The Missing Passenger Read online

  Jarli didn’t know Blanco well, but he could tell she was rattled. Kelton had been plane-crash-free until today. Her questions so far had been all over the place: Were the engines still running when the plane crashed? Did it turn while it was falling? Was anyone else hanging around the crash site?

  “You tell me,” Jarli said. “You were there.”

  Blanco lifted her chin. “I wasn’t.”

  “You said I went into the house after the crash,” Jarli said. “How would you know that, if you weren’t watching?”

  Blanco and Frink looked at each other. Then Blanco reached over and turned off the recorder.

  “My partner and I were parked on top of the hill with binoculars,” Blanco said. “We didn’t see the plane until it hit the building.”

  “We saw you run in before we hightailed it down the hill,” Frink added. “You have guts, kid.”

  “Why were you up there?” Jarli asked. “What were you looking at?”

  Blanco’s eyes narrowed, suspicious, and Jarli started to feel guilty, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong.

  Frink turned the recorder back on. “Let’s talk more about Doug.”

  The police officers seemed to be on edge, and they weren’t the only ones. Jarli had checked his phone on the way to the police station, and social media was going nuts.

  DN Dale

  #Keltoncrash This for real? Was anyone in the house?

  RC Ralph

  Plane was hacked! North Korean cyberterrorism.

  #keltoncrash

  IW Izzy@Ralph

  Truth!

  FS Fred@Ralph

  In Kelton???? No way…

  KD Kristie

  #keltoncrash ALIENS

  PO Peta

  #keltoncrash Is this what Plowman’s making? Some kind of torpedo plane?

  TL Tom@Peta

  Get the weapons out of our town!

  CW Chris

  some kind of insurance scam #keltoncrash

  Everyone had the same basic facts—plane crashes into house in Kelton—but there were hundreds of different theories.

  “Did Doug say where he was going?” Blanco asked.

  Jarli remembered the way he had disappeared from the street. “I don’t think so. Is he missing?”

  Blanco ignored the question. “Who does he hang out with at school?”

  “No one, really.” Doug was kind of a loner.

  “Tell me about the inside of the house. Did you see anything out of the ordinary? Papers, photos?”

  “I wasn’t looking for papers or photos,” Jarli said. “I was looking for people. And there was so much smoke I could hardly see anything.”

  Blanco’s face stayed even, but Jarli had the strange sense she was relieved. “Okay. What about the inside of the plane? Did you see the passenger? Or the pilot?”

  The passenger. Jarli had thought the plane was empty. But what if he’d missed someone?

  “I didn’t see anything,” he said, trying to keep his voice even.

  Blanco scribbled a note and slid her papers back into a folder. “Well, I think that’s everything we need, Mr. Durras.”

  “Did you find a body?” Jarli asked nervously.

  “We’ll let you know the results of our investigation.”

  “Is Doug missing?”

  Frink clenched his jaw but said nothing. Maybe he didn’t want the app to catch him out.

  Blanco glanced at the clock. “Interview terminated at seventeen hundred hours,” she said. She passed Jarli a business card. “Call us if you remember something else. And if I were you, I wouldn’t tell anyone about anything you saw. Not your friends, not the press. Definitely no posts on social media. Got that?”

  Jarli nodded vigorously. They didn’t have to tell him not to trust reporters.

  He was escorted out of the interview room, confused and exhausted. Through a barred window he could see the sunset, which he thought at first was the sunrise. It felt like he’d been in there all night.

  Dad was in the waiting room, cracking his hairy knuckles while he examined a celebrity gossip magazine. The front-page headline screamed PRINCE MYRON DISGRACED! in garish yellow font.

  “I thought you hated those magazines,” Jarli said. “Busted.”

  “I do!” Dad said defensively, dropping the tabloid. Jarli waited for his phone to beep and then remembered that the cops had made him turn it off before the interview.

  Dad hugged Jarli tightly. He smelled like sweat and laundry powder.

  “Good to see you in one piece,” Dad said gruffly. Then he smiled. “Now, what have you done this time?”

