No Passengers Beyond This Point (19 page)

But I am not a victim. I am not going to stay in Passengers Waiting. I am India Tompkins and I’m a fighter. I jump on her back like a mountain lion, kicking her under the arm so hard it surprises her and for a second she loosens her grip on the wrist screen. That second is all I need. I snatch it back and jerk my arm out of her reach. Skye, the singing dude, and the little boy with the superpig all cheer. Skye is holding the white cat. The cat looks different now, as if she’s finally content. That’s the last thing I notice when the smoked glass door slides open, and I walk through with the wrist screen in my hand.

A
woman with blue gloves, thick shoulders, and short hair the color of white chocolate stands at the door.
Mary Carol,
her name badge reads. She checks my ticket, nods, and tells me to follow her down a long hall with corrugated aluminum walls and smooth, shiny, handle-less doors.

Where is she taking me?

I’m gripping my wrist screen so tightly my fingers ache from the effort. The band is broken, but while I’m walking I figure a way to fix it by poking another hole in the band with the buckle sprocket. It’s still loose, but at least it’s on now.

The doors are numbered with a strange series of letters and numbers I don’t understand. E-10K-28L, one says. E-8K-14L another. At G-19K-1L, the woman stops and pushes open the smooth metal door in the corrugated wall.

The room inside is sleek and silver with shiny walls and smooth handles inlaid into the metal. The woman slides her fingers in and clicks out a handle that flips down a seat from the wall. She moves to another handle and another seat falls out. When she has four seats, a table, a drawer full of soft drinks and another of peanuts, she invites me to sit down.

“Chuck wants to see you,” she explains, offering me a soft drink.

“Chuck? The taxi driver?” I ask. Somehow this seems like good news, as if Chuck is an old friend.

Mary Carol nods. “Everybody likes Chuck. We don’t want to lose him. Training is expensive and even after we’re done there’s no guarantee we’ll end up with an employee of Chuck’s caliber.” She sighs. “But he’s become a little too personally involved this time.”

She waits as if to measure my response.

“Involved with what?” I ask.

A pained smile darts across her lips. “Your family,” she explains. “We need you to let him know you decided fully of your own accord. In exchange, you will be restored to your welcomer position. That’s what you want, isn’t it?” she asks, watching me intently.

“I decided what of my own accord?”

“To come back.”

“I don’t feel the same way now,” I say cautiously, fishing for information.

She shrugs. “Now isn’t so important.”

“Why?”

She grinds her teeth. “Some decisions you don’t have a chance to make again, India. They time out.”

That’s what happened to my mom. She made a decision about the house and she couldn’t get out of it and then we ran out of time. I feel suddenly so sad for my mom. This must be how she felt.

Mary Carol watches me carefully. “But if you’re caught between the two . . . which was the decision General Operations made about you . . .”

At school I don’t like to ask questions. I’m afraid people will think I’m stupid. But I don’t care now. I have to understand this. “What does that mean?”

“We like things to run smoothly is all. When we have someone who doesn’t want to . . . settle down—a malcontent I guess you’d call it—we try to keep them away from the general population. Dissatisfaction is infectious. Of course there are pockets of discontent in every society . . . no city is perfect. But with you it was more that you didn’t seem sure you wanted to give up your passenger status.”

“So you put me in Passengers Waiting?”

“Yes,” she says. “Passenger status is a tumultuous time. During the downward motion euphoria, our citizens generate positive feelings for the passengers. But interaction much beyond that . . . seems to incite troubling feelings for our residents. Chuck is a perfect example.”

“He is?” The Chuckinator seemed pretty mellow to me. I’m having a hard time following this.

“The
no passengers beyond this point
ruling limits our exposure, which is better for everyone.”

“No passengers beyond this point,” I echo. “What does that mean?”

“It means that most of Falling Bird is off limits to you until you become a citizen with a permanent passport. That way our residents have some protection.”

“From us?”

She nods, scratching her short white hair with its pink scalp showing. “But we try to treat passengers fairly. We received a Form six-twenty-one on you. Contesting our ruling on your placement in Passengers Waiting. Ordinarily we might have ignored this, but since it came from Chuck—we all really like Chuck, you see?”

“Yes.”

“So we need to know . . . did you make this decision of your own free will?”

My hands are shaking. I remember the path with the light that suddenly appeared. It was so enticing. But I wanted it too. I did. Was it my own free will? This isn’t a black-and-white answer. Should I lie about this? What would my mom do? What would Maddy do? Maddy would lie, that’s for sure.

“Yes, I chose,” I whisper.

“All right then.” Mary Carol nods encouragingly and pushes a button on the wall.

“Yes?” the voice asks.

“Send him in,” Mary Carol requests.

A moment later the door slides open and a security dude with ears shaped like pork chops appears.
Boris,
it says on his cloud patch. Behind him is Chuck outfitted in an all-white flight suit.

Chuck smiles at me, though he is so nervous the smile is more of a tic.

“India?” Mary Carol asks pointedly. “Tell him what you told me.”

I stare at him, suddenly so cold I’m shivering. He’ll know if I gave the right answer. “I decided,” I croak, scanning his eyes for a response.

Mary Carol nods her head like I should go on. “You decided
what,
India?”

