Futureland, p.20
Futureland, page 20
Yusuf kept tapping commands into his band, and the Holo-pals began to fight back against the Gliders. They wrestled with them, tugging and pulling them all over the construction zone. Yusuf and I noticed that the brawl had allowed Angel, Rich, Earl, and Inaya to break free. We jumped down from the carousel and ran over to them.
“This is amazing!” Inaya said.
“Good thinking, Yusuf!” I agreed, giving him a high five.
“Thanks. But we’re not done yet,” he responded. “We’ve got to stop Whitebourne.”
“But how do we—”
“Ahhhhh!”
Yusuf screamed as an enormous Holo-pet hawk swooped down and clutched him in its talons. The hawk was firecracker red with black streaks. It let out a shrill screech as it carried Yusuf through the air and over to the platform where Whitebourne stood.
“Yusuf!” we all yelled.
The Gliders and Holo-pals continued to battle around us as we raced to the platform. The hawk dropped Yusuf onto the platform, and Whitebourne snatched him up only to put him in a headlock from behind, choking him with her arm.
“You didn’t think I’d miss the chance to make my own Futureland Holo-pet, did you?” she shrieked, her eyes mad. “They’re oh so much fun. Good job, my little sweetie-kins,” she cooed to the bird. The hawk screeched again and soared away.
Whitebourne ripped Yusuf’s Haventech band out of his hand and kept him clutched under her other arm. He clawed at her, kicking and struggling, but he couldn’t escape her grasp.
“You’re not going anywhere,” she snarled into Yusuf’s ear. “I told you, you’re mine forever. You will finish what Jordan started. You will be my new son.”
“Not if I can help it!” I yelled at her. “He doesn’t belong to you!”
She threw Yusuf to the ground, hard. We tried to rush the platform, but several Gliders grabbed us and held us still. Two more Gliders jumped up and restrained Yusuf, offering his wrist to Whitebourne for her to place the band on him one final time. She smiled down at us as she stretched out the band over Yusuf’s fingers. Yusuf struggled, but there was nothing he could do. She jammed the wristband down over his hand and onto his wrist.
We all tried to scream, but the Gliders covered our mouths. Whitebourne threw her head back, cackling. I thought the sound of her evil triumph would never end, but then I heard a voice.
* * *
* * *
Jordan jumped down from the construction pile and huddled with us. He was okay!
“Incredible timing,” I said, smiling. “What is that thing?”
“It’s a power-surge reverser,” Jordan said. “Takes all the energy and data out of a power source, flips it around, then returns it. It’s connected to my mom’s wristband right now. It’s what she used to tap into the Futureland bands and alter the projections when we visited on opening night. She had it connected to the Holo-pal chamber then.”
“That’s pretty handy,” I said.
“You learn a thing or two growing up the son of an evil genius.” Jordan returned my smile.
Boom!
Another small earthquake, another blackout.
The lights came back up in a flash. Slowly, the Holo-pals and Holo-pets started to dissipate, fading away pixel by pixel. Goggles knelt beside me, cradling Sarafina. He moved his goggles back up to his forehead and gave me a wink. Sarafina purred and licked my face. Goggles shot me a peace sign and smiled.
“See you later, dude,” he said. “Had a lot of fun.”
The others disappeared, too, stretching, waving, and saluting their way into invisibility. As they disappeared, the Gliders began to stir as well. They put their palms to their heads and rubbed their eyes. It wasn’t long before the crowd came alive with a din of confusion.
Where are we?
What’s going on?
How did we get down here?
Me and the crew hugged one another, jumping up and down at our success. Thanks to Jordan’s help, we could collect all the Haventech bands, destroy them, and return everyone to safety. We still had hundreds, maybe thousands, of other bands out in the world to worry about, but we had stopped Whitebourne.
That was enough for now.
“Wait…where’s Whitebourne?” Inaya said.
“I’m right here,” Jordan said.
“Not you, silly. Your mom.”
All of us spun around, searching for the woman in the bright red coat. We spread out around the bunker, but we couldn’t find any trace of her.
“There must be some kind of secret exit in here only she knows about,” I said after we ended the search.
“Villains always got the secret exit.” Earl shook his head.
“She got away.” Jordan coughed and dropped his head. He wiped the wetness out of his eyes and kicked at the sludge below us. “I let her get away. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, don’t do that,” I said. My heart filled with admiration looking at Jordan.
“You saved us,” I said. “Without you, we never could have stopped her from completing this place. We never could have freed all these people. I don’t care what your mom tried to make you think you were. You chose to not keep hurting people. To us, you’re a hero.”
“A hero!” Earl and Rich agreed.
“¡El Valiente!” Angel said.
“Facts,” Inaya said.
We embraced Jordan and he laughed. First time I’d seen him do that, I think.
The crowd of former Gliders got louder. Many had started to recognize and reunite with their friends and families. They asked each other questions, trying to piece together the story of their capture from broken details. Some of them roamed around the bunker, trying to find a way out. Inaya, Earl, and Jordan moved into the crowd, trying to corral people and guide them toward a safer path out of the dungeon.
“You’re up, CJ,” Angel said.
