In the time it had taken them to effect his costume change, the band and their team had made it past the rope and were walking toward the exit to outside. This was making life a lot harder for the large guys pushing the luggage, who now had to do double duty as bodyguards. It wasn’t the fans who were the biggest issue. Sure, some were overly enthusiastic and tried to run up and touch the band members, but the press were the larger problem. They had no respect for personal space, or for the band in general, and they were literally falling over themselves to get a shot of the teens or a sound bite. They kept shouting loud questions, shoving mikes around the luggage. None of the boys were talking, though. In fact, the boy with his hair to his shoulders actively attacked one of the cameras, pushing back against it and causing its owner to fall over onto his backside. His action caused a chain reaction of other camera operators and reporters tripping over each other until there was quite a pile left behind.
The boy who’d done the flip yelled back to the rest of the band, and everyone hastened their pace, including Sebastian, who was trying to keep his head down as much as he could. Then, all of a sudden, he could feel a cool breeze on his face, and he dared to look up. They were outside, being quickly escorted onto a large black bus. The band rushed on, and Sebastian had no choice but to follow. He was stunned as he stepped inside. This was not an ordinary bus like the one he took to school. He was walking into a high-tech apartment. The place was decked out with black leather couches and chairs. A giant TV hung on one side of the bus, with video game consoles attached. Right where he’d entered, behind the bus driver, there was a little kitchenette with snacks, and the boys had already grabbed some chips and sodas and were lounging on the couches as Sebastian walked toward them in awe. The floor was reflective metallic tile, and illuminating his path were two rows of lights that slowly changed colors.
The boy who’d helped him out gestured for him to join them just as the bus started moving, and Sebastian staggered over and sat down at the end of one of the couches. The other boys stared at him. This was clearly the first time they’d noticed him. The long-haired boy asked something, and the floppy-haired boy replied.
“Oh, you speak English,” said the long-haired boy. He had a thicker accent, but Sebastian was just impressed that it seemed everyone knew at least two languages. He only knew the one himself.
“Yeah, sorry.” He felt obligated to apologize for his ignorance. It wasn’t something he often felt the need to do, as he rarely felt he didn’t know stuff.
“Don’t be sorry to speak English,” replied the boy, confused.
Sebastian wasn’t sure what to say, so he said the only thing that came to mind: “Sorry.”
The long-haired boy shook his head, then turned back to the floppy-haired boy and asked a question. After a short conversation, the long-haired boy stared back at Sebastian, wide-eyed. “Kidnapped?” he said.
Sebastian now felt a little awkward. “Uh, yeah.”
“Who kidnapped you?”
This felt like an almost impossible question to answer. Answering it literally would be meaningless to these boys: “Three gentlemen with different letters as their last names. Also, a pilot is involved, but I’ve never met her.” And answering it more specifically would take a long time. Also, it was kind of private. After all, there was still a man’s life at stake here. Not that Sebastian thought that this particular group of teenage pop stars were secret spies out to destroy Alistair Drake or anything.
But then again…maybe they were. Who could really know?
“It’s a long story, but they want what’s in my brain.”
“Like, your hypothalamus?” asked the boy who had done the flip, sitting himself across from Sebastian.
“My…No…no, not my hypothalamus.” Sebastian was startled by the boy’s knowledge of the term in English.
“Ah. Your cerebral cortex, then?” The boy leaned forward, looking very serious.
“No, no, they don’t want any part of my actual brain.”
“You have knowledge of something,” said the floppy-haired boy.
Sebastian looked back at him and nodded. “Well, it’s more like I saw something, and remembered that something, and then that something was destroyed.”
“Got it,” replied the floppy-haired boy. “Scary situation.”
“Yeah,” replied Sebastian, grateful for the empathy.
“Sounds exciting!” said the long-haired boy.
