With few trees to drop leaves, and those nearly dead from lack of watering, the Machineland Plaza was almost clean. “We haven’t seen any trash anywhere,” Jimox observed.
Teina nodded. “They shut everything down, locked up, and took out the trash. Nice of them.”
When they reached the center of the plaza, Jimox turned a slow circle.
“Eerie. Of all places in the world, this one should be full of movement and sound. The Kid’s Motorway is all around us, the Space Rockets are between those snack bars, and the Machineland Express has three stations, there, there, and there. The Bumper Cars are that way, the Flying Baskets are right behind them, the entrance to the Wild Roller Ride is up that walkway . . . and it’s all completely still and silent. Very weird.”
Teina studied the eating places. “Looks like mostly junk food, hot dogs and stuff. Not very good scrounging — it’ll all be garbage.”
NEBADOR Book Eight: Witness 93
They wandered among the silent rides, shuttered snack counters, and locked souvenir shops. “Could any of it be made to work again?” Teina asked.
“Not without electricity, lots and lots of electricity,” Jimox replied. A moment later, he frowned in thought.
Teina noticed. “What?”
“Except . . . the roller coasters work by gravity. If you could get a car up the lift hill, like with a winch, then you could ride it down the rest of the way!”
Teina smiled, and a sparkle appeared in her eyes just knowing she might be able to experience a tiny sampling of the thrills the place once gave children from all over the world.
For a few minutes at each ride, the pair of young monkey mammals broke their own rules and indulged themselves in the mischievous dreams of every child.
They
walked on the Kid’s Motorway lanes, even the elevated sections, once forbidden to anyone but employees rushing to restart a stalled car.
The metal cables that suspended the Space Rockets, already starting to rust, creaked as they used their bodies to make the rockets swing back and forth.
They tried all the valves and levers in the engineer’s cab of the Machineland Express. Nothing worked, except the bell, and it rang so loudly they cringed and dashed away, glancing around with guilty faces.
The Flying Baskets would swing and spin in place a little, but nothing else.
The Wild Roller Ride called to them also, allowing the pair to creep along catwalks, climb access ladders, and peer behind the fading plywood facades of fantasy houses and mythical creatures.
But when they gazed at the tracks that climbed the huge lift hill and tried to imagine winching a roller coaster car to the top, they looked at each other and shook their heads.
NEBADOR Book Eight: Witness 94
Eventually they returned to the Machineland Plaza.
“Yep,” Teina agreed. “Very silent, very still, very weird.”
