Page 61 of Martians Abroad

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“I’ve got an idea,” Angelyn said. ?

?Pizza delivery. We send over a pizza.”

“A what?” I asked.

“Pizza, it’s a kind of food—don’t tell me we haven’t made you eat pizza yet. Maybe I’ll order one for here, too. Anyway, we order it, send it to that address, they’ll bring it right to the door. Should be all kinds of distraction.”

“Do it,” Charles said. “Make it a big order. Charge it to Stanton’s account.”

“Wait, you have Stanton’s credit-account number?” I said, impressed in spite of myself.

Angelyn was already punching in codes.

“Can we find a way to get a message to George? Give him some kind of warning?” Elzabeth said.

“Without tipping off the kidnappers,” I added.

“Details,” Charles muttered. “I wish we had a camera in that building.”

“You have a handheld ID for one of those guys?” I suggested.

“Getting to that … and … thank you…”

Just like that, he hacked into one of the kidnappers’ handhelds. He threw up a box with the image from the thing’s camera eye, but since the guy kept it in his pocket, all we saw was a big shadow. We got sound, though.

George, being tough. “You won’t get away with this, my family is very important, they’ll hunt you down!”

The next voice was closer—the owner of the handheld. He sounded tired, frustrated. “Kid, you’ve said that ten times, please be quiet. Nothing’s going to happen to you, we just have to wait.”

“Wait for what?” George argued.

“Just wait. Okay? Seriously.”

Angelyn interrupted. “Pizza’s going to take twenty minutes.”

“Why so long?” Charles shot back.

“Because they have to make it?” Angelyn offered nicely.

“Too bad you can’t change the laws of physics, right Charles?” I said.

“Working on it,” he murmured.

“You’re joking, right?” I said.

“This is all theater,” Charles said.

George provided some entertainment while we waited, by turns pleading with and threatening his kidnappers, who appeared to be waiting for some signal, just like we were. The amount of money he kept offering to ransom himself with increased, until the other kidnapper—also in the room, standing some distance away by the sound of his voice—said, “I’m inclined to take him up on his offer rather than wait for the cue.”

“No kidding.” Guy number one chuckled.

“What cue? What’s going to happen?” George said.

“Oh, he sounds so scared,” Elzabeth crooned from over Angelyn’s shoulder on their end of the call. She might have been right. To me, he sounded as blustery and arrogant as he ever did, but there was an edge to his voice that might have been fear or desperation.

“It’ll be good for him, being scared for once,” Ethan said. And he sounded amused.

“Hey!” Ladhi called. “I’m watching the vid feed, a car just pulled up outside the kidnappers’ building, I think it’s the pizzas!”


Tags: Carrie Vaughn Science Fiction