“See, you’re doing great,” Shailene said, shimmying down beside me. “Now let’s go. There’s no time to waste.”
Like that, we were off. I cut my conscious mind off, forbidding it to think about how impossible this was, or how dangerous. I refused to allow myself to think that I should go slowly, hesitantly. There was no time for caution.
I landed hard on my boots and kept running, racing to keep pace with Janice and Shailene. The scenery around us blurred together in a whirl of colors as we ran ever faster. My eyes had to struggle to keep up with the rapidly-changing street before me, and my mind strained to keep a grip on Andronicus’ signal now that the amplifier was no longer boosting my psychic range.
“We have to hurry,” I called. “He won’t be there long. I can feel it.”
“We’ll need to catch a ride,” Janice said, veering left.
“What?” I asked, but within an instant I had my answer. The air around us vibrated with the rumble of an approaching train.
“We’re close to the entrance of the Tube,” Shailene said, looking at me over her shoulder as we ran. I struggled to keep up with her—she and Janice were in much better shape than I was, what with their two-hundred jumping jacks a day, or whatever it is cheerleaders do to keep in shape. “The speed picks up as soon as soon as the trains can get underground. If we can catch this one before it enters the tunnel, we’ll be at Union Station in just a few minutes.”
“The Tube?” I repeated, blanching. That was the underground stretch of the PeRT system, cutting under the hills of the City, and even part of the Bay itself. I always got claustrophobic in those parts of my commute. “Isn’t that a bit snug?”
“We’ll fit,” Janice said confidently. She slowed as we reached the end of the road, where a heavily-graffitied wall and a Do Not Enter sign marked the edge of the tracks. She perched on the balls of her feet, craning her head to see down the line. “Get ready. The train’s coming.”
“And what do we do when it comes?” I asked.
“Jump. And hold on.”
“Seriously? That’s the plan?” I squeaked.
“You’ll be fine,” she said. “All right, on the count of three.”
The train was bearing down the track at what seemed an impossible speed, even though I’d just been running almost that fast myself. It began to accelerate as it approached the entrance to the Tube. How the hell was I supposed to launch myself at a moving train and not get myself killed?
“One…”
Think of old school freight-hoppers, Laura. They could do it. It must not be that impossible.
“Two…”
Yeah, but how fast were those freight trains going when people hopped on them? Probably not this fast.
“Three…”
But you’re not an ordinary human, Laura.
“Go!”
Shailene and Janice jumped effortlessly, and I followed a fraction of a second after them. If I’d been moving in fast-forward before, now I felt like I was moving in slow-mo, reacting too slowly, moving too slowly. I saw Shailene easily grab the side of the moving train, but I stumbled, slipping and nearly losing my grip on the speeding metal. I grabbed frantically, trying to get purchase on anything. This was it. I’d screwed up, and now it was over. I’d slip right off the side of the moving train, crushed to death under its wheels like that Anesidoran sentry I’d shoved on the tracks.
“Laura!” Shailene shouted.
Strong hands grabbed the back of my shirt, dragging me up the side of the train. Janice. I grasped frantically, gripping her arm. Between the two of us, I managed to scramble up onto the roof just as the train sped into the darkness of the Tube.
I ducked my head, feeling the ceiling too close to my head as the train zoomed through the dark. Neon lights in rainbow colors streaked past, blurring together—red, blue, green, purple. A novel effect for the people inside the train, but out here it just added to my anxiety, my awareness that I was traveling way too fast in a space that was way too small.
“You did it,” Shailene said. She started to reach to pat my shoulder, but then she hesitated and gave me a thumbs-up instead.
“Yeah,” I managed to reply after a moment.
“Don’t relax yet,” said Janice. In the dark, I could only see her silhouette, outlined by the neon lights. “We’re coming up to Union Station in just a couple minutes. Stay focused. Don’t lose sight of our objective. We need to be able to find him.”
“Right. Focus,” I said, more to myself than as a response. I could feel us drawing closer to him. I tried not to think how the swirling colors of the lights inside the tube reminded me of his oscillating skin in my nightmare.
The train sped through the dark.
Every fiber in me felt alert as the train pulled into Union Station. Even the hairs on my arms seemed to stand on end. I wasn’t sure if Andronicus could sense me like I could sense him, but I undeniably felt like I was being watched.
“Do you feel him, Laura?” Janice asked in a low voice as the train passengers started to disembark.
I closed my eyes and grimaced. “I do, but… I’m not sure where he’s at. Everything feels too loud all of a sudden. It’s like he’s everywhere, and I can’t focus.”
“That means he’s nearby,” Janice said. “The ability to sense isn’t like GPS. It’s far less precise. It’s more like trying to see through binoculars—when you’re far away, it makes distant objects look close; but when you’re too close, everything becomes blurry.”
I nodded. That was exactly how it felt. Snatches of color and shape, the idea of what I should be able to see, but trying to make that picture out just made me nauseous.
“We should fan out,” Shailene said. “Search the whole station before he disappears.”
“I don’t think we should split up,” I replied. “What with everything that’s been going on. Isolating yourself seems like the best way for them to get you.”
