by Ben Mezrich
• • •
Six thirty p.m. Just a few minutes before the close of the day’s games.
“Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven . . .”
Charlie was eight feet above the ground and moving like a spider monkey, hands burning against the thick twists of rope, shoes barely glancing against the sides of the ladder as he shimmied forward. At the moment, all he saw were numbers, flashing around his head as he moved up the ropes—translucent and green, flashing behind his eyes as his body automatically calculated angles and weight, pivot points and torque. The numbers were everything—how his weight countered the natural spin of the ropes, how his center of mass had to be measured against the rotational pull of gravity. The numbers were his weapon, his strength, his own personal magic spell, and he could wield them like nobody else.
“Six. Five. Four . . .”
A few more feet, weight shifting back and forth, body smoothly moving up, and then there, right in front of him, was the little button by the bell. His right arm shifted up, palm out, as his left arm moved in tandem, balancing those numbers, perfecting the equation, and then—
“Three. Two. One!”
His palm hit the button and the bell exploded in metallic ecstasy. The crowd of onlookers cheered, and Charlie’s head cleared; the numbers sped back into the computer of his mind. He was staring straight down through the top two rungs at the rubber mat that covered the ground now ten feet below. His heart thudded, and for a brief second he almost lost track of his arms and legs, almost twisted over and sent himself plummeting down. But then, above the shouts, he could hear both Sam’s and Finn’s voices, and he fought back against the torque, refusing to let himself fall. He slid back down the ropes, hands and feet working together as he had been taught, and then righted himself at the base of the ladder.
The crowd was dispersing as the carny handed him another winning ticket. When the man turned away to take payment from the next kid in line for the ladder, Charlie suddenly found himself face-to-face with Magic, who was smiling from beneath what looked to be a turban. The turban was a heck of a contrast to Magic’s tie-dyed T-shirt and cargo shorts, but then, in the cultural smorgasbord that was Incredo Land, nothing was really out of place.
Before Charlie could say a word, Magic shoved a large plastic bag against his chest. Magic leaned close, whispering into his ear.
“This is for you. Don’t spend it all in one place.”
Then he walked right past and headed toward the entrance to the tent.
Charlie waited until he was gone, then opened the top of the bag and peered inside.
Tickets. Jumbled together in thickets ten and twenty deep. He couldn’t know for sure, but from the weight of the bag and what he could see, it had to be more than five hundred of them, maybe even closer to six. That meant that they’d all been winning at about the same rate, each of them winning more than ninety percent of the way through their matching budgets. Even if other groups of kids were also pooling their tickets, Charlie doubted he was in much danger of losing. Even though there were still a few more minutes left in the day, obviously the team felt pretty confident they had it in the bag. Everything had gone according to plan.
And the truth was, he had loved every minute of it. His skin felt like it was on fire, and his heart was still pounding from the rope ladder. He hefted the bag up, holding it tightly against his chest like he was holding his favorite pillow, and fought the urge to laugh out loud.
“Charlie! Drat, man, you’ve been in here all day?”
Charlie turned to where Magic had just disappeared, catching sight of Jeremy as he bounced through the threshold of the tent. For the moment, at least, Jeremy’s anger at him from the morning had seemed to disappear; Jeremy’s face was a study in pure joy, from his bright red cheeks to the clown-size smile drawn across his lips. His red hair was matted with sweat, and his arms were pumping happily along as he crossed toward Charlie.
“We had the best freaking day. We hit the Space Drop three times, the Haunted Moon twice, and Saturn’s Rings broke down halfway into the ride, so they let us stay on as long as we wanted after they got it going. I think my brain is still spinning around in my skull. Man, you got stuck with the worst group.”
Charlie’s attention shifted halfway into Jeremy’s monologue, as loud cursing erupted from directly ahead. It took him less than a second to realize where the cursing was coming from. Even without the theatrics, Dylan was hard to miss; at the moment, the big thug was bouncing from foot to foot, his fists pounding against a gaming counter as he shouted words that would have gotten him kicked out of school for a week. Charlie looked past Dylan’s angry, heaving shoulders, and saw that his nemesis was standing at the milk-bottle game, and it was plain what had just happened. Ten feet ahead of Dylan stood two obstinate milk bottles, one of them barely rocking in place, next to four downed bottles. Dylan was yelling at a carny who was just shrugging and shaking his head as Dylan’s two buddies, Liam and Dusty, cursed right along with their leader.
