The Missing Passenger Read online

  Jarli clicked download.

  WallOfFame objected immediately.

  File name: picsaver.exe

  WARNING: This file may be unsafe. The code requests permissions not normally granted to this sort of program. It is not recommended that you continue.

  Jarli rubbed his hands together. His firewall was working, at least on incoming traffic. But what if the virus arrived via a USB port rather than an Internet connection? Would the firewall notice?

  Jarli turned off WallOfFame, plugged in a flash drive that he kept on his key ring, and downloaded OUROBOROS onto it. Then he turned the firewall back on and tried to install OUROBOROS.

  Success—which meant failure. WallOfFame hadn’t noticed the danger. The virus was uploading his whole hard drive, and Jarli’s firewall thought everything was fine.

  Jarli sighed, unplugged the flash drive, and disconnected his computer from the Wi-Fi. WallOfFame still needed a lot of work.

  His phone chimed. Finally, a message from Bess:

  I’m fine. The police interrogation took FOREVER. Frink seemed nice, but Blanco looked like she was itching to arrest me for something.

  Another message came through.

  But I’m missing a bolt from one of my crutches. I just leaned on it and it collapsed.

  Jarli wrote back:

  Jeez, you OK?

  I’m fine, but I need to fix it. It takes me forever to walk anywhere. I’m going crazy. I think it must have come out when I fell over after the explosion. You didn’t pick it up, did you?

  I didn’t see it. But Mum has spare bolts. What size do you need?

  No, it’s a special one. It has a funny shape, and it’ll be expensive to replace. Maybe tomorrow you could help me look for it?

  She sent a GIF of a cat with its front paws together, pleading.

  Jarli hesitated. Then he wrote:

  Tomorrow might be too late. The police cleanup crew are probably there right now. They might chuck it away.

  We could go there tonight.

  In the dark?

  We should at least try. Hang on.

  Jarli walked back into the kitchen. He could see through to the lounge room, where the news was on the TV. Firefighters were hosing down the crashed plane in the destroyed house. A photo of a dark-eyed woman in a pilot’s uniform flashed up on the screen.

  “The search for the pilot, Priya Lekis, is ongoing,” the journalist said gravely. “I’m Dana Reynolds, and you’re watching Nationwide.”

  As the camera cut to Reynolds sitting at the news desk, a graphic of the Truth Premium logo appeared with some text at the bottom of the screen.

  Check out our 100% trust rating!

  Even journalists were using the rip-off of Jarli’s app now.

  Jarli tore his eyes away from the screen. “Mum, can I take my dinner to Bess’s place?”

  “Why?” Mum asked. “You know I don’t like you going out alone at night.” She sounded annoyed, but she was already getting two Tupperware containers from the cupboard.

  Jarli doubted that Mum would respond well if he said he was going to the crash site. But he couldn’t lie with all these phones in the room. Everyone had his app installed.

  “It’s not even six o’clock yet,” he said. True. “And we never got to watch Snake Man 3.” Also true. “I’m hoping I won’t be out too late if I go now.” True.

  He waited to see if the app would beep. It would have detected from the pitch of his voice that he was nervous, even though he was telling the truth. But the phone camera couldn’t see his face, so it couldn’t measure his pupil dilation and detect that he was concentrating on hiding some of the facts. And he didn’t think his choice of words was evasive enough to set off the alarms he’d programmed.

  All the phones in the room remained silent. But Hooper tilted her head, confused. She could tell something was up. No app was as good as Jarli’s dog when it came to spotting deception.

  Mum started scooping vegetarian lasagna into the containers. “Okay. Take some for Bess, too,” she said. “And call if you need a lift home. I don’t want you walking the streets in the dark.”

  “All right,” Jarli said. He told himself not to feel guilty. He’d be back in no time, safe and sound.

  Crash Site

  A smoky haze still lingered in the air, smudging the glow from the streetlights and stinging Jarli’s nose. The plane’s belly had left a scar at least forty meters long down the middle of the road.

