CHAPTER FOUR
"I can't see them anymore!" The girl spoke frantically into her headset. The instant that Zee and Ro had entered the room she'd called in again.
"What do you mean by that?" Bennet's cold voice replied. "I thought you said there was a camera in the room. Is there, or isn't there?"
"There is, but my view is blocked!" Her voice was quivering slightly. Clearly she was scared. She pointlessly leaned right and left in her seat as if she were someone in the back of the crowd trying to look around the people in front of her, forgetting that she was not in the room but was only staring at a vid screen. "I…I can't see them!" she stammered again.
Before Bennet could ask her what was blocking her view, or if she could move the camera, the girl nearly shouted, "They've gone out the window!!!"
Bennet looked up overhead from the ground where he was waiting. He might have given himself reverse whip-lash from the speed at which he looked up with. Sliding down the rope, Zee and Ro were speedily passing over their heads, avoiding his planted trap for them at the tower exit. "After them!" he roared to his agents.
The rope braid leveled out from its sharp descent. Zee let go of the braid before it reached the ground, and dropped to his feet with Ro. He set her down quickly. "Come on!" he shouted, pulling her behind him. They'd landed near the edge of the courtyard of the castle, well head of Bennet, but they still hadn't escaped him entirely.
Zee began waiving at all of their fans as they passed through them to get out of the court yard. Ro was still dazed from the frightening thrill ride, and wasn't up to putting on an act. Keeping up with Zee was all she could do in her shocked state. Even though she'd done similar stunts like this before, it didn't make the exhilaration any less unnerving each time she had to do it again.
As soon as they passed out of the courtyard Zee removed their costume holograms as the costumes were attracting too much attention now. He changed their appearances again, it wouldn't do them much good as Bennet's agents all had their holoviewers with them, but it would prevent Bennet from asking other guests which way they'd seen Rapunzel and her prince run off to.
Ro began to run towards the park entrance and exit when Zee grabbed her arm and pulled her off in another direction. "This way!" he led her.
"Zee! We need to get out of the park! You're going the wrong way! The exit is that way!" she pointed back behind her.
"They'll be guarding the park entrance. We'll need to find another way out."
"Just peachy," Ro muttered sarcastically.
Zee looked over his shoulder. They'd successfully lost the agents in the crowd. There were too many people between them and the agents for the agents to be able to view them with their holoviewers. It would only be a matter of time before the agents gained sight of them again. They needed somewhere to hide, as well as some disguises that would hold out against the holoviewers. Not to mention Ro would need to rest and recover for a bit. He knew that it must have been terrifying for her to jump out of the tower with him, and that she hadn't had any time to recover since they'd immediately started running away once they'd landed.
As they continued to hurry through the crowds the flower covered trellises, stone cobble roads, and thatched roofed shops of the fantasy land area were abruptly replaced with tall bamboo shoots and leaf net canopies. The small planted pots of colorful flowers were exchanged with large containers of elephant ear and elephant grass, as well as other large tropical plants. There were no more turrets with little color flags on the, but lighted torches and totem poles. Instead of cone-shaped hats and fake jewel covered tiaras there woven grass hats being sold at the gift shops. They were in a whole new world, or rather a new area of the park.
Zee stole another glance behind them. He didn't detect any more agents following them. He would assume that they were safe for the moment. "In here," Zee said, quickly pulling her into one of the larger sized gift shops.
'What do we need here?" Ro asked. Sure she knew that they were safe from the agents for the moment, but of all the places they could hide, why a gift shop?
"Disguises."
Ro scowled at the clothes hanging on the racks inside of the shop. Of all themed lands that they could have wandered into, why did they have to go to one with oversized balloon safari shorts and large life vest jackets? Too bad there wasn't a "fashion land" that they could have wandered into instead.
Ro wandered around to the back of the store where there appeared to be more sophisticated merchandise. As she was wandering around, a small section of merchandise caught her eye. She picked up the fedora hat and looked at herself in the mirror.
"So what do you think?" she asked, pulling down the brim of the hat and giving him a flirtatious smile from under the rim. The hat made her feel as if she really were the sexy accomplice to some rugged adventure star. However, as she turned around from looking at her reflection in the mirror, her smile drooped and turned into a small frown. She was now looking right at that hideous outfit from the front of the store—only, it was being modeled by the only person in the entire park with enough money to waste on such an unfashionable wardrobe.
"Tell me that's your hologram," she asked before he could reply to her first commented.
"You don't like it?" he asked, quickly taking his arms out of the vest. She was having trouble telling whether he really was holding the real item, or if he was pretending to take off his hologram, as his hologram was so life-like. However, when proceeded to hang up the vest on the hanger and then set it off to the side on another clothing rack, she knew that the top, at least, was real. She doubted that he'd had enough time to go into the changing room to put the shorts on since she'd walked from the front of the store to the back.
"Well…in that outfit you wouldn't have to worry about someone calling the fashion police."
"That's good," Zee piped in.
