** * **
The secure location in which Michael was placed was a tall hard-shelled structure, some kind of a storage unit. He had been thrown through a hatch door that was sealed so tight that he could hardly locate it. The walls were ridged for strength. Three quarters of the way up, he could see a ledge where the top of the structure was bolted to the bottom. Above that were its only openings, slits for ventilation. Sunlight poured through and heated up the container to an almost unbearable temperature. Michael dropped his jacket to the floor and un-tucked his shirt. After several dozen, anxious paces back and forth he finally settled against the wall.
Michael heard tapping. No, walking. Someone was on top of the container. He looked up and saw a shadow move across the slats. With a hand up to block some of the light, he squinted and looked back and forth along the length of the container. Something hit him in the face. He flinched and brushed it away. A moment later something else dropped onto his shoulder and fell to the ground at his feet. It was a small pebble. He picked it up and rolled it between his finger and thumb. A few more fell.
“Hello?” Michael called weakly, unsure if he wanted an answer from whoever was up there. No response came, but he could still hear a pair of clunky feet moving about somewhere above him.
Michael climbed the ridges and grasped onto the ledge below the slits and looked out. Next to his container was a shorter storage container, the top littered with sand and stone, a few fresh foot prints clearly marked out where somebody had been walking.
A pair of loose fitting boots dropped in front of Michael’s face, causing him to lose his toehold on the little ridges and slide back down to the floor with a good amount of speed. There was laughter from above. Michael caught some composure, and when the laughter stopped he climbed back up the wall and looked out again. He saw a young boy, probably in his early teens. He had fair skin and wore a french cap. His clothes were baggy and dirty and worn out at his knees and elbows.
“Are you that prisoner?” the boy asked.
“It would appear so.”
“What are you, like important or something?”
Michael laughed. “Is this how important people are treated around here?” The boy shrugged and paced the roof of the neighboring container. Something about him was oddly familiar.
“Wouldn’t know,” the boy said.
“What are you doing here anyway? How old are you, thirteen?”
“I’m almost fourteen.”
“Got it,” Michael said, touching his cheek and jaw bone tenderly. “Why is a fourteen-year-old out here in the quarry canyon?” The boy squatted down and picked a rock from the dusty roof then hurled it with a grunt over a nearby tent.
“I always have to come. My dad thinks I’m going to learn something.”
“Your dad?” It clicked. “You are Glen’s boy, aren’t you? You’re Charlie.” Michael subconsciously pulled his face back from the slats.
“Except, we get out here and I have to stay at the camp. He’s afraid I’ll mess up his stupid treasure hunt.” He threw another rock. “All he cares about are his stupid artifacts. I hope he doesn’t find it.”
Charlie paused in mid windup, before sending another stone sailing into the air. “Your friends are looking for you,” he said.
“What? How do you know that?”
“I can see them coming.” The boy stood on his tippy-toes as if looking out across the expanse. He came back down and put his face close to the openings. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m not going to tell anyone.”
Michael held a breath, wondered if he could trust Glen’s son. Being almost fourteen, he was the perfect age for acting out against his father; on top of that he did sound rather disgruntled over being left behind at the tents. But then, he also remembered the kick to the ribs the boy gave him outside of Old Charm Pawn, in the Great City. He had been defending his father then. If anything, Charlie was just a confused and unpredictable teen-ager. But Michael had no other option than to trust him. He exhaled quietly.
“Could you get word to my friends? Let them know where I’m being held?”
The boy thought it over. “You can’t tell anyone that it was me.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“And if you escape, you have to take me with you.”
Michael was in no position to argue with the boy, although he hated the idea of kidnapping Glen Clouth’s son, not to mention, a young boy would likely hamper them from finding the complicator, if that were even possible anymore. Michael bit his lip. “Sounds like a fine deal.” At that the boy was gone. He ran across the roof of the storage container and leaped off.
