No Passengers Beyond This Point (15 page)

The Chuckinator shrugs, his attention riveted to the road. “Looks like they’re making us stop,” he mutters, hitting the brakes.

Up ahead is a fence maybe twenty feet high, made of shiny rounded metal with windows in a neat row. Luggage carts, passenger carts, white pearlescent carts are parked in a cluster. A bunch of guys in security uniforms like Dean’s go in and out of the two glass booths in front of the fence. A glass tower looms high above us. There are no other cars out here. It’s only our feather taxi pulling up to what looks like a border crossing checkpoint station with an opening like the passenger door on an aircraft.

“Maybe they want to know if we have any grapefruits,” Mouse suggests. “Remember when we drove to Mexico and we had the grapefruit and we had to give it to the border man?”

Chuck brings the taxi to a halt and one of the security dudes sticks his head in Chuck’s window. He’s a short, middle-aged Hispanic guy with black hair straight as a ruler and a uniform shirt tight across his middle. His cloud patch says his name is Manny. “Destination?” Manny asks.

“Airport, sir,” Chuck answers.

Manny stares at me. His eyebrows waggle on his face. “With a full load?”

“Passenger’s request, sir,” Chuck replies.

“Hey, fourteen,” Manny calls back to another guard. “They’re set for an airport return. Should we check with Francine?”

“Passengers identified?” a mechanical voice like the one in Maddy’s dad’s GPS answers. Only this one is loud like it’s coming through a speaker system.

“The Tompkins kids,” Chuck answers.

“All three of them?” the mechanical voice with its perfectly spaced pauses asks.

“Yes, sir,” the Chuckinator replies. He’s so polite. Not even Finn is that polite.

“India was given a position as a welcomer,” the voice states.

My forehead gets hot when I hear my name. My tongue feels dry as dirt.

The Manny guard dude sticks his head in the window again. “A welcomer . . . coveted position, India. Going to toss it away”—he snaps his fingers in my face—“like that?”

The screen on my wrist has gone live with the face of Maddy in Technicolor. “In,” she says, “my mom has the car out. Just tell me where to go. You are way more fun than Lizzie. You’re my best friend forever.” But her face is wavering as if there’s electronic interference.

“India?” Manny repeats, a question in his voice.

“Yes, sir,” I say.

“You won’t get another job like that one, honey.” His voice is gentle. “You sure you want to turn in your uniform?”

I think about that job. Nothing was hard. Nothing was expected of me that I couldn’t easily master. I couldn’t fall short. I just did what Laird said. No one thought I was stupid either. My mom always says: If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But there were no lemons. No reason to make lemonade. The only thing missing was Maddy. And she’s going to come, right?

“India, do you want to reconsider?” The mechanical voice rings in my head. I can’t tell if the voice is inside or outside my brain.

“Of course she wouldn’t,” Mouse answers, worming her hand into mine.

“Maddy,” I whisper to the empty screen. “What should I do?”

“She’s not coming!” Mouse locks the door.

“This isn’t something anyone else can decide for you, India,” Manny explains. He gently moves Mouse’s hand, unlocks the door, and reaches inside to pop my clock out of the backseat. This he places carefully in my lap and waits.

“India.” Finn’s voice is tight as twisted rope. “You won’t be going back to that mansion.”

The door is open, the path in front of me is flooded with light. Where did it come from? I didn’t notice it until now.

The warmth is intense . . . intoxicating. Nothing hurts. There is no pain. The glowing path smells of chocolate cake just out of the oven. It feels like a warm river flowing inside my skin, like my knees are sinking into a feather pillow, like all my hopes have suddenly come true in one dot of the
i
in my name:
India.

I wrap my fingers around my clock and open the door. There’s nothing else to do.

M
ouse’s face is so pale she looks as if she’s been dusted in flour. “What about India? We can’t leave India.”

“Threat level orange for continuing vehicles. Threat level orange,” the mechanical voice drones on.

