“We have a mission tonight.”
“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”
“No,” said Strix. “It’s imperative that you wake up at once. Morgan will arrive to accompany you soon.”
A few minutes later, Lucas heard Morgan outside his window, telling him to come out. His mother was fast asleep on the couch and even the ocean didn’t have the power to wake her up after her soporific herb tonic.
“Have you ever been to the Old Tsunami Watchtower?” Morgan asked when Lucas got outside.
“My mom made me promise to stay away from that place. She says it’s dangerous and bad people hang out there.”
“I’ve only been during the day,” said Morgan. “A few times when I was younger. On dares.”
...
Chapter 10
The Map of Spaces in Between
The Old Tsunami Watchtower had been abandoned for nearly four decades and become a rusting minaret of steel scaffolding. Before the Bastion and the advent of Lorrance alloy, the three-thousand-foot tower had been staffed twenty-four hours a day to issue ocean warnings to New Mountain.
After it was erected, it was only a few years before further rise of the Atlantic and the construction of the Bastion made the watchtower obsolete.
It poked through the cramped tree line on New Mountain like an unruly weed. Many residents had called for its demolition over the years but it was considered a protected historical site. Entry to the tower had been closed for years and the road that connected it to New Mountain hadn’t been maintained.
The only way to reach the gate was a shoulder-width path through the woods. The route was known only by the teenagers in the area, who had worn the path into being and maintained it over generations of disobeying.
That night, Lucas and Morgan pointed their flashlights down the path and prepared to start walking. To Morgan’s surprise, Lucas took the lead.
As they drew closer to the watchtower, they sensed activity ahead. The howling laughter and medley of voices sounded like they belonged to young people. Cigarette and wood smoke slithered down the path toward them.
A soft orange glow pierced the woods and they realized they had come upon a small bonfire in front of the tower. A group of fifteen or twenty older kids were throwing bits of branches and dead wood into the pile and dancing. Others were just outside the fire in the trees, making out and snorting ground anxiety pills.
“Gentleman,” said Strix, who was peaking out from the top of Morgan’s backpack, “It’s important that we push forward. The universe does keep us on schedule.”
When they were close enough to see the door the watchtower, they realized Callista had already arrived. She was trapped between the watchtower’s chained door and three large, older boys. It was clear she was in trouble.
Morgan and Lucas recognized one of the boys right away.
“Of course it had to be Nox,” Grumbled Morgan.
Lucas started toward them with Morgan following.
…
“Just go back to snorting your pills and looking for washed-up crap!” Callista shouted to Nox and his friends. “I’m waiting for someone!”
“You don’t look like a public school girl,” said Nox with a calm, playful grin. “I know all the girls. You carry yourself differently. It’s in your voice too, something out of the ordinary. I can’t put my finger on it. How come I don’t know you?”
“I guess I’ve just been lucky so far,” Callista told him. “Now take your dipshit pals and go back to ringing doorbells and running.”
That made Nox’s smile bloom. He told her, “You said you were meeting someone. This person must be a real beast for you to feel so comfortable talking to us like that. Sweetie, do you think anyone by that bonfire or the guy getting jerked off in the woods is going to help you if you scream? This person you’re waiting for must really be something.”
Lucas and Morgan came out of the woods and stood between Callista and the boys. Morgan pointed his eyebrows into a fearsome angle and threw his shoulders back to look as intimidating as he could.
When Nox saw Morgan, he said to Callista, “So that’s who you’re waiting for. I’m surprised but also not surprised. Isn’t that weird?” He told Morgan, “I was taking a night off, Battle. I wasn’t gonna get to you and the beluga boy until tomorrow.”
“Well then,” said Morgan. “Why don’t we forget about tonight? Let’s pretend we didn’t see each other.”
“Sorry, Battle,” said Nox. “I don’t think so. We just came up to your girl here to say hi and she started insulting us, insinuating that we’re small time hoodlums. I don’t like that at all. I value my reputation. I and my associates can’t let that kind of talk stand.”
