Keeping his knees tucked, Finn followed Charlene around the curve of the lifeboat’s gunwale to the bow. Here, she pulled herself up, hooked a leg on the rope, and managed a gymnastic move Finn was not sure he could execute. Knees bent, she sprang like a cat and reached the safety rope of the next lifeboat—number fifty-seven. The coursing of the ocean waves across the Dream’s hull drowned out any noises. Again, she began the process of moving hand over hand around lifeboat fifty-seven.
Finn felt like shouting “Are you kidding me?” but kept his mouth shut. He wasn’t about to admit defeat to a girl. Three times he tried to hook his leg across the safety rope. Finally, he snagged his knee, extended his leg, caught his ankle, and managed to clumsily pull himself up. A moment later he was crouching, ready to spring for fifty-seven.
“Sit!” he heard. A female voice from somewhere behind him. Not Maleficent, he thought. Her voice was often low, like a man’s, gravelly and loathsome. Speaking but a single word, this voice, though familiar, was not identifiable. He searched his memory for the voices of the small number of Overtakers it could be: Cruella was the most likely.
Say something else, he mentally willed.
But there was Charlene, halfway through a small entrance hole in lifeboat fifty-seven, waving him on.
Finn jumped. He caught the safety rope, propelled himself around the lifeboat, and slipped inside behind Charlene. They’d made it.
* * *
Control! Maybeck thought, as the creature opened its jaw to bite him. He was so used to DHI 1.6 that he felt sure he could be bitten. The hyena’s teeth clapped loudly together as they passed right through his holographic ankle. The animal squealed loudly. It had bitten its own tongue when the bone and flesh had failed to present itself.
“Dang!” Maybeck said. “That’s insane!”
Maybeck snared the hyena’s head and neck with the loop of belt. He moved quickly toward the ladder, the surprised hyena held a shuffleboard pole’s distance away.
Willa used the bait ruse. Holding the disk at arm’s length, as if a snack treat, she lured the one remaining hyena. It cautiously approached her, drool dripping from its black gums as it anticipated food (for one look at it confirmed it was being starved). Before the beast understood what was happening, it found a belt around its neck like a leash. She, too, moved toward the ladder.
“If we give them some slack…” she said to Maybeck.
“Yeah. Ladies first,” he said, indicating the ladder.
“We have to go at the same time. If I release mine, he’ll attack you.” She pulled herself up several rungs. “Come on.”
“This is going to get cozy,” Maybeck said.
“Shut up and get over here.”
The hyenas were wild in captivity, pulling and pushing on the poles. Maybeck found it hard to hold on with just one hand. Willa, now three rungs up, hooked her arm through the ladder so she could use two hands. Maybeck caught a foot on the bottom rung. His hyena was stronger and meaner. It took his full strength to keep it at bay.
“Higher,” Willa said, climbing another two rungs.
Maybeck climbed as well, his head against her collarbone, his back to her, the two of them pressed together. If they’d been hugging they couldn’t have been closer. Seeing him struggle to maintain his balance, she hooked her heel around him, pinning him to the ladder.
“Ready?” she asked.
“It’s not like they can hurt us.”
“They don’t know that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.
“And neither do I.”
“You don’t trust 2.0?”
“Correct.” She reminded him, “We can’t leave the poles and belts. They’ll give us away.”
“Agreed,” he said.
“Then, both at the same time.”
“Yeah.”
“One…two…”
“Three!” he said.
* * *
It surprised Finn how little members of the crew spoke to each other. He discerned three voices, all male. The hum of electric motors was followed by a jerking movement, then a queasy sensation in his stomach as the lifeboat was lowered over the side. Charlene grabbed his arm in the dark and slid her hand down to hold his. He hated to admit it to himself, but he found that hand of hers comforting and pleasant. Reassuring.
The lifeboat splashed into the water, and only minutes later they were under way.
“Not much talk for a test run,” Charlene said.
They continued to hold hands, Finn noticed.
“Thought the same thing.”
“Two lifeboats.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We’re here to find out,” Finn said.