The Fortress of Clouds
Page 8
“Why didn’t we ever go to school?” asked Hannah. “Why did Mom keep us from . . .” Her question trailed away in exhaustion.
“Well, Han,” said Alison, “I guess Mom was just scared of everything.”
“Scared of what?” said Thomas. “Look, I mean, we made it from our apartment all the way here and we’re fine, right?”
“I dunno, Thomas. Maybe--” Ben started to explain, but was cut off by Hannah, who spoke in a dreamy, singsong voice.
“Thomas, these streets are full of those big . . . evil . . . toads all over the place.” Hannah stopped and stared up at them. “Al . . . I think . . . I don’t think . . . I can’t walk anymore.” She half-sat, half-collapsed onto a parched bit of grass in front of a boarded-up blue house.
“Oh, god. Come on, Hannah, up you get,” said Alison. “We’re almost there. I’ll carry you on my back.” She heaved Hannah into a piggyback and immediately groaned under the weight. “I mean Ben and I will carry you on our backs.”
As they approached the airport, the residential streets braided into major arterial courses of white, sun-bleached concrete. The traffic was a mad blur and they were forced to walk along the side of the highway, hugging tightly against the concrete barrier. Trash in various stages of disintegration and faded shades of time was piled ankle high. Every time a car passed, the rush of air lifted the entire morass of garbage ever so slightly. At long last, it began to get a bit cooler, the air smelled of the ocean, and their shadows now extended behind them.
The airport was only a few miles away (the spire so close that they could now see that it was actually white) and every few minutes a plane--nose up and shoveling through the air--roared down over them as it came in for a landing. Despite the noise, or maybe because it was so constant, Hannah fell asleep on Alison’s back.
On their right, on top of the concrete barrier, a wire fence separated the highway from a set of train tracks that was submerged about thirty feet down. But judging from the amount of garbage piled up down there, the line appeared to be abandoned. Up ahead, the tracks entered a tunnel system that curved away into the bowels of the airport complex. Ben and Alison both jumped when Thomas yelped.
“Hey, did you see that?” Thomas pointed down into the void where the train tracks disappeared into the tunnel. Graffiti, faded and worn, covered nearly every square inch of concrete.
“What?” said Ben. A trickling fear crept up Ben’s spine. They had made it the whole day without being spotted by the silver men or the police. They were so close to the spire--they couldn’t be caught now.
“There--down there!” Thomas jumped up onto the concrete barrier and pressed his face into the rusty chain link fence, which creaked against his weight. “There’s something down there. I saw people moving in the darkness down there.”
“Thomas, don’t stop!” barked Alison. Hannah, her head lying against Alison’s shoulder, looked up vaguely at Thomas’s insistent pointing.
“There, did you hear that?” shouted Thomas. “Voices. Down there!”
Ben jumped up beside him and carefully leaned against the fence. “Where?” he said. “I don’t see anything.” He forced a dry gulp as he waited for something to stir down in the shadows. The only sounds were the rush of the cars behind them, the thunder of planes overhead, and the ubiquitous dry rustle of trash.
“Thomas, you’re hallucinating,” said Alison. “Come on, both of you. Ben, I need you to carry Hannah.”
After a few seconds to be sure, Ben hopped down and yanked at his brother’s backpack. “Thomas, come on. Alison’s right. You’re hearing things. Let’s go.”
Thomas stepped back down into the trash and followed behind them while still trying to peer down into the train tracks. “I was totally not hallucinating.”
The highway rose into a huge, elevated arc that fed airport traffic down into a system of parkades, flashing signs, exits, yellow gates, and concrete walls. They crested the last corner in the road and finally saw the spire up close, rising out of a patch of luxuriantly green lawn, flanked by flowerbeds that spelled out Welcome to Los Angeles in red and yellow bouquets. Sprinklers stuttered and spat, and small birds were jabbing their beaks into the wet grass.
It was Alison who spoke first.
“Oh no.”
