Alpha (12 page)

A beam of light shoots from the Eye of Ke-Sa, just as Flashman fires his gun.

The light goes out, total darkness, and the car dips, turns, it feels like they’re spinning out of control. For a second, Athena actually thinks they’re going to flip over. More ghosts race past them, dressed in tatters and dripping decaying flesh; one of them actually seems to be
inside
their sphinx-car, and then the ride begins in earnest. They race along the track as pieces of pyramid fall all around them, as snakes hiss and spit, as animal-headed gods and goddesses pursue them through twists and turns. Athena can’t tell if she’s laughing or screaming now, out of breath, buffeted by the ride. At one point, the canvas canopy of their car is torn away by an unseen claw, and she sees above them a sky of blood-red, clouds boiling away into an infinite darkness.

The sphinx-car judders to a sudden, sharp stop.

Joel, Gail, Athena, they’re all thrown forward, so hard that those seat belts Dana made sure they fastened dig into hips and waists, keep them from smashing into the windshield. Around them, the darkness flickers. All of them are turning in their seats, catching their breath as they crane their necks, trying to see a hint of what will happen next. There’s dim light in the car, and Dana looks puzzled. From that, from the expression and the posture and the way her mouth has just tightened like
that,
just a little, Athena knows this isn’t right.

Something is wrong.

She looks the question at Dana.

Stay seated.

Athena shrugs, shrugs to Gail, to Joel. The closed captioning on the windshield returns, this time with an image of Gordo, Betsy, and Pooch.

Nothing else. Just that message.

Athena’s starting to get a little nervous when the lights come on, dispelling the illusion of the Pyramids of Ke-Sa. Now Athena can see other sphinx-cars all along the track, cars that had been hidden in the darkness. Mom is in the one right behind them, riding with Mr. Howe, Leon, Lynne, and Miguel. Everyone is looking around, curious and confused. Joel taps her shoulder and then points at a mass of snakes on the ground ahead of them. They’re inert, rubber-looking, surprisingly fake in the light.

Movement on her periphery, and Athena looks about quickly, this time at all the other cars. People are straightening up, their chins raised, and she knows there’s a voice talking to them that she can’t hear. Then the car shifts slightly, and Athena twists around, watches Dana climbing out. There’s a man dressed like a jungle explorer, with a radio in one hand and a flashlight in the other, coming their way. She can’t read what he’s saying, but then Dana is facing them, signing.

Everyone get out follow me.

What?
Athena asks, the question in her expression more than in her sign.
Something wrong?

Dana shakes her head.

The park is closed.

So the man in the jungle explorer outfit, he walks them through a doorway marked
Exit
that’s almost hidden off to one side, and then into a tunnel that doesn’t look like the interior of the Pyramids of Ke-Sa at all. Lots of people are here, filing out, and now they’re mostly walking with their heads down again. Athena sees Agent Rose and Flashman, standing together, and they’re pointing the way to go, no longer playing at being enemies.

It takes less than a minute before they’re out of the ride, eyes readjusting to the sunlight. Athena can feel it as much as see it; something’s changed in the park. There are more people about, but unlike before, they’re all moving in the same direction. Men and women in park uniforms, directing people, and there is a tension, too, totally different. Before, the park felt like fun. Now that’s gone, and people are looking confused, and they’re looking scared, and some of them are upset, not only the little kids. She sees someone dressed in a Gordo costume, standing on the bridge they crossed, and he’s directing traffic back toward them. The man in the jungle explorer costume is talking to Dana, and he points, the same direction that Gordo is pointing. Not toward the entrance but in what Athena thinks must be the opposite direction.

Mom is beside her, holding her phone to her ear. She puts her other hand on Athena’s back, resting her palm between her shoulder blades. Mr. Howe flaps his hand for their attention, then begins to sign, but she’s only watching him peripherally, instead trying to read what Mom is saying. She’s talking to Dad, and it’s over, and Mom is looking at her phone, and she says a word.

Bastard.

