“Damn it,” muttered Sean. “Betcha their security sensors are back online now. Come on.” He took off at a determined jog, but his eyes darted about restlessly. Gne was the cool swagger he’d displayed back in Milagro’s office. Now, with his white shirt translucent from the rain, and his jeans filthy from crawling through the mud, he looked and moved like an caffeinated stray cat.
The path soon spilled out into a huge, verdant football field. At the far end was a fence and beyond that, where the Milagcorp complex obviously ended, the landscape grew dull and old.
“Stick to the side so we won’t be seen,” ordered Sean without looking back. Puddles were coalescing into miniature lakes, turning the field into a swamp. High up swirls of rain were being twisted by the wind into demonic shapes.
At the fence, Sean took off his dripping shirt, hung it over the barbed wire, and helped each of the kids up and over. It was like stepping from a color movie into a black and white one: on the other side everything was monotonal and dead. Looking back through the fence at the field and the gardens behind them, the Milagcorp complex shone silver and green, as if each tree, each plant, each blade of grass was illuminated from the inside.
“Okay, Sean, where’s the truck?” asked their mother once she had dropped from the top of the fence. “I’m assuming you’re still driving that rusty thing I saw you in a few years back?”
Sean motioned to a squat concrete block on the other side of an expansive parking lot. “In that parkade over there.” Something in what their mother had asked, or maybe in the way she had spoken, made Sean stop. A slight smile parted his lips and his voice became unsure, almost embarrassed. “Nora, are you . . . do you mean to say that . . . so you’re coming with us then?” Sean grabbed his shirt from the fence, but it ripped, so he stood there with the rain running over him and a mischievous smile growing on his face.
“Why don’t you come with us, Sean?”
“Us? Nora, you know what has to happen now.” The smile disappeared.
“So . . . you’re going to go through with it then?”
“I have no choice, Nora. You know you can come, but if you get in the truck, I’m not stopping until we get there.” They stared at each other. “Would it make any difference if I said that I wanted you to come?”
Their mother smiled sweetly at this, as if Hannah had made a silly joke. “You know I can’t, Sean,” she said with a shake of her head. “But it goes without saying that you could stay.”
“I can’t do that.”
“What would you do if I took them with me right now?”
“You know the answer to that, Nora. And I know it won’t come to that.”
“Do you? You have no idea what we’ve been through.”
“What, you’re going to try to take them?”
“Damn it, Sean, you hide behind this . . . this job and pretend you don’t feel anything.”
“Right. Coming from the queen of passive aggressive emotional ambiguity, that’s really--”
But their argument was interrupted by the crack of a gun and the simultaneous ping of a bullet ricocheting off the fencepost. Two silver figures were racing through the puddles in the field behind them.
“Oh no, Sean. They’re shooting at us.”
“Don’t worry. They meant to miss. Come on.”
Their feet slapped across the slick parking lot as they raced towards the parkade. But Ben could sense in his peripheral vision that their mother was starting to veer off. It was like a giant magnet was pulling her away from them.
“Kids, wait,” called their mother. “I know this is horrible, but you have to trust me. There is still a chance I can fix all of this. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine. You’re safe now.”
But she couldn’t move and they all stood there for what seemed like an eternity. Her black hair was plastered in thick strands over her face, but she made no attempt to move it out of her eyes. And according to Milagro, the short black hair they had always known was a disguise. Seeing her now across a parking lot in a downpour was like seeing an actor play the part of their mother. The face in all of Ben’s memories was somehow not correct. He flashed back to the contents of the drawer under the bathroom sink. Designer Styler Midnight Black #5. And the glasses that she didn’t need. What did she really look like?
“Go with Sean,” she said. “It’ll be okay.”
“What--you’re not coming with us?” yelled Alison. “We’re not leaving her here,” she commanded to Sean.
“Kids, come on,” said Sean. “We don’t have much time.”