"I wasn't finished," she added. "You wouldn't have to worry about someone calling the fashion police because they'd' go right to the fashion swat team."
"But I thought it was fashionable to wear the park merchandise while vacationing," he said. She could hear in his voice that she'd confused him, yet again. She doubted that one day went by when she didn't have to explain something to him.
"It's just like all of the other malls we go to-- just because they sell it, doesn't mean that it's okay to buy and wear. The fact that they're selling this inside of their own theme park is no exception."
"So I should put it back?" he asked.
"Definitely."
He began to apologize for his lack of style as he began to re-hang the vest so that it was professionally presentable again. There was a special, unappreciated art to folding and hanging clothes in retail shops so that they looked appealing on the hanger. He was attempting to mimic that art to save someone some time from having to re-hang the vest properly.
"Zee, don't worry about it," Ro quieted his apologies. It wasn't his fault he wasn't programmed to keep up with the latest trends, so why should be he sorry? "So, what do you think?" she asked, demanding his attention be turned to her new hat.
"It's a start," he agreed, "But that won't be enough to cover you from the agents."
"That's why they sell the matching jacket!" Ro said, eagerly pulling one off of the hanger and throwing it over her shoulders. It was a short cut bomber-style leather jacket. After throwing another flirty smile at herself in the mirror, she actually put on the jacket. Despite the fine quality leather, the jacket felt fairly light weight. Perfect, but hopefully, it wouldn't get too hot out in the sun.
Zee picked up another hat from one of the higher hat shelves, where the larger sizes were. He set his vest off to the side, and tried on the hat then grinned confidently and smugly at his reflection in the mirror. It felt good to be an action hero. "So what do you think?" he parroted her question, smiling down at her.
The hat looked very handsome on him, but something was still missing. She looked over at the long caramel trench coats hanging up next to the jackets. She pulled one off of its hanger and handed it to Zee.
She'd figured that the two items would make a good combination, she just didn't know how irresistibly handsome it would make Zee look in his rugged adventurer ensemble. "SOLD!" Ro shouted eagerly. He couldn't argue with her decision as the long coat would definitely cover his irregular robotic shape from a pair of holoviewers.
When he took off the long coat so he could take it up to the register, his safari shorts had disappeared during the short time when his legs were concealed by the coat. Ro followed his example and took of her jacket and hat. "You go pay for these while I return this mistake up to the front," Ro said to Zee, taking the large vest from where he'd temporarily hung it up.
From shopping with him in the past she knew that he couldn't just leave the vest there for someone to find and put back in its proper place, and that he'd feel better with re-hanging the items himself rather than making someone else have to do it later. Sometimes, though, it wasn't fathomable to possibly re-hang all of the items she took with her to the dressing room as if they did, they'd be stuck there all night trying to figure out where they went back.
The cashier didn't take any particular note of the expensive charge to Zee's cred card, as when someone had been working there as long as she had, they'd find that a lot of people could drop several hundred creds on souvenirs without blinking an eye. While a large portion of the people who came the park were on a tight budget, another large percentage had come with the intention to spend money and to have a good vacation without worrying about cutting corners or being frugal.
After receiving approval for the cred transfer, she removed the security tags from the jackets then neatly bagged their purchases. "Have a good afternoon," she said with a large smile, completely full of white teeth. Ro wondered if the woman ever felt obligated to bleach her teeth regularly because of all of the people she had to smile at every day, or whether they were naturally that white.
Just outside of the gift shop Zee opened the bag and picked out Ro's hat and jacket. He easily ripped off the tags, not leaving any annoying bits of the plastic tag to poke Ro in the back later on in the day. She felt rather awkward as she slipped her arms into her jacket, and put on her hat. It just didn't feel normal to be putting on their newly purchased items now rather than waiting to take them back to their hotel, then wearing them out the next day. In a few moments though, it wouldn't matter either way, as anyone who had seen them put on their disguises would have moved on to something else and have forgotten them completely.
"We need to get out of the park," Zee announced after throwing out the packaging from their clothing items, disposing of the evidence of their purchases.
"Well thank you for that outstanding observation, Captain Obvious, but I thought we already ruled that out because they're probably going to be guarding the exits," Ro said, folding her arms across her chest. She hated it whenever it felt like they were having a conversation that kept on recycling itself.
"While the there's only one entrance for park guests to use, there's got to be half a dozen more for the employees."
"I wouldn't be surprised if he was watching those too… Did you see how all those agents were waiting for us at the foot of the tower?"
"You mean you actually had your eyes open for that? I would have thought you would have had them clenched shut…" Zee protested.
"If I'm gonna die, I'd like to see what's going to kill me, even if it means that I'm just staring at the ground."
He filed this remark in his memory and continued. "No, I didn't see them, but there were quite a few of them after us when we started running away."