Mom sees Athena looking at her. Forces up a smile, indicates Mr. Howe, and both of them turn their attention back to him. He talks as he signs, so she can read his lips at the same time. His hands are saying,
Do not worry. All good. The park is closing.

His lips are saying almost the same thing, but there’s a word there Athena can’t make out, and she signs to Mom, tries to spell what she saw, curious.
What word this “v” word?

Mom gives her the sign for “evacuate.”
Everyone must leave.

Dana has joined Mr. Howe up at the front, and now they’re leading the way. Both keep looking back, Mr. Howe to make sure they’re all still together. Dana seems to be searching for something or somebody, frowning, though when she sees Athena watching her, she tries a smile. It’s not a real smile. It’s the kind of smile you use when you’re worried, and Athena knows that she’s looking for her boyfriend.

Why evacuate? Mom why evacuate? Dad coming?

Mom shakes her head slightly, hand still on Athena’s back, the pressure a little more than just guiding her. They’ve fallen behind, are being passed on both sides. There’s another group ahead of them, a big one, and there’s a woman wearing a navy blue blazer. She looks in their direction, calls out something that Athena cannot read at this distance. Dana raises her arm, and the woman nods, then turns and hurries to catch up with the larger group.

Athena looks back, over her shoulder, and she sees nothing but an empty park. It’s unnerving, to see nothing where before there had been so many. To see the Timeless River with an unmanned boat floating on it, to see the big wooden roller coaster with no cars running, abandoned.

She catches her mother’s eye, asks the question again.
Where Dad?

Mom’s mouth tightens, a look in her eyes that Athena can’t understand, because it’s not anger, and it’s not love, and it’s not concern, but it’s perhaps all of them. Or perhaps it’s something else. Mom doesn’t sign in response, just shakes her head once.

She doesn’t know. She has no idea.

They follow Dana. Walk along a pathway that would’ve been crowded before and is now empty and spacious. There are signs on wooden posts, directing them to Lion’s Safari to their right and the Pyramids of Ke-Sa to their left, and the Euro Strasse to their south, but they keep going. Everybody else is gone, Athena can’t see anyone, thinks they must be some of the last people still here, heading this way, at least.

Dana stops at these giant wooden gates, like the kind of gates you’d imagine finding in a jungle for a fort. The gates are open, the space through them narrower than the path, and Mr. Howe stops with her, and Athena can tell they’re both counting everyone, making sure they’re still all together. Then they’re moving through the gates, no longer in the park proper, but instead in some sort of service area. There’s three little golf carts parked here, all with the WilsonVille logo painted on them, and some bundles of plastic painted to look like wood, and lots of big oil drums, and a sign on a little building that says
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Behind that, there’s a concrete wall, easily three times as tall as Athena herself, and it stretches to the right and the left as far as she can see, curving gently out of sight in both directions. She can see cameras on narrow posts on the wall, the kind you see in banks.

Dana walks them along this narrower path, a black asphalt road that radiates heat, running between the concrete and the fake wood. It narrows further, and now only four, maybe five can walk abreast. The road curves, and Athena thinks they must be following the top edge of the park here. There’s nobody ahead of them now that she can see, and she realizes they’re all walking a little faster. Mom’s palm is pressing even more firmly on her upper back. Mr. Howe turns to speak to Mom, and Athena reads something about hearing sirens, perhaps there was an accident or something?

Athena sees the man in white coming around the bend, points, but Mom has seen him, too, and so has Dana, and they all stop. Athena thinks it’s a man, at least, wonders if it’s a costume. He’s wearing white coveralls, and it really does cover almost everything, except maybe some of his face and his hands, and even those are hidden. He’s wearing a mask for breathing, black and lumpy, and his hands are covered with shiny black gloves, and he’s holding a black duffel bag in one of them.

He raises his free hand, and Athena thinks he’s speaking, but she can’t see his mouth, doesn’t know what he’s saying.

Mom’s hand moves up to her shoulder, pulls her back into her, a little closer. Mr. Howe starts to step forward, and so does Dana, and Dana is gesturing back in Athena’s direction, clearly talking about the class. The man in the mask shakes his head, still holding out the one hand, the sign he’s giving perfectly clear. Stop. Do not move.

