Ridley Pearson - Power Play

“So, what now?” she said.

“We split up, and we head down toward those voices. If one of us is caught, maybe the other can do something about it.”

“And?”

“We listen to whatever’s being said.” He studied their surroundings. “I’m taking the stairs on this side,” he declared.

Charlene took in the interconnected pipes, the railing, and the catwalks on each level.

“I can climb down there,” she said.

“FYI: There are stairs on the other side. Might be easier.”

“And more obvious. They could be watching them. I’m going to climb it,” she declared.

“Whatever,” Maybeck said. “Just don’t make me have to rescue you.”

“Other way around,” she said.

“Not likely.”

“We’ll see.”

The blue jay cawed loudly, startling them both.

The faint voices below paused with the cry of the bird.

Maybeck whispered: “See you down there.” He tiptoed off toward an exit sign.

Charlene stayed well clear of the blue jay and climbed over the metal rail, one foot placed carefully after the other. She possessed a climber’s eye, able to look up at a climbing wall and quickly plot and remember an exact route. Descending was altogether different; it was much more difficult to climb down than up. For her, plotting a descending route was twice the challenge.

She hesitated a moment, seeing a possible route play out in her mind’s eye-each toehold, hand and finger grip she would take. One pipe to the next; one clamp at a time.

She drew in a deep breath and made her first move.

Philby heard Elvis meowing on the other side of the bathroom door.

“ Tssst! ” He tried to discourage him using the family tongue-between-the-teeth sound.

“MEEEEOWWWW!” Elvis wailed, sounding like a police siren.

“ Tssssssssst! ”

Bang! Bang!

He was jolted back against the well of the toilet.

“Dell?” His mother.

“Busy,” he said.

“You open this door this minute!”

Philby said, “Be right out,” while looking for somewhere in this shoe box room to hide his gear.

“OPEN THIS DOOR!”

When his mother shouted like that, he lacked resistance. He obeyed, turning the knob.

Seen from his mother’s perspective, her son, fully dressed, was sitting on the closed toilet, his computer open in his lap, a phone, also on, resting on his thigh. Her face burning a new shade of crimson, she said nothing; she simply extended her hands expecting delivery of the goods.

“Mom, I can’t.”

“I don’t want to hear it, young man.”

Her hands, now shaking with rage, remained extended.

“Mom.”

“It’s nearly one o’clock. We’ll discuss it in the morning.”

He glanced at the time. How had the time passed so quickly? One am? Finn would be expecting the Return.

“Mom! Please! Just listen.”

“I’ll listen in the morning.” She added, “Maybe.”

Philby had never seen her in this particular state before-like a teakettle boiling over. Wayne had said that a friend would turn his back and betray them. He hadn’t mentioned mothers.

He closed the laptop and handed it to her, feeling like a traitor. Maybe that was it, he thought: Maybe I am the traitor Wayne warned us about.

“Guard!” Finn hated to put Pluto at risk, but the dog seemed their best chance to get out of this with all their limbs intact.

“Higher ground,” Amanda said. “It’s the best defensive position.”

“Move slowly,” Finn said.

They backed up, taking small steps, never taking their eyes off the alligators. Pluto saw them, but held his ground.

“Good dog!” Finn called out.

They slowly worked up the hill, reaching a path.

Amanda said, “Did you know that alligators can run thirty-five miles per hour?”

“TMI,” Finn said.

“If we turn and run-” Amanda proposed.

“-they’ll have us for breakfast,” Finn said, completing her sentence for her. “I’m thinking: Scratch’s Mine.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“It will force them into single file. They’ll have to switch directions, which slows them down. If we hurry, we get out the other end of the tunnel ahead of them, at which point we head uphill , which is not what they’ll instinctively think. By the time they figure it out- if they figure it out-we’re gone.”

“What if we just made a run for it? For Minnie? The raft?”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll put you onto the raft. That works,” Finn said.

“Me? What about you?” she said.

“I…The thing is, after everything we’ve figured out…Philby, me, the others. You and Jess. I need to check this place out,” he said. “The pirate, Stitch, the alligators. It just doesn’t add up.”

“Then I’m not going.”

“You should.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“I can do this alone,” he said.

“Keepers work in pairs,” she said.

Technically, she was not a Keeper. But it seemed like the wrong time to remind her. He thought maybe that was her point.

She said, “What if I, you know, used my…What if I pushed?”

“You’re mostly DHI at the moment.”

“Actually, I’m barely DHI. Trust me, I feel much more human than hologram. What if, once we’re inside the mine, I could push the gators, and we could run for Minnie? Being inside the mine will concentrate the push. I wouldn’t need much for it to work. We could tell Minnie to leave without us. The gators might be fooled, and think we’d left.”

“We’d be trapped here,” he reminded.

“So we’d tell her to hang on the other side and wait for our signal.”

It seemed like the best way to get the gators off their trail, but a plan not without risk. If Minnie had to abandon the raft…

He said, “I guess if the push works, we go for it. If not, we’ll rethink.”

“On three?”

“No. Let’s just keep backing up. When they reach the path, we make our move,” he said.

“What about Pluto?” she asked.

“He’s a dog. He’ll figure it out.”

The two backed up slowly. The alligators slithered forward. Pluto retreated. Step by step, they all moved in a choreographed manner.

“Ready…” Finn whispered.

“Set…” she said.

The first alligator-Louis-placed his paw on the path.

Finn and Amanda turned and ran.

With her arms and legs wrapped around the pipe like a koala bear hugging a tree, Charlene slid down another three feet, finally stopped by a junction clamp. The temperature in the main building was warm, as were some of the pipes she touched. The turbines screamed in a high-pitched whine. Half-deaf, she didn’t hear the sound of flapping wings, didn’t sense the attack until it was upon her: a shadow sweeping across her face.

Charlene ducked, and swung out with her left arm, catching a bird’s wing. It struck a pipe and fell, feathers fluttering.

A second jay dive-bombed and sank its small talons into her scalp, tearing loose two large clumps of hair. Charlene cried out. Her scalp was bleeding. She sought a toehold but missed, catching herself at the last second. Now a third jay, wings tucked, came at her like a missile. She swung her arm like a baseball bat and sent it into the outfield. The bird struck the wall and was knocked unconscious.

It tumbled and landed atop one of the turbines with a thunk .

The voices stopped. Only the whine of the turbines persisted. The jay that had torn her hair out cawed and dove once more. Charlene deftly switched pipes, dropped lower, and switched back, using the elbow in the bigger pipe to shield her.

A glowing image appeared on the floor below. Maybeck? she wondered. Fearing it might not be, she adjusted to the far side of the pipe, putting an intersection of steel and PVC between her and the glow.