I looked back at the prison. Sure enough, by the front gate, media vans with satellites on their roofs were pulling into the parking lot.
“I was going to leave in fifteen, twenty minutes,” he said. “Bremy? Are you still there?”
“Yeah,” I said, me and my sense of dread were both still there.
“Pierce, don’t come to the prison tonight.”
“What? You just said…are you trying to set me up again?”
“I know what I just said, but listen to me. Don’t come to the prison tonight.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I think there maybe something wrong with my father’s chip. It could be dangerous.”
“Bremy, you sound scared. Where are you?”
“At the prison.”
“I’m coming.”
“No!”
He hung up. I swore quietly and got back into the van.
“What is happening?” Ryder asked.
“The media are already here. My father called them.”
Everyone was silent for a moment.
“Maybe it’s not a bad thing,” Bart said. “Maybe it’s a regular press conference.”
“On a Sunday night at nine p.m.?” I asked.
“Yeah, I don’t like it either,” Bart replied, rocking in his chair.
“What do we do?” I asked turning to Choden and Ryder. Again, they shared one of their secret looks.
Ryder started to get up.
Choden placed a hand on her arm. Pure frustration and anger flickered over her face, but she sat back down. I guess she had trouble standing up to her father too.
“Somebody has to go in,” I said. “Right?”
Nobody said anything.
“We need to find out what’s going on,” I said more firmly. “So somebody has to go in…and I guess that’s me.”
Choden stepped forward. “I will go with you.”
“Me too,” added Queenie. I looked over at her while subconsciously rubbing my nose.
“No, you stay here with me,” Bart chipped in. “Look, I’ve got to work the computers. I can open the prison’s electronic doors for Choden and Bremy, but if things go wrong…if for whatever reason her father flips the kill switch…then I’ll need help evacuating the lemming reporters.”
Queenie turned to look at me. “Why would your father do that?”
That question just kept going round and round. “I don’t know, but it’s what we’re all thinking, right?”
Everybody communicated their agreement with silence.
“Bart’s right. You stay here Queenie. You do look authoritative,” I said, fully appreciating her outfit. She wore dominatrix gear complete with leather bustier, pencil skirt, and whip. On her head, she sported Marlon Brando’s hat from The Wild One.
“I’ll know if your father flips the switch,” Bart said. “The signal it sends out to the brain chip has a particular signature, but if that happens, you guys don’t want to be anywhere near that prison.”
“I get it,” I said.
“Do you? Because we’re talking about killing machines, body-ripping, heart-eating, rage robots. It would be the equivalent to a zombie apocalypse. The kind guys like me dream about. Although it’s less attractive now that it’s a real possibility,” Bart said thoughtfully, as though he had never truly considered the downside of a zombie apocalypse. Then he looked up. “Do you guys hear that?”
We all moved to the van’s panel window. A helicopter was landing inside the prison compound.
“Daddy’s home,” Queenie said eerily.
“Well…that’s good, right?” I moved away from the window. “My father’s not stupid. He won’t flip the switch while he’s in the prison.”
“He has to be there in order to flip it,” Bart said.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. The kill switch has a password, which I doubt he would give to anyone else, and the signal to activate the chips has to be within a mile range. But they do have interesting plans in the future for a remote satellite signal—”
“Bart!” I snapped. “Focus.”
“You wouldn’t understand it anyway,” he said sulkily.
“Just tell us how to get in.”
Bart launched into a description of the inner workings of the penitentiary, and by the time he was done, I found myself almost wanting to go fight a heart-eating rage robot just to get out of the lecture. Almost.
Choden and I were suited up and ready to go when Ryder called me over to her. She sat slightly reclined…still elegant, still covered in bandages.
“It’s important to show strength on your face,” she said.
“How do I look?” I asked.
“Terrified.”
“Don’t worry. I’m doing this,” I said, not sure how to put what I was feeling into words. “I’m all dressed. I have Bart’s radio earpiece in place, and soon, I’m going to open that door and walk out. So I’m doing this, but…”
“Yes?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think I can do this.”
Ryder smiled.
“I’m not ready. I’m not trained,” I said unable to stop my voice from speeding up. “I didn’t even pass the test.”
Ryder raised a quizzical eyebrow.
“The test! You know your so you think you’re ready to be a superhero test?”
“Oh yes, the test,” she said with mock sagacity.
“Yes, the test.”
A strange look came over her face. “I haven’t passed that particular test either.”
I felt my eyes widen. “What?”
“I have never known what to do with that flasher. I put you in to witness a novel approach.”
“What?”
“Yes…it’s true. I get close, but then, he manipulates the meaning of my name, and—”
“The meaning of your name?” I had to think about that for a second. “Ryder? You mean like, Ride her Cowgirl? Ha!”
Ryder’s face didn’t move.
“But that doesn’t even make sense, unless—”
“Yes, he refers to his…member in the feminine,” Ryder finished quickly.
“Oh my God! That’s hilarious! That’s—”
“Enough.”