Behind the man in the mask appears another one, dressed the same way, even carrying the same bag. Then come two more, until there are four men, all in white, faces behind masks for breathing, blocking their way.

Athena is pretty sure they aren’t wearing costumes.

Dana’s gestures are coming faster, broader, and even if Athena can only see her from behind, even if she can’t read the words, she can read the body language. We have to go. Why are you stopping us? You have to let us go. Mr. Howe joins her, his gestures even grander. He’s getting indignant, she’s seen this before, when he feels he has to defend them.

The first man in the mask hoists his duffel bag up in front of him, holding it between himself and Mr. Howe and Dana. Unzips the top with a shiny black hand, reaches inside. Athena feels Mom’s fingers dig into her shoulder, feels herself pulled and turned against her mother’s breast. She twists her head as Mom tries to put a hand to her cheek, to keep her from doing just that thing, but she isn’t in time, and Athena sees what Mom didn’t want her to see.

Sees Dana’s hands flying up to her face, turning to Mr. Howe, her eyes wide and her mouth open. Sees Mr. Howe take a step backward, then try to take another one.

Sees him falter, then collapse.

There is an ugly hole above his right eye.

There is blood.

The other men in masks are reaching into their duffel bags. The other men in masks bring their shiny black-gloved hands out again, and each of them is now holding a pistol.

They point their guns at Athena and Mom and Dana and Joel and all of them. She knows they’re talking, saying something, but she doesn’t need to read their words now. The one in the front, the one who just shot Mr. Howe in the head, who just killed the man who has been teaching her and her friends not just ASL but science and history and literature and art for the last three and a half years at the Hollyoakes school, that man, he points his gun at Mom.

He gestures.

Turn around. All of you, turn around and start walking.

Back into the park.

ELEVEN MINUTES
and twenty seconds Gabriel Fuller has been hiding in the circle of cash registers at the center of the official WilsonVille Store, back against the cabinets, radio in one hand, gas mask in the other. He’s listened to the sound of the park emptying, the muted voices passing by outside, the sounds of the evacuation. The announcement on the PA has changed, changed about a minute and a half ago, now it’s something recorded. There’s a string of music, the signature Gordo, Betsy, and Pooch theme, and then a sweet-sounding woman’s voice.

His radio burps out static, twice, quickly, then twice again. He presses his own transmit button two times in answer, then hooks it onto his Tyvek suit at the waist, pulls on his gas mask. Carefully, he leans out from the side of the counter, looking past the racks of clothing and toys, into Town Square. He’s only got a low view, but from what he sees, it’s cleared significantly. He uses a rack of WilsonVille fortieth-anniversary sweatshirts as cover to get to his feet, takes another peek.

It’s an odd sight, to be sure. A cluster of perhaps seven or eight visitors is heading his way, toward the main gates, approaching from the east side of the square, being hurried along by two of the navy blazers. Further back, just passing the Soda Shoppe, he can see another group, smaller, similarly led, this time by a Skip Flashman wearing twin six-guns and chaps, his cowboy hat, as ever, atop his head. Coming from Wild Horse Valley, Gabriel expects, where Skip most often resides. He watches as each group moves closer, then out of view, passing the store.

Now Town Square is empty. Emptier than he’s ever seen it, even after hours, even after closing, and it’s a strange sight, to see it barren in daylight. At closing, after hours, there’s always someone, a maintenance crew doing touch-up paint or repairs to the streetlights or hanging new banners or something; a custodian, sweeping the sidewalks or watering the grass around the statue of Gordo, Betsy, and Pooch. A navy blazer, making rounds.

This time, there’s no one and there’s nothing.

Gabriel reaches down for his duffel, taking it in his nondominant hand, then moves to the door. He stops again, checks to his right and his left, and then again, and when he looks left a second time, he sees four men in Tyvek suits identical to his own carrying duffels twice as large as his, wearing gas masks and gloves. They stop about a dozen yards into the square, looking around. These are his four, his element for this stage, and he doesn’t know their names, but in his mind he’s already named them Gordo and Betsy and Hendar and Stripe, though he’ll be damned if he lets them know that.

