"The 12:15 will be here in forty-five minutes," she said. "It looks like a full load. 12:30 is full too. A lot of people were trying to get out before the storm hit. They shouldn't have waited so long. All right, let me see if I can do anything earlier. Hm, I can put you on standby for the 12:00, that'll start loading in fifteen minutes. Let me do that right now, but don't get your hopes up ... and then let's see what else we have. You were lucky you came up when you did. The last car out will probably be the 12:30; it's just launching. I'll try and grab you space on the 12:45 or the 1:00, in case they get out, but don't hold your breath. It looks like they're locking down early. There's no danger, but they don't like to scare the passengers." She frowned.
"Is there anything sooner?" Dad asked. "Is there anything open on the car loading now?"
"I don't know. Wait a minute—" She studied her screens, biting her lower lip thoughtfully. "How fast can you run?"
"Huh?"
She picked up her phone. "I've got a cabin open on the 11:00. A no-show. I guess they'll forfeit their deposit. The car is already loading. It's a first class booking, but we'll upgrade you. We don't like sending them up empty—" She explained. "You've got ten minutes left before they seal it for launch. Down this corridor, the gate is at the end. I'll call ahead. They'll be expecting you. Go now! You should be able to make it."
We ran.
It wasn't that far, but halfway there Stinky suddenly started crying and screaming, "Aren't we gonna see One-Hour? You promised! You said we were gonna see One-Hour! I don't wanna go up in anymore elevators! Daddy, you promised! I wanna go on the rides!" Weird tried to shush him, but Stinky was on reverse—the more you shushed him, the louder he got. Then he went limp, refusing to move at all. I'd have walloped him, but then Weird would have walloped me and Dad would have had to break us up and we would have missed the elevator, so I grabbed Stinky's other arm, and Weird and I carried him along, him screaming bloody murder all the time, while Dad ran ahead, shouting and waving our boarding cards.
The elevators up to Geostationary run every fifteen minutes. As each one arrives, it slides off the track and into a loading bay. It has a one-hour layover, during which time it's serviced and loaded for the rest of its journey up to Geostationary. Fifteen minutes before launch, it's sealed and weighed and checked for hull integrity again—same like at Terminus. If it doesn't get triple green lights, a standby pod goes up instead; then depending on the seriousness of the problem, it either has to wait until the slack time at the end of the shift, or every other pod on the Line gets delayed fifteen minutes.
We made it—in fact, we made it with five minutes to spare, but Stinky was howling like a banshee, and if there had been an open balcony—not likely at this height—Weird and I would have been happy to toss him over the edge. Well, I would have, but I suspected Weird was starting to think like a grownup and would have probably hesitated on the third swing over the railing.
Anyway, we made it—almost—except right next to the boarding ramp Stinky broke free of both Weird and me and went running back down the ramp, his monkey bouncing along behind him. "Run away, Toto!" He shouted. "Run away!" Weird threw himself after Stinky, catching him in a flying tackle, but the monkey kept going. Of course. Stinky had given it orders. I went chasing after it, careening around people and robots, while behind me Stinky crowed, "He got away! He got away!" I don't know how Stinky had programmed the little monster, but I couldn't get near it—
I stopped where I was, gasping for breath, and looked back to Dad. He pointed and gestured. "Get that damn thing!" I couldn't believe it. I chased the monkey around and around the souvenir booths and the newsstand and the little pizza kiosk, but I couldn't get near it—and the monkey started singing and whistling like a calliope. Only after a moment did I recognize the song and realized that everybody who was watching was laughing like crazy. Pop Goes The Weasel. "All around the cobbler's bench, the monkey chased the weasel ... "
"Three minutes, Chigger!"
The hell with it. It was Stinky's monkey, not mine. I stopped chasing, took three deep breaths, and then started loping back toward the boarding ramp. If Stinky started screaming about his monkey, it was his own damned fault. And sure enough: "Where's my monkey? I want my monkey—"
"Go get it yourself," I yelled at him. So of course he did. That is, he tried to, but Weird grabbed him in mid-leap and pulled him backward off his feet. He screamed in rage, as loud as he could, and people all over the lobby turned to stare. Then Dad demanded as I came running up to the door, "Where's the goddamned monkey?" And I said, "Screw the goddamned monkey! Stinky programmed it to run away. You want it? You go get it."
For a moment, Dad looked like he was going to hit me—
"Go ahead!" I shouted. "Prove Mom right!"
He put his hand down, glaring at me.
"It's not my fault, Dad. He's a goddamned spoiled brat and you shouldn't have bought him the goddamned monkey in the first place. And now that it ran away, the hell with it—he's had his three hundred dollars worth of fun. Let it go for all I care. Isn't it about time he learned about consequences? I never got a goddamned programmable monkey—" I pushed past Dad into the elevator.
Dad looked like he wanted to kill something, but he knew I was right. He also looked like he wanted to go after the monkey, but the attendant said, "I'm sorry, sir. We're closing the door in thirty seconds. You won't have time." So Dad and Weird and screaming-Stinky came grumbling in after me. Dad looked apoplectic. And justifiably so. But I'd just about had it with Stinky shrieking and Stinky running away and me always being expected to chase after him and drag him back. Dad was treating me like a full-time baby-sitter, and instead of paying me, he bawled me out whenever anything went wrong. Well, the hell with that!
And then, just as the triple doors started sliding shut, the damned monkey came hurtling through it like a hairy torpedo. The launch attendant—he was another guy with no hair—hit his button and the doors bounced back open; he gave us a dirty look as the monkey leapt over a couch and launched itself into Stinky's arms. I ignored him. Dad had told us they always tried to close the doors a few minutes early to give themselves a margin of error for launch checks. Meanwhile, the monkey was clinging desperately to Stinky, screaming, "Bobby, no run ray! No run ray!" Right then, I promised myself that as soon as I found a screwdriver, I would dismantle the damn thing, but Weird spoke up first. "After he goes to sleep, I'll install override commands, Dad. This won't happen again."
Dad didn't answer. I turned around to look, and he was leaning up against the back of a chair, just breathing hard and looking so pale I thought he was having a heart attack or something.
Anyway, we were aboard.
FIRST CLASS
Our cabin attendant was named Mickey and his hair was so short, he was almost bald. He looked so shiny and clean he could have been a robot. He had one of those perpetual smiles that wouldn't quit, and he acted like he was genuinely glad to see us and he kept trying to make friends with me and Stinky and Weird as if he'd been waiting all his life for this moment. He was so sincere about it I had to hate him. I wouldn't give him a chance to hate me first.
Our cabin was up at the top of the car. This car was bigger than the one we'd caught at Terminus. It was ten stories high and each level was big enough to hold as many as ten cabins. The level we were on, there were only four cabins and they were all big. We had a wall of windows with drapes that were secured at both the top and the bottom, and a big overhead window too, so we could look straight up.