Barriers

by Patrick Skelton

She started humming.

  “Mom?”

  She turned around and pointed the sheers at him. “You’re here to give me more bad news, aren’t you? I could hear it in your voice when you called this morning.”

  Nathan helped her off the ladder. “I never could hide anything from you.”

  “Of course not, I’m your mother.” She removed her gardening gloves. “Let’s at least enjoy some hot tea before you break my heart.”

  She left and came back with two steaming mugs. They pulled chairs around a glass table near his father’s office in the back of the greenhouse.

  “Dad used to work at this table, didn’t he?” Nathan said, sipping.

  “Most of the time…but he was in that back office a lot before he left for the cabin, and the door was always closed and locked. And when he wasn’t in there, he was wearing out the floor of the greenhouse, ranting on about how he wished he hadn’t done this and that. I never had a clue what he was going on about. He wouldn’t tell me. Do you know how that feels, Nathan? To be left completely in the dark?”

  Nathan struggled to not spill his guts right there and tell his mother everything, but he promised his father he wouldn’t. He grabbed her hand and offered a gentle squeeze. “I know it’s hard, mom. How are you doing?”

  She sighed. “One day at a time, I suppose.”

  A chilly November breeze blew through the opened door of the greenhouse, stirring the vines and plants lining the perimeter. It felt like his father’s ghost was walking about, watching, listening. Nathan wished he could remember him this way, how he was here, and not what happened at the Mt. Rushmore ruins.

  He reached for a shawl draped over a chair and wrapped it around his mother’s shoulders.

  “Thanks, sweetie,” she said, adjusting it a little. “Is now when you’re going to break my heart?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “It’s about my grandson, isn’t it?”

  Nathan nodded and delivered the bad news.

  After he finished, he reached for a tissue box and passed it to his mother. She blotted her eyes, then looked away. “There’s no sense in having Thanksgiving this year with Ian and your father not here. I guess I’m not feeling very thankful. Is that wrong of me?”

  “We understand, mom. The family’s been through a lot.”

  She grabbed another tissue and blew her nose. “But I am thankful you’re here now, Nathan.”

  Nathan hugged her, then reached into his pocket and handed her the registration to the Cessna. “I thought you might want this.”

  She looked it over, wiping her eyes. “I guess this is my only copy, considering I’ll never get that vault open. I still haven’t figured out what to do with that beat-up seaplane. It’s like a piece of your father. Do you think I should sell it?”

  “Don’t rush into anything, mom. You can keep it for as long as you want.”

  “I think I will.”

  Nathan eyed the thick metal door leading to his father’s office. “A while back, you told me dad changed the passcode to the vault before he left for the cabin. Do you think you could rehash everything you remember about that morning?”

  “I can try. That was over four months ago. Why do you ask?”

  “I’m curious about what he wrote on the registration that’s in the vault,” Nathan said. “You said he scribbled something on one of the copies.”

  “Oh, yes, you’re right. I do remember that clearly.”

  Nathan flipped the registration over on the table and pointed at its blank white back. “The one I found in the Cessna doesn’t have dad’s handwriting. See?”

  “Yes, I see. Which means the one in the vault has the writing?”

  “Exactly,” Nathan said. “Aren’t you curious to know what he wrote?”

  “I suppose…though I’m not sure it matters now.”

  “It matters to me, mom.”

  “But why?”

  “I wish I could tell you everything, mom, but I can’t. Just know that I’m still trying to save Ian and I’ve only got two days to do it. Does that make sense?”

  “Not in the slightest, Nathan, but I trust you. Whatever it is you’re doing for my grandson, I want to help.”

  He placed his hand on hers. “Can you show me the vault? I want to have a go at it.”

  “Certainly. Follow me.” She went to the metal door and tapped a passcode. The keypad beeped and the door swung open. “Good thing your father only changed the passcode to his office once a month, rather than weekly.”

