Part Two
16)
Alistair and Zeta discussed the most efficient means of leaving Seapoint, even before the cruiser landed. The gregariousness and sincere hospitality of Alistair Dumes made it extremely difficult for Zeta to decline the courtesy offer to stay the night at Dumes's luxurious sea-side condo. And, not long after she awoke, Ro found out that Zeta had made the plans without consulting her. She whacked him on the arm angrily for taking away her chance at a hot bath. But once Zeta explained his reasons, and Ro's temper expired, she saw it was best that they catch the EHT redeye to the east coast.
Ro couldn't believe how fast the day had slipped behind her, into unmarked, bland history. The sun had set by the time the cruiser hovered over Seapoint, flying at a comfortable altitude of ten-thousand feet. It gave Ro and Zeta a chance to experience first-hand Seapoint's famous coastal sky-line, displayed in speckled city lights. The western horizon was as beautiful, adding to the image as a whole, sprayed with vibrant hues typical of a sunset: navy, azure, purple, orange, yellow, and a line of milky-gray that indicated the ocean, which seemed to wave on and on into infinity. The wanderers nearly regretted they'd be spending no time in Seapoint. It looked inviting, like a place a mind could get lost in for a few days, only to find it again in the turbulent face of the sea.
Alistair parked his cruiser at his rented hanger at Seapoint's commercial airfield. A car with a personal driver was waiting for him and his guests. As Ro neared it, Alistair a few steps ahead, she whispered to Zeta. "What do you suppose this guy does for a living? He lives a high life." Zeta refrained from a full response as they neared the expensive vehicle, but only managed to say what Ro already knew, that the government had bought Dumes's tobacco fields years ago, when tobacco farming was no longer lucrative to the global economy and production was banned. Alistair obviously had found a life beyond tobacco farming, and a very wealthy one. Ro and Zeta sunk into the extended back of the faux leather interior, Alistair sitting across from them, already pouring himself a cocktail. The chauffeur leaned and whispered inaudibly into his master's ear, and Alistair nodded. The chauffeur took his seat in the front, then the car started for the downtown Seapoint station. Alistair let out a sigh, cherishing his drink. He was relieved he no longer had to pilot. He took a sip and leaned back, relaxed, observing his guests in a wide smile.
"I like to fly," he explained to them, since he knew they'd be wondering. "It soothes me. Plus the cruisers are so much fun to pilot. The steering is so touchy, like a sports car. But you're too young to remember the great sports cars, back when they still had combustion engines and guzzled precious fossil fuel. I suppose it's a good thing our society stopped relying so much on fuel. It started too many wars, didn't it? You get a sour-faced Republican in office with ties to oil tycoons, and you get an invasion of a country with a lot of oil." He snickered at his own bitter rhetoric, then looked at Ro's large eyes, dimmed in the night. "Sure you wouldn't like a soda or something, fair sprite?"
Ro took advantage of his kindness and the length of the trip to the train station, and had him pour for her a club soda with ice and a lemon wedge. There were no cherries to be had. "I don't think I'd be a sprite," she said to Alistair. He observed her blankly, wondering why any girl would deny being something energetic and youthful. "I'd probably be something more intangible, like an oread or one of the Pleiades."
"An oread, huh?" Alistair winked, amused. "Then I will always think of you as the oread I once helped, and who once helped my nephew. If you two are ever in Seapoint again, look me up. I work on the seventh floor of the Rÿyennas building, at the corner of Harlton and Fifteenth Street."
"And what exactly is Rÿyennas?" Ro couldn't help but ask, her curiosity was far too piqued at the mention of the building's foreign name. It only sounded vaguely familiar to her. She kept her nose far from the greedy proceedings of the corporate world.
Alistair was not offended by the inquiry, as he had nothing to hide. His actions were far from criminal, and he was on the legitimate side of business now, as far as anyone knew. "Rÿyennas is a digital press association, mostly photography, though we do the occasional breaking news story. We work a lot with surveillance modifications, image capturing--that sort of thing." He failed to see how it would interest a girl like Ro. She was certainly smart, but struck Alistair as being fairly shallow in an endearing, unobjectionable way, like his niece Julie and his own daughter. It was a teenage-girl archetype, and he stuck to it firmly. "It is better than overseeing tobacco crops. The government provided me with this Rÿyennas job after they bought out my plantation. Of course, they had to; they're the ones who outlawed tobacco in the first place. We no longer have nicotine available to us, or the chemicals in cigarettes to give us cancer in our lungs, yet we still have alcohol, barrels and seas of alcohol, to poison our delicate human structure. Ironic, don't you think?"
Ro looked at Zeta, and his image was barely perceptible in the dark of the car. The occasional flash of a streetlamp or neon sign, its power limited by the heavy tint of the limousine's windows, would make visible his features but only for a mere second. She was again thankful for the synthoid's presence, as she found herself oddly chilled by Alistair Dumes. Although she was sure he was a good sort of person, and he'd probably never had an inkling to kill anyone, she felt that maybe he hadn't always been such an upstanding citizen. Ro knew a seedy and questionable past when she saw one.
Unable to wait for the chauffeur to attend him, Zeta hurried out from vehicle, sensing Ro's apprehension, the moment they came to a stop in front of the entrance to the sprawling EHT Seapoint station. The electronic hover train was a popular mode of getting quickly from one place to another, no matter what local chapter of the mafia ran it, and even late at night on a Monday, the station maintained a steady flow of travelers. Zeta escorted Ro from the backseat, and took her elbow as not to lose track of her among the crowded passenger drop-off area.