“Yeah, do your thing, Detective Cam,” Rich added, handing me his Futurewatch.
I blushed.
“Hey, everybody!” I spoke into the Futurewatch using the megaphone setting. “Excuse me, everyone. My name is Cam Walker and these are my friends. Don’t be afraid—you can trust us. I know you’re probably wondering what happened to you and how you got down here. We can explain it all. And we will. But first, let’s get you outta here. It’s time to go home.”
Monday, February 15, 2049
4:43 a.m.
Yusuf didn’t remember how to get us out of the bunker, but Jordan did. Unlike most of the Gliders, Jordan didn’t need to wear a band to fall under his mother’s control. Her experimentation on him had produced long-term effects in his brain. He could hear her commands and feel himself compelled to follow them with no technology at all.
His Glider memories attached to his regular memories with almost no separation. Whitebourne had escaped for now, but Jordan knew it was only a matter of time until she tried to bring him back to her—to put him to work again.
The crew and I guided the hundreds of Gliders up the staircase. Jordan pulled the secret internal lever and the platform of the bronze Alice in Wonderland statue lifted up above us. The seven of us exited last to make sure no one got left behind.
As soon as we popped our heads out, roaring crowds began to cheer. There were enough people in Central Park surrounding the statue to make it look like opening night at Futureland! I surveyed the crowd and saw smiling faces, tearful mothers hugging their recovering Glider children, news cameras doing breaking reports. Even though it was loud, I couldn’t hear much. It felt like I was there, but not really, like watching everything happen in a movie. I just wished Dooley had been by my side.
To see me. To be proud of me.
The police scurried out of the crowd from all angles, putting yellow tape around the perimeter of the statue. A few of them pushed past us to get to the bunker entrance and started to climb down.
“Hey, you guys are right on time,” Rich said sarcastically. “Thanks for your all your help.”
“Rich! Hush,” Angel said. Rich shrugged.
“Just sayin’.”
Mom, Dad, and Uncle Trey burst through the crowd, wrapping me up in the tightest hug they’d ever given me. They hugged all my friends, too, wiped the sludge off our faces and asked us if were okay only about a thousand times.
“How did y’all know we were here?” I asked.
“All those loud booms. You could hear them from miles away. Everybody started gravitating this way,” Uncle Trey said. “Those power outages blacked out half of Manhattan for a second, there. It was scary, nephew. When we couldn’t find you kids, me and your parents figured you were down there. We just held hands and hoped for the best.”
My parents squeezed me in an inescapable hug again.
“We’re so sorry, Cameron,” Dad said. “We should have listened. We should have trusted you.”
“I thought if I just kept you away from everything dangerous,” Mom said, “then it would make life seem a little more normal. I don’t know. A little less scary. I’m sorry.” She kissed me on the forehead.
I scrunched up my nose and wiped the kiss away with the sleeve of my jacket, but I had to smile. I hugged my mom again as she wiped the continuous flow of tears from her eyes and tried to keep herself together, with Dad holding her tightly.
“You don’t gotta worry about me so much, you know, Mom? You and Dad always taught me that we have to face the things that make us scared. They’re not going away. And neither are we. Isn’t that right, y’all?” I turned to the crew.
“A hundred percent,” Yusuf said.
“Ya tú sabes,” Angel said.
“Never,” Rich said.
“You know it,” Inaya said.
“Earl? Earl?” I craned my neck to see Earl, twenty feet away, trying to exchange some of his pocket change for a hot dog from a vendor who had set up inside the park. I shook my head, and we all laughed. If I knew one thing, it was that Earl would always find a way to eat, especially after working hard on solving a mystery.
“CJ, can I talk to you for a second?” Yusuf asked. We stepped away from the crowd for some privacy.
“What’s up, Yusuf?”
“I wanted to say thank you,” he said. “And I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? For what?”
“When I snuck into Futureland, I thought I knew best. Like I could just step into your world without a problem. I missed my family. Like, a lot. Missed the basketball team. And most of all, I put you in a really bad situation, hiding me from your parents and all. I apologize.”
I patted Yusuf’s shoulder. “It wasn’t all your fault, Yusuf. Who knows how long that band was creeping into your thoughts, convincing you to follow me.” I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, too. I felt like something was off with you, but I was scared to believe my own intuition and that made it hard for me to help you. You’re the first real friend I ever made, and you take on a lot of risk for my sake. I thought if I didn’t do what you wanted then I would lose you. But this whole thing has taught me something very important.”
“What’s that?” Yusuf said.
“That friends may end up in bad situations together, but that doesn’t mean they have to stay there. Even if we disagree, there’s always a way to compromise.”
“That’s really smart, CJ,” Yusuf said. “So, we cool? Still friends?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Forever,” I said, slapping hands for our secret crew shake.
“Cam, Inaya…?” I turned to see Jordan wobbling, his legs giving way beneath him. “I don’t feel so good.” He toppled over, and Uncle Trey caught him before he hit the pavement. The crowd gasped and a few people rushed over to encircle Jordan, looking down at him.
“Nephew, what’s wrong with him?” Uncle Trey asked. “What do we do?”