Charlie stifled a grin and was about to turn back to Jeremy, when he noticed Sam standing a few feet to Dylan’s right, also watching the display with an amused look in her gray eyes.
Charlie felt something inside of him click.
He turned back to Jeremy and handed him the plastic bag full of tickets.
“Hold this for me? I’ll be right back.”
And then he was strolling forward toward Dylan and the milk bottle game. His adrenaline was pumping, but he kept his limbs from shaking as he slid up to the counter a few feet away from Dylan, and signaled to the carnie. The carny leaned toward him, and Charlie whispered into the man’s ear.
“Set it back up, but this time, put the heavy bottle on top.”
The carny stared at him.
“Sorry?”
“You heard me. Look, I know how this game works. And if you don’t want everyone else to know, put the heavy bottle on top.”
The carnie thought for a moment. Then he shrugged, walked over to the bottles, and restacked them into a pyramid. Charlie steeled his nerves again and strolled over to where Dylan was standing.
“Hey, Dylan. You mind if I try one throw?”
Dylan, Liam, and Dusty turned as one. Dylan peered down at Charlie, and then a huge laugh burst from his mouth.
“Hah! You, Numbers? This is hilarious! You couldn’t knock over an empty soda can! Sure, give it your best shot!”
Dylan stepped back, palms out, sarcastic look in his eyes, as if he was handing Charlie the keys to the world. Charlie grabbed a baseball from the counter, squared his feet, took aim, and then let fly.
It wasn’t a great throw by any means, but it was straight, just hard enough, and it hit the bottles near the base of the pyramid. The pyramid wobbled back, then suddenly collapsed, all six bottles tumbling down. There was a moment of silence, and then laughter and applause from all around. Dylan stared at Charlie in utter shock.
“How the heck did you do that?”
“I don’t know,” Charlie responded over the rush in his ears. “Like you said, I just gave it my best shot.”
Without another word, he strolled back to where Jeremy was standing and took the plastic bag from his aghast friend. Jeremy stared at him, trying to find words. Charlie glanced back toward Sam, and even better, she was covering her mouth because she was laughing so hard.
Charlie gave Jeremy a friendly punch in the shoulder, then tucked the bag of tickets under his arm and headed for the exit. In his head, it was like a dozen carnies were shouting at him at once.
Winner. Winner. Winner!
18
THE SKY WAS A dull purple by the time most of the crowd had filed out of the midway tent and down the few remaining yards of Solar Avenue to the steps of Moon Base Alpha. As settings went, the Moon Base’s steps were as official a place for an awards ceremony as Charlie could have imagined; the imposing pyramid-shaped building gave off a feeling of importance. From where Charlie was standing next to Jeremy in a crowd of ki
ds at least twenty thick, everything felt very real and intense.
“Come on, man,” Jeremy mumbled, for what had to be the hundredth time. “We’re going to be late for the monorail, and Warden Walker is going to have our butts. What the heck are we doing here, anyway?”
Charlie didn’t answer. Instead, he glanced around the crowd, picking out the faces of the rest of his team. Finn and Magic were together a few feet to his right, and Greg, Sam, Jake, and Daniel were behind them, below the bottom step. Charlie didn’t see Miranda anywhere, but he assumed she was watching from somewhere. None of them would be there without her, of course; she had to be savoring the moment.
“I mean, you can’t really care about some stupid midway game contest, can you? Some kid’s gonna win a free T-shirt or something, and we’re all standing around waiting to shake his hand?”
Again, Charlie didn’t answer, because something was happening beyond the top of the steps; the main doors to the Moon Base slid upward, and out stepped two men. The first, Charlie recognized: gray curly hair, a dark suit, a wide smile, and friendly green eyes. He was the same man from the YouTube video that Miranda had shown Charlie the first time he’d been introduced to the Carnival Killers. This time, instead of standing near the Loopy Wheel, he was strolling along, holding a thin envelope in his right hand.
