by Gini Koch
Agent Mode I hadn’t really seen for a while, but it was a nice nostalgic moment. With Christopher holding onto his wrists, Jeff slid down the side into the only open slot on this train, which appeared to be the doorway. Heard him grunt as he was pulling, meaning he was grunting really loudly.
“It’s going to take both of us,” he called up, which wasn’t a surprise after the grunting.
So, White held Christopher while he slid down. Then we all lay on our stomachs and watched them strain. “One . . .” Jeff shouted. “Two . . . now!”
They pulled together and the door apparently opened. At least I took Christopher flying back and off of the train to mean they’d opened it and he’d lost his grip. Jeff just managed to grab him and pull him back as we got to discover exactly what our enemies had planned.
There was a gap in the trees ahead of us, indicating the river Adriana had told us was coming, then more trees. And then, what looked like another gap, just as she’d described.
And in that second gap, there was a huge billowing of flames and dust and such. And then we heard the explosion.
It was big and the noise was loud. Thankfully the four of us were lying down because the shockwaves hit. Managed to grab and hold Bruno, and White held onto me and Adriana, and Adriana and Mahin held onto each other.
Even so, we slid a bit, but were still on the roof, so that was something.
“Down and in, now!” Jeff bellowed. No one could bellow like my man. I was sure that Reader and all those with him had probably heard this directive.
White slid Adriana down first, and as Jeff got her I handed Bruno down as well. However, before Jeff could take him, Bruno squawked and flew off as “Fix Me Now” by Garbage hit my airwaves.
The train started to slow. “Who’s doing that?” I shouted to Jeff, as Bruno surged ahead of us, using Peregrine Hyperspeed.
“Adriana, thank God. What?” He looked back inside. “She says she can slow us but can’t stop us in time. We need to evacuate or figure out how to recreate train tracks.”
We were quiet for a moment, then I looked over at Mahin. Algar was being, I felt, quite clear with his musical hints. “You can do this. Metal came from earth.”
“But it’s destroyed,” she said.
Shook my head. “That makes it easier. It’s little fragments now that you can pull together.”
“We’ve got this,” White called down. “Stay down there in case we need you.” With that he stood and helped us to our feet. “Missus Martini is correct, Mahin. Now is your time.”
She looked panicked “But I don’t know if I can . . .”
I took her shoulders and gave her a little shake. “Since we met you, you’ve managed to save the day when it mattered. It matters again. Let’s do this, okay?”
She took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay.” She faced front, hands out in that bending way those that did it had.
Christopher was who’d been training me and Mahin both in use of powers and such. So, I tried to channel what he’d say here. “See the tracks in your mind. Find the particles and recreate them. Pull them together as part of the whole.” I didn’t have to add “and do it quickly” because that was a given.
And all of a sudden, I could see the damage. Bruno was there and he was reporting back.
“They’ve blown the track over the river. Pieces are floating everywhere—in the water, on the ground, in the air. Search for rusty iron or anything that you can form into tracks. There will be shattered wood, too, and shards of spikes.”
Heard the sound of running feet and looked behind me. Abigail was following Ginger. “The cat indicated I was needed,” she said by way of hello, as Ginger jumped up into White’s arms. Abigail grabbed one of Mahin’s hands and one of mine. “Show me, Kitty.”
“Wonder Triplets Powers Activate.” We’d done this before, first during Operation Confusion and then at other times. I showed Abigail what Bruno saw, and she sent her power through to Mahin, who started forming the tracks, while Abigail also encased the train in a protective shield. Yeah, she’d gotten all her powers back, her sister’s powers, and then some, during Operation Civil War.
It was interesting to observe, in the weird way I was able to observe. I “saw” things from Bruno, which was weird in that birds and humans saw things differently. And then I “saw” what Abigail was telling Mahin, which was all mental influence and images.
Then I “saw” what Mahin saw, which was the entire earth covered with different colored specks.
First, she adjusted the broken parts of the tracks that were still attached, making them smooth and straight again. This didn’t take her much time, so presumed this was the easy portion of the festivities.
Mahin then identified the base metal she wanted and the wood and other things that had been with that base metal only recently. Once identified, all those related specks sparkled in her mind, and she gathered them together and sent them down to form what they’d been before. They still retained the memory of their former shape, at least, as Mahin saw it, since the explosion was so new, making it slightly easier to get the pieces back.
We sailed through the trees. Some snakes dropped onto the shield and promptly slid off. Go Gower Power. More happily, as we went over the first portion of the river, the tracks were reforming. Wasn’t sure if they’d hold or not, but they were there, connected to the end of the tracks closest to us.
We passed this portion of the river and were back in trees. More snakes, more snakes sliding off, more tracks reforming, train still slowing but in no way stopping. About three quarters of the damaged track was recreated. But if we didn’t have 100 percent we had utter failure.
“Faster,” I said quietly. Abigail nodded. Mahin didn’t say anything, but particles were flying through the air faster than before.
And then we were on it, the last portion of reformed track. With about a foot of track left to fix.
CHAPTER 49
FELT A HUGE surge of power from Abigail sent to Mahin, and the rest of the track reformed as Abigail collapsed.