They see him the instant he emerges from the store, and he gives them a nod, exaggerating and slowing the gesture so it carries through the mask. They fall in together, heading toward the Sheriff’s Office. At the doors he nods to the one he’s named Hendar, the tallest of the four, and the man steps up and pushes his way inside.

The room is empty.

Gabriel points to the front desk of the fake precinct with one hand, then moves to the half-concealed interior door that leads to the stairs that, in turn, lead to the command post on the second floor and the safety offices on the third. When he gives the door a push, he’s not surprised to find that it’s locked.

The one he’s calling Betsy is at the front desk now, vaults it lightly, disappears behind the counter. Gabriel looks up at the surveillance cameras, raises a hand in greeting, indicates the door. He and the others wait for what seems like a painfully long pause. If they’ve been picked up on the cameras in here, then someone will be coming down to let them inside, certain that they’re here to help. If they haven’t been seen—and why would they be, when all eyes should be watching the exterior, watching the evacuation of the park?—so much the better. But whatever the case, they will have the element of surprise.

There’s a subdued clunk from within the wall at Gabriel’s elbow, and Betsy is coming back over the counter, rejoining the others. Gabriel waits until he’s ready, has his bag back in hand, and then shoves the door open, leads the way into the stairwell. Quick glance up the stairs, all around, and not a camera to be seen here. Five of them in the hallway is a tight fit, and he presses his back to the wall, trying to make enough room for them to spread out. The gas masks leave their ears uncovered, and Gabriel knows they’re moving quietly, very quietly, but the rustle from the Tyvek suits sounds too loud all the same.

The door swings shut on its hinges, the bolt again latches in place. Gordo and Stripe have their pistols out of their duffels, are screwing the suppressors into place at the end of each barrel. Finished, they hoist their bags onto their backs, then give Gabriel a thumbs-up with a free hand. Gabriel returns it. He can feel perspiration beginning to slide down his spine, feel the tightness in his chest that reminds him of patrols in Afghanistan. There’s a slow cloud of condensation beginning to rise in his gas mask, and his pulse is strong at his temples.

The door at the top of the stairs has a sign affixed to it that reads
SAFETY OFFICE—AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
There’s the hint of noise beyond the door, a voice, then another. Gabriel, still in the lead, turns his head so his uncovered ear can be that much closer to the sound. Two, maybe three people, but he can’t make out the words, the conversation subdued.

Gabriel straightens, looks to the four men waiting behind him. He points to Gordo and Stripe, then to the door, and each man nods. He moves, presses his back to the wall to give them room as they pass him, now in front, entry positions, and their entry positions aren’t that far from what he was taught in the army. Betsy and Hendar have their weapons out now, too, ready to act as the second wave. The sound of conversation in the room beyond stops, and for a moment, Gabriel can imagine whoever is inside has sensed what is coming.

But they haven’t. The moment they’re through the door, Gabriel knows that the two men and the one woman reacting to their entrance never saw it coming at all.

Gordo takes out the coms first, the woman, the one wearing the headset, before she’s even finished turning toward them, just as her eyes go wide. Then the gunshots, soft snaps from the suppressed pistol, and she slumps in her seat, topples to the floor at the same moment as one of the men, balding and gray, falls backward against his bank of monitors, collapses like overcooked pasta. The third one, he opens his mouth, and then Gabriel sees his body jerk, both Stripe and Gordo putting shots into him, and then this man, too, falls, sinking to his knees before pitching facedown to lie on the floor and twitch.

Stripe steps in, takes a position to the left of the door, on one knee, as Gordo mirrors the movement. Betsy and Hendar follow, remain standing, their weapons out and ready, swinging a slow track about the room, searching for the next target. There’s silence but for the whirr of the machinery, the bleat from one of the monitors. Then Stripe raises a hand to Gabriel, motions him forward.

“Sweep,” Gabriel says, voice dulled by the gas mask. “Make sure we’re clear.”

