The Fortress of Clouds

by J. A. J. Peters

  “Thomas, Hannah, wait!” Ben called to his siblings. They hung back behind the scattering group. “Alison, are we going to do this? I thought you had a plan?”

  “I thought I did too, Ben. I thought that something in me would just say ‘go’, but it hasn’t. Seeing those assembly lines . . . it just made me sick. I . . . I don’t want to do this.” She looked to him with wide, pleading eyes. The rest of the group was now gone.

  “Come on. Let’s do it. Right now,” said Ben. He turned and stepped to the edge of the culvert. It was about a fifteen foot drop. It would hurt, but they could do it.

  But just as Ben was about to jump, Lorenz’s shout echoed down the tunnel. “Hey, what are you idiots doing? I thought I gave the order to move out?”

  “We . . . we’re coming, Lorenz,” said Ben. “C’mon, Alison.” Thomas and Hannah were poised at the edge. But Alison was rooted to the ground, tears running freely down her cheeks.

  The black spikes stomped and splashed out of the darkness. “I swear, you pendejos,” Lorenz muttered under his breath. When he got to within ten feet of them, he looked up. The light of the world outside the tunnel revealed a fire in his eyes. But then his mouth opened in a silent cry and his expression changed to sheer terror. His eyes focused on something behind the four Graham children. Ben, Alison, Thomas, and Hannah all turned around and there, hanging in the air in front of them, were three silver men suspended from ropes. They had rappelled into the tunnel from above, and were now hanging like three spiders in the middle of a web. And they were all holding guns.

  “Stop right there!” yelled one of the men.

  “Game over, you urchins,” said another one. There was a huge, evil smile on his face.

  “Run!” yelled Lorenz.

  They made it only about twenty feet before gunshots burst out behind them. The concrete sides of the culvert spat as the bullets ricocheted around them. A bullet whizzed past Ben’s ear like a molten bee.

  “Basho! Help!” screamed Lorenz. “Bogies coming down the pipe!”

  They ran around a bend in the tunnel, their eyes barely able to see in the dancing beams of their flashlights, and there was Basho with a machine gun leveled straight at them.

  “Get down,” ordered Basho. The second Ben’s face hit the mud, the entire culvert lit up in bursts of light. Basho’s gun thundered away above their heads as they crawled on their hands and knees through the filth.

  By the time they reached the others, they were deaf from the relentless machine gun fire echoing around them. Where the right fork of the tunnel curved away from the flying bullets, they huddled together in relative safety and confirmed that no one had been hurt. Behind them, Basho was single handedly holding off the three silver Milagcorp guards, yelling every single swear word he knew.

  “I cannot believe this is happening,” cursed Lorenz as he got up from the ground. “How the hell did Milagro’s guards know we were there? And what happened to those bombs?”

  “Dunno, Generale,” said Jawl as he loaded his machine gun. “But there’s no time to think ‘bout that now.” When the cartridge clicked into place, he got up and inched his way to the corner. There was a steely focus in the way Jawl handled his gun. His previous easygoing mannerisms had resolved into a battle-hardened readiness.

  While the rest of them hung back, Jawl popped out into the main tunnel with the agility of a jungle cat. He let out a burst of fire, and then immediately ducked back. Somewhere just beyond the corner, Basho’s gun was singing away, and the three guns of the silver men were replying back in distant harmony. But their gunshots were getting louder.

  “Goddamn it, I knew we should have come better armed,” said Lorenz. He took the pistols out from the holsters under his arms and then spat into the mud. In the dim light of their flashlights, it looked like he mouthed a silent prayer. With both guns drawn, he ran screaming into the open. When he ran out of bullets, he ducked into another fork on the other side of the tunnel.

  “They’re pushin’ Basho back,” yelled Jawl as he prepared to jump back into the line of fire. “The rest of you get going.” Just then, the sound of Basho’s booming voice filled the tunnel. He was now parallel with them, and his face was illuminated by the flashes of his machine gun. There was a crazed look in his wide eyes. His face was dripping in sweat, and he was shouting a litany of nonsense.

