“Run!” commanded Ben. They shot down the side of the house and into front yard. Four shotgun blasts exploded in the backyard behind them. And then silence.
After running another block, Sean stopped. “Just wait for a second, kids. I think we’re okay.” He looked around for a few seconds, and then his mouth opened into a smile. “Hey, that looks like a good place to hide.”
The abandoned house was filled with dust, cobwebs, mouse droppings, and little piles of sawdust. A gray plastic sheet had been thrown over a couch, but there was no other furniture around. All the windows had been boarded up and little cracks of light broke through here and there. The rooms glowed like there was full moon outside.
“How do you know there isn’t anyone living here?” asked Hannah as she tiptoed through the living room.
“Don’t worry, Hannah,” said Sean. “It’s okay. Nobody’s lived here for a while.”
Ben ran his finger down the kitchen counter. Brown dust built up into a pile. Underneath, the counter was the color of a summer sky.
“Look what I found,” said Alison. She was standing in front of a pantry cupboard that was stocked with tins of food. “Peaches anyone?”
They went upstairs where they could watch the street below through a crack in the boards. The dusty room echoed with the sounds of spoons scraping aluminum, with the smacking of four mouths slurping the last drops of syrup from the bottoms of the cans. After polishing off five cans of peaches, Sean leaned back against the wall and belched loudly. He closed his eyes and gently probed at his injured arm with an index finger.
But Ben didn’t feel sorry for throwing the brick at him. He felt numb, an emptiness behind the pounding of his messed up nose.
Behind Sean was a bunch of lines drawn on the orange wallpaper, little half-inch dashes at the three to five foot level, some in pen, some in pencil. And written next to the lines was faint printing. Patrick, April 4, 2032. Tony, August 24, 2034. The kids were now grown, gone god knows where when the family moved or was forced out of the house. Here on the wall in their bedroom was the only evidence of their years here. Images of their old apartment went flashing through Ben’s brain. He tried not to cry, but started sniffing and forced himself to look away.
Sean opened his eyes and looked up at Ben. “Sorry for all of this, kids,” he said. “Somehow thought we’d get out of here a little easier than this. Mind you, it would have been a little more straightforward if you’d come with me right away. But I guess we won’t talk about that now, will we?”
Ben couldn’t bring himself to apologize. “Sean, you shouldn’t have expected four kids to just hop in a van with some guy who’s trying to take them to the jungle. Doesn’t that sound a little weird?”
“‘Spose,” said Sean. “Glad you’re okay with it now. I assume.”
“No, we are not okay with it,” said Hannah.
“Well, once again,” said Sean. “Your choice. You can come with me or you can go with Milagro’s goons.”
“Okay, so who exactly are you?” asked Alison.
“What do you mean?” said Sean, looking confused.
“Well, all we know is that you’re taking us to see some group of people because Ben has some sort of special code spliced into his genes or something.”
“Yep, that’s about right,” said Sean.
“Well, would you care to tell us who you are, what your . . . role in this is?” Alison’s voice rose to a whimpering cry. “You know, all the stuff that no one has ever bothered to tell us?”
“Okay. I see,” said Sean. He came over and sat down closer to them. He looked at each of them before he spoke. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew everything.” He searched the room and sighed. “Right then. Where should I begin? Well, my name is Sean O’Connell. It all started for me ‘bout twenty years ago. I was a university student in Ireland. One day I heard this story from a professor about some mystical plant growing in the middle of nowhere in the jungle, how people had disappeared looking for it. Being young and full of piss, I decided I’d try to find it. Took me some time, but I did, to my own surprise. I lived with the Sibuaji for a while, and then I went back to my life in Ireland. They made me promise not to tell anyone about the plant--well, to tell everyone that I didn’t find it. So I married, had kids, the whole bit. Five years later the Sibuaji track me down. One night I’m staggering out of a pub and this guy just accosts me in the middle of a bridge over the Liffey. Tells me that they’ve got a job for me. But it was more of a contract or a bargain. I wasn’t given a choice.
“They told me about your mother, how she was carrying a child whose DNA contained the genetic code of the plant. Apparently, she was refusing to stay in the jungle. I was ordered to be her observer, to make sure she kept up her end of the deal. And to protect her from Milagro. There were a few others, too. Clouds, they called us. We were--are--the guardians of the code, I guess you could say. We were supposed to be a wall of protection for your mother, ensuring that the code was safe. The idea was to have this team of bodyguards shadow her and the kid forever. But . . . she managed to lose us right away.” Sean sniffed a small laugh. “Anyway, the next time we caught up with her, maybe a year or two later, she had four kids. Which was never the deal, of course. There was only supposed to be one. That was the arrangement.”
“Wait,” said Alison, “that makes no sense. We’re three years apart. Ben is fourteen, I’m thirteen, and Hannah and Thomas are both eleven. How could four of us just . . . appear in one year?”
“Whoa,” said Sean quietly. “So your mother never told you about that?”
Alison’s eyes narrowed. “About what?”
“Yikes. Well, I suppose those ages are true . . . in a way. Except you were all born on the same day and have just been, um, aging quite differently.”