  The shell of the wrecked aircraft lay in the ruins of Doug Hennessey’s house like the skeleton of a whale. The fire had hollowed out the cabin, burning away the seats and turning the compact kitchen to ash.

  The reporters were gone—it was too dark to film anything now. There were no police cars either, just a brown four-wheel drive and a black van parked nearby. Yellow crime-scene tape stretched from what was left of a power pole to a letterbox on the other side of the street. The tape fluttered in the breeze, but Jarli could still read the message: POLICE LINE. DO NOT CROSS.

  Jarli pedaled toward the crime-scene tape. Bess was behind him, her arms around his waist. Jarli and his sister rode like this all the time, but it was harder with Bess, because she had to carry her crutches. They had only tried it once before, when their friend Anya had been held hostage by Cobra. Now Jarli was struggling to balance. He hoped the jolting of the road hadn’t shaken out any more bolts or screws from her crutches.

  The brakes squeaked as Jarli’s bicycle rattled to a stop. “Well,” he said, “that’s that.” He had lied to Mum for nothing.

  “What do you mean?” Bess carefully maneuvered herself off his bicycle and leaned her broken crutch against it.

  Jarli gestured to the police tape. “We can’t go in.”

  “No, it’s easy,” Bess said. “You just lift it up. See?”

  She held up the police tape.

  “You know what I mean,” Jarli said. “What if they blocked it off because of toxic fumes or something?”

  “Then they would have evacuated the neighbors.” Bess pointed at the second-story window of the nearest house, which had lights on.

  “Oh, great. So people will see us sneaking into a crime scene. You’ve got a screw loose.”

  “Ha, ha.” Bess dug out her phone and brought up a flashlight app. “We’re witnesses. We’re allowed to be here.”

  “I’m ninety percent sure that’s not how it works,” Jarli said. But he followed her under the tape anyway and switched on his own flashlight app. The sooner they found the bolt, the sooner they could get out of here.

  They both swept their lights across the road. Broken glass sparkled like stars.

  “What does it look like?” Jarli asked.

  “It’s about five centimeters long, maybe? Gray. One end is sharp, the other is hexagonal.”

  “So, like a bolt, in other words.”

  “Yup. But with a sharp end.”

  Jarli peered at the road. Even in daylight, this would be an impossible task. The road was strewn with shrapnel after the crash. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. A haystack made of needles.

  “Maybe we should ask those guys for help,” Bess said.

  “Which guys?” Then Jarli saw movement inside the gutted airplane. A flashlight beam flitting through the smashed windows. As his eyes adjusted, he saw what Bess had seen—two men dressed head-to-toe in airtight plastic, gas masks covering their faces. Jarli wondered again if it was dangerous to be here, breathing the air.

  One of the men was picking things out of the ashes and putting them into a big garbage bag. The other was sweeping a device across the floor, scanning. It looked like a walking stick, but with a ring as large as a dinner plate on the bottom end. They hadn’t seen the two teenagers yet.

  “Is that a metal detector?” Jarli asked. Dad had rented one when he lost his wedding ring in the backyard. It hadn’t worked for Dad, but maybe it would work for Bess.

  “Looks like one. I’ll go ask if we can borrow it.” Bess limped slowly toward the plane. Walking with only one crutch looked painful, but Bess had told Jarli many times that her legs didn’t actually hurt. They just never did quite what her brain told them to.

  “Wait,” Jarli said. “Remember, we’re not supposed to be here.”

  Bess waved a hand. “Relax. It’ll be fine.”

  She was used to people doing what she wanted. Too used to it, Jarli sometimes thought.

  The two men seemed to have found what they were looking for. The one scanning pointed to something that looked like a data projector, and the one bagging picked it up. It was the same mysterious object Jarli had seen when he searched Doug’s house. The firefighters must have moved it.

  Maybe it was the black box—the indestructible device that recorded flight data in case of a crash. It was weird that it had taken the police so long to find it. Maybe the gas explosion had buried it under some more rubble.

  Or maybe “Scanner” and “Bagger” weren’t with the police.

  Dread grew in Jarli’s belly. There were no police cars on the street. The hazmat suits were dark gray, not designed to stand out. The two men didn’t want to be seen.

