by Carrie Jones
“We’re only going to Maine,” I say.
Sausage guy has a giant tub of pancake batter. “It’s best to be prepared.”
Another guy, Noah, hauls a crate of bottled water out from under a counter and heads out the back door, reminding me that dogs need water and bacon is so salty that even if Enoch hadn’t been thirsty before, she should be now. I find a metal mixing bowl, fill it with water, and place it on the floor for her, squatting down to pet her as she laps it up.
“What do you think? You trust them?” comes a whisper from behind the counter.
“It’s Lyle, man. How do you not trust Lyle?”
“He’s an alien. And the girl? Who even is she?”
“Nobody. Just his girlfriend and Seppie’s best friend.”
Enoch stops drinking and looks up at me. The voices move away, but it’s too late. I’ve heard them.
“Should we tell them?” I whisper. It doesn’t feel fair that they don’t know what I can do. I mean, we trusted them about the crystal, shouldn’t we trust them about what I am? Who I am? I’m not a what, no matter what was done to me. I am a who.
Enoch shakes her head and I think if dogs could speak English she’d be telling me, “Not yet.”
* * *
Enoch’s lack of total trust worries me, so when everyone is piling into a giant yellow school bus, I corner Lyle. We’re away from everyone so that they can’t hear.
“You think we can trust them?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He gives a wave to a guy with a crew cut, the most military looking out of all of them. Mason.
“Then how come you haven’t told them about me?” My hands go to my hips.
“That’s your story to tell. Not mine,” he says.
I eye him after that comment because he sounds like his mother, like he has thought this through well and hard. The world is quiet except for the racket of the others heading onto the bus. I’m not even sure what to call them. Soldiers? Agents? Young adults? Kids? Students? People is the only word that doesn’t come across like a label, but it fails to be specific enough. I sigh. Futures. That’s what Lyle called them. I wonder if that’s because the future depends on them or because they are future agents. Either way works, I guess.
“I want everyone to be okay,” I say. “I mean, they are all risking a lot for one person, even if it is Seppie.”
“It’s a no-man-left-behind kind of world, Mana, or at least it should be. You can’t abandon your friend to—”
“Even if it means risking others?”
“You don’t want to save Seppie?”
“Of course I do!” I am almost shouting. Enoch growls in confusion. Lyle scratches her butt. This calms her down and it somehow calms me down, too. “You know that you and Seppie are my people, my no-man-left-behinds, but I worry that we’re risking other people who are loved, who are needed.”
“They are making their own choices. I thought we already went through the moral-questioning phase of this. Why are you circling back?”
“I know … I know…” I try to wave the thoughts away. “It just isn’t easy and simple. It’s not all black-and-white polarities, you know.”
“It never is.”
“It is in a basketball game. You have your home team and you root for it.”
He nods, gazes at the earth, opens his arms up wide like he’s calling it all to him. “How about your team is Team Earth.”
“And Team Earth consists of?”
“Anyone who wants to save humanity without genocide of aliens or any other species.”
“That works.”
He pulls me into a hug, smooshing Enoch in between us. “Thought it would. Now let’s go find September.”
CHAPTER 14
The drive to Maine is bumpy in a school bus, but I take the first two hours of the five-hour trip as a time to sleep, slumped against Lyle’s shoulder. Enoch has made friends with pretty much everyone on the bus except for Rebecca (allergic to dogs) and Stephanie (afraid of dogs) and a guy named Kyle who doesn’t like dogs and therefore is untrustworthy, because honestly, who doesn’t like dogs? Only the untrustworthy.
I wake up sort of refreshed and with a big spot of dog drool on my leg. Enoch has climbed onto our laps while I slept and her doggy jowls have left a wet spot. Driving the bus in front of us is Janeice, whose mom is a bus driver in Lincoln, Nebraska, which seems terribly far away. This somehow qualifies Janeice to drive the bus.
“Winter is worse there,” she tells us. “I’ve never been to Maine, but they’ve got hardly any snow compared to home.”
“It’s because they’re on the coast,” Lyle says. “The sea keeps the temperature a bit warmer.”
