“Operation Peacock is go.” Agent Jones spoke into his hidden mic and the troop of black shirts disguised as Republic of ChaCha rebels burst from the jungle bearing machine guns, shouting and shooting into the air. In the audience, the Corporation employees screamed and dove for cover under their seats. Some ran for the beach and the disguised black shirts shot them down. Shanti made a dive for the flare gun, but one of the black shirts kicked it out of the way.
The Peacock stood on the sidelines, a dazed look on his face. “What is the meaning of this?” he finally shouted, but the cameras did not swing in his direction. They were focused tightly on the performance area.
“Death to the capitalist symbols!” a fake rebel shouted.
The fake rebels raised their guns. The girls formed a huddle. If they were going out, they were going out together.
“In the name of the Republic of ChaCha, we —”
The curtains parted with a sudden arrival.
“What the hell is that?” one of the black shirts said.
Miss Miss rattled down the runway on squeaky wheels, but she was no longer clad in just a sash. No, Miss Miss had come to compete in a slinky pink evening gown that stretched across her misshapen body. Her coconut-shell face had been heavily made up with blue eye shadow, rouge, and red lipstick. A chipped rhinestone crown topped her busted wig-of-many-hairpieces. On her right, her twig arm had been turned upward, as if in a wave. The momentum, which had propelled her onto the runway, faded away. Miss Miss tottered slightly on her wheels and at last came to a stop near the end of the runway, where she sat, waiting, like some ancient idol. For a moment, everyone was utterly spellbound. Even the ocean quieted to a gentle purr.
The hiss of walkie-talkie static punctured the stillness. Taylor’s voice rang out. “Miss Teen Dream is a light in the darkness. Patriot Daughters can and Patriot Daughters do!”
“Do you hear that?” Agent Jones’s voice could just be heard coming through the earpiece of a fake rebel.
“The girl?” the black shirt answered.
“No! Under that. Like a whine or a beep.”
It was hard to tell with Taylor doing a monologue of crazy, but Adina noticed it, too — a faint, steady beep, like a tiny alarm clock.
“Find out where that’s coming from!” Agent Jones demanded via the earpiece.
“What’s going on?” Petra whispered.
“Not sure yet,” Adina whispered back.
“In the pageant of life, a girl fixes the sequins. Fixes. Fixes. So much to fix.” Under the walkie-talkie static, Taylor’s voice was almost little-girlish. “I can’t be what you want me to be.”
“Where is she?” Nicole whispered.
Adina shook her head. She didn’t see Taylor anywhere, and she was afraid of drawing too much attention. Right now, the black shirts were distracted. Distracted was a good thing. Some of them had fanned out to look for Taylor and the source of the beeping. On the sidelines, Agent Jones looked angry and tense as he barked terse orders. The girls needed to use this momentary chaos to their advantage, but how?
“I will represent to the best of my ability the … the … now, come on, Miss Texas!” Taylor giggled. “The, um, dreams of the ultimate sparkle and circle-turn and wave!”
Adina surveyed the scene desperately, looking for a possible exit strategy. She glanced past Miss Miss, then came back again. At first, she could scarcely make out the message. She had to block the light to get a better look. But there was no mistaking it, and a small ha bubbled up inside Adina.
The note had been scrawled in red lipstick on the back of Miss Miss’s sash where only the girls could see it. It was just one word: Run.
“Oh, Taylor, you beautiful, beautiful bitch.” Adina motioned to the others, shouting. “Teen Dreamers! Fall back! Fall back!”
The girls bolted, scattershot, toward the jungle.
“It’s a whole new world of pretty. …” Taylor sang over the walkie-talkie.
“Hey!” One of the black shirts trained his gun on the girls just as another black shirt approached Miss Miss.
“I think that beep’s coming from inside… .”
“Thank you. Thank you. I love you all,” Taylor said.
At that same instant, the watch inside Miss Miss beeped from one to zero, and the most busted-ass beauty queen ever exploded in a spectacular fireball.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Adina’s ears rang and she was covered in a shower of dirt, scorched sticks, and sequins. Chaos. It was chaos. The beach was on fire. Staccato gunfire punctuated clauses of shouting. Black shirts fought with MoMo’s real guards. The remaining Corporation employees screamed and ran, panicked, along the beach. A cameraman asked if he should be getting this, and a black shirt answered by bashing in his camera.