  “Wait,” Jarli hissed again. But Bess was already shuffling through the gap where the plane’s emergency exit had once been.

  Then it was too late.

  The two men spotted Bess at the same moment. They froze as they saw her standing in the doorway.

  “Excuse me,” Bess said, oblivious to the danger. “Can I borrow—”

  “Grab her, grab her!” Scanner shouted, his voice muffled by the gas mask.

  Bagger lunged toward Bess. She stumbled backward, shocked. Bagger was weighed down by his suit, but with only one working crutch, Bess had no hope of outrunning him. She screamed as Bagger reached out to grab her.

  But as Scanner tried to move the metal detector out of the way, he accidentally tripped Bagger.

  “Idiot!” Bagger yelled in midair. His head thumped against one of the charred seats, and he hit the floor like a bag of potatoes. It would have been funny if Jarli hadn’t been so scared.

  Jarli ran into the airplane and grabbed Bess. The floor was shredded. The ashes of the furniture felt like slush under his feet. Bess’s legs were twitching. The spasms got worse when she was stressed.

  Jarli was about to drag her to her feet when Scanner swung the metal detector at Jarli’s head.

  If the strike connected, it would crack his skull. But Scanner swung it slowly, like it was heavy. Jarli ducked, and the metal detector swooshed through the air centimeters above his head.

  Jarli didn’t give him time for another try. He stayed low and charged forward, crashing into Scanner’s chest. They both went down, kicking up a cloud of ash as they hit the floor next to Bess.

  Heart pounding, Jarli tried to wrestle the metal detector out of Scanner’s hands, but his grip was too strong. He could see Scanner’s eyes, narrowed with anger behind the transparent plastic of his mask.

  Bess grabbed the garbage bag and pulled it over Scanner’s head, blinding him. The bag was so big that it covered most of his torso as well.

  Scanner struggled frantically, but the bag was made of tough polyvinyl, and his arms were all tangled up inside. It would take him a few seconds to fight his way out. Bagger still hadn’t gotten up.

  “Come on!” Jarli hissed. He pulled Bess up. She wrapped her arm around his shoulders and they hobbled out of the airplane together, three-legged-race style. They had to move slowly to avoid stumbling on the broken bricks that had once been Doug’s home.

  It was about fifteen meters to the crime-scene tape, and maybe another five to Jarli’s bike. Not far, but even with his clumsy hazmat suit, Scanner would be faster than them.

  “Hurry,” Bess hissed.

  “I am hurrying!” Jarli snapped back. They were almost at the crime-scene tape now.

  Jarli could hear movement from inside the plane. As they ducked under the tape, he risked a glance back.

  Scanner was still struggling with the garbage bag on his head. Something Mum often said flashed through Jarli’s head: He couldn’t find his way out of a wet paper bag.

  But Bagger—the man who had tripped and hit his head—had gotten up. He turned around, looking for them.

  “On the bike!” Jarli whispered. “Quick!”

  Bagger spotted them as they limped toward the bicycle. He ran through the emergency exit, out of the ruins of Doug’s house, and sprinted toward them.

  Jarli jumped onto the bike. Bess clambered on behind him, jammed both crutches between them, and held on tight.

  “Go, go!” she said.

  Bagger was getting closer. His hazmat suit hissed like a wave approaching the shore. Jarli started pedaling, Bess clinging to his waist. First gear, second gear. The bike gained speed. Third gear.

  Then it stopped suddenly. Jarli felt himself wrenched backward as Bess screamed. Bagger had grabbed her hair.

  “Got you,” he snarled.

  Reluctant Allies

  Bess and Jarli toppled off the bike. The asphalt bit Jarli’s elbow and knee as he rolled sideways. By the time he scrambled to his feet, Bagger had Bess’s wrist clenched in one hand and her hair in the other. He was holding her at arm’s length so she couldn’t hit him with her free hand.

  “Get off me!” she shrieked. She tried to kick him, but Bagger dodged easily. He wasn’t as clumsy as Scanner.