"Exactly. Bennet was more than ready for us. It wasn't like usual when there were only a couple of them. Today's crowd was an ambush! It's almost like he knew we were going to be here!" She stopped herself realizing that of course he knew they were here or else he wouldn't be here so she quickly tried to clarify this obviousness. "I mean, you know, even if that girl really had called us in, how did he get so many agents here? Does he always have this large of a team? It just doesn't seem like the usual, "accidental bump into each other" type meeting that we usually have. This one almost seemed planned..."
Zee knew it really couldn't have been planned as coming here had clearly been one of Ro's spontaneous vacation ideas. Still, it did seem that Ro had a point. This wasn't like their usual meeting with Bennet. He was determined this time. He wouldn't doubt it if he had some of his regular agents putting in overtime for today's assignment. Still, speculating over the matter didn't really help them any. He passed another idea by Ro, "We might try to stay here in hiding until Bennet and his men give up and leave. If we keep an invisible profile, he might just assume that we already made it out so he won't waste his time continuing to look for us…"
"Actually, here is not a good place to be waiting, or to be standing for that matter," Ro broke in quickly. While sometimes it seemed like he did, Zee did not have eyes in the back of his head, therefore he couldn't see the agents coming towards them!
"This way!" she said, reaching out to grab his hand and pull him behind her. He readily grasped her hand and they began to move through the crowd, away from the agents behind them. Zee didn't turn around to look at them for himself, but completely relied on Ro's information. He didn't want to attract attention by turning around to look for them, or to give them the chance to see the front of his face.
They'd barely made any headway in the throng of people when Zee suddenly stopped walking. "Agents!" he whispered.
"I know! So keep walking!"
"We're trapped," he spoke quietly, still standing where he'd stopped walking.
Trapped? Who was he kidding? This wasn't trapped. Trapped was when they were stuck in a room with no doors or windows with Agent Bennet holding a gun to their heads. There was no way they could be trapped. Maybe temporarily surrounded, but not trapped. "Trapped usually would imply that all of our escape routes are cut off, and I find it hard to believe that we're at the stage yet."
"Look ahead," Zee advised Ro.
They were harder for her to pick out of the crowd than for Zee, but she soon recognized the second set of agents. Both of the agents had determined scowls on their faces. They didn't look like they were just casually scouting, but as if they knew of an almost surety that if they scrutinized the area enough, they weren't going to be let down in their search. Judging by the deliberate search pattern in which the agents were approaching them from both sides, in a short while they would be surrounded, and trapped!
"They're definitely looking for something, and I don't think they're just going to get tired and give up. I might have to agree with you on this one…Unless you think that we can sneak by them before they meet in the middle?"
Zee did a quick scan of the area. "No, but I have a better idea," he said, gently taking her arm, and relaxing his facial expression. There was a part of her that envied him—for being able to put on a calm face, as if nothing in the world could upset him—and then another part of her that was annoyed with him. In a small way, it bugged her that he shouldn't look even a little bit anxious over the situation. His expression at the moment was completely denying what she knew that he felt inside of him. It always felt like she'd lost a part of him when he showed an indifferent expression to the current situation. At the moment Zee looked like he didn't care about the agents searching for them, and this bothered her, as she knew that Zeta did care. No, not Zeta, still Zee… Whenever she heard or thought the name, "Zeta," she was regretfully reminded of the image of a heartless indifferent government assassin. She didn't want to remind herself of Zee's past by calling him "Zeta." He would always be Zee, even when he was in his robot form. She would banish Zeta from her mind. He would always just be Zee--Zee without his hologram on, and then Zee with it on. Right now it was Zee with his hologram on, but hiding his true feelings.
He began leading her toward the entrance to the ride closest to them. It was one of the larger and more popular rides in the park, the kind that took several hours to wait through. "Uh, Zee," Ro whispered when he saw where he was taking her, "I thought you might have learned from our last experience that waiting in lines isn't a good thing for staying hidden."
"We won't have to worry about this one," Zee replied confidently. There was a large group of people entering into the regular queue line from every direction. Then there was a smaller group of people entering into a parallel queue line. Zee unexpectedly guided Ro into the smaller group that was waiting for the secondary line. What was he thinking? Shouldn't they be trying to blend in with the larger group of people? The knot in her stomach tied another half-hitch into itself when she saw that there were two cast members waiting at the front of this secondary line. It looked like they were checking every ones ID's even!! Man, Bennet must really be out to get them!
Luckily, however, her overanxious suspicion about them checking for IDs was wrong. They were only checking the "Return Time Slips" for the ride. They were in the express waiting line for those who chose to come earlier in the day, theoretically save their spot in line, and then return at another time. Zee's hid his hand inside of his coat as it flashed as his hologram changed. When he removed his hand from inside of his coat pocket, he was holding two tickets, identical to the ones that everyone else was flashing to the cast members.
As they approached the two cast members, Zee coolly held up their tickets in plain sight so that they could read the time and date on them. He made it as obvious for them to read as possible so that they wouldn't as to handle the tickets to read them better, in which case the tickets would have disappeared the instant they left Zee's hand. However, these cast members didn't seem suspicious and let them through into the shorter line.
