The Dome Chronicles: Lies

Sixteen

After we finish our hearty breakfast, which ends up being more of a brunch because of how long it takes, my parents finally set us free to do what we want.

Nicholas immediately retreats to his own room while my mother takes the little kids down to the pool. Toby, Peyton and I decide to hide out in our room so that we can come up with a plan to defeat Kappernick.

You might call it evil and diabolical, but we call it Thursday.

"Okay kids, as soon as you're done with your breakfast, daddy and I are giving you some free ti—" my mom doesn't even finish her sentence before the three of us are out of our chairs, darting out of the restaurant and up to the hotel room at lightning speed.

"FREE TIIIIMMEEEE!" Toby shouts as we run towards the elevator.

This hotel staff must think something is seriously wrong with our family.

They're probably right.

Ding! The elevator reaches us and we climb in. Toby presses the button for the third floor and we reach it in no less than twenty seconds, listening to relaxing elevator music on the way up.

"I wanna do the key! Let me do it! Let me do it!" Toby shouts as we reach the room, jumping up and down.

"Fine." I reluctantly give in as I hand him the key card to get in the room.

"Yayyyy!" Toby slides the key card in the slot and opens the door to our room. He skips across the room like a toddler on Christmas day and plops down on the bed.

"So! What's our plan?" Toby asks eagerly, bouncing up and down on the bed.

"We don't have one, you nut head, so just chill. That's approximately why we're here." Peyton states matter-of-factly, throwing in a hair flip at the end to make her statement extra sassy.

"You two are impossible." I sigh. "We have to get this evil plan figured out before Nicholas catches on."

Peyton snorts. "Catch onto what? The man can't take a hint, he's never caught onto anything in his life!"

"True. When mom came back from her doctors' appointment after she found out about the triplets, she said 'Guess what, Nicholas? You know how I've had really weird cravings lately? It's because I'm eating for four and they have really weird taste!' And he was clueless." Toby adds.

"Ok, so...he may not catch on right away, but we just have to keep this between the three of us." I tell them. "We just have to do this quick, before the little kids decide they don't want to swim anymore. In retrospect I would say we have about...fifteen minutes at most."

"Okay then. Let's do this thing!" Toby claps his hands together cheerfully and throws one fist in the air.

I don't even know where to start. Apparently neither of them do, either because at least ten minutes pass by before one of us says something.

"I'm hungry," Peyton frowns. "I'm sorry, all I can think about is food."

"Me too." Toby nods his head. "Why don't we look in the snack bag that mom brought and pick something out."

I roll my eyes. "Seriously, you guys? I swear five minutes doesn't pass by in this family without a single person thinking about food!" I flop back on the bed. Maybe we shouldn't go through with this plan.

It's an awful lot of work, and work takes effort.

"Maybe Freaya's right. Let's just put our heads together and figure this out. Then we'll get food." Toby sighs. "Alright, so first of all, when are we planning to escape this dump? We only have a day and a half before we have to go home."

"We have to do it when they give us free time." Peyton nods. "It can't be obvious or they'll figure it out right away."

"When will that be, though? Tonight? Tomorrow? ...Tonight? We don't know." I scratch my chin.

"Why don't we ask?" Peyton shrugs. "We just have to do it nonchalantly. They won't suspect a thing."

I sit up on the bed. "Good thinking." I tell her. "We should do that now so we can figure out a timeline of when to leave."

"I volunteer as tribute!" Toby shouts. When me and Peyton give him a weird look, he just shrugs.

"What? I'm just saying that I want to be the one to ask."

"That's a start, I guess. Toby, you go get my walkie talkie; it's sitting on the desk to the right of the bed. Peyton, grab a notebook and a pen so we can write our whole plan down on paper. I'll get the snacks. Ready, break." I give the orders at lightning speed for the sake of efficiency, then dart to the other side of the room to grab the snack bag.

Once I've grabbed all the snacks that we need, I plop back down on the bed. Shortly after, Peyton sits down right beside me, notebook and pen in hand. I hear Toby having a conversation with Nicholas through the walkie.

"Hey, um, Nicholas? I...I have a question for you. Actually, on behalf of the girls, too. Freaya and Peyton." He stutters.