  “I’m just a helpful witness,” Jarli said gravely, “assisting the authorities with their inquiries.”

  “Spoken like a true criminal. Come on.”

  Mum’s new car was in the parking lot. The insurance company had finally gotten around to replacing their old car after the crash. It looked like Dad had washed it today, polishing the metallic blue paint and vacuuming the gray floors inside. He had washed it every week since they’d gotten it. Jarli gave this newfound diligence about a month.

  Kirstie was in the back seat, still dressed in her soccer gear. “Hey, bro,” she said. “I hear you brought down a plane.”

  “Not me,” Jarli said. “Reliable sources tell me that it was aliens.”

  Kirstie grinned. “You saw that, huh?”

  Dad started the car. “I wish you hadn’t made that post, Kirstie. It’s offensive.”

  “To who?” Kirstie asked. “Aliens?”

  Kelton Town Hall was right across the road from the police station. As they drove out of the parking lot, Jarli noticed that a crowd had gathered on the front steps. Mayor Shelby was making a speech. The people in the crowd wore suits and had perfect hair. A few carried cameras.

  Journalists, Jarli thought with a twinge of panic. After his app had gone viral, he’d been followed by every reporter in Kelton and a few from out of town. They had eventually lost interest, but Jarli still couldn’t watch the news without getting uncomfortable. He remembered vividly what it was like to be on the other side of the screen.

  They’re here for the plane crash, he told himself. Not me.

  One of the journalists turned to face the car: Dana Reynolds, from Nationwide. She was the worst of the bunch—she had somehow managed to get Jarli’s phone number and kept calling him until he was forced to change it.

  Jarli slunk down in his seat, but it was too late. She had seen him. Reynolds’s clear green eyes widened. She grabbed the nearest camera operator with a manicured claw and pointed to the car.

  Then Dad turned a corner, and the reporters were out of sight. It looked like he was taking the long way home to avoid the commotion here and near the crash site.

  “It’s offensive to the families of anyone who might have been on the plane,” Dad was saying.

  “No one was on the plane,” Kirstie protested.

  “How do you know that?” Jarli asked.

  “Finn told me after Bess told him what the firefighters had told her.”

  Jarli groaned. Finn was Bess’s little brother. If he knew, so would everyone else in town—and they would start hassling Jarli for more information.

  Thanks to the police, Jarli knew that Kirstie was wrong. There had been one passenger. But if he told anyone that, the police would soon realize Jarli had spilled the beans.

  Jarli wondered how Bess was doing. He sent her a text message:

  Leaving the police station. The cops are clueless. How are you?

  “Well, what about the people who lost their house?” Dad said. “You think they appreciate being joked about?”

  Kirstie waved a hand. “Who cares about them?” she said. “That guy deserves it, after he threatened Jarli.”

  Dad glanced at Jarli in the rearview mirror. “Wait. It was that boy’s house?”

  Jarli glared at Kirstie.

  After Dad found out about the incident with Doug, he had wanted Doug to be expelled. Jarli h
ad begged Dad to leave it alone. If the bullies at school thought Jarli couldn’t fight his own battles, he would get picked on even more. Dad eventually relented, but Jarli had known he was still angry. Now Kirstie had brought it up again.

  “Well,” Dad said darkly, “sounds like karma to me.”

  It didn’t feel like karma. Doug had lost his whole house. That was so much worse than anything that had happened to Jarli. And what about Doug’s parents? They hadn’t done anything wrong.

  There was one thing Jarli hadn’t told the police: that Doug had lied about his name. Jarli wasn’t quite sure why he’d held back. Maybe because Doug’s home had been destroyed, and Jarli didn’t want to add to his classmate’s troubles. Maybe because he wasn’t sure the app was right. It was programmed to see nervousness as a sign of dishonesty, and Doug had been frightened for other reasons.

  Or maybe because of the strange feeling that Blanco and Frink already knew the truth. In fact—

  Jarli didn’t get the chance to finish this train of thought. He saw something out the window as the headlights swept across it. A huge piece of cloth, tangled around a tree.

