The Lonely Whelk Page 15

  “Lock the door,” John said.

  “You can do that?” Kaia asked. “Lock them?”

  “No!” John chuckled. “That door.” He pointed to the door leading into the Door Room.

  “Ohhh.” Kaia laughed too and began to walk towards it.

  At that moment, the door burst open. In strode a tall woman in a fitted black dress. “Hello, John.”

  “Mrs. Brothard. The Queen of Thieves.” He scowled at her and crossed his arms, stopping halfway between the Doors and her. “So you’re the cause of this mess. I should have guessed. I presume you are here to take a Door?”

  She looked out across the massive room filled with Door after Door and a small smile flitted over her lips. “Well, clearly none of these.” Her hand stretched out elegantly, gesturing at the rows of sheer blue rectangles in front of her.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” John said slyly.

  “Yes, you do.” A small smile slithered across her lips. “But I will refresh your memory.” She stepped forward and began to tell a story, using her hands to gesticulate meaninglessness.

  “It was a warm day in the spring, and I was lackadaisically wandering down Main, looking for a graduation present for my wonderful son. Imagine my surprise when I discovered a brand new tourist shop that had never been there before. Even more surprising was that it didn’t seem to take up the normal amount of space that a shop should; it was stuck to the side of a building which I knew very well, but didn’t appear to take up any space inside the building! And yet, when you stepped inside the cute little shop – adorable, in fact – it was quite large and even contained living quarters in the back!

  “I visited for a few moments, bought a trinket, and then just happened to bump into you on the way out. Do you remember?”

  “Yes,” John said with irritation, reaching up to straighten his tie angrily.

  “I came back not fifteen minutes later, and the shop had mysteriously disappeared! There was no construction, there were no moving trucks, there wasn’t anything that would make any sense. So I did some digging.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “My theoreticians postulated that it was a Door which could move itself! Imagine that. A Door which you could put things inside of, and then, essentially, drive to any other Door in the universe. Imagine what I could do with that! Now, I expect you will give it to me.”

  “I can’t do that,” John replied.

  Kaia was frowning.

  “John,” she said. “Did this Door have six sides?”

  “Seven,” he replied, the corner of his mouth curving upwards ever so slightly. His frown returned quickly. “And don’t think about it.” He turned back to Mrs. Brothard.

  “I imagine you will give it to me—” she flicked a finger, “—just to ensure that nothing happens to your lovely intern.”

  Kaia shrieked as Mrs. Brothard’s giant bodyguard reached out and grabbed her by the arm. The next moment, she felt a knife against her neck. She began to breathe heavily, and swallowed several times. She began to count rapidly from one, and once she had reached one thousand, she began to calculate the possibility of a Door with seven sides.

  “Let her go!” she heard John say, but everything felt as though it were at a bit of a distance.

  “Give me the Door,” Mrs. Brothard replied. Kaia wondered if her voice was what evil sounded like.

  “It appears we have a draw,” John stated. “If you kill Kaia, I will never, ever give you the Door, but if I give you the Door, there is no guarantee that I will get my intern back alive.”

  “You have my word,” Mrs. Brothard promised.

  “For the little that is worth,” John spat.

  “I will give you five minutes to change your mind,” the woman replied. “Or else the girl dies.”

  John sighed loudly and Kaia tried to stand as still as she possibly could.

  “I don’t need five minutes,” John said. “But I do need my security guard to come down and give me the appropriate keys.”

  “What do you mean you don’t have the keys?” Perla asked suspiciously. “It’s your invention!”

  John shrugged. “They don’t trust me with keys. I have a tendency to hide them places.”

  Mrs. Brothard nodded slowly. “I suppose. It does seem that then entire city knows how to get into this building one way or another. It certainly wasn’t too difficult for us.” She held up a set of keys in front of her and swung them around.

  “In that case, you’ll have to let me call him.” John ignored the keys.

  “Only him,” she said. “Is he in the security room?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then he’ll be guarded by my guard. Send them both down. And no traps.”