  “Stay back,” Bagger told Jarli. The gas mask turned his voice into an alien growl.

  Jarli’s body was a coiled spring. Maybe he and Bess could overpower the man together.

  Bagger released Bess’s hair and grabbed her throat instead. “Back,” he warned. “Or I’ll crush her windpipe.”

  Bess’s eyes were huge with fear.

  Jarli took a slow step backward.

  “Who do you work for?” Bagger asked.

  “No one,” Jarli said. “We’re just kids.”

  “Did Fussell send you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Tell me—hurgh!”

  Bagger went rigid. He trembled, almost vibrating. Then he tipped sideways, as stiff as a broom. Bess wriggled out of his grip just in time to avoid being dragged down with him.

  Bagger hit the road and lay still. Jarli couldn’t work out what had happened—until he saw Doug Hennessey.

  Doug was standing right behind Bagger, holding something that looked like a phone. Then Jarli noticed two prongs protruding from one end. It was a stun gun. Doug had given Bagger an electric shock.

  A bunch of questions tried to come out of Jarli’s mouth at once. Why was Doug here? Was that even his real name? Where had he been? Why did he have a stun gun? Who were the men in hazmat suits?

  “What?” Jarli heard himself say.

  “This thing has a high voltage, but not much current,” Doug said, holding up the stun gun. “He’ll be up in a minute. Come on, we have to hide!”

  Dazed, Jarli put his arm around Bess’s shoulders, helping her limp after Doug. Doug grabbed the crutches and wheeled the bike behind the old brown four-wheel drive in the neighbor’s driveway. The three of them crouched down.

  “We can’t stay here,” Bess whispered. “They’ll find us.”

  “They’re not going to hang around,” Doug said. “Mr. Lewis saw the whole thing. He called the cops.”

  He pointed at the house with the lit window. Jarli could hear sirens on the breeze.

  He hoped Doug was right, because it was too late to flee. Heavy footsteps were approaching.

  Jarli lay on the concrete driveway, peering under the four-wheel drive. He saw Scanner—the guy Bess had trapped in the bag—emerge from the crashed plane and run over to his stunned colleague. He was carrying the blackened box and a small flashlight.

  Scanner crouched down and leaned in, checking that Bagger was still breathing. Apparently, the hazmat suits made it too hard to tell. He pulled off his hood and Bagger’s, too.

  This gave Jarli a good look at Scanner—he had a square nose, curly brown hair, and dark circles around his eyes. From this angle, Jarli couldn’t see Bagger’s face, just a mess of blond hair.

  Scanner peeled off a glove and checked Bagger’s pulse. Then he looked around at the quiet street. Jarli kept perfectly still against the concrete, not even daring to breathe.

  Apparently satisfied, Scanner picked Bagger up, and carried him over to the black van parked nearby. Jarli watched as he lifted Bagger into the passenger seat and buckled him in. Then he climbed into the driver’s side and drove away.

  Doug exhaled. “We have to get out of here before the cops show up,” he whispered.

  “What?” Bess demanded. “Why?”

  “The bad guys are tracking police communications somehow. If the police find out who we are, those two will hear about it. They’ll find us and kill us. We know too much.”

  “We don’t know anything,” Jarli said.

  “We know enough.” Doug stood up. “Come on.”

  “You’re full of it,” Bess said. “The police can protect us. I’m not running away.”

  “The police were supposed to be protecting me,” Doug said. “Then a plane crashed into my house.”

  “We’re not going anywhere with you.”

  “Fine. Stay. But I won’t save you a second time. Nice knowing you.” Doug started walking away.

  “You threatened Jarli,” Bess snarled. “Why would we trust you?”

  “You don’t need to trust me,” Doug said. “What does your app say, Jarli?”

  Jarli realized that his phone hadn’t beeped once during this conversation. He unlocked it and checked that Truth was running. It was.

  Jarli felt off balance, as though the rotation of the Earth had changed direction under his feet. Doug believed everything that he was saying. Either he was crazy, or they were in terrible danger.

  The sirens were getting louder. “Are you coming, or what?” Doug asked.