Fortunately White was there and even though he still had Ginger, he was able to catch Abigail and keep her upright. My music changed to “Hold On” by Wilson Phillips.
The engine crossed the water and entered more trees. Of course more snakes dropped onto the shield because apparently we were just that kind of lucky. I ignored them and turned to watch the rest of the train as I felt us speed up as well. Meaning Adriana and I were on the same wavelength as Algar—get the train across before the A-C Magic ran out.
Bruno wasn’t flying along with us. He couldn’t get to me due to the shielding and he was staying to watch to make sure all the cars made it across.
“Hold on just a little while more,” I said to the other girls. “We can do this.” Felt an energy drain, meaning that Abigail was pulling from me, and probably White, in order to keep feeding her power to Mahin.
I gently tugged and pulled us all onto our knees. Experience said that falling right now would be a really bad idea, and when we were all drained we’d all fall—that was a given.
Bruno shared that the caboose was almost across as Mahin passed out. Abigail and White were both close, I could tell. I concentrated, focusing on the tracks.
It wasn’t much, but it was enough. Abigail passed out as Bruno told me we’d made it. Then the shield disappeared and White and I sort of collapsed against each other.
In time for the one damn snake that had managed to hang on and not slide off the shield to land right by us. No one had hyperspeed enough to get away from it.
But Ginger was here and she wasn’t drained. She made short work of the snake, then snuggled up to me for well-earned praise. “You are the best ocellar ever, you know that?” I said as I petted her head and scratched behind her ears.
Bruno flew up and caught up to us and landed next to me for his well-de
served scritchy-scratches as well.
We stayed up on top for a while. None of us were up to trying to get into the engine or anywhere else. My music mix went back to Kyle’s playlist. At least I assumed “Going Nowhere” by Oasis was on Kyle’s playlist, since the chorus lyrics were “going nowhere on a train.” Hit repeat—I liked the song and it was soothing, and I figured we all needed soothing.
After a little while Gower and Reader crawled up and worked their way to us. “Jeff called and said it’s too hard to get up here from the engine,” Reader shared as they reached us. “So, he wanted us to help you all get down. Who’s going where?”
“I’ll go into the engine with Jeff. But I think everyone else should go down into the cars with you guys, James.”
Gower nodded as he helped his sister up. “I think that’s best, too, Kitty.” He lifted Abigail up into his arms and zipped off using the slow form of hyperspeed.
“You’re next,” Reader said to Mahin, giving her a shot of the cover boy smile. “Paul’s going to carry you, too. Richard, do you want help?”
“Yes, because my dignity isn’t affronted by it. But let’s get Missus Martini down first.”
Gower returned and carried Mahin off as he’d done with Abigail.
“Someone needs to alert the train people that the track was blown.” Bruno picked Ginger up and flew over the side, hopefully to Jeff.
“Chuck’s doing that,” Reader said. “We’ve sort of got it handled.”
“How are we getting down to Orlando? I presume we’re stopping at the next station, if Adriana knows how.”
“Jeff said that she does. Apparently her grandmother trained her for everything.”
“Thank God.”
“And we’ll worry about next steps once we get to Rocky Mount. Now, let’s toss you over the side, girlfriend.”
“You’re a prince, James.”
Gower was back and he did the tossing, so to speak. Mostly it was just what we’d done to get Jeff, Christopher, and Adriana down there—Gower held my wrists and lowered me down and Reader and White held onto him.
Jeff grabbed me, Gower let go, and then I was inside the engineer’s area. Then Jeff hugged me tightly for a little while and I hugged him just as tightly back.
We finally separated, mostly because we weren’t anything like safe yet. “Thanks. Cozy.”
“Yeah, a little too cozy,” Jeff said. “And I’m not complaining about the four of us being in here with the two animals, either. I’m worried about what happened to the engineer, the conductor, and their crew. Christopher and I have searched what we can—there’s no sign of anyone.”
“That bodes. As does everything else. So, what’s the plan?”
Jeff shook his head. “We haven’t made one yet. Figured we’d need to see if we survived before we planned any farther ahead.”
“Can’t argue with that logic.” There were two high-backed seats. Adriana was in one, the one with the most levers, buttons, and such, which I was fairly sure was the engineer’s chair. Christopher was in the other, which had a laptop computer and far fewer buttons, so presumably the conductor’s chair. He was busy with the computer, and I decided not to ask what he was doing. Wasn’t in the mood for any Patented Glares at the moment.
“The question is,” Adriana said, “do we stop at Rocky Mount or do we power through to Orlando?”
“I don’t know how bad it is back there. Hang on.” Paused my music and took out the headphones. Contemplated who to call, then decided I’d go with the one most likely to make the right decision.
“Kitty, you’re inside?” Chuckie asked without preamble.
“Yeah. And you’re on speaker. Are James, Richard, and Paul back?”
“Yeah, we’re all accounted for.”
“Not really. We’re missing all the engineering staff, however many people that would be. As in, gone like ghosts, not dead. Well, not dead that we know of.”
“You want to know what to do next, right?”
