(Dakotas POV)
The next morning, Ryan asked me to come with him to the robot when they were going to figure out what to do about Ryans birth father. Rightfully so, he was nervous about it all night and we ended up being on FaceTime for two hours talking about it the night before.
"You're sure about this?" Ryan asked Leo in the morning. "My birth fathers in danger."
"Mmhm." Leo types on his computer. "He took a job as a miner for the McCallum Mining Concern, but there was a collapse at his dig site."
"A cave-in? So he's trapped." Ryan says sitting next to me.
"And even worse the company's keeping everything about it quiet. They must not have had permission to drill there. They're leaving them to, uh.." Leo paused, "fend for them selves."
"So in other words they left them there to die." I added.
"Well yeah, but you guys are kids so sometimes I try to phrase things a little less horribly." Leo explains. "But yeah they're leaving them to die."
"Well that leaves it up to us." Ryan gets up to leave the room. I followed while said, "I'll call the team."
—————
"I plotted a course to Mount Lancer." Harris says after everyone arrived at the robot
"And I got travel brochures for sight seeing along the way." Spyder added.
"Are you sure we should take the robot out of state?" Mark asked. "Grey and Harper are still out there. They know who we are, and we gotta protect mom."
"Actually, I've got that covered!" Leo rolls a satellite dish looking piece of tech into the room. "It's a home defense unit. So we put this on top of your roof, and it's programmed to detect all of our enemies. If it gets a hit, it will let us know. I also wanted it to release killer bees, but capturing them one at a time was taking forever, this guy know what I'm talking about." Leo rolled the tech towards the elevator, pointing at Ryan. Ryan just shook his head no at the last comment by Leo. "Also, it should be able to cover Dakotas house as well, so you'll be in good shape."
"All right, I should stay and help Leo Harper-proof our place." Mark said. "You gonna be all right."
"Totally. Go take care of mom." Ryan reassured his brother.
"Don't worry Mark I'll keep his emotional impulsiveness in check." I added while Mark followed Leo.
"Thanks, Kota." Mark yelled back from the elevator.
"Really?" Ryan asked me.
"Tell me I'm wrong?"
——————
"Okay I can see the mining company's op center." Harris says while we're one our way to the mountain. "We're almost there. Hey have you figured out what you'll say to your dad."
"Well I'd start with, Hi, I'm Ryan Walker, can I have 14 years worth of Christmas presents please." Spyder says while I spun around in my chair.
"Oh don't forget to mention you're dating and Olympian." I added.
"I can't reveal my identity to him, guys. Harper's back, and if he finds out about my birth father he'll go after him." He sighed. "Meeting him will have to be enough."
"I wish Harper never survived." I said. "That's kinda dark now that I say it out loud."
"Don't worry about it, we all feel the same." Ryan laughs.
"Hey, do we have time to stop?" Spyder asked. "The words largest cornflake if right near Mount Lancer. I found it on this site called Worlds Greatest Hoaxes."
"Oh Spyder, a hoax is something that's," Harris begins to explain.
"Harris, just leave him his dreams." Ryan said just before Spyder gasped very dramatically.
"What?" I asked.
"How, dare you, not tell me about this!" Spyder yelled.
"Me!" I asked surprised.
"Is this not you, standing in front of the worlds largest cornflake!" Spyder said turning the screen to me. I just sighed and face palmed.
"Spyder that is the most photo shopped picture I have ever seen in my life." I said looking at the picture. First off it was a picture of me celebrating after a competition. "Give me that for a second." Spyder passed me the tablet and I turned it to Ryan. "Ryan when was this picture taken of me." Ryan looked over his shoulder, glancing at the screen.
"Oh, that was after you finished your skating run that won you your Olympic medal." He said, barely even having to think about it.
"Bingo." I said handing the tablet back to Spyder.
"Trust me if a picture of you is on the internet I've seen it." Ryan says before turning back around.
"So you've never been here?" Spyder asked.
"No, no I have not." I said as we landed at the mountain.
"We're here." Ryan says unhooking the harness.
"I'm picking up a signal from down there. Tapping into feed." Harris says typing on his computer. He put his monitor up on the big screen, showing a video of Ryans dad.
"It's really him." Ryan said before we felt the ground shake underneath us. "Harris what was that?"
"The mountain is loosing structural integrity, it could collapse any minute." Harris said. "Your dad is separated from his team, all the miners are trapped. Oh, there's a elevator that goes directly into the chamber your fathers in. But we can't reach it because that side of the mountain has collapsed."
