Dark Lightning (Thunder and Lightning) (22 page)

“Sheila told me she has seen what looked like people being carried out of our house, on stretchers. There’s some sort of cyber war going on. They’re trying to take control of the ship. The security programs are still fighting them, so it’s not over.”

“Who is . . . Oh, yeah, the AI. They’re searching for us, we know that. We got out by swimming through the pond, and—”

“We?”

“Patrick and I. We were in the kitchen.”

Wow.

“It was sheer luck that we got out. Listen, I think I’d better end this call. I’m amazed I got through at all, and who knows when we might be able to talk on the phone again.”

I was still digesting the news about Polly and Patrick on their own. Together. And what were they doing together away from all the others? I know, it’s stupid, but I’m sorry, that’s just where my thoughts were going.

“We have to get together when you get back into the ship,” she went on. “I’ll try to meet you where Mama wrecked her flycycle.”

“Where . . . Oh, yeah, you mean—”

“Don’t say it. We better assume someone might be listening in.”

I remembered. We were seven, and she was teaching us to ride with gyro-stabilized bikes—called “training wheels,” for some reason—and she made a bad turn and crashed into the South Pole far up the slope.

“Got it. But Polly, Sheila isn’t even sure if we
can
get back in.”

There was a short silence on the line.

“Okay,” she said, finally. “I’m sure the two of you will do your best. If you can, meet me twelve hours from now. And you take good care of Papa, you hear?”

“I kissed him for you,
cher
.”

There was a catch in her voice as she said, “Good enough. Get in here, and we’ll save Mama. And all the rest.”

“Will do.”

The line went dead.

I went dead for a little while there, too. Things were not looking good. I wondered about Polly’s ability to avoid capture, or worse. Who knew how gentle they would be if they cornered her, and she fought? I sighed deeply and shook it off as best I could.

“Sheila, is there any way they could locate us from that call?”

“It’s possible. But it’s moot. They know where we are, if they’re even looking for us. I still don’t know how the fighting is going. But they surely are able to monitor the functions of the external radar, and I’ve been pinged once every three seconds, as is normal.”

“Can they lock us out?”

“That remains to be seen. They may not even want to. It might be easiest if they simply wait for us and take you captive when I enter the ship and you deplane.”

“Can you do anything about that?”

“You saw my list of armaments. I could cause considerable slaughter. I could destroy the whole hangar.”

“That seems extreme.”

“I thought so. But you’re the captain.”

“Let’s see if we can get in, first.”

—

Returning to the ship is a lot trickier than leaving it. Going out, it was just like dropping away through a trapdoor. Coming home, Sheila had to match velocities with
Rolling Thunder
. Not linear velocity, as we were both moving in the same direction at the same speed. Rotational velocity. It meant she had to blast at steadily increasing thrust away from the ship, thus pushing us slowly toward it, and at the same time add a side thrust to keep us moving in a circle around the ship as it rotated. The net result was that the spinning ship seemed almost motionless directly over my head.

It was child’s play for Sheila. She got us in position and moved us gradually closer. I could see the yellow outline of the hangar door, a big rectangle painted on the bare rock.

“Attempting to activate hangar doors.”

I held my breath.

“No response. Activating emergency override. Second attempt. Third attempt. The doors are not responding,” she said.

Well, shit.

Polly:

I hung up on Cassie and peered out through the giant glass eye of Rex, the Mardi Gras King. There was nothing happening out there. Other giant figures loomed in the darkness, quiet and motionless now, but ready to burst into light and animation at the flip of a switch.

“I think it’s time to get moving now,” I said.

“You really think they can locate us through our phones?”

“I don’t know enough about how the system works to be sure, which is why we need to relocate and see if anyone comes for us.”

From what I knew of Travis, who wrote the specs for our phone system, we could probably not be tracked by our phones. At least, I was pretty sure we couldn’t be pinpointed, but it was possible someone could find out what township we were in. And since we were in Fantasyland, that narrowed the possibilities; other than in the amusement park and casino, there weren’t a lot of places in the township where one could hide.