  “Of course,” John said, and Kaia relaxed as a comfortable smile spread across his lips.

  Clyde had no plan. He was watching the screens, memorizing every little thing that happened, hoping that the information would come in useful, and that he wouldn’t end up sitting in this room forever feeling completely useless. The man with the knife had loosened his grip slightly, so Clyde sank back in his chair. He had to come up with a plan, and fast. Ivanna the Bard had once said, A man without a plan is no better than a rock, but Clyde thought that might be a little harsh.

  Watching the screens was getting easier. Now that most people had left the building, the rooms began to go dark. He, of course, could still see, as all the cameras had dark lenses, but it was a completely different colour, so he could easily differentiate between the rooms with people in them and the rooms without.

  Then the comm buzzed. The man with the knife tensed, and Clyde felt the knife move closer to his neck.

  “Answer it,” the man said, handing it to him. “But don’t you even dare send any signals or you’re dead.”

  “Security guard,” came John’s voice from the box. “Could you please ask Lord J to escort you to the Door Room, by request of Perla?”

  “What is this, some kind of trick?” the man with the knife hissed.

  “If the man holding a knife to your neck thinks it’s a trick, tell him ‘Omaha.’”

  The knife moved away from his neck by about a half an inch. “That’s the code word,” he replied.

  “Then we had better get going,” Clyde said. “You lead the way!” Anything would be better than sitting here doing nothing except having the blade of a knife resting against his throat.

  “No, you lead the way. And leave that box thing here. And no talking. Remember, I have a knife and it’s a very short distance between the tip and your abdomen. Typically, I like to kill neatly, but for you, I’d make an exception. A very, very messy exception.”

  “I need keys,” Clyde responded.

  The man nodded as Clyde carefully picked them up. Then he slowly stood. He moved calmly to the exit, pushing down the panicky, screaming voice in the back of his head that kept telling him to do things like kick the man in the knee, start flailing about wildly, or cry. If these terrorists were down in the Door Room with John and Kaia, and John had asked Clyde to come down, then perhaps John had a plan.

  The halls were quiet and dark, a far cry from the wild and chaotic scene he had witnessed not too long ago, and now everything seemed a bit creepy.

  “Seems a little too quiet,” Clyde said pleasantly to his captor.

  “Shut up,” Lord J hissed. “No talking unless I say so.”

  “Ivanna the Bard says that the best way to make friends is to begin by offering a friendly word,” Clyde replied. His body tensed as he readied for his captor’s reaction.

  Lord J laughed. “Ivanna the Bard is a load of nonsense. You telling me you actually believe that crap?”

  “I don’t think belief has anything to do with it,” Clyde answered, turning to look at the man walking a bit behind him. “She was a real person and she had some very valuable things to say. Have you ever read her?”

  “My ma used to read her to me as a kid, but I never really got t
he point. ‘Get what you want, be happy,’ was what my da always said, and so that’s what I’ve done.” Lord J waved his knife around as he talked.

  “I think Ivanna the Bard says something like that, too,” Clyde replied. “Your mom probably read you the boring stuff. She says, ‘To live a life both happy and well, earn your place and love what you earn like a horse.’“

  “A horse?” Lord J snorted. “Well, makes sense I guess, but I like mine better.”

  Clyde slowed down a bit until he was walking alongside his captor.

  “Your dad sounds like a very intelligent man,” Clyde offered.

  “Oh, he was. Best thief in the world, ‘til his knee gave out on a museum job. Then the cops nabbed him in half a heartbeat. Good thing is, he didn’t have his hands on anything, so he got a lighter sentence, just for trespassing, you know. They didn’t have any evidence. Sent him off to some colony planet as a laborer. Nothing there to steal, they said.”

  Looking around, Clyde saw that they were coming to the end of the hallway; the entrance to the Door Room would be right around the corner, several floors down. If he remembered correctly, it was down a few floors on 23.