  “If this is da crop we have sewn, show me da seeds cause you’re just da harvester, aren’t ya? But farmin aint your business is it? Nooooo, but there’s good news for you cause I’m the reaper comin for ya. Ooohhhh, baby, I’m comin for ya . . .”

  “What’s he saying?” yelled Ben over the screaming of the machine guns.

  “Oh, Basho gets a little weird when things go sideways,” Jawl yelled back. “Bit of an insane poet when he’s trying to kill people.” Jawl sprang into the main tunnel again and let out a barrage of gunfire, and Basho simultaneously jumped back, taking Jawl’s place in an almost choreographed maneuver.

  “What are you fools waiting for? Get going!” ordered Basho. Without so much as looking at was he was doing, he released the clip of ammunition, picked a new one off his belt, and slammed it back into the gun. Lorenz came running back from the other side tunnel, emptying his pistols in a high-pitched scream.

  “Jawl and I will hold them off as long as we can,” said Basho as he inched back to the corner into the main tunnel. “So get going.” Then he jumped into the fray and sprayed a cloud of bullets into the darkness.

  “But you are the only one who knows how to get back,” yelled Lorenz.

  “Just go!” barked Basho.

  “But we--” Lorenz yelled again.

  But Basho was yelling his random poetry as he plugged away into the void. From the brief images Ben caught as Basho’s gun lit up the tunnel, it looked like Basho was dancing all over the pace, darting into the other side tunnel and then back into the main one like some sort of insect. He moved much quicker than a massive man should be able to, and with such random and spastic movements that it was like he could see the bullets coming at him in the darkness.

  Oh yeah you can feel da gears turning can’t ya, but you can’t say where it all begins cause you’re just a tiny cog. But ohh baby here I come and I’m a spanner in your works. Ohh, can ya feel it comin down on ya?

  “I know the route,” said a small, rodent-like voice from behind them.

  “What?” asked Lorenz in a hysterical cry.

  “Yeah,” replied Thomas calmly. “I memorized everything this morning. Left, left, right, left, right, right, left, left, straight, left, right, left--”

  “Okay,” said Lorenz. “I get the picture, Thomas.”

  “Of course it would be in reverse on the way back.”

  Just as they were about to leave, something made Ben and Alison look back at the gunfight one final time. Basho came ducking back to reload, leaving Jawl by himself in the main tunnel. But then Jawl started spasming like he was having some sort of seizure. In the brief second that his gun lit up his movements, it looked as if Jawl was being punched repeatedly all over his chest, his head jerking back involuntarily with each strike. The noise of his machine gun stopped, and there was a soft splash as he fell backwards into the mud. The three machine guns of the silver men continued to rattle away.

  Alison tried to run to Jawl, but Basho grabbed her and threw her back.

  “Leave him!” ordered Basho. He ran back into the tunnel, firing away in scattershot streams. But instead of merely holding his ground, Basho now advanced down the tunnel towards the silver men, his gun screaming away relentlessly, his stream of consciousness poetry at a full yell.

  Count the rain drops falling on your head, look up, way up, can you see them all coming down, you better count them before they land on ya, cause this cloud over you is yours and yours alone . . .

  “Alison, come on!” cried Ben. “There’s nothing we can do.”

  “But he might be . . .”

  “No, Al.”

  The soun
d of Basho’s gun and the three guns of the silver men became more distant. After a minute the gunshots sounded like three people clapping. Eventually it was silent. Nothing stirred in the mud twenty feet away where the side tunnel joined the main one. The huge blender that Jawl had stolen sat like an obedient dog. Ben helped Alison up and tried to coax her away. Even though there was no light to illuminate what wasn’t moving behind them, Alison kept craning her neck back to where Jawl lay in the darkness.

  Chapter Eighteen: Broken Goodbyes

  “When he come tell us in middle of night, we know what it mean, we know it happen sooner or later. Can only avoid these thing so long. You can feel in wind, my father say. For long time he tell us get ready, but I never know for what.

