“That’s kinda what I got, in Guess-land,” he said. “It certainly explains why Uncle Admiral isn’t here, banging down the door.”
She was horrified. “Oh, my God, you think he’s dead?”
“No!” Thomas said. “No, Tash, nah, that’s absolutely not what I was... No. Nuh-uh. My guess is that he’s busy being a high-ranking officer in the Navy, that’s why he’s not here.”
“Do you think the fire at the ski lodge was part of the attack?”
“That seems... incredibly specific—and tiny, in terms of impact. Who’s here to see this? Where are the news crews and twenty-four-hour screaming? Terrorist attacks are ninety percent theatrics and show. Yeah, the tangos want as high a body count as they can get, but even just a dozen, or a few hundred, even a few thousand like on 9/11... I’m not saying it’s not devastating to the victims and their families, but the most widespread damage came from the millions who let themselves be so terrified, they willingly weakened our democracy.”
“So... no, then?” Tash asked, her face a great big Really? “The lodge just burned—and everyone ran away—just coincidentally on the exact same day that a shut-down-airspace-sized event occurs?”
“Yeah, on the other hand, I’m not a believer in coincidences,” he agreed, “so I’m leaning towards Yes, it’s connected to whatever is happening out there. I don’t know a whole hell of a lot about Ustanzian politics, but since you want me to guess, I’d say someone who wants to overthrow the Queen got a hot tip that the day before yesterday was the day to try to do it. You know, take advantage of the worldwide chaos.”
“But why did they try to blow me up, if they were also burning down the ski lodge?” she wondered.
“Yeah, sorry, I can’t get that shit to make sense,” he said.
“Unless their plan wasn’t to blow me up,” she said. “What if they let me escape in the SUV—and we know they did—so I drive up the road where you’ve been left, allegedly for dead, except you’re not, because they also intentionally didn’t kill you. So I find you, and we drive up to the ski lodge together, and find, oh no! It’s burned down. Eventually, the authorities come and someone discovers the bomb in the car, and it’s analyzed, and like you said, bomb-makers have signatures tying the bomb to a specific group, so now there’s a terrorist group connected to the fire, and maybe to all of the other attacks that are going on out there.”
“Your brain,” he said. “Is terrifying. But okay. Answer this, Evil Genius. Why not simply use the bomb—or a series of bombs—to burn the place down?”
She squinted for a moment, thinking hard. “Maybe... they only had one? Or maybe they’ve used a bomb like this before, and the signature didn’t survive the blast, or the analysis was somehow inconclusive. Maybe they wanted to be absolutely sure that whoever they’re framing gets framed. And? Maybe they really didn’t want to kill anyone.”
“There’s a body out there says that’s probably not true.”
“Oops?” she said.
And okay, she was possibly right. Oops, indeed. A body count of one could’ve been the result of some ill-conceived plan gone horribly wrong.
“The only person who ever wanted to overthrow Ted’s mom was her father’s brother, Ted’s great-uncle, Hendrake. And overthrow is way too inflammatory a word. He wanted to be king, but he wanted to be king easily. I haven’t met him, but Ted says he was a lot like the first Prince Tedric.” She gestured around them. “The guy who turned this place into the glorious sex-pod that it is today.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call it that.”
“Secret hide-out,” Tash said, “really only works if you add for Prince Tedric’s penis to it.”
“It doesn’t bother you that your Prince Tedric appears to have used this place for the same... activity.” Thomas winced as he heard that word coming out of his mouth, and he knew Tasha was going to—justifiably—mock him for it.
She jumped all over it. “Activity!” She was delighted. “And boom, we’re solidly back in Awkwardsville, but kudos to us both for hanging on to Relatively-Normal-landia despite you being too sexy for your shirt for all these many minutes since you first de-jacketed.”
“I don’t have a shirt,” he reminded her as he stood up and headed for the bathroom. “I have your sweatshirt, and I wasn’t going to stank it up. But I’m putting it on right now.”
“Boo,” she said. “Check my jeans while you’re in there. Hey, Thomas?” She raised her voice, so he came back out of the bathroom to look at her.
“So... days?” she asked. “Weeks? I was really little on 9/11, I don’t remember how long it took for things to... well, I know it never got back to normal. But, you know what I mean. If something like that really did happen again...?”
“I think we should plan for both,” Thomas told her. “Days and weeks. I want to give Uncle Navy another few days to get here. If he hasn’t shown up by Friday, then I’m going to hike back down to the town by the airfield—”
Tasha gasped. “Without me?!”
“—and I’m going to get help, and yes, absolutely, because without you I’ll be able to move much faster, cover way more ground. Bonus is that you get to stay here, where it’s safe and warm.”
“If you don’t come back, I’ll have to save my poop and use it to grow potatoes,” she said, which was so absurd, it was surely some pop culture reference to something that he’d somehow missed.
Sure enough, at his silence, she added, “The Martian...? The awesome book...? The also-awesome movie with Matt Damon...?”
“Ah, I missed that one,” Thomas told her. “I was overseas.”
“You are gonna love it,” she said.
“I’ll keep an eye out,” he said, turning back to the bathroom.
“What if it was nuclear?” Tash asked, and he turned back again. “The attack? What if everyone’s dead?”
“Power’s on,” he pointed out.
She immediately came to the right conclusion. “So at least part of the electric grid’s up and running. That’s good.”
“Yeah. We are going to be okay,” he told her.
She nodded her towel-covered head. “Please don’t leave me here alone.”
Thomas couldn’t promise her that. So instead he said, “That’s only our Plan B, remember.”
“Plan A is wait for someone to show up,” she reminded him. “Plan A is pure luck and timing.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Plan As often are.”
Chapter Fourteen
Still Tuesday
Evil Genius.
It was the first nickname that Thomas had bestowed upon Tasha in a long time, but after her first surge of surprise and delight, she’d done a nosedive into feeling incredibly, desperately sad.
They’d once been so close.
She used to talk to him about nearly everything, and he’d shared at least some of his secrets with her, too—telling her about the way his world had exploded when his mom died giving birth to a brother who also hadn’t survived. He’d told her about his years of hurt and anger, and how it had driven a wedge between him and his older sister, and caused him to make quite a few bad choices before he’d found his way.