  “Elevator’s right up here,” Clyde said. “We have to go up a few floors.”

  They entered the awkwardly silent elevator – still no music, Clyde noticed disappointedly – and Clyde turned the key to turn on the elevator and pushed the button for floor 35.

  “Sure that’s the right floor?” Lord J asked gruffly.

  “Sure am!” Clyde answered cheerfully.

  They stood in silence as the elevator hummed slowly downwards. Then the doors slid open, revealing another empty hallway.

  Clyde pointed forward, stepping into the hallway. “The Door Room is around that corner.”

  “Good.” Lord J followed him from the elevator.

  “So your dad wasn’t around much when you were a kid?” Clyde continued from their previous conversation.

  “Doesn’t mean he wasn’t a good dad,” Lord J replied defensively, scowling and looking away from Clyde.

  Clyde took his chance and spun around, darting towards the closing elevator doors.

  He slipped through and slammed his fist on the button that said “23.” He heard Lord J thump against the outside of the closed door, yelling angrily at Clyde.

  Clyde took a deep breath and stepped away from the door. He waited in silence, holding his thoughts still until he reached floor 23. Then he sprinted from the elevator towards the Door Room. He knew he couldn’t go in with guns blazing, since he didn’t have a gun, so he did the next best thing: hands up.

  “I’m here,” he said as the massive doors to the room closed behind him.

  In front of him stood a group of people arguing passionately about Door-related things. John was waving his hands about angrily; Kaia’s eyes were closed, her lips were moving, and her neck was quite close to being sliced with a very sharp-looking knife. The man holding it seemed oddly familiar to Clyde, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Then he remembered: Uncle Face. Quin stood on the edge of the room next to his Uncle Maxwell.

  “Uncle Maxwell?” he asked.

  The woman facing John turned around. Clyde’s eyes widened.

  “Mom?” he gasped.

  “Clyde?” the woman replied.

  “What are you doing here?” Clyde asked.

  “What are you doing here?” Perla returned the question.

  “I work here!” Clyde let his hands drop and crossed his arms in irritation. “Why are you wearing that wig? And why Uncle Face here?” He gestured towards the large man holding a knife to Kaia’s throat.

  She spun to face John. “Where is your other security guard?”

  “Look at me! I am talking to you!” Clyde ordered angrily. He was having trouble processing what was happening. “He got stuck in another part of the building when we went into lockdown. Now tell me what you think you’re doing!”

  Clyde watched in astonishment as she reached up and pulled off the black wig. In front his eyes, her face molded itself into the loving, motherly expression that had driven him crazy for so many years. She walked up to him and placed a hand on his arm.

  “Son,” she said, “I guess it’s time you knew.”

  He shrugged her hand off and stepped away from her. “Knew what?” He could feel an uncomfortable rumbling in the back of his brain, as if emotions were about to come spewing forth. From the corner of his eye he could see John grinning, but tried to ignore it. Learn to control your feelings and let them out when the time is right, not wrong – Ivanna the Bard would help him through this yet.

  “Our government is corrupt. I work alongside a select group of individuals who all work together to fight evil. We want to take what rightfully belongs to the people and give it back, like the great hero Robin Hood does on Earth.”

  “Robin Hood wasn’t real,” John muttered, crossing his arms.

  Shaking his head, Clyde looked away from his mother. He saw the knife at Kaia’s throat again and swallowed. “What did she do?” he asked, gesturing towards Kaia.

  “Who?” His mother turned to look where he was pointing. “Oh, her. Nothing – we weren’t going to hurt her! We were just trying to demonstrate our authority.”

