12

FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE

“There are many questions to be asked. Here, in this Fortress of Solitude, we will try to find the answers together.”

—Jor-El, Superman’s father, from
the movie Superman Returns, 2006

All of the stars are hidden tonight, but the light of the moon, diffused through a thin, low layer of cloud, coats everything with a silvery glow, making the beam from the Norton Commando’s headlamp almost unnecessary.

From her perch on the back of the motorcycle, The Stunner looks up into the sky. There is a slender break in the shell of cloud overhead, through which a few of the brighter stars shine, following them as they speed along this hard-topped back road.

“How much farther?” she calls out over the Norton’s steady roar.

“We just passed the cottage,” The Drifter calls back.

“We just passed the cottage?” she echoes. “Why?”

“The sky is clearing,” he says, “And there’s a place that I want you to see.”

The bike leans as they turn from the road and onto a narrow, stony path. The Drifter downshifts, and the engine howls as the Norton carries them up the steep trail. Leaves and needles brush their shoulders as they climb. The Stunner tightens her hold around The Drifter, clenches the seat between her thighs to keep from sliding off the back of the bike.

The Drifter cuts the engine as they reach the top. The brakes squeal as the Norton comes to a halt on a narrow finger of stone that juts out between the black expanse of water below and the opening sky above.

They dismount and set their helmets on the ground beside the bike, which radiates heat from the long ride. The Stunner unties her hair and shakes it loose around her shoulders. The Drifter pulls a blanket from a saddlebag, spreads it across the smooth stone at the edge of the promontory.

They sit atop the ragged blanket, shoulder to shoulder, and they both look up for a long time. The pinging and crackling sounds from the cooling engine eventually subside, and the wind drops from a whistle to a whisper to silence. Gradually, like fluff-edged theatre curtains, the clouds part until almost the whole glittering sky is revealed.

“Wow,” The Stunner finally says.

“I found this place once when I was out hiking by myself. I used to climb up here when I wanted to get away from everyone else,” The Drifter says. “This was my Fortress of Solitude.”

“Fortress of Solitude,” The Stunner repeats. “I like that.”

“Not my idea. It’s the name of Superman’s secret fortress in the Arctic, where all of the knowledge of Kryptonian civilization is stored in crystal form, and where …” he pauses. “Sorry. I was a bit of a comic-book geek when I was a kid.”

“Geeks become heroes, I think,” she says, running the tip of her index finger from The Drifter’s rough, stubbled cheek to his chin, “with experience.”

The Drifter mirrors the gesture, tracing the smooth skin of her face with a calloused fingertip. Then he reaches into the front pocket of his jeans, opens his palm to reveal what he has removed: two small, smooth stones. One is shaped like a boomerang, slate-grey, cut through with slight, white parallel lines. The other is pink, flecked with metallic specks, almost perfectly round, except for a slight bump on one side.

“I found these on a beach in France, among millions of other stones. The tide had pushed them together just like this.”

The bump on the pink stone fits perfectly into the concave side of the slate-grey boomerang.

“They are from different places. They are made from different materials. And yet they are like two halves of a whole, like they were shaped and eroded and moved around by the forces of nature just so they could eventually fit together like this.”

He spreads his fingers, and says, “Take one.”

She hesitates.

“Which one?”

“Whichever one you want.”

Her fingers hover over his open palm.

“Is this supposed to mean something?”

He shrugs.

“Only if you want it to.”

She takes the pink stone from his open palm, closes her hand around it to preserve its warmth.

“Can we sleep out here tonight?”

“Won’t you be cold?”

“You’ll warm me,” she says.