Authors: Jay Budgett
Phoenix pulled something from his pocket and pressed it against the windshield, which immediately shattered into tiny pieces. We crawled out.
The Tube’s familiar glass curve hung overhead. Agents were stepping out of the border patrol stations wearing yellow and orange jumpsuits with X’s across their fronts, just below the letters “
M.T.C
.” Agents of the Ministry of Transportation & Commerce.
“Fantastic,” muttered Mila. “Absolutely fantastic…” She pulled her poncho’s hood over her head and kept her eyes down as the agents approached.
Phoenix glanced at me from the corner of his eye. “
Ministry of TC
,” he whispered. “Also known as the
Ministry of Total Crap
.”
I stifled a laugh as the agents approached a truck driver six cars ahead. We were part of an eight-car pile-up that blocked an entire lane. Around us, cars swerved to stay ahead of traffic.
The agents moved along the line, hopping from car to car, collecting license and registration as they passed. “What do we do?” I asked Phoenix.
“Just keep your head down, and trust me.”
A chubby and slightly balding agent approached us. “License and registration, please.”
Behind his sunglasses, Phoenix smiled brilliantly. “Of course, of course.” He placed a hand on the agent’s shoulder. “But you see, my friend, our glove box is jammed.”
The agent pushed off Phoenix’s hand. “You can’t get it out?”
Phoenix reached for his wallet. “I’m afraid the impact was too great.” The agent pinned Phoenix’s hands behind his back.
“I’ll have to take you into custody, then. All three of you, that is. This car could be stolen for all we know,” he said as he cuffed our hands. “Just had a big riot down in South Atlantic.”
“You don't say,” said Phoenix. “Wasn’t there a car show there this week?”
The agent nodded suspiciously. “Yeah. Some idiot tried to run off with a jeep. Ended up crashing into a generator. Serves the low-life right, if you ask me.”
The agent led us to the Maui border office for the Pacific Southwestern Tube, where he parked us on a bench and then disappeared into the back. The office was littered with pictures of baby seals, tossing their heads as they swam through the water, whiskers drenched and brown eyes wide and saucer-like. Phoenix tilted his head toward the pictures. “Shame they went extinct.”
“I always thought there were more farther out at sea?” I said.
Phoenix shook his head. “That’s just what they say when they don’t want you to know the truth.”
I thought of all the things Phoenix had said to me because he didn’t want me knowing the truth.
At last the agent who had cuffed us trotted in from the back room. “The commissioner will see you now. And for goodness’ sake, take off your sunglasses. We’re inside.”
Phoenix smiled, but made no attempt to take off the glasses. As we followed the agent into the back room, I saw that Mila still had her head down and her hood up. Silently, I wished she’d take off the stupid hood. The sunglasses were bad enough. The hood raised even more suspicions.
A man in his forties sat at a small table, and pointed toward three folding chairs on the opposite side. “Take a seat,” he said. A brown mustache curled around the sides of his nose. He wore the same orange suit as the others, except that his had the word “Commissioner” embroidered along his back. Behind the commissioner sat what I guessed was a two-way mirror.
“Names?” he barked, not even lifting his eyes from his notebook.
“Henry Smith,” said Phoenix without hesitation.
“Laura Williams,” said Mila just as quickly.
The commissioner looked at her oddly, and she dropped her head. He raised an eyebrow in my direction. “And you are?”
“Uh, Chester.” I cursed myself for not choosing a common name like the others. They’d figure me out in a second; Chester would be an easy name to verify as false in the system. Henry and Laura, on the other hand, were much more common, and might get bogged in the system. I crossed my fingers and prayed Phoenix had a plan.
“First name
Uh
,” said the commissioner, “ and last name
Chester
?”
My bottom lip quivered from nerves. “No, no,” I said. “It’s Chester Mc—Munchies. Chester McMunchies.”
We were screwed. From the corner of my eye, I saw Mila mutter “
Shit
.”
“You get that?” said the commissioner toward the ceiling—the room was miked. He put a finger to his ear and nodded. “Right then,” he said. “We’re looking the three of you up in the database.”
The room was shrinking. My heart felt tight against my chest. The commissioner cracked his neck. “Let’s take the glasses off, then, shall we?”
Phoenix feigned a struggle with the cuffs. “I can’t,” he said, raising his voice to the rich octave that signaled one was a spoiled brat. “It’s too
hard
.”