“He’s sick!” I said. “We’ve got to get him to a hospital.”
Me and the crew made a hole through the crowd as my family rushed Jordan out of Central Park. Angel barked out commands until people moved out of the way. I held Jordan’s hand as Uncle Trey carried him all the way to the street. Jordan came in and out of consciousness until we got to the taxi, and when Uncle Trey slid him in the back seat, he blinked twice and smiled weakly.
“We did it, Cam,” he said. “We saved New York.”
“We sure did, Jordan.” I smiled back. “We sure did.”
Monday, March 15, 2049
8:02 a.m.
It had been about a month since we stopped Clare Whitebourne from unleashing Haven Horrors on the world. My parents had Futureland running smoothly again, for the most part. The news of Whitebourne’s plans helped convince everyone that we had been innocent and that the city had been unfair to us. We fought hard to get the restrictions on the park removed. Futureland could now be visible within Central Park twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It even became somewhat of a local landmark after people heard about how we saved hundreds of New Yorkers from the Glider crisis.
We were selling more Future Passes than we had in years.
What can I say? Any press is good press. But real good press goes a long way.
Deet deet deet da-deet-deet da-deet!
I took a break from screwing some bolts into the new light column in the Holo-pal exhibit. Itza was a big hit with New Yorkers, so Uncle Trey had decided to give her a bigger platform and transfer her artificial intelligence into a rev body so that she could guide guests, like a real park attendant. I looked at my Futurewatch face and grinned with excitement.
Deet deet deet da-deet-deet da-deet!
My parents had suggested I get rid of the watch and start using a new one, but I don’t know—I felt attached to it. We had been through so much. Besides, if Southmore or Whitebourne or anybody else tried to make contact again, we’d be ready.
We’d collected and analyzed enough Haventech bands to know everything about them. We even put a special monitor at the Futureland entrance that would detect them if anybody tried to sneak one in. I doubted Haventech could be very successful with Whitebourne on the run, but we needed to prepare, just in case. The FBI had remotely deprogrammed all the bands so that none of them would work. They even started a special return program for ones that had been sold in stores so that people could get rid of the dangerous tech at their local law enforcement station.
Deet deet deet da-deet-deet da-deet!
Oh yeah, of course. I wouldn’t want to keep Inaya Bagayoko, Harlem’s Own, waiting.
“Hi, Inaya,” I said.
“Ayo! Atlanta Cam, what’s good with you?”
“Not too much, just fixing on some things here and there. What are you up to?”
“The same thing,” she said. “I’ve got to be honest with you, your parents are really outdoing themselves with the new brownstone. Me and my parents come by to look at it every day, even though it’s not finished. It looks almost exactly like our old one. I can’t wait to move out of this hotel.”
“At this rate, y’all are probably there more than the construction guys.”
We laughed together.
“We’re just so excited to have a home again,” she said. “Our home. Can’t thank you enough. Plus, it’s way easier to work now that the city has demolished that miniature Haven Horrors nonsense next door.”
“Good riddance,” I said. “My parents were happy to help, by the way. We couldn’t have stopped Whitebourne without you. Besides, my mom still kinda thinks you and I are going to be a thing, so she’ll do anything if I tell her it’s for you.”
“So I should wait until after our brownstone is finished to tell her that’s not happening, huh?” Inaya said. “Got it.” We laughed again.
“Have you heard from Jordan?” I asked, a bit tense. Sometimes it’s scary asking for updates. My heart wanted to know, but my stomach wasn’t sure it can handle the answer.
“Yeah, he’s good.” I could hear Inaya smile through the phone. “He has my family’s old room at the shelter. It’s nothing like that mansion he used to live in, but it’s a lot of space for one person. And everybody there is very nice. He’s said he wants to start at my school when the doctor clears him.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day,” I said with a sigh, the tense feelings melting away. “Do you really think he can go back to school?”
“We’ll see, Cam.” She didn’t sound sure. “You know, I wouldn’t want to hurt your brain with all this detailed science stuff, but Whitebourne’s experiments hurt Jordan. Badly. His body and brain are slowly repairing themselves, but it’s a process. For now, he’s just happy to be feeling better and not coughing so much. Speaking of feeling better, how’s Yusuf?”
“Well,” I said, “Angel told me on his first day back in Atlanta that he still ran sprints faster and made more shots than all the other boys at practice, so I think he’s recovering well. That kid, he’s like Superman or something.”
“Yeah, right,” she quipped. “I bet I can take him in ball.”
“You wouldn’t be Inaya Bagayoko if you didn’t feel that way,” I said through a grin.
“Harlem’s own!” she added. “All right, Atlanta Cam. I was just calling to say thanks again. Don’t be a stranger. You’re welcome in Harlem anytime. Just ask for Inaya.”
“You bet I will,” I said.
I ended the transmission and finished up with my tools. When I made it back to the condo, I took a shower and changed into some jeans and a vintage Futureland T-shirt from 2035. I was rubbing the last bit of water out of my hair with a towel when I felt eyes on me from behind. I whipped around and saw Uncle Trey peeking at me through my cracked bedroom door. He grinned mischievously.
