Kingdom Keepers II(77)

“I don’t think so. No,” Maybeck answered. “I think that was intended for us. Heads up!”

He glanced back. No vehicles in sight in either direction.

The ride was designed so that no car ever saw another. There was no use calling out for help.

“You remember Small World?” he asked her.

“I was on Winnie the Pooh with Charlene,” Willa answered. “We nearly drowned, don’t forget.”

“I haven’t forgotten. My point is: I think this is like that.”

“I think you’re right.”

If they could have jumped from the car, the sensors would have stopped the ride, but the locked seat belts prevented their escape.

Suddenly, a pterodactyl shot down at them from out of the pitch-black ceiling. It was dark and angular, with a wingspan of over six feet. With its sharp talons extended, it descended too quickly for Maybeck to react, catching him by the wrist as he shielded his face from the attack. At the moment the talon grabbed hold of him, his seat belt released, the timing too perfect to be coincidental. The bird locked on to his forearm and dragged him up and out of the vehicle.

Willa screamed, spun, and grabbed him by the boots. Maybeck was now stretched between the overhead bird and Willa, still locked in her seat. Neither was willing to let go. He groaned in agony—it felt like every joint was separating simultaneously.

He twisted his forearm to the left then quickly to the right, breaking the bird’s grip on him. The pterdoactyl’s long beak bent back to peck at Maybeck, but too late. Maybeck reached out and snapped the bird’s leg at the knee. The creature cried out, flapped its wings, and was absorbed into the darkness of the ceiling.

Was it alive?

Willa pulled him down into the backseat, but he avoided the seat belt.

The pterodcactyl’s broken leg in hand, Maybeck studied it. An electrical wire extended from the broken knee.

“You’re bleeding,” she said.

He studied the three holes in his skin. “It doesn’t hurt much. I’m fine.”

“It got you.”

“Dang right it did.” Only Maybeck didn’t say ‘dang.’

“This ride is trying to hurt us!”

“You think?” he snapped sarcastically. “You’re not surprised by that, are you? There are sensors on every ride. Probably cameras, too. Throw in a little artificial intelligence, and how hard can it be to program a server to defend itself?”

“You think the server is doing this?”

“I think it knows we mean business. It has every right to be scared. I’m going to fry its innards if—no, when!—we find it.”

“But how—?” Willa began. She cut herself off as Maybeck stood up in the seat, grabbed a light, and turned it to show them something of the track in front of them.

Back behind the jungle plants, he illuminated a black door and a disguised device protruding from beside it.

“Ten-to-one that’s a card reader,” Maybeck said. “That’s our way in.”

“But I’m stuck,” Willa reminded him, indicating the locked seat belt. She pulled and squirmed, but there wasn’t any way she was going to slip out of its grip.

Maybeck glanced around sharply. The car had already moved them past the black door. They were rounding a turn toward the end of the ride. They would be caught and—at a minimum—thrown out of the Park. If the Overtakers got hold of them, then things were about to get a lot worse.

“There has to be an emergency release,” Maybeck said, trying to think like Philby. What would Philby do?

“If a car stops,” she said. “Like a fire or something…”

“The belts would release!” Maybeck nearly shouted, agreeing with her.

“We’re going to have to move fast,” he said. A rhinoceroslike dinosaur stepped out of the scene up ahead and lowered its head. It was going to head-butt them.

Maybeck jumped from the vehicle.

Nothing happened.

He’d expected flashing lights and sirens and for the vehicle to stop. But the car continued forward, aimed directly at the armor-clad beast with its head lowered.

Maybeck tore loose a branch from a tree. He hurried to the front of the research vehicle and swung the branch repeatedly at the vehicle’s bumper and grille.

“Terry!” Willa shouted, calling Maybeck by his first name.

“There has to be…” Maybeck muttered to himself as he continued to bash the vehicle while he backed up toward the waiting dinosaur. His pants belt snagged on something on the front grille. If the beast charged now, it would crush him against the car.

Again, he smacked the front of the car.

It stopped.

He’d knocked out a front sensor.