“Christ’s sake…” muttered the commissioner. He reached for Phoenix’s glasses. At the last second, Phoenix jerked his head to the side, and the commissioner stumbled onto the table. I imagined his colleagues laughing on the opposite side of the window. He pulled himself up. “What the hell was that?”
Phoenix pouted below the dark glasses. “You can’t just
grab
them,” he said. “They’re
Zwallens
.”
Zwallens was one of the largest luxury brands on this side of Maui. Sunglasses made by Zwallens could easily run into the thousands. The cheap red sticker that ran along the side of Phoenix’s glasses told me they were definitely
not
Zwallens, but I doubted the commissioner would know the difference. Zwallens were mostly just marketed to people in their twenties; people the commissioner’s age were encouraged
not
to wear them.
The red convertible, the fake sunglasses—Phoenix was creating a persona: that of a spoiled rich kid from the wealthy suburbs of Newla. I wondered if the name “Henry Smith” he’d given was real or fake. Maybe it’d been someone he’d known in a past life.
Phoenix weakly lifted his wrists again. “Maybe you could unlock them? They’re making my arms terribly sore, and my chiropractor says—”
“You think I was born yesterday?” The commissioner shook his head. “I’ve seen kids like you before: spoiled rotten. Think you run the world. Please, spare me your entitlements. You’ll wear the handcuffs until we’ve confirmed your identity, and that’s final.” He wandered around the table and kneeled in front of Phoenix. “But the sunglasses, well, those have got to come off
now
.” He gingerly lifted Phoenix’s glasses, his eyes bright with the knowledge that he was holding something truly expensive.
Phoenix butted him hard in the head, and the commissioner fell to the ground. Mila quickly squatted by his side and fished a ring of keys from his pocket. “See any black ones?” she asked. “Maybe one with an edge like a jigsaw?”
There were at least twenty keys dangling from his keyring. I scanned the bunch as best as I could. “Uh, lemme see… Could you maybe twist them around?” She turned them in the air. “There,” I said, “that's better.” I turned and tapped a black key with my finger. She grabbed it from the bunch and twisted it toward her handcuffs with surprising dexterity. In seconds, the cuffs fell from her wrists with a clank.
“Who’s next?” she asked. Phoenix raised his arms behind his back, and she undid his, followed by mine. I wondered how she knew the keys so well. How had she known that the black ones alone would unlock the cuffs?
Phoenix stared at the commissioner and rubbed his forehead. “God, he’s got a thick skull.”
Mila rolled her eyes. “Kinda like the guy who hit him.” Phoenix grinned. She tossed him the keyring. The keys looked small in his hands, like they weren’t real keys at all. I stared at my own hands. They couldn’t have been much bigger than Mila’s…
“Those things,” I pointed to Phoenix’s keys, “they look like nuggets in your hands… You know… Because they’re small…”
“Dear god,” said Mila.
I could’ve slapped myself upside the head. There was something magnetic about Phoenix. Like, in a weird way, he was a superhero, and even though I knew he was going to try to kill me, a part of me wanted to just shrug it off and say, “Well, that’s just how he is.”
Phoenix smirked. For a second he didn’t look so wise or grown-up. He just looked like a regular nineteen-year-old kid. “You know what they say about big hands…”
“No correlation,” I said quickly, and Mila chuckled.
Phoenix turned a key in the door, and it opened with a click. Down the hall, an alarm sounded, and the lights flashed. It was starting to seem like all lights ever did anymore was flash.
I tossed my glasses to the floor—I needed my vision clear if I was going to run—and followed Phoenix’s pounding feet. The thump of his shoes against the cold, white tile was drowned out by a familiar voice. “
This is an emergency,”
a woman’s voice announced. My chest shivered—I was back in the Tube. The megalodons were circling. Charlie was floating by…
“
There has been a security breach. The building is now on lockdown. Please head to your designated area immediately. This is an emergency…
”
Men in yellow suits scrambled down the hall looking like giant French fries. We raced down the corridor in the opposite direction, hurtling past scrambling T&C agents. One tripped on another’s yellow suit, falling to the ground and throwing his hands toward his colleagues, imploring them to save him.
“LEAVE HIM! LEAVE HIM!” another shouted.
