Hey. Sorry so late, and thanks, ED, Sam and Mitzy, for reviewing the last one. I appreciate your input. :) Edited, finally.
10: The Nth Root of Unity
Huddled within a computerized soundstage in Los Angeles, California, surrounded by ruthless gunmen-
Not that she believed in karma, really, but this was just the kind of "only me" situation that made a girl wonder. Once, she'd been queen of the teen-music universe; as ubiquitous a brand name as Coca-Cola. Now, Cassie Peak was stuck below ground in a stupid, skintight green motion-capture suit spangled with tiny reflective discs. Together with the rest of Biohazard and the members of Toxic Phlegm and Radioactive Nubs, she was a hostage.
Guns… she'd always hated weapons, they made Cassie sick to her stomach… guns were seemingly everywhere; their long, dark muzzles pointing at singers, technicians, security guards and executives, alike. Why the people with guns were here, Cass had no idea. Looking for a soapbox, maybe? A chance to fling hate and accusations at the world? Their leader's first public statement had sounded quite threatening, though Cassie had heard its like, before.
In the public part of her life (when not stupidly indulging her own insatiable need to perform) Cass traveled the world in search of poverty and wrong-doing. She was a well-known and usually welcome figure.
…But maybe these heavily-armed thugs and their lion-eyed leader didn't recognize her. The motion-capture suit had a hood, after all, and Cassie wasn't wearing any makeup. Why bother, when she'd just sweat it off, and her performance wasn't exactly live?
She didn't think all this out in coherent strings, though. More like feverish, jumpy bursts. The air around the gathered hostages stank of fear and gunpowder. Their confiscated PDAs and cell phones lay on the tiled floor in a heap, turned off and batteries removed. A slim, ivory wall phone, meanwhile, vibrated halfway off the hook, unanswered. Even the tech-station monitors were blizzard-blank with static. How was anyone expected to think, unless they'd been in such situations, before?
Cassie was standing next to Kurt Stone (towering over him, actually) with her guitar in one hand and her back to a terrified Omni Corp suit. Seriously, the guy was shivering and sweating like he was about to throw up. Even Kurt was calmer, probably because he hadn't come down yet, and thought the whole thing was part of a really weird trip.
Cass knew better. She'd visited enough tiny, struggling clinics, refugee camps and burnt-out villages to recognize genuine danger when it threatened. Sometimes fame and a fast mouth saved her. Once, a third world fly-speck nation's Generalissimo-Muchissimo had demanded that Cassie sing, "Don't Need High School When I Got You," in return for safe passage through sweltering jungle to the coast, for herself, her entourage and a cart load of skin-and-bone orphans. He'd thrown in a sack of rice and a 12-year-old soldier/ escort, too, for which he got her kiss, and an autographed picture.
You did what you had to, right? The orphans found homes in Europe and the US, while the child soldier was now in his freshman year of high school. Not the end of the story, though, because that music-loving general had been deposed and killed by his own army less than three months afterward. Life, huh?
...But this lot didn't seem like the sort to be impressed by her bubble-gum past or punk-rock present. Instead, they were tense and professional; like kidnappers with a message, who did not expect to live. Their leader was particularly goaded, as though listening to the rapid tick of a clock that no one else heard.
Bandy-legged little Kurt had thrown his hood back, and his greasy yellow hair stuck out all over the place, like one of those sharp smelling gold flowers. Squinting, he looked the woman terrorist over, taking in a tightly muscled figure in workman's clothing, and a beautiful, quite hostile face.
"Whoa… those are some crazy-cool eyes. Whatever I had, I'm taking more tomorrow."
"Whatever you had, you'd better quit, Kurt, while there's still enough of you left to be worth an intervention!" Cassie snapped. She'd been sorta-kinda in love with Kurt Stone, once and forever ago. Behind them, the Omni guy whimpered,
"Shut up! Shut up, before she hears you!"
Not very brave, but executives were about as worthless as agents and managers, in Cassie's experience. Her own manager had embezzled every cent that she had, and then run away to the Seychelles with her foster dad. More life, served up hot and confusing.
Still, the suit behind her wasn't Kenny, or her stand-in parent, either. He was just some guy who'd probably expected to have a good day at the office and then go home to his girlfriend and pampered cats. Cass felt responsible for him and for all the others, too. So, maybe… if she revealed who she was, explained her value as a hostage… these thugs and their grim-faced leader would let everyone else go free?
Nervously, Cassie Peak cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders; slim hands white-knuckle tight on the neck of her Stratocaster, blue eyes gone wide and vulnerable. She was about to speak, when something really weird happened (having nothing to do with Kurt's ongoing dedication to experimental chemistry). At an instant when their assailants were looking off and around, they just froze; paused in place like characters on a DVD. Cassie gaped at the eerily still gunmen, but not for long. Before two jerky heartbeats thudded past, she heard something. A young girl's persuasive voice in her head, whispering at Cassie to run. Alors! Now, at once!
