“I know,” Sketch answered her, “but he tried to shoot it.”
“Hey, Sketch,” Mackenzie said gently. “Listen, they’re probably going to need us to bring more things like that, maybe even worse things. They have to try to shoot them so they can learn how to protect people.”
Sketch didn’t say anything, continuing to add details to his drawing.
“Remember the thing on the helicopter?” Daniel added. “You wouldn’t want something like that to just run around loose, would you?”
Sketch shrugged, his expression noncommittal. It wasn’t that he thought bad things running around would be a good idea, but he saw bad things around people all the time—not usually as bad as Mr. Lockhart had been, but still. He wasn’t sure people who looked good on the outside but did really bad things were necessarily better than things that looked bad on the outside but just played tricks on people and made him laugh. It certainly didn’t seem right to shoot them for it.
In breaking news, a plane that took off from Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport this morning, bound for London, has disappeared somewhere over the Atlantic. Airline officials have not yet released a statement regarding the missing aircraft, but our sources tell us that it is no longer appearing on radar and that attempts to radio the crew have, so far, been unsuccessful.
“That’s weird,” Kaitlyn commented, but she and Daniel were both watching a game she was playing on her phone, so they didn’t see the video that flashed on the screen next.
The plane reportedly took off from Hartsfield International on time, under clear skies and good visibility, with no indication of bad weather to be expected along its route.
“Not as weird as that!” Sam said, staring at the television. “Um, guys?”
“What?” Mackenzie asked, looking up from Sketch’s drawing.
Suddenly, all eyes were glued to the screen. The news crew was showing airport footage of the plane taking off. It raced steadily down the runway and then lifted off cleanly, with no indication at all that anything was about to go horribly wrong—nothing, that is, except for the gargoyle perched serenely on its tail.
49
News Flash
“You’ve got two bogies on your six.”
“On it.”
Rush performed a leaping spin and took both enemy players out neatly with back-to-back head shots.
“Oh, yeah. Who’s your Wingman?”
“You’re my Wingman,” Rush said, laughing.
“Damn straight,” Wingman agreed.
“Get a room,” Snark commented.
“You know, Snark, I met the girl version of you at the ICIC,” Rush told him. Oh, get a room. Damn lovebirds, squawking up the channel. Sam’s voice echoed in his mind, a bittersweet memory of the team he had left behind. He knew he had made the right decision in the long run, but that didn’t make it any easier.
“Oh, yeah? What’s her name? Better yet, what’s her number?”
“Her name’s Snark, cause she’s even more snarky than you,” Rush teased him.
“Impossible. Besides, the name’s taken, bro.”
“Nope, hers now. We’re gonna have to call you something else.”
“You heard him,” Wingman said, picking up the joke and running with it. “Snark needs a new name, guys. The floor is open for nominations.”
“Snark II,” Stryker suggested. “The sequel.”
“No, no, no,” Fuego said, laughing. “Wait, I got it. You ready? Snarknado.”
“Seconded!” Rush shouted.
“I have a second on the floor, gentlemen,” Wingman announced. “All those in favor of Snarknado?”
“Aye!” Rush, Stryker, and Fuego all said together.
“Hey, that’s not bad, actually,” Snark said.
“Really?” Fuego asked. “Then I want to change my vote.”
“Hey, guys,” Stryker said, interrupting their banter. “Check out this plane.”
“What plane?” Snark asked.
“News is saying a whole plane disappeared,” Stryker announced.
“Ooooh… Bermuda Triangle… spooky…” Fuego commented, laughing.
“No, man, like a real plane. From here. A big one. Flying from Atlanta to London. Says it just vanished. Poof. Gone.”
“What? No way. That’s impossible,” Snark declared.
“Cover me,” Rush said. “I want to see this.”
“On it,” Wingman promised.
Rush turned on his secondary monitor, switching it to live television and scrolling to the news channels. He pulled his headset down and let it hang around his neck so he could hear the report.
Officials say there is still no sign of an aircraft that took off this morning from Hartsfield International Airport. It was bound for London, carrying over two hundred passengers on board for a routine trans-Atlantic flight… that never arrived.
“What the hell?”
Rush watched, stunned, as the missing plane taxied down the runway and took off with an unmistakable gargoyle, roughly twice the size of a grown man, planted firmly on its tail.
No explanation has been offered by airline officials, who have said only that the disappearance is still under investigation…
“Oh my God. That’s what they were doing. That’s what we were doing.” He said it out loud without even thinking about it. Sketch and Tick-Tock and Grid and Gears and Disco… They’re up against freaking real life gargoyles, and I’m not even there…
“You say something, Rush?” He heard Wingman’s question distantly, through the headphones that still hung around his neck, but he ignored it, his mind racing through the implications of what he had just seen.
“Guys!” he said, whipping the headset off and holding the mic so they could hear him. “Guys, sorry, but I gotta go!”
“Go? Go where?” he heard Snark asking. “Is that like a ‘guys, I’ll be right back’ kind of I gotta go? Or is it more like a ‘guys, I’m about to abandon your asses again’ kind of thing?”
Rush turned off the television with a grimace and ran out of the room.
“Mom! Mom! Where are you?”
“I’m downstairs, Ashton. Is everything OK?”
Her voice floated up to him from her home office, and he flew down the stairs, taking them two at a time. He raced down the hallway, turning the corner into her workspace so fast that he had to hold on to the door frame with one hand.
“Mom, tell me you still have that ICIC invitation,” he said breathlessly.
“Of course, honey. It’s in your school file. Over there.” His mother stared at him in confusion as he pulled open the drawer and started rifling through it.
“No… no… yes!” He snatched the paper out of the file and grabbed his phone out of his pocket, starting to dial the number before he had even left the room.
“Is everything OK?” she asked again.
“What? Oh, um, yeah… I mean, I hope so. Uh… one of the other kids… called me… about another phase… this summer… that they might need me for… I’ll tell you about it in a bit, OK? I’m trying to find out… right now…” He stopped dialing and looked at her, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet.
“OK,” she said, smiling. “I have to say, Ashton, it’s nice to see you taking something college-related so seriously.”