“Not to mention a year’s worth of accumulated presents for a generation of six — year — olds on Santa’s good kid list,” Xander said. “Say goodbye to Christmas…”
“They’re going to be shooting at us?” one of the volunteers said, her voice skating on the raw edge of panic.
“They’d be shooting at anybody,” Dave snapped. “Seriously, folks. This couldn’t have been done on the ground? You had to kidnap the whole damn hotel…?”
“We needed… to be isolated… from outside contamination,” Boss said carefully. “For our investigations.”
“I don’t know what you needed,” Dave said earnestly, “but your ‘investigations’ are likely to be rather more short — lived than you might want if you don’t get us the hell out of here. Somehow. I don’t think you ought to completely rely on how far that ritzy little invisibility cloak field of yours is going to work when it’s the DoD who’s looking…”
“Just take us to the moon and back,” Xander said flippantly, trying to break the serious mood.
“As you wish,” Boss said unexpectedly.
“I think he was just joking,” Libby said in a small voice. “Really, he was.”
“But it is a good idea. It would take precisely the time we need, and there would be no fallout to deal with on the ground right now,” Boss said. He lifted a hand and gestured to Zach, who — somewhat disconcertingly — responded by reaching up to take a rectangular tablet from his chest (which didn’t show any sign of any hardware being removed) and began to type on it.
“Xander,” Andie Mae hissed, “if they don’t kill you I will — and if they do I’ll kill you again just to make sure… wait — just wait — what are you doing? You can’t just take us on some hare — brained…”
“Did you feel that?” Libby said. “I think — I felt — the world — something just shifted — ”
“I think they just initiated the ‘getting us the hell out of here’ maneuver,” Xander said faintly.
A girl by the name of Jessie Sellers, a grizzled con veteran at the tender age of 24 and this year the queen of the Green Room for the working pros, had leapt up from her perch on a computer screen, and raced to the sliding door — and now she yelped out something inarticulate that made everyone turn and look in that direction.
“We’re flying!” she cried out, her face glued to the glass, one hand cupped over her forehead to cut the glare. “Wow! Freaky!”
“Now look, I really have to protest,” Luke Barnes said weakly. “I don’t think our insurance… I don’t think they have insurance… the personal liability…”
“Nobody will come to any harm,” Boss said. “You have my word.”
Dave’s mouth worked. “Hey, nobody gave you permission — you really are abducting us against our will. And what if we can’t provide the information that you’re looking for, anyway? What if we are completely clueless? What if you came back fifty years too far and if it really was this world that spawned you, nobody who had a hand in it is even alive yet?”
“Or remotely here,” Libby added. “I mean, there’s millions of us. How can you possibly expect a gang of science fiction nerds — and a posse of furries who are here for their own reasons and wouldn’t know what to say to you if you went up to one of them and asked ‘Are you my mommy?’ — and that bunch of loaded dice down in the game room who probably haven’t even realized yet that they aren’t on their home planet any more — to come up with anything resembling an actual answer for you. And plus, we haven’t even heard the question yet…”
“Then how do you know that you do not have the answer?” Boss said.
“No, but really — these guys aren’t the only ones in the hotel right now, you do realize that,” Luke remonstrated. “A number of our current guests aren’t actually with the convention — they’ve got nothing to do with any of this, and I think it is highly irregular that they have simply been kidnapped, right along with…”
“We’d better do something,” Libby said, interrupting, apparently oblivious that he had even been speaking — although her point did jibe exactly with what Luke had been saying. “We need to tell them — we need to let people know, before someone basically goes nuts and creates a stampede out there, if it isn’t already too late.”
“What, you think nobody’s looked out of the window yet?” Dave said sarcastically. “You’d think that anybody with two brain cells to rub together would have panicked already, just to save time later.”
“How do we do that?” Xander said. “I mean, there’s the Opening Ceremonies — and we get a good turnout for that, so it might be an option — but not everyone at the con even attends them — we can’t possibly get everyone to turn up at the same place at the same time for a general announcement…”
“There is no venue in the hotel that would support such a large number of people all in the same place, anyway,” Luke said. “The Fire Codes…”
Dave gave him an incredulous look. “You’re flying to the freaking Moon and you’re still worrying about the freaking Fire Codes?” he demanded.
“We’re doing the daily newsletters anyway,” Libby said abruptly. “How about using those?”
“Not everyone reads the gossip rag,” Xander said.
“We could make sure everyone got a copy,” Libby said. “Even if it means standing in the corridor handing them out by hand, flyer by flyer. Make absolutely certain everyone had a copy of it in their hands. And now. Now. Tonight.”
“But what are we going to say?” Dave asked. “Sorry, folks, we’ve been hijacked by Robot Aliens from Outer Space, wave the Earth goodbye?”
“We can probably help with that,” Boss said. “B008199ZX5, HLL5778N44X, you will assist in the preparation of this newsletter. Please make sure the information is accurate and reassuring.”
“Yes, that would be nice,” Andie Mae said, with a touch of acid. “It would be a lot better if we actually knew the reasons behind any of this. Maybe not everyone — maybe not the lesser crew or the passengers, maybe not yet, maybe not quite ever for some of them — but us, here, who are responsible for the ship, as it were.”
“For now, it would help just to have it in writing,” Dave said. “A do — not — go — outside thing. Along the lines of a safety notice. We can deal with the details later, or make the necessary decisions about a need — to — know ladder. There’s always the next newsletter.”
“And who’s going to write this thing?” Andie Mae demanded.
“Technically, that would be me,” said Libby. “In theory, I’m on the ConCom as the newsletter producer and program booklet editor — I’m the communications node. I guess I’d better get cracking, then.”
“Make it so,” Andie Mae commanded.
“Right, then,” Libby said. “Bob? Helen? Or whatever alphanumeric characters pass for those names? This way, please?”
She rose and made for one of the computers in the other room of the control suite, and the two she had named got smoothly to their feet and followed her like an honor guard.
“Zach,” Dave said, “you’d better go out on corridor duty and report back through that positronic telepathy or whatever you all have to say howdy to one another, just in case you seen anyone going crazy early. I’ll go too. I’ll check in with Simon and see what Security’s got so far. We’ll try and keep a lid on it — I’ll make some weird shit up if I have to. But you’d better come up with something better than what I can concoct with that newsletter thing. Opening Ceremonies is in less than two hours — and I think realistically you have maybe an hour to get something organized in terms of a general announcement. Before we have a real situation on our hands. We’re lucky it’s night and not that many people will be expecting to see anything outside right now, but if anyone looks — really looks — we’re kind of screwed.”