Stripe nods, gets to his feet, moves off toward the door at the back of the room, the flight of stairs that leads to the third floor. Gordo is up just as quickly, moving from body to body, pausing only long enough to dump a round into each head. Gas masks start coming off, and Hendar takes one of the headsets from the communication console, presses it to his ear. Listens for a moment, then nods to Gabriel, gives a new thumbs-up. He drops the headset, hoists his duffel, pulls a slim black box from inside, and sets about connecting it to the radio set on the desk.

Gabriel takes another half second to absorb the room. His only visit prior to this had been during orientation, on his way up to the second-floor conference room, down the hall from here. It’s an impressive array of surveillance equipment, almost overwhelming, and it takes several more seconds before he can decipher the layout, before he understands what he’s seeing on multiple screens. Coverage is comprehensive, and if there are gaps anywhere, he certainly doesn’t see them. Exterior views from the gates, all the exits, are showing crowds milling about outside, still being shepherded by WilsonVille Friends. The parking lots seem to be the main gathering points, and Gabriel sees a couple of new fire engines arriving.

On one camera, the one covering the northeast access, there’s already an engine parked, just as planned. That was Vladimir’s element, and on an adjacent monitor, he can see what must be Vladimir’s group entering the park, dressed in their Tyvek. They’re just coming through the gates, and people are giving them a wide berth.

Gabriel removes his own gas mask. Gordo is already settling himself in front of the surveillance monitors, and Betsy is helping Hendar. One of the machines is bleating, and on its screen Gabriel can read the botulinum alert. It takes a couple of seconds before he can figure out how to silence the machine.

“We have their coms,” Hendar says. “Secure and scrambled.”

“Contact all elements, tell them we have control.”

“We still have people in the park,” Gordo says, indicating several of the monitors. “Stragglers.”

Gabriel looks over his shoulder, can see clusters of park guests still making their way to the gates. More Tyvek suits, too, and he sees that Vladimir’s group has taken hostages already, is moving southward, crossing one of the bridges that spans the Timeless River. On another monitor, he can see a Lilac trying to encourage a small group of people to follow her, another element in Tyvek closing on their position. A man in a suit is jogging past the camera by Nova’s Tower, roughly in the same area, and he can see still more staff, this one in a Terra Space mechanic’s suit, walking quickly by the now-stopped Race for Justice.

The one in the suit earns a double take. Nobody comes to WilsonVille wearing a suit, not like that. Navy coat and tie, park-approved wear, but a business suit on a ninety-degree day at the end of July? The only people who dress like that while in the park are management, upper management.

“That one,” Gabriel says, pointing at the monitor. “Can you give me a better view?”

Gordo takes a moment, flicking through monitor settings, and then manages to pick up the same man again, now turning north. He’s still jogging along, looking around, clean-shaven, early forties, perhaps. No radio, no flashlight, but with a phone to his ear. Then he’s out of camera, the next view distant, devoid of detail.

“Hey,” says Betsy. “Where’s Dmitri?”

They find him upstairs, the man Gabriel had named Stripe.

He’s lying on his back beside the desk in the largest office on the floor, his tongue swollen between blue-tinged lips, his cheeks puffed and his eyes open, wide and staring, broken blood vessels painted in dead white orbs. His gun is gone. One hand is at his throat, and when Gabriel moves it away, he can see that the man’s trachea has been crushed, or, more precisely, cracked.

He feels the pistol in his hand, turns and looks at Betsy, is about to speak, when his eye catches a photograph on the desk. He steps closer, sees the same man he saw earlier, the one on the monitor. It’s a picture of him with a woman and a girl, all of them smiling, the girl a strawberry blonde, the woman with hair the same shade. He casts an eye over the desk, the paperwork that has been scattered there, and it doesn’t take long to find the name, the name of the man who belongs to this office. Bell, Jonathan, Deputy Director of Park Safety.

Then he sees something else. An authorization form, signed, granting Dana Kincaid time and a half for today’s work.

This may be a problem,
Gabriel thinks.