The second man he didn’t recognize: tall, dark-haired, with wire-rimmed glasses and a jaw that ended in an almost perfect triangle. He walked in step with the gray-haired man, but instead of an envelope, he held what looked to be a heavy burlap sack. The sack was imprinted with lettering, dark and clear, that Charlie could read even from that distance: INCREDO LAND CHARITIES. Charlie wondered what a sack like that could possibly contain, and what it had to do with the ceremony.
He wouldn’t have to wonder long, because as soon as the two men reached the lip of the steps, someone handed the gray-haired man in the suit a wireless microphone. The man smiled at the crowd, then cleared his throat.
“Thank you all for coming, and for a wonderful day at the midway tent. As you all know, our annual promotion has now come to a close, and I’m here to announce the lucky winner who will get a spin at the Wheel of Wonder!”
A smattering of applause rang out. Jeremy sighed, rather loudly, but Charlie ignored him. The man pinned the microphone under one arm, causing a loud spike of feedback but freeing his hands. He then tore into the envelope and pulled out a little piece of white paper. He read the name on the paper to himself, and then retrieved the microphone.
“And our winner, with six hundred and thirty prize tickets: Charlie Lewis, from Nagassack Middle School in Newton, Massachusetts!”
Jeremy gasped. Jeremy hadn’t even seen Charlie turn in all his tickets; Charlie had handed them over to a booth attendant on the way out of the midway tent, filling out his name and school affiliation while Jeremy was busy getting photographed next to a bulgy-eyed space alien.
Charlie’s stomach flipped over, and then he was being pushed forward by a hand in the small of his back. He heard Finn whisper a hearty congratulations, and then he was moving up the steps, as if on autopilot. When he reached the top, the gray-haired man shook his hand, then handed the microphone to the stranger with the glasses and the burlap sack.
The stranger smiled at Charlie.
“Young man, congratulations. Tomorrow morning, nine a.m., you’ll be spinning the wheel for a chance at a wonderful prize.”
Charlie stared out at the crowd, savoring the moment. He was barely listening as the man continued, his mind already speeding ahead to that wheel and what it was going to be like standing there, spinning it, surreptitiously reaching for the iPhone in his pocket.
“Eight lifetime tickets to Incredo Land, which in itself is a priceless prize. But on top of that, we have a special, surprise announcement to make. This year, Incredo Land will be making a donation to the Tampa chapter of the American Red Cross. And as part of our promotional effort to raise awareness for this wonderful cause, we’re also matching that donation with a cash prize for today’s midway game winner. Something as spectacular as the future itself! This!”
With a flourish, he overturned the burlap sack, spilling its contents onto the porch at his feet. A hush went through the crowd, and Charlie’s eyes shot open.
“Fifty thousand dollars!” the man crowed into the microphone as Charlie and the rest of the crowd took in the banded stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Two Incredo Land lackeys in gray work shirts moved to scoop up the bills and shove them back in the sack as the man continued to talk. “Donated by our corporate headquarters this year, and this year only, to celebrate the fact that the Tampa Red Cross raised over two million dollars in the Tampa area over the past twelve months! On the stage tomorrow, next to the wheel, we’ll have a box set up to take donations for the Tampa Red Cross, but right now, it’s all about you, Charlie! Congratulations!”
Charlie’s throat constricted. Fifty thousand dollars. He watched as a pair of photographers began photographing the money, obviously for publicity purposes. Cash made a much better picture than a check in an envelope. It was doubtful they’d be handing that kind of money over to a kid; they’d be giving it to the kid’s parent or guardian for safekeeping. Charlie felt his face flush from the inside.
Miranda had mentioned there would be a cash prize, but she’d said it was nominal, something small and unimportant, and that it would be donated to charity—specifically, to her education program. Fifty thousand dollars? That was real money.
“That’s right, Charlie,” the man continued. “Tomorrow morning, you’ll be spinning the wheel with a chance to win those tickets, and fifty thousand dollars in cash!”