Manny sticks his head back in the window. “Pretty cold out there. Snow flurries, according to the Weather Group. And the explosive potential is ninety to ninety-five percent. The Operations Group has their concerns as well.”

Chuck’s eyes are full of questions. “Shall I take you back to Falling Bird, Finn Tompkins?”

Just behind us at the border station is a white courtesy phone. My heart thumps so loudly I can’t hear anything but my own doubts.

“No.” I shake my head.

“Finn!” Mouse spits at me. “We can’t leave her.”

Chuck turns back to the guard. “If you don’t mind, sir, they want to continue on.”

“Finn!” Mouse pounds on my chest with her good fist.

“Unwilling passenger alert! Unwilling passenger alert! Would Mouse Tompkins like to return to Falling Bird?” the mechanical voice booms.

Mouse grabs my arm with her good hand so tightly each of her fingers feels like they are carving grooves in my flesh. “No,” she says. “I’m staying with Finn.”

“India needs a sure thing,” I tell Mouse. “We have to get the black box first. Then she’ll come.”

Mouse’s voice is so small I almost can’t hear it. “What if we can’t find it, Finn? What then?”

The guard looks at his clipboard, then down at Mouse. He squats so he can look into her eyes. “Arm bothering you, little one?” he asks softly.

“Can you help her?” I whisper.

“Course. Got full health coverage for citizens. Everybody’s shipshape in Falling Bird.”

“But then we have to go back?” I ask.

“I’m afraid so,” Manny says.

Mouse is huddled up against the door, a crumpled heap of dirty blue corduroy. “You want me to go back with you, Mouse?” I ask her.

“Which way is Mommy?”

“Mommy’s that way,” I say, pointing away from Falling Bird.

She nods. “That’s what Bing says too.”

“You’re set to go then, little Mouse?” Manny asks.

“Yes, Mr. Manny, sir,” Mouse says.

“And Chuck, you checked with air traffic control? No flights coming in for you, number forty-four?”

“Not yet, sir.” Chuck smiles his usual smile, but his hands on the wheel are trembling.

Manny scratches his chin. His eyes are thoughtful, like my mom’s when she really wants to know what I think. “All right then. This is your choice,” he says, pushing a button in the glass booth. The gigantic door in the metal fence opens and Chuck drives through.

The wheels had been hovering over the road, but now they connect directly to the highway on the other side and the temperature drops sharply. Chuck cranks up the heat. Flying bugs hit the glass and he turns on the windshield wipers.

What are we doing? One hundred thousand to one, Sparky said. Who in their right mind would take those odds? Maybe India was right.

The bugs crunch against the wipers, and the whistling wind batters the car, almost lifting us sideways. All of Chuck’s attention is on the road when the radio comes alive. “Forty-four? Dispatch here. Come in, forty-four. Forty-four!”

“Oh no! Not Francine . . . Finn, get the radio!” Chuck shouts. He needs both hands on the wheel to keep the car on the road. “Tell her to put the call through to Sparky.”

Sparky? This won’t count, right? This isn’t a white courtesy phone.

“Forty-four, this is Francine. The Weather Group has requested an immediate return to Falling Bird,” she announces. “The threat level has been modified. We are now at threat level red.”

I wiggle out of the seat belt and pull the receiver toward me. The curly cord stretches taut. “Um ma’am, could we speak to Sparky, please?”

The wind howls. Hailstones the size of jawbreakers hit the windshield. The few bugs left are bludgeoned to death by ice pellets.

Chuck seems to need brute strength just to keep the car on the road.

“Mechanical alert!” Francine’s voice is panicked now. She doesn’t seem to have heard me. Did I push the right button to transmit?

“Come in, forty-four. Vehicle Performance Group confirms your vehicle is not made to withstand the crushing forces of this storm. Forty-four! Threat level red. Return requested immediately.”

Chuck’s neck swivels for a quick look at me. “How much time do you have?”

