Sugar Coated

by Shannen Crane Camp

  “I won’t let you down,” she thought aloud, a small smile beginning to spread across her face as she sat her water glass on the decadent gold end table. She slid the door to her compartment open and peeked her head out into the long empty hallway of her train car. Glad to have some privacy, she padded on silent feet over the lush carpet of the train to the door where she’d seen the Angels enter.

  Brynn placed her hand against the door, feeling the speed of the train through the vibrations in the wood. This train wasn’t slowing down. It wasn’t even thinking about stopping anytime soon. She was already almost six hours into her trip, the exact time the train had stopped on her first trip as a child. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the door, wondering if she could hear the answers there in the elaborate carving of the wood.

  A bump in the track sent the car jolting to one side, causing the wall where her head rested to hit Brynn sharply. She pulled away, placing her hand gingerly over the small bump that had already formed right above her left eyebrow and cursing quietly under her breath. Turning angrily away from the door to the outside world, she focused her attention on the door she was really interested in.

  The one that led to the control panel at the front of the train.

  This door was much more intimidating than the one the Angels had come in through. This one actually did contain a secret for her to discover. If she could somehow break through that door she would have complete control over the train’s movements. She could speed it up, or more importantly, stop it right outside of Aywon.

  The lock on this door didn’t look overly complicated, though the series of numbers and letters proved to be a problem. There was no way Brynn would be able to figure out the code to get into the control room. With little hope that this plan could work, she pulled her tablet from her ever-present olive green canvas messenger bag and typed in the password that would connect her to her house.

  “Are you having a nice trip?” Charlie asked the second she came online.

  “Lovely,” Brynn said hurriedly. “I don’t suppose you could do me a favor?” she asked sweetly, trying to butter her house up so that it would cooperate. She knew her house hated socializing with strange computers.

  “Of course,” she said unsuspectingly.

  “I need you to talk to the train’s computer and ask it for the code to the control room,” Brynn said simply.

  “Of course,” Charlie repeated without much of a fight, surprising Brynn. “While I’m at it, would you like me to take over the city and drain the ocean?”

  There was the sarcasm Brynn had been expecting.

  “Charlie, just try,” she said irritably.

  “Is this about the dress? Because I thought you looked wonderful. And Amber’s house told me Jonah seemed to like the dress too,” Charlie informed her.

  “Oh, so you have no problem talking to Amber’s house about my social life, but you can’t talk to a train computer when I ask?” Brynn said in disbelief, feeling the blood rush into her cheeks over being the subject of inter-house gossip. “Please just try.”

  “I’ll do what I can, but trains are even more unpleasant than libraries,” Charlie warned before going completely silent.

  Sighing deeply at the feeling that everyone was trying to sabotage her plans, Brynn gingerly placed her hand against the wall of the train once more, feeling the vibration of the movement outside. She couldn’t quite think of a way to get out of the train short of drilling a hole in the wall, which she somehow thought wouldn’t go over too well.

  For a moment she thought back to her times in the library with Jonah. He was a smart boy, although spending all of your time surrounded by books would probably make anyone relatively smart. She wondered briefly what he would make of the lock to the control room. If he would know of some clever way to get past it or if he would simply reference a book that told her how to stop a train using only a tablet and a shoelace. She thought about calling him on her tablet, but realized she didn’t know his ID number. That did present a problem. Simply searching for a “Jonah” with no ID number could turn up any number of people.

  “I hate to say I told you so,” Charlie’s voice suddenly said over Brynn’s tablet.

  “Do you really?” Brynn asked in irritation. “Because I’ve never quite gotten that vibe from you.”

  “The train’s computer is so archaic,” Charlie went on, ignoring Brynn’s dig. “It can barely speak. Mostly it just makes unintelligible grunting noises and then resorts to typing everything out. Honestly, I don’t know how you can stand to spend so much time with that thing every month,” Charlie said, showing her true snob metropolitan manufacturing roots.

  “It’s a struggle,” Brynn said sarcastically. “So what did it say?”

  “Well he said…or typed rather, that you’re in violation of some sort of code right now,” she said calmly. “And that if you don’t step away from the control room door and return to your compartment, you may be banned from the train for life.”

  Brynn pulled her hand away from the wall as though she had been burned and backed into her compartment. She wasn’t sure if Charlie was telling the truth, but she couldn’t risk losing her only connection to Aywon.

  “Personally I don’t think that old processor even knew you were standing by that door until I told him,” Charlie went on, unfazed by the panic Brynn had just undergone over her simple statement. “Probably has a dusty fan or something,” Charlie said, more to herself than Brynn.

  “So no code then?” Brynn asked, though she already knew the answer.

  “No code,” Charlie repeated before powering down.

  * * *

  Chalking the night up as another great failure, Brynn ordered filet mignon doused in garlic sauce, chive stuffed potatoes, and green beans sautéed in butter and nutmeg to drown her sorrows. She watched the year’s top-ranked movies on her wall screen, lazily eating the rich food and drinking the large glass of cranberry juice with sugar cubes she had ordered from the archaic computer Charlie seemed to hate so much.

