The Forbidden Fortress

by Diana Peterfreund

  “Sam!” he called. “Good evening. And you brought the children!”

  Of course he did. That’s why there were five empty chairs at the table.

  The man waved to us. “Hello, kids. I’m Anton Everett, vice president of sustainable development here at Guidant.”

  “Hi,” we all said, looking up. I didn’t know if Guidant had a basketball team, but if it did, he’d definitely play center. He even towered over Dad.

  “And I’m pleased to introduce you to Guidant’s CEO, Elana Mero.”

  I’d seen her picture before, of course. Elana Mero was in the news easily as often as other tech superstars like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg. She was definitely older than my mom, but not quite as old as my grandparents. Her hair was pale, and cut in a short and sleek style, and she wore a simple white linen suit jacket with a matching skirt and no jewelry. As she extended her hand to shake my father’s, her eyes were on us.

  “This must be Gillian,” she said, nodding at me. “And there’s Eric, so you must be Howard, and that makes you Savannah. What an absolute pleasure. I would have recognized you anywhere from your photo in the book. But where is Nate?” she asked in dismay. “I was hoping to get a chance to meet him as well.”

  “He had a college visit,” Savannah volunteered.

  “I mentioned that Nate Noland left the campus, Elana,” Dani volunteered.

  “Ah.” She frowned. “What a pity. When I was forced to skip your visit with the engineers this afternoon, I didn’t realize that would be my only chance to hear his version of events. But please, make yourselves comfortable.” She gestured to the chairs and we sat.

  After we ordered drinks and appetizers from the tablet, Elana began asking us questions about our trip to Omega City. She wanted a full account of Eric’s and my scuba-diving trip through underwater parking garages and up elevator shafts. She marveled at Howard’s presence of mind to use an emergency flare to temporarily blind the people chasing us, and she was wild to hear how Savannah managed to navigate the flooded chambers after her arm had been broken in a fall from a catwalk.

  A robot came with food and drink as Savannah was relating the story of getting trapped in a room while the floodwaters came in.

  “I was all turned around, and separated from Gillian. It was dark and I couldn’t find my way out, and didn’t know if I’d be able to swim to the exit with my arm. There was nothing but a tiny pocket of air on the ceiling.” She smiled at me across the table. “But Gillian found me. She convinced me that if we just got out into the hall, the current would carry us to the stairwell where the boys were waiting. She saved my life.”

  The adults at the table all looked at me, and I stared into my soup.

  “Amazing,” said Anton. “Your children are truly extraordinary, Dr. Seagret.”

  I felt my cheeks heating. None of us really knew what to say. Eric was the first to get it together. “Thank you. And we . . . we really love this campus. The self-driving cars are so cool. And the robots, and the smart courts . . .”

  “We think of the campus as a giant laboratory,” said Anton. “We aim to provide not just a technologically advanced way of life here, but a sustainable one, too. We’re striving for a zero-carbon output. Our homes and buildings are all certified green, and we use water reclamation and solar and wind power wherever we can.”

  “Anton’s special field of development is environmental engineering,” Elana explained. “He’s trying to save the planet.”

  “I’m trying to save humanity,” Anton corrected. “The planet will go on. I’m not sure about humans, if we don’t get our act together.”

  “That was one of Dr. Underberg’s big fears, wasn’t it, Dr. Seagret?” asked Dani. “That humans would cause their own destruction?”

  “It was,” Dad said, putting down his fork. “It was like we were discussing this afternoon. He was very concerned about our survival as a species. I’m sure he’d love your Capella satellite.”

  “Ah,” said Elana, taking a sip of her wine. “One of my pet projects. Do you really think he’d like it? Sometimes I wonder. . . .”

  “Pretty big pet,” Eric mumbled under his breath. He was right. It must have cost a fortune to put a satellite into space.

  “Of course. Underberg was driven by a desire to help save humanity from disaster,” Dad said. “That’s why he built Omega City. That’s why he became involved with the Arkadia Group . . . those people who call themselves Shepherds.”