"You kids hurry along," Alistair said to them, still inside the car. The overhead border lights shone upon his face, high-lighting oil on the bulk of his nose, and his eyes were blackened by the protruding brow bone.
"Thank you," Ro started, "for your help, Mr. Dumes. We appreciate it."
"It wasn't a problem," he responded. "You shouldn't have any trouble getting a seat on the redeye to Maryland. I had my assistant call ahead to save two tickets. Pick them up at the window."
Zeta, who was typically so quick with his kindness and consideration, only bowed his thanks. Alistair bowed in return, just a slight bend in the neck, and there was some happy mock in his eyes as he watched Zee Smith. "Goodbye, Mr. Smith. I trust you two will have a safe trip. Well, good luck." The window went up and Alistair disappeared behind the smoky glass. The chauffeur had returned to the wheel, and the car promptly headed down the road, out of sight past a slight angle. Zeta's grip at Ro's elbow tightened so much that she wrenched free.
"Loosen up, tin man," she said, and rubbed her hurt elbow gently, frowning at Zeta.
Very much disappointed in himself, he apologized as they headed through the doors of the station. "There's something odd about Mr. Dumes," Zeta confessed in a sleuth's manner. "I don't like him."
"Do you think we should take the tickets he reserved for us?"
"Yes, I think we should," Zeta replied. He was busy scanning the people around him for their protection, as if the station was full of enemies and spies. "I don't think he means us any harm. But that doesn't mean I have to like him."
"It's good to hear of you actually disliking someone, you know. I thought you liked everyone. You're too trusting sometimes, Zee."
Zeta couldn't reply. The only thing he thought was how he'd rather be too trusting than to care for no one, ever. It was far too often that people were distrusted until it was proved they could be trusted. To Zeta, this was a backward approach to life. People should be trusted and believed in, always, until they displayed some seeable antithesis of character.
They waded their way through the throng of people, each person merrily moving about his or her own way, in a speed and rudeness that Zeta hadn't missed being in the country. While waiting in the line to pick up their tickets, Zeta spoke to Ro.
"I do not like Seapoint," he declared. A woman behind him shot the back of his head an angry look, and Ro almost giggled. "It's very beautiful, really, but all of these people seem so heartless and---"
"They're just too strung out on caffeine. Give them a break. This is the sacred birthplace of cyber cafes like Ground Wire, after all. These people don't know anything but earthquakes, computers and coffee."
"This was one of the last cities," Zeta went on, as if he hadn't heard the joke, "to take down the surveillance systems in public areas, when the privacy laws were passed twenty years ago. They wouldn't comply."
"Yes, I remember reading about that," Ro said. "The government had to send in the army to physically take down the cameras and tear out the computer equipment. There were riots and protests everywhere. I wonder why they wouldn't do what they were told?"
"There was speculation it had something to do with another country's government--secret operations experts who were using the cameras to track international terrorists. It's even thought by some insiders that the riots were supposed to be the start of an underground radical movement to promote Seapoint's becoming its own---"
"Better shut up, Zee," Ro said, as they were one couple away from the ticket booth, and people around them started to seem a little too interested in their conversation. She and Zeta were supposed to be inconspicuous, and not stand out whenever possible. In the renowned, overused theory of outlaws, they were supposed to blend in and be like everybody else. That was difficult for Ro, who had only been near normal upwards of twelve years ago, so far back she could barely remember. And she wasn't entirely sure she'd ever been normal, because her life never had been. The task of normalcy was impossible for Zeta. Being a synthoid meant he could never be human, but he could be like a human: walk like them, talk like them. But he was too smart, too innocent. It didn't help that he walked with an eager importance and severely, so that men wondered what sort of great business he had to attend. It also didn't help that his chosen hologram made him look tall, distinguished and handsome, which sent young girls and women into sighs and heart flutters whenever he passed. Zeta was eye-catching in spite of himself. The reluctant corner of Ro's mouth lifted a little as she thought about it, and she grabbed Zeta's hand in hers just when they were finally greeted at the ticket window. Almost human, Zeta was. Almost human, but not quite.
Tickets in hand, they meandered slowly toward the number nine platform. Ro gave a pleased shout when she noticed for what elite car their tickets were for, one of the posh first-class cars near the back of the train, where it was quietest. They had an entire six-seat room to themselves. Heaven it would be for Ro to have an entire couch to herself, where she could stretch out and nap as she chose during the ten-hour, cross-country trek, including the hours they would lose covering four time zones. Zeta would have to find some other way of amusing himself while she catnapped. She was telling him so when he suddenly stopped, and she felt the synthoid's intensity mount to the peak where she always felt frightened herself.
"Something isn't right, Ro," Zeta told her, then tried to continue his steps pleasantly, as though he was not as aware as he truly was. "Keep walking," he instructed.
Ro was already on edge, and Zeta's iterations that there was "probably nothing to worry about" didn't help decrease her nerves. But without a sour instance they made it onto the train, to their car, finally to their compartment. Before she stepped in ahead of Zeta, he held her back at the shoulders, inadvertently using his robot strength and lifted her from the ground, almost tossing her out of the private room. "Wait, Ro," he said. "Let me look inside first."
Watching him in rising consternation, Ro smoothed down her hair with her hands and rolled her eyes. He was being contradictory, like a human. First he was on alert, then said not to worry about it, now he was back to checking under the couch's cushions in search of some hidden weaponry of destruction. Zeta declared the compartment was void of anything detectable, and he used that word, "detectable," and brought Ro inside. She flopped down on the couch, prepared to sleep away the ten travel hours. Zeta remained upward, staring, examining. There was the distant robotic look in his eye. He was not satisfied they were safe. He went to the door, and Ro lifted her head to perceive him when he called her name. "Lock the door. I'm going to be right back. But--lock the door. You'll know it's me."
