Incompetence

by Rob Grant

  Klingferm staggered, then kept on running.

  The lid came down, and the capsule accelerated out of the tunnel.

  I was pretty sure I'd hit him, though.

  I was pretty sure I'd hit him in the head.

  FORTY-THREE

  Screaming Thunder, as I recall, was supposed to have been the park's headline ride. The biggest, scariest, most vertigo-inducing ride in the history of roller coasting. The big draw ride. The one that was supposed to make the trip from Timbuktu worth the air fare.

  Of course, that had been ten years ago, and Screaming Thunder was probably a wussy now, compared to, say, the Molten Mambo in Disneyworld, Brasilia.

  It looked pretty hot to me, though.

  The track looped up and away and coiled over itself time and time again, winding all over the park before disappearing into Mystic Mountain once more, presumably emerging on the other side.

  Of course, at some point there was a fault on the track. At some point, probably at the very peak of its acceleration, the capsule would leave the track behind and launch itself towards the distant mountain range.

  I didn't want that death. It was a cartoon death, somehow. It was something that might happen to Wile E. Coyote. It lacked dignity. Not for me, that death. No, thank you.

  The first thing I ought to do, I decided, was to look for the emergency stop button. There had to be one, somewhere. I figured it would be at the front.

  I started climbing over the seats towards the nose. I should have been watching the track more closely, but there's only so much a man can do at one time. I was halfway between seats, with both hands on a safety rail, when the capsule went into a giant nosedive, and I flipped over backwards like a monkey on a stick, winded myself neatly on the headrest behind, then slid helplessly forwards to crack my nose on the headrest in front. Headrests, eh? Who needs 'em?

  My body crumbled forward and started trying to suffocate me on the back of the soft sucking vinyl seat.

  I tried to push myself back, because I was in a mood to breathe, but I'm a big guy and there was a lot of body fighting against me, and as the capsule accelerated into its dive, my body weight was double or even triple what it was at normal gravity.

  Just when I thought I'd breathed my last, the pod hit the bottom of its dive and arced upwards. I pushed myself clear then, all right. I pushed myself clear and went scuddering backwards over the seat tops, catching each one with my unprotected testicles, until I hit a safety bar at the back of the capsule's tail with the absolute dead centre of my coccyx. As we carried on arcing up I glanced at the track. As far as I could tell, this was the first in a sequence of four or five giant loops, each one bigger than the last.

  To be honest with you, I didn't feel like repeating the whole business even once again, let alone four more times, and with increasing severity to boot, so I struggled into a seating position, fastened the seat belt and clamped the safety bar around me.

  I felt more than a little stupid, belting myself in for a death ride, but I didn't see what else I could do.

  I tried to pretend I wasn't burning up valuable time by scoping out the back for the emergency stop, but I didn't even convince myself.

  I glanced out at the track again, trying to work out where the pod was headed, so I could anticipate a slightly more stable opportunity to make my way to the front.

  As we came out of the final loop, it seemed there would be a suitable window. A good length of level track.

  I was ready for it when it came. My stomach was lodged somewhere near my Adam's apple and I felt like ejecting my last nineteen meals all over the pod, but I was ready.

  I unclasped the seat belt, threw back the safety rail and scampered over the seat tops to the front row.

  And there it was. A beautiful big, red, safety button, right in the centre of the nose, just out of reach of anyone belted in, and shielded by a glass case so it couldn't be hit accidentally. It was even helpfully marked 'emergency stop', and there was a big sign beside it explaining for people who found 'emergency stop' a difficult and challenging concept, that it was only to be operated in the event of an emergency, and that there was a fine of EU500 for improper use.

  Well, this qualified as an emergency, in my opinion.

  In my opinion, preventing the capsule from launching itself at speed into the side of an Alp would constitute thoroughly proper usage of the emergency stop button. And if they were going to fine me for it, well, that was a risk I was just going to have to take.

  I reached down to smash the glass with my fist, and the capsule went into a sudden, unannounced, ninety-degree vertical climb.

  I crashed back into the chair.

  I had a wonderful view of what was coming.

  The track just kept on going up and up, like the Tower of Babel. Up and ever upwards.

  At the end of the climb, at the very top there, high in the clouds, the track levelled off for a few short metres, then plummeted down at a parallel angle.

  I had to assume this was the Big One. I had to assume the capsule would arc up out of that dive at maximum acceleration towards the mountains, and leave the track.

  I had to hit that button before the capsule hit the top.

  At least we were going slowly. At least I had that in my favour. It would take the pod a good three minutes to reach the top of the climb.

  I tried reaching out from my seated position, but that was never going to happen. I scrambled around, put my feet on the chair back and pushed myself upright.

  I stretched my arm above my head and came up a good ten centimetres short of the button. I found if I stood on tippy-toe I could just about touch the glass with my fingertips. I jabbed at it a couple of times, but I couldn't get enough of a backswing to break the glass.

  Then I remembered the stun stick.

  Now, where had I put it?

  Ah, yes. I'd put it down when I picked up the gun. That's where I'd put it. I'd needed two hands on the gun to get my shot off, see?