  They stepped down into the The Dugout, as his father called it. It was a ten-by-twelve bunker, with thick walls constructed with reinforced concrete. The Dugout could withstand an F-5 Kansas twister, his father often touted, although his claim had never been put to the test.

  A bare desk and filing cabinet lined the far wall, with a trashcan beside the desk. Nathan had checked everything out weeks ago. All drawers were empty.

  His mother removed the rug in the center of the room, revealing the lid to the vault. She bent down and pressed a button. A protective lid opened, revealing a second lid with a keypad. “There it is.”

  “Have you tried to open it?” Nathan asked.

  “No, sweetie. There’s nothing of value in there. Only the second registration for the Cessna.”

  “What passcodes has dad used before?”

  She shrugged. “I could never make sense of them…just a bunch of jumbled numbers and letters. Your father often sat here on Monday mornings and smoked his cigar while he thought up the new passcode for the week.”

  “Oh brother.”

  “Oh brother, is right. And he expected me to keep track of that nonsense.”

  “Has dad ever used dates and family initials in the passcode?”

  “Maybe once or twice if I recall.”

  “Birthdates?”

  “I think so.”

  Nathan dropped to his knees and started punching in various numerical sequences of family birthdates combined with the person’s initials. After a dozen or so unsuccessful tries, he looked up. “This could take a while, mom.”

  “I’ll be trimming vines if you need me.”

  After an hour with no success, Nathan switched to other ten-digit alpha-numeric groupings. The date his parents’ house was built combined with initials of friends and family members. The date his father joined the Global Communication Task Force. The date he left the Task Force. The date the Cessna 172 was built. The date it was purchased.

  Another hour yielded no results.

  He sighed, closed the protective lid and leaned back on his palms to give his knees a break from the concrete. How could he possibly decipher his father’s passcode? Who could?

  He recalled his mother’s version of the story once more, what little there was. She had walked into The Dugout and caught the tail end of his father’s conversation. “I’ll speak with you soon,” his father said as he closed his laptop and scribbled something onto the back of the registration to the Cessna. He jammed both copies into his Bible and started to follow her out. He stopped at the vault, opened it and tossed in one of the copies. Then he closed the lid and changed the passcode.

  Nathan straightened his back and scratched his cheek.

  Wait a sec.

  His father had changed the passcode on the whim when he normally contemplated it over a smoke. So, if he hadn’t gone with something quick and obvious like an anniversary or birth date...

  The registration. It was the last thing he looked at before changing the passcode.

  He jumped to his feet and retrieved it from the table in the greenhouse, where his mother was back up on the stepladder snipping vines.

  She turned around and lifted an eyebrow. “Did you figure out the passcode?”

  “I’m about to find out.”

  Nathan went to the vault, opened the protective lid again and placed the registration on the floor. His mother followed and hovered as he studied the data. The aircraft registration number, commonly known as the N-nu
mber, was six digits in total. The serial number was also six digits in total. The model number was four digits in total. There were no other numbers on the registration, other than his father’s address and zip code.

  Nathan tapped in the six-digit serial number followed by the four-digit model number. No luck. He reversed it. No luck. He tried the six-digit N-number with the model number. Nothing.

  Next, he tapped in the last four digits of the serial number followed by the six-digit N-number. Nada.

  He tried it in reverse.

  The vault lit up and the lid released.

  Jackpot!

  “You did it, Nathan!” his mother exclaimed. “You’ve got your father’s brilliant mind.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Nathan said, stunned.

  “Well open it already.”

  Nathan tilted the lid and looked inside. There it was—the registration. He pulled it out and flipped it over. His father’s handwriting, without a doubt.

  “Well, what does it say?” his mother said, tugging at his arm.

  _____

  His father had scribbled three words in black ink on the back of the registration: “Pray for Ashlyn.”

  At first, the name had no meaning to Nathan. But back at home, a quick search on his SyncSheet jogged his memory.