Ro knew what to do from this point and began to speedily walk through the queue line that led inside of what appeared to be a ruined temple. Zee followed closely after her, and in a few seconds they were out of sight, hidden inside of the ruined temple of the attraction queue line.
It felt really satisfying to be passing up all of the people who were waiting inside of the regular line. Why hadn't they done this with the other rides? The lines snaked around in a forward direction without many turns or switchbacks. Having not been in any line this long in the park so far, Ro was tempted to ask the people they were passing how long they'd waited to get to that point so far. Better yet, why not ask some of the people getting off of the line how long they'd waited to get on the ride? It was a nice thought, but she didn't see any lines with people moving the opposite direction in them.
Further up ahead, Ro could see that their express line had suddenly turned into a traffic jam, complete with bumper to bumper action, and parked cars. They'd finally caught up with the end of their line and were stuck waiting next to everyone else. "Now what?" Ro asked a little sourly at the reminiscence of having to wait in a long line again.
"We wait in line like everyone else of course," Zee replied simply.
Great… This was his plan? They'd be
caught in no time! All the agents would have to do is follow them into the line
and they'd be at their mercy with no where to run! There weren't any connecting
paths to the exit line and inside of this temple, and side doors or windows
were kind of hard to come by. "So that's your plan?" she accused him. "We'll just wait here until they decided to
check the lines for us."
"But you said that waiting in
lines was a good thing. There's no way they'd be able to make their way to us
now," he said, cleverly, looking behind him.
She hated to admit it, but she was shocked and impressed. The line had filled up so quickly behind them that they certainly were boxed in, but in a good way as Zee had planned! There was no way could the feds make their way through either of the tightly packed line to get to them! Not to mention there was no exit line for them to sneak up on them with! "Zee…" Ro stuttered, at a loss for words from her amazement. "Where did all of these people come from?" She knew that the lines filled up quickly, but this was incredible!
"It's 2:58," he started out, "the show you didn't want to see, you know the one with the belly dancers and sword acts?--it let out three minutes ago."
Sometimes his precognition amazed her. The performance theater was just next to this ride, so when it let out, nearly half of the people decided to get in line for the ride, while the other half already had express line tickets for it! And how clever of them to have reserved their space in line earlier enough in the day, so that it would be timed just right so that when the performance let out, they would have waited long enough for their tickets to be valid!
All day long she'd seen this kind of thing—some performance, movie, or show lets out, then everyone gets in line for the closest attractions. But, while' she'd seen this happen before, she'd never have been able to utilize such information to her advantage as Zee just did. "Zee, you're something else, you know that?" she smirked at him. He smiled. She was proud of him. It was one of the most gratifying things in the world. He only wished that he had some other miraculous plan that he could suddenly reveal that would make her even more thrilled with him. However, her confidence wasn't quite as hopeful as he thought it was as she then asked, "But what's going to happen when we get to the front of the line?"
He leaned over to whisper their plan to her so that the people around them wouldn't be able to eavesdrop, "We won't be going on this ride," he informed her.
"Joy, more waiting in line for nothing," she smiled.
He continued his explanation, "The exit for this ride actually lets out past the area where they agents are searching. If we take one of the 'last chance exits' that will be located a little further up in the line, we can completely avoid having to come anywhere near the front of the line. Then, we'll just get out of the attraction with the other people leaving the ride.
"And how far is, 'a little further up'?" she asked.
Zee looked down the line over the heads of the people, "Thirty minutes," he estimated.
"So distance wise, it's really close, but moving at, 'popular attraction queue line speed,' it's actually fairly far," Ro corrected him.
"Well, yes," he admitted.
"That's life," Ro resigned herself to be content with the situation. She wasn't going to give up the anxious feeling that she had until they'd waited a little longer and she was sure that the agents hadn't seen them and followed them into the line. After about an eternity of waiting, which was only about five minutes, her nerves calmed down and she became bored with the situation once again. "You think they'll be waiting for us at the exit?" she asked casually.
"I doubt it. Half an hour is a long time to wait for someone."
"But this is Bennet we're dealing with. He been waiting two years, yet he still hasn't given up."
"But for a single incidence, I don't he'd leave his agents to wait for half an hour when there's a chance we might still be wandering around the park somewhere."
"I hope you're right and that they're not going to come back in an hour to see how long it took us to go through this line."
"Are you sure they're here?" a feminine voice asked over his radio. Bennet picked up his radio and spoke into the receiver, "Keep looking. They're wearing a pair of adventure hats. Also, the synthoid is in a long leather jacket and the girl is in a shorter-styled jacket. Or even if they're not wearing them they'd carrying even larger bags of the items!! Go to the gift shop and ask to see a copy of these items if you must! They bought them less than ten minutes ago! They couldn't have gone far!" He'd received the announcement from the accounting records of Zee's purchases only a few minutes after he'd bought the items. It'd taken Bennet less than two minutes to send a team over to the area to search for them. They had to be in the area, they'd had such a fast turn around time they would have seen them coming if they'd tried to leave while they were heading over there.
