I’m not even sure what’s strangest, he thought. That I’ve seen real-life gryphons and gargoyles and flying wolves, that I gave up the invitational for a few more weeks in a lodge in the middle of nowhere, or that keeping an eye on a weird, eleven-year-old kid from Alabama feels like the most important thing I could be doing right now.
“Whatcha got there, buddy?” Rush asked. Sketch sat next to him with his art pad in his lap, drawing a picture of a man in a business suit sitting two rows away from them in the waiting area.
“He’s OK,” Sketch replied. “He just has a big clock on his stomach. See?”
The drawing depicted an old-fashioned clock with a droopy, stylized face, not unlike a Salvador Dalí painting, hovering over the man’s midsection.
“Maybe he can do what Tick-Tock can do,” Rush suggested.
“Maybe,” Sketch said, shrugging.
“Hey, is that what Tick-Tock looks like?” Rush asked.
“No,” Sketch said, giggling, but he didn’t say anything else, and soon enough it was time for them to board the plane.
? ? ?
The trip was uneventful, the brief layover in Denver allowing Sketch to add yet another flight to his running count, and even Mackenzie finally began to relax a bit as they finally touched down without incident at Orlando International Airport.
“Hey, Rush,” Daniel said, suddenly making the mental connection, “didn’t you say you lived in Orlando?”
“Yeah,” Rush confirmed. “This is the airport I just flew out of.”
“Really?” Kaitlyn asked. “Is your family going to be at the launch?”
“I doubt it,” Rush said, failing to elaborate. His father and brother were always too busy for things like that. He couldn’t even remember the last time they had taken a day to do something together as a family. Even living in Orlando, with readily-available season passes to some of the greatest tourist attractions in the world, they just couldn’t be bothered to find the time.
“Too bad,” Kaitlyn said, letting it go, but Sam read the terseness of his answer. Apparently they shared more in common than she had realized.
“We’ll check into the hotel and then get a late dinner,” Christina said, taking charge as she led them toward the exit where the hotel shuttles came and went, spitting out departures and picking up new arrivals like clockwork. “We’re staying in Orlando tonight and driving to Cape Canaveral in the morning.”
As they exited the building, Sketch couldn’t help being reminded of home as well. The warm, humid air was reminiscent of Alabama summers, and he found himself wondering briefly what his mother was doing this evening, whether she was working a dinner shift or had the night off at home with Tony, and whether Shaquiya was hosting one of her tea parties, dressing young Xavious up in funny hats and feeding him cookies to get him to sit still.
He was ashamed to admit, even to himself, that it was the first time he had thought of them since Rush came back, but soon enough the lights and palm trees of Orlando distracted him from his reverie, as he added both to his list of new summer experiences, followed not long afterward by room service, which he scarfed down gratefully before passing out on the couch of the hotel suite.
Ammu was preparing to pick him up and carry him to bed when Rush stopped him. “Let him sleep there,” he said. “He likes couches.” Ammu shrugged and left Sketch where he was, covering him with a light blanket before retiring to one of the two rooms in the expansive suite, Daniel and Rush crashing in the other one, with a huge double bed for each of them.
In the girls’ suite, Kaitlyn took the second bed in Christina’s room, letting Mackenzie and Sam have the other room to themselves. But long after they had turned out the lights, Sam still lay awake restlessly, thinking about how close the summer was to being over.
She dreaded going back to school—to rich suburban kids obsessing over clothes and cars and designer handbags—but even more haunting was the thought of returning to a life that felt like it didn’t matter at all. How could she even begin to bear that again after everything she had seen and done and lived at the ICIC? The faces of all her friends—friends, for the first time in her life—kept swimming through her mind, and Mackenzie had been snoring for a solid hour before Sam finally drifted off to sleep.
? ? ?
A limousine picked them up early the next morning. The drive to Cape Canaveral took less than an hour, giving them ample time for Ammu to request a very specific detour, so that by 9:30 a.m. Sketch was standing on the beach of Jetty Park, staring out at the ocean for the first time in his life, watching the morning sun as it played over the gentle waves of the calm, summer day. He looked up with the biggest grin Rush thought he had ever seen, and they all stood together, enjoying the moment, letting the waters of the Atlantic wash in and out over their toes.
Unfortunately, they couldn’t stay long, so Ammu gathered them up and handed out their shoes, one pair at a time, ushering them into the limo for the short drive back to Exploration Tower.
The brilliant white building was seven stories tall, with a curved back and graceful, arching latticework that came to a point high above the roof. The glass-fronted edifice was tiered by design, so that every level was slightly smaller than the one below it. The fourth floor had a deck extending outward in the front, facing the launch sites of the Kennedy Space Center, as did the open-air terrace at the top of the building.
“The tower has been rented out for this event,” Ammu explained. “There are exhibits that you may walk through after the launch, but we will spend the time before lift-off on the fourth floor, where various military and Homeland Security personnel will be interested to meet you. Many of them have been influential in acquiring funding for the ICIC, so it is important that we make a good impression.
“Remember, what we have been doing this summer is not common knowledge. The true nature of the project is highly classified, and you must act accordingly. You have been studying Persian mythology through intuitive learning techniques. You are excited to be part of the program. If you are asked a question you do not know how to answer, get my attention or Christina’s. For our purposes today, she is one of your instructors.
“Just before the launch, we will remove ourselves to the seventh-floor observation deck, which has been reserved for us alone, despite the many illustrious guests who are present today. It will provide a magnificent view of the test launch, which I believe you will all enjoy. Do you have any questions before we go in?”
They did not, so Ammu ushered them into the building and led the way up to the fourth floor, which turned out to be a large meeting hall where several dozen men and women had already congregated. Some were dressed in Army uniforms, but most of them wore expensive business suits, as did Christina and Ammu.
Their arrival did not make any great stir among the crowd, much to their collective relief, so they began to mill about idly, Sketch being the first to notice the buffet table that had been set up toward the back of the room.
“I have a question,” Sketch said to Christina.