“You want a front seat?” Rosa asked Trevor, slipping into one herself.
“Back’s good,” Trevor said.
Eddie climbed in next to Rosa, and she pulled the lever up and they shot forward and then down, riding the emergency egress coaster away from the control tower. They threw their arms over their heads and screamed. They’d needed to scream for a while.
They zoomed right past the security guards at the bottom of the structure, rode to the end of the line, and ran for it. Reg swooped past the Flight Control Room and hit the runway, heading away from IA instead of toward it. He braked as fast as he could, but still ended up a half mile beyond where the roller coaster track ended.
The IA2 security forces were chasing them, but they had a head start and were going to make it. One of the security guys was headed in the other direction—going for a car, probably—but the time he’d lose going back for it canceled the speed advantage he’d have later.
They reached the egg, breathless and grinning, and hauled each other up into it. Reg slammed the door shut behind them and vaulted back into the commander’s seat.
“Holy crap, Hayashi!” he said. “You have a future in the circus.”
Rosa grinned, then gave both of the younger guys a kiss on the cheek. Trevor blushed, and Eddie waggled an eyebrow at her. She climbed into the pilot’s seat beside Reg, and he took off.
“Damn it, Reginald.”
“Oh,” Rosa said. “We started halfway down the runway.”
He nodded, concentrating furiously, trying to get the lift he needed. The pig farm was coming at them, fast, and just at the last moment the animals seemed to notice them. They started to run away, squealing, and as the egg clipped the fence and rose, just clearing the first line of trees around the farm buildings, the hogs rushed in the other direction and spilled out onto the runway.
“He looks like Mussolini hanging off the meat hook,” Trevor said, looking back at Sensenbrenner, already tiny in the distance, as his security guys scrambled toward him.
Rosa leaned back to give Eddie a high five.
“It’s a good thing you came,” he said. “I’m too heavy—I’d have broken the shoelaces.”
“Yeah,” she said. “You would have.”
“It was hard to let somebody else rush in and do the stupid stuff, though.” He grinned at her. “I’m working on it. I’m trying not to die on every hill.”
“We should put up a plaque,” Trevor said. “Eddie Toivonen didn’t die here.”
“Going into XD flight,” Reg said. “Everybody shut up, ’cause this gives me the willies.”
They shut up. It gave them the willies, too.
They went from normal airplane altitude to the encompassing blackness of the extra dimensions, and Rosa’s hair floated up around her head.