Chapter Eight

THEY ALL WATCHED the lone computer monitor in the safe room that night. L’s shift had long since ended, but she still hadn’t left, and Y had come in early just to watch and listen as the computer beeped and spat out a line of code onto the screen.

Dayton was back in his usual chair in front of the darkened holoscreen, and he flinched every time the computer beeped. J was standing with the crowd around the computer, watching as every new detonator was set and activated. Cole was working quickly.

There was a long moment without beeps, which made everyone tense up, before they resumed at a much slower pace. Cole must have moved to another room in the complex where he had to be more careful.

Then another break came and never stopped. They all stared at the computer, hearts beating heavy in their chests as ten, then fifteen, and twenty minutes passed by. Dayton was starting to hyperventilate. Cole still had more detonators to activate; he wasn’t done yet.

Thirty minutes and then forty-five passed.

J took a deep, bracing breath. Then he called it.

“Turn on the tracking device,” he said softly. Dayton moaned behind him.

Z reached out to grab a small box hidden behind the computer. The box was covered in dust and had lain untouched for weeks now. Z slowly opened the top to reveal a small button inside. He glanced once more up at J for final confirmation before pushing the button.

Dayton collapsed to the floor, a muffled sob the only sound echoing through the safe room.

They had done all they could for Cole. It was up to Cole to figure out the rest.

 

A BEEPING NOISE woke Queenie from a sound sleep. She was damned exhausted after the concert; she was going to kill whoever was calling her so early in the morning.

After a long moment of staring at her phone, wondering how it could be beeping at her when it was off, she realized one of her earrings was actually doing the beeping. Her blood went cold.

“Damn,” she hissed as she hit the switch to shut the alert signal off. The earring went quiet, and Queenie hurried to change into some clothes before leaving her hotel room and heading to the one Sol was sharing with Cole. Kingsley had beaten her there, one of his tattoos still vibrating with the alert signal. Sol let them in, his face pale.

“Plan B,” Kingsley said as they all sat down on the two beds.

Queenie couldn’t help shifting unhappily in place, and Sol was doing the same thing. She glanced around at her bandmates, noting their anxiety, and bit her own lip in worry. She was trained for this sort of thing, barely, although if the plan had gone properly she shouldn’t have needed to use any of the skills she had learned in basic training before washing out. Neither Kingsley nor Sol had her background—they both were given some general education on how to act or what to say in certain situations, but they weren’t real operatives. They were musicians and were totally unprepared for this sort of situation.

Queenie nodded to herself and took charge. It was the only thing she could do, considering the circumstances. “I’ll do it,” she finally said. “You two need to tell Misty the cover story and keep the crowd occupied. We’ll get him back,” she affirmed, even though she wasn’t positive that was entirely true.

After a few more moments to let the fear and worry run their course, all three of them got to their feet. Queenie hurried back to her room to get ready. She had a security guard uniform ready to go. The jacket had been smuggled with Cole’s bags, the lapels and pins with Kingsley’s already overly decorated clothing, and the pants and shirt were part of Queenie’s regular wardrobe. Without the jacket and special lapel, it just looked like she was dressing in a military style for the day.

She assembled the fake badge from pieces of her suitcase buckles, hooked it onto her belt, and was ready. Twenty minutes later, when the advance security team for the band was loaded into the trucks, Queenie slipped in with them. It was just six o’clock now, and the band was planning on arriving to tour the science museum when the facility opened at seven. She had to sit through a half-hour drive to the museum, which still left plenty of time for the security team to do sweeps.

Queenie entered the museum in the middle of the group and headed for the employee area with two other men. The other team members did a good job of distracting everyone in the employee section, including the guard standing in front of one door left ajar thanks to what appeared to be a cracked fingerprint scanner. It was too bad the security team wasn’t actually in on the rescue attempt because they had the guard away from his post within a few minutes. Queenie took full advantage.

She switched the pins and lapels on her jacket to mirror the ones used by the museum, hiding the security team ones in her pocket as she walked down the short hallway to the staircase at the end. She climbed down, trying to look like she belonged as she passed men and women going in both directions. Since the other employees looked busy—many of them were consulting their data pads as they climbed the stairs—it wasn’t too hard for her.