“What?” shrieked Alison.
“How can we be the same age?” asked Hannah.
“Well, if you define age as the period of time in which all of you have been alive, then you have all been on this earth for fourteen years.”
“But why does Alison look older,” asked Ben. “And why do Thomas and Hannah look so young?”
“Well,” said Sean, “from the little your mother told us, and from our own observations over the last few years as we repeatedly tried to persuade her to remain in our custody and care, it seems that there was some sort of side effect to your creation. It looks like the four of you don’t really age normally, at the same rate as . . . normal people. Guess it has something to do with creating life artificially. Your mother obviously figured this out, and she started giving you something to control the changes. To regulate cellular growth or something. But I guess at some point she decided it would be easier to tell you that you were all different ages than to explain what was really going on.”
“The vitamins,” stammered Ben. “The vitamins Mom made us take--they must have been some sort of medicine. Since we stopped taking them Hannah looks like she’s years older.”
“Hmm,” considered Sean. “At one point, maybe when you were all five, Hannah looked like the eldest, and then whatever your mom was giving you made her slow down so much that she became the youngest. Ben, Alison, you two appear to have had a normal growth rate, but Thomas hasn’t aged much at all since his ninth birthday. I don’t know what’s going to happen now that you’re not taking that stuff anymore. This is obviously quite . . . weird. I’m sorry.”
“That’s why there were never any photos of us as kids,” said Alison weakly. “We were all the same age.”
Ben looked back at the little growth chart on the wall. They had never done such a thing growing up. What would it have even looked like? He felt himself staring to cry again, but he tensed his fist and turned his sadness into frustration. The four of them had been cheated. How could their mother do this to them?
“So, what, that makes us all twins or something?” asked Hannah.
“Either clones or fraternal quadruplets,” said Sean. “We’re not entirely sure of
the . . . technology your mother used in your creation. I, uh, never finished university, so I’m kinda fuzzy on the whole--”
“So we were created in a laboratory then?” asked Alison.
“Once again, I’m not entirely sure, but it sort of looks that way.”
Ben couldn’t help himself from asking the big question. The unspeakable thing. “But . . . who is our father?”
“We don’t exactly know, I’m afraid. It is entirely possible that you are all clones or something, which would negate the need for a--”
“But wouldn’t we all look the same if we were clones?” asked Alison. “I remember that from our biology textbook.”
“I really don’t know, Alison. The person with the Phd in the subject has unfortunately run away. You have to remember that this wasn’t a part of the original plan. Your mother felt the need to improvise for some reason. She’s a strange woman . . . never really felt I knew her.”
“So, we’re some sort of laboratory experiment?” asked Hannah.
“Hannah, I want you to listen carefully,” said Sean. “Your mother loves you very much. That’s all you need to know. Try not to think about the other stuff, okay? I’m sorry I told you, but I guess you needed to know. Just try to put it behind you, alright?”
There was a long silence. Alison and Hannah stared down into the dust. Ben pressed his fingers into the corners of his eyes and tried to pretend that he was somewhere, anywhere, else. Nothing their mother had taught them could prepare them for this, the thing she had kept from them their entire lives.
“Look, I know this is all really disturbing,” said Sean. “But if you’re going to come with me, we have to get back to the truck before they take it away. The three of you are welcome to go your own way. Just remember you can’t run from any of this. Milagro will find you in a matter of hours.”
Ben got to his feet and breathed in deeply. Sean was right. There was no avoiding who they were. Something Basho had once said came back to him. “Let’s go. There’s no use trying to delay.”
Chapter Twenty-seven: Down We Go
Sean replaced the piece of yellow plywood over the kitchen window and they stepped back into the rain. At the sidewalk, Ben looked back at the abandoned house. Where was the family it had once held? For years, it had apparently kept them safe, like a child’s arms wrapped around a teddy bear. And then one day they had left, or had been spat out, taking everything with them except for a bunch of canned peaches and some lines scribbled on a bedroom wall. Was it like a heart transplant--did they just move their clothes, their toys, their books to a new house? Or was everything sold, thrown out, given away, until all they had left was love and memories?
As they walked in silence through the rain, Ben thought back to their old apartment. He wondered what it looked like now, if anyone had cleaned it out for someone else to rent, or if it had been left like a museum for the family that would never return. He remembered the dusty hallways. The old people yelling. Dressing up in costumes, their imaginations running wild. Staring out at the unknown city. Back then he would have given anything to have the adventures he now wanted out of. Everything about the life they used to lead now seemed so small, so simple. It was an ornate piece of pottery that had been smashed on the ground. Even the memories Ben had forged there now felt quaint, now that they knew who they really were. Or what they really were.
They retraced their route, avoiding the man with the shotgun behind the big hedge. No one said anything about what might have happened to the Milagcorp guards who had followed them into the yard. By Ben’s calculations the truck was about five or six blocks away, if it was even still there. Sean walked with his head down, the rain dripping from his nose like a stream running over a cliff.
“They’re going to be waiting for us, aren’t they?” asked Alison.
“Who, Milagro’s guards?” said Sean. “Probably. Unless they’ve already taken the truck away.”
