The Fortress of Clouds
Micreants and Miracles Book One
By J.A.J. Peters
Copyright 2011 J.A.J. Peters
Smashwords Edition
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Chapter One: We Have It
Los Angeles, 2037
The elevator doors glided shut and the clatter and hustle of the lobby shrank away. Inside the little elevator (probably the only thing in the towering crystal pyramid that could be called “little”), the two men were blasted with jets of icy air. And yet they were sweating. Mouths dried up. Feet tapped involuntarily. Neither of them spoke. The sun coming through the building was refracted into infinite lines and webs. Outside, beyond the corporate boundary, waves of heat were shimmering above the city. Like it was a mirage. Like it was boiling.
One of the men bit his lip. The other traced the buttons on the elevator control panel with his finger. It was good news, obviously, but no one ever knew how the boss would react. This was not “your car is ready” news. This was not “the Commissioner wants to talk about payments” news. This was not even “he’s been disposed of like you asked” news.
This was the news everyone had been waiting for.
It felt like they were being pushed upwards on a cushion of air. The elevator was a glass cube, almost invisible but for the guts of cogs and wires hanging below the floor. To the people scurrying down in the lobby, it would look as if the two men had been summoned to heaven.
One of them cleared his throat and then they both turned around to look for distraction in the city spread out behind them. The mayhem of Los Angeles was beginning its evening blush. Rush hour traffic had solidified into immovable lines. In the distance, the skyscrapers of the downtown core were dusty fingers of steel poking through the yellow smog.
Like all of the boss’s employees, the two men were dressed in silver uniforms halfway between business suits and space suits. The two of them were almost indistinguishable.
Finally, one of them spoke.
“Pretty cool, huh?”
“What?” said his partner. “Yeah, I guess.”
“He’s gonna love this.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, who woulda thought we’d get to tell him, to--you know--to be the ones to do it.”
“Right.”
This was the news the inner circle had always hoped for. Because, above all, they wanted the boss to be happy. Making money for him was easy. But no one had found a way to unburden his sighs, to untangle his neuroses, to make him smile. They knew he’d lost something valuable years ago. The weird story about the woman in the jungle, about some genetic code thing, was whispered in the staff room.
The elevator slowed as it entered the final floor of the building. The doors swept open and the two men hesitated before stepping forward into the office. Violins filled the air like locusts. The furniture was warm brown wood. Deep, silent carpet swallowed their footsteps. The room felt more like an old bookstore than the office of the country’s most powerful individual.
“What do you two idiots want?” said the boss without turning around. He was sitting in his glossy black leather chair in front of the huge window, watching the Pacific Ocean like it was reeling off the latest stock prices. Hanging in the air on either side of him were holographic projections of news headlines, market numbers, and surveillance camera feeds. On the corner of the desk sat a giant orchid plant, its vines wrapped around a gnarled and disfigured trunk. It was like the perfect flowers were strangling a monstrous, disfigured arm. Fist-sized white blossoms smiled and snarled down at the two men.
“Ahem. Sir, we . . .” the tall one began.
“What?” said the boss. “What is it?”
“Well, we, uh . . .” said the short one.
“Tell you what,” said the boss, still watching the waves. “On the count of three you can both say it together. Ready? One, two, thr--”
“We have it,” said the two men.
The boss swiveled around. He looked confused. “Say that again?”
“The code,” said the tall man.
“We have it,” added the short one.
“You’re sure now?” said the boss. “Don’t mess with me here.”
“We got it. A positive ID came through about thirty minutes ago. The intelligence guys told us to come tell you.”
The boss exhaled and looked down at his desk. He pressed a button. The holographic projections disappeared and the violins ceased. His index fingers tapped on the wood. Then he started picking at one of his fingernails. Minutes passed.
“Sir?”
“Shut up. I heard you.” The boss looked up at the orchid blossoms. They were swaying slightly, the vibrations of his finger tapping making them look like perfect little ballet dancers. “Do you two fools know the significance of this?”
“Yeah,” said the tall one. “It’s really important. You’ve been looking for this thing for, what, like over ten years.”
“Right,” said the boss. He reached up and pinched off one of the orchid blossoms with his thumb and index finger. It sat in his open hand like a monstrous, angelic spider. “No, I mean do you know what it is?”
“It’s that genetic code thing you’ve been looking for, right?” said the short man. “The thing that woman stole from you a long time ago.”
“Yes, that’s what we’re talking about. But do either of you know exactly what this thing is? What it can do . . . what it can do for me?”
Both men furrowed their brows. They shook their heads in perfect synchronicity.
“Good,” said the boss. “It’s best that way. Okay then, bring it to me. In my office within the hour.”
“Right,” said the tall man. “We’ll send a car to pick her up and we’ll bring her right--”
“Her?” said the boss. “What are you talking about her? You said we had the code.”
“Yeah, that’s what intelligence found,” said the short man. “The woman and her kids. She has the code, right? I thought that’s what you wanted to--”
“You two are such utter and complete . . . Just because you found her doesn’t mean you found it. Okay, you listen to me and you listen good. You go get her. But when you find her, I want you to go through everything she owns. Bring anything that looks like it belongs to me. Understand?”
“Sure, no problem,” said the short man.
“But what are we looking for exactly?” asked the tall man.
“Shut up,” said the short one.
“Look,” said the boss, massaging his scalp with both hands. “Just take everything electronic, okay? Mobiles, webglasses, tablets, whatever. She’s probably living in a filthy hovel. My property should be obvious.”
“Right,” said the two men, and then they both hurried out of the office.
