Noble hesitates. Then he says, “I talked to the Kernel.”
Rufus gasps. “You did? Where?”
“Where he lives.” Noble holds up the key that he’s been clasping in his folded palm ever since leaving the princess. “He wants to talk to you. He gave me this so I could get back in.”
“Into the operating system?” Rufus looks stunned. His jaw drops when he catches sight of Noble’s key. Then he lunges forward.
But Noble raises his arm. He does it without thinking, as an automatic response to the fiercely acquisitive look on Rufus’s face. That look disturbs Noble.
He keeps the key suspended, just out of reach.
“It will only work if I use it,” he reveals gruffly. “The Kernel told me so.”
“Then let’s use it now!” Rufus is straining to be heard. There is a loud crack and a distant, rumbling roar, and part of the ceiling starts to sag, melting toward the floor in a kind of gooey trickle. “How did you get in? Can we get out the same way?”
“I think so,” Noble replies. They certainly can’t stay in the vestibule. And even if Rufus is destroying the computer, Noble feels sure that he’s not doing it on purpose. Surely Rufus’s motives must be good, no matter what havoc he might be wreaking.
It’s a mistake, Noble concludes. An error of judgment. And if the Kernel talks to Rufus, they can fix the problem together.
Aloud he says, “Come. It’s over here.” And he retraces his steps, heading back into the chamber that Rufus calls Cinema Five. “So what’s on in Cinema Five?” Rufus remarks, as they all spill across its threshold. “Ah! Old phone footage, I see.” The picture on the giant screen doesn’t appear to interest him very much, though Yestin, Brandi, and Lord Harrowmage all pause to stare at the rubber mask and the gray cat and the little girl with pigtails.
“There’s that girl again,” Brandi observes. “The one who was in that other room. She sure grew up fast.”
“No, she didn’t,” says Yestin, who’s still clinging to Noble’s hand. “This isn’t happening now. It’s old, and so was the other movie. They’re both just recordings.”
“Recordings?” Noble has been wondering why the events on the screen are repeating themselves. Now, suddenly, he understands. “You mean it’s like a copy? That you can see over and over again?”
“Yes. That’s right,” Yestin confirms.
“I like her socks,” says Brandi. “They’re cute.”
Everyone ignores this remark. Rufus has already scurried down the aisle ahead of the others, between the rows and rows of empty seats. He’s heading for the door at the opposite end of the room—the one that Noble first used on his way in. It’s to the left of the screen, tucked away near a bunched curtain.
“Is this it? This fire exit?” Rufus demands.
“Wait.” Noble rushes to join him, but isn’t fast enough. Rufus has already banged through the fire exit by the time Noble reaches it. Another loud crack sends a shudder rippling up the stairwell that Rufus is using. Noble sees him stagger as the navy-blue carpet wobbles like a hunk of flesh.
The door at the bottom of the stairs is no longer open. One glance tells Noble that Lorellina isn’t waiting there anymore.
“Come on!” he snaps. “Let’s go!”
He herds Brandi and Lulu across the threshold, into the stairwell. Then he grabs Lord Harrowmage, though not before tucking the Kernel’s key into the waistband of his own breeches. Since Yestin is tugging frantically at one hand, Noble has to free up his other hand somehow.
“Move!” Noble snarls. He gives Lord Harrowmage a nudge down the stairs, which are beginning to crumble at the edges. “Hurry!”
“What’s the big holdup?” Rufus has gone as far as he can. “Hey, Noble? We need a key down here!”
“Coming,” says Noble. But as he begins to push past Lord Harrowmage, dragging Yestin along with him, the floor suddenly drops from beneath his feet with a deafening, apocalyptic roar.
And he finds himself plummeting through space.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Luckily, the drop isn’t a long one. And when Noble finally hits something, it breaks his fall quite gently, like the skin of a giant drum. He doesn’t understand where he is. The ceiling above him is so dark and distant that he can’t see if he’s made a hole in it or not. He can, however, see a lot of flashing, colored lights. There’s even a great white beam that sweeps across the sea of raised arms surrounding him.
