34. Chapter 34
Sid climbed from the fountain, mindful of the eyes and lenses all focused on him. Embarrassment warred with anger and frustration. It should have been so obvious that getting involved with Jayna would be a mistake. Why hadn't he learned his lesson about gold-digging climbers from Crystal? But no, he allowed himself to be stupid yet again because of a pretty face.
And now, for the second time, Sid was soaking wet because of Jayna.
He walked purposefully to the exit. He didn't want any more of a scene than what he'd already endured, but the puddles trailing behind him through the lobby made that virtually impossible.
Once outside and away from the crowd, Sid broke into a run. The warm night air blowing over his soaked tuxedo felt good, but his soggy leather shoes were not made for running.
How had he let himself get in this mess?
As he reached the edge of the resort, he spied a rack of rental bikes. That's what I need.
Sid pressed his thumb on the biometric reader, and the rack released one of the bikes with a click. He hopped on and began pedaling away from the ball, the resort, and the biggest mistake of his life.
The battery was fully charged, but no matter how hard he pedaled, the bike held stubbornly at twenty kilometers per hour. Sid groaned in frustration. He needed to go fast. But first he'd have to disable the variable speed governor.
If he'd had the right cable, he could have connected his tablet to the bike and, at the very least, set the top speed to a reasonable number.
Without the interface cable, he'd have to use a low-tech solution.
Sid pulled over to the side of the road and leaned the bicycle against a short palm tree. He removed his shoe and swung it over his head, bringing the thick heel down onto the bike's control housing with a satisfying crack. He hammered again and again until the entire assembly clattered to the ground.
Sid replaced his shoe, kicked the bike's ruined control unit into some nearby bushes, and swung himself back into the saddle.
The bike was much harder to pedal without the electric assist, but he didn't care. As long as the bike wasn't working against him, he'd get the necessary speed under his own power.
Sid pedaled hard, up and over the arched bridges linking the wamos to each other. He sped beyond the tourist area and into a residential district dotted with garden plots and swirling white homes. The smell of flowers and tropical fruits filled the air, and the aromas of cooked meals and the sounds of residential life eased Sid's frustration enough that his mind began to process the things Jayna had said.
She had accused him of being a creepy stalker with a mermaid fetish—a mervert! How ridiculous. He hadn't given mermaids a second thought before Emmaline had proposed the idea of buying Realms of Neptune, and he hadn't noticed Jayna personally until she'd drenched him the night he had purchased the park.
What was it with Jayna soaking him? She seemed to be the one with the fetish. And a temper.
And why had she been so surprised he had run a compatibility 'gator? Maybe it had been a little presumptuous of him to have had it run after knowing her for less than a week, but it wasn't out of line.
Yet Jayna claimed he had purchased Realms of Neptune because the aggregator told him to.
He hadn't run the compatibility 'gator until long after he had bought the park. Buying the park wasn't even his idea. It had been Emmaline's. Emmaline was the one who had offered Jayna the ride to Manutai, too. In fact, this entire trip had been Emmaline's idea.
Maybe Emmaline was the one with a mermaid fetish.
The warm night air had dried Sid's tuxedo jacket but failed to reach the shirt underneath, and exertion was overcoming his u-suit. He flapped his arms free of the jacket, one after another. Without slowing, he let it fly behind him. The breeze hitting his wet shirt brought immediate relief.
His legs burned with the effort of pushing himself up and over another arched bridge leading from the residential area into a commercial zone. As he pedaled, his mind gnawed on Jayna's accusations. She seemed convinced that his purchase of Realms had been part of a broader plan to…To what, exactly?
As he raced down the bridge towards the commercial district, a glimmer of realization flashed into his head but disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. The idea flitted around the fringes of his mind, teasing him with understanding yet remaining stubbornly out of reach. His brain was so intent on catching the elusive thought that he nearly missed the flashing blue and red lights immediately ahead of him.
He slowed instinctively and looked down at the bike's speedometer, but without the control module he had no idea how fast he was going.
A lot more than twenty kph, that's for sure.
The flashing lights belonged to a small Manutai police pod. Sid tried to ride past the pod, but an officer in a white uniform shirt and blue wrap-around lavalava stepped into the roadway and motioned for him to stop.
Sid eased the bike to a standstill. His breathing was deep and ragged, but his frustration had finally begun to fade.
"Please get off the bicycle, sir." The officer's voice was soft but measured and left no room for argument.
Concern replaced the last bits of his anger, and Sid did as he was directed.
"You were traveling at nearly fifty-five kilometers per hour. The island-wide speed limit is twenty." The officer shined a light on the mutilated bicycle. "Would you care to explain how that's possible?"
"I was just…" Sid began, but he couldn't find the words. What would he say? I vandalized the bike so I could run away from all my troubles. I'm trying to outrun my own stupidity.
"Sir, I think it would be best for you to come into the station and answer a few questions."
A sudden wave of panic gripped Sid. He hadn't considered the consequences of disabling the bike's controls. He hadn't considered that this was, in fact, a crime, and that Manutai was not known for being tolerant of criminal mischief, and that the speed governor was tied to a legal speed limit.
His night had just become significantly worse.