  She only half paid attention to the storylines in the movies that played in front of her, instead focusing most of her attention on the door at the front of the train. If she could somehow obtain the code, she’d be back in business, but she was almost certain no one would be able to help her with that. Since it was highly unlikely that the code was written in a book, Jonah would be no assistance, although Ty may be a different story. He was a computer genius, after all, and Brynn had seen him hack into more complex computers than this just for fun.

  Excited by a new prospect on the trail she had thought cold only moments before, she pulled out her tablet and punched in Ty’s ID number. His brown eyes popped up onto the screen looking red and puffy. Brynn could see his bare shoulders and realized he didn’t have a shirt on, and from the odd angle she was seeing him at, he appeared to be holding his tablet above his face from a laying position.

  “Brynn, do you know what time it is?” he asked sleepily. Brynn quickly slapped a hand over her mouth, not realizing that she had scheduled a late train ride this month instead of her normal morning departure.

  “I’m so sorry, Ty,” she said quickly, feeling bad for disturbing him in his sleep.

  “At least you know I’ll pick up for you even when it’s…whatever time it is,” he answered with a yawn. For a moment the entire world turned upside down on Brynn’s screen as Ty sat up in his bed and adjusted his position so that she was looking at him head-on. A soft orange light popped into life on the side of his screen as he turned on his bedside lamp.

  “I see you’ve changed out of the dress,” he remarked, rubbing his eyes with the hand that wasn’t holding his tablet.

  “Yep, back to my boring default outfit,” she said, “Try to contain your disappointment.

  “So, what’s so urgent?” he asked, looking a bit more awake as he ran his fingers through his sandy blonde hair.

  “You’re a computer genius,” she said, with no hint of a quest
ion in her voice.

  “I’m going to go with a yes for that one,” he agreed, too tired to try to be modest.

  “If I show you an electronic lock, would you be able to tell me if you can hack it?” she asked cautiously.

  She could see the confusion in his eyes and was almost glad now that she had woken him up. He wouldn’t be too logical or too prone to follow the rules to help her out. She needed to play off of his bad judgment for a moment.

  “I guess,” he answered warily.

  He opened his mouth to ask her more details, but the less information she gave him the better, so she cut him off with a quick, “Perfect. One sec.”

  Sliding her compartment door open once more and poking her head around the corner, she was met, yet again, with a completely empty hallway. She allowed herself a quick congratulatory smile as she tiptoed to the door to the control room and turned her tablet so that it faced the lock.

  “Does that look too difficult?” she asked Ty.

  Even though she couldn’t see his face on the screen that was turned away from her, she knew his eyes would reflect that his brain was working through the problem.

  “Is this a lock on the train?” he asked as Brynn turned her tablet around to face her once more and retreated back into her compartment, not wanting to risk the idea that the train’s computer might be watching her.

  “It might be,” she said elusively, though it was pretty obvious that she was still on the train from the frequent jolts to one side.

  “Brynn,” Ty said in a voice much like the one her father adopted when she had done something naughty as a child. “What are you up to?”

  She thought for a moment, trying to decide exactly how much she should tell him. Ty was always so responsible and serious that she knew he wouldn’t risk getting either of them in trouble even if Brynn insisted it was for the greater good. He cared too much.

  “I’m just bored and thought I’d ask,” she lied.

  “Yeah, like I’ll believe that for a second,” he scoffed, shaking his head at her. Even in his groggy state he was still perceptive enough to read the situation perfectly. “What are you really trying to do?”

  “I just want to see what’s beyond that door,” she said, semi-honestly.

  “You already know what’s beyond the door,” Ty told her. “It’s the control room to the train.”

  “Okay, so maybe I want to be able to control the train…just a little bit,” she said guiltily, squinting her eyes at her screen as if distorting Ty’s image would make him appear less worried about her.

  “Brynn, you’re not going to try to run the train off the tracks or something, are you?” he asked, sounding like he was torn between worry and panic.

  “No, nothing like that,” she insisted, seeing why he was always so concerned about her.

  He really thought she was unstable. She wasn’t some sort of suicidal maniac—she just wanted to find answers. Apparently she hadn’t been clear enough with Ty on that point.

  “I want to see if I can get the train to stop in Aywon so I can see what it’s like, that’s all,” she answered honestly, hoping the alarm bells would stop going off in Ty’s overprotective mind.

  “That’s still a really bad idea,” he told her. “But not nearly as bad as trying to derail a train,” he conceded.

  “So, will you help me hack into the door?” she finally asked, crossing her fingers as she waited for his response. She could see the gears turning in his mind, which was more than she had hoped for.

  “No.”

  Chapter 12: Perspective

  It was still dark when the train entered the station in Central Wildwood, though the early rays of sunlight were beginning to peek over the mist-covered mountains that surrounded the city. Exhausted from her lack of sleep on the train ride, Brynn immediately headed for the hotel she normally stayed at and tossed her bag on the floor, finding her desire to explore the familiar city slightly lessened by Ty’s refusal to help her with the door to the control room.