Suddenly, he realizes that he’s landed on top of an enormous crowd. It’s passing him from hand to hand across its bristling surface, as if it’s a single creature with a million rippling tentacles on its back. Noble can feel hot fingers clamping around his calves and wrists and biceps. His ears ring with the sound of massed voices—and also with a steady, pounding, rhythmic beat that makes his teeth vibrate.
“Don’t let me go!” Yestin screeches. Lifting his head a little, Noble catches a glimpse of Yestin’s spread-eagled form bouncing along next to him. They’re still holding hands, though Noble is finding it hard to keep a firm grip on Yestin. Noble feels as if he’s trying to keep Yestin afloat in some torrential river. The rhythmic pounding noise sounds like the blades of a giant waterwheel, though Noble quickly works out that it’s really a drumbeat.
By craning his neck, he can even see the drummer, who’s sitting on a nearby platform, high above the crowd.
“Noble! Hey, Noble!” yells Rufus. Though he’s shouting at the top of his voice, he’s barely audible—let alone visible. Where is he? Struggling to raise himself, Noble finally spots Rufus some distance away.
Like Noble and Yestin, Rufus is being tossed from hand to hand, appearing and disappearing like someone adrift in a choppy swell.
“Head for that stage!” Rufus shouts. “We have to get onstage!”
“What’s a stage?” Noble shouts back.
Rufus waves one hand at the nearest raised platform, where four young men are weaving about, surrounded by silver stands, gray cables, and black boxes. Except for the drummer, whose face is almost invisible behind a swaying curtain of hair and a blur of flying drumsticks, all of these young men are on their feet and clutching odd-looking instruments that gleam and flash in the pulsing light. The blondest musician is wailing like a banshee. Behind him, two sullen youths twang and jangle. With their drab clothes, wild hair, and peculiar footwear, they look a bit like Rufus.
“Come on!” Noble gives Yestin’s hand a tug. “Pretend you’re swimming! Use your legs! We have to get to the stage!”
“Which stage?” Yestin bleats. That’s when it dawns on Noble: there’s more than one. The vast gathering is ringed by stages. Some of them are mere lumps on the horizon, while others are clearly visible from where Noble is lying.
And they’re all occupied by busy musicians, who are furiously pumping out their songs.
No wonder there’s so much noise, Noble thinks.
“That stage is the closest!” he bellows, gesturing clumsily to his left. “I’ll try to reach it!”
“Where’s Brandi?” Yestin cries. “Where’s Lord Harrowmage?”
“I don’t know.…” Noble can see Rufus gliding over tightly packed bodies onto the stage. There’s also another shape bobbing around in the distance, but it’s so far away that Noble can’t make out who it is.
“We have to follow Rufus!” Noble declares. He soon discovers that by rolling this way or that, he can safely change direction. After only a minute or two, he arrives at the edge of the stage, where the crowd is surging and roiling like a wave breaking on a shoreline.
Noble crests the wave, dragging Yestin along with him. Suddenly, he finds himself lying on his back, staring up at the blond singer, with Yestin draped across his bare feet and strobe lights dancing on his bare chest.
A cheer erupts from the crowd.
“Are you all right?” asks Noble, but Yestin doesn’t answer—perhaps because he’s covered his ears. The music is deafening. It’s making the floor shake. Noble can’t understand how
anyone could enjoy such a cacophony. Yet the audience is screaming with enthusiasm, and the musicians are so lost in their work that they seem unaware of Noble.
Even Rufus is dancing around. He’s all flapping arms and bouncing head, like a rag doll on a string. Noble can’t believe his eyes.
“Rufus!” he bellows, but Rufus doesn’t hear him.
Meanwhile, Yestin has scrambled to his feet. “There’s Brandi!” he exclaims, pointing.
Noble looks. He can see Brandi’s pale face pitching and tossing above the crowd. A circular spotlight travels toward her, capturing her briefly in a golden pool of radiance and then moving on.
Yestin waves both arms at her. “Brandi! Hey, Brandi! Over here!”
Though Brandi doesn’t respond, the crowd cheers again as thousands of arms wave back at Yestin—who recoils in alarm. Beside him, the shaggy-haired singer is warbling away with his eyes shut.
