the same plane we did."

  "Oh God, I’ve been so stupid. I thought this was a sure way of getting you away from it."

  The back door of the truck rolled up with a crash and at least two people climbed in, closing the door behind them.

  "Is he awake yet?" His Uncle asked from beyond the hood.

  "Yes." His mother answered. "But, he’s still quite shaken. We can't breathe in here properly."

  "It’ll only be another few minutes. Well, Chris..." He continued "...you certainly have taken us for a merry chase across the country."

  "I never wanted to." He answered weakly.

  "No, probably not." He felt his Uncle's strong hands checking the handcuffs at his wrists, locked behind his mother's back. "But, it’ll all be over soon. We’ve decided that a more suitable candidate is available to replace you."

  "What!"

  "Not to worry." His Uncle was unwrapping the tape binding his legs to his mother's, the sticky plastic pulling at the material of his jeans. "You shouldn't feel a thing and then afterwards you can happily go on with being a happy twelve-year-old with a hell of a memory for facts and figures."

  "But, how can you replace me?"

  "It can do anything it wants. But apparently was not prepared for the high level of independence you exhibited."

  "But why didn't it just leave me alone and build another one of me a long time ago?"