  “Hmm,” Elana said thoughtfully. “So if Dr. Underberg was a Shepherd, then they can’t be all bad.”

  “He said joining the Shepherds was one of the biggest regrets of his life!” I argued.

  “What else did he tell you about them?” Elana asked.

  I was taken aback. “Not much. He took off in a rocket right after.”

  “Pity.” She shrugged.

  “It is,” said Dad. “Since they’re so secretive, it’s difficult to do any research on them. The Arkadia Group was the only public face of their organization, and they seem to have disappeared years ago.”

  “Another pity,” Elana said, and actually looked sincere.

  I was baffled. I thought she’d read Dad’s book! “Don’t you think the Shepherds were evil?”

  “It’s complicated, honey,” said Dad. “Their aim is supposedly to protect humanity, like a shepherd protects a flock of sheep.”

  “Okay.” That was good, right? That was why Dr. Underberg had joined.

  “But they believe that, as a group, we’re unable to save ourselves without someone watching over us. That we’re sheep—too meek, too focused on our own little blades of grass to see the wolf in our midst.”

  “There’s a lot of value to that argument,” said Anton. “Environmental studies look pretty grim these days. Climate change has reached a tipping point, ocean life is dying off at a huge rate—we’re heading toward a catastrophe, and that’s not even including the type of danger the Capella project is trying to help us avoid.”

  I bit my lip. This was a pretty serious conversation for dinner. Dani looked nervously from Anton to us, as if worried he’d be giving us kids nightmares or something. Savannah had already checked out. She was eating impossibly tiny bites of her eggplant. I guess saying she was a vegetarian was easier than actually eating like one.

  “And there doesn’t even have to be a single cause,” Anton said. “There have been several great extinctions in the history of life on this planet, and we know of only one that was definitely caused by a cosmic event—an asteroid striking Earth. And despite what you see in movies, we’ve got no plans to help us survive such a horrible future.”

  I shivered. Suddenly, I wasn’t so hungry anymore. “Well, there’s Omega City.”

  Dani shook her head. “It was a good idea, but it’s gone.”

  “But Fiona and the Shepherds . . .” Eric looked as confused as I felt. “They were the ones who tried to destroy Dr. Underberg and discredit my father.”

  “That doesn’t mean they’re wrong about the Earth,” Anton argued.

  I caught myself shaking my head. No! They couldn’t be right. If they were right, it meant Dr. Underberg was wrong.

  Except Dr. Underberg had been a Shepherd once, too.

  My head started to hurt. So the Shepherds were right, but they were evil, and Dr. Underberg was right, but he’d been wrong to be a Shepherd. . . .

  “The problem,” said Howard slowly, “is that people aren’t sheep.”

  “Exactly,” said Dad. “We aren’t sheep, and we shouldn’t be treated like we can’t make our own choices.”

  “What would you rather be?” asked Anton. “A live sheep, or a dead lone wolf?”

  Savannah raised her hand. “I just want to be a person.”

  “If the human race is to survive, we have to give it as many places to do it as possible. We should have colonies in space, on the moon, on Mars.”

  “Yes,” Howard agreed, nodding wildly. “I’d love to go to Mars.”

>   “Mars isn’t quite ready for you, Howard,” Dani said.

  “Mars isn’t ready for anyone,” Elana said. “That’s the problem. And unless the people on this planet start taking the threats to our survival seriously, we’ll be the ones going down with the ship.”

  “You mean from an asteroid?” I asked. “One of those extinction-level things?”

  “Yes,” said Elana. “Could happen any moment, with little or no warning. And what do you think would happen then, Gillian? We’d have nowhere to run to.”

  Not even Omega City.

  “Isn’t it sad,” mused Anton, “that it would take such a sensational event to wake humanity up to its own fragility? When the scary truth is, we’re already in the middle of a great extinction.”

  “We are?” asked Eric.

