Sunny, Bubba, and Colby lay flat on the roof, hoping to remain undetected.
Bubba looked around at the tunnel, at the row of red lights centered on its ceiling. He very much wanted to tell Sunny and Colby what his dad had told him about red lights being handy for their easiness on the eyes, but he knew Sunny would shush him again. He opted to keep quiet.
After a time, the SUV began to slow. The brake lamps on the SUV in front of them burst forth with brilliant crimson light, painting their faces with red and black shadows, adding to the eerie hue thrown down by the lights overhead.
The tunnel opened up, becoming much, much wider, nearly twice the width as before. Both SUVs slowed nearly to a stop and Sunny, Bubba, and Colby dared to raise their heads a bit. They peered around for any clue as to where they were and what would happen next.
Before them lay a long cement ramp with yellow and black stripes painted diagonally across it. It rose gradually up to a platform. Next to the platform was what looked like one of the sleek, bullet-shaped, high-speed monorail trains back at Sky City. This one, however, was enormous.
Both SUVs proceeded slowly and steadily up the ramp and stopped on the platform. The vehicles paused, engines idling. The sound of a series of metallic latches being released echoed through the tunnel, one after the other. The tail section (or was it the nose cone?) of the train opened, hinged at the top and driven by massive electric-motor-driven push-rods.
Both SUVs drove into the back of the open train and stopped. The engines shut off. The headlamps went dark. The train’s end-cap descended and the latches re-engaged. It was darker inside the train, despite the windows on either side. To the left was a second length of railroad track, leading to who-knew-where. To the right was a series of short tracks, all branching off from the track on which their train rested. Several sleek rail cars sat idly, apparently waiting to be added to the train for moving additional cargo.
Nothing happened. Bubba, Sunny, and Colby surveyed the eerie tunnel, glancing occasionally at one another. A sound began to emanate from all around them, a hum, like the surge of massive amounts of electrical current. The train lifted. Bubba and Colby reached out and grabbed the roof rack. Sunny squeaked in fright and clamper her hand over her mouth. The train inched forward, away from the loading platform and additional cars. The electric hum increased. The train accelerated rapidly, smoothly. Wind rushed over the outer skin of the train, whistling all around them, mixing with the eerie hum. The red lights outside passed by slowly at first, then faster and faster, throwing red and black flashes of light all around. Gradually, they appeared as a continuous red light, illuminating the interior of the train.
Sunny closed her eyes and tried to think of something else. She focused on taking long, slow deep breaths, like she did on stage during the spelling bee, when she’d stood there under the bright, hot lights, waiting for her turn. Gradually, she felt herself calming.
After an unbearably long time, she thought of Parker and what he must be experiencing in the vehicle ahead. Slowly, she came back to herself. At least an hour must have passed. She checked the watch on her wrist. In the red light, the little gold hands weren’t legible. Had it truly been an hour? An hour of lying as still as possible, staring out the windows of the train, waiting for a change in the scenery? There had been no such change. Sunny’s skin crawled with nervous energy, no matter how many long, slow deep breaths she forced herself to take. She wanted to move around, to climb down from the roof and at least be able to walk around. How long had it actually been? Bubba would know. His Go-Boy watch could light up. She tapped Bubba on the ankle.
Someone, or something, grabbed Bubba’s ankle. He flinched. He jerked his head around and looked over his shoulder. In the eerie red light, Sunny lay peering back at him. Immense relief washed over him. For an instant, he’d been certain that one of the men in the SUV had gotten out and discovered them. He found himself feeling irritated that Sunny would startle him in such a way.
By the look on Bubba’s face, Sunny could see he was cross with her for startling him. She pointed to her wrist.
Bubba pressed the little button on the side of his watch and activated the light.
Sunny waited. A tiny blue-white light appeared in the darkness, shining up at Bubba’s face. Bubba looked at her, held up one finger, and mouthed the words, “One hour.” Just as she had suspected. Though it sure felt like longer.
Bubba pointed his finger sharply at Sunny, then touched his index finger to his thumb to form a circle, with his other fingers pointing upward.