Their mother bit her lip and tried to force a weak smile. “You’ll be safe in the jungle,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.”
“What? The jungle?” cried Ben.
“Where are you going?” squeaked Hannah, and then she broke down into a sobbing scream. “Mooommm!”
A faint whirring sound rose in the distance. Four silver cars appeared on the far side of the parking lot, sending up frothy wakes as they streamed directly for them. The expanse of concrete was segregated by little islands of dead trees, and the cars were swerving in and out like birds of prey.
“Kids, start running,” ordered Sean. “You have to tell me, Nora--which one is it in?”
She was a statue bolted to the concrete.
“Nora, please!” yelled Sean.
Their mother’s mouth crumpled in a half-smile, half-grimace, and her fingers shimmered in an attempt at a wave.
The cars slid around a corner in unison.
“All of you--just go!” yelled Sean and he pushed at them to get them to run.
“Run? Where?” wailed Alison.
Sean snapped angrily but he couldn’t take his stare off their mother. “Just go!”
The four of them tried to summon some sort of run, but their legs were too heavy to move. They couldn’t run and look back at the same time, and they tripped their way toward the other end of the parking lot.
The cars were closing in.
“Nora, we have to go now!” screamed Sean.
Their mother was immovable, her arms flattened against her sides.
“Tell me--which one?”
She tried to leave, but immediately turned back as if she had forgotten something. Her mouth opened, but the only sound that came out was a single, muffled syllable. And then she ran. In seconds, she leapt over a hedge, sprinted across the street, and disappeared between two buildings. Two of the cars split off, slid into perfect one-hundred-and-eighty degree turns, and roared their engines in pursuit of her.
Something uncontrollable in Ben made him try to run after her, but Sean grabbed his arm and flung him back.
“No, Ben!” yelled Sean.
But Ben’s legs wouldn’t work. He stared to see if their mother would reappear out of the alley that had swallowed her. It was only the whine of the two remaining cars coming right at him that made him start to sprint.
Four doors slammed behind them as they ran behind Sean up a stairwell that reeked of urine. At the first landing they had to jump over an old man sleeping under a tattered brown blanket. And then the pounding of their shoes in the stairwell and the rasping of Thomas’s breathing somewhere behind Ben was replaced by a disgustingly familiar sound. The rattle of guns echoed around them, the same firecracker coughs that had filled the air when Jawl had died.
“They’re shooting at us!” gasped Ben.
“Yes, they are,” said Sean, “but they aren’t going to hit us, so do your best to ignore it.”
“What?” yelled Alison.
After six floors, the stairs emptied out onto the roof of the parkade, where a single, rusty moving van waited. In the middle of the rainstorm, the corroded hulk of a machine looked like an ancient freighter marooned on a desolate beach. And it smelled just as old inside.
Sean gunned the engine before the doors were even closed. The truck lurched into motion so abruptly that the kids were thrown to the floor, which was covered in old fast food containers, chocolate bar wrappers
, and clumps of faded newspapers. As Sean veered into the turns, they tipped onto two wheels, the weight of the truck almost pulling them completely over. Whatever was behind them in the back of the truck was rolling around and colliding against the sides like an angry elephant.
“Wait--where’s Thomas?” asked Alison as she struggled to get up off the floor of the truck.
“What?” yelled Sean. He looked back through the side mirror. “What do you mean?”
“He was right behind me,” said Ben. It was the same stupid excuse Ben had used when he lost Thomas the day they got into their scrap with Mrs. Brodsky.
But Sean continued to accelerate down through the parkade’s descending spiral.
“We can’t just leave him!” cried Hannah.
“We have no choice,” said Sean.
“What are you doing?” screamed Alison. “Turn around--they got Thomas!”
“Why aren’t you turning around?” yelled Ben.
“We can’t. I’m sorry.”
At the bottom of the parkade, two silver cars were blocking the street. Four men stood with giant guns drawn.
