A Fortress of Pebbles

Mom’s office was easy to sneak into. You could, of course, go directly through the door from the hallway. If that was locked or you didn’t want to pass by Mom and Dad’s bedroom, you could leave the house and reenter through the window behind Mom’s computer. In fact, there was even a route through the attic – which, as an added bonus, deposited you into the closet with the wireless router.

Cassandra took a moment to inspect the machine. It was gathering dust, which was good. It meant that Mom and Dad still hadn’t noticed that they’d swapped it out two Christmases ago. Ever since this operation, they’d had unrestricted access to the internet, a closely guarded secret between Cassandra, Orion, and Grandpa – who didn’t believe in censorship. The Ministry of Truth, he liked to call the practice.

(Blink: Aissaba stood beside an icy river with a man whose triangular mustache quivered in the moonlight.)

Cassandra shook her head. Must be the lack of sleep. No way Aissaba was in the middle of the woods with the school principal.

Leaving the closet, Cassandra made short work of logging into Mom’s workstation, finding the cloud drive, and deleting a recent video file named “EVIDENCE!!!.mp4.” Cassandra watched it once before sending it into the void.

It was hard not to giggle at Tassadu’s surprised face when the bookshelf swung out like a door, revealing the stairs down to Dad’s emergency bunker. Technically, Grandpa had built it, but Dad had been renovating it for the last few years. Once upon a time, it had been Cassandra and Orion’s play space – complete with Sega, old computers, and VHS tapes.

At some point, though, Dad had decided that the “end was nigh” and moved all the fun stuff upstairs. No one but him and Mom had been allowed down since.

Cassandra still dreamed about it though – almost every night, in fact. Sometimes the stairwell led to an underground cave lit with glowing crystals. Other times, it opened into outer space – a black ocean of stars. Still other times, it was filled with books, arranged in walls to form a labyrinth.

Always, in the dream, she was searching for something she had lost and forgotten, something she had to find. She shivered there in front of the bookshelf because sometimes, in the dreams, something was looking for her down there, too. Something dark. Something even older than Grandpa.

To make herself feel better, she took her pebble from her pocket and put it to her forehead, summoning the dragon who called himself handsome. He asked what he could help her with, and she asked him again to list out various protocols with which she could re-flash the pebble.

The interesting ones were categorized under map magic – fireballs, weather phenomena, and things like Orion would like. There was a whole sub-category for electricity, under which he had no doubt found whatever zap-the-other-guy protocol he had used for his magic show at school. Cassandra rolled her eyes. The boy needed to be on meds. She made a mental note to start researching what kind.

“What about life?” she asked the small dragon. “Anything for curing diseases?”

“Depends on the disease!” said the dragon enthusiastically. “Wounds of the flesh? Malignant tumors? Bacterial infections?”

“I don’t know. Maybe ADHD,” she said, thinking of Orion. But then she found herself adding, “Or dementia.”

“The Earth-side designations of ADHD and dementia,” said the dragon, “are behavioral descriptions. Underlying causes are often rooted in the brain and would fall under the Mastery of Mind.”

“So there’s a cure?” she said. “Using mind magic?”

“May I suggest first using a mind magic protocol to scan for structural, chemical, or genetic abnormalities? This may help inform subsequent protocols.”

Mental note: tell Aissaba she wanted to do mind magic instead of life.

***

Back in the cozy cave, with a fresh supply of temporary pebbles, Tassadu was already nodding off next to the roaring fire. Aissaba held up her mother’s pebble, looking at its silhouette against the flames.

For some reason, she was afraid to access it. As long as she didn’t, she could imagine her mother saying almost anything. A heartfelt message, perhaps. An indication that everything was going well. That the clouds were finally lifting.

Or it could be all business – orders from a superior to a subordinate. Orders sending her into battle. Or on a suicide mission.

With a deep breath, she placed it on her forehead. The fire and cave faded, and she was in her mother’s old apartment – the big one, from back when she had been a Candidate Master. Her mother was dozing in an armchair, feet up on the mahogany coffee table. It was like a vision from the past.

“Aissaba?” said her mother, jerking awake. “Good. You’re here.”

Aissaba couldn’t speak. Either her mother had crafted a very sophisticated interactive protocol, or this was a direct connection back to the Fortress.

“I just received word that you’ve made progress with Cassandra,” said her mother. Okay, so a direct connection, then. Holy crap. “You’re doing excellent work Earth-side.”

“So,” said Aissaba, “they gave you your old place back?” She never knew how to handle praise.

“That, and access to practically every pebble in the Fortress,” she said. “Including the Master of Virtue’s prophecies.” She took a cup of cold coffee from the table, sniffed it, and drank a gulp. “Turns out there have been more than one about the Johnson family over the years. What do you know about the grandfather?”