Jenna. Jenna. Jenna.
It's an angry, deliberate beat. I look around me, out all sides of the car, grunting in pain as I twist around, and then I see it. A train is passing on our left. I press up to the window.
You left me.
"Put the window down! Put it down!" I yell to Dot.
"What are you doing?" Miesha yells back.
"At this speed I am unable to lower the window," Dot says. "It would be too dangerous for--"
"Put it down!" But the window remains up. I frantically search the windows of the train as it passes, a blur of faces staring back. A little boy sticks his tongue out at me. More faces turning away, or not noticing me at all. Moving past, away, faster than us.
Jenna. Jenna.
I pound on the window. "She's there! I know she's there! Kara! Can you hear me? Kara!"
Jen--
Passengers stare back at the maniac pounding on his own window and quickly look away. And then I see her, her shoulder pressed up against the window, her face hidden by a curtain of black hair. In seconds she will move ahead and out of view.
Kara! I'm here! This way!
Her head jerks, the tiniest movement, like she is going to turn, her hair moving in slow-motion waves, but then she stops, the waves subside, and she is gone.
Did she hear me? Why didn't she turn? I know I could hear her. Kara. But now the sound i
s gone, and a part of me has vanished too. She is all I had for so long. Without her, the Locke I was doesn't even exist.
"At least you know you were correct," Dot offers. "She's headed to California. And it looks like we will be at the Topeka station in time for you to meet her."
"Thank you for hurrying, Dot."
"My pleasure! When we--" Dot's eyes fly from me to the control panel. "We're moving over." She hits several lights, and then hits them again, repeating the same pattern.
"So? Didn't you say you were going to change our destination back to Topeka?"
"I haven't changed it yet."
We're now in the middle lane and moving toward the far right one. Alarm spreads across Dot's face as she pounds light after light.
"What's happening?"
Her hands drop from the panel. "They've found us. There's a Security Tunnel four kilometers ahead. They are maneuvering us over to dispatch us into it." She turns to look at me. "I am so sorry, Customer Locke."
"Can't you do something?"
"There has to be a way...." Miesha pounds at the panel.
I pull myself up over the seat and pound too. "Are they going to zap us?"
"No," Dot answers. "If they had that capability, they would have done it by now. We are extreme risks. But they have found at least one hidden signal that has allowed them access to the controls."
"Look out!" I say. "Move to the side, Miesha!" I pull myself up and sit on the back of the seat. I use the headrest behind Miesha to leverage myself, and I kick against the panel. It doesn't even crack. I'm not going down any Security Tunnel. I pull back and throw every bit of my weight into my leg, and my shoe crashes into the panel, shattering the glass. I stomp again and again at the circuits beneath the panel. "Turn the steering bar, Dot! Get off at the next exit! Turn!"
"I'm turning, but it's not moving! We're still on the hook."
I continue to stomp. Glass and circuits fly. The car slows substantially and then moves into the exit lane.