The boss turned back to the window behind his desk and resumed his contemplation of the ocean. The waves were tiny white lines rippling towards shore. Peaceful and perfect. The frustration drained from his face and he was expressionless and lost in thought for a minute or so. His mouth hung open as if he had lost control of his facial muscles. He looked down at the orchid blossom still in his hand, feeling its almost total absence of mass. “Mine,” he said quietly. And then he crushed the flower into a sticky ball in his palm. A sour, almost rotten, perfume bled into the air. “It’s mine.”
Chapter Two: The Nastiness
Ben was halfway up the flight of stairs when the pressure hit him. His eyes struggled to focus on the chipped and bubbling concrete. A wave of confusion and anger clouded his brain and collapsed his lungs. He was too old for this game. The codenames, the disguises, the guns. It was getting harder and harder to play the role, to be the person they wanted him to be. Years ago, hunting down the bad guys had been fun. But he’d been a kid then.
He stopped just before the landing and wiped the sweaty mess of brown hair from his face. This was going be the last time, he told himself. The crooks were somewhere above him, his partner somewhere below. He closed his eyes and felt the chill of the cement stairwell wash over him. Once more. You can do this. Breathe. You know who you really are. Let the story come back . . .
He remembered he was Jeremy Finch. Though that name wouldn’t mean much to anyone, since he changed it so often, since he didn’t really exist in the way that normal people do. Only a handful of people knew him, and even they didn’t really know him. One of these days he was going to turn his back on this stupid cops and robbers crap.
When they called on the secret pen phone a few days ago, it was the usual instructions. Meet your partner at this place at this time. And we need it done yesterday. No thanks for saving our asses again. They never told Jeremy his partner’s real name. Jeremy didn’t want to know. Like brothers, they needed each other and they tolerated each other. The same partner, the same crooks. How many times had they taken care of the AH gang? Jeremy had lost track. It was the exact same number as the number of prisons those two underhanded villains had sprung. Miscreants, that was what his mother used to call people like the AH gang.
After gleaning tips from the usual suspects and contacts (a little blackmail, a little bribery), after countless dead-ends and near misses, a city-wide manhunt had led Jeremy and his partner to a dank and god-forsaken apartment building. AH was cornered. There would be no escape now.
Jeremy put his hand against the stairwell door and pushed. The groan of old metal betrayed his presence. A single drop of sweat inched down his forehead as he stepped forward. He swallowed and readjusted his grip on the gun.
The hallway in front of him was empty. And silence in the stairwell behind him. Where had his so-called “partner” gone? He’d been right behind Jeremy a few minutes ago as they ran up the stairs. What on earth was going on? Everyone--good guys and bad--had just disappeared into the dust.
Threadbare, sun-bleached carpet. Rotten walls flaking off drywall chips. Overhead, florescent tube lights buzzed and snapped, illuminating a mist of dust particles hanging in the air. Behind each door in the hallway was the pedestrian noise of people going about their business: pots clanging, TVs cheering, laughter, arguments. Completely unaware of the drama unfolding right under their noses. Jeremy pitied the nobodies that lived there.
The gun grew heavier as Jeremy inched step by step down the hall. The steel sweated in his hand. He felt completely exposed--AH could be behind any one of these doors, could leap out from anywhere, and in seconds it would all be over. And still no sign of his partner. Jeremy couldn’t count on him now. And then his stomach sank . . . maybe they had already got him. His finger danced on the trigger.
A door cracked behind him. He spun around and was only a millisecond away from firing before he saw that his would-be assailant was not a duo of gun-toting lunatics, but a barrel-shaped old woman in a faded brown dress. She held a hammer in one hand and a screwdriver in the other. Her bulbous feet were jammed into a pair of stained pink slippers. She looked at Jeremy holding the gun, screamed, and slammed the door.
“Leave me alone, you filthy wretches!” came a wail from behind the door.
It was like a bubble being burst. The woman’s scream made everything disappear. Jeremy dissolved back into Ben’s imagination. The silly game floated away. The crumbling apartment building became his again. Ben’s life, once again, was boring and pathetic.
Ben lowered the gun and sighed. It was only batcrap crazy Mrs. Brodsky, insane but mostly harmless.
But in the brief second when their gazes met, Ben saw Mrs. Brodsky’s eyes dart up to the ceiling above him. Before Ben could look up, they were on him, falling from above in shrieks, pinning him to the ground with knees and elbows. Ben struggled to get free. One of them stood on his arms and the other sat on his legs.
“Well, well, well. Look what we’ve caught here,” said the older one. “Jeremy Finch, a.k.a. Ben Graham. How nice to run into you. I’m sorry to have to do this, Ben, but you know the rules.” They both had their guns pointed at him. The smaller girl had green and red paint smeared over her face in odd tribal patterns. The elder wore purple swimming goggles and a blue wool ski hat. And both had the same sweep of dusty brown hair that united them all as siblings.
“You’re done, Benji,” said the younger one. Then she drenched him with her water gun. “Ha ha! I mean, how dumb can you guys be? What was that, like the millionth time we’ve won? Team AlisonHannah are, like, world champions.”
“Whatever. Just get off of me, Hannah,” muttered Ben. It probably was about the millionth time Alison and Hannah had won, not only in the current game of Spy Hunter 3000, but also in the Apartment Block Grand Prix, and the Abandoned Seventh Floor Scavenger Hunt. “I said, get off me. And I thought I told you to never call me Benji. I’m never playing this stupid game again.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. How ‘bout this: when you win, then you can call the shots, mmmkay? But that isn’t going to be for a long time, now is it? And why is it that when you and Thomas win, all of a sudden you like the games, but when we win, the games are boring? Huh?”
“They’re always stupid and boring, Hannah.” Alison helped Ben to his feet, but Ben didn’t think the gesture warranted a thank you. He had clearly been disadvantaged by being paired with his dripping-nose little brother.
