“What does the number three have to do with me? Who are you?” His voice might not have been so steady this time.
The woman slowly turned, her movements sluggish. It was as if she’d used every last ounce of energy she had trying to get away from Michael. Her head still hung low until her body fully faced him; then she looked up to meet his eyes, arm still high overhead.
“Just tell me what’s going on,” Michael said, frustrated at the game of charades.
“Three,” she whispered. He wouldn’t have been able to make out the word if he hadn’t read her lips. “I’m one of you. Three.”
“Three what?” he pleaded. “Were you a Tangent, too? Can we sit down and talk about this? Please.”
Her voice was a little louder when she replied. “You have three days.”
“Three days until what?”
“To change your mind.”
Before Michael could ask her about Kaine, she confirmed his suspicion.
“Kaine is no longer the servant of his programmer. Things have changed from the original plans. He needs your help. You need his. And … he doesn’t like it when people disobey.” For the first time, her expression shifted. She smiled. Passengers had arrived at both entrances to the storage car, were gaping through the windows.
Michael stayed silent.
The smile vanished. The woman’s eyes seemed to glaze over as she finally lowered her arm. Then she turned again, stopping when she was looking straight at the emergency exit door on the side of the car. The train jerked, reminding Michael just how fast the thing was traveling. Surely the woman didn’t mean to—
In a flash she was at the door, reaching for the bright red handle. She yanked it down and an ear-popping explosion of sound filled the car as the door flew open, banging against the side of the train, just as an alarm started to clang. Michael fell to the floor, gasping at the rush of air blasting in. Streaks of color raced by—the greens and browns of a forest—and the wind ripped at the woman’s clothes as she held on to the frame of the opening.
Then she took a step, disappearing from view in an instant.
Michael stared out into the blur, waiting, but there was nothing. Not even a scream.
Alarms filled the air and the train’s brakes screeched as it slowed, then finally came to a full stop. Michael was clutching a metal shelf. He still held tightly long after the train was no longer moving. And he was trembling, his blood racing.
Maybe he was still getting used to being a human. Everything was different. Starker. More real. More frightening. He felt it all, in a way that he never had in his old life. Or did it just seem that way in the heat of the moment?
Authorities came, helped him up, questioned him. For a few minutes he thought he would be accused of some crime, but the VidFeeds clearly showed he’d had nothing to do with the woman jumping. They asked him why she had raised her arm, what she’d said to him, why Michael had been with her. But he just kept saying he didn’t know, that he’d followed her out of curiosity, which was true. He cooperated until finally they let him go back to his seat. The situation seemed simple enough to them: the lady was crazy.
Michael was still trembling as he sat. There was just too much to think about.
Kaine, no longer a servant to his programmer. He needed help—Michael needed him. Three days. Being reprimanded for disobeying, as if he were the Tangent’s child. And the woman—was she really like Michael? A former Tangent? Seeing a person take her own life—the incident reminded him far too much of when he’d taken the plunge from the Golden Gate Bridge with a girl named Tanya. Another lifetime ago.
Scared, he wrapped his arms around himself and leaned his head back against the window. Soon the train began moving again and gradually picked up speed until they were racing along the tracks.
Michael felt much better by the time he arrived in Sarah’s city. He was so overwhelmed by all that had happened that he’d forced himself to focus on only one thing: locating his friend. He would find her, convince her of the truth about him, then ask her what he should do. She’d know. Sarah was smart. Somehow, she’d know.