“It’s really not,” replied Sebastian, not entirely sure why he was lying. Because it was actually kind of exciting. And this was kind of exciting too. Being on this tour bus, being in South Korea, meeting these boys. But while he was beginning to be more honest with himself about this new appreciation of excitement, he certainly wasn’t ready to be honest with everyone else.
“Well, we’re heading home, and there we can talk more. Right now have some snacks. I’m Kwan,” said the floppy-haired boy, and he stuck out his hand.
“Nice to meet you,” said Sebastian as he took it. They shook.
“This is Ujin.” Kwan pointed to the long-haired boy. “Toy.” The boy who’d done the flip. His hair was cut so short he was almost bald. “That’s Yejun.”
A boy Sebastian hadn’t met yet who was over by the kitchenette rifling through the snacks, he popped up and looked at Sebastian hard from over his glasses, then said, “Hey.”
“And the silent one way down over there is Cheese.”
Cheese was sitting down the bus on a bunk in what looked to be the sleeping area. Like the others, his hair was black, but the tips were a vibrant purple. He gave Sebastian a nod, and Sebastian returned it.
“Well, I’m Sebastian,” Sebastian announced to the rest. “And you guys seem to be in a band of some kind. Uh, a pretty popular band,” he continued, trying to make pleasant small talk.
Toy choked on his soda, and Ujin had to slap him on the back a few times.
Kwan laughed. “You could say that. I guess you’ve never heard of the Lost Boys.”
“No. I’m sorry.” Sebastian felt sincerely bad about that, though it wasn’t exactly a surprise. At least, not to him. He tried to offer an explanation: “But really, I don’t know anything about popular music anywhere. My parents prefer classical, and we listen to a lot of opera.” Kwan’s eyes went wide at that, and Sebastian wasn’t sure if he was appalled or impressed. “Uh, sometimes if we’re in a silly mood we listen to Gilbert and Sullivan.”
“Who’s that?” asked Ujin.
“Oh, it’s a writer-and-composer team who wrote these funny operettas in the late eighteen hundreds in England. Um…The Pirates of Penzance?” asked Sebastian hopefully.
Ujin shook his head.
“Okay, well, they wrote these funny opera things. Um…they’re pretty funny….” Why oh why couldn’t he think of a better descriptor?
“ ‘I am the very model of a modern major-general. I’ve information vegetable, animal, and mineral…,’ ” recited Kwan slowly.
Sebastian turned and looked at him, surprised. “Yeah! Yeah, that’s from Pirates, yeah. You know it?”
Kwan smiled. “A bit.” He stood up and crossed over to Yejun, who passed him another soda. He tapped at it thoughtfully.
Suddenly the bus lurched to the left, sending both Yejun and Kwan flying, depositing them on the sofa nearby.
A voice came over the loudspeaker, explaining what had happened, Sebastian assumed.
“What’s going on?” he asked as Kwan staggered back over to him.
“It looks like your kidnappers may have found us,” he replied as he walked toward the rear of the bus. Sebastian stood and followed.
The bus’s windows were so darkly tinted that it was hard to see anything outside except the lights of cars whooshing past. But the rear window was covered by a blind, not a tint, so they were able to pull it up and see what was
going on. Cheese joined them, and the three boys stared at the car behind them.
“Our driver said they tried to run us off the on-ramp to the bridge. There.” Kwan pointed. “I think that’s them. What do you think?”
Sebastian thought Kwan was exactly correct. It wasn’t hard to recognize his three pursuers staring at the bus, as menacing as always.
“Whoa, cool looks,” said Ujin, materializing at his side.
Sebastian had never thought of it that way, but they were indeed very distinct-looking guys. “They should be in a band,” Sebastian said quietly to himself.
Cheese snorted and gave Sebastian a hearty slap on the back. I guess he liked that, thought Sebastian. Which is weird. I’m not normally the funny one.
“I hate tailgating,” said Sebastian as the car drove closer and closer, practically touching the bus’s bumper.
“What’s that?” asked Ujin.
