Page 202 (This is my favorite)
"Come on, let's find a place we can defend ourselves!" Tom fumbled through the video games he'd played, and came up with a fitting reference: "This is our Alamo."
"Didn't Davy Crockett die at the Alamo?"
"Okay, we're the attacking cyborgs, then."
"There weren't any cyborgs at the Alamo."
"Yeah, there were, Vik."
"I'm confused. Are you talking about the game Alamo or the actual event?"
"Wait, the Alamo really happened?'
Vik whapped the back of Tom's head. "I'm not even from your country and I know that."
Page 233
"Blackburn showed me one of the brains, too," Wyatt went on. "It was one of the adults who survived almost three years with the processor because they gave him a bunch of epilepsy drugs. Once you look past the frontal lobe and the limbic cortex, you see the rest of the brain's atrophied. It looks like a shriveled husk."
There was such a look of horror on Vik's face that Tom started sniggering.
"Wyatt, food," Vik said, gesturing to the punctured crust in front of him, trying to get her to stop talking about this while he was eating.
"Tummy troubles?" Tom asked.
"Die slowly, Tom." Vik glared at him as he shoved a forkful of pot pie in his mouth.
Wyatt waited for Vik to start chewing again. "Maybe not a shriveled husk. More like ground-up shiitake mushrooms."
Vik choked again.
"Actually," Wyatt added, "I think the brain belonged to the person who used to have your processor, Vik."
Vik spat out his food.
Wyatt smirked. "Just kidding."
"You're an Eviler Wench every day," Vik accused her, tossing his napkin down on his meal, giving up on eating.
Page 301
"I've heard a lot about you, Mr. Carolac." Tom smiled, aware that the Trojan he'd planted in Karl while he was unconscious last night was about to activate right... now.
"You and Karl are both making us very--"
Karl farted.
Mr. Carolac swung his watery gaze to Karl's, shocked.
Karl flushed bright red.
He farted again, a loud one that rumbled all the way across the room.
Tom made a show of furrowing his brow, all cavemanlike, as Karl farted again. "I don't know what you're talking about, Karl. Don't blame me if you need a change of diet."
Karl took a menacing step toward him, farting with each movement. The stench mounted in the air.
Dalton seized him. "Karl, for >goodness< sake, go to the restroom."
Karl dashed through the crowd of silent partygoers. Everyone in sight had hands clamped over their noses at the ghastly smelled pervading the air.
They didn't realize it wasn't Karl they were smelling.
It was the septic tank >< had reprogrammed. Gallons and gallons of sewer water were pumping in reverse, filling the sinks, the toilets, soon to be overflowing on the floor.
Tom cleared his throat. "Well, that was just awkward." He gave a canned laugh, and looked at all the adults around him. "I'm going to fetch you ladies and gentlemen some drinks so we can pretend it didn't happen."
But Tom didn't go to the bar. He strolled out the door and was beyond the portcullis when Karl began screaming from the bathroom about the sewage. Tom reached out and swiped the portcullis closed, and then modified its default password to a thirty-number password of his own.
Karl's shouts were followed by Dalton's, then by shouts from the other partygoers. The smell grew so nasty Tom fought back the urge to gag. He settled on the steps and watched through the bars. He listened to the cries of disgust as the sewage backing up the toilets burst out of the bathrooms and seeped through the door into the club.
Mr. Carolac yelled at everyone to evacuate, and then when no one could get through the mechanized portcullis open, yelled for someone to call technical support. Tom began to laugh. He laughed harder when he heard people shouting that their cell phones weren't working.
Loud music began blaring. It wasn't music so much as a shrieking of metal scraping along metal from the speakers, ear-piercing and painful. Fists began pounding on the exits, hands yanking on the portcullis.
Dalton appeared between the steel bars, his turn at trying to yank it up. Tom swaggered into his view. Dalton spotted him, and seemed relieved. "Tom. Tom! Thank >goodness< it's you. You're not trapped in here. Go outside and get us some help."
Tom dug his fists into his pockets and looked over Dalton's predicament with a long, lazy sweep of his eyes. "Hmm. I don't think I will."
Sewage seeped up around Dalton's leather shoes. Tom reveled in the shock on his face.
"Tom!" He hammered on the portcullis. "Get us help right now!"
Tom shook his head, eyes on Dalton's. He leaped down to the bottom of the stairs, his shoes squishing through the sewage bubbling across the floor.
"I might open it, Dalton." Tom leaned in close to the portcullis, staying carefully out of reach. "You know, if you get on your knees and beg me."
"OPEN IT NOW, TOM!"
Tom shook his head, knowing he was grinning like a madman. Dalton's helpless outrage was so wonderful he couldn't stop himself. "No, Dalton. Get on your knees and beg me. Beg me to let you go. Otherwise you can stay there in the sewage all night. And your boss along with you." He made a show of scratching his head. "Gosh, what's he going to think of tonight? First Karl's digestive problems, and now this... Everything we do reflects on you, right?"
Dalton gaped at him.
"Your choice, Dalton. Now, even if you don't beg me, the sewage will stop backing up in about half an hour, so you won't drown. You'll have to endure the stench until someone out there realizes you need rescuing. And hey-" Tom winked at Dalton the way Dalton had earlier, like they shared an inside joke. "-at least you have an open bar."
"Don't you dare leave us!"
"Wrong thing to say." Tom swiveled around and sauntered toward the stairs.
"Wait, wait! Tom, please." A note of hysteria climbed into Dalton's voice.
Tom swung a careless glance over his shoulder but didn't come back. "You're not on your knees, Dalton. I'm not negotiating the condition. The least you can do is get on your knees for me."
"This is a twenty-thousand-dollar suit."
"That's not my problem."
Dalton stared at hi, the music blaring from behind him, the stench of sewage thick on the air. Then he lowered himself to his knees in the muck. "Please open it." His face was set with hard, furious lines, his voice a whip of anger and hurt pride. "Please let us out, Tom."
Tom gazed at Dalton. "No." He headed up the stairs.
The screams followed him...
This book is amazing and enjoyable. I highly recommend it!
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