Free Ride

The entire rest of the trip was, intentionally or not, spent spiting every rich guest around them.

“Woo-hoo! Frankie, give me a hand!”

Teaming up against them in bumper carts, laughing as loud as they wanted on the rides the others mostly just took pictures of- all those old, almost hollow people paid so much to be here, and the two of them got to ride for free all because of their willingness to do good.

“Kate, watch out!”

Katie expertly dodged a bump from behind, causing a woman to scream in frustration as she hit the south wall of the field. Frankie spun around just to laugh at her.

“What should we do after this?”

“Maybe the waterslide again!” Katie quickly decided.

“Girls!”

From the East wall, Hannigan called out to them sternly and seriously as the carts slowed to a halt.

“Get off the ride, now. I’d like to talk.”

“Aww… we were having so much fun…”

Frankie chuckled as she dragged her big sister off the attraction, the members of the 1% watching as these two random kids took up the majority of the Captain’s attention once again.

“We’re coming up on land now.”

Behind the first floor cabins, Hannigan gave them the news. It made sense, it was already the sixteenth of January. They were both surprised by how long one park could keep them entertained, even though Katie was dying to see a new one by now.

“We made incredible time. The systems make it easy to avoid obstacles these days… well, so long as they aren’t whatever it was you ran into. Should be there by tomorrow morning.”

“That’s great.” Frankie commented. “I dunno how long these things usually take, but that wasn’t so bad.”

“So why’d you call us here?” Katie inquisited. She wasn’t a fool, Hannigan was never the type to give them live updates.

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“H-huh? Wait, do we have to work today?”

“Not like that.” She shook her head at the ocean-haired girl. “Just… look, you kids have got mad spunk… it made me happy to see anyone thinking they could stand up to the big bad Wolf.”

“But?” Anticipated Frankie.

“I don’t wantcha doin’ that for me anymore. I’ll handle it myself. Eventually retire, probably. Won’t be too far off, in the grand scheme of things. I don’t want you two lassess risking yeselves.”

“We’ve done plenty worse-“ Katie started to say, but Frankie stopped her.

“We’ll back off. Thank you, Captain.”

“Ah, don’t make a scene of it now. I’m damn ready for you brats to get off my boat.”

“We will. Right, Katie?”

“Uh- yeah. Thank you Captain.”

“…Ye welcome.”

Hannigan retreated to her chambers for the afternoon. Frankie and Katie stood dead in the center of the walkway.

“…We’re still shutting this jerk down, right?”

A vision of a park covered-ocean covered Frankie’s subconscious.

“Damn right we are.” She nodded.

With that, they spent the rest of their last day there having as much fun as they could.