But the truck didn’t slow down.
“Get down,” said Sean. “And brace yourselves.”
Sean punched the gas pedal and the truck’s engine rose to a scream. Bullets started pocking the windshield and still Sean accelerated.
“I thought you said they weren’t trying to hit us!” screamed Hannah.
“Hold on!” yelled Sean.
The truck collided against the cars and the three of them were thrown into the foot well of the passenger seat, the force of the impact making it feel like their three bodies were going to merge into one. The truck skidded out into the street. In a few seconds the snapping of gunfire stopped and they got up off the floor.
Sean broke into an adrenaline-fueled laugh. “Whoo-hoo. That was incredible. I can’t believe how close that was! High-five, kids!”
Hannah reached up and punched him right in the nose.
Chapter Twenty-five: You’re Not Going Anywhere
For the longest time there was only the hum of the engine and the knocking of the rain against the truck. After using a bunch of greasy fast food napkins to staunch his bloody nose, Sean looked at Hannah with a puzzled expression, as if he couldn’t possibly understand why she had hit him. But after a while the silence in the truck became awkward, and Sean turned on the radio and started drumming his fingers on the steering wheel in time to the music. He ran red light after red light to further solidify their escape, but was too drunk with excitement to notice the three children beside him, too pleased with his success to care about their ache at having lost Thomas and their mother.
Ben’s heart stopped racing, but as it slowed it uncovered a sour emptiness. He watched Alison stare out the foggy window. There was nothing he could say that would make it better. The situation was beyond apology. Ben had lost their little brother. And this time it wasn’t just a matter of finding Thomas somewhere in their apartment building.
While Alison watched the condensation growing on the window, Hannah seemed to be studying Sean, as if to discover how it was that he could be happy at such a moment. She looked like she was about to hit him again. After rummaging through a bag behind the seats, Sean had found another shirt to replace the one ripped on the fence. His new shirt said “Welcome to Big Burger!” in faded blue letters.
The windshield wipers could barely keep up with the rain, and there were half seconds of blindness before they swept back over the glass. As they drove on in silence, Ben watched the world outside, each city block offering a unique and bizarre spectacle. Electronics being sold out of the back of a truck. Police officers lining up a group of men against a wall, each one in handcuffs. Outside a church, people were waving signs at the passing cars. The world is ending. This flood will drown us all.
Ben closed his eyes tried to listen to the rain. But he kept hearing their mother’s voice. “Everything will be fine . . . go with Sean . . . you’ll be safe in the jungle . . . I’ll see you soon.” Their mother’s words were hollow shells. How could she just abandon them again? She had been so sure of herself the first time. How could they trust her anymore?
And then Ben remembered the horrible cloud hanging above them. It was like falling into a nightmare with no way to wake up. They were what was being fought over. Or at least one of them was. Right before she disappeared, Sean had demanded their mother tell him which one of them was the carrier of the code. Ben recalled her sad wail through the rain. It was unintelligible, more sorrow than information.
“Sean,” said Ben. “What did she say . . . our mother, when you asked her which one of us . . .”
Sean stopped drumming on the steering wheel and took notice of Ben. “Hmm? What?” He swallowed noticeably and the happiness drained from his face. The question seemed more disquieting than losing Thomas. “Well . . . What did you hear?”
“I don’t know,” said Ben.
“Me neither,” said Sean. “Guess we’ll have to figure everything out when we get there.”
“So where are you taking us anyway?” asked Hannah.
“We’re going back to the jungle. Like your mother said. The Sibuaji are tired of this. They want the code back.”
“What, we’re going to drive there?” asked Ben.
“Well, at least part of the way and then we’ll . . .” But Sean trailed off before he finished his thought. He looked out the side view mirror.
“And you’re expecting to outrun Milagro’s cars in this piece of crap?” asked Ben.
“Don’t you worry, Ben. This old truck’s more advanced than it looks.”