After stepping off the stairs into a very large warehouse, Queenie moved to the side for a moment to figure out where to go next. Her watch had a compass function, and when she checked it, the arrow was pointing across the warehouse. Queenie looked in that direction, trying to see what was there through the shifting morass of employees, machinery, and computers. She could just barely see a door in the direction she needed to go.

She couldn’t act as though she needed time to prepare to walk into the crowded room, since that would alert those watching for suspicious behavior, so she resolutely stepped forward and told her heart to stop beating so frantically in fear. She wasn’t trained for this! Not like Cole had been. She barely had any idea of what the mission entailed; she only knew she was Plan B and Cole’s only hope to escape the planet with his life.

Queenie tried to walk as directly across the room as she could, figuring that route would be faster and would hide her better amid the many people working around the computers. There were two guards doing their rounds heading in her direction, though, so Queenie quickly walked the other way around the central bank of computers. She didn’t think she had been seen, and since no alarm went off, her disguise must be working. Still, she had to fight to keep her shoulders down and relaxed because she felt like any minute a bullet would be fired at her back.

How had blushing, shy Cole managed to do this twice? Queenie already knew she never wanted to do anything like this again. It was too damned scary. There was a good reason she had quit after her basic training was over!

After a while of dodging scientists and oblivious employees walking around with their data pads, she was eventually able to get to the other door, which was open, so she walked through and into an office complex without notice. The new part of the building was like a maze, with cubicles and offices placed at seemingly random intervals, but the arrow kept pointing resolutely forward, across the maze to the far end of this room.

Queenie did have to stop and take a deep, calming breath before she could walk into the office. There were too many people, and they all seemed to have very specific places where they were supposed to be. She stuck out like a hangnail.

It turned out that the men and women in business attire sitting at their desks were all too happy to ignore Queenie as she wended her way through the cubicles toward the only door she could see that was in the path of the direction pointed by the compass. At least, that was what Queenie hoped as she hurried through the maze to the one door at the very back of the room.

 

SOL, KINGSLEY, AND two members of their security team sat in the rented limo as it pulled up outside the museum. The slight-statured man and the tall woman were both dressed like Cole and Queenie, except they had their hoods pulled up over their faces. Misty had hired a look-alike on the security team for each member of the band for an occasion such as this one. Apparently, band members went off on their own to do stupid things all the time, and Misty had learned to be prepared to hide that fact from the adoring public. Sol was just happy a quick solution was available because otherwise Cole and Queenie might have been in a lot of trouble.

The advance alert had gone out over the blogosphere, telling everyone who wanted to know that the Four Kings would be visiting the museum for a little local sightseeing PR early that morning. The crowds of fans were out in force. The advance security team had needed to conscript some of the museum’s own guards to keep the fans back, Sol was happy to see. That would make it much easier for Queenie.

The car door slid open and all four climbed out, only to be hustled through the crowd and into the museum at top speed. Sol tried to take a moment to wave and say hi but was pulled into the museum by a security guard who was clearly unhappy with his lack of speed. That made is easier for Queenie and Cole to avoid stopping to say hello to fans as well, as they were apparently trying to avoid the same rough treatment.

Misty was already inside waiting for them as were a few dozen workers—too many workers for a mere museum. It seemed to Sol that the workers in the underground secret part of the complex had also decided to come see the famous band. That could only be good news for Queenie and Cole, so Sol made sure to wave and say hi. Kingsley was doing the same, trying to distract the crowds from the hunched forms of the two look-alikes.

They got to walk around for about ten minutes while the employees waved and cheered. Sol pretended to admire the old spaceships that had first propelled humans out of their own solar system as well as some photographs from the original colonies. As they neared the bathrooms, the woman playing Queenie gestured toward them, tugging on the arm of the man playing Cole. They both headed off, passing the employees-only sign located directly across from their destination.

Sol tried not to look worried as his eyes followed their hooded forms until they vanished behind closed doors. The guide directed them farther into the museum to where a Mars Lander rested on a chunk of fake rock, and Sol was forced to look away.