“She’s not there, is she?” asked Hannah, her head pasted against Ben’s back.
“No sir-ee,” said Thomas. Even though he had earlier predicted with certainty that she wouldn’t be there, Thomas’s voice was now quiet and distant.
“Let’s just go and wait,” said Ben. “It’s not as if she’d sit there all day waiting for us, right?”
Constant streams of cars ran in and out of the airport, the vehicles close enough to see the drivers’ blank faces. Every so often, one of the passing cars would be a police car, and Ben knew it was only a matter of time before Alison reminded him of their bargain. At least they didn’t see anything like those hulking silver machines that belonged to the men who had taken their mother away.
The shade formed by the shadow of the spire was glorious and soothing, but it felt vulnerable to be just sitting there, examined with removed disdain by each passing motorist like strange animals in a zoo. The grass at the base of the spire was cool, and they sat with their backs against a plaque that read, In memory of the fallen brave lost in the Desert Wars. Built with pride by the 16th Brigade of the National Restructuring Campaign of 2028. Putting America back on its feet.
Cars glided past and minutes sailed by. Ben tried not to look at Alison.
“So, Ben,” said Alison, “what time exactly were we supposed to meet her?”
Ben stared off into the distance where a plane was banking into a landing approach over the city. “She didn’t say.”
“I see. So how long you figure we should, you know?”
“She just said to meet here, at the spire, Al.” What did she expect him to say, that he knew exactly what was going on? She knew everything that their mother had told him. Or did Alison want Ben to admit that he was scared too, and that he’d do anything to make it stop?
“So you mean,” said Alison in a voice that was drawn out for full drama and insinuation, “it could be hours from now? Or . . . maybe we’ve already missed her?”
“Look, Alison, what do you want me to do? I don’t know. All I know is that Mom told me to--” Ben’s rising voice was drowned out by a massive jet lumbering by overhead, its flaps dragging through the air right above them. There had to be a way to contact her. If only they could call her somehow.
“That’s it,” said Alison. “The next police car I see, I’m going to wave it down and tell them exactly what is going on.”
“Oh, come on, Al, why would you--you can’t just give up like that.”
“Hey, here comes one,” said Thomas. He pointed to a white, blue, and red speck coming in off one of the overpasses.
“Great. Thanks a lot, Thomas,” said Ben through clenched teeth.
“Right. Here I go, Ben,” said Alison. She puffed herself up and strode across the grass to the edge of the road.
Hannah, who had been curled up in a ball in the shade of the spire, sat up as if something had caught her eye, but it wasn’t Alison’s departure. “I’ve seen that truck before.”
Ben thought she had been asleep the whole time. He was too flustered by Alison’s betrayal to hear Hannah properly. “What? What did you say, Han?”
Alison was now standing in the middle of the road, waving both arms above her head. The police car was slowing down.
“Yeah. That one there.” Hannah pointed at a big, rusty moving van coming at them from the opposite direction as the police car. It was mostly white, but yellow rust was chewing at the sides. Across the side was scrawled AAA Flowers in faded black letters. “I saw it a few minutes ago, and once more at least.”
“You’re hallucinating again, Hannah,” said Thomas.
“No, I’m sure of it. And the guy inside keeps looking at us. Look!”
At this, the truck leaped up onto the lawn and started ripping through the grass towards them. It spewed black exhaust and was covered in rust. The truck skidded to a halt in front of the spire. A man leaned over and opened the passenger side door. He wore jeans and a white T-shirt and had scruffy, shoulder-length, brown hair.
“Get in--let’s go!” he yelled.
“Excuse me?” asked Ben. “What?”
The man’s eyes were intent and focused. “I said, hop in! And hurry up already.”
“We’re waiting for our moth--” Hannah began to explain.
“Didn’t anyone tell you?” said the disheveled man. “I’m supposed to pick you up. Listen, I’m trying to help you.”
Looking back at Alison, Ben saw that she was now talking to the officer in the driver’s seat. She was pointing back up the road towards them. And then the police car turned on its sirens.