"Shoot." I hear Nicholas say on the other end of the line.

"Well..." Toby starts, but Peyton swoops in and takes the walkie from him.

"I'll take this from here." Peyton whispers to him. "Heyyyy Nicholas it's your stepdaughter, Peyton. We were just wondering when we'd be getting time to ourselves in the next couple days. You know, besides right now." She continues.

"Well, you'll have some free time tomorrow..."Nicholas pauses. "Why do you ask?"

"Because," I jump in. "We're playing a game and we won't finish it tonight so we're wondering when we'll get the chance to."

Peyton gives me a silent high five for coming up with an excuse in such short notice.

"We'll give you time to yourselves after breakfast tomorrow, but we're leaving at 5 PM exactly tomorrow night. No later." Nicholas states.

"Okay thank youuuu daddyyyy!" Peyton sings into the walkie. "Byeeee!" She shuts it off and sets it back on the dresser.

"That was close." She mutters.

"Yes, but I think we can finally plan this mission. If we get free time starting after breakfast tomorrow, our time span is from about 11am to 5pm. Which gives us about 6 hours to break into Benjamin's office and save our home." I state confidently. "Peyton are you getting this?"

My sister looks up from her notebook. "Si, señora."

"Okay, what do you have so far? Let's hear it."

"I just wrote down that we have 6 hours tomorrow during free time to save the lives of our people." She says, nodding.

"Good enough." I tell her. "Now we just have to figure out how to blow this popsicle stand without anyone seeing. And figure out where Nicholas' office is. And how we're getting there." I put my hands on my hips like I actually know what I'm doing.

I don't, but I want Toby and Peyton to believe me. I don't want to let them down.

"Well, if things go the way they did today during free time, Mom and Nicholas will be nowhere near the lobby when we leave." Peyton reminds me.

"As far as transportation goes, we could borrow one of the hotel vans they have. They're down by where we parked, in the ramp. Let's just steal one of those." She shrugs. "Easy as pie."

"I saw that they have keys for those vans behind the front desk in the lobby. All we have to do to get them is create some sort of distraction." I add. "And judging by how things went at the hospital trying to get into the hallway the first time, that'll be no problem."

"Hey! My dancing skills were on point!" Toby argues. He leaps up from the bed and spins around, then awkwardly crosses his arms and jerks his head back.

"I'm as cool as a cucumber."

Peyton looks at him like he just asked her to lick the bottom of his foot.

"Mmmm...no you're not."

"I'm gonna have to go with her on this one." I point towards Peyton with my left thumb. "You're about as cool as an overheated microwave."

"Alright, less insulting, more planning!" Toby smacks his hands together and yells like a drill sergeant.

"Don't make me pull out my cornet!"

Peyton leans over towards me. "He's scaring me right now. I'm scared." She mutters under her breath.

"You know what the funny thing is, though? He's right. We've literally gotten nothing done since we all came in here 30 minutes ago." I whisper back.

She shrugs. "It's not like we've gotten nowhere. We just need to get farther down the road quicker." She concludes her statement with a nod.

"That's actually a really good philosophy." Toby's face lights up. "I could use that!"

"Hey now, buddy. That quote's from me and me only. Copyright Peyton Parker." She squints her eyes at him, gets up from the bed and starts inching towards him. "If I find out you use that I will hunt you down!"

"Okay, okay! Yeesh! You're intense!" Toby puts his hands out in front of him.

"So we've established how we're getting there." I quickly change the subject to regain their focus. "But we need to figure out how to get inside. We should figure out the location of Nicholas' lair so we can try and establish what types of security they have in place. Now, how do we do that? I have no idea. However, we can't fail if we don't try." I explain.

I see Peyton nod a couple times when I'm talking as she writes everything down in her notebook.

"So, I guess the first step is to do some research. Look up Kappernick's name and find out where he's located. Chances are you aren't going to find any results for 'Benjamin Kappernick evil lair' because that would be too obvious. It will probably be listed as his occupation or workplace." I continue.

"Any questions?" I look at them and they both shake their heads.

"Great. Now, let's get to work." I tell them as I hop on the computer on the desk in our hotel room. "We can't afford to waste any time."