A Fortress of Pebbles

The Styx Protocol was the umbrella term for the array of subprotocols required to bring children to the Fortress. There was, of course, the “time dilation subprotocol,” allowing entire tours to occur while buses were crashing. There was the “jaws subprotocol,” in which children were plucked from the jaws of death and brought to the Fortress gates. And there was the “fallback subprotocol,” where memories would be wiped and death would be averted in the unlikely event that children chose to return to Earth.

Aissaba winced as the screams wafted through the walls from the next room. “Do you think they’re torturing him?” she whispered. It was a dumb question. But sometimes you just need to talk.

“Or…” said Tassadu, searching for an explanation in which the Fortress was not a prison, or worse. “Maybe they just want to scare us.”

If so, it was working.

Styxx had been in charge of the Styx Protocol since before Aissaba or Tassadu had crossed the metaphorical River Styx themselves. He’d been here so long that he’d earned the right to choose a new name, evidently selecting one to remind everyone of how important his job was. Aissaba was convinced he’d purposefully embedded the double-x at the end so that he could correct slight inaccuracies in your pronunciation – which he did frequently, even when you got it right.

Now he was screaming like someone was putting something very sharp or very hot where it wasn’t supposed to go. Even Aissaba couldn’t find within herself the power to enjoy it. If the Masters were willing to do this to someone as important as Styxx, she had no doubt that they’d do it to them.

“What did the Master of Language say?” said Aissaba. “Something about him circumventing the lottery protocol?”

“That he hand-selected the Johnsons,” said Tassadu. He was pacing back and forth, talons on the mats, eyes flicking back and forth. “And that he might not have been acting alone.”

(Blink: Cassandra closed her eyes while her mother read to them for the first time in more than six months: “The Fortress’s physical defenses include a white stone wall, approximately 30 meters high, made of solid stone, its perimeter broken only by a massive gate whose doors are comprised of not of wood but of map pebbles. Upon command, these pebbles become a swarm that resembles a curtain, sweeping aside to permit passage.” Cassandra held her breath, realizing that she could recall these very curtains sweeping aside to reveal a girl with sunglasses and a grinning dragon.)

“Somehow, Styxx must have known what would happen.” said Tassadu. “He knew the Johnson twins were inoculated against the Fortress. Maybe he wanted to make the Masters look bad. Maybe some kind of grudge.”

Aissaba gave a nervous laugh. Tassadu’s theory added a new level of depth to their ongoing jokes about how the man always seemed to have a “stixx” up his butt (double-x very carefully enunciated.)

“Except it doesn’t quite make sense,” said Aissaba. “Why label them as apocalypse risks in their bio sketches?”

Tassadu paced. Styxx screamed. Aissaba… (Blink: As her mother read a description of the tall spire in the middle of the courtyard, Cassandra remembered being led into its doors. She realized suddenly that this whole ordeal had occurred not in some recent dream but somehow in the time it had taken her to count two woodpecker holes in the oncoming tree.)

“To get their attention,” said Tassadu. “Maybe that’s what made them show up at the ceremony acting all weird.”

Aissaba nodded, liking where this was going. It pinned everything on Styxx, who (let’s face it) maybe did deserve whatever was making him scream. Perhaps the apocalypse risk had been a pure fabrication, one that had freaked the Masters out as much as it had Aissaba and Tassadu.

Yes, this was nice. When the Masters came to question them, all they had to do was talk about how Styxx had, in retrospect, always seemed weird – like he was hiding something. No doubt they would be released to their dormitories in a matter of minutes.

The only thing that made it hard for Aissaba to fully commit to her newfound optimism was the window on the far side of the room, outside of which the sky was still dark with clouds.

“You don’t think Styxx actually triggered something, do you?” said Aissaba. “Some kind of apocalypse scenario?”

(Blink: Cassandra opened her eyes to the sound of Dad telling her and Orion to get their handguns from the safe. “Time to practice,” he said. “The end is beginning.” He seemed grim, as always; but there was excitement, too. Barely hidden.)

“I’m sure Styxx just made it up,” said Tassadu. Thankfully, thunder rolled outside, briefly suppressing the screams.