The wail made the man in the truck jump. His head jerked around. “Hey, don’t do that. What’s going on? What are you kids doing? Damn it!” He slammed the passenger door, gunned the engine, and tore off back across the lawn, ripping up great swaths of grass and slamming the truck down off the curb and onto the pavement.
In seconds, the police car--with Alison smiling in the back seat--pulled up beside them. The man in the rusty truck was long gone behind a pall of smoke.
“They can help us,” said Alison from behind a huge police officer. He wore black webglasses and was chewing gum loudly. “Come on in.”
They all crammed in the back seat of the police car, which smelled like either dog or vomit or dog vomit, and the car glided away. The officer in front was watching the computer terminal that took up the seat next to him. As he drove, he typed with his right hand, and the computer flashed and squawked information back at him. Thomas was leaning forward and trying his best to see the gadgetry in the front.
“What was with that moving van?” asked Alison.
“He said he was supposed to pick us up,” said Ben. “And I--”
“Probably another one of those creepy men,” Alison explained in a confident, all-knowing voice, “like that Scottish one who tried to help us yesterday. But now we’re safe. I told this officer here what was going on, and he has kindly offered to help us.”
“Oh, yes, we can help,” said the officer. In the rear view mirror, he smiled at the four kids in the backseat.
“Thank god,” Alison went on, “for the last two days we’ve been wandering through the city, scared, hungry--”
“You’re going to help us find our mother, right?” asked Hannah.
“Oh . . . sure!” beamed the police officer. The car stopped at a red light. “We know exactly where your mother is.” His face broke into a huge smile. “In fact,” he said as he looked back to the four of them, “she’s waiting for you back at the police station right now!” He howled with laughter as the car drove off.
Chapter Nine: Into the Labyrinth
They waited on black plastic chairs in a small room with no windows. A white ceiling fan wobbling overhead only served to blow the hot air around. The room smelled of sweat and stale coffee. Behind the closed door in a field of desks and cubicles, phones were ringing and people were shouting. Hannah, who had been given a can of juice, was looking a bit better and kept hitting her shoes against the chair in time with the fan’s rotations. “I’m so hungry,” she moaned.
“I know you are, Hannah,” Alison said as she patted her on the back. “We all are. Don’t worry, we’ll get some food soon. These people are going to help us.”
“What kind of food?” asked Hannah quickly.
“Anything you want, Han,” said Alison.
“Really? Well there better be cookies--will there be cookies?”
“Absolutely.”
“You promised cookies before.”
“I know I did, Han.”
“Well, there better be cookies this time.”
Thomas was staring up at the ceiling, counting the tiny holes in the ceiling tiles. He eventually fell asleep in and began slipping bit by bit off the shiny chair. It was only his near-empty backpack, caught on the side of the chair, that kept him from hitting the floor. Ben watched him with disbelief. How could someone fall asleep in a noisy police station after spending two days running through the streets of a dangerous city?
A policeman, a different one, this one not in uniform, came into the room and closed the door without looking at them. He wore a short-sleeved collared shirt that had once been white but now had dark yellow loops under the armpits. The man had a long face with huge, jowl-like cheeks, and his stomach sagged over his belt. He threw a big file of papers down and the whap of it hitting the table made Thomas finally fall out of his chair. From the floor, he glared up at Ben and was just about to tell him off when he saw the policeman staring down at him through fat, squinting eyes.
“Awright, listen!” yelled the man. His mouth hung open and the smell in the room became even worse. All of the kids sat upright. “This is what we know, okay? We know you’re part of that group of filthy freaks, the Miscreants, or whatever you call yourselves. We know you and those other kids have been stealing food and whatever you can get your hands on. We know you have been sabotaging all the construction projects downtown. We know it’s you, okay, so we’re not going to argue that. What we’re prepared to do, and I’ve just got the clearance on this from upstairs, is we’ll let you off easy if you tell us the locations of the tunnels. Name your price and we’ll work on it.” The man stopped and stared at the four children with his fists clenched.