"We stared from both ends and met in the middle, but we didn't see them."
"That doesn't mean they're not there. It just means that they're either in hiding or they moved on before we got there. Try around the east end of the park. If they tried to move out on the west the team over on this end would have seen them coming. Leave half of your team in the area while you scout on ahead if you really think they're not there."
"Yes sir!" the agent replied dutifully. She ended the radio transmission. However, as she briefly looked around the area one more time before moving on something caught her eye. "Sir!" she picked up her radio again.
"Yes?" he asked eagerly.
"I think they might have gotten in line for one of the attractions!" she declared.
"Which one?" he asked.
"The one right across from the gift shop!" she replied.
"Good, follow them in. I'll send word to the attraction supervisors to look for them as they come through the line. Bennet out."
With her partner they went up to the queue line entrance. There line was just a bunch of switchbacks, all full of people. They wouldn't be able to quickly scan over the group but would have to scrutinize it carefully. It would be all too easy for Zee and Ro to hide behind someone else in such a large crowd. They entered the line then began to push their way through the line, rationalizing their rudeness by uttering polite comments such as, "Excuse us" or "Sorry" or even, "We have important business, please move aside.'"
It was of little use as the line just continued to switch back forever and ever. Eventually everyone got the idea and moved aside to let them through, but it wasn't very helpful. The line just kept going and going! Seeing that they weren't getting anywhere quickly, they decided to try a smarter strategy. They made their way out of the line and approached the two cast members, who after the large rush a moment ago, didn't seem to have much else to do at the moment.
"Excuse me!" she addressed them. "Did you see a man and a girl come through here dressed in leather jackets and adventure hats?"
The cast members stared blankly at the agents then looked at each other. While they knew that these people were serious because of their uniforms and their uptight tone of voices, how could they tell them in a straight voice that they had indeed seen such people? How could they tell them than one in twenty people had bought some kind of adventure jacket and that nearly all the men who came through the line had leather jackets? Maybe not so commonly today because of the heat, but the jacket style was still very popular.
"Well…" one of the cast members started to say, trying to control his snickering as that would be impolite, "We have seen some people dressed like that, about two dozen today alone…"
"They would have come through here less than five minutes ago!" she replied sharply.
Clearly this agent was not someone with whom they should play their regular game of "Toy with the Distressed Guest" routine. No, reciting the procedure for what to do if they became separated from their group would not be appropriate in this instance. Nor would suggesting that after they found their lost party members that they arrange a meeting place for where they try to find each other for the next time they become separated. And lastly, they definitely should not ask if they want to wait here while they used the overhead speaker to see if their "mommy or daddy" is within hearing distance. The best thing to do in this instance would be to tell the truth. "We just had a large rush come through. It's really hard to take notice what each person is wearing. I'm sorry. You're welcome to wait for them by the exit for them if you think they're on the ride. The wait time is about 3 hours so you might just try coming back then. Or if you think there's a chance that they're up near the end of the line you can try searching the line for them…"
"We'll do just that, thank you," her partner replied brusquely. These people were being of little help to them.
Rather than going through the regular line, they entered into the express line. The cast member didn't try to make a snide comment about how they needed the special passes to be entering into that line, and let them go about their business. They made excellent progress, until they ran into the end of the line shortly. After that it was all downhill. No one wanted to let them through, and practically everyone ignored their pleas for cooperation. It would have been much easier if they could just announce in a loud voice what they were doing, and why it was important for them to have their way at the moment. However, it really didn't seem like a good idea to create such widespread panic from such a suggestion. Not to mention they'd lose the element of surprise if they loudly announced their presence there. Also, being in a setting where make believe was emphasized and elevated over the concept of reality, who would really take them seriously if they said a renegade infiltration unit and its accomplice was waiting in line for the ride with them?
"We're not going to get through." The agent sighed, looking at her partner.
"Should we try to wait for them at the exit then?"
"If we want to continue to assume that they actually are in this line somewhere and that they really aren't just somewhere else in the park, then yes, we should wait for them by the exit."
"I'll let Bennet know that we'll be lingering behind then," her partner offered, picking up his radio.
"Might as well. Waiting around here beats running around the park all day looking for something that probably isn't there."
"You're probably right, I'll inform Bennet," the agent said, turning around to make their way out of the line.
The line moved forward slowly at a pace of about sixteen people every thirty seconds, according to his calculations. Still, judging by the progress that they'd made in line, it seemed hard to Ro to believe that 640 people had actually gotten on this ride in just twenty minutes. Even allotting for the fact that maybe not all of the seats on the ride vehicle were full when it was dispatched, the numbers just didn't add up to her. On top of everything, Ro didn't think she could even count six hundred heads in front of her. There seemed to be no way to tell how long the line must really be if they couldn't even see such a small percentage of it.
