A Fortress of Pebbles

Orion looked at his shoes as he said, “Mom made up this rhyme a long time ago.” Then, with a deep trembling breath, he recited, “The Fortress is a prison. The Fortress is a prison. But they cannot lock you in, unless you give them your permission.”

Aissaba shivered. Major chills. “Go on,” she said.

Orion tried to look at his sister’s blank eyes, but couldn’t. Tears began. “The Fortress is a prison. The Fortress is a prison. They’ll offer you the world, then they’ll ask for your decision.” The words seemed to give him strength. He managed to ball his fists. Though he couldn’t look at his sister, he looked Aissaba right in the eye as he said the final verse. “The Fortress is a prison. The Fortress is a prison. Just leave the way you came, and from death you’ll have arisen.”

Aissaba had never been frightened of a twelve year old until that moment. But something inside him seemed to shine outward through his purple eyes, something strong and confident, something dangerous even. As quickly as she could, she tapped him on the forehead with the mind pebble, zonking him out. Thankfully, the fearsome light in his eyes went out.

She expected Tassadu to explode all over her with ethics and shit, but he didn’t. Mouth open, he looked at the two kids, then at her. Wordlessly, he took his clipboard from his backpack and started writing on a blank page. She saw him mouthing the words as he did: The Fortress is a prison. The Fortress is a prison…

“They’re not going to say yes,” he finally said. “Never were.”

“You think?” said Aissaba. “Help me reset the context.”

Together, they moved the two twins back to where they had been standing. Aissaba dabbed the tears from their eyes with a tissue from her backpack, and Tassadu used a life pebble to reduce the puffiness. They waited in silence, to catch their own breaths and to let the children’s heart rates settle. The internal context was every bit as important as the external.

“Should we tell…. someone?” said Tassadu with a grimace. The “someone” they should probably tell was his not-dad.

Aissaba leaned against the squishy wall. “Probably. What do you think it’s about, though? I mean… It's not a prison. People come and go all the time.”

“I think, if you wanted to inoculate your kids against us,” he said, “that’s the kind of rhyme that would do the trick.”

“So their mom somehow knew about the Fortress and knew in advance that her children would be selected by the ancient lottery system one day?” said Aissaba. “How is that even possible?”

Tassadu shook his head, dumbfounded.

“We can’t get in trouble for this, right?” said Aissaba. “Like, how are we supposed to recruit kids who’ve been inoculated?”

Tassadu’s mouth still wasn’t working. But Aissaba knew what he was thinking – the same thing she was: that they were the best recruiters in the Fortress – the best recruiters in the history of the Fortress, some said. Kids loved them. Whoever had identified these kids from Montana as an apocalypse risk clearly felt that everything would be fine on their watch.

Optimistically speaking, this meant that everything would be fine. Pessimistically speaking, they very much absolutely could get in trouble. A lot. They were already on probation.

“Here’s the plan,” said Aissaba. “We literally become their best friends.”

Tassadu brightened. “Right. How do we even know they like their parents? We find out everything we can about them…”

“...and we make them see that their old life was the prison.” She breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t necessarily believe in herself – but Tassadu? He could accomplish pretty much anything, especially when the alternative was talking to the Master of Language, his very-much-absolutely-not-dad. To help motivate him, she added, “If we still haven’t made progress by the time we get to the Hall of Language–”

He cut her off: “Aissaba, go take a dump.”

Hiding a smile, Aissaba entered the bathroom orifice, counted to ten, and returned.

“How was the dump?” said Orion, petting the purple vine that lounged on the shoulders of Cassandra’s flannel.

“Did you wash your hands?” said Cassandra.