Michael sat in the stuffy heat and wondered about the fate of Captain Regat and his ship. Without it there was no other option but to hike back to Wind Quarry, a trip that could take days on foot. He wasn’t sure they even had supplies to last that long, or if the twins, being as mission-minded as they were, would bother to think beyond securing the complicator. But they had come in search of him. That had to mean something. He wondered how much insisting Debora had to do.
Michael waited a long time until he heard a sound from the vents above. He got to his feet and climbed up. Debora crouched outside, her face near the slats. Her hair was completely down, all thrown to one side, and her scuffed jacket hung open showing the collar of a regular, white secretary’s blouse. It struck Michael, a flash of reality, reminding him that this was the same Debora from the office who brought him coffee and reports.
“We are working out a plan,” she said in a fast whisper. “You might want to stand all the way to that side.” Michael did as he was told and waited again for what felt like a long time. He heard a soft roar coming from somewhere outside and listened while it progressively grew louder. Then without warning, the end of the container came crashing in. It ripped open, caught in the jaws of a metal mouth. The entire container shook and dragged as an excavation machine ripped away the wall. Michael fell to his knees and wasted no time crawling toward the opening.
Outside, one of the twins hopped down from the cab of the machine, leaving the engine running, and the claw hanging in the air with bits of material still in its teeth. They set off running out of the camp.
“We have some extra company,” Debora said.
Michael winced remembering the deal he made with the boy. “It’s Glen’s son,” he told them.
They were already a fair distance from the camp and still Charlie trekked stubbornly behind them. Michael caught a glimpse of shiny glass on the boys arm and stopped. “Where did you get that?” he yelled. “Where did you get that watch?” The boy shrugged at him, but it was a rhetorical question. “Hand it over,” Michael said, “it belongs to Wind Quarry.”
“That’s not what my father says.”
When the boy got close Michael grabbed his wrist and pulled. He fell to the worn out knees of his pants and feebly tried to jerk his arm free.
“Stop it,” Debora said.
“We were chased halfway across the Great City for this watch.” he said. “We were shot at, attacked and burglarized.”
“None of that had anything to do with the watch. It was all about the map.”
Michael threw Charlie aside and he rolled in the dirt losing his hat. “He’s not coming with us.”
“It’s alright,” Debora said. “He was the one who told us where you were.” She rushed to help the boy to his feet.
“It may be beneficial to have a surprise element,” one of the twins said.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, maybe he should come along.”
Michael huffed, picked up the boy’s hat and threw it back at him. “I’m not saving him when he’s in trouble.”
Charlie didn’t bother to brush the dust from his clothes, only place his hat squarely and properly on his head.
They started out again, and Charlie easily kept up, barely tapping into his limitless youthful energy. When they finally stopped, Michael told them his theory of the inverted maps. He pressed a
hand into his still racing heart and spoke between huffing breaths.
“It’s clever really. The punch was not an invert. It was a true map, making the actual map an invert.” He laughed as best he could. “Glen simply followed it as it is, while we assumingly inverted the original.” He had a look of amazement on his face that no one else shared.
“Uh,” said Debora, “where is that punch anyway?”
“That would be the bad news. We don’t have a map anymore.”
They all stopped and looked back at Michael.
“Well, I guess we are on defense now,” said a twin, turning and walking again. They followed him over a short ridge. “Technically, we don’t need to find the complicator; we just need to prevent Glen from finding it. The good news is we have some time to come up with a plan because they obviously don’t know to invert the map.” Michael stopped in his tracks at the peak of the ridge and the others went a few more paces down before looking back.
“What is it?”
“They know,” Michael said. He looked at each of them with a measure of shame in his eyes. “I told them that the map is an inverse. They made me, they got it out of me, look at my face,” he said.
“Then we have no time. We need to move fast.”
“Wait,” Michael said. “Look at my face.” He came stumbling down the ridge and his feet clumsily looked for proper ground. His fingers gently searched his chin for the bumpy impression of the rod. “It’s the map.” He tilted his head back as Debora took a look. “It might be faint, but we should be able to use it.” The twins came over and grabbed at his chin, twisting it for better light.
“Stop smiling,” one of them said.
Fourteen