“Laura’s right,” Janice said. “We stay together. Try to look casual, like we’re just three travelers.”
“Oh, that’ll be easy to pull off. Three travelers who rode in on the roof of a train,” I said.
Janice rolled her eyes and adjusted the straps of her backpack. “Just come on.”
“But how do we keep people from seeing us?” I asked, glancing hesitantly down at the train platform below us. I knew we needed to get moving before the train took off again, but I was nervous.
Shailene nudged my shoulder. “Does it make sense for three women in workout gear—well, two in workout gear, one in, uh, that”—she gestured to my mostly-leather alien-hunter ensemble—“to be on the roof of a train? Or to be moving as fast as we do, or to be fighting giant insectoids?”
“Of course not,” I said.
“That’s how we’re not seen. The human brain can’t process things that don’t make sense to it. So they look past us, not at us.”
“If you say so.” I watched as Janice smiled briskly and jumped down into the throngs of people. No one seemed to notice her, or Shailene as she followed. So, reluctantly, I leapt down onto the platform (and landed neatly, not even rolling my ankle in those boots, if I do say so myself).
Union Station was the largest PeRT stop in the City, even bigger than San Luis. Different lines wove together in an intricate puzzle, switching and dumping trains at a dozen different platforms on the south side of the building. On the north side, the Amtrak line ran on separate tracks, bringing people from other parts of the state and beyond. The crowds were thick here, especially at this time of day. Tourists finishing up their spring breaks were hurrying to get back home; students on their way back to school were piling off the shuttle from the airport and scurrying to get to the right platform before their train left the station. As impossible as it seemed, no one did notice us. We were just three faces in the immense crowd.
I just wished that I could sense better. Now that I’d figured this ability out, it already felt disorienting for it to not be working. I real
ized I must have been aware of it subconsciously for a long time and never paid any attention to it. When I’d feel uneasy in crowds in the past, did that mean he’d been there? Or maybe it wasn’t just limited to him. Maybe I could sense other Anesidorans, too, and I’d just never realized it.
We scoped out the bottom level, trains coming in and out of the tube, to no avail before moving to the upper level. Here, the lines that ran over the top of the tube and into the foothills intersected. A band of red glass in the roof let light filter through, casting a pinkish haze over everyone standing beneath it on the platform.
“Nothing,” Shailene said, looking around. “I don’t see or sense anyone. What about you, Laura?”
I shook my head. “Maybe I was wrong about him being here, specifically.”
“Or maybe they know we’re onto them,” Janice said. “We might need to disappear for a bit.”
“Those antennas Shailene used before?” I suggested.
“Yes. And the amplifier couldn’t hurt either,” Janice agreed. She led Shailene and me over to a bench near the rear platform. I sat beside her, watching as she slung her backpack around to her front. “It’s important that we stay quiet while this is running. It scrambles the sentries’ vision sensors, but they can still—”
I didn’t hear what she said next. As she pulled the tripod setup out of her backpack, a manila folder slipped forward. My eye caught on the neatly-typed label on its tab: Philip Gregg.
I only saw it for a second before she zipped the backpack shut again, but it made my heart completely stop for a couple of beats. Janice had called my dad “Gregg” before. I’d thought she’d said “Greg,” like the first name; but seeing it together with “Philip” like that… Did that folder have something to do with my dad?
And, if so, why did Janice have it in her backpack?
The three of us sat silently for several minutes, my mind reeling, trying to think of a way to get Janice’s backpack away from her. I had to see what was in that file folder. But how was I supposed to get it without her noticing me?
She glanced at me, like she knew what I was thinking. “Laura,” she whispered, “do you sense anything?”
It took me a minute to realize what she meant. I tore my thoughts away from the backpack and the folder inside. “O-Oh,” I stammered once my brain had caught up with me. “Not any more than I—”
“Look,” Shailene hissed, cutting me off. I turned in the direction she was pointing. Standing in front of Platform C, flanked on either side by sentries, was Erikka. It was like she’d materialized out of thin air; one second she hadn’t been there, the next second she was.
“Erikka!” Shailene cried, jumping to her feet.
I gasped and lunged forward, reaching across Janice before she could react and grabbing Shailene by the shirttail. “Wait!”
“What do you mean, ‘wait’? We have to move fast, get her away from those sentries before the train comes in.”
“Look at her, Shailene,” I said in a hoarse whisper. “Those sentries aren’t restraining her. Remember what I said? After Andronicus hit her with that red lightning, she went with him voluntarily. And now she’s standing there, again, voluntarily.” I looked Shailene in the eyes imploringly. “He’s doing something to their minds. If we reveal ourselves to her, I don’t think she’ll come with us willingly.”
Shailene looked like she was about to argue, but Janice broke in, her voice low. “And if we give ourselves away now, we’ll lose what could be our last chance to find out where they’re going and see if the other girls are there.”
“So what are we supposed to do, just let her go?” Shailene snapped.
“We’ll watch,” said Janice. “And see if we can figure out their destination when we see what train they board.”
A beep sounded over the loudspeakers, indicating that a train was arriving. “And now’s our chance. Here it comes,” I said.
