The Fortress of Clouds

by J. A. J. Peters

  “Not people, children,” said Alison.

  Milagro smiled at this. “Listen, little girl. You’ve been sheltered from the real world. Work is a fact of life.”

  “They should be learning things and playing, not having to worry about work.”

  “Well, while you’re constructing a fantasy world for yourself there, be sure to add some leprechauns and fairies.” Milagro laughed as he walked back towards his desk and looked outside at the rain pulsing against the windows. “And what would you propose I do? How should our country solve its massive unemployment crisis? I provide these people with jobs.”

  “Forcing, not providing!” shouted Alison.

  Their mother, immobile in the chair, was shaking her head at Milagro’s self-indulgent conversation.

  “Well, I can see you’re far too smart for me, little girl,” said Milagro. “So I think we best be getting back to the business at hand. As entertaining as it is talking to you, let’s get down to it here, shall we? Kids, your mother is a thief. She has taken something of mine and has hidden it somewhere. She has been on the run from justice for over a decade. But we have finally caught up with her. Oh, she was quite crafty there for a while, changing her name, dyeing her hair black and cutting it short, wearing glasses she didn’t need, forever moving and changing jobs. But it was only a matter of time before we found her. Like all facades, it could only go on for so long. And while on the run from the law, she also managed to have four kids in the process. Gotta say, I dunno how you did it, Nora. But none of that matters now. The important thing is that you kids can help me figure out where your mother has put my property.”

  “We don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” said Hannah, trying to match Alison’s spite.

  “Oh, I think you do. So, if you hand over what I need, you can all leave free as birds right now. It’s all up to you.”

  “The twig, right?” said Ben. “Cabra has it--we gave it to him last night. That’s the thing you’re looking for.”

  Milagro reached into his pocket and pulled out the twig. “What, this thing?” Milagro tossed it on his desk. “Yes, while it may look like a priceless piece of South American art, it’s no more than a worthless bit of junk bought in some airport giftshop. Cabra--god bless his thieving heart--thought he’d found it, but, alas, my scientists tell me there’s no storage capacity for genetic information in that thing. It’s just a stupid blinking light. So, we can sit here and talk, well, forever, actually, until the five of you tell me where my information is.”

  At this, their mother spoke up again. “Milagro, how many times do I have to tell you? I never had the code in the first place.”

  “Yes, we’ve all heard your little routine, Nora,” said Milagro in a tired voice. “Kids, in addition to not caring about the social cost of having multiple children with, ahem, different fathers, your mother is trying to stop the progress of science itself.”

  “You slimy piece of filth!” snarled their mother. “How dare you insinuate that--”

  “Well,” said Alison, “don’t you think it would help if you told us what exactly this thing is that we somehow have?”

  Milagro looked at Alison and narrowed his eyes in consideration. Then he turned to the other side of the room. “Okay, let me show you children something. To impress upon you the seriousness of this matter.” He walked over to the panoramic windows that overlooked the angry, tossing ocean. He smiled at the coming storm, as if satisfied with its progress. Then he pressed a button on the wall and the office lights dimmed. A series of tiny blue lights awoke and instantly there appeared an image that seemed to just hang in the air. It looked like a ball of coral, grayish with a flaky skin, and covered with little trees shooting out from all sides. Milagro stood there for a few seconds and scratched his cheek in admiration of the four-foot image rotating in a three dimensional view.

  “Is that some sort of holographic projection system?” asked Thomas with no effort to contain his enthusiasm.

  “What? Oh, sure,” said Milagro. “Anyway, any of you know what this is a picture of?” No one spoke. “No, of course none of you know. You’re just dumb filthy kids.”

  “Stop it!” shouted their mother.

  “Looks like a really old tree,” said Thomas.

  “Shut up, Thomas,” hissed Alison.

  “No, that’s okay,” said Milagro. “Your brother here seems quite smart. Keep going . . . Thomas.”