“Come on, Nox,” Morgan said, “We’ve got plenty of time to kill each other. We’re here for another reason. After all the years you’ve wanted this, let’s make sure we do it right.”
“Good point, Battle,” said Nox. “I always thought I would drown you in a puddle during a storm. That’s the way I always imagined it.” Nox scanned Callista from her feet to her face, saying, “I know why you insulted me. Don’t worry. It worked. I like you.”
“Back off her,” ordered Morgan.
Nox noticed Strix’s head poking out of the top of Morgan’s backpack. He told him, “I see you brought along your little stuffed owl for protection.” He stared at Strix some more and became interested. “That’s a weird looking stuffed animal. Let me have that thing.”
“Go to hell,” said Morgan.
The boy to the Nox’s right grabbed Callista’s shoulders and started to rub them. She tried to rip herself free but the boy was far too strong. Nox and the third tried to hold Morgan, so they could get their hands on Strix.
While Morgan and Callista tried to fight off the boys, Lucas could only stand there. He felt nausea starting in his core, a hot tension moving up his body.
“Hey!” Lucas shouted to the entire group. “Leave them alone!”
“Or what?” asked Nox, taking a step toward him. “What are you going to do, fat-boy, slap us with your tits?”
For a moment, Nox and his friends turned their attention away from Morgan and Callista.
“Leave us alone,” said Lucas, just before a small but wretched belch came up from his stomach. “Stop it, now, Nox,” he said, sounding simultaneously sick and fearless.
“Did you think we forgot about you, Lucas Mucus?” Asked Nox, who poked him in the chest with his finger. “My plan is to scare you so bad your obese heart explodes.”
“Stop it,” warned Lucas as his face became as hot as a sunburn.
“Or what, fat-boy? What? Are you going to have a heart attack right here?”
Just then, the entire contents of Lucas’s stomach pumped into the air from his mouth nozzle. The stream hit Nox Jaborosa right in the face and spilled on the others. The group tried to flee but they slipped and fell in the vomit. It looked like a mixture of fresh mud and bile with an odor that burned their lungs and eyes.
Lucas told them all, “Now you have what I have. The doctors can’t even identify it.” He raised his voice and lowered his tone, nearly growling, “Now you’re going to die too!”
“This kid’s got a disease!” One of Nox’s friends shouted as he tried to wipe the coating from his face and hair.
The three of them fell over one another in an attempt to rinse their faces with their beers. They ran over to another group, stole their beers and poured them over their heads.
Nox, who could barely see through stinging eyes, spit and hollered, “You’re dead, Mucus! You’re as dead as your damned dad! Morgan, I’m gonna rip your balls off! And girl, whatever your name is, you’re dead too! After you become my girlfriend for awhile!”
The three hoodlums ran off down the path, leaving Lucas, Morgan and Callista by themselves. The gate to the watchtower was right in front of them but they just stood there quietly for a while.
Then Morgan spoke up, saying, “Nice move, Lucas. Was that p
art of your plan?”
“It just kind of occurred to me in the moment, I guess,” he answered. Then Lucas turned to Callista, who still seemed unsettled after the encounter. He asked her, “Are you OK?”
“Umm hmm,” she said, before asking, “Are you one of us too? Do you have a Strix?”
Lucas nodded, wiping the corners of his mouth free from vomit. “I don’t know why,” he said, “but I was chosen too.”
Morgan interrupted them, “How rude of me. Lucas, this is the Princess of Azurton. Princess of Azurton, meet Lucas.”
“It’s Callista,” she told Lucas, before giving Morgan an annoyed look. “I think your friend and I got off on the wrong foot.”
Strix spoke up from Morgan’s backpack. It said, “The three of you are together for the first time. This is an important event. First, Lucas, we must commend you on your fighting tactics. That was quite an unconventional defense.”
