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Chapter 3: Wednesday (Cont.)
Higgs sat
on the edge of his makeshift table and continued the conversation. “Ok. So
before we go further with this idea, let’s take this piece by piece. First
hurdle, can we steal the Spartan? Of course the answer is yes, but what will it
take? Anabelle – do you know where it’s moored?”
“They move
it around a lot, but I think it’s typically moored at the Victorian Bank
building. That’s where I got on when I rode it last week.”
“Alright,
so we need to get access to the rooftop. That means we need to get into the
building, we need to get ourselves up to the roof, and all that without drawing
attention. Any ideas?”
“I could
climb the side of the building.” Charlotte volunteered a bit too easily. “It’s
what, 10…11 stories?”
“Fifteen”
Phineas countered.
“Makes no
difference to me. It’s all the same. That building’s got a lot of architectural
detail. I could climb it no problem.”
Phineas
gave his own idea, “Leave it to Anabelle and me. I think between the two of us,
we can talk ourselves to the roof. We might need a little assist with flying
the thing, but it can’t be too hard, right?”
Kostas,
silent to this point, decided to chime in without making any eye contact with
the others. “Too hard. We wait until night, break into building and go to roof
without hassle.”
“Yeah, I
don’t want to break into that building. I, um, had a bad experience there.”
Higgs said. “Let’s run with Phineas’s idea. Anabelle, can you run distraction
while Phineas finds his way to the roof? Dr. Montebanque, any ideas for getting
the actual airship moving?”
“I will
come up with something.” The inventor nodded solemnly and turned inward to
think of his options.
“Alright.
So that’s problem 1 solved. Next problem is the hydrogen. If we need to fill
the balloon with hydrogen, we need to find a source of that volume of the gas.”
Higgs looked to Charlotte
“No
problem. They’ve got a big tank of the stuff at the track. It’s on lockdown, on
account of it being so dangerous. They keep the tank in an outbuilding behind
the pits.”
“Alright.
That should work. So we need to get the airship to the track, and we need to
break into that building, and replace the helium with hydrogen. Simple right?
We’ll go as a team, to keep our options open. We can try to go in the front
door, but may need to use a little more force. If we’re lucky, there won’t be
anybody around to spot us.”
“Would it
be pertinent to discuss the Elephant in the room now?” Phineas was still
skeptical about the plan, but was going with it. “Assuming that we now control
the airship, and have it filled with Hydrogen, what about the fact that an
airship tops out at what, 35 mph? The train will be topping 70. Catch my
drift?”
“Simple,
Phineas.” Dr. Montebanque countered, “We will tether the airship to the train,
and reel it in with a winch. I have a creation that will do just that. There’s
no need to worry.”
Higgs
wanted to solidify the plan “Ok, guys, here’s how it’s going to go down. On
Friday, that train will be coming into town. That doesn’t give us much time to
prepare. You all have tomorrow to prepare yourselves for your part in this
operation. Tomorrow afternoon, around dusk, Phineas and Anabelle will Con their
way into the bank building and up to the roof. They will release the Spartan
and pilot it to the old abandoned airport. From there, we’ll wait until dark,
and take the ship to the race track. We’ll be depending on Charlotte and Kostas
to get us into the hydrogen storage. We drain and refill the balloon on the
airship.
“From
there, we take the Spartan South of town. We’ll go at least 50 miles, because I
want to give us ample time to pull this off. In the morning, that train will
come barreling toward the city. We will be waiting overhead. When the train
passes, Charlotte will launch in Dr. Montebanque’s wing suit. She lands on the
train and attaches the tether, and we’re all in for a rough ride as Everton
reels the ship into position. Kostas will go to work on getting us into the
train car. Once he gets us in, we may need Phineas to run interference so we
won’t be discovered. We start unloading the goods onto the ship. Whatever we
haven’t loaded by the time the train crosses the Stone Creek viaduct we leave.
That’s our cue to get out. We detach the tether and take the ship back to the
airport.”
He turned
to point at the abandoned tracks behind him. “The train line here runs to the
airport. I’ll make sure we have a train car waiting for us at the airport.
We’ll load the take onto the train car and stash it underground. Now, when
we’re done with all of that, we need to do a bit of cleanup. That ship needs to
be moved. If they discover the ship at the airport, they’ll surely search the
grounds. Once we take care of the ship, I suggest we lay low for a few days.
We’ll rendezvous again on Monday right here. Questions?”
Higgs
looked around the room at the faces of his team. Charlotte seemed thrilled at
the plan. Dr. Montebanque was present in body only, his mind lost somewhere in
thought about his gadgets while his fingers fiddled nervously with his trinket.
Anabelle looked calm, a small smile on her face as if there wasn’t an ounce of
concern about the plan. Kostas had his eyes fixed on the flame of a lamp as he
shifted nervously.
Phineas
was the first to voice a concern. “Seems like there’s a lot that has to go just
right. Odds are pretty low that we’ll be able to pull this off.”
“Odds are
crap.” Charlotte said in her usually cocky bravado.
“Do you
have a better plan, Phineas?” Anabelle asked.
“No… I
just don’t expect each of these steps to go as planned.”
Higgs
tried to reassure his team. “I have no doubt that something will go wrong. We
will have options. If one approach fails, we need to be ready to jump in with
another. To pull this off, we’re going to need to be flexible.”
“And
lucky.” Phineas added.
“And lucky,
to be sure. But don’t get me wrong. I know we can do this. I wouldn’t ask you
to do it if I didn’t think we could pull it off. We can, and we will. We will
re-convene here Thursday morning and set things in motion.”
Part 11 >
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