  “My father, he work for last royal family in remote Cingchir region of mountains in China. He keep all records and books for kingdom, and all I know as kid is books. No toys and videothingies like today, just big books with pictures that you almost crawl into. Leather covers from yaks, papers from rice, and big gooey pots of ink you dip pen into. But these are old things, they say, and everything begin changing. There is new thing coming. Everything going to be . . . invisible. They say all records, all papers, all books, everything writed down become blips and zeros and things. I was nine year old, and then I think that this new thing be like books running around world really fast. Now I know it is sparks in wires and waves or something in air, but back then it like someone throwing books really hard across world. Like birds, bugs, blizzards, millions books zipping through air.

  “Here is picture of Cingchir Royal Library. Before all change.” Ming handed the picture to the four of then and took a slurp of tea. The wriggled lines of steam rose from the cup and weaved into her tangled hair.

  “For long time no one care about Cingchir region, so small, so far away. But we only hide for so long. And change mean no more royal people, no more old fashion stuff. Emperor, Empress, all royal family disappear. We never know what happen to them. Then they come after other people who work for Emperor. They say that books not needed no more, so there no use for us. Everything old all swept away. All computer now. Help economy they say. My father try to make protest, say he won’t leave. He say no use him running away, that they find him anyway. So we leave him behind.

  “I remember white horses and cold air burning lungs. And full moon overhead. We ride for three days without stop. Bum still hurt from that.” She chuckled as she patted her posterior. “And here is picture of the mountains on second day of escape.” Ming turned the page in the blue leather book with the gold Chinese symbols. Out fell a photo of a group of people huddled in front of five white horses. A mountain range, treebark brown with a dusting of white snow, rose long and low in the distance.

  “Before he leave, father give us very important box, tell us to hide it forever and ever. And never open it. And inside box is book, he say. He tell us book can never be read until right time come. We keep box longest time, mother and me. In new home in dirty and smelly city, we hide box under bed. Tiny apartment. Out window all we see is electrical wires, smoke, garbage.

  “But then one day mother tell me that I go to America, that she find money to send me to go to school there. And she smile like it a good thing, but I don’t want to go, just want to stay there in apartment with her and secret box. But I go, and I tell her how excited I am to go. She wave at me from train station and I try to hide tears. I send her letter from America, but she never send back.

  “Do you think, she’s . . . still alive?” asked Alison delicately. Throughout Ming’s story she had only stared at the ground. She hugged her arms around her like she was shivering in a snow storm.

  “Oh, I think so,” said Ming. “I feel it. She out there somewhere guarding secret box.”

  “But how do you really know?” asked Thomas.

  “Thomas, don’t say that,” scolded Hannah. Ben looked at Alison and saw a small, impressed smile curl her mouth. Hannah reprimanding Thomas? She really was growing up, Alison’s smirk seemed to say. Thomas looked confused by Hannah’s comment, but Ming’s explanation diverted his attention.

  “Oh, Thomas,” said Ming. “I know box is still out there. If box was opened then world would be very different.”

  “What?” asked Thomas. “How do you know?”

  “If someone read that book inside box, then whole world be very different.”

  “So what’s that book about then?” asked Hannah. Hannah had managed to persuade Ming that Mitty was nothing to be feared, and the cat now sat at Hannah’s feet as she scratched behind his ears. Still, Ming had gathered her dress around her tightly, as if the cat might claw it to shreds at any moment.

  “This book?” Ming held up the blue and gold book in her lap. All sorts of scraps of paper and photos tumbled out. “This book all my memories and photos when I young.”

  “No, not that book,” said Hannah. “The one your father gave you, the one in that box hidden away under the bed in that apartment in China.”

  “Oh, that book,” said Ming, looking genuinely confused. “No one know what is in that book.”

  “Wait,” Thomas said, looking more and more agitated. “If you don’t know what the book is about, then how do you know that the world will change if someone reads it?”

  Ming merely shrugged and smiled at this.