  “Ashlyn” and “World Defense Committee” yielded a plethora of articles about the young woman who flashed her middle fingers at one of Chairman Alkott’s press conferences. Facial recognition technology identified her as Ashlyn Catterton. She was not available to comment. The public LifeTracker database reported her missing several days after the incident.

  Ashlyn was the daughter of Tyler Catterton, the astronaut who went missing a decade ago after crash landing on Ellis Three. Tyler had been employed by Zathcore, and all the bodies of his crew were recovered except his.

  Nathan laid the registration on his coffee table, studying the handwriting. His father had probably intended on bringing it with him to the cabin, but inadvertently pulled the wrong copy from his Bible and slipped it into the vault on the way out.

  The pertinent question remained: Was the girl at Alkott’s press conference the same Ashlyn on the back of the registration? The obvious connection was Zathcore and Ellis Three. But his father had mentioned nothing about doing contract work for Zathcore on this particular mission. A coincidence? Nathan would find out.

  Another quick search revealed Ashlyn’s address and phone number. She lived in an apartment in Queens, New York and worked at a Manhattan law firm. He checked the public LifeTracker database again. Her last reported location was at a hover-rail terminal in Queens several days after the incident.

  He called and it went to voicemail. “This is Ashlyn Catterton. I’ll be traveling for several weeks. Leave me a message and I’ll respond when I can,” her voice chimed.

  Nathan spoke briefly, said it was urgent and mentioned his father’s name. Twenty minutes later, his phone rang.

  “Why are you calling me, Nathan?” a woman’s voice demanded.

  “Is this Ashlyn?” Nathan faltered. “Your caller ID comes up as unknown.”

  “Yes, this is Ashlyn. I’m in a bunker using a satellite phone that transmits via cloaked data streams. I clearly see who you are, by the way: Nathan Gallagher—the naïve man from Kansas City who pretty much handed over his father to Alkott.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Alkott’s men could be monitoring this conversation, but at this point, I don’t care. The mission is crumbling because Aidan’s gone, and I might as well go home.”

  “Were you working with my father?”

  “Yeah, he was my boss. But now that he’s gone, I’m completely in the dark. The jerks of the World Defense Committee are going to launch the missile any day and there’s no stopping it now. Both of us will lose a parent in the same week. Nice, huh?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My mother, Jillian Catterton, is piloting Black Ghost.”

  Nathan paused and chewed on this new information. “Look, Ashlyn, I feel horrible about what happened with my father,” he said. “If I could do it all over, I would do it differently. But right now, I need your help.”

  “And why should I help you?”

  “My father said if his team succeeded, they’d save the lives of those in the Sanctuaries. Can you explain that to me?”

  “I can’t tell you anymore. Sorry.”

  “What is your mother’s role in the mission?”

  “Sorry, Nathan, I can’t tell you.”

  “Hear me out, Ashlyn,” Nathan pleaded. “My son is trapped in Sanctuary 87 and they’re going to euthanize him in less than two days. If there’s a way we can stop that missile and save the mission, then I want to help.”

  “You’re a little late to the party, Nathan,” Ashlyn said. “Sanctuary 87 is on the target list for the next flare, and I hear it’s supposed to be catastrophic.”

  “Target list…what do you mean?”

  “The Intergovernmental Congress pinpointed a bunch of Sanctuaries they want to eradicate. When the flare hits, they’re locking everyone out of the shelters and hospitals, shutting off communications, and nobody will be alive to report what happened.”

  Nathan was speechless. “How do you know this?”

  “My job was to spy on the Intergovernmental Congress. I’ve got nine hours of audio for what it’s worth. I was supposed to find out where the missile was located so Aidan’s team could hack remotely and finish the course reprogramming. But it appears we’ve both failed miserably…doesn’t it? Please don’t contact me again, Nathan.”

  The call ended.

  26

  Sanctuary 87 always bustled with outsiders the week before a flare. Nathan hoped the mayhem this time would work to his advantage. Maybe border security would only do a quick sweep of his watch and a hurried open-and-close of his guitar case.