“Well, maybe you should complain to the genius who thinks them up,” said Alison. “So where is that amazing partner of yours anyway?”
“I dunno,” said Ben as he wiped the water from his face. “He’s around here somewhere. Probably curled up with his math textbook or something.”
“Well, you’ve got to find him,” said Alison. “Mom would kill us if she came home and found us looking like this.”
Ben looked down at his soaking wet cowboy costume and felt silly and angry.
Behind Alison, Hannah was dancing to some imaginary victory song in her head. They really weren’t supposed to be running up and down the halls playing games, but as long as they were all back by the time their mom got home from work, what they did during their day was their own business. Or at least that was how the four of them explained it to themselves.
“How should I know where that idiot is?” said Ben. “Ten bucks he’s already wandered back home.”
“You were supposed to look after him, Ben. It’s your job to watch Thomas--you know how he always wanders off.”
“Why is it always my job, Alison?” Ben felt his voice rising. “When is it your turn?”
“We’re not going to fight about this now, Ben. We’ll discuss this later with Mom. But now, you need to find him. Mom’s going to be home any minute.”
“He said he was going back to the apartment.” It was a lie, but it would get Alison off his case. She was right, though. It was time to be getting back.
They walked down the hall, listening to the screaming, sing-song voices of various TV shows creeping out like poison gas from under each door. The apartment building contained at least a million old people who were apparently just watching TV while they waited around to die. “Euthanasia by voyeuristic entertainment,” their mother would say, always with a small smile and a shake of her head. There were no other children or families in the building, only these yellowing bags of bones who didn’t seem to care very much for the presence of children.
“It’s like they can’t handle the fact that they’re going to die,” Ben had once observed. “And seeing us just reminds them of how they wasted their lives.”
Their mother had given her usual stern warning. “You can never, ever, bother the elderly residents.”
“But, Mom, the fossils--”
“Ben, don’t call them that.”
“Yeah, but they make way more noise than we do, and when they actually do turn off their stupid soap operas and hear any noise coming from us, it’s like a nuclear bomb has gone off. So shouldn’t the foss--I mean the elderly residents--be as considerate of us as we’re expected to be of them?” Whenever Ben tried this sort of logic, their mother would do that closed-eye, finger against the temple thing.
But a few nights ago, after the landlord had pounded his fat fist on their apartment door, they had received the sternest and scariest lecture they had ever heard their mother deliver.
“Even though they are old and cruel, you must be nice to them. We cannot afford to be kicked out of this building. We are an inch--one inch--away from living down there on the streets, do you understand? All of you--look at me, Thomas--do you understand how serious this is?” None of them had been able to speak a word in defense. The memory of that talk ached like a punch in the gut.
TV applause crashed in waves from behind the apartment doors, which meant it was now almost six o’clock. Their mother would be waiting for them, asking them why their homework wasn’t finished, why the carpet wasn’t vacuumed, why the carrots weren’t peeled, why there was a new dent in the wall, why the place smelled like smoke.
Every evening was the same. Their mother would slam the door, run her hands through her oil-black hair, and let out a long, exhausted sigh. Then came the usual stuff about the nastiness. It was a gritty and cruel world, and the children were so lucky to be high above it all, “safe from that sucking whirlpool of anarchy.” Groceries would be plopped on the kitchen counter and a frigid glass of white wine would be downed before the day’s stories were fleshed out of her sighs. She had been mugged again. A bomb had exploded in her office building. She had seen a gunfight on the other side of the street. Gangs were roaming the streets, abducting children to work in slave labor camps, and to do other disgusting atrocities she would spare them from knowing about.
Once, she told them how she had been followed home by two men who obviously had her confused with someone else. “They trailed me for ten blocks, down alleys, in and out of buildings,” she said breathlessly before taking another slug of wine. “I waited in a restaurant washroom for twenty minutes--that’s why I’m so late--and they were still there when I came out. I finally lost them by jumping on a bus just as it was leaving.” The other three would listen with wide eyes to the nastiness stories. But something had recently changed in Ben. He couldn’t bring himself to believe her anymore. The stories were too much like movies to be true.
Just before they reached the stairwell door, Hannah skipping and whistling in front of Ben and Alison, a deep voice bellowed at them from behind the door of apartment 1214.
“You kids like giving old women heart attacks? Is that it, eh?” The door sprang open. Mrs. Brodsky reared up bear-like. She still clutched her intruder defense system: the hammer in one hand, the screwdriver in the other. “You listen here, you . . . you filthy parasites. I hear you laughing.” Bits of spit and food shot out of her mouth. “I’m going straight to Mr. Sanchez. You heard me, the landlord! And let me tell you little brats something. When he hears how you four little snots have been treating me, running around like this, giving me heart attacks, he’s going to throw the lot of you out onto the street. You’re not even supposed to be living here. This is a seniors building where civilized people can rest in peace.”
Ben was just about to tell the old hag where to go when Alison spoke up.
“Mrs. Brodsky,” said Alison, “we weren’t trying to frighten you. We’re sorry. We’ll try to be more quiet in the future.” Even though Alison was a year younger than Ben, she had always been calmer and more mature. Ben never saw her lose her temper like he did. There was never a molten aggression that overtook her. There were no dents in the walls put there by her fists.
“Well I don’t think that’s quite good enough, you disgusting urchin,” spat the old woman. Her eyes were blazing. “You dirty pests have bothered me long enough. End of the line.”
“Hey, don’t talk to her like that, you miserable cow,” yelled Ben. But Alison had him by the arm and was dragging him away down the hall.
