by C. M McCoy
Hailey’s jaw fell.
Nobody had “one piece of luggage—purse size.” Her heart splashed into her stomach. What’s worse—all of them carried a winter coat and a sleeping bag separate from their bags.
This was bad.
She looked around for a sign or airport worker or anything that could direct her to where she could find a Luftzeug representative.
As she scanned the area, her eyes fell on a young man with multicolored hair and trendy eyeglasses, who was standing in front of a mountain of luggage, clutching a large silver envelope in one hand and holding onto a bulging duffel bag with the other. He looked exactly how Hailey felt: absolutely terrified.
Hailey crept up to him.
“Are you heading to Bear Towne?” she said, and he started. Loudly.
“Oh God, why?” He retreated away from her, clutching his swollen bag against his chest as if she were going to steal it.
“I just . . .I’m going too, and I was wondering if you knew where we were supposed to wait to board the Luftzeug.”
“No.” He looked at her like she had warts, and then he turned his back on her.
That worked well to chase her bravery away.
With her mouth clamped shut and her one, small bag, which held absolutely nothing, she strolled to the window and surveyed the tarmac. Shining like a new penny in the summer sun, a glittering, bronze-colored private jet sat next to the terminal with the words, “Bear Towne” emblazoned in silver lettering on the side.
This was going to be the best 10-hour flight ever.
Hailey smiled, breathing a sigh of relief just as a terrible racket screeched behind her. A troop of tall, thin men, all wearing gray flight suits and full-face gas masks marched through the terminal, pulling several pallet jacks behind them. Stopping at each terror-stricken student, they loaded pile after pile of luggage onto a cart, shrink wrapping their load as they went. When a cart grew to six feet high, one of the flight suits would wheel it out of the terminal. They did this several times before they approached Hailey.
“Luggage?” one of them asked her in a muffled almost mechanical-sounding male voice, and Hailey saw he wore a Bear Towne patch on his shoulder.
“This is my luggage.” She held up her purse.
The flight suit made no move to take it and seemed to be staring at her, though she couldn’t tell because of the gas mask.
“Where’s the rest?” he asked her in a voice laced with static.
“This is it—this is all I brought.”
Despite the instructions in her letter, she suddenly felt an irresistible urge to panic and run home to pack a footlocker. She checked her watch.
“I think I have time to run home and pack a footlocker.” She turned to leave, but another flight suit grabbed her by the neck and squeezed. Hailey made a choking sound, and the gas mask that held her cocked its head. The other gas mask clapped the one holding her on its shoulder, waving his finger slowly at the offending crewmember until it let her go.
Hailey fell to the floor, doubled over and gagging.
“There’s no time,” the first one spat. He snatched her bag. “The Luftzeug will leave in twenty minutes.”
He popped to attention, did an about-face, and marched outside.
“Thank you,” she called through a bruised throat.
Through the window, Hailey watched as they pulled their pallets past the Bear Towne plane. She turned around to see if anyone else noticed and saw the kid with the multicolored hair disappear through a jet-way door along with a gaggle of others. Hailey ran to catch up and tugged the rainbow-headed boy’s sleeve as they emerged outside.
“They took our bags right past the Bear Towne Luftzeug,” she said, pointing to the luxury jet in front of them.
“That’s not the Bear Towne Luftzeug.” He pointed to an ugly gray shape behind the beautiful jet. “That’s the Bear Towne Luftzeug.”
“That’s our airplane?”
“It’s not an airplane—it’s an air tool. The Gulfstream is for the Pre-Med students,” he explained with disgust, as if Hailey should already know this, but he was clearly pleased to tell her. “It makes stops in Chicago, LA, and Seattle before heading north.”
“Oh.” Hailey hadn’t realized Bear Towne had a Pre-Med program. She drew a breath, but the rainbow held his hand up.
“I know, I know . . . Now, you’re wondering about the geology students . . .”
Geology?
“They left from Columbus last week on the bus, geez, didn’t you read any of your handbook?”