Charlie’s head swam. He looked out into the crowd. Jeremy was still staring at him, mouth wide open, awed. Finn, Magic, Sam, and the rest were clapping, surprised as well, but obviously thrilled. He blinked hard, not knowing what to think.
So much money. When it was just tickets, and maybe a trivial amount of money given to charity, well, it was easy to see it all as an exciting caper, mind over matter, using their brains to beat a beatable game. But this kind of prize changed everything. And using his iPhone tomorrow to beat the wheel, for fifty thousand dollars in cash . . .
Charlie blinked again, and suddenly, right in the center of the crowd, he saw her. Those dark bangs glowing in the blue light from the castle looming in the distance, those cat eyes flashing as they stared right into his own, those white teeth gleaming in that frighteningly perfect smile.
Miranda. She was looking right into his mind, and for a brief moment, her red lips straightened, and her head nodded, imperceptibly. She was proud of him, but more than that, she was telling him that he wasn’t finished yet, that tomorrow morning he was going to spin that wheel. The one missing piece, the diameter of the wheel, which Charlie needed to know to make his equation work, that was just a detail, one that Miranda had a way of providing. Because it was obvious now, Miranda had thought all of this through. Every step.
The dark-haired, bespectacled man continued into the microphone.
“Tomorrow morning, Charlie, you’ll have a one in five chance of winning it all.”
Charlie shivered, because he knew the truth. The man was wrong. With the diameter of the wheel and his dad’s iPhone in his pocket, it wasn’t going to be a one in five chance.
It was going to be a mathematical certainty. Numbers doing what numbers were supposed to do.
Winner. Winner. Winner . . .
19
YOU GOT TEN MINUTES, lovebirds. If you hear me whistle, get out, fast.”
Charlie pressed his back against the brick wall, watching the shadows play across the narrow alley. He could hear Sam breathing next to him in short, nervous gasps as she slid along the wall next to him, feeling her way over the rough bricks with the palms of her hands. Charlie was happy to let her lead. He’d never been all that coordinated, and his night vision was pretty near pathetic. Even in the dull blue glow from the Castle in the distanc
e and the drifting neon light from Solar Avenue just a dozen yards behind them, he was pretty near blind. The scruffy-haired park employee moving through the alley ahead of them, leading without ever looking back, was just a shape in the darkness; Charlie couldn’t make out the spikes of his hair, let alone the scar above his lip. If he’d known the guy’s name, he might have called out to him to slow down, but then again, he probably wouldn’t have had the guts. He didn’t want to talk to him any more than he had to. He still wasn’t sure what the man’s job was at the park, or what Miranda had offered him to get him to help them, but Charlie was certain that he wanted very little to do with the guy. He was pretty sure Sam felt the same way, because she hadn’t gotten closer than three feet to him since he’d let them into the park through a back gate in a shadowy corner of the docking station. When he’d brought them to the alley, just a few buildings down from Moon Base Alpha, and pointed toward the warehouselike structure where they’d need to go, they had simply followed, wordlessly, staying as small and invisible as possible. Nobody would think twice, seeing a park employee wandering around after closing, but two kids would be a lot harder to explain.
“And if you touch anything other than the wheel,” the scarred man said, stopping halfway down the alley and jabbing a hand in their direction, “you’re gonna be in big trouble.”
He shifted the same knifelike hand toward the brick wall, pointing at a window, which was at about the man’s shoulder level. As Charlie and Sam inched closer, Charlie could see that the window was halfway open. It was too dark to make out anything inside, but Charlie guessed that if a screen had been there, it was now gone. Scarface had taken care of everything. Or more accurately, had done whatever Miranda had asked of him.
Charlie trembled, as Scarface gave them one last look; then the man hurried back down the alley toward Solar Avenue. A second later, Charlie and Sam were utterly alone, both of them still pressed against the wall, listening to the breeze play across the gravel beneath their feet. It was strange, being in that place after dark. And especially being alone with Sam. Being next to her like that in the dark made his pulse quicken; it was a strange feeling, one he couldn’t quite define. Sure, sometimes Crystal had made him lose his words—when she did something particularly cute, or laughed just the right way—but this was different. This was something much more palpable, in his gut. Everything about this moment had him on edge, tingling like he was about to catch fire.