“Just let it go, Ben. It’s not worth getting into a fight over,” said Alison. “She’s just a crazy old woman. Besides, we need to find Thomas.”
“Hey, little girl, I heard that!” yelled Mrs. Brodsky. “You’re just like your filthy mother, aren’t you? Well, let me tell you about your mother, little girl. I’m not done with you yet. You may think she’s all goodness and caring, but I’ve seen her. Dressing up in slimy outfits. I know what she’s up to. Filthy behavior. Maybe I should be calling the police instead of the landlord? What do you think about that? Maybe I should be telling them all about Nora Graham and how she has four kids crammed into a tiny apartment and how they never go to school?” Behind her, the TV spouted happy drivel, oblivious to the old woman’s spite.
“We’re home schooled, Mrs. Brodksy,” explained Alison. She was biting her lip.
“But your mother’s never home to teach you, so how can that be?” The old woman’s face blossomed into an evil smile.
“Mrs. Brodsky, our mother works very hard to be able to afford a place for us to live, and--”
“Yes, that’s all well and good, little girl. If you only knew what kind of person your mother really is, I see her--”
“Listen, old woman,” said Ben, “why don’t you just mind your own goddamned business, okay?” Ben couldn’t contain himself. His heart was burning. “Our mother can raise us however the hell she wants. So just stay out of it, you fat cow.” Ben stood there breathing hard, feeling his lungs rise and fall. His sisters looked at him as if he had just sprouted a second head.
“Ben, don’t . . .” squeaked Alison.
“What?” Ben stood defiant. Despite hating all the things their mother made them do each day--the chores, the cleaning, the cooking, the school work--he couldn’t listen to Mrs. Brodsky insult her.
Mrs. Brodsky was silent for a few seconds, but then a small smile curled the edge of her mouth. She walked over to the phone a few feet inside her apartment, picked it up, and dialed. She watched the children as she waited for an answer. The TV continued its laughtrack in the background.
“Yes, I would like to report a case of child neglect. Yes, that’s right. Four children being kept inside a small apartment like animals. And their mother hasn’t registered them with the Children’s Facilities. Her name? Nora Graham. About five foot eight. Black hair, glasses. It’s the Del Amo apartment building on Vistarosa, apartment number 1003. Yes, that’s right. No, thank you very much. I hope they manage to start again in one of those Pre-employment Centers.” She hung up the phone with precision.
Hannah broke free from Alison’s clutches, walked up to Mrs. Brodsky, and, without saying a word, squirted her right in the eye with the water gun.
“Eh! Get back here!” yelled Mrs. Brodsky. But the three of them were already galloping away down the hall. “You just wait!”
“Hannah, you shouldn’t have done that,” said Alison. “She can get us in a lot of trouble.”
“I don’t care,” said Hannah. “She deserved it.”
Ben saw Alison try to hide a small, impressed smile.
As they descended back down the stairs to their own floor where their mother would be angrily waiting, Ben let his sisters go on ahead. They hadn’t done their chores. Their homework had been left in a car crash on the kitchen table. And now there was the possibility of a police visit. Ben told himself he didn’t care. He tried not to think about it, tried to force it out of his brain.
He listened as the girls, now two flights below him, sang in unison as they skipped down the stairs.
Ya think ya got me,
But wait till ya see,
Ya ‘aint gonna win this girl,
She gonna take YOU for the whirl!
At the last rhyme they both shrieked in unison. Ben smiled to himself. He was proud his two sisters got along so well, in spite of their age difference: Alison was thirteen, and Hannah, along with her twin, Thomas, was eleven. Why did Thomas get on Ben’s nerves so easily? Maybe it was because Ben was an old fourteen and Thomas was a young eleven. Besides, Thomas was annoying to everyone. Their mother even had to calm the little turd down when he got going about some new piece of fascinating information he’d found in a book.
Ben lingered at the landing in the stairwell, scuffing his feet in the grime. He wasn’t ready to go back just yet. The window above him was high and he had to stand on his toes to see out. He squinted his eyes tightly, trying to make out someone, anyone, in the nearby apartment buildings. There had to be other kids out there.
Every year or two the family moved to a new apartment building, but they were all pretty much the same. Clotheslines hanging from balconies, stained walls, hallways that smelled like boiled fish. Each year their mother lost her job or found a better one in another town. She explained that there was no use in enrolling them in school, that they’d only have to move again.
Down on the street a line of scraggly palm trees poked picket fence-like into the distance. A sporadic flow of cars disappeared behind the nearby buildings like bugs scurrying through the bleached skeleton of a long dead beast. Overhead, a plane arced a dusty chalkline across the evening sky. The city moved like a clock’s gears. But no guns, no gangs, no boogeymen.
Ben couldn’t say what had planted the seed of doubt, but he now knew with certainty that their mother’s stories were one giant fib. The nastiness didn’t exist. When he was younger, he had always pictured it like smoke swirling around their building, some sort of scaly green monster that could seep in through the windows.
But as he watched the street below, the warnings returned. You cannot ever leave the building. Ben tried to make them stop, tried to tell himself he didn’t believe her anymore. You’ll be eaten up in seconds. He was too old for that stuff now. That kind of talk was for Thomas and Hannah. The nastiness is everywhere out there. Did she think she could just keep the four of them inside forever?
Her voice kept echoing in his head. There’s danger lurking on every street corner. I have to protect you the best I can. That’s what I was put on this planet to do. The four of you are all I’ve got. It was all made up. Ben knew she was lying to them. And it was time to find out for himself, to prove that she was tricking them. Tomorrow he would--
Alison’s voice shot up the stairwell in an insistent, shouted whisper. “Ben! Ben, get down here.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m coming.” Ben tore his gaze away from the scene outside and jogged down the stairs to where Alison was waiting. “Well, what’s the matter? Mom mad about our crappy homework again?”