There was a window at the end of the hall, and sunlight poured in with little regard for the flashing lights. It was morning—we’d driven straight through the night. A metal gate lowered from the ceiling as the building prepared for lockdown.
“Shit,” muttered Mila. “They’re really locking us in.”
Phoenix didn’t stop running. He tore through the building like it was on fire. “Where’s the commissioner’s office, Meels?”
She shrugged and feigned indifference.
“I know you know where it is. Now please, just tell me.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and pointed.
“Does he have a window view?”
“I don’t remember,” said Mila. “But I think he grew flowers in his office.”
Phoenix nodded. “He’s got a window then.”
We sprinted down the hall. How did Mila know the commissioner? Maybe this was why she’d kept her head down. Maybe she’d been caught before.
The commissioner’s office was stuck in the hall’s corner, and as soon as we were inside, Mila slammed its door shut behind us. She moved to lock it, but Phoenix shook his head. “We don’t have time. I need the keys.” She tossed him the set.
The commissioner’s office was painted orange like sherbet. Pictures of his dog—a basset hound—lined the walls. On the desk were stacks of books, pens, and paper clips. A large window glowed to the desk’s left, and light shined brightly on a pot of pink petunias sitting on its ledge. Even as we stared, bars began to lower themselves across the window.
Phoenix jammed the keys between the lowering bars and the windowsill. They groaned, then stopped altogether. With a shaking fist, Phoenix then shoved the bars back up. They wailed as their circuits burned and died. Phoenix then stuck the keys between his fingers and punched through the glass, his knuckles getting sliced as it broke into shards. He climbed through the window and motioned for me to throw him a hand.
Just then the door slammed open, and the commissioner stood panting in the doorway, his face red with blood and sweat.
“What do we do?” I asked Phoenix. He pointed to a paper clip lying separate from the rest, and then to the commissioner. I grabbed it and held it high in the air. I’d underestimated the power of Bertha’s special paper clips before, but not now.
“TAKE THIS!” I yelled. I tossed the clip with a flick of my wrist and braced myself for the eruption of smoke that would follow.
The paper clip bounced harmlessly off the commissioner’s chest and fell to the ground. He scratched his head. “What the hell?”
Phoenix grabbed my hand and pulled me through the window.
“It was just a normal paper clip?” I said.
Phoenix nodded. “But it distracted him, didn’t it?”
I pretended not to be disappointed, but silently I added paper clips to the list of things I couldn’t trust: puddles in public restrooms, door handles, the Lost Boys, and, now, paper clips. I had a feeling the list would grow indefinitely.
Mila crawled through the window after us. As she slipped out, a hand shot out from the office and wrapped itself around her ankle. The commissioner’s bloodshot eyes appeared in the window, staring angrily at her as he fought hard to catch his breath. Mila’s hood fell back around her neck, and a flash in the commissioner’s eyes told me recognized her curls.
“Mila Vachowski,” he said, his eyes foggy—distant like those of the denizens of Skelewick. “I
knew
that wasn’t your face on the news.”
Mila turned and, for the first time since I’d met her, I saw real fear in her green eyes. She tried to pull her leg away, but the commissioner held on even more tightly. “I remember your father,” he said. “He was a good man. One of the best we had in the Ministry. We don’t get ones like him often.”
Mila nodded slightly, her eyes drooped, and her mouth went slack in a breathless gape. The commissioner released her leg. “I hope you know what the hell you’re doing.” Mila yanked her leg away, and we ran.
The commissioner had known her father—he’d worked for the Ministry of Transpiration & Commerce.
That
was how she’d known about the keys and the layout of the border station—because she’d been there before many times. We ran over a hill that backed up against the side of the station and fled into the city. Mila wiped tears from her eyes.
I wondered, again, who
were
the Lost Boys, and what were they really doing? And, perhaps most importantly: what did they want with me?
We stole a white minivan from a Bixby & Barnnigan’s parking lot in Maui. Phoenix figured it belonged to a soccer mom and that she’d be in the store for a while, giving us time to run before she reported its theft to the cops.
Next we drove to a local
Drive-n-Thrive
burger shop, and demanded that they give us a set of their uniforms (ridiculous green baseball caps) and pairs of sunglasses. I tried to edge in a request for a cheeseburger by showing them my socks, but they hadn’t fired the grills up yet and it’d be thirty minutes if we wanted to wait.