Madeline Beaufort and the Moon Thief

Chapter Two: Grand Horizons

They traveled about an hour to their destination. She rationally understood that she wouldn't see anything extraordinary on her drive quite yet, but that didn’t stop Madeline’s face from being pressed up against the window the whole trip. After some time riding, in a precisely choreographed move, their car peeled off, away from the convoy.

“Why aren't they coming?” Madeline asked as she watched the convoy go down another road.

“We don’t need anymore active agents. They’ll draw too much attention looking like that anyways.” explained Rex “Don’t worry, we’ll be in a secure location. Agents there too, just not as dressed up.”

This only made Madeline wonder why all the agents and security was necessary in the first place, she attempted to come up with some explanations and concluded that either Rex or herself were very important to this nameless agency, or there was a dangerous enemy out there she’d now aligned herself against. She prefered to not think much about the latter.

The lights and the roar of the roller-coasters could be seen and heard nearly a mile away as they approached the theme park. Had the purpose of their visit not been made clear to Madeleine, she would have been somewhat disappointed, never being all too enthused with the rides.

She had come to this place some years earlier on a class field trip, as the park’s theme was somewhat space oriented and had a lackluster observatory. This was really more of a gimmick, but achieved it’s purpose in convincing schools to bring students here on “educational” trips. Madeline, upon her original visit was a little more than distraught when the astronomy show lasted less than a half hour, and nobody, including the teachers, seemed to care how little they actually were taught about space.

But now, the whole place held a new fascination with Madeline as she attempted to process it’s secret. They rolled up to a teenage valet, who was really doing no more than informing people of where to park themselves. The driver flashed a VIP pass at the adolescent boy who nodded and pointed towards spaces at the front of the lot. Which employees knew of of it’s purpose as a front, she wondered. This kid couldn't know anything, he was probably hired off the street, unless, she realized, he was an alien too. In this moment she started to realize the complexities of what Rex had tried to explain to her earlier, that she really wouldn’t ever perceive anyone or anything the same again.

They parked and walked towards the ticket booths, the neon flashing sign above them boldly titled “Grand Horizons” in all capital letters. Rex walked up to the ticket booth and passed the worker the VIP pass, and the worker informed them to go on ahead.

They walked past all the loud rollercoasters, grown men in alien mascot costumes and rigged games to one particular ride. The line for “Wacky Wormhole” was short, but Rex and Madeline took the VIP line to the front anyways.

Madeline had ridden this before on her class trip but with her new-found knowledge the obvious connection now occurred to her. Rex noticed her eyes growing wide.

“Before you get your hopes up, it’s not actually an Einstein-Rosen bridge.” He chuckled. Only momentarily disappointed Madeline saw the humor in the situation and laughed too.

They hopped into the little boat on tracks and were fastened in by the attendant. The ride started up and they entered the tunnel, psychedelic lights and planet models rotating all around the walls, with little alien animatronics dancing on their flanks. The ride was clearly meant for small children and stoners as it crawled along at its snail pace.

Rex piped up “Oh I forgot to ask you, I hope you don't have a problem with roller-coasters cause this thing is about to pick up”

“Funny.” Madeline retorted.

As she vocalized the sarcastic utterance, two levies protruded from the water, and the liquid began to drain from the small portion of the track. The railway switched downwards at a forty-five degree into the now drained hole.

“I wasn’t joking.” Rex replied as the boat careened over the edge.

The boat rocketed down a bleak subway style tunnel at a breakneck pace. The passage lit by white lights was in stark contrast to the dark tunnel of colored LED creations just prior. After a considerable distance she realized that there was a slight downward curve to the tunnel, and that they were likely still under Grand Horizons. After an indistinguishable amount of time the boat began to slow, finally coming to a stop in front of two big white doors.

Two doors closed behind them and a mist rained down from the ceiling. Rex’s disguise began to fizzle and distort, as nanites fell from their positions.

“Dammit! What did I tell you about starting decontainment before we deactivate the nanites!”

The white doors in front of them opened. A figure could be seen on the other side but madeline’s eyes were irritated from the spray and couldn’t exactly make it out.

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>_ Describe the figure