“There’s a handbook?”
He scoffed. “You’re in for a few shockers,” he said like a brat, and he turned his back on her.
No use asking if she could borrow his copy to read during the flight, she figured. She walked behind him on her tiptoes, trying to get a full-on look at the gray blob that was the Bear Towne Luftzeug. To her, it looked like a modified military cargo plane. Barely visible on the side of the hull, faded letters read: Bear Towne Luftzeug: Traumzeug.
When they reached the mobile stairs leading up to the Luftzeug’s entry hatch, the rainbow stopped suddenly with wide eyes, grabbed Hailey by the arm and shoved her ahead of him. At the top of the stairs stood the source of his angst—a gangly, contorted-looking man-thing, clad in a gray flight suit and elephant-nosed gas mask. It leaned unnaturally on the platform at the entryway door. If they were at an amusement park, Hailey would have sworn she was looking at a reflection from a fun-house mirror rather than a real man.
Reluctantly, she lifted her foot and climbed the steps.
“Not scared, are you, dear,” the contort-incarnate crackled when she reached the top. He handed her a heavy metal lunchbox.
“Not at all.”
That was a lie—she was scared to death. And she probably wouldn’t have the courage to actually open the metal box he’d just handed her. Who knew what was inside? Raw brains, maybe? Spiders?!
She tried her best to project an image of calm as she thanked him and stepped on board.
Inside, the Luftzeug seemed like a large, oblong tuna can: cold, cavernous and empty with a high ceiling, bare metal, no carpeting—in fact nothing soft whatsoever—and something inside literally smelled fishy. Folded jump seats lined the hull in the front, and shrink-wrapped pallets were anchored to the floor in the back. There were no windows in the Luftzeug, but there was a galley near the nose of the plane with a coffee pot and several other metal doohickeys as well as a ladder, which Hailey was guessing led to the cockpit.
Scampering all around the fuselage—ALL around the fuselage, even zip-lining across the ceiling, though Hailey couldn’t actually see the zip-line—were gas-masked contort-men, who were examining each rivet in the hull. They gave Hailey an immediate and chilly case of the creeps.
She found an empty jump seat near the back of the plane and folded it down. Next to her and in the very last seat sat a student, who upon her approach raised his newspaper higher and, like everybody else on board, pretended not to notice her. But Hailey had already caught a glimpse of his handsomely rugged face, and she knew exactly who it was.
“Fin?” she asked excitedly.
He dropped his paper.
“Hailey!” he said with a forced smile.
“Wha . . .you . . .” Hailey didn’t know where to begin. “You go to Bear Towne?” There. That was a good question.
“Yes,” he answered, sounding annoyed.
She leaned her head toward him, turning it slightly with her eyes open wide as if to say, “ . . .and . . .?”
Fin shook his paper and raised it again.
“Where have you been?”
“You know, it’s none of your business what I do,” he said from behind the Times.
Ouch.
Shrinking back into her place, Hailey noticed the other students pulling a s
mall plastic bag from under their seats and putting whatever was inside into their ears then strapping themselves in.
She felt around under her own seat and found a bag labeled: indispensable. Inside was a set of earplugs, which were easy enough to figure out. The seatbelt, however, involved no fewer than seven straps and two buckles, and it took until the Luftzeug roared to life for her to put it in order—with no help from Fin.
The engines of the Bear Towne Luftzeug spun up to an earsplitting screech, leaving Hailey to wonder why the heck she even bothered with the indispensable “ear protection.” Weirdly, nobody else seemed disturbed by the continuous, painfully shrill thunder and in fact, everyone seemed quite at ease, so much so that as soon as the plane took off and despite the incredible turbulence, one by one, each passenger unbuckled, got up, rolled out a sleeping bag on the floor of the plane and climbed inside. Before long, everyone on board, except for Hailey, Fin and just one other student sitting near the front of the plane, was stretched out and ready for bed—in the middle of the afternoon.