  Thomas could barely contain his need for logic. “And . . . and how do you know if there even is a book in the box?” His eyes narrowed, clearly frustrated with Ming’s blind faith.

  Ming just took another sip of tea and smiled. “Someone is still out there, waiting for sign to know when to open box.”

  “How will they know?” asked Hannah in a curious but polite tone.

  “They will know when time is right,” nodded Ming.

  “But . . . but how can they be sure?” said Thomas, his brow furrowing tightly.

  “There will be sign.”

  “But how will they know the sign when it comes if they don’t know what the sign is?” Thomas’s voice was growing louder.

  “It says inside the box what the sign is.” Ming giggled, knowing that this would drive Thomas even more nuts.

  “What? That makes no sense! That’s a complete paradox.” Thomas looked like he was going to explode. Ming was clearly enjoying torturing him, and Ben, Alison, and Hannah were trying not to laugh. “How will they know for sure until it is too late? And what if--”

  “Thomas, I think you should stop now,” said Hannah. “Maybe you should go work on the tunnel runner.”

  “What? Hey, Hannah, I got us back through the tunnels, remember? So don’t tell me what to do.” But Thomas was already sulking off towards the garage area, as if he knew it would be best for him to cool off by dealing with something mechanical.

  Hannah turned to Ming and the two of them shared a little chuckle, as if they were both sixty years old, or eleven. For a brief moment, the weight and worry that hung over everything vanished with that little bit of laughter.

  “Come on, Hannah, let me show you other important book I have,” said Ming. She picked up her cup of tea and led Hannah over to the other side of the House of Proof.

  Ben’s eyes met Alison’s just as the glimmer of humor was fading from them. She quickly looked away. Her arms hung at her sides like curtains. When they had returned, none of them was able to say anything about Jawl or their failed escape, and after they changed out of their muddy camouflage it was Hannah who had suggested they go see Ming. Listening to her talk made it easier not to think about what had happened. For a few moments in Ming’s story, Ben had managed to forget just a little bit about Jawl, Delfa, the silver men, their failed escape, and the assembly lines in the Children’s Facility.

  Neither Hannah nor Thomas had seen Jawl die, and neither looked as shaken as Alison. In fact, Thomas seemed even more manic and sugar-infused than usual. Having led them all back through the network of tunnels to the Strand, he now positively strutted around the half-finished tunnel runner. He
wore the same holier-than-thou, snotty smirk on his face that used to appear whenever he had completed his math problems in record time. It was like everything that was going on in the Strand was important to Thomas, even if it was dirty, scary, and wrong in a way that he could not fully comprehend.

  In the short time since their return, Hannah had become a different girl. She was not so much disturbed as annoyed by the guns and the fact that they were now back in the place they thought they would never see again. And instead of Alison’s shattered and hurt voice, Hannah spoke with a calm strength, as if she now understood what it all meant and had decided that the best thing to do was to be graceful and level-headed. There had been a brief moment running from the silver men in the tunnels when they had come around the corner and skidded into the mud, finally safe behind Basho and Jawl’s guns. Alison had tried to help Hannah to her feet, but Hannah’s expression--barely visible in the dark--showed that she was not only too old to need help, but that she couldn’t recall ever needing it. Alison’s face had frozen in shock and hurt. It had maybe lasted two seconds before the guns started spattering again.

  They had left that morning with that weird feeling of never wanting to come back, but still knowing that they were leaving a tiny part of themselves behind. Then, returning through the massive door, the tunnel runners hot and muddy, Ben’s head ached as he looked at what he had already said good-bye to. He couldn’t think about what they might do next. They had missed their chance. Alison couldn’t decide when to run. By the time Ben had contemplated taking matters into his own hands, it was too late.

  There will be sign. Ming’s words seared into Ben’s ears. Maybe there never is a sign. Maybe there never is a right time. And maybe the point of Ming’s story was not about waiting for the right time. Maybe the point was about how the right time never comes, and that the book will never be opened since the sign will never arrive. Maybe people who wait for signs will be waiting their entire lives.