“Yes ma’am,” I said quickly. “But that still doesn’t change the fact that I’m not prepared. My suit, while awesome, isn’t even bulletproof!”
“My suit is not bulletproof.”
“What!”
She straightened slightly in her chair. “That’s a rumor…a convenient rumor.”
I shook my head. “You’re blowing my mind right now.”
Ryder dismissed my astonishment with a wave of her hand. “Now Bremy, you have never listened to me before—”
I chuckled. “Well, never is a bit extreme—”
“Listen to me now,” she said sitting up in her chair.
I shut my mouth.
“I am hard on you because this work is dangerous,” she said. I studied her bandaged face. If she was in pain, I couldn’t see it through all the steeliness. “It is difficult for me to accept help. I can take chances for myself, but I do not like to take chances for others. I have…made mistakes.”
I immediately wondered if she included what happened to Pierce’s parents in those mistakes, but there wasn’t time for that. “I’m a big girl,” I said, feeling like a five year old.
“Yes,” she said. “And you can beat your father.”
“How?”
“By doing what you do best.”
“Sure…yeah,” I replied nodding vigorously. “And what is it that I do best again?”
She suddenly gripped my hands.
“Get in the way.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Getting into the prison wasn’t too difficult.
Choden and I had to climb a sixteen-foot fence, but the guards, who normally would have picked us off like wood ducks at a carnival, were nowhere to be seen.
Skeleton crew indeed.
&n
bsp; Also, the collapsible razor-wire normally coiled around the top of the fence was conspicuously missing. I guess that was thanks to the routine maintenance Bart had mentioned.
Nope, tonight, this prison wasn’t working very hard to keep people in or out.
We stayed in contact with Bart through the earpiece he had given me, and once we got to the outer cellblock door he opened it for us remotely. We were headed for the core of the prison to the command center, smack dab in the middle of central population. Bart referred to it as the eagle’s nest because it was a pentagonal-shaped room suspended over the main cellblock. He theorized it was the best spot for my father to set up shop as he would be in range of all the prisoners, and it was an easily defensible position.
The plan was for Bart to open the doors for us throughout the prison until we got to the first manually locked gate. He explained that prisons were never fully computerized, mainly so geeks like him couldn’t hack the system and let all the baddies go. Once we got to that door, we were on our own.
It didn’t take us long to get to that door.
Actually, we were now standing a few feet back and around a corner. So far we hadn’t run into a single guard, but I had a feeling that was about to change. Somebody had to have let my father through, and if the prisoners were getting out, somebody would have to open it again.
Choden motioned for me to crouch down and scoot forward to the edge of the corner where the hallways met
“What’s happening?” Bart crackled in my ear. “Is there a guard?”
“Be quiet,” I whispered. “We’re checking now.”
“Wait. I don’t need you,” Bart said quickly. “I’ve got cameras to hack.”
I ignored him and peeked around the corner. Yup, and there he was, the bearded lady dressed in a 1950s floral housedress, holding an automatic rifle taller than he was.
“There’s a circus guy in a dress with an automatic rifle right in front of you guys!” Bart crackled again in my ear.
“I know!” I whispered. “And unless you can take him out through the camera, be quiet!”
“Well, I’m good,” Bart drawled. “But—”
“Shut up!”
My ear bud went silent.
I turned to Choden.
“I’ve got this,” I mouthed.
I stood up and turned the corner.
“Hey!” I called out. The bearded lady’s glazed eyes turned to me. He had definitely been chipped, but I had to believe he was still in there somewhere. I just needed to goad it out of him. Once he realized what the Sultana had allowed my father to do to him, he’d be on our side for sure.
He lowered the gun at me.
“You don’t want to do that!” I shouted. “We can settle this without guns. Mano et mano. Or hotto…that’s me,” I said putting my hand on my chest, “et losero.”
He did something that made the gun click.
“Hey!” I shouted putting my hands out…because that would do a lot of good warding off bullets. “I’ve got a video of me flattening you at the fair. In the event of my death, it goes viral. The internet loves midg—”
I thought I saw a spark in his eyes…just before the bullets started flying.
I dropped to my belly and slid back around the corner.
“Okay, I think it’s safe to say Plan A is out,” I shouted at Choden over the gunfire. “But at least he doesn’t seem to be coming after us.”
“He is most likely programmed to stay at his post.”
Suddenly Choden took a step to move past me.
“Choden!” I scrambled after him on all fours. “It’s suicide. Don’t do it!” I yelled, making a grab for his pant leg.
I heard a sharp phfft sound.
I looked up. Choden had a small pipe in his mouth.
I looked over at my nemesis. His hand was at his neck, feathers in between his fingers. He slid to the floor.
“A dart…so cool,” Bart’s electronic voice whispered.
“You could have told me you were going to do that,” I said, accepting Choden’s hand up to my feet.
He shrugged.
We both walked over to the little man’s unconscious form. At his belt was a heavy set of keys.
“Don’t worry,” I said to him, grabbing the bunch. “Someday we’ll have our bitchy blogging war.”
Then I realized something. I turned to face Choden. “What about your vow?”