How anyone could relax with such a blaring racket and inside the coldest airplane in the world was beyond Hailey. Though, as she began shivering, she did wish that she, too, had a cozy sleeping bag to keep her warm and wondered if there were any blankets on board.
She stared at Fin until he acknowledged her.
“What?” he said, dropping his paper. It looked like he’d said it sharply, but Hailey couldn’t hear a thing over the scream of the Luftzeug’s four engines.
“I’m freezing!” she shouted to him, and everyone on the airplane—everyone except for the only other student not bundled up inside a sleeping bag, turned to look at her. Hailey’s cheeks burned.
Fin lowered his brow and cocked his head to the side as his jaw jutted out.
“You didn’t turn on your Buzzdoodles,” it looked like he said.
“My what?”
“Earplugs, dummy.” Fin reached over and flipped a switch above her head. It was an off-switch for the engine noise in Hailey’s ears, which apparently, everyone else had already activated.
“This was all in your student handbook,” Fin said rubbing his forehead. “Why didn’t you read it?”
“I would have read it, if I had gotten one,” she said in a voice of normal volume but increasing hostility. “There was no mention of earplugs in the letter I received, Fin, I would have remembered reading the word Buzzdoodle,” she told him, lifting her chin. “There was nothing about a Buzzdoodle or cargo plane or sleeping bags or packing lists or the incredible coincidence that you’re also a student at the most remote school in world.”
Fin gave her a half smile and leaned toward her, playfully bumping her shoulder with his own.
“Buzzdoodles are new technology out of BTU. Noise canceling earplugs,” he told her kindly, and Hailey sighed, loving the sound of his friendly voice. “So you don’t have to yell at me anymore,” he said with a wink.
Hailey wasn’t sure if she was done yelling at him and debated the tone she wanted to use for what she said next.
“One second you’re holding my hand next to Holly’s grave, and then you were gone,” she said sadly, her eyes boring into his. “No explanation—you just disappeared. You left me.”
Fin bowed his head, biting his lip. “I’m sorry,” he said, meeting Hailey’s eyes. He pressed his lips together, and she could tell he wanted to say more but for some reason, he didn’t.
He raised his hand to touch her but then made a fist, shook his head and dropped his arm. “I’m sure Pix told you where I was . . .”
“Out chasing women and getting into trouble?”
“I wasn’t chasing women.”
“Did you get into trouble?”
“A little,” Fin told her, and he glanced briefly at the student still sitting in his jump seat in the front of the plane.
“Who is that?” Hailey said.
“That,” he said, studying Hailey’s reaction, “is Asher.”
Chapter Sixteen
ParaScience 101: An Introduction
“Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.”
- Kurt Vonnegut
Hailey’s breath caught.
That’s Asher? The Envoy?
She didn’t mean to, but she couldn’t help but stare at him.
“He sort of works at the university. Like me.”
Why wouldn’t he look at her? He sat like a statue, his hood hiding his face. She silently willed him to turn so she could see him.
But he never moved. And Hailey’s heart sank. Why was he ignoring her?
Maybe he’s not interested in you, silly girl, her good sense told her. But he had kissed her, hadn’t he? Now she wasn’t sure. Maybe he was suffering from “Tage Adams Syndrome” and could only see her when no one else was around.
Frowning, she shook her head, knitted her fingers together in her lap and studied them. Did Fin know Asher was an Envoy? And—wait a second . . .
“You work at the university?”
“Yeah,” he said stiffly. “I’m a teaching assistant. For Dr. Woodfork.”
“I didn’t mean for that to sound condescending.” Now Hailey couldn’t stop smiling. It felt good to have a friend again. “Dr. Woodfork is the dean of the university, right?”
“He’s the dean of the College of ParaScience,” he corrected, his voice was much kinder now. “There are three colleges at Bear Towne: ParaScience, Pre-Med, and Geology. You’ll get all of this during your campus tour,” he said with a wave. “Did you check out your lunch?”
“Not yet . . .”
Feeling brave, she opened her metal lunchbox and, peeking inside, she sighed happily. Good! No brains.
