S. Welles - To Ocean's End

Maybe she was jumping to conclusions too fast. She could find work in New Cairo, couldn’t she? She was a farm girl but she could learn new skills, like she’d been learning how to fight on Dyne’s ship. There just had to be a way around her financial obstacle.

According to her boarding pass, her train awaited her on platform twenty, and it was leaving in fifteen minutes. Heart pounding, she started walking in the direction the signs pointed. Each step felt like a horrible mistake but she didn’t know what else to do. Going back meant giving up and giving in. Going forward might mean she’d be stuck in New Cairo for an indeterminable amount of time, unless she could sneak onto another boat. Staying put was absolutely out of the question.

Jessie heard a polite beeping behind her. She and several other people shuffled to the side to make room for solar cart bearing an elderly couple and their luggage. The couple was dressed a little warm for the sweltering atmosphere but they didn’t seem to mind. They were holding hands and smiling contentedly. Jessie tried picturing her and Mido in their place. Her heart wrenched. It was effortless to envision herself with him, even when they got old and wrinkly. Mido would always have those gentle eyes and his charming smile.

Jesse raised her chin and forced herself to walk bravely. Mido was just one amazing fish in the sea. There would be others. She just had to get over him and the way she’d left him. She mentally sent another apology his way and hoped he’d forgive her.

She found and boarded the rear of the bullet train with a handful of minutes to spare. The sharply dressed stewardess tore off the stub and handed back her boarding pass. Jessie made a beeline for the front. If Mido somehow found her train, she wanted to be in the last place he could possibly look. No one paid her any mind as she squeezed past one passenger after another. The train was sleek and compact, and full of soft colors on the inside. The outside was a shiny metal. All this would bring her one giant step closer to home.

Why wouldn’t this train ride stop feeling like the worst decision of her life?

Sauna, Scully, Mido, and I made it all away to the train station’s ticket platform, and we were breathing hard by that point. The platform was this huge, vaulted place teeming with people, overhead announcements, and muffled train horns. We stood in the middle of it all and craned our necks at all the boards listing arrivals and departures.

“Is Cyprus closer to Libya or Egypt?” Scully asked.

“Egypt,” Mido and I said in unison.

“Does she have the money to make it all the way to New Cairo?” Scully asked.

“Yes,” Mido said, starting off.

I grabbed a chunk of tank top. “Whoa there, Mido. Think with your brain and not with your heart in situations like these.”

Mido reeled himself back to my side. “I am using my brain.”

“So which platform are you headed to?”

Mido opened his mouth to say something, then closed it and bowed his head. He pointed. “That way, Captain.”

“See? One of the perks of living too long: I know very well how to not rush into action.”

“So which one?” Mido asked.

“Gate twenty. It takes off in five minutes. Start running.” None of us had quite caught our breath but we sucked up our next round of running, moving at almost a sprint. People looked at us but, thankfully, it would be easy for anyone to assume we were struggling to be punctual. No one yelled at us and many moved out of the way in plenty of time.

We reached terminal twenty in record time and Mido—his behavior stopped me in my tracks. No pun intended. He just plowed past the stewardess and boarded the train. Sauna and Sauna pulled up besides me, then Scully moved for the train. I grabbed a sleeve. “Don’t be stupid, too. He’s gonna get himself arrested, unless we make a clean and getaway.”

“And how are we going to do that now?”

I searched the station. Most people were going about their business but a stewardess from Jessie’s train was shouting at Mido.

An overhead female voice said, “Code Zulu, terminal twenty.” The voice went on to speak the same thing in two other languages.

A second stewardess near the rear of the train hung up a receiver and at the same time the voice stopped. Oh, goodie. And on top of that two uniformed authorities started walking this way from several terminals down. Their black uniforms stuck out among the colorful masses. “Start walking. Casually.” I stuck my hands in my coat and wandered towards the train’s nose. Sauna and Scully walked on either side of me. Scully nailed the whole casual thing but Sauna couldn’t take his eyes off the train.

“You three, stop!” the stewardess said.

Only a guilty conscience would react to a voice behind their back. I kept moving. My boys didn’t. I took a deep breath to keep my cool as I stopped as well. I more snarled than whispered, “Why are you two stopping?”

“Lo siento, Captain,” Sauna said.

The stewardess confronted us with a hand over the stun gun at her hip. Oh, that would be fun to get zapped by a lady in a skirt and heels. “Just stay right there. I saw you arrive with your idiot friend who illegally boarded the train.”

Scully said, “Our idiot friend is trying to save another friend from making a terrible mistake.”

“You expect me to believe anything that comes out of your mouths?”

“But it’s true!”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Don’t waste your breath.”

“That’s more like it,” the stewardess said. “Now, the four of you will be escorted to the security hold for questioning.”

Scully said, “Hey! We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You are his accomplices,” she said, pointing at the train. “You did nothing to stop him from breaking the law. That makes you equally responsible.”

Scully tried to protest but I snapped at him to stop digging himself a hole. The stewardess was legally correct. On top of that, the two security guards were only two trains away and approaching at a fast walk. I looked around the station for a solution to our predicament. We needed—I looked past Jessie’s train and broke into a grin—a bigger problem than a minor law infringement. I tapped Sauna’s arm. “Sauna, I got it. Look beyond the top of the train.” I pointed to the rusty thing.

He looked at the water tower, then scrunched his brows. “What do you have in mind, Captain?”

I headed for the nose of the train and the end of the platform, bringing myself closer to head-on with the water tower. “Scully, keep them off me. Sauna, go help Mido open some windows.” I set my burger bag on the ground and took off my coat and set it beside my coveted lunch.

Sauna shoved the stewardess on his way to the train door. She yelled, “Hey!” and ran after him.

Scully took a defensive stance in front of me. The security guards were one train away and had started running the moment Sauna shoved the lady. “Hope this works, Captain. If they have stun guns, we’re in trouble.”

“I need maybe a minute. Don’t give them any reason to use one and we’ll be fine.” I reach for the tower and focused on the water inside. As much as I hated using my demon powers, I couldn’t think of a better solution to our predicament. I clenched my teeth.

Alarmed and angry voices sounded from inside the train. Sauna pushed his way off as I began creating a whirlpool in the tower’s drum.

“Captain, the windows don’t open!”

My concentration on the water faltered as I held my arms up like a musical conductor gesturing to a section to play louder. “That would make too much sense.” I resumed strengthening the whirlpool with horizontal arm circles. “Keep the doors open.”