In the dim light, Sunny could just see Bubba make the OK sign. She was touched that Bubba was concerned about her. She nodded and returned the sign, smiling inwardly. He nodded and turned away. She stared at the soles of Bubba’s sneakers and considered tying his shoelaces together, then thought better of playing such a trick on someone under the current circumstances. Parker would have done it, though, and she smiled. She made a mental note to share her impulse with him later if she had the chance. When she had the chance, she corrected herself. She wanted to think positively, as her mom had suggested she do just yesterday while they were scrubbing the bathroom tile grout with their old toothbrushes.
Sunny shifted her gaze to the tunnel and the red lights rushing by on the other side of the windows. She tried to estimate their speed. It sent a ripple through her stomach, the same as when she rode the monorail at home. She was suddenly thankful for the near-darkness. Her fear would be worse if she were better able to see. She tried to change the subject with herself. At least they were out of the windblast, which, she mused, would most likely be powerful enough to blow them right off the roof of the SUV. When they hit the ground rushing by, they would surely bounce against the tracks and be hurtled into the air, tumbling end over end in a tangled mass of broken bones and lacerated internal organs. If they weren’t killed instantly, they could lay in the cold darkness of the tunnel for hours. Or until another train came along, its sleek bullet nose bearing down on them as they lay helpless, bleeding from their eyes and ears. She closed her eyes so tight her cheeks began to hurt, disgusted with herself for being a victim of her own imagination.
Colby peered over his shoulder for the umpteenth time and still was unable to discern what was happening behind him in the dim red gloom. He could almost see Bubba but Sunny was just a dark red-black shape beyond him. What am I doing here? he asked himself. This was not how the personal appearance at Sky City Hobbies and Toys was supposed to end. Yet, here he was, hiding atop a government-owned SUV traveling inside a hypersonic subterranean train, headed for who knew where. Maybe he should just lean over the side and knock on the window. Then they could all discuss the situation like adults. He rested his head on his hands and watched the track blurring past. He wondered about the wind blast on the other side of the plastic. The rushing sound reminded him of yesterday’s airplane flight, the red-eye from Los Angeles so they could arrive in time for the signing at the toy store. The blurring tracks tired his eyes and he closed them. Maybe he was feeling the effects of the jet lag, although it typically proved more problematic when flying east to west, backward in time across time zones. He had spent most of the past three years on the road, on airplanes, in lavish buses and plush stretch limousines. He traveled for press junkets and to exotic locales for on-location film shoots. He worked odd hours, never knowing when sleep might come next, despite the allegedly strict rules for child actors set forth by the Entertainer’s Guild, of which he was a proud, dues-paying member. He always let the directors have their way when it came to breaking these rules. And he made certain they knew that he knew the rules were being broken. This power-play always proved invaluable later when the time came to ask for a favor. His industry was run by favors. Favors were the principal currency in show business. So he made certain he was owed many.
Working such long hours, he had quickly learned to catnap whenever possible. He had learned to sleep sitting upright in a chair. He had even once fallen asleep standing up, on a beautiful beac
h in the Bahamas, during a location shoot for Go-Boy . . . Unleashed. They’d been filming a stunt in which the director had him blasted into the air by a terrible explosion, one actually driven by harmless compressed air. He landed in the ocean where a team of safety divers came to his rescue. After being blown up seventeen times over five hours, he was exhausted, sunburned, hungry, and dehydrated. He stood patiently in the surf while the stunt crew rushed to diagnose and repair the temperamental kid-launcher, as it had come to be called.
Somehow, he had fallen asleep.
When he awoke, he found his feet buried in the sand past his ankles.
Only the ever-moving sun had saved him from many more blasts of compressed air. They had moved to an interior location, where they shot until after midnight, then woke before dawn and did it all again.
Compared to that, napping on the cold, hard roof of this SUV was a day at the beach. Colby grinned at his unintentional pun as his eyes slid shut. For now, he would stay hidden and see where this train tunnel went. Seconds later, he was asleep.
Bubba saw Colby’s head slump as he fell asleep. He gleefully began tying Colby’s shoelaces together.
Chapter 4
When It Rains, It Pours