She certainly wouldn’t go hungry. Hailey started nibbling through the contents: two giant sandwiches, a bag of chips, an apple, a banana, an assortment of cheeses, crackers, two candy bars, a bottle of water, and a can of pop.
“Do all the teaching assistants leave from Pittsburgh?” she asked as she polished off her first sandwich and looked around the cabin floor.
“No,” he smiled sarcastically. “I drew the short straw this year. The others are on flights leaving from LA, Chicago, Frankfurt, and Moscow.”
“Well, I’m glad you got the short straw. What’s Alaska like?”
He drew a slow breath, humming as he formed his answer. “It’s not Pennsylvania.”
“How so?”
“Well, for starters, there are only three seasons in Alaska: butt-ass cold, break-up, and mosquito.”
“Mosquito . . .oh . . .” Hailey sang. “Uncle Pix said Alaska was full of blood suckers.” She looked at Fin shamefaced. “I thought he meant vampires,” she admitted with a self-deprecating cringe. “And with the way things have been going lately . . .”
Fin only stared at her in response, and Hailey cocked her head as she contemplated the other seasons. “Why would Alaska reserve a time of year for ending relationships?”
Fin straightened up and looked at her sideways. He licked his lips, shook his paper very loudly, cleared his throat, and went back to reading, just as one of the gas masks slid past them carrying a giant wrench on his shoulder.
Hailey tugged Fin’s sleeve. When that didn’t get his attention, she barked a whisper. “Hey!” she hissed as loud as she could.
Fin peeked around his paper.
“Why are these guys wearing gas masks?”
They both watched the wrench wielder disappear behind a pallet.
“So they stay awake.”
“Oh.” That didn’t make much sense to Hailey. Most folks drank coffee, but whatever. Different strokes for different folks, she guessed, and she imagined how nice a steaming cup of coffee would feel as she shivered in her seat.
It was getting colder inside the Luftzeug, and Hailey didn’t have hats and coats and blankets and p
uffy sleeping bags like the other passengers. Fin unbuckled and unrolled a mummy bag while Hailey hugged herself and watched.
“Are you going to sleep?” she asked him.
“Yes. So are you.”
“I’m not tired.”
“You will be when they turn the gas on.”
“What gas?”
Fin shot a glance toward the front of the plane and lowered his voice. “Come on, chowder head,” he said almost under his breath. “You can use my bag. I’ll grab a blanket from the crew.”
Hailey still wasn’t sleepy, but she was hovering around hypothermia.
“Thanks,” she said, kicking off her shoes. She wiggled inside the most comfortable sleeping bag in the world. “Fin?” she said as he settled down next to her, wrapped in a navy blue wool blanket.
“What?”
She scooted closer to him, and he smiled. Not wanting to admit that she only wanted to hear his voice and didn’t really have a question, she only closed her eyes and enjoyed her contentedness.
“Fin?” she said again, as sleeping gas hissed through the cabin.
“Mm.”
“I really missed you . . .” she told him, as she drifted to sleep.
“I missed you too,” he said, but she wasn’t sure it was real.
Gas filled the airplane and knocked everyone out.
In the Aether, Hailey emerged on board the plane next to her jump seat. The Luftzeug: Traumzeug looked the same as it had when she was awake, except the roof was wide open, and sunlight poured in through it. The turbulence had stopped, and the plane sat parked in the clearing of a bright forest. In the distance, Hailey heard songbirds and a waterfall.
“Welcome to ParaSci 101,” a familiar voice announced. Fin stood at the front of the plane and held in his hand a CB-looking microphone connected to the plane’s PA system.
“My name is Pádraig, and I’ll be your course instructor. If you didn’t already figure it out, you’re asleep, and this is a dream. Right now, our souls are in the Aether, which is what you see and hear and smell and feel all around you. Pay attention, because you’ll never share a dream with a living soul again, unless, like me,” he said in a voice laced with cynicism, “you’re lucky enough to ride on board the Traumzeug over and over.”