Ro did as she was instructed, and slid the lock into place as her tin man left down the hall of the train's long luxury car. She sat at the edge of the couch, her hands under her thighs, tight, afraid and tense. For a moment she looked at the window, covered in a sheer beige curtain, and saw the people in hazy forms parading around like human flies across the platform, some in a hurry, others moving as slow as a tortoise. Ro could not understand how the rest of the world could feel so at peace, and her life, at that moment, seemed so disturbed, even threatened.
She jumped and felt her nerves grow taut and pricked when a firm knock landed on the door. And she only stared at the sliding lock, for a moment worrying she hadn't locked it at all, but assuring herself in logic that she had. The knock came again, and somehow Ro did know, as Zeta had said, she did know it was not him at the door.
"Hello?" a female voice called. "Beverage service."
Still, Ro did not move. She bit her lip when the handle jiggled, the lock keeping its place. Even if it was beverage service, Ro refused to answer. She'd fallen before for some NSA ruse, and wasn't going to let it happen again. Besides, she wasn't thirsty, and cared little for having a beverage. Let the attendant move on to the next room. She wanted Zeta to return. Why hadn't he come back yet? How long had he been gone? A few minutes at the most, she rationalized with herself. She grabbed a throw pillow from the couch and held it across her chest tightly, as if to ward off charged thoughts of fear. Her nails dug into the chenille fabric, most especially when a soft knock came upon the door pane. Ro hesitated, then tossed the pillow aside. Before she rose from the couch, however, she waited an extra ten seconds, as someone from the outside called.
"Twinkle, twinkle little star."
Ro couldn't help but laugh, even at her own seemingly unfounded fear. It was Zeta at the door, singing the child's tune. She unlatched the door and slid it aside. Zeta caught the look of both amusement and fear in Ro's expression. He analyzed her completely as he edged her back.
"Did something happen?"
"Someone knocked on the door. I think it was just the attendant with beverages. I never heard that before. Must be a luxury car thing, huh?"
Zeta opened the door again to examine the hallway. There was no beverage girl in sight. The hallway was empty the length of the car, just like when he'd arrived. He looked back at Ro from where he was. She slouched into the couch and grabbed the pillow.
"Don't go," she said. "I'd rather you didn't. It isn't worth it." She was relieved when he had locked the door and sat across from her, on his own couch. "Did you find anything?"
"Nothing. There are only a few other rooms occupied in this car."
Ro leaned forward, forearms on her knees, flipping the pillow nervously between her clammy hands.
Zeta rubbed the corner of his holographic eye, a purely human gesture. He did things like that occasionally, freakishly rare movements, as though he shared his robotic brain with a human one, and sometimes the human one got the better of him. It wasn't the case, however, not entirely. He pretended to act human, and was so used to the act that sometimes he grew unaware of his actions. At times the human body frightened him. It felt vulnerable, mortal, real to be human.
"Something is wrong."
"It must be. You don't have the wrong kind of--impulses." Perhaps the word wasn't exactly an appropriate one, but it was the best Ro could do at the moment. The few minutes of baseless fright had worn her out emotionally. "Do you think we should get off this train?"
"No, we need to reach Maryland. This is the best way."
"We could always find another way. It's not easy to travel when you've got the Gestapo on your tail."
Zeta winced, analyzing the Gestapo remark. "Why would Alistair give us the tickets? It doesn't make any sense. We weren't so nice to him."
"Why were we stupid enough to accept them?"
"What's he trying to do?"
"Maybe he knows about us and is trying to protect us. You know that if we'd purchased the tickets ourselves---"
"But," Zeta interrupted, with a valuable point, "we had the money that Julie and Tess gave us. Alistair didn't know we were given money. Maybe he did feel sorry for us and only wanted to help."
"He's not the charitable sort," Ro said. "Trust me. There's nothing on his tax papers that says he can deduct a gift of five-hundred creds he made to buy EHT tickets for fugitives. And that's if he even pays his taxes."
Zeta gave something of a half-snicker, weak and impartial. He examined the platform out the window, and the whistle for the EHT hooted from above and seeped through the metal walls of the high-speed train. They were nearly on their way. Departure was set. Zeta and Ro looked at each other and knew they had to make a decision. The knock came at the door again, identical to the one that Ro had heard before. Zeta gestured for Ro to stay where she was while he answered, completely on guard. It was the customary beverage girl returning. She and her two-layered cart of juice and soft drinks were ready to fulfill an order.
"Anything to drink, Miss?" the young lady asked, observing Ro as she sat tensely on the couch.
Ro tried to relax, and ordered her typical cherry drink. Zeta sat on the edge of the opposite couch, thinking of what they should do. He could not settle the inkling inside that something was wrong. This was too easy. He'd grown too used to every departure from every town being dangerous and difficult. Suddenly, he was distrusting in the face of ease.
A great crash occurred without warning, which rose Ro off the couch and into the back of the room, and Zeta was alarmed, sizing up the situation quickly. Someone had run down the hallway, crashed into the beverage cart, tipping it to its side and into the square room. As a result, the floor of their compartment was dark and dampened by every open canister of liquid, not to mention a pound or two of white ice cubes.
"Ew," Ro said, and lifted a foot from the floor that was like a lake. "That's not going on our bill," Ro told the beverage girl, as Zeta helped her clean up some of the mess. Ro joined in, as the compartment became cramped with the arrival of two other EHT staff members. The luxury car manager was among them, and insisted on moving Ro and Zeta to another empty compartment to compensate for the messy accident. The only available one was on the car ahead, and wondered if it would be acceptable.