  The stun stick was now rolling around somewhere at the back of the carriage.

  But I still had the gun. I had the gun tucked into my belt.

  I tugged it clear, flicked on the safety and hammered the handle into the glass. But the glass didn't break. I was at an awkward angle, and it was hard to get any heft into the blow, but that glass should have broken. I was beginning to wonder at what point in the ride the designers thought a normal human might be able to actually get at the emergency button. What was the point of fitting an emergency button in the first place, if a normal human couldn't ever actually use it while the capsule was in motion? Were you only supposed to use the emergency button when the capsule was stationary? What would be the point of that? I mean, Superman could have hit that button. Superman could have flown up there, punched the glass with his super strength and hit that button, easy. But then Superman wouldn't have needed the emergency stop button, would he? He could have flown outside, lifted the pod off the track and lowered it gently to the ground. So why have an emergency stop button no normal mortal could ever use?

  I hefted the gun again. And still the glass held.

  We were almost at the top of the climb, now.

  I hammered the gun as hard as I could, and the glass finally shattered. It exploded into tiny fragments that blasted into my face with all the destructive force of an anti-personnel grenade. Now, that's what I call a good safety feature. That's what I call a well thought through design: a safely feature that's actually more dangerous than the danger it's supposed to be saving you from.

  I managed to shield my eyes from the worst of it, but I had about two million tiny little painful cuts on my arm and my forehead.

  There was a jolt, and the capsule started levelling off.

  I fell forwards off the seat and onto the capsule floor. I put out my hands instinctively to cushion the fall, pressing my palms quite heavily and at speed into a few thousand shards of sharp glass that had tumbled from my face and my arm with the express purpose of wo
unding me twice. I wiped the blood from my eyes, cutting myself even worse, and hit the emergency stop.

  But we didn't stop.

  We kept on trundling towards the Big One.

  Even though it hurt to hit the emergency stop button, because it pressed splinters of glass even deeper into cuts that were already quite painful enough, thank you so very much, and even though I knew it was almost certainly futile, I hit the button again.

  And we kept on trundling.

  Well, of course the emergency stop button didn't work. Klingferm was hardly going to leave me with a working emergency stop button, now was he?

  I had to start thinking a little more clearly than that.

  The problem was, I'd run out of time.

  The pod went into its dive.

  I was flung face first into the nose of the capsule, along with all the glass that hadn't yet managed to embed itself in my body.

  Wow, it was exhilarating.

  The ground rushing towards you at breakneck speed, with your face pressed smack up against the window, with tiny slivers of glass working their way deep into your cheeks and lips, pulling maybe five or six Gs.

  I can certainly recommend it for thrill power.

  It only lasted a few short seconds, because, as I say, we were coming down very, very fast. Then we hit the bottom of the dive and the capsule swung over sideways, hurling me and my little glass buddies against the window, and whipped round a wicked bend.

  Wahoo.

  Well, at least it wasn't the Big One. At least we weren't hurtling off into deep space. At least we were still on the track.

  I had to come up with another plan. It seemed to me that my best shot was to somehow work out a way to prise open the capsule cover. The ride was bound to slow again at some point, and I could at least climb out and jump onto the track. How I'd get down once I was out there was a whole nother ball game. But first things first, right?

  I hadn't encountered anything that looked like an emergency release lever on my travels, and I wasn't about to waste any more time looking for one.

  I took out the gun and, shielding my eyes with my left arm, drew it back and smashed it against the window. I smashed it against the window quite a few times. Hard, too. I gave that window one hell of a hammering. When I looked to inspect the damage, I couldn't even find a scratch.

  The gun handle was cracked, but the window was unscathed.

  Fine.

  If that's the way the window wanted to play it, that was fine with me.

  The pod lurched upright again, and slid inside the mountain.

  I picked myself up, dropped into my shooting stance, aimed for the far window at the tail of the pod, and fired.

  The window did not shatter.

  The window didn't even crack.

  The bullet just bounced off it.

  Well, now. If I'd had the time, I would have been thinking how sensible that was, to encase the capsule in bullet-proof glass, and how handy that would be should the pod ever come under a hail of gunfire, which probably happened all the time at Disneyland; it was probably an everyday event, just before the big noontime parade, but I didn't have the time to think anything at all, as it turned out, because somebody shot me in the ear.

  Well, actually, I shot me in the ear.

  The bullet ricocheted around the capsule and took my ear lobe clean off. I didn't feel any pain, I just heard something rip and felt a hot, wet splash on my cheek.

  I should have ducked, because the bullet probably hadn't finished ricocheting -- my little ear lobe was hardly likely to slow it down too much -- but I didn't. I put my bloody hand to my ear and it came away bloodier still.

  Well, I was fresh out of options. But that didn't really matter much now, because as the pod burst out of the mountainside, I could see the big drop, the really big drop, looming up.

  And this time, it really was the Big One.

  Right at the bottom there, I could clearly see where the track was broken.

  It curved up at the bottom of the dive and just ended.

  And there, in the distance, I could see the snowcapped peak I was about to be launched towards.

  Take-off, I reckoned, in two minutes, and counting.