—

The trip across Mayberry and into Fantasyland had been nervous-making. In addition to trying to keep an eye out ahead, to both sides, and especially behind us, I found myself constantly glancing upward. I knew it was futile. But I kept getting an itchy feeling on the top of my head that made me want to hunch my shoulders and make myself small.

Most of all, I wanted to get out of the open.

There was no way to do it, though, in the endless tanks breeding fish. I’m sure there were hatches leading down somewhere, but in the dark I couldn’t locate them. So we hurried, jogging for a bit, then slowing down.

It was because of Patrick. I could easily have jogged all the way. Hell, with hounds at my heels, I probably could have sprinted most of it. But Patrick wasn’t in as good shape as the Broussard twins with our daily runs and bike rides. The boy was not an athlete.

In fact, I was trying to figure out just what he was, other than the prettiest boy in the ship. To be blunt, I was getting a little tired of Patrick, of his falling behind, of his lack of ideas, of his lingering inability to realistically deal with our predicament. Sure, he didn’t have my crisis training, but that excuse was wearing a little thin.

But we crossed into Fantasyland and approached the flashing lights of all the rides and other attractions. The good news was that if they were standing around the perimeter, we would see them outlined against the lights. The bad news was that if they were concealed, hunkered down, we would be lit up, easier to see the closer we got.

There was no way to know if they had managed to locate and get into any of Travis’s weapons caches. I was hoping they hadn’t and would still be armed with nothing but edged weapons and clubs, that sort of thing.

Our first problem, once we got close enough to see that there were no obvious guards around the entrance gates, was that we looked like something that had been dredged out of a sewer.

We were waiting in the parkland that surrounded the amusement park, a pretty little place with lots of carefully selected trees, baseball diamonds, horseshoe pitches, playground equipment, and picnic tables. It was very pleasant in the daytime.

At night, like now, it was almost deserted, with lights only along the bike paths and a basketball court where diehards were always playing. And I mean,
always
. There was a ship’s legend that the pickup game had been going on for twenty-two years, since before the launch. Cassie and I had played there frequently. I could hear the thump of the ball on concrete and the shouts of the players.

I knew there were security cameras all over the place, but they mostly covered the paths, which we had avoided.

“You look awful,” I told Patrick.

“Right back at you,” he said, with the first smile I’d seen since we left the house.

“I had to leave my bag behind,” I said. “You have anything in your pockets? A comb or something?” I realized I didn’t really know what boys carried with them, but I’d seen some pull out a pocket comb. I preferred a brush, and always carried a little basic makeup, but I’d be happy for anything he had.

He produced a comb from the back pocket of his jeans and handed it to me. I started the gruesome project of combing out the snags and tangles in my hair, looking him over as I did it. His pants had been white when we went into the water, and now they had an interesting pattern of black, brown, and green stains that looked a little like jungle camouflage. His shirt was a dark brown that didn’t look all that bad. But there were a few actual strings of moss and algae in his blond hair. It had been too dark to see them before. I examined the comb and found strings just like his that I’d combed out of my own hair. I attacked it savagely, pausing now and then to clear the comb of crud and tangles.

“Is it getting any better?” I asked him.

“It’s not debutante grade, but I think it’ll do for Fantasyland.”

I handed him the comb and examined my own clothes. I wished I had selected a black top to match the jeans—which looked okay, but still felt wet and clammy around the crotch—but who knew I’d be swimming?

“How are we going to get in?” he asked.

“I was hoping you’d know a way. I hope we won’t raise too many eyebrows because we look like drowned rats. We might have been playing rugby or something.”

“Dressed like this?”

“A pickup game. I’m not so much worried about the staff at the gate as the electronics. Do you think our credit has been flagged by the mutineers?”