His eyes narrowed as they emerged from a dimly lit dark passage way into a long well lit passageway. Lining the sides of this narrow stretch were decorative spikes coming up from the floor and ceiling, like stalactites and stalagmites. There were fake skulls embedded on the top of some of the spikes as well as skeletons impaled on others. Supposedly, this was one of the "booby traps" that they'd been warned against from strange messages, carved into the walls at earlier points in the line.
At first Ro had ignored the strange symbols that made up the messages because Zee had declared that they did not match or resemble anything in his record database under the category of," Known Ancient Symbols." However, after being forced to stare at one of the messages on the wall for several minutes as they waited, Ro had come to the realization that if she squinted really hard and turned her head sideways, the symbols actually slightly resembled the English alphabet. After her enlightened experience it was only a few seconds before Zee had figured out what the message said.
Several of the messages that Ro had had him translate were warnings about such booby traps along the path, while others cautioned against the consequences that awaited greedy treasure seekers who were out to plunder the temple of its valuables. Eventually Ro had gotten tired of hearing his translations so he no longer informed her when he saw another one of them. But, as the message for this hallway was more varied than the ones on the other walls had been, maybe he should point it out to her? No, despite his interest in the warning of the new message he didn't want Ro to chastise him for boring her with such knowledge. Still, most of the other messages made sense. So what exactly did this one mean by, "Don't go shaking bamboo poles?"
The line moved forward again, but it could have just been people getting comfortable rather than that they really were moving forward. "We're going to be stuck here forever," Ro sighed. "We should just go back out the way we came. The park is going to close and they're going to clear everyone out of the line before we even get to the front of it!" she said a little sourly.
Zee looked at her and tried to smile encouragingly, even though he knew that it wouldn't take the ache away from her feet, or that it wouldn't tell her how much longer they'd be stuck waiting. In truth, he didn't really even know for himself how much longer it would be. "I'm sorry," she suddenly apologized. It was strange, as that was just what he was going to do! It was completely in his nature to apologize for any of her discomforts as he felt it always was his fault when she was unhappy. While she told him over and over again that it was her choice to come with him, her choice to stay with him, and that she never regretted one moment that she was with him, he couldn't help but feel that every unfortunate thing that came their way was still his fault and that he should be sorry for it.
"Excuse me?" he asked politely. Did he really just hear her say that she was sorry? What could she possibly be sorry for when everything was his fault?
"I'm sorry," she repeated, turning to look directly at him. "I'm sorry for being so cranky and impatient. I shouldn't be so disagreeable when there's nothing you can do to improve the situation. I'll just be quiet now…" In a small way she felt like she'd just made a fool of herself, but it had seemed like the right thing to do just a second ago. She'd been cross and uptight at having to wait so long, but it wasn't Zee's fault that the line was moving so slowly! And while he insisted that it was his fault that the agents were after them, if he hadn't noticed, they seemed to be after her too. And how would her complaining benefit them anyway?
He wasn't sure if he was analyzing her emotions correctly, but it appeared that she looked apologizing hadn't made her felt better but worse? "No, it's okay, really!" he said quickly. She turned to look at him, a small hint of hope in her eyes. Was he going to refute the insults she'd given herself as a result of the confession of her own faults? Was he going to tell her that she really was patient and justifiable in her tiredness? "By monitoring your increasing degrees of irritableness, I can use such information as a general guide to how well the agents must be holding up by comparison," Zee added. –Or not…
"Glad to be of some assistance," Ro muttered, trying to sound a little bit grateful that he was trying to make an attempt to turn her bitterness into a good thing.
The line was moving again, so Ro took a few shuffled steps forward. They were a quarter of the way through the hallway now. "If what you say about the comparison thing is really true, then by my watch they should have left this dump an hour ago," Ro said, attempting to lean against the rope cord that served as a barrier to keep people out of the display area. It didn't' really work out too well because the rope was hanging too low to rest comfortably against her back, and she felt off balance with it resting against the back of her leg.
"But we haven't even been waiting in line that long," Zee protested.
"Yeah, but if you count the fact that they've been chasing us for the past two years, I think it adds up. It's kind of like counting the fact that we've actually been in the park the entire day…"
Zee didn't hear the rest of what Ro was explaining to him though. Up ahead in the hallway he could see a young boy was stretching his arm over the rope barrier, mischievously reaching out towards the only bamboo pole in the entire hallway. "No don't!" Zee cried out to the boy.
Too late. The boy was shaking the pole vigorously, paying no attention to Zee's cries. It was as if he hadn't heard Zee at all, which wouldn't be too unlikely among the chatter of the people talking in line.
Panic swept over Zee's face as he anxiously waited for some kind of booby trap to go off, just as the messages had warned him about. At the moment the program that controlled his rational thinking (which should have immediately informed him that they weren't in some forbidden temple out in the middle of Western Europe, but in a place where lawsuits were feared more than the thrill of adventure) was letting the "live the experience" program have more control over his actions and emotions. Of course, as he should have known better, nothing happened.