“No, it’s Thomas--he’s gone!”
Chapter Three: One of These Days I’m Just Gonna Go
Alison’s eyes glowed with worry. There was no use asking her if she’d checked the whole apartment. It was so small a mouse couldn’t hide for more than a few seconds.
“Where was the last place you saw him, Ben?”
“He was in the lobby with us when we started the game, then, I, uh . . .”
“You mean you never saw him after the start of the game? You just left him behind?”
“Oh, come on, Al, it’s not that big of a--”
“Ben, you know you were supposed to keep an eye on him!”
One day, Ben was going to tie Thomas to the living room couch. How could he be responsible for that wandering fool? Their mother had once said with a laugh and a shake of her head that Thomas would follow a trail of crumbs to the very gates of hell.
“So I lost him. Who cares?” Ben said, and then immediately regretted his bravado. “Is Mom home?”
“Yeah.”
“Does she know he’s gone?”
“I don’t think she’s noticed. Look, you go find him and I’ll keep her distracted.”
“Right, I’ll retrace my steps and--” But Alison was already back inside the apartment.
“Ben and Thomas are just helping Mr. Sanchez fix his vacuum, Mom,” announced Alison. “They’ll be back in a sec.”
Ben ran back up to the twelfth floor where the game had ended. There was no one there, not even a peep from Mrs. Brodsky, who was probably back soaking up the cheap glamour of her TV. The eleventh. Nothing. Back to their own floor, the tenth. Nothing. Down through the floors: the ninth, the eighth, the abandoned seventh, the sixth, the fifth, all the way down to the lobby where the four of them had gathered at the start of the game, everyone in silly costumes except for Thomas, who, despite being Hannah’s eleven-year-old twin and the one who thought up all the games, refused to dress up in such a juvenile manner.
The lobby was as lifeless and dusty as all the other floors. The once-white floor was crisscrossed with scrapes and scratches brought into relief by the light of the setting sun. Del Amo Apartments 3876 Vistarosa Blvd was projected down on the floor in two-foot reversed shadow letters. Ben passed the bronze plaque that greeted everyone who entered the building. Built with Pride by the 15th Brigade of the National Restructuring Campaign of 2026. Putting America Back on its Feet. The hot emptiness pressed against him and made it almost difficult to breathe.
Thomas wasn’t there.
Ben put his hand against the glass and smeared an oily mess down the door, adding to their collection of greasy x-ray hand prints. Ben and Alison’s at the four foot level, Thomas and Hannah’s about eight inches further down. Outside, a man in shiny red pants pivoted down the sidewalk, his head submerged under giant webglasses. An old woman pushed a shopping cart brimming with empty bottles. Clumps of plastic garbage skipped by in the hot wind.
But no Thomas.
Had he left? Had Thomas seen something outside, and then . . . Maybe this was it. Maybe Thomas’s curiosity had at last got the better of him. Ben stood there and let it sink in. How would he explain this to their mother? Incomplete chores were one thing. Losing Thomas was a little different.
As Ben turned to leave, his eye was caught by a ring of darkness around the basement door. The door was ajar. And lying in the tiny splinter of light let in by the open door was Thomas’s green water gun. Ben stepped into the void and instinctively started waving his hands in front of him to bat away the cobwebs. Teetering piles of sagging boxes were piled to the roof, towering over him in the darkness.
“Thomas! Where are you? I know you’re in here somewhere.” Ben didn’t know for sure, but he didn’t want to deal with the thought of Thomas wandering out into the streets. “You’d better come out right now ‘cause you’re in big trouble!” No answer. Ben continued forward, just waiting to be enveloped in a big, sticky spider web. Further ahead, peeking out from behind a haphazard pile of moldy lumber, Ben glimpsed a mop of brown hair. A round face looked back at Ben.
“Shhhhh.” Thomas put his finger to his lips and motioned Ben over to where he had his head pressed against the wall. “Here, Ben, just be quiet. Listen to this.” Thomas pointed at the pipe in front of him. It was gray, ten inches in diameter, and stained with years of mineralization.
“My god, Thomas, you are in so much trouble. Do you know what I’m going to--”
“Shhh. Just listen.”
“Thomas, get back upstairs right now. Mom is going to murder you.”
But Thomas put his hand over his Ben’s mouth and pressed his head to the cool pipe. “Listen, Ben.”
“What? What is it?”
“God, just be quiet for one minute. Close your eyes. Listen.”
“I don’t hear anything, Thomas. Come on, we don’t have time for this.” Ben grabbed his brother by the shirt collar and tried to wrench him away.
“Shhh. Just wait, Ben,” Thomas pleaded in a whiny voice as he swatted Ben’s hand away. “There are voices down there.”
“No, I don’t hear anything, Thomas, and if you don’t come with me right now, I’m going to go get Mom myself and bring her down here to get you.”
Thomas stared at Ben and shook his head. “Ohmigod, Ben, you’re such a tool, why can’t you just listen and--” But Ben was already dragging Thomas back through the piles of boxes and garbage.
Minutes later, as they huffed their way back up the stairs, Thomas had already forgotten their argument, which was typical Thomas. The energy of the quest, the experiment, and the mystery overruled him.
“What do you think is down there, Ben? I think that big pipe carries water, coming up from the water mains to all the apartments.”
“Thomas, could you just shut up for one--”
“There has to be an access point somewhere. We should be able to find a way down somehow. And here’s the best part--you know how Mom tells us we can never leave the building when she’s not here? Well, she never said anything about going under it, did she, huh? Huh?”