“How the hell would I know?” he said, angrily.

He was right, but sometimes it helps if you talk about it instead of just shutting down. You might pool your differing viewpoints and hope to find information you didn’t realize you had.

“I guess it all depends on how well they planned this out. And what they expected. I’m hoping we’re the unexpected thing. The plan seems to have been to get us all at once and announce the coup after it was already over. So maybe they don’t have us flagged.”

“I guess we have to hope so.”

“Yeah. Well, we have to get in there.”

He was watching me, silently. I sighed.

“Okay. I think we need to just walk up and try to get in.”

“Really? Isn’t that taking a big chance?”

“Unless you know a way over, under, or through the fence, I’d say it’s our only choice. We have to get in there, to your house, and go to ground for a little bit. We need to prepare a little better.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know yet! Okay?”

He just shrugged, dispirited. “If you say so.”

“Let’s do it.”

We approached the entrance gate, a big, arched structure meant to symbolize a rainbow, with a pot of gold sparkling at each end. Lights flashed all over it, and cheerful music poured from hidden speakers. Brass, electronic percussion, steam calliope, all meant to evoke a circus atmosphere. Beyond it was the long midway, winding between the carnival-type rides, leading to the center of the park and the pathways to the themed areas and the big thrill rides and other attractions.

We lingered off to one side for a while, trying to spot anyone who might be looking for us. But how does a mutineer secret agent dress? A red kerchief, an eye patch, and a parrot on his shoulder? A black suit and sunglasses, with a bulge in the breast pocket? The white robes and black belt of a ninja assassin? No, of course not; she would dress just like you or me, though probably more like you and a lot better than me at that moment.

What I was looking for was anyone keeping an eye on the people going in. It was an intermittent stream. During the time we watched, maybe fifty people paid the gate fee and went through the turnstiles. There was a ticket taker, a teenager with an after-school job. He wore the Fantasyland Park uniform that looked like the dress military jacket, pants, and shako of our high-school marching band. I knew he was bored as hell. He was a greeter, essentially, not a security guard. The other reason he was there was to deter turnstile jumpers.

Since going over the fence would set off alarms, and because Patrick didn’t know any secret way in or out—somehow I felt sure that Cassie and I would have figured something in all those years, but maybe we were just sneakier than he was—there seemed no alternative to just trying to pay our way through the gate.

“Okay,” I said. “Put on your game face.”

“And what would that be?”

“In this case, happy, loose, out to have some fun, maybe a wee bit drunk. Not too smart.”

“I can do not too smart.”

“Act deeply involved with each other. In love.”

He didn’t say anything. Jeepers, was that going to be all that much harder than not too smart?

Well, I took hold of his left arm and leaned into him. He put his arm over my shoulders. We started walking toward the gate. In a few steps, he was forcing me into a rather wobbly line.

“Not
too
drunk,” I whispered, smiling up at him adoringly.

“Sorry.”

We got in line behind two other couples. The gatekeeper wasn’t paying a lot of attention. I hoped no alert had been issued to be on the lookout for two muddy, bedraggled fugitives.

When it came our turn, we each stuck our right hands under the scanner and let the machine read our credit-chip implants. At once I could tell there was something wrong. The guy was frowning at his screen. The screen facing me told me nothing but the fact that my credit had been accepted, and the twenty-dollar admission fee was displayed. His was obviously displaying something else.

“Um . . . uh, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait here a moment. It’s no big deal, but—”

That’s all he had a chance to say, because I shoved him, hard. He went down hard. His hat went rolling on the ground.

“Sorry,” I said, and then,
“Run!”

Once more, I had to grab Patrick to get him moving. But he must have had a surge of adrenaline this time, because within a few yards he was ahead of me. I knew I’d beat him in the long run, but in a sprint he wasn’t bad. I looked back over my shoulder and saw that the guy was starting to come after us. I turned and backpedaled a few steps.

