I figured some things out.”
“Are you all right?” She came closer, looking at him. He realized he was still shaking his head, trying to sift away the last vestiges of the voice of Ultravox.
“I’m fine, sincerely, I’m fine.” Then Alex smacked his forehead. “We gotta go. He’s gonna kill someone. Come on.” He started to run for the stairs.
“Sometimes I can’t believe you,” Minhi said, running after him.
“I told you I’d catch up,” Alex answered as they bounded up the stairs together.
Chapter 33
By the time they had climbed up three flights to the promenade deck, Alex and Minhi could hear a new sound—a warbling, hissing voice playing over the orchestra in the ballroom.
Alex stopped, holding up a hand.
“What?” Minhi asked.
“Minhi, you’re still infected. The vocal virus, something that was passed to you in the first of Sid’s readings.” He looked around at the pristine carpeting, looking for anything. What could he use? He looked at her handbag. “Do you have, like, tissues or something?”
She shook her head. “I can barely fit my room keys in this thing.”
“You need something to stuff in your ears.” Then he realized what he could use. He reached down and took off his dress shoes, ripping out the laces as he spoke. “Here.”
He knotted one lace, holding it up to check the size. He knotted it again. “Look, I know it seems weird, but you’ve got to trust me: You need to stick this in your ear.”
She took it, eyeing him. “And here I thought you were going to tie my hands again.”
“This one, too,” he said, handing her the second knotted string. “For the other one.”
“Alex, don’t be ridiculous.”
“Trust me,” he said.
Minhi shook her head and pulled back her hair, stuffing the knots in her eardrums. She drew the strings back so they disappeared behind her hair. “Okay?” she shouted.
“I think it’ll do in a pinch,” he said.
“What?”
Alex gestured. “This way.”
A scream lit up from the ballroom and he looked back at her with alarm. They reached the ballroom and saw bedlam.
Alex and Minhi ran onto the floor and found people looking about in shock. A voice was speaking over the intercom, whispering, “This is the moment of your freedom.”
In the rear of the room, a group of students and adults were beating on a pair of double doors that led to another dining hall. Alex didn’t see any of the debutantes, but he had a good idea where they had all gone.
Paul and Sid forced their way through the crowd. “Alex!” Paul shouted.
“Minhi, you’re here,” Paul said, showing visible relief. She didn’t hear him but nodded.
“She’s got her ears stuffed up,” Alex explained.
“What, why?” Paul asked.
“Because of that,” Alex said, pointing to the air and the droning, strange message. “What’s happening?”
Paul looked unnerved, which was unusual for him. “The music cut out and all of a sudden the girls pulled their Montblancs on their parents.”
“All of them?” Alex looked around.
Sid said, “All of the ones that got the pens. Well, not Minhi. So that means eleven of them.”
“Is Vienna one?”
Paul shook his head. “She and her father disappeared. She looked panicked, not robotic. But forget that for now: The rest of the girls moved like vampires, Alex; they grabbed their parents and dragged them back there.” He looked at Alex’s socks. “How did you get here?”
“WaveRunner,” Alex said, glancing up at the droning sound. “That voice is live. He’s here. Paul—grab an ax or a fire extinguisher or something and batter those doors down. Get those people out. Sid? We’ve got to find him and shut him down.”
Alex ran for the bar, Sid and Minhi following. A youngish bartender was on the phone trying to call for help.
“Hey!” Alex called. “Where’s the intercom?”
“The bridge,” the bartender said.
“Okay,” Alex said to Sid and Minhi, sure that Minhi could see his lips. “Wait,” he said, and ran for the orchestra, which was deserted, all the musicians having fled with the remaining parents. He emerged again with two drumsticks, their heads broken off to make them sharper, and a violin.
Sid said, “What, you’re hoping to subdue him with ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia’?”
“I hate these things,” Alex said, bashing the violin on the bar, and handed Sid and Minhi the drumsticks. He brandished the jagged, splintered neck of the violin, its strings hanging from the tuning bolts.
As Paul began battering away at the blocked doors to try to rescue the parents from a horde of hypnotized girls, Alex, Sid, and Minhi hit the stairs.
The bridge