“Yes, it is,” said Theo.
Tess’s stomach lurched along with the train, but she tried to ignore it. “Where do we catch the L?” Tess said.
“Metropolitan Avenue,” said Theo, and then grabbed for the pole as the train lurched again. When it stopped, the brakes squealed in protest. They ran for the L line. On the L line, the Guildman took two tokens from Tess’s outstretched hands. Tess had just gotten the next message from the Guildman on the L—“Your journey continues”—when the Guildman took hold of a lever and pushed down hard. The train took off, the passengers gasping as they hung on to poles and straps. Protests rang out in the car—What’s going on? Who’s driving this thing? Why is it going so fast? Is he trying to kill us?—but the Guildman had turned his seat forward and was facing the black hole of the tunnel. The train screamed to a stop and pitched Tess forward, the tokens spilling to the floor. As the terrified passengers ran out through the open doors, Theo and Jaime helped her gather the tokens and pushed her into an empty seat.
“We have to stay on this awhile, to Myrtle-Wyckoff.”
What if he won’t stop? But he did, barely. The train jerked forward and braked, jerked forward and braked so abruptly that Tess held her knuckles to her lips to keep back her lunch, then tried not to think about the word lunch. And then the sign overhead was blinking MYRTLE—WYCKOFF AVS L—M, and the three of them were staggering down the platform to catch the next train. She had a small pile of tokens left. Theo looked green, Jaime looked gray, and though Tess had no idea what color she was, she was sure it didn’t look too healthy. Crowds parted as if the three of them were zombies and what they had was catching.
Once on the M, Tess maneuvered herself to the seat closest to the Guildman. When she was informed that their journey, yes, continued, the train bucked so hard she whacked her temple on the glass. Cold, dead eyes regarded Tess and then the train sped up again. It was supposed to stop at Knickerbocker and Central, Essex Street, West 4th, and more, but it blew through them all, chewing up the tracks, going so fast through three boroughs that the force pulled them all sideways. They’re communicating, Tess thought. They know we’re here; they know we’ve figured out the next bit of the puzzle. But aren’t they supposed to be helping us? What’s going on?
The train stopped. Tess looked up at the blinking sign—Jackson Heights—exactly where they were supposed to catch the R train.
“It’s like the trains are running just for us,” said Theo.
“Yeah,” said Jaime. “But they don’t seem happy about it.”
Her stomach scuttled into her mouth as they got on yet another train car to hear “Your journey continues.”
Right before the lights cut out.
The train hurtled through the dark. Tess gripped the seat, screwed her eyes shut. The darkness and the movement of the train toyed with her, telling her up was down and left was right, and she would never get off, she would be trapped in this whirling, hurtling blackness forever.
And then the lights blazed on, the train stopped and spit them out, dizzy and stumbling, toward the S shuttle. Their journey continued.
“Two . . . more . . . ,” she said, breathing heavily.
“Three,” said Theo. “The S, then the 4, 5, or 6 to Canal, where we catch the Z.”
She swallowed hard, but kept moving, afraid that if she stopped, she would never get on another train for the rest of her life. But they did get on the S shuttle, a short, bone-jarring ride over to Grand Central Station. This ride cost Tess three tokens. The train rocked as if something huge and monstrous were trying to punch it off its tracks, the train tipping to one side only to crash back down again, over and over. Tess bit her tongue, and her mouth flooded with the tinny taste of blood.
At Grand Central Station, they hopped on a crowded 6 train headed for Canal Street. The 6 screeched past every stop between Grand Central and Canal, turning the vague grumbling to hysterical shrieks weirdly muffled in the tight space. When the train stopped, it stopped so short that entire groups of people tumbled like dominoes.
“I’m calling the police!” someone screamed.
Tess gripped the three remaining tokens in her palm so hard that they left imprints on her skin.
And then it was time for the last train, the Z, suspiciously empty, except for the caterpillar zigzagging back and forth over the floor of the car. The Guildman was older than the others had been, shaved bald, small features crowding the middle of a pale face. He took the last tokens out of her hand and said, “It’s the end of the line,” and then turned away as the train started to move.
Finally, thought Tess.
And then, What kind of end?
“I think we’re the only people on this train,” Jaime said as Tess sat down.
“How is that possible?” said Theo, but this was the Underway and who knew what was possible?
The train gained speed. Unlike the last train, which had rocked and rolled down the tracks, this train barreled straight ahead as if it had been shot from a gun. The force pulled at their hair and their cheeks, a strange wind whipping through the empty car. The train plunged through the darkness of the Underway tunnels, lights buzzing and flickering, making everything appear like a series of terrible snapshots, moments lost between them—first the Guildman’s bald head was turned away, then he was staring right at them, then turned away again, the back of his head like a face wiped clean of eyes, nose, mouth. Tess’s head pounded, and her ears popped as the train broke free of the rock under Manhattan and into a tunnel at the bottom of the East River, this one made of some sort of transparent material. Outside the tunnel was a vast green murk stained here and there with shadowy and unrecognizable things that swam in the dark, tentacled things that Jaime’s grandmother had never mentioned were below the surface. Maybe she didn’t know about them, maybe nobody knew, maybe they weren’t real, maybe this whole thing was a dream. And then the train charged back into the rock under Brooklyn, churning with impossible speed toward who knew where. A terrible thought pierced her brain.
“It’s not going to stop!” she said.
“What?” Theo yelled.
“What if it doesn’t stop?”
Jaime said, “It has to . . . doesn’t it?”