Zeta examined the manager. "There are plenty of empty rooms in this car," he said. He knew that for a fact. He'd seen the empty rooms.
The manager explained. "The other rooms are not cleaned. If you would prefer, we could certainly prepare one for you in this car, but there isn't another in the car ahead which is ready now."
The excuse was enough to satisfy Ro, but Zeta could not be so placated, not when he was already on alert. Unfortunately, he was unable to find an excuse to keep them in the present car, and Ro had her heart set on getting comfortable. The train had already left the depot, gaining speed, and they were on their way, whether they liked it or not.
"Well," Ro started, her boots sloshing around over the wet carpet, "I don't think we can stay here for ten hours. It smells like a soda-pop stand." Ro grabbed the sleeve of Zeta's coat. "Come on, Zee, let these nice gentlemen show us to our new accommodations."
Their new room was just like the other, but on the west side of the train instead of the east, so that their window, during most of the trip, faced north. They were quickly made comfortable, the manager offering his personal assistance, though it was not required. Zeta locked the door as soon as the staff members had stopped the cordial hovering. Ro stretched out on the couch, using both throw pillows under her head. Zeta watched her in a moment of curiosity. Ro slept a lot when they traveled, but especially lately. It seemed that whenever he looked at her she was half-asleep, asleep, or--and he frowned thinking of it--unconscious. As he fiddled with the sheen curtain at the window, and began to watch the lights of suburban Seapoint speed by in a motion blur, Zeta spoke to Ro quietly.
"I hope you'll consider what we talked about a few nights ago, Ro."
Ro peeled open a reluctant eye, just one, like a cat, and peered at Zee with a baby-blue iris. "H'mm?" She closed the eye again, leaving Zeta to guess her emotion.
"The vacation," he reminded. "The nice long rest somewhere out of the way. Anywhere you want."
"Considering it?" Ro said thickly through a yawn. She let out a little chuckle. "I'd love to do it. I just don't know if it's possible."
"Why wouldn't it be?"
"Money, for one thing." Ro was too tired to have the discussion, but Zeta was persistent. And it was nice to dream that for a week or so she could sit still and not have to worry.
"Why worry about money?"
"Well, it's really easy to worry about it when you don't have any."
"You're worried about the NSA tracing the number on the credcard, of course. Well, that is easy enough to get around, and I'm surprised you didn't think of it before. You are endlessly resourceful."
"I am. What's the way to get around it?"
"Put the reservation deposit on another credcard, like the one Tess gave us. It wouldn't be more than fifty. Then pay the rest of the bill on my credcard when you leave. By the time the NSA traces you, you'll be long gone."
Ro couldn't even bring herself to ask why he was referring to the trip in single form, her form, as though he would not be along. She was tired, but she was not tired enough to realize Zeta's speech. Ro rolled over onto her stomach, her head turned from Zee, and her forehead pushed against the plush of the couch. "Goodnight, Zee," she said. Zeta leaned over the gap between his couch and hers, to lay his fingers over the shape of her shoulder and press it affectionately. She touched his fingers for a moment, so lightly that the synthoid felt nothing. "Goodnight, Ro."
Three hours southeast from the departure from Seapoint, Zeta sat in a purely human arrangement on the couch. His legs were upon the upholstery, the soles of his boots together, his knees together, his arms resting at his sides, supported by bent elbows, and in his hands he held his favorite invention, the Reader, and his rapidly moving eyes scanned the words of a downloaded news article. As a robot, he read too fast, too swiftly, comprehending near eighty words in ten seconds. To store information, important information, he had to move slower and sort more meticulously, more like a human would. But, unlike a human, he chose what he remembered. A human was lucky if they could remember ten things in a single chapter of a history book. Zeta remembered what he wanted and nothing more, nothing less. And there were only a few worthwhile points in the article that were worth storing. He'd already read six others of similar style, and he'd even watched television. He had thought about shutting down for a while, give himself and his hologram a break, restore some energy to depleting areas, but he could not bring himself to do it. The events of earlier, his certainty that something was wrong, lingered. Still, nothing odd had happened, aside from the changing of their rooms. Zeta casted a light glance at Ro, now asleep on her back, her mouth open a little, and she looked peaceful. He genuinely wished she would find whatever she was looking for in Hillsburg, even if he didn't think it was wise to return. Rosalie Rowen did what Rosalie Rowen needed to do. Zeta would not interfere with that.
The train moved along smoothly, nearly noiselessly, and he knew Seapoint was far behind. The blackness of nothing out the window told him they were in the middle of nowhere. His internal GPS system put their location somewhere near Lawrence, Kansas. Occasionally there would be an insignificant town that passed by, lasting momentarily, and gone almost too soon to be noticed. The speed of the train easily reached two-hundred and fifty miles per hour, especially over flat, Midwestern geography, and anything that passed was passed in a hurry. The train had made no stops, not once, and was on its direct way to Maryland, a small state on the opposite coast, in which Hillsburg was located. Hillsburg was more than eighty miles north-northwest from of Spring City, the train's urban destination. Zeta was thankful for the nonstop redeye. They would alight in Maryland near ten in the morning, with the entire day ahead of them.
Unfortunately, once the train gave a sudden and unusual jolt, Zeta held to the armrest of the chair for balance. He wondered if the train would be making an unexpected stop after all.
The train rocked again, and this time the power to the accelerator was declined. The ride came to a complete standstill over an abnormally brief period of time, perhaps five minutes instead of the typical twenty or so. Zeta heard the force-gravity cabin regulator cease its light hum, return briefly, then disappear altogether. At the same time, the running lights overhead flickered, dimmed, and returned to full power.