"All right than we have to make a path for the elevator shaft. Spyder?" Ryan says to Spyder.
"Drills online." Spyder responds.
"Just be very careful." Harris warned, "One wrong move and the mountain could cave in."
"Do you have any good news today?" Ryan asked.
"Um," Harris thought, "I got my first chest hair!"
"Congrats man." Spyder said from his side of the room while Ryan just slow clapped.
"Hm, I didn't know that's something to be celebrated." I said.
"Sure it is, isn't it like when girls celebrate their first period?" Spyder asked. I just turned my head, staring at him.
"In what, sick, twisted, alternate universe did you hear that?" I asked.
"Is that not what happens?" He asked again.
"No!" I said shocked. "When I got mine for the first time I cried for three days!" Ryan attempted to block out me and Spyders conversation as he began to drill a whole in the side of the mountain.
"There we go, made and entrance." Ryan said after pulling the drill out. "Nice job guys."
"Yeah but it won't last very long." Harris points out.
"Your just a ray of sunshine today." Ryan said sarcastically. "We'll zip down to the bottom of the mine and rescue my dad and the miners, and then we'll zip right back up."
"He has a point though, what if we get stuck down there." I asked.
"So we figure out a way to keep the exit open." Ryan said.
"I could extend the shields and keep the hole clear." Harris suggested.
"And I could blast and debris that falls there." Spyder adds.
"Okay cool, you two stay up here." Ryan says walking to the elevator grabbing a bag of gravity pucks.
"Well look at that, lucky you, you're stuck with me." I said joining him.
"Ah, no." He said stopping me.
"No?" I asked.
"No." He said again.
"Why no?" I asked once again.
"What if a miner recognizes you?" He suggested.
"Oh come on seriously?" I questioned. "No ones going to recognize me, I'm a pro skater not Beyoncé." He did nothing but shake his head. "You just don't want me to come because you don't want me in danger."
"Well I'll admit that's part of it." He admitted. "But still it's a no." I sighed, because I know he wasn't going to give in. "I'll be fine." He hugged me before opening the elevator doors.
"If something goes completely wrong I'm coming down there regardless of what you say." I said crossing my arms.
"I wouldn't expect less." He says before leaving in the elevator. We gave him a few minutes to climb inside this hole in the side of the mountain before checking in. I had no job to do at the moment so I was watching from the control pad laying on the floor on my stomach.
"How's it going?" I said into the mech-links.
"So far so good." I heard Ryans voice say. "Now climbing into the elevator."
"You sure you don't need me?" I asked.
"Sure." He said. Everything was silent until I heard a loud bang from the mech-link, followed by screeching metal.
"Ryan you're moving kind of fast." Harris said look at the scanners on his desk.
"That's because I'm falling!" We heard him yell though the screeching metal. "Come on there has to be emergency brakes."
"Try the control console." I said.
"Found them!" We heard him yell again. We heard a loud thud again and then close to silence, we heard noises that told us nobody died, we eventually heard his voice again, this time he wasn't talking to us. "Huh! Wow yeah I'm here. I mean you're here. I mean I'm here to save you."
"Wait aren't you a little young to be a rescue worker?" We heard another voice ask. Assumingely Ryans dad.
"Yeah, I'm one of those, those child prodigies." Ryan said again. "That specializes in digging and saving dudes." I covered the microphone on my Mech-link and tried to stifle a laugh.
"I still feel like he needs me down there." I said through a laugh.
"You're dating that hot mess you know that." Spyder says.
"The fact that both the words describe him perfectly." I said. Harris rolled his eye and sighed.
"I'm telling him you said that." Spyder laughed.
"Oh god please don't he's going to hang that over my head for ever." I pleaded.
"You shouldn't have said it in my presence than." Spyder says. I shook my head after removing my hand from the microphone.
"We're running out of time. We have to get out of here." We heard Ryan say after feeling the ground shake again.
"My team is trapped behind this rubble and I'm not leaving here without them." Ryans dad said.
"Yeah of course it looks like we need to get all these rocks out of here." Ryan's voice said.
"They're to heavy and I'm still trying to figure out what to do." Ryan's dad sighed as I heard Ryan digging through his tech bag.
"Watch this." He says. All we could hear after that was the whirring sound of the gravity pucks and Ryan's dad in shock.
"That's fantastic tech." He says. "Where'd you get this?"
"Oh it's a latest in rescue technology. Standard issue." Ryan said.