No Passengers Beyond This Point(37)

“Let me try,” Finn says, and I pop the cell in his hand, but he can’t get it to work either.

Everybody shuts up after that. Even the road is quiet. No cars.

Finn hands my phone back to me. “We need to know . . .” Finn insists, “how to find the black box.”

“Oh that, yes. I only know what I’ve heard. On the slow nights the cabbies talk. Hard to say if it’s true . . .” Chuck’s voice trails off.

“If what’s true?” I ask.

“I don’t know that much about it,” Chuck says. “I haven’t seen it in the book, but I’m only halfway through. CA is hard. Technology changes so fast. They’re always sending updated versions—2.0, 3.0, 4.0.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

“CA. Century Awareness. You got to keep up on technology, word usage, politics, or they don’t let you work with the public.”

“I don’t get it, you’re a kid, aren’t you?” Finn says. “Why are you worried about keeping up?”

“I’ve been twelve longer than you have,” Chuck explains.

“His birthday must be soon. Yours is in October. That’s why he’s been twelve longer than you have, Finn, right Mr. Chuck?” Mouse offers. “But, Mr. Chuck.” Mouse taps his shoulder. “What do you know about the black box?”

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?”