“Don’t be a hero,” I shouted at him. I pulled my pistol and fired it into the air. He screeched to a stop, almost leaving skidmarks on the tarmac. In another situation, it might have been comical. Then he and several people who had been in line behind us ducked for cover.

“Dammit, Polly, you can’t go around shooting guns!”

“I can’t let them chase us. We’ve got to hide.”

“Where?”

“I was hoping you’d have some ideas.”

We were side by side now, jogging, and that didn’t seem like a great idea since people were looking at us. I’d put my gun away so no one saw that, and the sound of it could easily have been one of the sound effects from the midway games and rides.

There are few straight paths in Fantasyland. It’s all arranged so you go around a curve in the road and come on some new wonder. So it took no time to leave the gate behind us.

“Time to stop running,” I said, taking his arm. “We’re being looked at too much. Try to look like you’re having fun.”

“If I have any more fun than this, it will kill me.”

“Same here. Have you had any ideas where we could hide for a bit? Other than your house?”

“I guess there are places. But I don’t have much experience in stuff like this. Sneaking around. Hiding out. I got the impression that you and your sister did that a lot.”

I could have taken offense, but there was no point. It was true. Cassie and I didn’t have anything to run away from at home, where we were loved—well, Mama was a strict disciplinarian, but never unfair. We did it for the sheer fun of sneaking around. Seeking adventure.

But the worst that ever happened to us when we got caught (which was infrequently) was being grounded for a few days. No desserts at dinner. Extra homework. That sort of thing.

“What’s down there?” I asked, pointing to a side path that didn’t have any of the helpful signs that were all over the place elsewhere.

“No idea. I’ve not really spent a lot of time here.”

“Let’s look.”

A few steps took us around a bend, and now we saw a sign saying
EMPLOYEES ONLY
. Just a little beyond that was a chain-link fence threaded with multicolored vinyl strips.

“I think I know now,” Patrick said. “This is where the Mardi Gras parades start and finish. There’s a big warehouse back there, holding all the floats. I visited it once.”

“Could we hide there?”

“Not from a search by dozens of cops. But if there are only a few . . . there are a lot of places to hide.”

“Let’s do it.”

I jumped and grabbed the top of the fence, about eight feet up. I got my feet on the fence and vaulted myself over. I heard the chain link rattle, then a grunt as Patrick lost his grip and landed back on the ground.

“Hurry!”

“How did you do that?”

But he gave it another try, got his arms over the top, swung his leg up, and pulled himself onto the top. He hit the ground and rolled onto the gravel. He needed some parachute-jump training, no question. Cassie and I were experts, having learned to jump and land from our tree house in the backyard. He got slowly to his feet, brushing off gravel. He glared at me, and I didn’t say a thing.

We were in a narrow space between the fence and a quite large warehouse made of corrugated aluminum painted in bright Fantasyland colors. It stretched a long way off behind us, just a few feet ahead of us, and was about fifty feet tall. We hurried around the corner and found ourselves looking at a big sliding gate in the chain link and a pair of big sliding doors in the warehouse. Beside that door was a small, human-sized door that said
CAST MEMBERS AND
DRIVERS ONLY
.

I grabbed the doorknob and turned it. It was unlocked. There wasn’t even a lock on the knob, nor a bolt above it. Another nice thing about
Rolling Thunder
’s very low crime rate. The place is full of unlocked doors. We hurried inside and closed the door behind us.

It was spooky. Huge shapes loomed in the darkness, with only a few distant overhead lights. These were the floats for the Mardi Gras parade, happening twice a day at noon and ten. There were enormous golden boats, towers of oversized artificial flowers, a 1959 Cadillac built at three times the scale of a real one, and vast human shapes, some up to forty feet tall. All was quiet and dark now, but in operation they would blaze with lights and music and motion. Some of them bristled with confetti cannons and had racks of beads for passengers to throw to the crowd.