“Blow darts don’t count,” he said calmly.
I raised an eyebrow.
“They don’t count.”
“Whatever you say, Peace and Light.”
He smiled a little.
I opened the heavy metal gate, and we walked through to the other side.
I was halfway down the hall when I realized that Choden wasn’t with me.
“What are you doing?” I called back.
“I will have to stay here.”
“What? Because of what I said about your vow? I was just k—”
“No,” Choden said, shaking his head gently. “Someone needs to stay by the gate. Should your father decide to switch on his kill device, this is the way the prisoners will leave the facility. I cannot let that happen.”
“He’s got a point,” Bart chimed in.
My eyes peered down the unknown concrete hallway. “So you want me to go in alone?”
“It is not for me to want anything for you.” Choden moved his hands to a prayer position. “I know my path. You must choose yours.”
“Well, that’s just great,” I muttered. I was never very good with directions.
I studied Choden’s face to see if he had any further wisdom to share.
Nope.
I sighed. “I guess I’ll just go on ahead then.”
“Come on. Say it like you mean it!” Bart’s disembodied voice prodded.
I rolled my eyes. “Said the guy safely back at the van tending to his nerd injury.”
Suddenly I heard a strange noise in the background. “What’s that sound?” I asked, plugging my other ear. “It’s like broken glass on a chalkboard.”
“That’s Queenie.”
“What’s she doing?”
“Laughing.”
“Scary,” I said.
“Scary hot.”
I fought off the image forming in my head. “Okay, I gotta go.”
“Here, let me help with some inspirational music,” Bart said. Suddenly The Flight of the Valkyries came over my airwaves.
“Seriously, Bart?”
“What? Too much?”
I said nothing.
“Fine. How about this?”
New music came on.
“What is that?”
“AC/DC,” he replied. “Do you want me to turn it off?”
“No, leave it,” I said waving to Choden before stalking my way down the hall. “I think my dad is about to be Thunderstruck.”
“Now that’s too much.”
“Right.”
***
For about a minute and a half, I strode the hallways hopped up on an intoxicating mix of adrenaline and heavy metal. Then I entered the first hallway of cells.
“Bart, kill the music,” I whispered.
“What’s wrong? I don’t see any guards on the monitors.”
“It’s the prisoners,” I said slowing my walk.
“Oh, I guess it’s been awhile since they’ve seen a woman,” Bart said chuckling. “Do whatever little shimmy-shimmy you have to, to keep them quiet. You’re getting close the eagle’s nest.”
“Yeah, that won’t be necessary.”
I looked warily from cell to cell. Each prisoner, though physically different, managed to look unnervingly the same. They all stared out from behind the bars with dead eyes, swaying slightly. I had seen the same look on the circus crew, but somehow, on these men, it was even more disturbing.
Suddenly my phone buzzed.
“Is that your phone?” Bart yelled. “Don’t answer it. There’s—”
I took Bart’s ear
-bud out and reached for my phone nestled in a pocket on my belt. It might be Pierce. I had to answer.
“Hello?” I whispered.
“Bremy! You are still alive!” an accented voice called out.
“Oh, Mr. Pushkin. This really isn’t a good time,” I whispered even more quietly, eyeing the dead sharks floating around in their cells.
“Never a good time for you! Mr. Raj says you don’t come to work. You don’t answer my calls. It makes me nervous,” he said. “My other tenants…they know how this works. But you…I spend all this time with the training. It may not be worth it.”
“I’m sorry—”
“Now listen. I’m trying to plan my day tomorrow. If you have rent, good. I just pick it up and be on my way. If you don’t have rent, then I have to change my appointment for nail cleaning. It will take too long to move your body to—”
“You get manicures?” I interrupted. I really didn’t want to hear about my final resting place.
“I am not animal,” he said with disgust. “Now, my twelve hundred dollars…”
I suddenly realized the little bud in my fingers was screaming. I put it in my free ear.
“Are you nuts! What are you thinking?” Bart shouted.
“What?” I asked hurrying down the hall to the next corner.
“What, what?” Mr. Pushkin asked in my other ear.
“Sorry, not you Mr. Pushkin,” I said into my phone as I moved it away from my face. “Bart? What’s hap—”
“Don’t—” he yelled.
I turned the corner.
“—turn the corner!”
My jaw dropped.
There, less than ten feet in front of me, was Pulcinella flanked by two dead-eyed circus pals.
“Too late.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“I have to go Mr. Pushkin,” I said as calmly as I could. “There’s a clown who wants a word.”
“A clown! You call me a cl—”
I hung up as I raised my hands into the air.
The tall thin boxer reached for one of my arms, while the fat and short one grabbed the other.
Pulcinella led us down the hall. I could tell from the sharpness in his eyes that he still hadn’t been chipped, but even so, he seemed different. Serious.
The eagle’s nest was just as Bart had described it, a glass pentagon-shaped room hovering over the floor of the general population’s recreation area. There was a platform deck surrounding it with one bridge connecting the pod to the rest of the top floor.
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