“So what are we going to do?” asked Ben.
“We’re going to fight them,” said Sean. “Why, you got an alternative?”
Ben huff a surprised, scared laugh. How were they supposed to fight Milagro’s private army? They obviously didn’t have weapons. Even if they did, Ben wasn’t even sure if he could bring himself to fire a gun at another human being. But he now knew he was capable of violence. Back in the vacant lot, he hadn’t even thought about swinging that piece of rebar at that guy. It had just happened, some sort of instinct he never knew he possessed, a different part of his brain awakened by some magical combination of events. Back in their apartment, his frustration would swirl up in him like a tornado. He’d kick a hole in a wall and everything would end. Now, there were no walls to kick. And now that he knew what was really going on, the pain and rage no longer ended with a single violent outburst.
They waded back through the silent parking garage, up the narrow, slimy stairs, and into the street on the other side. There were other people here and there, walking home from their jobs, going to the grocery store, some even just standing on the street corners watching the rain avalanche down and the streets swell into rivers.
They were getting close. The truck was just around the next corner. Sean slowed down and took hesitant steps forward.
“And why is that truck so important?” Hannah asked.
“It’s the only way out of here,” said Sean.
“Can’t we just find another car?”
“Not really. You’ll see what I--” Sean stopped mid sentence as they came around the corner. The truck was still there. Most of the Milagcorp cars had disappeared, but there were still two, parked on either side of the truck like shimmering silver bookends. And behind them, a tow truck had wedged itself into the front of Sean’s truck, the driver messing about with the big tire clamps. Two Milagcorp guards were standing off on the sidewalk. One was talking into his hand. The other held his hand on his gun holster, ready to shoot at anything that moved.
“Okay, here’s the plan,” said Sean. “We’re going to pretend that we’re surrendering, okay? I’m going to get down on my knees. One of those guys is going to handcuff me and the other one is going to try to corral you three. I want you to go after the guy with the gun, whoever that happens to be, okay?”
“What do you mean go after?” asked Alison.
“I dunno, kick him, punch him, poke at his eyes.”
“The guy with the gun?” asked Hannah. “What if he fires at us?”
“He won’t. Don’t worry.”
“But what if he fires at you?” asked Ben.
“I don’t know. Don’t worry. Am I saying that a lot? Look, once I take care of the guy handcuffing me, I’ll help you with the other guy. Ready?” Sean breathed in deeply and turned to go.
“No, we’re not,” said Alison. She stared down into the filthy black water. “Hannah and I are staying here. We don’t want anything to do with this. Ben’s the important one--why should we have to go with you?”
Sean grimaced and struggled to formulate a response. “Look . . . well . . . Alison, this situation isn’t going to be solved if you split up even more. Let’s just stick together, okay? It’s the only chance we have of making things right again. Just trust me, okay?”
“Whatever. Like we have anything to live for.”
“Alison, listen to me. You can’t say that. You have a mother who loves you very much, and when this is all over, we’re going to find her and Thomas and make everything right again. I’m sorry if it all looks hopeless right now.”
Alison shook her head in silence, unable to accept Sean’s promise of a rosy future.
“Come on. Let’s just get this over with,” said Ben.
“Right then,” said Sean. His face brightened with a sense of urgency and purpose. “I’m going to go now. You lot stay about ten feet back.” And then he started to waltz down the street, hands in his pockets, kicking up waves, whistling away like he was the happiest guy in the universe.
He was about fifty feet away from
the guards when they caught sight of him. Mouths hung open like Atlantis had just appeared in front of them. Then they both smiled. The guy with the gun pulled his shiny black pistol out of the holster. The other laughed into his hand. “Yeah, it’s Ralph. You won’t believe this. They’re here. Back at the truck. All four of them. Send a couple cars. Just in case.”
“We’re ready to surrender now, gentlemen,” said Sean. He got down on his knees, the water on the street swallowing him up to his thighs. He raised his arms and placed them on top of his head. “Here we go now, let’s get this all over with, shall we? The four of us would like to come in from the cold, as they say. Or out of the rain. Sound good? But maybe wherever you take us you could see fit to get us some hot drinks? Small token of thanks for giving up so easy?”
The guards didn’t know how to respond. They walked up to Sean like he was a bomb set to detonate. Once they were about ten feet away, they made an unconscious decision that the one with the gun would be in charge of capturing the three kids. The other one reached for his handcuffs.
“Look, I’m the one who has the code,” said Sean.
“You can shut up now,” said the guard with the gun. “We know the score, okay?”
“Leave the kids out of it,” said Sean. “They’re just a bunch of orphans.”
If Sean was trying to be funny, Ben didn’t appreciate it. The guard with the gun approached the three of them with the same hesitant walk, as if they were nuclear waste left on the street corner. Which, Ben considered, was a somewhat accurate comparison.
People walking by on the other side of the street were looking warily on. They apparently knew these were Milagro’s security forces, and were unable to control their gawking. One man was trying to eat a bag of potato chips while struggling to hold his umbrella at the same time, a look on his face like he was watching a particularly boring football game on TV.
The Fortress of Clouds Page 26