  FORTY-FOUR

  I was about to be launched in a glass and metal coffin into a mountain range.

  And I didn't have a plan.

  I really didn't.

  Of course, I didn't just sit there playing cat's cradle while the capsule went into its final, deadly climb. I hurled myself against the window. I beat at the window with my fists, but it was more out of rage and frustration than the product of a coherent plan of action.

  I took out the gun again and beat the window mercilessly until the handle shattered and the gun split in two.

  That helped.

  That really helped a lot.

  I decided to head for the pod's tail, like, I don't know, I'd be safer there, or some such nonsense. Like the pod would crash into an Alp at a zillion miles an hour and the people at the back would somehow be spared the worst of the impact.

  Yeah, right, Harry. Good plan.

  Only, I didn't want a front-seat view, that was for sure.

  It was painful, clambering over the seats to the back, because the pod was perfectly vertical. So I clambered and crashed and tumbled my way to the tail.

  Hell, it was something to do. It took my mind off worrying about other things for a couple of seconds.

  I hit the back seat roughly and found, to my delight, that all the glass fragments that hadn't yet found their way into my blood supply had all gathered back there. Yummy. It was a tiny glass case that had housed the emergency stop button, but somehow they'd managed in a feat of engineering genius to cram more glass into it than there was in Harrods' entire shopfront.

  I glanced to my right and found, to my utter astonishment, that there was an emergency release lever.

  There was a white metal handle with 'emergency release lever' printed in red on it. Sure, there was a sign saying it was only to be used in an emergency, in case anyone mistakenly thought it was an everyday release-just-about-any-time-you-feel-like-it lever, and once again there was a hefty penalty for improper use, but I felt I could justify pulling that lever. I felt like the circumstances warranted it.

  I slid over and grabbed the handle. There was even a helpful little red arrow painted over it, telling me which direction to pull the lever. It was pointing upwards.

  So I pulled the lever upwards.

  My slimy, bloody hands just slipped right off it.

  I tried again, but the same thing happened. I just couldn't get any grip.

  I took off my jacket and wrapped it around the lever.

  I tugged.

  I tugged hard.

  But the lever didn't budge.

  The lever wasn't for budging.

  I lay on my back and put both my feet against the lever, and strained with all my strength.

  I bent the lever. I actually managed to bend it. But I couldn't make it move one millimetre out of its original, locked position.

  Just in case, just in case some idiot had painted the little red arrow in the wrong direction -- and that wasn't outside the realms of possibility, now, was it? -- I tried pulling the lever downwards. I tried pushing the lever inwards, and then pulling the lever outwards.

  That lever wasn't going to move.

  I thought about shooting the lever. Not so much because I thought that might encourage it to budge, but more to punish the lever for being such a bastard. But, of course, the gun was at the front of the capsule, on top of which it was broken.

  The pod lurched again and came down level.

  I had maybe thirty metres of straight track to come up with a plan and execute it successfully.

  But I was fresh out of plans. I was fresh out of everything.

  The pod trundled along.

  I looked out at the mountain range I was about to become a more or less permanent part of. I'd appear in picture postcards of t
he Austrian Alps. You see that big red splat there? That's Harry Salt, my friends. That's what's left of good old Harry Salt. See? If you look real closely, you can just about make out what's left of his delectable derriere sticking out of the rock face.

  The capsule trundled right to the brink.

  And it stopped.

  The electric whine of the engine wound down, and the lights blinked out.

  The capsule had broken down right on the very brink of the Big One.

  And I had the strange feeling that if I moved just one millimetre forwards, I'd send it scooting over the edge.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Well, three cheers for piss-poor workmanship, eh? Three hearty cheers and a rousing chorus of 'For He's a Jolly Crap Workman'.

  Only, now what?

  I was trapped in an airtight, rocket-proof capsule, teetering on the brink of the pinnacle of the world's highest man-made drop, and if I so much as sneezed, I might go careering over the edge into a death dive. On top of which, I was right in the middle of a deserted theme park that not even the buzzards visited any more.

  Well, I'd just have to make the best of it. I'd just have to live out the rest of my life on the back seat here. How bad could that be? I had a great view. Of course, I had no supplies, so I'd have to start eating myself eventually, but if I started with the left arm, and then worked my way through both my legs, I could probably last three or four weeks without suffering too many hunger pains.

  I heard a sound behind me. The whirr of an electric motor, straining very hard. I risked a look back. There was some kind of truck coming towards me along the track. A maintenance wagon.

  Well, naturally there would be a maintenance wagon for just this kind of contingency. Should a capsule ever get jammed on the track, they were hardly going to airlift the passengers clear in air-sea rescue helicopters, now, were they? What would that do for the company profile?

  The question was: who was driving the maintenance wagon?

  Surely not Klingferm?

  Surely my head shot had put paid to that son of a bitch.

  Then it occurred to me that the capsule maybe hadn't broken down at all. It occurred to me that maybe Klingferm had cut the power to the capsule from below. And now he was trundling towards me with a big hole in his head and a whole lot of bad feeling to try and get those names out of me before I took the dive.