Ro lifted her head, awake and aware. "What's going on?"
"The train appears to be malfunctioning," Zeta replied. "In fact, it has stopped moving completely." He stepped across to sit beside Ro, and she moved her long legs out of his way. He couldn't help but feel trapped.
"Do you think it's them?"
Zeta looked at her. He knew what 'them' she referred to. But, unfortunately, the NSA finding them on a redeye to Maryland was not out of the question. They'd had experience with mass transit before, not so very long ago.
"Well, if it is them," Ro said, still with her sense of humor, "they'll come in here, guns a blazin'!"
The warning alarm began to blare, accompanied by a blinking red light, to explain to all passengers something had gone wrong. A voice and face came over the vidscreen PA system, set up just near the door. It was the head engineer, and he tried to describe the situation to keep his travelers calm. Zeta was calm, and Ro only a bit more excited than he. They watched the chipper-faced captain as the announcement was declared.
"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, and I certainly hope we haven't frightened all of you. We have had a problem in luxury car 'G'. Nothing at this time to be alarmed about. We have stopped the train to examine the problem. Your cooperation is expected. Passengers will need to use the nearest car exits at this time. Please utilize caution and courtesy while leaving the train. No doubt we'll get everything running smoothly again soon. Thank you." The screen flashed and went black.
Ro started to laugh as she and Zeta prepared to leave their compartment located in car 'F', the car just ahead of 'G'.
"Zee!" Ro exclaimed, tugging at his arm.
"I know, Ro," he said, taking her wrist in his hand. "Car 'G' was the car we were in before."
So he did know, Ro thought. Perhaps his intuitive "bad vibes" were not far off the mark, after all.
They made it to the exit door that led out of the car and onto a staircase, where they would wait on the side of the train like the other passengers. Zeta expected the door to open at the push of the button, like it typically did. But when he pushed the button no door opened. Not a thing happened. Zeta pushed it again. Still nothing. He was about to go again, when Ro put out a hand.
"You know what the definition of insanity is."
Zeta was cool in the face of difficulty. "Repeating the same process over again and expecting a different result when no different result is probable."
Ro hadn't anticipated such a thorough answer, or an answer at all. For a moment she was momentarily confused. "Zee, let's try the other door, shall we?" Ro directed the way down the long, narrow hallway of the car, passing by all the empty rooms. Zeta glanced into each one, sticking in his head briefly to look for a sign of life. By the time they made it past the seven rooms, to the opposite doorway, Zeta knew he and Ro were the only two left in car 'F'. First at the door, Ro slammed her hand over the door release, and, again, nothing happened.
"What's going on?" she asked, far from literal.
"It appears as though we're locked in. We're the only ones in this car, Ro."
Somehow this didn't surprise her. Very little did. "It's definitely not the NSA we're dealing with, then. The NSA would never play a stupid trick like this."
Zeta agreed. "If they wanted us they would come aboard and find us. I've learned that the NSA does not dawdle, particularly Bennett."
"We're finding a way out of here. Come on!" Ro tried the windows, but they would not budge. Zeta explained how they would only pop out of the frame at a moment of high impact. Ro felt helpless. There were a few people out on the grounds outside the train, and Ro saw them shifting about in the dark. She pounded on the plastic glass with the bottom of her fists to no avail. Everyone had their heads turned to the opposite car, dislodged from the train already, where the real danger was, over a hundred feet away. Ro wasn't so sure the real danger wasn't in her car. She flipped around and saw Zeta in the room directly across. He'd already ripped the curtain rod off the wall and had it tossed aside.
"The tin man with the plan," Ro said, and itched a spot on her head lazily, like that sort of predicament happened to them often. She was used to adventures and weaseling her way from rough situations.
Zeta examined the ceiling a foot from the windowed wall. He stood on the couch, just at the edge of it, keeping a good balance in his human shape. As a robot balance was one thing, but it was different for him in the hologram. He was not sure he trusted gravity as much being a man. At least in his robot form, he felt that he could fight gravity and almost always win. Zeta punched his hand through the thin plastic ceiling tile, to find a rigid support beam. He gripped it tightly, then reached up his other hand. As soon as he let his feet slip from the edge of the couch, he swung from the metal rod and kicked his feet at the window. It only took three kicks of the synthoid's powerful adamantium legs to finish it off. The entire contraption popped out and disappeared to the ground below. A vague clash and thud was heard.
Zeta let go of the beam, and landed on his soles flatly, his knees bent to absorb the shock. He stood and brushed his hands clean of plastic chips.
"Do you smell that?" Ro said suddenly, catching the whiff of an odd odor in the air. Zeta was escorting her to the window, and she was about to step on his knee and jump out when she caught the peculiar, unnatural scent. "Something's burning." Ro looked Zeta over and lifted an eyebrow. "Is it you?"
"It must be the other car. Go ahead, Ro, and back away from the train. I'll join you in a minute." He began to give her leverage to lift her over the sill.
"Oh, no you don't!" Ro maneuvered adroitly from his hold, jumped back and stuck an accusing finger at his face. "Look, we're in danger here and it's no time to go play superhero!"
"I was playing superhero fine when I was helping you out the window," he retorted.
Jas Dumes was right, Ro thought to herself, Zeta was picking up too much of her sardonic sense of humor. "All right," she huffed, and resumed her position to leave the car. "But if you're not back in a minute, I will run in and find you." Ro was tilted so that she was about to jump from the sill, but had one final question. "How are you going to get in?"
"I won't. I just want to check that everyone is safe. I would like to investigate the door as well. It should not be malfunctioning."