“Mr. Meteorologist, Lyley Lyle.” Janeice is not easy to like, but I’m not picky. She’s here. She’s transporting us. That’s all that matters.
“I thought only I was allowed to call you Lyley Lyle. Me and Seppie,” I whisper.
“She doesn’t do it out of love and friendship.” He yawns, stretching his arms up and touching the roof.
“Obviously.”
“Not like you do.”
I harrumph.
“You admitted last night that you love me.”
I make a nice, noncommittal noise.
“Oh, hold on … let me guess … You’re going to do the whole ‘maybe I said it, maybe I didn’t’ approach or maybe the Mana patented ‘I love everyone, what is the big deal’ approach or maybe the—”
“Do you want me to love you love you? Is that what you’re saying?” I interrupt, amused.
“Dear God,” Janeice blurts from the driver’s seat. “This is pathetic.”
“I’m not saying that,” Lyle starts. Enoch jumps up and walks to the back of the bus.
“What are you saying, then?” I ask.
He groans and hits the side of his head against the bus window. “You can’t just make it easy on me, can you?”
“Never.”
My phone buzzes. Janeice has been charging it up. She hands it back to me while everyone shouts, “Eyes on the road, Janeice!”
I take the phone from her backward-extended arm. It’s a message from China. I suck in my breath.
“What’s it say?” Lyle asks.
“It says, WHERE ARE YOU?” I read.
“Don’t tell him,” Lyle suggests.
I text back, WHERE I AM WANTED.
“Harsh,” Lyle says in a sort of appreciative way. I am glad he enjoys my passive-aggressive snark.
The phone rings. I stare at it.
People start chanting for me to answer it. I let it ring and go to voice mail, which is really sort of conflict-averse of me. Also, it’s sort of payback for those weeks China ghosted me.
He immediately texts me, ANSWER YOUR PHONE.
I LEFT BECAUSE YOUR BOSS WANTS ME DEAD.
SAYS WHO? he texts back.
“Are you sure you want to go there?” Lyle says.
“I can’t tell him who,” I admit, “because I don’t want Jon to get hurt. I just won’t answer. Should I tell him we’re rescuing Seppie?”
ARE YOU WITH THE FUTURES? China’s text comes through despite my lack of an answer.
“What should I say?” I ask.
“Yes,” Lyle and Janeice and Sausage Guy, whose name is Will, all say.
YES, I text.
The phone rings again. I silence it.
“Wimping out,” Janeice announces.
“You know when you come home drunk after curfew? And your mom is standing there at the door? It’s like that, not that I’ve done that,” I say. “It isn’t that I’m especially conflict-averse or anything even though … yeah … I don’t know … I just don’t have the energy to deal with it right now.” I shut off the phone. I’m such a mess that I can’t even be self-aware enough to determine if I’m conflict-averse or not. “He’ll figure it all out soon enough. That’s what he does.”
I turn the phone back on.
“What are you doing?” Lyle asks.
“I forgot to tell him to let out the counselors,” I say as I text China the info. “I’m sure they must need to pee by now. I don’t want them locked in there forever.”
“She really is too nice,” Janeice says.
“I know,” Lyle says.
They all say it like it’s a character flaw. Lyle says it like he isn’t too nice, too.
* * *
We don’t stop until we hit a gas station/Fuddruckers/Tim Hortons combination place in Ellsworth, Maine, and we only stop there because of the lovely combination of burger, coffee, doughnuts, and milk shakes. And the bathroom. We make lines at the bathroom and then all fill up on take-out food. Enoch stays in the bus because dogs aren’t allowed. I miss her and buy her a burger because that seems like the most canine-friendly choice.
I have to admit that I don’t notice when the door opens.
“Everyone down!” someone orders.
That’s when I notice them. Two men, black suits, sunglasses, hats, guns. They could be clones, but one has a freckle on his left cheek and a half of an inch on the other guy. They notice me noticing them.
“She’s here,” the taller one announces, moving forward.
“Ah, hell to the no,” Abony says, moving forward to block him. He backhands her, but she keeps coming until his elbow connects with her face.