But the words died in my throat when the rumbling line of cars appeared, slowing to a halt next to Platform C. The L.E.D. display on the front car was blank, unlit. The same thing for the sign over the platform itself. No destination.
“Are you kidding me?” I groaned. “Not even a number! How are we supposed to track a blank train?”
“Come on.” Shailene leapt to her feet. “We can’t let it get away.”
Erikka and the sentries were boarding, the pneumatic doors swishing shut behind them. “Shailene, hold on!” Janice cried, racing after her. But it didn’t matter—the train was already pulling away from the platform. So much for a twenty-second loading time.
“We can still catch it up,” Shailene said, starting to break into a run.
Janice grabbed her arm, pulling her back. “No! It’s too dangerous.”
“But, Coach!”
“Maybe someone knows where it’s going,” I suggested. I glanced around, noticing a guy who looked close to my age wearing a polo shirt with the PeRT logo embroidered on the lapel, sweeping litter into a dustbin. I hurried over to him. “Excuse me, where is the train that just left Platform C heading?”
He looked at me blankly. “How should I know? Check the sign.”
Coming up beside me, Shailene gritted her teeth. “No kidding. That train wasn’t listed on the sign. And it didn’t have a destination marked on the train itself, either.”
“Oh.” He flashed us a devious grin, like he was about to share a juicy secret. “That must have been one of the ghost trains, then.”
I blinked incredulously. “I’m sorry, ghost train?”
“Yeah, they’re trains that don’t take passengers, but they’re legally mandated to stay in operation, even though they run empty.”
Janice folded her arms, quirking an eyebrow. “Why would the law require that?”
“Don’t ask me. I don’t run this place. I just work here.” He propped his broom against the wall and looked at us a bit more seriously. “I heard it was some kind of bureaucratic thing, like they need trains to run on certain lines in order to keep the lines open. Probably if they want to expand the commuter system in the future or something. It’s cheaper to maintain an existing line than to build a new one, or repair it after it’s been closed.”
Janice nodded thoughtfully. “Okay. Thanks for your help.”
We moved away from him, back to the corner where we’d been sitting before.
“So what does that mean?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. It could mean that the Anesidorans are taking advantage of these ghost trains to get where they need to go.” Janice turned back to face Platform C, adjusting the straps on her backpack. I tried not to stare as she did so. Now was not the time to get distracted, even if I was still dying to know about the contents of that folder. “But it also means that we can’t bank on another train heading the same way today. We’ll have to catch it up.”
“Finally, some sense,” Shailene muttered under her breath.
“Laura,” said Janice, “can you still feel Andronicus nearby?”
I closed my eyes, focusing. “No… Wait. I do feel something.” It was like him, but different. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I knew I had felt it before. “Moving eastbound. Or possibly northeast?”
“Got it. Let’s move. If we hurry, we can reconnect with that ghost train before it splits from the main lines.” She quickly shut down the cloaking system, shoving the two tripods into her backpack and slinging it back around her shoulder. “Ready?”
A train was pulling away from Platform B. Janice broke into a run, coming up alongside it, Shailene and I close behind. I didn’t give myself a second to be nervous. Not this time. I just jumped, letting my instincts take over.
And this time, I didn’t fall.
“Good job, Laura,” Shailene said, grinning at me as we scrambled up onto the roof. “But don’t relax yet. We’re going to have to move if we want to catch up with that other train.”
The fierce wind whipped my hair around, tossing wisps of it into my mouth and then ripping
them free again.
“Laura, can you still feel him?” Janice shouted. I could barely hear her over the wind. “Are they still traveling in this direction?”
I strained to concentrate. “No. They’re starting to veer more north.”
“Right. Time to switch lines. There’s a crossing in half a mile. Get ready.”
We jumped from train to train, the sun burning hot and bright overhead, the wind stinging my face. I could feel that we were getting closer to whomever I was sensing; but the nearer we got, the more certain I was that it wasn’t Andronicus.
We were deep in the foothills now, the tracks winding their way through narrow valleys and high, rounded bluffs. Sheep and cows grazed in the grass, still green from the winter rains but beginning to turn the familiar yellow of the rest of the year. The trees were more sparse here, but patches of oaks growing alongside the tracks made visibility difficult.
“We’re getting close,” I shouted, the wind snatching my voice away as soon as the words had left my mouth. “As soon as we get around this corner, we should be able to see the other train.”
We wound around a rocky headland and then the hills opened up into a wide valley. A few hundred feet above us, I could see the interstate, loaded with cars, and beyond that, a hillside dotted with dozens of wind turbines. I craned my head to see the ghost train on the far north edge of the valley. The place where the tracks diverged. Our train wouldn’t get any closer than it was now; how were we supposed to catch it up?
“There they are—”
“Get down!”
The words tore from my mouth before my brain could even process why. I hurled myself down on the roof of the train, Janice and Shailene beside me, and half a second later, something whizzed above my head, exploding into the branches of the trees behind us with a deafening crack.
Before I could react, there was a thud, and I looked up from my prone position to see two sentries and a man in a hooded jacket standing on the car in front of us.
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