"You want to tell me what's going on, or do I not want to know?" Ro asked, eyeing him suspiciously.
"It's nothing…" Zee said sheepishly. How could he tell her that because the boy had shaken the pole he'd almost expected a huge boulder to come rolling through, ready to crush anyone who was in the way? "I think I've been taking this whole adventure thing a little too seriously…"
From all around them a sharp screeching noise rang out. The noise certainly startled Ro as her arms were straight down at her side and her shoulders pulled back stiffly. "What was that?" she asked tensely. While she hadn't let out a startled scream as some of the other women had, she also hadn't remained completely indifferent as some of the other people around her reacted. Then, before she could even take a guess as to what had caused such a horrible sound—which sounded a lot like nails on a chalkboard—several two foot long spikes dropped out of previously concealed holes in the ceiling. There were more screams this time, but it was nothing compared to the uproar that soon followed as the ceiling suddenly dropped a distance of four feet in one second! They were going to die!
"Everybody get down!" Zee yelled over the cries from the startled crowd. But no one moved. They only stood there in silence. The screaming had almost stopped immediately, and the only sound that could be heard was the boy--laughing hysterically at the people who'd been fooled by the stunt. Then as he saw what everyone else was staring at, he too stopped laughing.
Several of them weren't even sure what they were looking at. The figure in front of them looked like some tall, gangly metallic skeleton, covered in shreds of a sinewy type skin. More freakish than the figure itself was the mystery of where it had suddenly come from. There were less than a handful of people who had witnessed the actual transformation. Had several of the people staring in Zee's direction not blinked when the event had happened, they might too have seen him split the seams of his leather coat as his hologram dispersed and his body, arms, and legs grew until he reached the ceiling of the hallway.
Zee gazed uncertainly back at the people below him. Something was wrong—besides the fact that he'd just blown cover and had mistaking believed, (along with the other screaming guests in line) that the ceiling really was going to fall on them. What bothered him more than the fact that he'd foolishly revealed themselves, was that the ceiling he was supposedly holding up above all of these unfortunate victims, hardly weighed anything at all! Not only was there not any resistance to him pushing up on the soft and spongy ceiling, but it was retracting! He reached out to touch one of the spikes. Despite its metallic and rigid appearance it bent easily, as if it was made out of rubber.
"This can't be good…" Zee muttered.
"Ha, ha! Would you look at that!" Ro laughed nervously. "Wonder whose idea it was to have that happen every half hour…" She wasn't fooling anyone though. Several of the people, particularly the ones who had remained calm the entire time, had been on this ride before and had been through this routine before. They knew there wasn't supposed to be some animatronic figure who came in to pretend to hold the ceiling up over them.
Zee slowly began to shrink back to his regular size again, as the ceiling returned to its normal position. His arms and legs shortened, and his chest compacted again, just like how the spikes in the ceiling retracted. Once he was his regular size again he began to remove what was left of the leather coat. He folded the rags in half then hung it over one of the ropes to his side. He reached up to remove his hat but apparently it'd already fallen off. Rather than replacing his hologram, he just stood there. How could he have done something this stupid?
Ro removed her own jacket and hat, "Here, keep it" Ro said, handing the items to the closest person to her. Rid of her disguise as they were useless now, she reached out for Zee's hand and began to pull him behind her. Needless to say, the once stubborn and unforgiving crowd easily let them pass through to the front of the line. Apparently, no one wanted to get close to the strange robot or the person with it.
With Zee being in his robotic form, it was easy to get people to move off to the side and let them through, even if they didn't know what had happened or what was going on now. His strange costume and his fierce appearance demanded respect, and to be let through. Rumor of what had happened in the corridor hadn't spread up this far, but in a few moments it would. If not the guests curiosity as to why a robot was being led through the line would certainly encourage them to inquire as to what was going on from those people in front and behind them. As they passed everyone Ro could hear the gossip spreading, almost as fast as a wild fire. The whispers followed behind them, just like a shadow.
In a minute they finally reached the point in the line where the exit line met up with the entrance line. "Finally!" Ro cried, letting go of Zee's hand, then crawling under the bamboo fence divider into the exit line. Zee easily stepped over the fence with his long legs. They were on their way out of the ride now! Zee nodded to the surprised guests they were cutting in front of for the exit, then took off running with Ro.
"What's that all about?" one of the surprised guests leaned over to ask someone in the line from which the robot and the girl had just come from.
"We're not sure either. They just came up through the line…"
"Strange," the guest muttered. "You think it's some kind of promotion for a new movie?"
"Could be, who knows anymore though? They've got so many projects going on all of the time…"
"True, true," the guest agreed, then politely ended the conversation.
"Smart one, Zee! Now just what were you thinking?" Ro asked as they ran towards the exit. They were running rather than walking because as soon as word of what had happened reached the front of the line, the ride operator would inform Bennet, who would then immediately set up post for them at the exit. They had to make it out of the exit queue line before that happened.
