The Call of the Mild

Chapter Forty-Three

Gus had thought the forced march down the mountain was as unpleasant as any hike could be. But back then, at least, the lawyers were all united in misery. As they trudged back up the steep switchbacks towards the previous night’s campsite where they’d been forced to abandon their backpacks, Gus could see them casting suspicious glares at one another, trying to figure out which one was the traitor secretly working for Rushton.

The Triton Players, for reasons Gus couldn’t begin to figure out, had gone back into character. The four servers marched in formation, rifles slung across their shoulders, behind Bron Helstrom. It would have been a more convincing performance without their leader, who did his best approximation of a military stride for as many as five steps at a time, then sank to his knees gasping for breath. In the spirit of improvisation, his troops would surround him, weapons at the ready, every time he stopped for air, but Gus could see why Helstrom hadn’t accompanied them on the earlier hike.

At least Shawn was in a much better mood. His shoulders were loose and relaxed, and the spring was back in his step. His step was so springy, in fact, that Gus practically had to run to keep up with him.

“So who was it?” Gus said.

“Kristin,” Shawn said.

“Who’s Kristin?” Gus said.

“J.R.’s devious sister-in-law and mistress,” Shawn said. “Or did you mean who shot Mr. Burns? Because that was just stupid.”

“I meant who was the one who knew the safe word all along and didn’t use it?” Gus said.

“Oh, that,” Shawn said. “It’s got to be Mathis. He had to know that as soon as the play was revealed, the rest of them would refuse to stay in the mountains any longer, and he was the only one who had any reason to keep us all here.”

“Oh, good,” Gus said. “We’re trapped a zillion miles away from civilization with a mad killer and an insane FBI agent who now has two reasons to want us dead.”

“Yup,” Shawn said. He didn’t seem to be troubled by Gus’ assessment of the situation. He didn’t seem to be troubled by anything at all.

“What are you so cheerful about?” Gus said.

“What’s not to be?” Shawn said. “We defeated an armed band of terrorists and freed all the hostages-including ourselves.”

“Except they weren’t terrorists and we weren’t really hostages,” Gus pointed out.

“Which makes it even better,” Shawn said. “It had all the sense of doom and incipient panic of a real kidnapping with none of the actual danger. Which means it’s like riding the roller coasters at Magic Mountain, only with less danger of being hit by a stray bullet.”

“We’re still stuck in the mountains,” Gus said.

“Not for long,” Shawn corrected him. “Because as soon as we get back to the original campsite, you’re going to see seven emergency beacons going off at once.”

It was more than two hours before they made it back to the meadow, but as soon as they stepped off the trail Gus was delighted to see that the tents were still standing, along with the entire kitchen setup. Suddenly he realized they hadn’t eaten since last night’s dinner, and he was starving. Even the sight of the “dead bodies” lying in the middle of the camp-in the bright daylight, now clearly pillows dressed as waiters, with burst ketchup cans for heads-couldn’t dampen his appetite.

But food was far from the first thing the lawyers were thinking of. They exploded across the meadow like sprinters at the gun, each one racing to grab one of the emergency beacons that dangled off the line of backpacks sitting next to the supply tent.

All of them except Mathis. He ran, too, and he got to the packs before the rest of them, trying to position himself in such a way that the others couldn’t get around him. It might have worked, too, if he’d been three times as wide as he was tall. Or if his gun hadn’t been lying at the bottom of a sylvan spring.

“Don’t do this,” Mathis implored the others as they grabbed for the packs. “Let’s complete the retreat.”

“I have finished,” Savage said. He reached for a pack, but Mathis pushed him away.

“We’ve all finished,” Gwendolyn said, grabbing for a pack on the other side of the line. Mathis made it down in time to block her. But as he did so, Balowsky sidled in behind him and yanked one of the yellow plastic cylinders off a pack.

“I’m warning you,” Mathis said. “Do not open that beacon.”

“Why are you so interested in keeping us in the mountains, Mathis?” Savage said.

“It was our assignment,” Mathis said. “We made a contract with Rushton.”

“Under duress,” Jade said. “And that contract said nothing about fake kidnappings. If anyone violated the agreement it was Rushton. And since we can’t launch our suits until we get back to town, it’s time to go.”

Balowsky took the body of the cylinder in one hand and grabbed the cap at its bottom with the other. Then he gave the cap a savage twist.

Gus realized he didn’t have any idea what would happen. If he’d tried to picture it in his mind, the image would have been the cylinder Klaatu pulls out in the original The Day the Earth Stood Still, the one that erupts into spiny blades before an overeager soldier shoots it out of his hand, thus preventing the president from seeing what life is like on other planets.

The last thing Gus expected to happen was what did. When Balowsky screwed off the bottom of the cylinder, three tiny pink objects, each about the size of the nail on Gus’ pinkie, dropped to the grass.

“What the hell is that?” Gwendolyn demanded as Balowsky turned the cylinder over and peered in, looking for any signs of advanced electronics.

Shawn and Gus walked over and looked down at the three objects on the ground. At first Gus thought they might be pebbles, or some kind of pellet. But as he looked closer, he realized they weren’t round. They were heart-shaped. He knew what these were-and they weren’t about to send an electronic signal anywhere.

“I believe they’re called Sweethearts,” Shawn said, bending down and scooping them into his hand. “Sort of like a nineteenth-century version of the Kindle, only they never really caught on as a reading device because each piece of candy can fit only one word, so if you wanted to take Moby Dick on the train, you’d need something like ten thousand pounds of the things. But they’re very good for delivering shorter messages, like I LOVE YOU or BE MINE.”

Gus stared down at the three candy hearts in Shawn’s hand. He read the words over and over again, arranging them in every possible combination, hoping against hope that there was a second way to read the message that Rushton had sent to his employees. There wasn’t. There was only one way to order the hearts so that they made any sense at all.

“Or,” Gus said finally, “YOU’RE FIRED, LOSER.”