Two more floors to go. The sky pulsed pink through the high window at the landing. Silver fingers of cloud wafted like tendrils of algae in a river.
“Sure, Thomas, whatever you want.” The last thing Ben needed was Thomas wound up on some sort of discovery mission. They had already found themselves enough trouble for one day. At the final landing before their floor, Ben watched the galaxy-like brown swirl of hair on the top of Thomas’s head as he sauntered uncaring up the final steps. Ben stopped. He needed a minute to himself to sort things out. Thomas was still blabbering, unaware Ben had let him go on ahead. For some reason, and he never really knew when these things happened--maybe it was an annoying brother, an insulting old woman, or the deep, empty pull of the evening sky out the window--a wall of fury rose in Ben. He kicked the wall as hard as he could. When he withdrew his foot, the wall bore the fruit of an orange-sized hole. He felt his chest heave in and out. Whatever it was he was feeling was better now.
As they hurried through the apartment door, they were immersed in an ocean of smells. There was the dusty whiff of old books read so many times that the words were at risk of coming unglued from the pages and flying out the window. There was the must of clothes continually being passed down, and some that seemed to fit them all simultaneously. There was a cabbagey odor of simple foods used in endless permutations, stretched and coaxed into culinary acrobatics. And slicing through everything was the acrid thread of foreignness their mother brought home with her each evening. Something like a mix of hairspray and car exhaust.
She didn’t even look up at them over her work papers. Walking behind her, Ben took quick notice of the black hair curling around her ears. Mrs. Brodsky’s phone call to the police came thundering back. Nora Graham. About five foot eight, black hair, glasses, four kids. His stomach sank. Should he just tell her right away they should be expecting a visit from the police?
Ben scuffed his shoes down the short hallway to the bedroom. Thomas followed dog-like and sat down on the opposite bed.
“Ben, what do you think those voices were? Do you think those kids live in our building? I thought we were the only kids here. I mean, at least that’s what Mom says. Do you think they live down there?”
“I really don’t care, Thomas,” said Ben. It was usually best to just let Thomas ask all his questions in one go, rather than trying to answer them one by one, since answering one would only lead to five more. Most of the time he didn’t even expect an answer. It was like he was thinking aloud and couldn’t stop the verbal diarrhea.
“We should go down there tomorrow after Mom leaves for work and figure out where they’re coming from. I mean, there hasta be some way down, some door, or maybe even a hidden tunnel. Wow. Cool.” It was perhaps Thomas’s ultimate fantasy, a true mystery right in their own boring building.
“Absolutely not,” said Ben.
“And why not?” Thomas stuck out his chin in self-importance.
“We got in enough trouble today as it is.”
“No we didn’t. When?”
“When you took off. Mrs. Brodsky got mad at us and called . . . the police.”
“Wow. You must’ve got her really mad. Why’d you do that? That was pretty dumb.”
“Yeah, thanks, Thomas. And thanks for disappearing.”
“I told you where I was going, but obviously you weren’t paying attention. I hate that silly detective game we always play.”
“But you invented that game.”
“So? That doesn’t mean that I enjoy playing it.”
“Well, I hate it too, you idiot.”
Ben shook his head at the invisible fate that had awarded him this fool for a brother.
Thomas started digging through his books, probably looking for a reference to some ancient underground civilization or trying to find the architectural plans for the building. Ben went to the window and looked down to the street below. Outside now the sun was setting and the orange glow was deepening into a tomato red. How many hours had he spent over the years just staring down into the city streets? And not once had he ever seen other kids out there. If Thomas had in fact heard voices down there . . .
The girls’ singing came warbling in from the kitchen.
Ya words are made of fluff
And I bout had enough
Of your cheatin heart
It’s gone too far
Yah! It’s gone too far
You know, one of these days
I’m just gonna go
Yah! You’ll never see me
Yah! You’ll never know
But just then there was another sound in their apartment. Rodent-like scratchings were coming from the other bedroom, their mother’s. It sounded like she was looking for something in her drawers. Sometimes Ben heard her leave in the middle of the night, only to have returned by morning. He never told the others about this, and now as he looked out over the evening settling like gauze over the city, he tried not to think about the garbage Mrs. Brodsky had said.
There was nowhere to hide at dinner.
“Well, Ben, I see that once again you have neglected your chores today,” their mother said.
“Care to tell me why?”
Ben elaborately transferred his potatoes from one side of the plate to the other. “I, uh . . . I dunno.”
“Pardon me?”
“I. Uh. Duuunnnooo.”
“Well, Ben, maybe I need to remind you that as the eldest of the family it is your responsibility to ensure that things get done while I’m at work.”
Ben avoided her eyes. “I just . . . I mean, what’s the point of all these chores, Mom? We do the same things every day.”
“Ben, this is what has to be done to make a family work, to make a household run. Life is a series of routines and unfortunately there’s very little we can do about it but try to enjoy the things that do matter in life.”
Ben could think of nothing to say to this, other than some remark about how well their family in fact worked. He decided to just stare at the wall.
“You need to do these things, Ben. We need you to do these things. It’s time you took some responsibility around here.”
Ben just looked at the large crack on the living room wall, watching it as if it were growing right in front of him. A calendar and a few photos had been placed over the crack in a feeble attempt to mask it. Their apartment had very few photos of their family, and only recent ones at that. But there were lots of photos of some rainforest in South America, where their mother had traveled before they were born. It was almost like she wanted to remember the jungle more than her own children. Most of them were framed, but some were held up with thumbtacks and tape. Dense, dark green forests and tall trees, with clouds of mist floating around high mountain peaks. One picture in particular had always fascinated Ben. It was taken looking up through the branches of a giant tree, but the contrast of the photo had been altered so that instead of the branches, the eye immediately saw the patterns of light filtering through from the sky above. If you squinted your eyes and let your mind try to find a pattern, giant shapes emerged. Thomas had once called one of these shapes a dodecahedrasomething.