  Elana raised her hand in defense. “Please, Anton, not another dinner discussing colony collapse disorder.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Dani and Elana sighed in unison. “It’s bees,” Dani said. “There’s a major, worldwide problem with bee populations right now.”

  “And no one knows what is causing it,” Anton said. “Pesticides? Cell phones? Sunspots?”

  “I think it’s Wi-Fi,” my father said. “I actually teach a section on this in my seminar Top Ten Mysteries of the Aughts.”

  “All we know is bees are leaving the hive and not coming back. When bee colonies collapse, it has major ramifications on our food-supply chain. This is what I’m saying. The population at large does not realize how delicate our entire system is. How one tiny problem, as minuscule as a bug, could send the whole thing crashing down.”

  “Don’t worry, Anton. For now, the bugs are under control.” She forced a smile as Anton sat back in his seat, chastened; then she turned back to us. “Tell me about your day. Where did you go on campus after the tour?”

  “We went to Eureka Cove,” Eric said. “We took out a powerboat to go tubing.”

  “Oh, how fun,” said Elana. “It’s been quite a while since I got a chance to go out on the water. The weather was beautiful for it today, wasn’t it?” As she spoke, the robots entered again to clear our plates and bring in our main dishes.

  “Yeah,” Eric agreed. “Though I have to tell you, the self-driving boats don’t work quite as well as the cars.”

  “No, that’s true,” said Elana. “It’s an ongoing problem. See, with cars you have things like lanes and brakes. Boats are much more complicated to program.”

  “It also kept steering us too far away from the docks and then cutting off,” Savannah said. “Why would it steer toward the proximity limit or whatever if it’s not supposed to go that way?”

  Elana frowned. “It’s not supposed to do that. How odd. Are you sure you didn’t command it to steer in that direction?”

  I looked down as the robot placed a big plate of pasta in front of me. “We might have,” I mumbled to the pasta. “We were talking about radio stations, and I think it was trying to steer us to the radio station on the island.”

  “No.” Elana dismissed that and took a sip of her wine. “The boats are only programmed to direct you to accessible locations. And anyway, that’s just a cell tower relay on the island, not a radio station.”

  “Nothing on the island was even marked on the map,” Eric pointed out.

  “That’s because there is nothing on the island,” Elana said.

  “I saw buildings,” I blurted. “The tops of ones, anyway.”

  “Right,” Elana said. “I should have clarified. There’s nothing occupied there anymore. At one time, we used the property for some of our agricultural projects, but it became too difficult to maintain, especially once we committed to our green energy policy. We moved everything back to the mainland.”

  “So if there isn’t a radio station on the island,” Howard began, “then where are the broadcasts coming from?”

  I kicked him under the table, as if that had ever done any good.

  “What broadcasts?” Elana asked.

  “The numbers station.”

  All three Guidant employees stared at Howard, bewildered.

  “A numbers station?” Dani asked, amused. “Delivering code in the midst of the biggest data encryption company in the world? That sounds . . . quaint.”

  “You’ll have to forgive us,” said Dad. “You know my background is in twentieth-century spying techniques. I’ve been telling Howard here all about the use of shortwave, coded radio stations in Europe during the Cold War. It’s a new hobby of ours.”

  Yes, a very new hobby. But hopefully Howard wouldn’t bring up the code book. It was clear Dad wasn’t ready to mention it to anyone else.

  “Ah,” said Elana, shrugging. “Well, if there’s a radio station broadcasting nearby, this is the first I’ve heard of it. Maybe it’s a side project with some of our engineers. They’re always getting up to something. Last year they built a robot that could toss a Frisbee and tried to get it on our intramural Ultimate team.”

  “We actually had to make it an official company policy that all sports team members were made of fifty-one percent human material.” Dani laughed, and the tension was broken.

  As dessert and coffee were served, the conversation turned back to Omega City, and our adventures there. “It all seems so extraordinary,” Elana said. “Who knows what we might have discovered if it weren’t for Fiona and her dynamite?”

  “It was mostly ruins,” Eric said. “A lot of run-down buildings.”