“When people drive too close to you. It’s usually meant to intimidate you. To get you to speed up, break the law. It’s so disrespectful.” Of course, in this case there was a little more to it, but still, the fundamentals of tailgating had always really upset Sebastian.
“Well, it’s working on me,” said Kwan. “Those guys mean business.”
“Yeah.”
They closed the blind and made their way back to the couches. The rest of the band gathered around. “What does everyone think?” asked Kwan.
“I think those guys are the bad guys,” replied Toy.
“Me too,” said Ujin.
“I think,” said Yejun, carefully removing his glasses and giving them a wipe, “it’s time for a car chase.”
Sebastian wasn’t entirely sure he agreed with them. He was feeling ridiculously guilty, pushing these really nice guys into such a dangerous situation. “You know, you could just drop me off, let me run for it.”
“No way! You’re an honorary member of the Lost Boys now!” said Kwan.
“Since when?” asked Sebastian, completely confused.
“Since just this second.”
“Okay, but that doesn’t make sense. You guys don’t really know me. Plus, of course, there’s the fact that I don’t sing or dance—”
Kwan raised his hand, and Sebastian stopped talking. “And your band name is going to be…” He looked to his bandmates for help.
“Mr. Kidnap!” said Toy enthusiastically.
“English!” said Yejun.
“No. I know,” said Kwan with a grin. “Opera Boy.”
Sebastian furrowed his brow, not sure that was the best choice, and not too terribly happy about being given a nickname in the first place. He had always been suspicious of nicknames.
“Yes!” said Ujin. And everyone else nodded enthusiastically. Cheese even let out a small whoop.
Well, evidently Sebastian was outnumbered on that one.
Kwan stood and gestured for Sebastian to follow, which he did. They made their way to the front of the bus and stood next to the driver.
“Okay,” said Kwan, “let’s lose those guys.”
The driver nodded and veered left sharply, sending Sebastian stumbling toward him. Sebastian grabbed onto the driver’s seat for dear life. “Hang on!” said the driver, and smiled at Sebastian.
Probably should have said that first, thought Sebastian as he straightened up. He stared out the front window as the driver, with impressive dexterity, slalomed between various cars on the brightly lit suspension bridge. The bus was fast approaching a pair of inverted-Y-shaped towers from which cables ran down to street level. From Sebastian’s angle they looked like gleaming translucent pyramids. He stared up in wonder as the bus passed under them.
“We are on the Incheon Bridge, the longest bridge in South Korea, the sixth-longest cable bridge in the world,” Kwan informed him with a smile. Sebastian could only nod in response. “We usually go a bit of a longer way around to Seoul, through Incheon, to avoid the reporters if we can,” explained Kwan. It was hardly necessary for him to do so, as Sebastian had no idea what a direct route would look like anyway. But he did appreciate that Kwan cared to explain such things, and thus seemed to understand that going any route but direct was generally illogical. He was starting to really like this guy.
Despite the great length of the bridge they were driving so fast that they were soon across it and heading toward the lights in the distance approaching them quickly. The bus continued its dangerous dance, skipping past cars and even at times driving on the shoulder of the highway itself. It was a dance that seemed to take both forever and no time at all. Sebastian was shocked, when Kwan finally announced they’d made it into Seoul itself, to learn that they’d been driving for over an hour. Why had it seemed so fast? He supposed running for your life did make the time pass.
This was his first real view of the city. It looked very modern to Sebastian, with brightly lit signs and tall buildings everywhere. Best were the occasional glimpses of what he’d learned was called the N Seoul Tower, standing on a mountain in the distance. It almost seemed like a beacon.
The bus whipped around corners, and still, every time Sebastian looked back at Toy, perched at the rear window, he’d see the boy shake his head. “Still on us!”
“Man, they are relentless!” said Sebastian. “Are you sure you don’t want to just drop me off? I can make a run for it. In some ways it’s harder to chase a person than a bus.”
“No way,” replied Kwan. “Anyway, we’re almost there, and there’s no way they’ll find us then.”