After a long silence, Alison found the courage to clear her throat. “Umm, I think you might have the wrong people. We’ve lost our mother and need help find--”
“Save the story, you stupid girl,” yelled the man. “I know who you are. Your little gang is about to come to an end, so why don’t we cut a deal before things get nasty, okay? You tell me where your hideout is and I’ll give you something in return.”
Alison looked at Ben for help, but Ben was too confused to say anything. “No, really, we don’t know what you’re talking about. We’ve lost our mother and we need food and water. Please.”
“Don’t play dumb with me, you little brats. I know exactly who you are. Just tell me what you want and if you tell me what I need to know, you’ll get it. One more time. Where are the tunnels? Where is your hideout?”
Thomas seemed more intrigued than scared by the policeman, while Hannah gripped Alison’s hand and tried not to look up.
“Sir, we’re just looking for our mother,” said Ben.
“Right, aren’t we all. Look, one more time: it is just a matter of days before we find your tunnels, awright? But if you tell me now, you’ll get anything you want, so I ask you one more time: where is the entrance to your hideout?” The man stood with his knuckles pressed against the table, his face slowly turning red. Then he took a deep breath and then walked back to the door. He let his head fall against it with a loud thud.
“Listen, please,” said Alison, “we live in an apartment called the Del Amo with our mother who loves us very much and I’m very sure that somewhere right now she is trying desperately to find us. You have to help us, please. We haven’t had anything to eat in days.”
Ben was just about to stop Alison before she mentioned anything about the silver men, the twig, or the planned meeting at the airport, but the policeman interrupted her first.
“Enough!” he screamed and kicked the table so hard that it jumped up a few inches. He stared down at them with grinding teeth and exploding, bloodshot eyes. None of the four kids moved. The man studied each of their faces. Then he straightened up slowly and seemed to regain his composure. “So you’re not part of the Miscreants then?” he mumbled, his voice now quiet and apologetic.
“No, we have no idea who or . . . or what that is,” said Alison. “We’re just looking for our mother.”
“So . . . you’re sure you’re not Miscreants . . . or any other gang then?”
“So you’re just regular orphans, then?”
“What? No, we’re not orphans . . . our mother, she’s out there looking for us right now.”
The man took out a chair and sat down. “Sorry, you’ll have to excuse me, children,” he said in a soft voice. “We’re under tremendous pressure these days, as I’m sure you can imagine. The Commissioner is after us to track down these Miscreants. They’re terrorizing all the construction projects. They’re stealing everything they can get their hands on. It’s a real mess. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you. You know, Milagro, he’s awful rich and we’re just trying to help him out whenever we can with all of his rehabilitation projects and whatnot.”
“That’s okay, sir,” volunteered Ben, grateful that whatever it was the officer was accusing them of was now passed. He was clueless as to who this Milagro person was, though the way the officer referred to him made it seem like everyone should know.
The policeman sighed, shook his head, and smiled to himself. He took out a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. “Got a little angry there, didn’t I? Whoops!” He chuckled as he got up and went to the door. “Just a bunch of orphans, Carl,” he yelled to someone outside the room. “Thought they were Miscreants at first. Yeah, too clean lookin’, I guess.” Someone handed him a sheaf of papers and the man came back and sat down. “Okay, what are ya names and ages then?” he asked without looking up, a newfound sense of purpose tightening his voice. The man paused with his pencil ready, waiting for a response. The ceiling fan above them droned incessantly. “You heard me, gimme your names.”
Ben spoke up. “I’m Ben; I’m fourteen. This is Alison; she’s thirteen. And Thomas and Hannah here are both eleven.”
“Right, and where do you live? Or rather,” the man corrected himself, “where have you been living until now?”
“Umm, the Del Amo apartment building on Vistarosa,” said Ben. “But we’ve moved around a lot, whenever our mother had to get a new job.”