“To stay here,” I say. I feel a little more like myself saying this. It’s as if speaking these words gives me back a flicker of the power I felt fighting for my screen in the waiting room. I’m not a victim. I told the truth just as I saw it, even if it will get me in trouble.

Boris motions for Mary Carol to step outside, to talk about something. Mary Carol shakes her head. I’m guessing leaving me alone with Chuck is against regulations.

“Oh for goodness’ sake, Mary Carol. Chuck will come too,” Boris says.

Mary Carol nods reluctantly, and the three of them leave me alone in the chrome-plated room.

When they come back, Mary Carol is smiling. “Congratulations, India. You’ve earned your welcomer job back,” she announces.

“Okay, you did your bit, Chucko, time to go.” Boris flaps his hand at the Chuckinator.

Chuck nods, but there’s something he wants to tell me. His eyes contain a whole conversation he can’t express. “Mouse wanted me to give you this.” He hands me my dad’s old brown wallet—now Bing’s.

Bing’s wallet is always with Bing. Bing is always with Mouse. It’s not possible that this wallet is here with me and Mouse is not. If she’s given me Bing’s wallet, she’s given me Bing.

Nobody could make her do that. She had to want to herself.

I want to open the wallet, but not in front of them. I slip it into my pocket as I overhear Mary Carol whisper to Boris, “You checked it, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Thanks,” I tell Chuck, as if this is no big deal.

He nods, his eyes on me. This time he allows Boris to hustle him outside.

Mary Carol snaps the chairs back up into the wall, closes the soda drawer and the snack drawer. The room is a sleek silver rectangle again—with no trace of the way it was with us in it. “All righty then,” she says, holding the door open for me.

O
n the other side of the doggy door, my eyes adjust slowly to the dark tunnel light. The colors are different here: every shade of brown, but no bright colors, nothing vibrant.

The passageway is expertly dug and surprisingly clean, though it’s made of dirt. There’s a sheen to the tunnel walls, a deep brown glow—as if the dirt has been polished. Not much space down here though. The tunnel is just dog-size—no way for us to move through except on our hands and knees, which is hard on Mouse since she can’t use one of her arms.

When we get some distance from the tunnel dogs— far enough that it feels safe to whisper—we stop and regroup.

Mouse watches me as I pull out my clock. “We can’t leave without the dog, no matter what time it is,” Mouse insists. “Chuck said.”

“He didn’t say we had to. He said it would be helpful.”

“We can’t leave the dog,” Mouse says, stubbornly.

We have to go back, figure out a way to avoid Francine and Manny, persuade a dog to come with us, and find India and the black box all in five hours and nineteen minutes. How is this possible?

“Remember the time Henry ran away, Mouse? Remember how we got her back?” I ask.

“She followed you.”

“She was running toward TO Boulevard and I ran the other direction. She turned around and began chasing after me, remember?”

“You think the blue-eyed dog will follow us?”

I nod.

“What if Francine locks her in?”

I hadn’t thought of that. “She won’t do that, Mouse,” I lie.

“You promise, Finn?” she whispers hopefully. “Pinkie swear?”

I don’t answer this.

Mouse nods as if no answer is her answer. She takes out her clock and looks at it. For the first time, she seems to really understand what is at stake here.

“What about you, Finn? You won’t leave me, will you?” Her voice squeaks.

“I won’t leave you, Mouse.” I put my hand on her messy hair head. “That I can promise. Now c’mon.” I try to make my voice more upbeat than I feel. “We can do this.”

The farther we move into the tunnel, the closer the weather outside sounds. It’s raining out there, maybe hailing too, and the wind is howling.

What is my plan B? How will we find the black box without the acute hearing of a dog? Somebody in Falling Bird must know where it is, but who?

A thunderous boom crashes overhead. The sound reverberates through my legs as the ceiling collapses, spilling soil down all around me.

Dirt pours down my chest. Weighs down my head. Goes up my nose, burns my eyes. Dirt in my mouth, in my throat.

Everything is dirt. Dirt everywhere.

Air. I need air.

I cough, try to breathe.

The shale is loose. Dark all around. Can’t grasp, can’t claw. I fight, dig my way out, but which way is out?

Need air.

I shove my hand up as far as it will go. One finger wiggles free. Shove, push through, now my head. Get my head up there.

I breathe great gasps of air.

Air is the best thing ever. Better than chocolate, better than basketball.

I cough the dirt out of my mouth, my nose, my throat, and then it hits me . . . Mouse? Where’s Mouse? The avalanche filled the tunnel like water pouring into a glass. I can’t see her anywhere.

I dig hard one way and hard the other.

Where have I searched already? Where do I need to look?

“Mouse! Mouse!” My voice is hoarse from dust and from screaming. And then suddenly I hear a whimper.

I stand stock-still to locate the sound. Left. It’s coming from my left. I dig left crazy hard.

The sound is clearer now. A muffled whine, a tan paw. The blue-eyed dog is covered in dirt, her tail pinioned by a boulder the size of a basketball. I shove the boulder with my hands, heave my shoulder into it. The dog yelps as it rolls off her tail.

“Mouse!” I tell her. “Find Mouse!”