  She fell into a light, restless sleep, imagining conversations with Ty and Jonah, trying to figure out which boy would be more willing to help her should she decide to take drastic measures in finding Aywon. She had already tried to hack into the train’s system to get into a room she was never supposed to see, but because she hadn’t succeeded, she figured that this didn’t really count as a drastic measure. Knowing Ty wouldn’t be willing to help left her only with Jonah, the boy she didn’t know very well, but trusted because he was like her. He wanted answers and didn’t take everything at face value. He knew the worth of a good adventure.

  Three sleepless hours later Brynn finally pulled herself out of bed, groggily making her way into the hotel bathroom. The entire facility was lush and intricate, because even those who went on vacation to the mountains to "rough it" still wanted to eat, sleep, and bathe in decadent quarters. They only wanted to rough it during the day on a two-hour hike.

  The dark granite shower had three showerheads that gently dripped water on her like a heavy rainstorm, and as Brynn stood in the mist, her eyes closed and her exhaustion washed away as she thought about the door on the train she’d never have access to. She absentmindedly pushed a button in her shower to make the water smell like lavender and sage while her mind guided her through the train’s hallways once more.

  Jonah may not have been a computer genius like Ty, but he had proved several times that he was clever and quick on his feet. It wouldn’t be totally out of the question to hope that he would be able to figure something out, if only Brynn could get him on the train with her. Because neither of them were Workers, she didn’t suspect that she’d have a hard time working with his schedule. Worst-case scenario, he’d have to move his library date with himself back a few days. Somehow, she thought he’d be able to manage that for a little adventure.

  Standing in the stream of the warm-air body and hair dryers in her shower, Brynn formulated a plan. She wasn’t too happy about waiting an entire month to have Jonah come on the trip with her, but all things considered, it might seem a little overbearing if she asked him to travel to another city with her after only having known each other for about a month. At least with her trips being a month apart, it wouldn’t seem as weird if she asked him a few weeks from this trip.

  The dark granite floors were cold on her clean, dry feet as Brynn walked over to the mirror to survey her appearance. She turned her face from side to side, wondering, for a moment, what Jonah saw when he looked at her. He hadn’t exactly exuded any clue that he thought she was pretty, but she had been treating him like another guy friend to go tromping through the ocean with. She hadn’t exactly tried to be feminine around him.

  Looking into the mirror on the bathroom wall, she saw a girl with long, wavy black hair, bright blue eyes, and plump, full lips that all of her friends seemed to talk about. She wasn’t sure that this made her particularly pretty, but maybe after she and Jonah saved the world from whatever sinister thing lay behind the door in the train, she could be pretty for him.

  Shaking the thoughts from her head for the time being, Brynn dressed herself in her default outfit, adding a turquoise scarf to wrap around her neck and a pair of turquoise gloves to account for the colder climate in Central Wildwood. She pulled her long dark hair up into the topknot she often wore and made her way into the living room of her suite.

  “I need two bottles of water, some dehydrated food bars, a rope, a flashlight, and a first aid kit,” Brynn told her hotel room.

  “Items at the dispenser,” her room replied in a kind enough voice, though it always gave Brynn a pang of sadness to hear a house voice that wasn’t Charlie’s, no matter how much that computer drove her crazy.

  Brynn took her requested items from the wall dispenser and shoved them into her messenger bag before departing the hotel while munching on a dehydrated food bar. She wasn’t planning on getting lost in the woods on her trek today, but she wanted to be prepared for anything. Of course, if she ever really di
d get lost on the clearly marked paths of the woods that were within city limits, she'd only have to push her panic button on her tablet. Each tablet was built with a tracking device so if anyone ever got lost (or as lost as you could be within the confines of the city controlled "wild") they could be easily found in a short amount of time.

  Central Wildwood was about as different from Seaside as you could get. Instead of the tall glass buildings that dotted the landscape in Seaside, here you found squat buildings made of brown and green logs, dark red brick, or dark grey granite. The colors of this city were all rustic and muted, while Seaside made a point of using the usually sunny days and bright green plant life to its advantage.

  Even the weather in Central Wildwood was drastically different. In the trips Brynn had taken to this city countless times, she’d never once seen the sun. Instead, a constant grey cloud seemed to dominate the skies. While most of her friends found that aspect of Central Wildwood depressing, Brynn reveled in it. She loved the change in scenery and the threat that at any moment a rainy downpour could be released from the skies above.

  As she walked through the streets of the city toward the mountains only a few blocks ahead, she nodded to people on the sidewalks. Though she hadn’t ever spoken to most residents of Central Wildwood on her numerous trips there, many of them had begun to recognize the girl with the big lips and blue eyes from her many silent journeys through their town.

  The damp street eventually gave way to the wet, dark loam underfoot as the buildings of the city disappeared and the tall pine trees took over. A thick mist hung in the air and Brynn couldn’t see the trees more than a few feet in front of her, but she instantly loved the challenge this weather presented. She wasn’t sure what the goal of her trek was today, but walking through different scenery without the distraction of her friends or the pull of the ocean, she was able to give some more deep thought to her predicament.