So that she would not delay a moment longer, Zeta hoisted Ro from the window without another word or protest. He edged his sight just over the sill only to make sure Ro was fine. She was, though grumpy from his abruptness, but dusted herself off and began the trek into the field. Zeta scanned the area around her in thermal vision and saw that there were only a few people on that side of the train. Most were on the other. He left the broken window and the haphazard compartment, refusing to worry about Ro. If need arose, she could take care of herself. She'd done it before. She could do it again. He discarded immediately every memory that recalled the times he'd saved her life. At the moment they did him no good. He tried instead to replay the memories of the times she'd saved him, including the first time they met. That was more helpful.
The smell of the smoke grew worse the nearer he stepped to the door. Even Zeta, whose olfactory perception was not as keen as a human's, could clearly distinguish the smell of smoke. There was even a haze of it across his color-dull visage. The door was still locked, of course, and he hadn't anticipated a sudden change. He looked around, making sure he was really alone and those outside could not see him, then disengaged his hologram. Using a rapid small saw built in as part of his weaponry system that elevated from his forearm, Zeta was able to have the door from the frame in no time. He held it in place for a moment longer, while he switched back to his hologram form. When he stepped aside the door fell from its place and crashed to the floor. Parts of the plastic glass bent and broke from the fall. Zeta stood on the end of it, and the board squeaked and rocked. Zeta stared out of the train's end, no car 'G' immediately in front of him. Instead, the car had already been dislodged from the majority of the train, perhaps even from all of it, though Zeta could not see behind the flaming car to make the hypothesis a fact. He heard shouts and subdued talking, even the occasional private whisper from gawking passengers who stood by and watched with fascination and shock.
His examination of the door-opening unit heeded only one obvious result: it had been fried deliberately by a soldering laser and the intent was absolute malfunction. Whoever completed the task had worked quickly and quietly, leaving little trace of the disturbed wires. But it occurred to Zeta that the culprit had full awareness of who was trapped inside, and that Zeta would be able to tell a mechanical problem from pure sabotage. He was supposed to know it hadn't been an accident.
Zeta jumped from the edge of the car and landed softly on the track, a mixture of new hoverguides and MPH sensors with old wooden rails. For a moment he remained crouched, to hold on to his invisibility a moment longer.
"Save anyone yet?"
Zeta swerved around, startled at the sudden appearance of Ro from behind.
"Wow, I frightened you?"
"I was deep in thought," he excused.
"I scared you and you're deep in thought? The world is coming to an end, right here in the middle of nowhere. They always said this is where the apocalypse would happen." Ro was beside Zeta, and they were both awkwardly stepping over uneven wooden railway ties rotted and no longer in use. "Where are we, Zee?"
"One-point-five miles north of Rock Creek, Kansas." The answer was an automatic response. Zeta was watching anticipatorily for any immediate signs of danger from the burning of luxury car 'G'. Ro glanced at him and wondered if his superhero need was injured because he could not find use for it during a grand plight.
"I think they've got everything covered over there, Zee. You said yourself there weren't a lot of people in that car. I'm sure they got out all right."
"Ro," he said, his scan remaining on the burning car a hundred feet away, a glowing orange hue that lifted sparks into the night sky, "we were supposed to be in that car."
"I know," Ro said, reflecting Zeta's own mournful tone. "Maybe it's just a coincidence."
"And maybe not," he said. "I told you something was wrong. I inspected the lock of the car door, and it had been deliberately tampered with."
Ro had supposed as much by her own instinct. "Do you think it's Alistair Dumes? Why would he have anything to do with it?"
"I don't know," Zeta said, and wished he had more answers. He had a lot of theories, but no definite answer. Theories were no good to him, not yet, while he still adhered too much to his robotic programming: theories are bad, and facts are good.
Ro knew his 'I don't know' held in something he was not telling her. She was irked by it, and knowing that barb was there, puncturing by the insinuation that she was too unworthy to know. "What is it, Zee? Something's on your mind."
"It is too odd that we should get tickets to a luxury car without needing to pay for them."
"That is odd, yes."
"There's something else."
"Good, I was starting to think that first idea was getting a little lonely."
"We need to get off these tracks," Zeta suddenly said, on a purposeful tangent. They stepped down the incline to the field below, an empty portion ten feet wide, cleared by machines when the rail line was built. Not far from the tracks were heavy woods, void of conifers but overrun with deciduous and undergrowth, so Ro was certain Zeta's GPS system hadn't been off; they were most definitely in the Midwest.
"Keep talking, Zee," Ro said, once they were safely away from the encroaching train as well as any nearby passenger whose hearing was, perhaps, a little too nosy.
"There was someone who spilled over that beverage cart."
Ro hadn't seen or heard anyone, so she looked at him peculiarly.
"You didn't see it?"
"No. Well, it happened so fast and I wasn't really paying attention. You think whoever did it, did it on purpose? That's almost silly."
"I don't think it is silly. If Alistair Dumes thinks we're still in that car, he's going to think we're injured or dead. And maybe someone else wants him to think that, too."
"We don't know anything about Alistair Dumes, and I doubt we're going to. I don't see how he could be involved. What would he be in it for? We were just a couple of people who happened to bring his nephew home. He doesn't know us from anyone else."
"When I get the chance," Zeta decided, "I'm going to find out whatever I can on Alistair Dumes."
"It'll be a waste of your time," Ro snapped. "It's just a coincidence. The tickets, the changing of the car, and the fire are all coincidences."
Zeta stepped close to Ro in the dark and set his firm hands on her shoulders. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "I cannot see it that way."
"Try it."