“Why did you bring us all the way out here, Strix?” Morgan asked, angling his head back to take in the tower. “Is the fun over or do we have more in store?”
“We assure you,” said Strix, “the next part of the mission will be interesting and enjoyable.”
“Enjoyable, huh,” Morgan started to ask. “Why does that make me nervous?”
A tall fence with razor wire ran around the base of the watchtower. A fat chain with a combination lock that could have weighed twenty pounds secured the gate.
“Are we supposed to climb that?” Asked Callista as though it was an impossible feat.
“There is no way,” said Lucas. “I’m not even trying. I think I’ve used up all my luck tonight.”
Strix’s eyes lit up as its sensors scanned the scene. “We have an easier alternative,” said the owl. “The combination to the lock is three, thirty-seven, forty-two.”
They were surprised Strix had the combination. Callista walked to the gate and swirled the knob on the combination lock. The lock dropped and Morgan helped her remove the chain.
Once they were past the fence, Strix told them to proceed inside and to stick together. The watchtower’s entrance was as black as the water beyond the Bastion. Strix ignited a bright white light in his eyes, beaming what resembled headlights in their path.
The tunnel to the door was surrounded by weathered concrete. Each of their footsteps ignited a stir of echoes down the corridor. All around them, graffiti spanning decades, some colorful, some faded, showed up in Strix’s eye light.
“Break the Bastion!” had been scrawled in dozens of different variations of spray paint. “Believe in LaCrone,” was written on the walls and floor.
“That graffiti looks fresh,” said Morgan. “The rest is old as hell but it looks like this LaCrone stuff was painted today.”
“What’s LaCrone?” Asked Callista.
“We’re afraid we are unable to answer that question at this time,” answered Strix.
“Unable or unwilling,” commented Morgan.
The corridor led to a dust-covered panel that lit up when the three got close. It was apparently the controls for the elevator system. Strix had the entry code for that as well. The car to the open-air elevator was just large enough for the three of them. It was less like an elevator car and more like a large bucket with some fencing.
Strix told Morgan to hit the button for the top.
For the first time that night, they could relax for a moment and catch their breath. Morgan and Callista were silent and the only sound the three could hear was the sound of Lucas wheezing. His breath was squeaky, labored with gurgling mucus. He took the bottom of his shirt and dabbed some remaining vomit from his chin.
“Are you really OK?” Callista asked him as the cart climbed to the top. “You don’t sound good.”
Lucas didn’t answer. He was having trouble catching his breath and the height of the elevator car was starting to make him dizzy. After a moment, he nodded to her and steadied himself on the railing.
“I think you saved us down there,” She told him.
“Those guys aren’t through with us,” said Morgan. “It isn’t over. It’s just gotten worse for all of us.” He stared at Callista with a grain of malice, saying, “Well, maybe not the princess here. I’m sure you’ve got armed guards at your private school.”
Just as the elevator brought them over the tree line, Lucas pressed his face up to the fencing to look out. “Man,” he said, “I never thought I would get to see it. The ocean. It’s so black and so empty.”
At that height, they could just begin to glimpse the ocean beyond the Bastion. It appeared as a black, churning void in the stars. The rumble and hiss ran through their bodies.
Lucas noticed something strange right away. Hidden from those below, a small dome rested at the top of the Bastion. The soft red light shone through the spray and fog. No one on the ground could have known it was there.
“I’ve seen it before,” said Callista.
“Well bully for you,” said Morgan.
“Never from so high though,” Callista went on, unaffected by Morgan’s remark. “I swear someone lives there.”
When the car reached the top of the tower, the three were able to see clear over the Bastion. At first, the sea looked like a black emptiness, a tremendous hole in the stars. Then a white tip of a breaking wave became just visible, sending a crashing wall of water into the Bastion. The tower underneath them shook and the hiss felt like a cobra’s tongue on their noses.
Had the Bastion not been there, even the relatively small swell would have leveled everything they had ever known. The Bastion separated them from the end of the world.