“Shouldn’t you, you know, have something a little faster?”
“Money and ethics, Ben. Diametrically opposed these days. You need lots of one, and as little as possible of the other to be anyone of consequence around here. Just look at Mr. Miracle back there: tons of cash, but no scruples whatsoever. Now my bosses on the other hand have those two things in inverse quantities. No money, but way too much in the old ethical department. So no guns or fancy cars, sorry. ‘Just use your brain, Sean,’ they said. Riigghhtt.” Sean gritted his teeth and shook his head as he recreated the conversation in his head.
“Yes, this vehicle is clearly on the absolute edge of technological advancement,” said Alison sarcastically as she examined the sun-bleached and cracked dashboard.
“It’s got it where it counts, Alison,” muttered Sean. The three children shared a disbelieving look. “Besides, we’ve outrun them so far, right?”
As if on cue, the nasally drone of a helicopter stirred overhead. They couldn’t see it through the pounding rain, but someone began shouting from a loudspeaker.
“Pull over now or we will start firing,” the voice boomed down god-like.
Sean looked only mildly irritated. “Great. Helicopters.”
“Didn’t you hear that?” asked Alison in a panic. “Pull over!”
“No, no, not yet. We need to lose them for a minute to get in the clear.” At first Sean was calm, as if he was quite accustomed to outrunning helicopters, but then he started biting his lip. He made a series of sharp turns down garbage filled alleys, the truck scraping on the sides of buildings and colliding with piles of trash. After a few wild maneuvers and random turns, the whirring of the helicopter stopped. “See?” he said with a smile and an arch of his eyebrows. “This old truck has some moves left.”
An uneasy comfort settled over everyone, but then something caught Ben’s attention. He recognized the neighborhood they were driving through. The decrepit buildings, the layers of graffiti, the worn look on people’s faces, even the type of garbage seemed eerily familiar. He knew where they were. Looking at Alison and Hannah, it was apparent they had noticed too.
“Just a bit further and we’ll have enough of a buffer to get out of here,” said Sean, proud that he had lost the helicopters, but oblivious to the looks of fear emerging on the children’s faces.
“Lo
ok!” cried Hannah.
“Stop the truck!” commanded Alison.
“What? Stop?” asked Sean in confusion. “Alison, listen. We don’t have time for any detours, we have a very narrow time window here and--”
“I don’t care--stop the truck now!” Alison screamed so loud that Sean had no choice but to slam on the brakes. The truck wobbled and skidded into the curb. On their right was the street corner where twenty-four hours earlier Cabra had summoned the limousine to take them to Milagcorp.
“What? What is it?” asked Sean. “We can’t stop here.”
Alison seemed to sense that this man--whoever he was--wasn’t a violent person. “I don’t care,” she said through her teeth. “We’ve been through too much today and you’re going to do what I say.”
The two of them stared at each other, and there were a few seconds of tense stand-off before Sean’s throat moved. “Fine, we’re stopped. And in any second they’re going to catch up to us. Where do you want to go that’s more important than, I don’t know, survival?”
But Alison paid him no attention. Her gaze was fixed on Cabra’s alley and what now lay beyond it.
Sean shook his head and looked worriedly out the driver’s side mirror. “Look, those guards from Milagcorp are probably right behind us. They’re going to be coming around that corner any second! What is it? That demolition site? Who cares--can we go now?”
“Could you please just shut up for one minute?” screamed Alison.
Ben opened the passenger door and let his legs fall to the ground. The pavement was a mush of garbage and filth and the rain resoaked his head in seconds. He heard Alison and Hannah tumble out of the truck behind him.
“Look, I’m sorry for all the hustle and craziness here, children,” called Sean. “Hey! Get back here.” He got out of the truck from the driver’s side and hurriedly followed the three of them down the alley.
“It’s . . . it’s all . . . gone,” gasped Alison as she reached the fence at the edge of the pit.
The Fortress of Clouds Page 24