  “I see.” Clyde swallowed and tried to fight back the deluge of confusing memories that suddenly made sense. Somehow he had been able to brainwash himself into believing that there was nothing odd or strange about his childhood, nothing unusual about his upbringing. But the man with the knife… he knew now. Uncle Face – that clearly wasn’t a real name – had been around for years when he was a kid. He had brought Clyde a few birthday presents, but Clyde hadn’t been allowed to spend any real time with him. Then there were those book club meetings, when all sorts of oddly-dressed people showed up to the house and made banging noises in the study. There were so many clues, so many signals, and yet somehow he had managed to miss them all. The large sums of money he received as gifts at random times, his mom’s sudden and unexplained trips out of town, the random relatives that seemed to appear and then disappear without explanation, the big house in an expensive neighborhood, despite his mother’s apparent lack of income: she wasn’t unemployed at all, she simply took what she wanted.

  “Is dad even dead?” Clyde asked as he pulled himself out from his own mental onslaught.

  “No,” she said. “He’s in jail, but I didn’t think that was a good thing to go telling a four-year-old, do you?”

  “When, then?” Clyde demanded, raising his voice. “When did you think it would be a good idea to tell me? Before or after you died? Before or after you got arrested for doing something harebrained and stupid? Before or after I got called into court to testify on your account, knowing nothing of your illegal ventures? How many people have you stolen from, Mom? How many people have you hurt? How many have you killed?” He didn’t stop, even as he watched her face fall and anger begin to replace the faux sincerity that she had tried to pull over on him only a minute before. “Did you honestly expect I would think you were a good mother all these years just because you provided for me and made sure I had my lunch every morning? The answer is no. You kept these secrets, you lied to me, and quite frankly, you neglected me.” Clyde took a breath, but before he could continue, his mother interjected.

  “I did it to protect you!” she hissed. “You think you would have rather grown up surrounded by thieves and murderers and criminals? You really think that was a better environment for a child than one in which he believed he was loved and protected by his mother? I love what I do, regardless of what you think of it, but there was no way I was dragging my son into it. If you had any sense at all, you would never have taken a job in law enforcement! I told you not to, remember? Then we wouldn’t be in this situation at all! You should appreciate everything I’ve done for you! You should love me! I am your mother, and you will respect me whether you like it or not!”

  “No, Mom,” Clyde stated, backing slowly away from
her. “I can’t. You’re still holding a knife to Kaia’s neck.”

  “Bad Face!” Perla commanded. “Put the knife down, but don’t let the girl go.”

  Bad Face pulled the knife away from Kaia’s neck but kept it in the air in front of her, and didn’t let go.

  “You and I are going to have a chat,” she said, looking at Clyde, but then turned back towards John. “But first, you are going to give me what I came here for.”

  “I have your son,” John said, “and you have my intern. I think it’s really a draw this time.”

  Perla frowned and turned back to Clyde.

  “Where is Lord J?”

  “Right here!” a voice exclaimed, breathing heavily. “Your brat made me run down twelve floors – that is twenty-four flights of stairs!”

  John chuckled. “Serves you right.”

  “Well,” Perla said angrily, turning back to John, eyes narrowing. “It seems we are no longer at a draw. I now have my son,” she flicked her wrist and Clyde felt the cold metal of a knife press against his throat, “and your intern.” She flicked her wrist again and Bad Face’s knife went back into its original position against Kaia’s neck.

  “You’d kill your own son?” John asked.

  “No, but I might injure him or knock him out,” Perla answered. “Take me to the Door.”

  “Fine.” John sighed loudly and began to stomp his feet towards an office on the other side of the room.

  “Don’t,” Kaia hissed loudly.

  “Be quiet,” John said harshly. He did not turn to look at her.

  “But it’s got seven...”

  “I said, be quiet,” John emphasized. “I am well aware of that fact, and it would behoove you to start counting – to a million this time.”

  Clyde felt Lord J shove him forward. “Watch that knife!” Clyde muttered.

  “Serves you right for trying to be befriend me and pretend to care about my dad!” Lord J replied. “I thought you might actually not be the wimpy idiot I always thought you were, but turns out I was wrong.”

  “I outsmarted you,” Clyde pointed out. “That always stings.”

  Lord J kicked him in the back of the knee and Clyde grunted, stumbling forward.