“Why do you think Strix brought us here?” Lucas asked.
Strix answered from Morgan’s backpack, saying, “We believe we can answer that, Lucas. Please turn your attention to the horizon, just beyond the breakers.”
Morgan thought for sure he saw a faint green glow in the water, a soft flicker that seemed to be getting brighter. “What the hell is that?” He asked.
The glowing patch of water got bigger and closer until it looked like the entire ocean had turned into lightning bugs. The mass of liquid light raised into a wave before splashing down to create a lime green fireworks display.
“I’ll say it again,” added Morgan. “What in God’s name is that?”
“Luminescent algae,” said Lucas. “I’ve read about them. Since the oceans have gotten so much warmer, they’ve been forming massive colonies. Some of them are as big as the great lakes used to be.”
“How do you know that?” Asked Callista.
“When I’m not sick, I read,” Lucas said.
There was more out there. Floating on one of the glowing patches of water, a rusty old aircraft carrier bobbed in the middle of a glom of garbage, plastic from hundreds of years earlier. The thousand-foot carrier looked more like a rubber duck toy next to the mass of garbage.
“I’ve read about those boats,” said Lucas. “People used to fly airplanes off of them in the old days.”
Just then a breaker smacked the carrier into the Bastion, sending out a soprano metal cry and a crash that shook the tower.
“The past,” said Strix, “never goes away. Even the ocean can’t erase it. Memory survives. It’s a law of the universe. Someday everything you know will be washed away but the memory will live on.”
“Is that some kind of riddle?” Asked Morgan. “Because I don’t understand it.”
“You three will be the memory of this place,” said Strix.
“That makes things much clearer then,” said Morgan.
Callista asked, “What’s going to happen to this place?”
The glow is Strix’s eyes pulsed as he calculated the answer. “We’re not at liberty to say, Callista.”
“What do you mean, ‘you’re not at liberty to say?’”
“We need authorization to share that information.”
“From whom?” She asked. “You know my father is in line to be the finance minister.”
�
�What an important daddy you have,” Morgan said, rolling his eyes.
“We require authorization from our creator, Blaise Lorrance.”
Callista asked Strix, “What about the dome on top of the Bastion? I’ve seen it from my room for years and wondered who lived there. My dad said he doesn’t know.”
Strix’s motors hummed and his eyes flashed. “It would be near impossible for a human to live up there,” said the owl. “The winds would likely blow someone off and the sight and sound of the ocean would be very damaging psychologically.”
“My dad knew a guy,” said Morgan, “that snuck up there on a bet. He ended up a vegetable after they got him down. He never came back to work, my dad said.”
Something far beyond the Bastion suddenly stole their attention. The rumbling they felt was different from what the ocean produced. It seemed to come from deeper within the Earth. A web of white and purple lightning flashed inside of what appeared to be a mushroom cloud on the horizon.
The display however did not belong to any storm.
Strix told them, “Behold the purpose of tonight’s excursion.”
Fire spit from the fledgling volcano high into the air. The vent at the top of budding mountain just peeked over the water. After a few minutes and a puff of steam and smoke, the top of the volcano disappeared back into the water.
“That is the future,” said Strix. “It’s the seed of a new continent, a new world.”
“It’s just a baby volcano,” said Callista.
“It’s still young,” Strix went on. “It has some growing to do. This is the first time it has seen the sky.”
“Why did you bring us here?” Lucas asked the owl. “Why did you want us to see this?”
“This is a time of great change,” said Strix. “It’s all around you. You three are like that new continent just starting to tear through the water.”
…
Chapter 11
Searching for Lost Children
When Callista arrived home that night, she noticed what looked like a giant sparkler on the side of her house, spewing a cloud of white-hot twinkles from the chimney. She realized when she got closer that the sparks were coming from a welding machine. The thing was nearly as large as a wing of her house, with the crane arm reaching up all the way to the fourth floor.
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