Through the smoke, Adina caught a glimpse of Taylor. She swung down from the tree where she had been hiding and stood at the edge of the jungle, mesmerized. Tendrils of light screamed down from the sky. The white stars of it were reflected in the glassy blue of her eyes. “Pretty …” Taylor said in awe just before the explosives took out a section of trees and sent Adina flying back on her butt. Agent Jones peered into the smoke and pointed to the girls. He signaled his black shirts.
“Time to go, Miss Texas!” Adina warned.
Like a switch had been thrown, Taylor turned and ran. Adina scrambled to her feet and followed the faded glitter of Taylor’s gown into the jungle.
Shanti and Nicole had dodged left in the melee. Now they were running deep into the jungle with a phalanx of black shirts behind them.
“Are they still there?” Shanti called. Her lungs burned and her legs were cut from switches.
In answer, a bullet blasted a chunk from a nearby tree and the girls sped up, twisting and turning through the green.
“I can’t …” Shanti said. “Can’t run …”
“We have to keep moving.”
“You go.”
“Not without you.” Nicole looked around for something — a weapon, a hole, a hiding spot. Through the trees, she saw one of the totems. “Just a little farther, Bollywood.”
They found their way to the ruined temple and slipped between the columns, hiding. The moon wasn’t cooperating; bright and full, it might as well have been a spotlight. Their breath came out in small rips. The men and their guns had arrived. If the girls ran, they’d be easy targets. Their only hope was to remain hidden, and that wasn’t much hope at all. Nicole reached out for Shanti’s hand. Shanti closed her eyes tightly. Her lips moved in silent appeal to whatever ancestral spirits might still live on in this place.
“I think I see something,” one of the black shirts said, and Nicole, too, closed her eyes.
Shanti and Nicole pressed their hands together tightly. A wind soft as a warm breath blew across their faces. It left them and turned fierce, stripping leaves from trees and pulling the dirt from ancient earthen walls. Like an angry fist, it pushed the black shirts from the temple, forcing them back into the jungle. They shouted as sharp grit attacked their eyes and mouths relentlessly. The wind howled with such force that Shanti and Nicole could almost hear something human in its cries. The agents were forced to retreat, chased by the sirocco. Once they were gone, the wind died down. Shanti and Nicole were alone. They did not know what had caused the sudden windstorm.
“Could have been anything,” Nicole said.
“Yeah, anything,” Shanti agreed. “Atmospheric pressure.”
“Sudden tornado.”
The totems did not give any answers. Shanti bowed to the now quiet land. “Thank you.” “Thank you,” Nicole said.
The wind responded with a light flutter of contentment.
Mary Lou and Tane had managed to avoid a direct hit, but the other ship fired again, narrowly missing them. They were on the run in the heavy fog.
“Can we fire back?” Mary Lou asked.
“Dunno. I just figured out how to steer this thing,” Tane answered. “Here. You take over and I’ll take a peek at the control panel.”
They switched places and Mary Lou put her hands on the wheel. She’d driven a car and a tractor, but this was something else entirely. It had the feel of destiny to it. “Man, I could get used to this.”
Mary Lou squinted into the fogbank again just as the ship emerged. She had to shift quickly into reverse to avoid colliding with it, and both she and Tane had to hold on tightly to keep from flying against the yacht’s custom teak cabinets.
“Whoa!” Tane called from the floor.
“Sorry!”
The enemy ship passed with only feet to spare. Mary Lou peered through the windows at it and broke into a huge grin. “I don’t believe it.”
A cannonball narrowly missed the yacht, soaking the bow and sending them wobbling like a toy again. “Tane! Take over!”
She took the spiral staircase at a clip and raced onto the upper deck. “Ahoy there, mateys!” she yelled, waving her arms wildly.
In the fog, she could hear Sinjin St. Sinjin’s order. “Cease your bloody fire, mates! Can’t you see there’s a hot bird ahead?”
Miss Ohio had taken her troops to the trees. “Shooters ready? New Mexico?”
“Ready,” Miss New Mexico answered. The arrows were laid out on the tray in her forehead, ready to go.
“Montana?”
Miss Montana held up her bow. “Check.”
“Arkansas?”
In her good hand, Miss Arkansas held a small coconut. “Oh yeah.”
“I guess we’re good to go,” Miss Ohio said. The footsteps were coming closer. “See them, New Mexico?”
“Not yet, Miss Ohi — do you think we could just call one another by our names?”
Miss Ohio nodded. “Sure thing, Caitlin.”
“Thanks, Caitlin,” Miss New Mexico answered. “Caitlin, I see them. They’re coming from your right.”
“Which Caitlin?” Miss Montana asked. “Me or Caitlin Arkansas?”