"… I thought they were in danger…" He said solemnly. He couldn't look at her as he said this. He didn't think he could stand to see the disappointment on her face as the anticipated disappointment that he could imagine her feeling toward him, was more than enough already.
"Yeah, you were afraid that a foam rubber ceiling was going to mess up some ten foot tall guy's Mohawk?"
"I wasn't the only one who thought it was really falling…" he tried to defend himself. He wouldn't mention that even Ro had gone tense when she'd heard the screeching noise.
"Zee, you're head is just somewhere else today. Even if it was really falling, what good would you have accomplished by getting impaled then squished by a concrete slab? If it was real, do you really think you could have held it up over everyone's head?"
"I had to do something…"
"Well, you most certainly did!" He didn't say anything in reply, and it simply made her feel sick to her stomach. Why was she being so hard on him? Fatigue was no excuse to be this rude to someone. He was just trying to look out for everyone else. No one as selfless and kind as Zee deserved to be treated this poorly. "Look, Zee, I'm…"
"It's alright, he cut her off. "I know." He knew she was sorry, and he didn't blame her one bit for being upset with him. He knew that he deserved to be disassembled and melted into soda cans for everything that he'd put her through, but that she'd still managed to forgive him for his flagrant stupidity.
She smiled, knowing that things really were smoothed over. She could tell because he'd put his hologram back on so that he could show her a sincere smile.
Through the enormous entry way ahead, natural light flooded the doorway. They were almost at the exit to the temple. Ro slowed down and stopped running, following Zee's lead. "Hold on," he said, holding his arm out in front of her. The light and dark contrast between the inside of the temple and outside was shockingly bright. However, once he turned on his polarized light filter, it was much easier to see the figures just outside of the entrance. "Two agents."
"Already?"
"It looks like they've been waiting for a while."
"So what do we do? Go back through the line and try and get out the entrance?"
"No, I have a different idea."
Maybe it was just her, but she kind of liked the way he said "different" rather than "better."
He checked on the agents one more time before telling Ro his plan.
"Take my hand," he said, extending his, after quickly briefing her.
She grinned, and squeezed it tightly. There was a quick flash of light, and then they were disguised. Clearly when Zee had checked out the agents, he'd noticed that they didn't have their holoviewers out at the moment.
A middle aged couple strolled casually out of the exit, then surprisingly walked right up to the agents! At first the agents seemed predisposed to ignore them, until it became obvious that these park guests were coming over to talk to them—as so many of the other people exiting the ride had.
Because they were in uniform nearly every character fanatic was coming up to them asking them for their autograph (first) and they asking what movie they'd starred in or would be starring in. From there they'd had to explain that they weren't costumed characters.
They didn't immediately pull their guns out on them as they approached, which was a good sign that they didn't sense anything suspicious about the two middle aged guests. The only thing these agents were really taking note of, was what they were wearing. And, upon seeing that they were not wearing leather jackets with matching hats, the agents could tell that two people weren't the ones they were looking for.
"I thought the android was a little out of theme, but now that you're here, I guess it makes perfect sense. Still, I would usually only expect this kind of thing in the future world area."
"Excuse me?" the agent asked with a tone laced with a subtle hint of sarcasm and the hidden thought that the person talking to her must be senile.
"Your android hunters aren't you? From that new movie, right? We saw the android inside. Very cool costume! It looked incredibly real!"
Android? Just what was this moron talking about? "You wanna run that by me again?" the agent asked, clearly more interested in what he'd had to say than when he'd first started talking to her.
"You aren't android hunters?"
"We actually not affiliated with the park," the other agent clarified.
"Oh, so sorry then… I just saw your costumes and thought that… oh, never mind," the older man said, turning away from the agents.
"No, wait!" the agent called after him. "Can you tell me more about this android that you saw?"
"There's not much to tell, it was just passing through. We didn't hear much from the other people who saw it either."
"How long ago was this?" the agent asked quickly."
"About five minutes ago."
"Zeta," the agent hissed. Without even thanking the man for the helpful information she raced into the exit with her partner, phoning for backup as they hurried inside of the temple. They'd only gone a short distance before they ran into another couple who were on their way out from the ride.
"Wow, it must be really hard tiring to be in character all day long… especially with all of this running that you're doing, but if you're hunting for the metal man and the girl, we should warn you that they just went out ahead of us," the man informed the agents, pointing in the direction that the agents had just run from.
"Oh my gosh! That was them!" the agent cried, looking horrified at her partner. How could they have been tricked so easily! Zeta had cleverly led them to believe that he was still inside of the attraction while he actually made a break for it once they tried to go in after them. "Thanks!" she shouted over her shoulder to the couple as they turned around to go and chase down the middle aged couple again.
Excited in the pursuit they followed closely behind the agents. Then, as the agents took off after the older couple, Zee and Ro began to run in the opposite direction.