The Quest for Skye: Chapter 26

Recap: Morgan and Tammy have to decide by morning whether they're going to stay at the clinic, so they have formulated a plan that includes them waiting until noon, spying on Skye because she might be lying about eating lunch with her friends, and somehow sneaking into the room with The Locked Door. Will they be successful? Well, we'll find out.

In the morning, as always, Tammy goes to do actual work at the clinic while Morgan wanders around the beach with Skye, looking for shells. Is this how he administrates his clinic at home, too? If so, they probably shouldn't hire him here.

Skye lays out her plan for a bigger, safer playground for the Batten kids, with rubber mulch and safety pads and more plants. These are pretty decent ideas, and after sharing them, Skye skips off to join her friends.

Ty joined Morgan. “I bet she’s talking to you about her playground idea.”

Wait. Who?

I just did a search in the book. (Yay for ebooks where this is easy to do.) Nobody named Ty has been mentioned at all thus far. What the crap? Where'd he come from? Who is he? Is he a child? Is he a doctor? Is he playground supervisor? Has he even met Morgan before?

Since we haven't been told otherwise, I will assume "Ty" is short for "Tyrion Lannister," because crossovers are cool and, much as I hate all the Game of Thrones characters, they're still not as despicable as the Hamiltons.

“I think she needs to be put in charge of this facility.” Morgan chuckled.

I think she does, too, since Morgan's certainly not doing his job.

Ty(rion) and Morgan chat for awhile. Ty(rion) tells Morgan about a cute restaurant on the island and tells Morgan he and Tammy should stay at the clinic. Skye goes to "eat with the kids" and Morgan sneaks off to go spy on her. Because he's a good person that way.

And then...

Skye opens The Locked Door and walks on in.

Because of COURSE Morgan's out-of-nowhere idiot hunch that Skye was doing something suspicious during lunchtime would be right.

Morgan tries to open the door, but, um, it's a Locked Door (has he learned nothing?) and then a guard appears behind him.

“I thought I saw Skye go in here, and I wanted to talk with her.” 

“I believe she did go in there. That’s where she finds comfort. Poor girl has been through a lot,” the guard’s reply seemed rehearsed. 

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I guess she does need her privacy.”

Oh, silly Hamiltons, with your talk about "privacy" as if that's something you believe people should be allowed to have!

Morgan turned to see Tammy hiding in a storage room across the hall. 

Making sure the guard was out of sight, he darted into the room. “I thought we were supposed to meet in that other room. What are you doing here?” he whispered. 

“A little covert action. I held the door open a crack and looked though this little lens. Guess what? I got the combination when Skye went in.” She held up a small telescope.

WHAT

HUH

WHAT

So Tammy has just... what, spent her morning hiding in the storage room with a telescope watching the Locked Door in case someone went in? Looks like neither of them have done anything productive at all this morning.

You know what could have been almost as effective as all this? ASKING SKYE ABOUT IT. Like they've been told to several times. They are NOT in a spy movie, much as they would like to think they are, and all this sneaking around "covert action" nonsense is just ridiculous.

The combination is "8-16-1." Tammy excitedly says that that's the number she saw on the mysterious green screen. Morgan points out that Tammy said the numbers on the screens were the kids' birthdays. They suddenly both realize that 8/16/01 is Skye's birthday, which leads them to the conclusion that Skye has Batten and is actually a patient here.

WELL IT'S ABOUT TIME THEY REVEAL THAT

Morgan points out what I've been thinking, however, that she should have progressed much further than occasional clumsiness by now, so the Hamiltons decide that obviously the Leontious found a cure/treatment/way to slow the progression but only had enough for Skye so decided to keep it to themselves.

Then their theories REALLY get elaborate.

Morgan sighed. “I suppose that’s possible, but I think it’s more than that. You said that all the girls seemed to be okay until about six weeks ago?”

*blink* Did she?

Nope. Just did another search. She has said nothing of the kind. Did I skip a chapter? Maybe there's a secret chapter out there where Ty shows up, introduces himself, Tammy says, "The girls seemed to be okay until about six weeks ago," and Ty says, "OK," and leaves.

The Hamiltons rack their brains to figure out what could have happened six weeks ago, and then Morgan remembers his video chat with Skye.

“I was talking to Skye in my office a couple of months ago, when something happened... something that frightened Skye. There were sirens and alarms going off in the background.” 

“What are you getting at? Do you think that’s when Klitou hacked the computer?”

...What, and set off the "We're being hacked" sirens and alarms? Tammy is making huge leaps of assumption, but turns out she's on the right path, because J. L. Rothdiener apparently has a master plan in mind and can't be bothered with making his characters realistically figure it out. Well, I mean, to be fair, they couldn't possibly realistically figure this out, because it doesn't make much sense.

“Right! What if the computer crashed during a precise step of an experiment? Lance told us that Skye’s parents were killed by a laboratory accident. If the computer was hacked at the right time— or rather, the wrong time— it might have triggered a chain reaction...” 

Tammy continued the train of logic. “... which not only destroyed the computer, but caused an explosion and fire that killed her parents. It possibly did more damage than we’ve been told about.”

This is making me crazy. Because this is clearly an insane theory, but it's clearly also meant to be the correct one. The computer COULD have been hacked to do something idiotic like "open the experiment door" because apparently it was connected to that and a simple crash broke everything.

But in general, hacking a computer system should not cause a lab explosion. Because there should be backups and safeguards for this, and doors should stay closed, and robot hands should not just go crazy if medical records are deleted.

There is no "train of logic" that leads to this conclusion. It doesn't make any sense.

But I have a horrible feeling it is the right answer. And it is making me sad.

Tammy suddenly decides Skye's GPS bracelet is extra significant, but maybe it's just because it proves she's a patient:

“All the girls’ vital signs are monitored through the bracelets, twenty-four hours a day.” 

“That’s too sci-fi,” Morgan said skeptically.

"Not at all realistic and down-to-earth like my knowledge of computers and hacking. Next you'll be telling me people can video chat with me through my website!"

Lance also has a bracelet, so they decide they're using the bracelets to track everybody, but then they reassure each other that nobody knows they're hiding in the storage room because THEY don't have bracelets. They are free from that Big Brother tyranny.

Skye leaves The Locked Room and takes off. Morgan tells Tammy their new spy plan: She's going to take a flyswatter, hold it in front of the security camera lens to cover it, and then Morgan will sneak inside. Because that won't look at all suspicious to the guard who's apparently just standing in front of the door all the time. They definitely won't get caught doing that.

I'd have thought I'd be relieved to not have much Skye in this section of the book, but Morgan and Tammy's insane paranoid conspiracy theories (which will somehow all be correct) are equally exhausting.

And we're STILL only 67% of the way through this garbage.

(Chapter 27.)