"I saw someone else in the car when the beverage girl was there. Someone purposely led us out of that room and into a car that didn't catch fire. Whoever it is wants us alive. I want to find out why. But, if the fire isn't a coincidence, it also means there's someone who would wish you dead, and maybe me."
Ro traipsed from Zeta and folded her arms low about her waist. She looked back at him briefly. "Someone wanting to hurt us is nothing new. It is nice to come across someone who wants us alive rather than someone who wants us dead."
"There have been a few."
"I can name all of them and still have fingers left over. And I'm only counting the ones who have saved us from some real sour moments. Like Batman and Bucky, maybe even Tiff." Then Ro started to laugh, but it died quietly into the night, pervaded by the voices of the other passengers at a distance. "And Agent West, too, since he always seems to do something so stupid that inadvertently saves me. I'd make a better NSA agent than him!" Ro pranced around in the dim light, some of it orange from the dying fire of the car, some of it silvery-blue from the high moon, nearly at its half-point. "I wonder who it is? Think it might have something to do with Batty Gwennie?"
"That's possible. It might be someone else we've never even considered."
"Who? One of the people I just mentioned? Well, I think Batman's probably got his wings pretty full like usual. No free time to run out to Kansas to save synthoids. Bucky's not a likely candidate; he's too busy with school and teaching. And we're well on our way to see Tiff. It's so tough being a superhero these days!"
Zeta crossed his ankles as he stood then fell immediately to the ground. He would like to know whether it was true, whether they did have a savior. Zeta wanted to believe but hope was a new thing for him. Hope had never been there before, not really. What Ro said was true, and they only had a few true superheroes in their past help them out of situations between life and death. How was it that an infiltration unit like himself was always getting into situations where he could not save himself from danger? That was where Ro came in. Zeta looked up at her, and she had her head titled back to see the stars in the clear sky overhead. Ro was his daily savior.
"They're over to your right," he offered.
Ro looked that way, toward the west, and found the cluster of the seven stars not far from the arrow of their famous hunter Orion. She also found some other familiar stars: the Labor Day triangle high overhead, Regulus and Mira. Once she had had her fill of the magical stars, and her neck began to throb in soreness from the odd manipulation, she joined Zee in the tall grass. Some insects flew about as she ruffled through the pliable sprigs. "Hey, Zee?"
"Yes?"
Ro folded her knees up to her chin, the way she often did when she couldn't believe she was about to say something so unlike her. "Do you remember those things that you and Julie were talking about last night? About souls and emotions--those sorts of things?"
"I remember." Zeta closed his eyes, human eyelids, and, for a split second, all he saw was darkness, until the hologram became translucent again and he could see through it. At times he preferred the darkness.
"I want you to know something." Ro waited for any sort of reaction from Zee, and he did look at her, awaiting what it was he should know. She sighed and picked at a blade of grass, ripping off the seed pods at the top, allowing them to fall between the thick foliage. "You can talk about those sorts of things with me if you want, like if you have a question or something."
"'Those sorts of things'?"
"Emotions."
"It used to make you uncomfortable."
"I know."
A tense and incredible silence came between them, only interrupted by the shouts of workmen organizing the team to bring the train back together, and by the sounds of the insect chorus in the woods around them. In such a surreal state, the rest of the world seemed so very far away. Ro shut her eyes tightly, wincing and hiding her face behind her hand.
"Thank you, Ro," Zeta said, as the tense moment passed away like a deadly sleep, coming and going and taking whatever it could. Zee could find no other way to respond to Ro that was uplifting and positive. All he could think of were negative replies which would do neither of them good. He knew what she felt from time-to-time, even better than she did, and feeling anything wasn't part of her problem. Ro was pushing herself into something she wasn't willing to understand: consideration. The definition of consideration to her implied how much she wanted to become kinder, more open, less cynical and biting. This was something Ro was not ready for. Zeta rose from the grass then towered over her. She stared up at him quietly for a moment, as though about to be reprimanded. He extended his hand for her. "You don't need to change, Ro. Life is fine the way that you are. Be who you are. Appreciate that."
"That reminds me, Zee," she began, "I've been meaning to tell you something."
"Something else?"
"Something about what you said when we were going into Glenview on those horses. About how you thought you were just a role, just a part. Did you mean it?"
Zeta's response was delayed by the appearance of the EHT union workers, maintenance crews of burly, strong men in greased jumpsuits and heavy suede utility gloves over calloused mitts. They were hooking car 'F' to car 'H', with car 'G' no longer separating the two. It was a minimal amount of physical labor for the use of such men, since most of it was completed by remote and each car's system of independent hoverjets. The train would be ready to ride again in a few minutes. Zeta tore his intrigued gaze from the work to Ro.
"I am just a role."
This remark threw a fire deep in Ro that ignited and exploded before she could stop it. "That isn't true, and you know it!"
The vehemence and volume in her voice was as unexpected by Ro as it was by Zee.
"Sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to yell. I just mean . . . You definitely have your own sense of self, Zee. You have a conscience. You have compassion, even more compassion than I do. And there's no way that's all just pretend. You're too much in the real world to live in make-believe. You are too much a part--a part of something bigger--to say that everything you are is just pretend. Very little of you is fake."
It was only when the passengers were instructed to return to their seats when Zeta spoke again on the strange subject Ro had introduced. He slipped his arm about the girl's shoulders as they made their way toward the car. "Ro, this just goes to show you that both of us have a lot we need to learn about what it's like to be human."
Somehow, the peculiar but gentle response from Zee was enough to fulfill Ro. She knew it was true, and, therefore, she could not argue.