  Encouraged by the compliment, Thomas continued. “It looks like a chunk of lava . . . or the roots of an old hardwood tree, like a mahogany. Something that would grow in South America or somewhere like that.”

  “That’s true,” said Milagro. “Honestly, I’ve never noticed that. Huh. That’s quite interesting, actually. For reasons you will soon see.” He wandered over to the window and gazed at the rain squall again. “Yes, this is one of the cruel ironies of life, kids, but you’re obviously too young to know about it. The entire universe is ironic, really. When we find god, I’m putting all my money on his heart pumping 100% pure irony.” He turned back to consider the image of the root system spinning in the air above his desk. “Yes, this does indeed look like the roots of a tree, or the pattern a river makes when seen from above, or a map of the veins and arteries in the human body, and various other patterns that crop up wherever you look in nature. Dendritic structures . . . fractal geometry . . . the Mandelbrot Set . . . The entire universe probably looks like this if you could somehow manage to be outside it. This,” he said while pointing at the picture hovering in the air, “is cancer. Or what cancer looks like when it is magnified many, many times. Thomas, you probably would have known this if you had access to an electron microscope. A cruel joke, really--not that you have been deprived of an electron microscope, but that this could look so much like . . . that death could look so much like life. But that’s essentially what cancer is: a cell that will not stop growing, life that does not know when to . . . stop.”

  “You must let us go,” said their mother.

  “So, kids,” said Milagro as he inhaled deeply, “one of the many things I do with my money is try to find the cure for cancer. And, wouldn’t you know it, your mother of all people knows where the cure is.”

  “Milagro, your life is in grave danger if you continue on this path,” said their mother in a now threatening voice.

  “Oh, and from whom?” asked Milagro as he turned around to face her. “That group of jungle hippies that claims to somehow own it?”

  “You have no idea the danger you are bringing upon--”

  “You know, Nora, I find it so bizarre that a group of people that claims to be so goddamned noble and good would say that they can control something like this, something that could save millions of lives.”

  “We all know what you would do with it, though, don’t we?”

  “What? Save people’s lives? Yes, that would be terrible, wouldn’t it?”

  Their mother shook her head and looked away.

  “So, kids, you might want to ask yourselves why your mother would want to steal something like this. Why someone would want to withhold from the world the chance to save millions of--”

  But before Milagro could say “lives”, all of the lights in the room went out. The spinning cancer cell disappeared. The music in the background ceased, and the only noise was the rain’s relentless tapping, a million fingers drumming on the windows.

  Milagro spun around to his desk and picked up the phone, but it was apparently dead and he slammed it down again. “Michelle!” he barked into the air. But his secretary didn’t reply over the intercom. “What the ffff . . . Alright, who’s getting fired today?” He muttered under his breath as he started to press a bunch of buttons on his desk.

  “Ben,” said Thomas as he nudged him with his elbow. “They did it--they caused the blackout--Ichor and Yan.”

  “Yeah,” said Ben uneasily. A clock on the wall was frozen in place at 8:00. Right on time. Ichor and Yan had done their job. But Ben knew tha
t would be the extent of the Miscreants’ success that day. “Too bad everybody else is going to be slaughtered before they even make it out of the tunnels.”

  The guards who brought the four kids up to Milagro’s office were tapping on the elevator’s control panel, but it wasn’t working either. They ran to the door beside Milagro’s desk and stuck their heads out. “Hey, what’s going on?” one of them shouted, and then they both disappeared out of the office.

  And then something started to move on the other side of the office.

  Chapter Twenty-three: The Shadow Man

  A door on the far side of the room stood ajar. From it, a person-sized shadow flowed over to Milagro’s desk like a cloud of smoke. And their mother saw it too. But as she watched it out of the corner of her eye, it was like she knew exactly what was going on. She didn’t look surprised or scared in the least. In fact, there was a very small smirk on her face. As it approached the gray pall of the window, the shadow solidified into a man. He walked over to Milagro’s desk, picked up the twig that Milagro had left there, and then crept up right behind Milagro and jabbed it into his back.