“What are you talking about? They’re right behind us!”
“You’ll see.”
It seemed impossible. They were downtown, surrounded by tall buildings and stores and restaurants. There was no place to hide a bus. There was certainly no way to outrun their pursuers. The bus turned sharply then and immediately began its descent into an underground garage. Sebastian couldn’t help but duck as they approached the low ceiling, as if somehow that would help the bus be less tall. The bus cleared the entrance, just barely. Sebastian turned around.
“They’re still there!” shouted Toy.
“Don’t worry,” said Kwan, grinning from ear to ear, seeming to be thoroughly enjoying this.
“I think I will, actually,” replied Sebastian, closing his eyes and bracing himself as they headed at top speed toward a wall. The bus veered suddenly, impossibly, to the left and made it around the corner. They were now heading up a tight narrow ramp. Then there was another wall, and another. As impressed as he was by their driver’s skill, Sebastian couldn’t help but start to feel a little nauseous, and more than ready for all the quick turns to stop.
“It’s working. They’re falling behind!” called Toy.
“We just need them to fall back a little more,” said Kwan, almost to himself.
Sebastian stared out the front window as they drove up and up out of the garage and straight toward what seemed to be the edge of the parking platform.
“Uh, guys?” said Sebastian, staring at the railing and the roofs of various businesses across the street.
“Just a little farther…,” said Kwan.
They didn’t seem to be slowing down. In fact, they seemed to be speeding up.
“Uh…guys…?” repeated Sebastian, this time backing away slowly from the front window into the kitchenette area.
“Now!” called out Kwan. Sebastian watched the boy brace himself, and was reminded of that landing he’d experienced in the plane not so long ago. He grabbed on to whatever he could find, which unfortunately turned out to be the handle of the fridge. The refrigerator door swung open and threw him backward, skidding on the shiny floor. All he could see through the front window were stars, and all he could feel was a sense of weightlessness as his body rose into the air. Yejun grabbed his wrist and held him tight.
They landed with
a thud, but the connection they made with the ground was not nearly as impactful as Sebastian had been anticipating. Instead, it still felt like they were falling, but much more slowly. Sebastian stood up and went to the front. There was nothing outside the window. Only blackness. No stars. No rooftops. He turned around and saw Toy walking toward the front.
“Are they gone?” Sebastian asked.
“Of course they are,” replied Toy with a grin.
Nothing seemed particularly “of course” about the situation, but Sebastian was both too confused and too relieved to care. He stood next to Kwan. “Where are we?”
“We’re at home base,” replied Kwan, turning and giving him a smile.
“We are?”
Kwan nodded. “Yup. This is the secret bus entrance. We don’t use it unless we’re being chased by the paparazzi. Or kidnappers.” He grinned again.
“Oh.”
“We’re in an elevator right now,” explained Toy. “We jumped onto the platform from the parking garage, and it’s taking us down.”
For a moment Sebastian thought back to the elevator in the Explorers Society, that platform he’d once thought was just an entrance but had turned out to be a lift instead. It was kind of like that now, he supposed. Just way bigger. And way darker.
His lack of response quieted down the rest of the boys. The other members of the band gathered round, and they all silently stood staring at the black wall in front of them, waiting.
A few more moments passed, and then a bright white light broke the darkness from below and rose until the entire front window was filled with it. Sebastian blinked a few times, and once he’d adjusted to the sight, he realized they were entering a large, immaculately kept garage. Not like the dark gray one they’d just left, but more like a showroom you’d see at a car dealership. From his vantage point Sebastian could see several sleek-looking cars in front of them, all different colors. When the bus clunked to a stop and the door was opened, Sebastian marveled as he stepped out.
“Cool, right?” said Kwan, walking up beside him.
Sebastian was not old enough to drive and had never really paid that much attention to cars, but he appreciated an attractive-looking object, and all these cars were definitely seriously pretty.
The Reckless Rescue Page 5