“Wow, it’s like you read my mind. Yeah, Engineer Adriana would like to know if we’re going to stop in Rocky Mount or if we’re going to power through to Orlando.”
“That’s the question of the hour. Hang on, I’m going to conference the War Room in.”
While we waited, I decided I’d risk a Patented Glare. “Christopher, what are you doing?”
“I’m connected with Imageering Main. They’ll connect us to whoever we need—Dulce, the Embassy, the White House, the main Amtrak hubs—and that way we’ll be communicating in real time.”
“Awesome, you’re the man.”
He shot me a quick smile. “Thanks, Kitty. Good work up there with Mahin.”
“Oh, it was mostly your training, trust me.”
He turned back to the computer and Jeff grinned at me as Chuckie came back on. “Okay, we’re on with the War Room, as well as prisoner holding in the back. We don’t have those in the dining car on just in case, since it’s mid-train prisoner holding and I want to ensure that they don’t hear anything so we can confirm any intel we might get from the prisoners in the rear.”
“Fast status updates. We’ll start with us in the engine. Adriana is currently our engineer and Christopher is our conductor. I don’t know what Jeff and I are supposed to be doing up here, but the people who were here are gone without a trace.”
“Succinct,” Mom said with a sniff. “War Room car is secure, thank you to everyone for your hard work under dangerous circumstances.” She ended this with a sneeze.
“Mom, are you okay?”
“I think I’ve caught Vince’s cold is all, kitten, but thanks for the concern. Charles, your status?”
“Prisoners contained and searched. We can’t tell where they’re hiding their cloaking devices. We’ve tested—even if they’re naked, if we take off the goggles, we can’t see them. We have a couple dead bodies that we’re holding to send to Dulce for examination, along with a set of goggles for duplication. Mister Joel Oliver, how are things in the back?”
“Stable, and we tested just as you did. They’re invisible to the naked eye—either human, A-C, or Beta Twelve—without the goggles.”
“Cloaking tech for certain,” Reader said. “And it sounds like our cloaking tech, too.”
“They infiltrated us and stole all our data,” I was forced to remind everyone. “So them having our tech and then using it against us isn’t a surprise.”
“Who’s likely doing it is, however,” Mom said. “Charles shared your thoughts about the so-called Huntress and Gustav Drax. Whoever Drax is, he’s not on any radars, which usually indicates a fake name.”
“Told you!”
“Or,” Mom went on as if I hadn’t spoken, “protection from far higher up. The last president and this one are not suspect, meaning we have someone else in government who might be. Won’t be the first time and, sadly, it won’t be the last, either.”
“Or they’re from another planet, and before you pretend I didn’t talk, Mom, that’s me being serious.”
There was silence on the other sides. Reader broke it. “You think Drax showing up as the Planetary Council is coming for a visit isn’t a coincidence?”
“Someone very smart has always told me not to believe in coincidence. We get a real coincidence occasionally, but I’m not willing to bet that we have one right now.”
“It would makes sense for why Stephanie would be working with him,” Jeff said quietly. “You think he’s an A-C?”
“I think he could be anything. I just want that theory out there, so that we don’t ignore obvious clues. This could be someone high up in the government protecting Drax, it could be the fake name I think it is, or he could be an alien we don’t know about. But that’s honestly a discussion for another minute. This minute, we need to know if we’re stopping at Rocky Mount and then going on as if this train isn’t
trashed, stopping at Rocky Mount and taking a nice, big floater gate to our destination, or powering through to Orlando.”
“We can make it to Orlando without refueling,” Adriana said. “As long as there was no damage to fuel tanks.”
“None we’ve found so far,” Reader said. “But none of us are locomotive experts. Other than you, apparently, Adriana.”
“How do you know how to drive a train?” Buchanan asked. He sounded impressed. I certainly was.
“I have a classical education.”
“I love you and your grandmother so much I almost can’t find the words. At any rate, decision time, gang. What, literally, do we do next?”
CHAPTER 50
“I WANT THE PRESIDENT off this train and somewhere safe as soon as possible,” Reader said. “I think that needs to be our first concern.”
Could hear Armstrong protesting in the background. “Vince, stop for a minute. Think about it. This was a terrorist attack on the President, the VP, and the Secretary of State. I realize we foiled it, but still, if we were in Washington, you’d be in the bunker right now.”
“We are in the bunker, in that sense,” Mom pointed out. “But you’re right, Kitty and James both—we need the President in a safer situation than he’s in right now.”
“That means stopping at Rocky Mount and getting this car safely unloaded,” Buchanan added. “I agree with the Ambassador—we need to use a floater gate to get the President to NASA Base.” Buchanan only used my title when we were being official or when he, like Pierre and everyone else, wanted to focus me on the business at hand. Chose to assume official was the word of the moment, since I felt I was laser focused on our current situation.
“We have a schedule already in place,” someone who sounded like a very sick female said.
“Monica, that’s not as important as your safety and Vince’s,” Mom said, clearing up the mystery.
“Frankly, it sounds like a bunch of you need to go to bed and drink plenty of fluids. Which could be done far more quickly and with a lot less stress via our Gate It To NASA Base plan.”