Ben watched the others eat in silence, Thomas reading from a giant book, Hannah gyrating to the song in her head, Alison concentrating on eating in a civilized and proper manner. Their mother, having given up on grilling Ben, was lost in thought and staring out the window. Something was wrong with her. Maybe she’d been fired again. Maybe they’d have to move. Or maybe she’d already been visited by the police.
After washing the dishes, Hannah pestered their mother for a story.
“A story? Hannah, I think you’re getting too old for this.”
“Never!” yelled Hannah. Then she smiled and batted her eyelashes.
“Okay, okay, okay, Han. Let’s see . . . what would you like to hear about tonight, then?” Their mother collapsed onto the couch and motioned for Hannah to sit on her lap. “Ooo, someone’s growin’ up here. Aren’t you too big for stories?”
“Whatever,” said Hannah with a toss of her hand. “I wanna hear the one about kings and queens and jaguars and toads and talking birds.”
“They’re all about kings and queens and jaguars and toads and birds,” said Thomas as he rolled his eyes from over the pages of his book.
“Oh, be quiet, Thomas,” said Alison. “Here, Hannah, make room for me.” Alison squeezed in beside Hannah, testing the limits of the old green couch. Ben pretended not to care and sat down beside Thomas on the floor.
“Okay, Hannah, where did we leave off then?” their mother said while sighing through her smile. She looked tired.
“Well, The Queen, that would be me, ahem,” said Hannah, “was told by the mysterious magician that her kingdom was threatened by a giant toad and that she had to find the correct spell to put the toad to sleep before it would devour her.”
“Right. I remember now.” At this, their mother shifted uncomfortably and looked out the window. There was something not right with her. It was more than just being angry with Ben for not doing his chores. Something out there was distracting her. Maybe Mrs. Brodsky was right. Maybe there was something else going on in their mother’s life. She stared at the dark city outside. Her wine glass had been emptied twice already.
“Mom?”
“Well, Hannah, let’s see. With the toad fast approaching, Queen Ulbitza searched her entire kingdom for the spell. She asked all of her advisers, but none of them had heard of such a thing and no one knew what to do. She read all the books she could find on spells and toads, but there were no references anywhere to this queen-eating toad. The magician meanwhile warned her that the toad would arrive any day to eat the queen, and that he was the only one who could stop it.”
As she read, Ben watched her, looking for the clues to support the possibility that there was another woman beneath her maternal goodness. Her short black hair did look somehow too fashionable for a mother. She did seem to wear slightly revealing clothing. As Ben toyed with these ideas, she became foreign to him. There was an ulterior person in her, beyond what the four of them could see.
“Apparently the toad would stop at nothing until he devoured a queen, for you see that was the only thing he ever ate--he simply went from kingdom to kingdom gobbling up all the queens in the world. Queen Ulbitza became very worried and told the magician that she didn’t know what to do. ‘Well,’ the magician said, ‘I actually know how to rid you of this terrible pest and for a small favor I could make it go away.’ Queen Ulbitza inquired as to what this small favor might be. ‘I would require that you appoint me your Royal Director of Spells and Potions,’ the magician stated. ‘A small favor.’
“The queen agreed that this sounded fair, but she said that before she appointed him, she needed to be sure there actually was a giant toad and that the magician wasn’t just tricking her. ‘Of course, of course,’ the magician replied. ‘But, just so I know you are trustworthy, when the toad arrives I would ask that you appoint me this wonderful title before I cast the spell to make the toad go away. This seemed excessively convoluted to Queen Ulbitza--”
“What’s convoluted mean?” said Hannah.
“It means complex,” said Thomas from behind his book. “Like how your brain isn’t convoluted.”
“Thomas!” yelled their mother. “Be quiet.” Alison hurled a pillow at Thomas, and his book smacked him in the face. “Alison, calm down. Anyway, getting back to the story,” their mother continued with a sigh, “this seemed excessively convoluted to Queen Ulbitza, but she agreed to the magician’s conditions, so terrible was her fear of the queen-eating toad. So the very next day the toad lumbered up to the castle, burping and gurgling, nostrils flaring, just like the magician said it would. ‘Here it is your highness,’ the magician announced. ‘It’s coming to eat you right now--see how it has your scent? So you’d better make me your official Royal Director of Spells and Potions, and then I’ll cast the spell to protect you!’
“The queen hesitated. There seemed to be eye contact between the toad and the magician. He was giving it signals like a trained dog. ‘Right you are, magician,’ Queen Ulbitza declared in a loud voice. ‘I now dub thee Queen of the Kingdom.’ And before the magician could do anything, the toad devoured him up, burped, and was gone.”
Hannah snorted with laughter.
“Well, Hannah, what’s the moral of this story then?” their mother asked.
“Don’t mess with giant warty toads,” said Thomas.
“Shut up, Thomas,” said Hannah. “The moral of this story is, um, that you should never trust somebody selling the solution to a problem they’ve created.”
“Sure . . . that’ll work.” Their mother looked impressed. “I was thinking more along the lines of true royalty must be earned, but I like yours better. And that ends our story for tonight ladies and gentlemen.” She looked up at the clock. It was twelve minutes after nine. “Time for bed.”
At this, Ben decided to say something that he would later regret for a long time. Mrs. Brodsky’s insults had lodged in his head. He had decided that she knew something the kids didn’t. And now, watching their mother’s distracted glances out the window, Ben was convinced that she was leading some sort of double life. She could create story worlds for her kids, but she was lost in the real world outside.
