Melody Tam was bright and resourceful enough to be an Adventurer … she just chose not to be one.
“Maybe I want to have adventures on my own,” she told Rick and Oliver. “Adventures you’ll never know about.”
Rick wasn’t sure how he felt about that. But he wasn’t about to pick a fight with Melody. Whenever he picked a fight with Melody, Melody won. It wasn’t even close.
The three of them were sitting in the RV that acted as their Adventurers headquarters, parked in an unobtrusive underground warren beneath Rick’s grandparents’ property. As Rick lounged on the sofa and Melody perched on a chair, Oliver hung in the background, cleaning counters and straightening books on shelves. There was something about Melody’s presence that made Oliver want the trailer to be a little less messy than it ordinarily was.
“You know you’re not safe here, right?” Melody was saying. “McAllister isn’t going to stop until you hand over the Doomsday Code.”
Rick’s expression became a storm cloud. “My parents died for that Code. McAllister is never going to get it.”
Oliver tried to fade even further into the background, his pale skin getting even paler. Even though Melody was often their partner in adventure, she still hadn’t picked up on the fact that Rick’s memory was lousy, a cage with bars set too far apart. He would never have been able to remember a monumentally long sequence like the Doomsday Code. Most people couldn’t.
So Oliver had memorized it instead, because Oliver’s memory didn’t have bars—it had walls.
The storm cloud passed, and Rick beamed again, sitting up proudly, his dark skin glowing with sudden excitement.
“We’re headed to Yellowstone,” he said. “We’ll blend in well there. And we can put together our plan to take down McAllister once and for all.”
It was clear to Oliver that Rick wanted to impress Melody. Her refusal to be enchanted by Rick was paradoxically enchanting to Rick. And Oliver had to imagine that there was some interest on Melody’s part as well. Otherwise, why would she keep coming back?
A sly smile now insinuated itself onto her face. “I’ve always wanted to see El Capitan,” she said, leaning forward.
“Well, why don’t you come climb it with us?” Rick replied, leaning forward as well.
“That’s Yosemite,” Oliver mumbled from the kitchen area. “Yellowstone has Old Faithful. And … bears.”
Suddenly, the air was cut by a klaxon coming from the security console. Oliver was standing closest, so he was the one who imparted the information to his friends:
“We have a truck approaching the gates.”
Rick was behind him now, studying the camera’s footage.
“Looks like it’s just UPS.”
Oliver went to touch the screen for a heat scan, but Melody beat him to it.
The heat scan showed that there were at least ten armed adults in the back of the truck.
“That’s one heck of a delivery,” Melody quipped.
Rick grinned at her, his dimples giving every word he said natural quotation marks.
“Guess you’re along for the ride,” he told her.
“Seat belts!” Oliver called out, jumping into the driver’s seat and activating the hologram that would make it look like a middle-aged woman was driving.
Aboveground, there was an explosion as McAllister’s forces blew up the front gate.
“Must be an urgent delivery,” Rick mused.
“Well,” Oliver said, “I hope they don’t require a signature.”
Melody laughed, and when Oliver looked in the rear-view mirror, he could see the friendly look she was giving him. Then he broke their glance, because there were more important things to think about, like escape. Without another word, he gunned the engine and sped them through the escape tunnel. A mile later, they broke out into the sunlight. On the security monitors they could see McAllister’s forces shooting at lawn decorations out of frustration. They knew nobody was home.
“To Yosemite!” Rick called out.
“Yellowstone!” Melody and Oliver corrected at the same time. It was almost as if their voices were holding hands.
“Yes, el capitan,” Rick said lightly in response.