Cass did not question, or hesitate. Seizing Kurt's arm, keeping tight hold of her beloved pink guitar, she hissed,
"Everybody out! Through the main doors, while the bad guys are, um… still distracted."
Because she knew for a fact that they were. For awhile, anyhow. Sensed that the girl… the owner of that French-sounding voice… could only dull the intruders' wits for so long. Organizing everyone else and beating feet was going to be up to Cass.
"Thanks," she muttered to that phantom voice, as three bands, a handful of terrified executives, their surviving guards and technicians, slipped past those statue-like terrorists.
"Dude… what's the rush?" Kurt asked her. "I ain't played my set, Cass. Gotta play my set."
"Change of venue," Cassie lied, pushing her former crush out through the main doors and over a cooling, sprawled body. "We've decided to perform outside."
That one took a few stumbling yards to register, but eventually Kurt replied,
"Okay. That's cool,"
…Just as the door alarm shrieked back to furious life.
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Not far enough away, in the private viewing chamber-
"Hurry, please," TinTin begged, of Punkk and Alan Tracy, both. The one was leading a quiet exodus, the other struggling to disarm the room's stubborn alarm system. Nearby, Fermat pounded away at his keyboard, while Gordon twitched in restless sleep.
"Relax, babe," Alan assured her, tossing a confident wink over one shoulder. "We've almost got it. Right, Chris?"
Beside him, green-eyed Chris Springfield just shrugged.
"Looks like a bunch of colored spaghetti to me," he admitted, "but I did kind of sleep through Dr. Faraday's electronics class."
"…And shop, and chem lab," Alan reminded his friend, managing an innocent smile.
By now, he had the door-side wall panel off and a couple of important-seeming wires pulled loose. Needless to say, Alan was feeling pretty sure of himself. Mischievously, he continued, "Unlike me, who stayed awake the whole time and read all of Fermat's lecture notes."
Fermat Hackenbacker waved in response to his name, but did not look away from the laptop screen. He didn't dare. Beside him, TinTin continued to focus on slowing the armed intruders' perception of time. She didn't answer, period. Chris had a comeback, though.
"Alan, my good man, I pay people who pay other people to hire the less-fortunate to take all my notes and pass all my tests. Comes with the whole "it's great to be rich" package. You go right on ahead and sweat those exams, buddy. I'll practice my golf swing, and we'll see who comes out on top of the Fortune 500."
Alan Tracy glared at his smug, handsome friend. Needled, he totally forgot to disconnect the alarm's reserve battery, before stiff-arming that stupid red fire door. Yeah. So, naturally, it went off.
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Tracy Island-
Headed downstairs at a pounding run, they just missed Penelope on her way up. Once away from the office, it didn't take Virgil and Brains long to get to the prototype rescue vehicle and initiate a launch, but Jeff's secret testing site was on the other side of the island, where the prevailing winds blew less fiercely, and rain hardly fell. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.
After a hard, roaring VTOL burst sent them thundering away from the ground on pillars of flame, Virgil Tracy began humming "Ride of the Valkyrie". The kids were in danger and every second was critical, so he pressed the big girl to the very limits of her performance, red-lining just about every gauge and dial in the cockpit. He didn't just want to be fast. He needed to be there in California, right the hell now.
Hackenbacker would have been bone-ghostly-white, had the engineer glanced up from his PDA and equipment list long enough to notice. Instead, he alternated between calling Fermat's number (no answer) and debating which of his high-tech inventions would do the most good at a collapsed stadium. Message after message he left on Fermat's phone. His wife, Myrna, he'd spoken to briefly, because she was a logical sort and required little comforting.
Shaking his head, the engineer recalled how, when Fermat had asked her, "Mom, why am I here? Why was I born?" she'd replied,
"Ferms, you're a product of random chance that I made the rational decision not to abort. You'll live out your span on Earth or the Moon, and then you'll die. After awhile, you'll be forgotten, unless you've done something truly spectacular with your life. Otherwise, only your DNA will be carried forward, coded in the genes of your offspring… if you manage to have any, that is."
His wife was a brilliant woman and an oft-published researcher… but not very encouraging, and just then Dr. Hackenbacker didn't have the strength to listen while Myrna quoted odds. Like Virgil, he had decisions to make and lives to save. He intended to follow Jeff's rough plan of delivering and employing their futuristic rescue equipment. In secret, if possible, because that's the way his boss wanted it. But even the best of plans rarely survive first contact with the enemy. And they hadn't yet heard about Mars.