  “And working rocket ships,” added Dani. “And batteries. And utility suits.”

  “Treasures don’t have to come in giant packages, Eric,” said Elana. “Trust me, I made my fortune in microchips. Which leads me to my next question. You see, I’ve read your book very carefully, Dr. Seagret. All your books, actually. And so I have a favor to ask.”

  I exchanged glances with Eric. Here it was. She wanted the battery, just like he’d thought.

  But I was wrong.

  “I like people with vision,” said Elana, “and you have it. You, and your lovely family. How would you like to come work for Guidant?”

  11

  SAVVY SECRETS

  MY HEAD POPPED UP, AND I ALMOST CHOKED ON MY MARASCHINO cherry.

  “You have a place for a history professor?” Dad asked, chuckling.

  “How can we engineer the future without understanding the past?” Elana said. “Think about it. You could teach classes and research your next book—this thing about the Shepherds you mentioned. It would come with a salary commensurate to your experience in academia, as well as a full benefits package and, of course, our standard invitation to live on campus.”

  Dad dropped his spoon into his tea.

  “I . . . I’ll have to think it over.”

  “Of course. We can present you with a formal offer in the morning.”

  Eric and I stared at each other in shock. A full-time job? And here at Guidant, where everything was robots and cars and cool, self-driving boats? Even my brother had to agree that was way better than Idaho.

  Though it didn’t mean we’d be able to come along. Mom and Dad were supposed to split custody of us. Dad had us last year, so Mom was supposed to have us this year. And that probably meant we were going to Idaho, whether we liked it or not.

  “The children can attend our schools here. We have a wonderful program. Very self-guided, very flexible, to give them a chance to pursue their passions.” She looked at Eric and me. “They’re such bright, curious kids. I think they’d really thrive with our innovative learning techniques.”

  “Well,” Dad said, “I’m not sure if—”

  If we’d even be in the state.

  “You see, my ex-wife is supposed to have custody of the children this coming fall,” he finished.

  “Yeah,” I grumbled. “In Idaho.” Hard to practice “innovative learning techniques” when you bounced back and forth between parents every other year.

  “Oh, dear,” said Elana as she scooped up som
e ice cream. “Idaho is so cold. Trust me, Gillian, Eureka Cove is a much more comfortable choice.”

  I shook my head. If only it were one I got to make.

  AFTER DINNER, ELANA wanted to take Dad, me, and Eric on a quick tour of the campus in case we moved here. Eric seemed fine with the idea, which I didn’t understand, seeing as how he’d been totally in support of Mom’s Idaho plan.

  “What does it matter?” I grumbled to him as I watched one driverless car take Savannah and Howard back to the guest house where we were staying. “If we’re not even going to be here.”

  “Cheer up, Gills,” Eric shot back. “I don’t think the Earth is about to be destroyed by a comet quite yet.”

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it,” I said as the next car arrived for us. I climbed in the backseat with him, while Elana and Dad took the front. “I’m talking about us living with Mom next year.”

  “This isn’t just about next year, though,” Eric said. “This could be Dad’s whole future. I wouldn’t mind spending every other year here. And summers, and vacations . . .” He gazed out the window happily. I’m sure he was already imagining a boat in the cove with his name on it.

  But I couldn’t get excited. Eureka Cove was awesome, but bouncing back and forth between here and Idaho like a pair of Ping-Pong balls? When would I get to see Savannah?

  These thoughts filled my brain as Elana showed us the schools and the shopping district. Finally, we arrived at the staff residences and the car pulled up to a brightly lit home on the first street.

  “Here we are!” Elana announced, and we disembarked. Above us, the midnight-blue sky twinkled with distant stars as a breeze wafted gently through the manicured trees flanking the front stoop.

  “You leave the lights on in an empty house?” Eric asked. “I thought you guys were into saving energy.”

  “I had them turned on before we arrived,” she answered, and pointed toward the roof. “And look: solar panels. The power you see comes from renewable resources like solar. But thanks for keeping me honest, Eric.”