“Eight hours, seventeen minutes for me. Nine hours, seventeen minutes for Mouse,” I tell him over the pounding hail pelting down on the windshield. “If we go back, will there be time to try again after the weather breaks?” I shout.

“Doubtful. It will take time to find the black box!”

“What about India?” Mouse cries. “We can’t leave her.”

“Human Performance Group has their concerns about your behavior, forty-four.” Francine’s radio voice buzzes. “Please turn back your vehicle. Return requested immediately. Federal laws prohibit tampering with—”

Chuck grips the wheel with one hand. With the other, he reaches up and switches the radio off.

The defroster struggles to keep the windshield from fogging up. The feathers on the hood ornament are flattened straight back with the force of the gale.

I’m panting, trying as hard as I can not to panic. I hang the radio receiver over the front seat. My heart is hammering. “Where is the black box?”

“Near the airport, I think!” Chuck shouts, but we can barely hear his voice.

“You think?”

Chuck shrugs.

“How do we find it?”

“It emits a sound, like a radio beep.” Chuck strains to be heard over the howling wind. “The tunnel dogs can hear it.”

I crack the window and the icy air bites through my shirt sleeves. How will a dog hear the beep of the black box over this? A new sound like lawn mowers on full power roars in my ear. And then I see the Black Hawk helicopters gunning for us.

“They’re coming down,” Chuck hollers. “They’ll take us back. Look, you have to decide right now what you want to do.”

I grab Chuck’s shoulder. “What if you go back? Can
you
get India, while we find the black box?”

“I can’t make her come with me, Finn. It’s her choice. And you and Mouse won’t last out here without the car!”

“Leave the car then!” I shout.

“They’ll chase the car. It’s Falling Bird property. They won’t go after you if you’re on foot . . .”

“Mouse, you go back and convince India! I’ll find the black box,” I tell her as the Black Hawk helicopters hover over our heads like mechanical birds of prey.

“I’m not leaving you!” Mouse cries as the hail turns to snow, which makes the highway slick and the tires slip and slide over the road.

“This is crazy, Mouse. We won’t survive. Look at it out there.”

“I’M STAYING WITH YOU!” Mouse shouts, her good hand clamped around my arm.

“Find the tunnel dogs. Win them over. They’ll lead you to the box, but you’re going to need a vehicle . . .”

“Where are the tunnel dogs?”

“In the Bird’s Nest Passage. Get the dog first, then worry about the vehicle. That’s my best guess.”

“Your best guess?” I cry.

“Look Finn, be careful. Not everyone wants you to make it. Francine . . .” But the chop-chop of the helicopters drown out the rest.

I pop my clock out of the seat. I have to take it with me, just like India took hers. It feels a part of me in some creepy way. Mouse grabs hers too as the helicopters land in a whipping rush. Snow blows through the open window.

Chuck floors the taxi. The tires squeal and skid, then grip the ground as he drives off the road, steering between two landing helicopters, over the muddy, snow-dusted terrain to a clearing in the woods.

The helicopters are powering down, the great engines humming at a lower octave. Now that they’ve made contact with the ground, they can’t power up again quickly enough.

“We’ll send Bing back!” Mouse shouts in my ear over the deafening noise.

She digs in her pocket for Bing’s wallet.

“Mouse, stay with Chuck. You won’t make it out here with your broken arm.”

“NO! I’M NOT LEAVING YOU!” she shouts. “Chuck, when you find India, give her Bing’s wallet.” She presses the wallet into his hand.

Chuck takes the wallet. He opens his door and the wind blasts the freezing rain in. Big smothering blankets of snow are coming down in some places. We don’t even have jackets.

“Are you sure, Finn?” Chuck cries.

“Yes!” Mouse and I both shout and Chuck dodges to a tree stump. He shoves it out of the way, revealing the entrance to a tunnel. Mouse takes my hand and together we run through the driving wind to the tunnel opening.