  “I wouldn’t move if I were you,” said the man. His voice was calm, but gravelly and tired.

  Milagro’s back straightened as if he had been turned to stone. “I don’t have any money. It’s all--”

  “Lucky for you, you don’t know what this thing really is,” said the man as he pressed the twig into Milagro’s spine. “Reach for the sky or you’ll be contemplating your own innards.”

  The twig was a weapon? Why didn’t their mother tell Ben what it was when she gave it to him? Ben shuddered when he thought of roughhousing with Thomas, of throwing it away in the Strand--it could have gone off at any moment.

  In the dull light of the window, the intruder became more visible: he wore old, ripped jeans and a faded white t-shirt that was wet and stuck to his skin. His hair was a tussled mess and his face was smudged with a few days’ stubble. He looked like a bum. But there was a confident swagger in his movements, as if he knew that he looked like a bum, as if he wanted to look like a bum.

  Ben had seen him before.

  “Who are you? How did you get in here?” asked Milagro in a scared, quivering voice. “I have the best security system in the world!”

  “I know, I know. I thought so too,” the man said as he brushed the wet hair out of his eyes. “You certainly do have quite the fortress here, Milagro. That’s why getting in here was just a tad easier that I would have thought. I’m sitting there trying to think of how to break in and voila the power goes out. The entire place goes dark and I just walk right in. People running around like chimpanzees, trying to look like they know what’s going on. And I just saunter right on by. Amazing what you can get away with in times of crisis? But I guess you’re the expert on that. Wish I could claim credit for the blackout, actually. Quite a smart idea, though I suppose it has something to do with that storm outside.”

  The Graham children shared a knowing look at this. And then Ben figured it out: Cabra hadn’t told Milagro about the blackout because he had arrived at the meeting after Lorenz had explained it. All Cabra had heard was that they were going to kill Milagro first thing in the morning.

  “Hey,” said Hannah. “You’re that man from the airport that I saw--in that rusty moving van.”

  “You were certainly playing hard to get back there, young lady,” said the man. He smiled and winked at Hannah. “You make all your knights work this hard?”

  “What the hell’s going on here?” said Milagro with a noticeable gulp.

  “Oh, nuthin,” said the man quite casually. “Just here to relieve you of something that isn’t yours.”

  “Wait, you . . . you’re one of those hippie freaks working for that tribe, aren’t you?”

  “Aren’t you the smart one, then. Anyway, we’re rambling here, and you know, even though there’s gotta be millions of people out there who would just love to talk to Mr. Milagro himself, I personally have better things to do. So if you don’t mind, we’ll be departing.” He looked at the four kids and then at Nora tied to the chair. “So good to see you, Nora. As always, wish it could be on different terms.” He paused. “How long has it been?”

  “Hello, Sean,” said their mother in a tired voice. “Sean, you don’t have to do this, you know. There are other options.”

  “You and I both know there aren’t, unfortunately.”

  Their mother shook her head and closed her eyes. “Sean, you don’t understand--what it’s been like.”

  “Maybe not, Nora, but I do know what constitutes a contract, and that you broke your contract quite severely. Now, if you don’t mind, we should probably be leaving this wonderful place. Kids,” the man addressed the four of them, “untie your mother while I keep this brutal weapon pointed at this scumbag here.” Ben ran over to their mother and undid the black metal buckles that held her to the chair. She instantly grabbed him with a huge hug. Without even remembering that it was there, all the confusion and frustration Ben felt towards her instantly melted away. He fought--unsuccessfully--to keep himself from crying. In the depths of her arms, he tried not to remember how he used to say that he was too old for her hugs.

  “Okay, you piece of slime, get in the chair,” ordered Sean. He pushed Milagro across the room, the twig jammed into the back of his neck. As they neared the chair, Sean motioned to Ben to take his place holding the weapon. “Here,” he said. “Keep this pointed at the back of his head and we’ll just tie him up nicely here. Don’t be afraid to scatter his brains against the wall if he moves.”