“Pretty short story there, Mom,” said Ben. “Gotta say, not as spectacular as all the other ones.”
“Ben, please,” she said. “I’ve had a long day and I’m very tired. I’m sorry if the story isn’t up to our usual standards.” There had been a time when the kids used to actually dress up in costumes to act out the stories, when forests and castles would rise up like dust storms, but lately the stories had been getting shorter and shorter until they had become these miniature snippets of characters from evenings past.
Their mother looked over at Alison and Hannah, who both seemed to recognize in the glance that it was time for bed. Thomas, whose head was still stuck in the book, was oblivious to the goings on around him. Without words, Alison, with sleepy Hannah in tow, came over and collected Thomas, who merely started walking to the bedroom while continuing his silently mouthed studies.
“Okay.” Their mother straightened up and breathed in deliberately. “What kind of story would you like, Ben?”
Ben’s teeth were clenched, but he couldn’t look her in the eye. “Well, I’m going to propose a change. For once, how about some facts instead of a story?”
“Ben, I’m very tired. You just don’t know what I have to go through each day.” A long sigh. Her fingers massaged the sides of her head. “Okay. What is it you want to know?”
“Tell me again why we aren’t allowed to leave the building.”
“I see.” She got up and poured herself another glass of wine. Number three. “Where has this come from, Ben? Why now?”
“As good a time as ever, I figure.”
“I don’t want you to leave because . . . well, you don’t know the kind of . . . filth and thieves that are out there, Ben. I’m just protecting the four of you the best I can.”
“Right,” Ben said with a drawn out inflection. And then came the big, mean, unspeakable thing, rising up in him like an uncontrollable burp. It was the one thing the four kids never discussed. “Then tell me again about . . . our father.”
Silence.
She stood up, walked to the window, and drained the rest of her wine in one go. “Ben, you know how painful this is. For you and me.”
“I want to hear it.”
“I just . . . I just don’t know if it’s the best time, that’s all.” There was a big, sad smile on her face. As if she were talking to a child.
“I want to hear it.”
“Okay, Ben. But there’s a bargain here. If I tell you about these things, I expect you to hold up your end of the deal by being more responsible. That means doing the chores I ask you to do, doing your homework every day, and also looking after your little brother.”
“I do look after Thomas,” Ben said and then hesitated. “What do you mean?”
“Well, Thomas was gone when I got home and it was obvious to me that you had to go find him because he had wandered off.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I noticed, Ben.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll do all those things. Now, tell me about our father.”
“Ben, I don’t think you really understand. You’re the eldest and I expect you to look after your brother and sisters. What would happen if I wasn’t here to do everything? I don’t think you’ve ever really thought about that, have you?”
It was true. Ben really didn’t care that much about those things, but it wasn’t his job. Besides, he still deserved to know the truth and there was a logic here that she was missing. “Well, how can I do those things if I don’t know the truth?”
“Okay, then,” she nodded to herself. “Fine.” She swallowed hard. “Ben, your father is a very bad man. The reason we live like we do, moving all the time and never going outside, is because he wants to steal you kids away from me.”
Ben huffed a quick laugh. “Why is he so . . . bad. What’d he do?” It sounded like a movie.
“You don’t believe me, do you, Ben? Look, it’s best you didn’t know at this point. But there will come a time when you’ll find out for yourself.” She tried to smile, but there was a pain in her face. Tears glistened in her eyes. As much as he wanted to find out more, to discover what exactly their father had done, Ben decided that he couldn’t press her further. It wasn’t worth it to see her cry.
“Okay. I’m sorry, Mom.” Ben felt guilty for asking her, but he didn’t believe a word she said. Right there, as their mother sobbed in front of the void of the nighted window, Ben decided something. Tomorrow, after she left and before the other three awoke, he was going to run away.
Chapter Four: The Silver Men
Thomas’s head appeared over the side of the bunk. He was wearing some sort of flashlight hat, which he had no doubt invented to read in the dark. He looked like he was full of electricity. Stupid electricity.
“Ben, it says here that when the water pipes were installed in this neighborhood, they connected all the buildings in this complex with a network of . . . wait, what was it called? Oh yeah, a network of utility commission interfaces. Anyway, beneath our building and all the ones around us is a whole bunch of tunnels and pipes. Who knows where we could go in these tunnels.” He paused for effect before continuing in a pompous and official tone. “We have to go down there tomorrow and investigate. It is of utmost importance, Ben.” Since heading off to bed, Thomas had amassed the enthusiasm of an interplanetary explorer, which was typical Thomas behavior at bedtime. One minute he was a slobbering eleven year old, the next a maniacal genius.
“Go back to sleep, you fool,” said Ben, still thinking about their mother.
“Fine, but in the morning I’ll be mounting an investigation straight away.”
“Great. Whatever.”
On the other side of the room, Alison was asleep and Hannah was whistling softly to herself. Despite being twins, Thomas and Hannah did not get along, and they avoided each other with a cat and dog-like mutual disdain. She had no time for those with no interest in talking dragons and castles in the clouds. And his pedantic and emotionless knowledge drove her nuts. One day, Hannah had decided that the best way to deal with Thomas was to eat a dictionary. This accomplished two things in her mind. One, Thomas would be unable to learn any more words since the microprinted 314 page pocket dictionary that she chomped down happened to be the only one in the apartment. Two, she reckoned that the fastest way to assume book knowledge was to consume it literally. And then she realized that she would also be able to use words of her own invention without anyone being able to disprove her. “They come from my stomach,” she boasted, after using “formiflact” to describe the phenomenon of dirt accumulating at the corners of windows. “I digested all those words, one by one, and now they live in my brain and make new, baby words.”