  A parachute.

  Emergency Landing

  Stop the car!” Jarli shouted.

  Dad slowed. “What?” he said. “What’s going on?”

  “Stop! I saw something.”

  The car halted fifty or sixty meters up the road from the parachute. Jarli scrambled out and ran back along the road toward it.

  This looked like a better place for an emergency landing than Mickle Street. No houses, no streetlights. Just paddocks on one side of the road and bush on the other, lit by the red glow of Dad’s brake lights. Dry grass and weeds threatened to take over the asphalt. Jarli wondered why the pilot hadn’t tried to land the plane here.

  In the moonlight, the parachute looked like a beached jellyfish. The thick silk canopy was thoroughly tangled in the branches of the tree. Nylon ropes swayed underneath in the breeze.

  Jarli had been afraid that he would see a dead body hanging from the chute. But no. The harness was there, empty. Someone had escaped.

  Jarli whipped out his phone and refreshed his feed, trying to find a mention of survivors. There was nothing.

  Maybe the police didn’t know yet. Blanco hadn’t mentioned anyone. But the crash was hours ago. Why hadn’t the survivor contacted anyone? And where were they?

  Jarli had the sudden feeling that he was being watched. He turned around, unnerved.

  The forest stared back at him, dark and restless. Gum trees swayed like zombies, leaves muttering.

  Maybe the survivor had amnesia. They could have bumped their head and wandered off. That might explain why they hadn’t gone to the police. Or maybe the survivor was a criminal. Maybe they had even caused the crash—

  A hand fell on Jarli’s shoulder.

  Jarli yelped. But it was just Dad.

  “Jarli,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  “Don’t sneak up on me like that,” Jarli said, his heart still racing.

  “I called your name several times,” Dad said. This was probably true. When Jarli was coding or wrapped up in his own thoughts, he often didn’t hear people talking to him.

  Jarli pointed at the parachute. “Look.”

  Dad stared at the chute for a moment. The wind billowed under the canvas.

  “Well,” he said uneasily, “at least we know someone survived.”

  “But why haven’t they called the police?” Jarli asked. “Or walked back to Kelton?”

  “Maybe they’re hurt.” Dad cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hello?”

  His voice echoed through the dark bush. There was no reply.

  Kirstie was standing behind Dad. “Maybe aliens took them,” she whispered.

  “Kirstie,” Jarli sighed. But the idea seemed less silly now than it had in the daylight.

  “Call the police,” Dad told Jarli finally. “I’m going to have a look around.”

  “Don’t leave us,” Jarli said, hating how anxious he sounded.

  “It’s okay,” Dad said. “I’m not going far.”

  He walked into the trees, scanning the ground for the injured survivor. Jarli dialed Constable Blanco. He had her number saved into his phone.

  She picked up quickly. “Blanco speaking.”

  “It’s Jarli Durras.”

  “Jarli. What can I do for you?”

  “Dad was driving me home, and I saw a parachute in a tree,” Jarli said. “We’re on the highway.”

  Dad had disappeared into the trees. Jarli hoped he was still within earshot.

  “I know,” Blanco said. “We’ve traced the call. I can see your location on my screen. No sign of the pilot?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. I’m coming now. But I think you and your dad should get back in the car and keep driving, okay?”

  “Why?” The hairs on the back of Jarli’s neck were standing up.

  “It’s not safe. Head home, and send me a text when you get there.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Just trust me.”

  The line went dead.

  Dad still hadn’t returned.

  “Dad?” Jarli called.

  No answer. The trees seemed somehow taller, and the shadows deeper. An owl hooted in the distance.

  “Dad!” Jarli squeaked.

  Then Dad emerged from the trees.

  “No sign of anyone,” he said.

  The bush whispered secrets, too soft to make out.

  Wall of Fame

  When they got home, Dad opened the triple-locked front door and then immediately disappeared into his study to make a call. A former data network engineer, Dad now freelanced for companies all over the world. He was often up at odd hours, talking to one person on the phone while he typed instant messages to several others. Jarli had no idea how he kept track of so many conversations at once.