  “Right,” said Ben. But then he realized he didn’t know where the trigger was. Milagro got in the chair without a fuss and started to shake his head as Sean fastened the buckles. Their mother had now engulfed the other three in one massive embrace.

  “I’m so sorry, guys,” she said. “I thought I’d be able to meet you at the airport.” And then, as if it had just dawned on her that the business about the airport had been weeks ago, she added, “Where have you been?”

  “Well, first we were at the airport and then we saw that man,” said Thomas, pointing at Sean. “But we didn’t know he was on our side so we went to the police and then we ran away when we found out they were going to put us into an orphanage and then--”

  As Thomas ran out of breath, Hannah continued. “And then we were captured by this gang of kids called the Miscreants and we lived underground in their secret cavern and helped them try to blow up this new orphanage built by that guy.” She motioned with her thumb to Milagro, now firmly restrained in the chair. And the last part she added in a whisper. “And those kids did this--the power blackout--cause they’re going to come . . . kill him.” Ben didn’t bother to correct Hannah, that no, the Miscreants were in fact likely meeting their fate at that very moment.

  Their mother looked like she was going to faint. Or throw up. They had seen everything she had spent the last decade trying to protect them from.

  But Milagro heard none of this, and besides, except for the blackout, he knew it all from Cabra. Instead, he seemed more focused on Sean. “You idiot,” said Milagro. “You don’t even know where the code is, do you?”

  But Sean only flashed Milagro an exaggerated smile as he wrenched the buckles a little tighter than necessary. Sean grabbed the amulet from Ben. He took a knife out of his pocket and pried the thing open to reveal a small, blinking, red light. “Look at this,” he said. “It’s a homing device, you moron. Who’s the idiot now?” Sean straightened up and kicked Milagro’s chair over. “Okay, kids. Let’s get out of here.”

  Milagro, on his side in the chair and trying to right himself, grimaced in pain and frustration. “She won’t give it to you, I guarantee it,” he said. “If she wanted you to have it, she would have given it to you before. Good luck finding it--I had my men ransack her entire apartment.” He stopped struggling against the buckles and his face screwed up in concentrated anger. “She won’t tell you where it is--all she
cares about is those filthy kids.” But then his face went blank, as if all the blood had drained from his head. “Wait, Nora . . . you didn’t,” stammered Milagro. “It’s not possible . . . how?”

  Their mother and Sean pretended not to hear him.

  “You’re not going to get very far!” Milagro called after them, but his voice had already faded into the distance. “You’ll be dead before you leave the--”

  The corridor that led away from the office was encased in glass and the storm outside was making a low, earthquake-like rumble. On their left, sloping windows curved up and out of sight to form the peak of the pyramid. On their right, large windows gave a gut-wrenching view down hundreds of feet to the lobby below. Tiny, ant-like people were busily running this way and that in the almost darkness. Tiny red exit signs glowed like far-off stars.

  After fifty feet, Sean turned to the children as if he had just remembered something. And he was angry. “And where have you kids been anyway?” he said. “You run from me at the airport and then I lose the signal for five weeks? What the hell happened?”

  “We didn’t know who you were,” said Ben. “And we didn’t know that thing was a homing beacon.”

  At this, Sean turned to their mother and shook his head. “Way to go, Nora.”

  “Oh, and I screwed up, Sean? Why didn’t you pick them up at the airport?”

  “They were taken by the police. What did you want me to do, fight the cops?”

  “Just get us out of here.” Their mother was holding Thomas and Hannah’s hands. Looking down at them, something apparently wasn’t right. “Look at you kids. Oh no. You haven’t taken your vitamins, have you?”

  “Mom, could you please tell us what’s going on?” asked Ben. Too many questions were accumulating in his head. His brain needed to sort everything else before it would let Ben go any further.

  “Sorry, Ben,” she said. “Let’s just get out of here and I’ll tell you everything, okay?” It was her old exasperated voice, the one that usually made Ben even more confrontational. But now it almost made him feel like a tiny part of life was back to normal.