A huge noise shakes the entire restaurant. The woman behind the counter has shot the ceiling. Pieces of drywall scatter down around some knitting she’s been working on. Janeice tucks me behind her, a wall of protection. I push my way back out.
“Nobody is taking anybody,” the cashier announces.
Abony, rubbing at her cheek, says, “I like her.”
The shorter man in black aims his weapon at the woman behind the counter. Her glasses are perched at the end of her nose. She doesn’t back down one bit. “I’m an off-duty police officer and my husband owns this establishment. I suggest you drop your weapons, lay down on the floor, and put your hands behind your backs like good little boys.”
“I really like her,” Janeice says, but the Men in Black do not comply.
One jumps forward, shoots toward the off-duty cop, and seems to clip her shoulder. The other one lunges toward Janeice and me. Noah smashes him with a direct roundhouse kick to the face. The Man in Black somehow remains standing. Another shot roars through the building and the first Man in Black falls to the ground. Then it’s a mess of movement, frenzied chaos. Lyle’s yanking me backward. The other Man in Black is shooting toward the officer and then trying to bash Janeice out of his way. A huge throng of Futures swarm him. Something bangs. And he’s down. Janeice has her leg square on his back, and a guy whose name I don’t remember has taken his weapon and is tying his hands.
“You okay? Mana, you okay?” Lyle shakes me.
“Yeah … just … the lady?” I push through the crowd and get to the off-duty officer. The owl hat she’d been knitting is stained with blood. Her shoulder bleeds onto her shirt.
“Just a graze,” she says, but her teeth grit right after she speaks.
Grabbing paper towels off the counter, I press them into her shoulder. “Keep your shoulder elevated, okay? Stay sitting up. Don’t bend,” I say. “You were super-brave. Anyone call nine-one-one?”
Abony announces she has.
I touch the lady officer’s face and move the owl away, then beckon one of the few patrons who are not with us over to me. I show her what to do. She’s wearing a University of Maine sweatshirt and perspiring because she’s so nervous and shaky. I put her hands on top of the paper towels, which have already soaked through. I think better of this, grab a latex glove from the box on the counter, and get the glove on the shaking woman’s hand. Then we try again.
“Apply pressure,” I tell her, trying to remember everything I learned in that wilderness first aid class I took back in seventh grade. “Make sure that—I don’t know your name—”
“Katia,” the off-duty cop says.
“Make sure that Katia stays awake until the ambulance gets here, okay?” I say.
The other Futures have bundled up and restrained both Men in Black. One appears to be dead. They’ve restrained him anyway.
“Thank you,” I say to Katia.
“Where are you going? You kids are witnesses,” she says.
“We have to save someone,” I say. “We can’t stay. I’m so sorry. Thank you again.” I turn my attention to the shaking lady in the University of Maine sweatshirt. “You can do this. Just apply pressure for a bit, keep her talking. You be a hero like her, okay?”
Her voice trembles and she’s saying, “Okay,” even as Lyle is yanking me toward the front door.
We all assemble outside the bus. Sirens wail in the distance. We don’t have much time. We have to get going before the cops arrive, but Abony and Noah have been inspecting the bus. Abony grabs a small black device from the wheel well. Enoch is barking like mad, trying to get out.
“This,” Abony announces, “is how they were tracking us.”
“It wasn’t there before,” Noah says. “I checked that wheel before we left.”
Nobody says the obvious. Nobody says that one of us must have put it there. We all just stare at each other. I call Enoch out of the bus.
“Abony, have her sniff it,” I suggest.
Abony extends her arm to Enoch, who trots right over and takes a good whiff of the tracking device.
“Enoch, tell us who else has touched—”
Before I can even stop talking, Enoch has trotted over to Will and barks. Sausage guy? Seriously? Will lifts up his hands. Enoch barks again.
“Will?” Mason’s face is stunned. They sat together on the bus. They are probably bros.
“Dog is wrong, man. Not me,” Will insists.
Everyone just sort of stands there. It’s not like we have magic lie-detector serum or anything on us, but I’m sure Enoch is right.