It occurs to Noble that the machine pressed to this young man’s lips must be making his voice louder, since no human lungs could possibly produce such a clamorous sound. Noble briefly takes stock of him: the brittle wrists, the downy cheek, the stick-thin legs and narrow frame. Then he jumps to his feet and grabs the device.
“Brandi!” he trumpets. “We’re over here!”
His voice blasts across the crowd with such force that it frightens him. But he’s pleased to see that his message has reached Brandi, who raises a hand in acknowledgment. Noble also catches sight of another dark smudge drifting over the surface of the throng, and decides that it’s probably Lord Harrowmage.
Lulu, however, is nowhere to be seen.
“Hey!” The singer has seized Noble’s arm. “Gimme that mike! This is our set! Get off!”
“You get off.” One jab from Noble’s elbow is enough to send his opponent reeling across the stage. But the other musicians don’t falter. They keep churning out their raucous tune as Noble beckons to Brandi.
“Come on!” he thunders into the mike. “This way, quick!”
He’s hoping that Lord Harrowmage might also respond to this suggestion. What he’s not expecting is the sudden roar of approval from thousands of throats in the audience. And when the crowd begins to surge forward, spilling up onto the stage, he panics.
“Rufus!” he exclaims, stumbling backward.
Rufus finally hears, but he can’t help. He’s only one small teenager, and he’s about to be engulfed by a rising tide of people. Some are clawing at the edge of the stage. Some are climbing over other people’s heads and hoisting themselves up on cables, hand over hand.
“There must be a backstage door!” Rufus suggests loudly. “We should check behind the curtain!”
Noble opens his mouth. He’s about to yell “Stay back! All of you!” into the microphone when it’s suddenly reclaimed by the singer—who seems completely unfazed by the screeching, hysterical, bug-eyed horde that’s bearing down on him.
“Come on!” Yestin shrieks. “Let’s go!”
Noble hesitates, but only for an instant. He casts a final, despairing look in Brandi’s direction, before realizing that she’s too far away to be helped. Then he turns to run from all the flailing bodies that are launching themselves toward him.
The musicians stay where they are. Noble catches a glimpse of one girl who falls at the singer’s feet and wraps her arms around his ankles. Another girl treads on the first girl’s face in a desperate attempt to reach the singer. As more and more girls pile up against him, the singer staggers, buckles, and falls, like a deer brought down by a pack of wolves.
Most of the people swamping the stage seem to be girls, though there are lots of hairy young men, as well. One by one, the musicians are silenced. Little by little the music falters. But Noble has already left the stage and is following Rufus down a dim, narrow corridor.
“What about Brandi?” Yestin is wailing. “What about Lulu and Lord Harrowmage?”
“They’re coming,” Rufus replies calmly.
“No, they’re not!” Yestin appeals to Noble. “Are they?”
Noble glances over his shoulder. From where he’s standing, he can see just a sliver of the stage. Already there are one or two crazed young people staggering around near the curtain, and he knows that soon the pressure from the crowd will push more people up against the rear wall and into the passage that Noble and his friends are using.
“Go back!” he shouts, but no one in the crowd pays any attention.
“Do you have that key?” Rufus asks Noble, stopping in front of a closed door. “We’re going to need it right now.”
“What is this place?” Noble demands, fumbling in his breeches.
Rufus shrugs. “Guitar Hero, maybe. Or Garage Band. I dunno.” He frowns as Noble continues to grope around. “Can’t you find it?”
“It’s here. It must be,” Noble insists. Meanwhile, behind him, the hallway is starting to fill up. A pink-haired girl is leading the charge, propelled by a mass of whooping, shrieking, wild-eyed revelers.
“Hurry, Noble!” Yestin squeaks.
“I’ve got it.” Noble’s fingers close around the key, which is tucked into the seam of his waistband. “Just give me a moment.…”
“You haven’t got a moment,” Rufus says gravely. Like Yestin, he’s pressed up against a wall. A teaming knot of arms and legs and open mouths is barreling toward them.
Noble produces his key at the very instant he’s hit in the back. He’s lifted off his feet and driven straight at the door in front of him, which is made of metal and covered in peeling brown paint. But he doesn’t drop his key. With his cheek mashed against the door and his rib cage compressed, he manages to insert it into a keyhole.