  But it was better than Dad’s last job, which had made him a target of Viper.

  Viper was a crime boss, real name unknown. The police didn’t even know what he or she looked like. But they knew Viper was ruthless, and skilled at making people disappear—allies and enemies alike. Viper had used an assassin with the code-name “Cobra” to try to kill Dad. Jarli helped the police catch him, but Cobra had vanished from his prison cell. A note had been left behind: a message for Jarli, warning him not to interfere with Viper’s business.

  After that, Mum and Dad installed a back-to-base alarm and security mesh over all the windows. But Jarli still found it hard to sleep. Every time the house creaked or the fence rattled in the middle of the night, Jarli would lurch upright, heart pounding—terrified that the next morning his parents would open the door to find his bed empty.

  “We’re back,” Jarli called.

  Hooper ran up and sniffed his shoes. She hadn’t been walked much lately. Everyone in the family was anxious about leaving the house alone.

  Mum emerged from the kitchen and hugged him. “I hear you ran into a burning building.” She looked Jarli over, checking him for any injuries.

  “It was more like a missing building,” Jarli told her. “There was only one wall left.”

  “That was very brave, and your father and I are proud of you,” Mum said. “But do me a favor, mate. Next time, leave it to the authorities.”

  “But what if someone had been trapped?”

  “They weren’t.”

  “Yeah, but they could have been,” Jarli said. “You think I should have done nothing?”

  “You should have called the fire department.”

  “I did. Well, Bess did.”

  “I get what you’re saying,” Mum said, hugging him again. “But I don’t want you to put yourself in danger. Even if you’re doing it to help someone else. Wait for the police or the fire brigade, okay?”

  “I understand,” Jarli said, and he did. But he was glad Mum didn’t make him promise, because he wasn’t sure it was a promise he could keep. When the plane hit t
he house, he hadn’t actually decided to run over—he had just done it. Helping wasn’t just what he did, it was who he was. He couldn’t turn that off.

  “I’m gonna work on the Wall,” he said.

  “Dinner’s in ten minutes,” Mum warned.

  Jarli nodded and escaped into his bedroom.

  When Truth went viral, Jarli became a target for journalists and trolls. So he’d frantically started researching cybersecurity, trying to improve his online privacy and keep his personal devices safe.

  He soon became fascinated. There was a secret world beneath the Internet—an army of criminals constantly attacking electronic devices, and an equally determined army of security personnel protecting those devices. Both sides were so good at their jobs that more than 99 percent of those attacks went unnoticed.

  Jarli had started developing his own firewall, designed to keep hackers and viruses out of his network. Maybe someday it would work well enough that he could share it. Then he wouldn’t just be known as the Truth-app guy anymore.

  But to test it, he needed some viruses. Really nasty ones.

  Jarli booted up his laptop. It was a cheap, slow contraption he had found in a secondhand store. Viper and Cobra had stolen his old computer, along with the TV, Kirstie’s diary, and plenty of other stuff. That meant they probably knew everything about Jarli and his family now.

  The bright side was that the new laptop had none of Jarli’s data on it. It was expendable. He used it like a crash-test dummy, downloading things that would have been too dangerous to put on his old PC.

  Booting up the laptop took forever. A real computer whiz might have been able to crack open the casing and upgrade the RAM or processor to make the computer run faster. But Jarli was just a programmer. He understood lines of code, but the actual wires and circuits were a mystery.

  Jarli made sure WallOfFame was running, then he opened a browser and visited a hacker forum where he’d seen a promising virus.

  There it was: OUROBOROS.

  The virus was disguised as a free photo editor with cool filters. Once it was downloaded and installed, it would scan the computer’s hard drive and silently, invisibly upload a copy of almost every file to a server in India. Then it would erase all traces of itself. The hacker who had written it bragged that it couldn’t be detected or stopped by four of the top five antivirus programs.