“Let’s just tie him up so that we don’t have to worry about him. We’ll figure it all out later,” I suggest and everyone agrees after a bit of discussion. Abony and Mason do most of the work with the restraints and they put Will right in the middle of the bus, so that everyone can keep an eye on him and he’s not too close to any exits. He protests, but not too much. I guess he’s smart enough to realize it would be a waste of time. Lyle and Janeice talk about how disappointed they are about this, but I figure when you have this many people, you can’t count on being able to trust them all 100 percent. We haven’t been together long enough to be completely certain about each other. It’s more of a blow to everyone else, probably, than to me, because they trained with Will a bit. The agency is supposed to put everyone through tests to make sure that they are trustworthy and their allegiances are correct. It just somehow failed with Will. Or did it?
“Will,” I ask once we’re all on the bus and heading to Bar Harbor again, finally, “who did you put that tracking device on there for? Was it for the Men in Black?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
Everyone starts listening.
“Who, then?” Abony demands. She’s pretty annoyed.
“The agency. We’re supposed to be working for them, remember? Not these two.”
“The agency wanted to kill Mana!” Lyle protests.
“Well, maybe they were right.” Will is unapologetic. “They know more than we do about what’s going on and they especially know more than we do about her.”
I glare at him and resist the urge to call him a name, because my mom taught me to be polite. “Your tracking device was hijacked by the Men in Black. It brought them right to us. Who knows who else it’s going to attract?” I ask.
“Well, it’s in a Dumpster at Fuddruckers now,” he says with a shrug. “No loss.”
“People were hurt back there!” I lift my hands to the ceiling. I do not like Will Who Smells Like Sausage. I do not like him at all.
Noah smacks Will on the back of the head. Lyle grabs his hand. “We’re better than that.”
N
oah smirks. “Hardly.”
“I’m just saying that you all are trusting these two over the agency, over your training,” Will announces. “Think about that. I’m the only one actually following protocol here.”
Abony slaps duct tape over his mouth. “I vote we silence Will. Everyone with me?”
Nobody objects. His words sting, though. He is sort of right. Abony must notice my sadness because she slings an arm over my shoulder as we stand there in the bus aisle.
“The agency is not about friendship. The agency is about rules,” she says. “We all love Seppie. We’re going to make sure she’s safe. Right, guys? It’s not that we’re abandoning our training, we’re just using it to help one of our own. Am I right?”
“Right.”
“Right.”
“Damn freaking straight.”
“She’s too hot to lose.”
Abony rolls her eyes. I agree.
“Absolutely,” some other guy says.
“For Seppie!” This last yell is Janeice, who then follows up with, “You all better sit down. It looks like we have a bumpy road ahead.”
CHAPTER 15
It takes us all a few minutes to calm down. Well, Janeice and Mason are pretty fine and happily eating their burgers (Janeice drives and eats, which is pretty spectacular), but the rest of us are silent, and then babbling, and then just sort of processing everything that’s happened. Will keeps trying to give everyone the stanky eye, but Abony threatens to cover his eyes with duct tape and he starts just gazing out the window instead.
“You worried?” Lyle asks.
“Absolutely,” I tell him. Enoch puts her head on my knee. I sort of absentmindedly pet her head. We have driven over a small two-lane road, veered left, and followed the perimeter road around Mount Desert Island toward Bar Harbor. To the left of the bus is a bay and the mainland, to our right is woods and mini-mountains covered in snow. I shiver. “I am absolutely worried.”
“Me, too. But we’ll get Seppie. It will be okay.”
“How do you know?”
“There’s no other choice,” he says.
About fifteen minutes later we roll through Bar Harbor proper, which is mostly a ghost town with restaurants and tourist shops boarded up. There are signs everywhere that say SEE YOU NEXT SEASON or THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATRONAGE. BE BACK IN MAY. Pretty much the only things that appear open are the Hannaford, a grocery store with a parking lot that can maybe fit fifty cars, and an Art Deco theater called the Criterion, which has a benefit for David Bridges as the announcement on its marquee. I wonder who David Bridges is and hope he’ll be okay.