As soon as they were back inside car 'F', one of the managers came scurrying around to check the passengers. At first the manager was confused as to the dark-haired man and the blonde-girl's whereabouts, since they were not in the cabin he'd brought them to earlier. That cabin he looked into now, to find it was in complete disarray: a missing window and a broken curtain, not to mention a gaping hole in the ceiling plastic. The manager huffed, much disgusted at the sight and straightened out the bib of his stiff blue uniform. He found the missing passengers in the next car. The dark-haired man looked up at him and began an explanation.
"We were trapped in," Zeta said. "The doors were locked--or jammed electronically. There was no other way to get out but break the window. I trust you don't mind."
"The doors were locked?" the manager asked, just to clarify. He watched the man nod. "Well, that's odd. No one else was in the car but you two?"
"No one else," Zeta confirmed.
"H'mm. Would you like us to investigate this mishap?"
"No thank you," answered Zee quickly. He didn't want any trouble or involvement of authorities. "What happened to car 'G'?"
"We're still wondering that ourselves. They've separated the car from the rest of the train, as I'm sure you're aware, and will have it examined. Appears as though one of the rooms caught fire somehow. It was a good thing you two were no longer in that cabin. It seems like the fire began there. Well," the manager smiled self-consciously, as though it would take away the panic the girl expressed, "no harm done. Someone will be by to block up the broken window temporarily. Don't be alarmed at the noise you hear. It won't last long. Then, we'll return on our way. Spring City will be reached with only an hour delay." He examined his watch face carefully. "Should be about eleven or so when we get there. Goodnight." The manager shut the door, and Zeta reached across from his spot on the corner of the couch to lock it. He seemed to complete the act in aggravation.
"We're lucky," Ro told him. "Really lucky."
"We are predestined toward good luck." The reply was articulated and announced smartly. Zeta flashed Ro a smile. She was too tired to vociferously battle the uselessness of believing in fate.
It was still difficult for her to fall asleep, once the train was again moving along smoothly, and she was on her way to seek a past she wasn't sure was worth the chaotic chase.
While she did sleep, she dreamt restlessly of the scrapes she'd been in with Batman, of the corruption they'd met with in Gotham City, and of the irritating perfection of Tiffany Morgan. The backdrop to it all was a Hillsburg Ro had lived in briefly. Then her mother, Lola Rowen, appeared in the dream, almost as an afterthought. The utopian sensation upon the visit from her mother lasted for several moments after Ro awoke. She opened her eyes to the compartment, the images of the dream flashing through her memory just before they scattered away forever, and all that remained was a surreal residue and that euphoric feeling. Ro knew she'd made the right decision returning to parts of her roots: Maryland, Spring City, Hillsburg. The dream had brought her reassurance.
The feisty light of late morning illuminated their cabin, and Ro flipped over to her side, expecting to see Zeta on the couch opposite. She frowned when she saw it was empty. Ro wasn't worried. Wherever he'd gone, he'd return. He always did. She drew back a corner of the beige curtain to observe the passing of East Country out her window. The train was slowing down exponentially as the dozen or so miles wore on to the station in Spring City. The speed of the train then was about a hundred and fifty miles per hour. Ro whispered to herself. "Maryland, you look good, but you look the same." An apple orchard past by, and Ro remembered how often she and the Morgans had gone apple picking in Maryland's peaceful, fruit-bearing country. The memory was so poignant it frightened her, and she drew away her hand, allowing the curtain to fall in place.
Ro happened to catch an odd shape in her peripheral vision, and looked down to the side of her couch. Zeta was there, having ditched his hologram for his synthoid shape, and was "at rest," as he called it. Not a sleep like humans knew, just a rest, where he shut down the majority of his functions to restore a more even energy. Usually set with an internal timer, the synthoid would return to normal within the time allotted, whether it be five minutes or several hours. Sometimes he'd let out a loud impression of a human snore, but, thankfully, the annoying option was currently disengaged and Zee slept quietly. Aside from such superficial information, Ro had no other idea how the synthoid's resting worked. Dr. Selig and his team had thought of everything, she concluded. And she wondered if Zeta could dream the way she dreamed. How strange that she'd never bothered to ask him before, when dreaming seemed like such a waste of time.
As long as he was out, Ro stepped over his angular, shiny adamantium body and headed out of the car, stretching in cat-like ways as she went. When she returned, Zeta had already returned to his normal state, complete with the hologram. He was peering out the window while the train stopped at the Spring City station. Ro shut the door behind her, and Zeta engaged her in genial morning banter. His thoughts were still heavy from what had happened to them the night before, and he wished again for answers to this new riddle. At least before, he and Ro knew who were their enemies and who were their friends, for the most part. But now it seemed like they had a nameless new friend and, more than likely, a nameless new enemy. The NSA never involved themselves with actually trying to assassinate Zeta and Ro, so the locking of doors and the arson was the work of someone else. Or just of an angry fate.
The head engineer's voice came over the announcement system a minute or two after the train stopped at the designated platform. "Good morning, ladies and gentleman. Welcome to Spring City, Maryland. The current temperature is twenty-three degrees Celsius with clear skies and plenty of sunshine. Local time is eleven-fifteen. We hope you have a pleasant stay in Spring City or wherever your final destination may take you."
Ro scoffed at the picture of the captain just at the screen went black. She doubted her stay would be anything pleasant, not if the strange trip there was any indication of what the visit may procure.
--
Note
What is Rÿyennas?
Yeah, and what's with that ultra-funky name? I always imagined Rÿyennas being a cross of Reuters and Lexis (not the car company). As for the name, I have no idea where I came up with that! I know I supposed the company to be Dutch-based, and maybe that's where it came from. You can pronounce it anyway you like. Rou-yen-nas is how I read it.