  He tossed his watch onto the conveyer belt, holding his breath as it passed through the scanner. The belt stopped and a young military officer studied a monitor for several seconds, then sent it on.

  The man glanced at a second monitor and frowned. “There’s an alert saying you’re not permitted inside the Quadrant Three Hospital, sir. Appears there was an incident last time you were in Sanctuary 87?”

  Nathan shrugged.

  “Can you assure me there won’t be a problem today, Mr. Gallagher? We’ve got enough to deal with as it is. You see these crowds—everyone’s here to see family before the next flare hits.”

  “I’m not here to cause any problems.”

  “Send the guitar through.”

  Nathan set the case on the conveyer belt. The officer opened the lid and removed the guitar, bumping the headstock against the frame of the scanner.

  “Be careful with that, will ya?” Nathan said. “It was my father’s and it means a lot to me. I’d rather you not even touch it.”

  “Strings loosened as required?”

  “Yes. But please be careful. The spruce is chipped pretty badly around the sound hole.”

  The officer peered into the guitar, then jammed a hand through the saggy strings. His wrist sank inside, and he felt around for a few seconds, rubbing wood chips off the rim of the sound hole.

  “Careful,” Nathan repeated.

  The case came out the other side of the conveyer belt and Nathan retrieved his things. Another officer motioned him into the final holding area. He entered and adjusted his UV visor, jacket and gloves, waiting anxiously to be released into the gray concrete metropolis of Sanctuary 87.

  After twenty minutes, the steel door swung open and the sun’s cruel rays poured in.

  He hailed a taxi-cyclist piloted by an Asian boy. He instructed the kid to drop him off a few blocks from the Quadrant Three Hospital. The kid brushed a scorpion off the back seat and informed Nathan they were out in droves today, all the commotion had them stirred up.

  “Means good day for business, bad day for customer,” the boy joked, ad
justing a filthy scarf swaddled around his face and neck. Nathan sat and kicked off a giant black scorpion near his foot.

  They took off and followed a herd of taxi-cyclists into the barrack beehive. Nathan pondered what was about to transpire. Would he get inside the hospital without getting caught? Would the cheesy disguise work? Would the entrance guards recognize him?

  Nathan removed his watch, took off the back and flipped the battery around, the way it was supposed to go. The screen lit up, assumedly activating the LifeTracker scrambler chip. He put it back on, praying it still worked. He had purposely left his SyncSheet at home, so he couldn’t be tracked. This also meant he had no quick way of checking the public LifeTracker database and verifying if he was Nathan Gallagher—ex-journalist from the Kansas City Barrier or Chadwick Hendricks—Real Estate Agent from De Moines, Iowa.

  He’d find out soon enough.

  He wasn’t sure why Chairman Alkott’s men hadn’t confiscated the watch during the interrogation. Maybe they’d overlooked it. Or maybe they knew what it was, and would use it to follow him around if Nathan chose to utilize it again. Either way, it didn’t matter now. Anything he could use to his advantage was fair game. He’d had enough sense to keep it deactivated while entering Sanctuary 87, considering his father had told him it would fail airport security. The hospital, however, was a complete gamble.

  The boy stopped two blocks from the hospital and shoved a SmartScanner in Nathan’s face. Normally, Nathan didn’t believe in karma, but today he needed all the help he could get. He pressed his thumb and left triple the tip he’d left the last kid.

  He jumped off the back and looked both ways, then ducked into an alley between two rows of barracks. He removed the guitar from the case and reached deep into the sound hole, grabbing onto a wood panel shielding the true bottom. He started to pull but stopped. Someone was approaching with a satellite phone, amplified voices cutting in and out. He put the strap around his neck just in time.

  Two military officers stopped at the end of the alley. One pointed a gun at Nathan. “You…what are you doing in there?”

  “Warming up before my gig around the corner,” Nathan said, strumming a C-chord.