“Hurry!” Yestin pleads.
Click. The key turns. Though Noble can hardly breathe by now, he’s able to nudge the door handle with his wrist. There’s another gentle click and then … WHOOMP!
The door bangs open. Noble pops like a cork across the threshold. He nearly drops to his knees, but the pressure at his back pushes him straight across a small room and up against another door before he has time to lose his balance.
The second door is very different from the first. This door is made of steel bars, set in a wall made of stone. Noble is convinced that he’s landed in a prison cell.
“Ooof!” Once again he finds himself pinned flat. The bodies are piling up behind him. In front of him, beyond the bars, lies a familiar collection of metal doors, overhead pipes, brick walls, and light-filled glass tubes.
It’s the Kernel’s lair. But the Kernel himself is nowhere in sight.
“Princess!” Noble roars. “Help me!”
His face is being pushed between the bars. He can hear Yestin squealing and other people groaning. The pressure builds and builds and … crack! The barred door gives slightly.
“Princess!” Noble’s voice is hoarser this time, and much weaker. He can’t expand his chest because it’s being crushed. Thrusting his right arm through a gap in the bars, he clumsily tries to unlock the door from the outside.
But his key won’t fit in the lock. And by this time the bars are actually bowed from the weight of so many bodies. A handful of dust patters down onto his face from the lintel above him, which seems to be disintegrating.
“Noble!” It’s Lorellina’s voice. She’s hurrying toward him down a nearby passage.
The Kernel is right behind her.
“Princess! Be careful! It’s a trap!” Noble gasps. He understands now that the Kernel never intended to negotiate with Rufus. Instead, Noble was given a key that would lead him straight into a prison cell, no matter where or when the key was used. Noble can’t imagine how the Kernel managed to construct this cell without alerting the princess. From her expression, it’s clear that she’s horrified. His cry for help must have summoned her to an unexplored corner of the Kernel’s domain.
But the Kernel hasn’t let her come alone. He’s waddling along at her heels, sweating and puffing, and as she picks up her skirts, he seizes her arm.
“Wait,” he says.
“Let go!” She tries to pull away from him. “Are you blind? They need help!”
CLANG! A crossbar splits and the straining door buckles. Noble feels the pressure ease, just briefly, before it builds again. He wonders if his eyeballs are going to explode.
“Look out!” cries the Kernel. “It’s a breach!”
Then a creaking, rending sound is followed by a sharp snap! The barred door pitches forward, slamming onto the ground. Chunks of rubble spray everywhere. A howling mob bursts across the threshold.
Noble finds himself on all fours, kicked and trampled. Fallen bodies are stacking up around him.
“Noble! This way!” Lorellina has freed herself from the Kernel’s grip. She’s reaching for Noble with one hand as she shields her head with the other. “Ow! Watch it! Stop treading on me!”
The crowd is surging in every direction, bouncing off walls and filling up corners. Noble stumbles to his feet. He bats off a couple of reeling girls and grabs Lorellina—but not before tucking the key back safely into his breeches. He’s not about to lose that key. At the moment, it’s the only weapon he has.
“Yestin?” he cries, straining to be heard over all the noise. “Yestin!”
“There he is!” The princess points at a small, cowering shape behind a screen of milling legs. “Yestin! Over here!”
Seeing Yestin look up, Noble twines his fingers firmly around Lorellina’s elbow and forges through the chaos. People are hanging off the overhead lights, swinging like monkeys. They’re snapping open cans and spraying each other with fizzy liquids. They’re kicking holes in wooden panels and vomiting on one another’s shoes.
“Come on,” Noble rasps, when at last he reaches Yestin. “We’re getting out of here.”
“How?” Yestin asks tearfully.
“Through the trapdoor.”
“What trapdoor?” Yestin doesn’t understand.
But Lorellina does. “What about your key?” she says. “Maybe it will open one of these doors.…”
“Maybe,” Noble growls. “The trouble is, there might be a prison cell on the other side.” Peering around, he adds, “I’m lost. Which way is the trapdoor?”
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