The Lonely Whelk (21 page)

“
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 the 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.